by Blaze Ward
But then, he had never had access to all the accumulated botany of human science, either. Especially not in a cute, female form.
“We’re pirates,” Javier admitted. It would make things easier to explain later. “Someone hired us to ambush a target, without telling us who it was. The folks outside this room were waiting for us to arrive.”
“And all that noise outside?” she asked.
“I brought some seriously dangerous, utterly crazy folks with me,” Javier grinned. “Hopefully those jackasses are getting an education right now. I can wait.”
Silence fell as he spoke.
“Or not,” Javier continued. “Sounds like things are over.”
“Now what?” Dr. Mornan asked
Javier sighed. Easier to get this over with.
He rose and walked to the locked door. Pounded on it twice.
“Hello?” he yelled. “Anyone out there?”
“Who’s there?” came the call back.
Her voice.
High Priestess of Destruction.
Djamila Sykora.
“Navarre,” he yelled, letting her know she needed to be playing the role of Hadiiye, just as he was pretending to be someone else.
“Status?” she yelled through the door.
“Me and a dozen prisoners,” Javier replied. “Jackass and his crew were all on your side of the door.”
“Stand back,” she commanded.
Javier took her at her word and leapt backwards. You never knew when Sykora would kick in a door, or use explosives to level it.
God forbid she actually use the handle and just open the damned thing.
She must be feeling benevolent today. Nothing exploded.
Just her, standing there in the open doorway, gun pointed at him, and then everyone else.
“Hello, beautiful,” Javier grinned at her.
Nothing like salt in an open wound.
She looked like she wanted to shoot him on general principle. Apparently considered it.
The scowl on her face could be used to carve stone.
“Who are these people?” she demanded angrily.
Javier stepped back and gestured grandly.
“The scientists and flight crew of the yacht Calypso, Hadiiye,” he introduced them.
“Stay put,” Sykora ordered. “At least two got away in the firefight, and are moving deeper into the facility. We’re in pursuit.”
“Young lady,” Dr. Mornan said with a polite tone as he rose. “I would advise against that. There are fifty-three kilometers of tunnels past this point.”
Sykora had the gun pointed at the boffin. She was like that.
“Fifty-three?”
She sounded aghast. Maybe insulted.
Possibly aroused at the possibility of chasing two men into an endless maze.
“What is this place?” she continued.
“A doomsday vault for botany,” Javier spoke before the other man could. “Seeds.”
“Oh, dear Lord,” she rolled her eyes. “Just exactly your sort of place.”
Javier grinned at her again.
“What have we heard from orbit?” Javier let his voice grow serious.
Something in his tone got her attention.
“Nothing,” she replied.
And left it at that.
Javier understood her reticence.
Almost as much as she hated the science officer, the dragoon had a crush on the captain. Not that she would ever admit it.
She didn’t have to. Javier could see it occasionally in her eyes.
Like now.
Worry.
“I have an idea,” Javier said. “Hook me up to the public address system and let’s see if we can get the two rabbits to surrender peacefully.”
“What about them?” Sykora pointed at the folks from Calypso.
“They’re harmless,” Javier replied. “Lock them up on Del’s flight bay for now. We’ll sort it all out later.”
“Are you really a pirate, Navarre?” Dr. Mornan asked.
He had gotten several steps closer, though not enough to threaten anyone. Sykora probably would have shot him if he had.
“Yes,” Javier answered. “But don’t worry. You people are just bystanders in someone else’s war. We’ll sort them out and then get you home safe.”
“Indeed?” the cute woman botanist fixed him with a disbelieving eye.
“Absolutely,” Javier smiled at her. “I only kill pirates.”
Part Seven
“I know you can hear me,” Javier said conversationally.
Downrange, his voice echoed hollowly, emerging from every speaker in the mammoth facility. He winked at the three people with him.
Dr. Mornan has insisted on remaining behind, to keep the barbarians from damaging anything important in the facility. The female botanist had stayed as well.
She finally had a name. It was such a lovely one. Javier considered being smitten just with the act of saying it again and again in his head.
Rainier St. Kitts.
Seriously. It sounded like something from a movie, or a romance novel. But hey, they were all in a pirate flick today, so why the hell not?
And, of course, Sykora. Scowling professionally at the two civilians, both of whom appeared immune.
“I’ve wired the whole facility so you can hear me,” Javier continued. “I would consider it a great favor if you would just surrender peacefully at this point. Killer Babe and her gun bunny crew are itching to come in there after you. I’d rather not damage anything.”
“And if we don’t?” the man’s voice came back over the system. “We’re armed, too. And hiding.”
“Oh, I have a much better solution,” Javier grinned. “I’ll just close the big vault door out front and then disable it. You’ll be trapped inside here until you starve to death. Since there’s enough water, it will take you weeks to die. We’ll have left the planet by then.”
Long pause of silence.
Like, maybe, considering the kind of reputation a person like Navarre might carry with other pirates.
Lethal. Vengeful.
Implacable.
“What’s in it for me?” the rabbit asked.
Obviously, death or glory wasn’t high on his list, today.
“I figure your bosses will probably be happy paying a small ransom to get you back,” Javier said. “Good help is hard to find. The rest of your boys are already secured and awaiting transport. In about five minutes, I’m going to have to explain to them that you aren’t coming out. Ever.”
“You are a cold, evil man, Navarre,” the pirate replied.
“No,” Javier said. “Evil would have already left you here. You can still choose to regale your grandkids with this story someday. Four minutes.”
“It will take us longer than that to get back to your position, Navarre,” the man said. “But we’re coming.”
“I know,” Javier said. “I know what speaker you’re calling from. Check in as you get closer, otherwise Hadiiye’s likely shoot first.”
Javier cut the line and looked at the two botanists.
Both were the sort of pale that only white people and snow could achieve, right now.
Javier grimaced, but remained phlegmatic.
“Would you have really left them to starve?” Rainier asked.
Javier nodded.
“Still might, if he screws around.”
Her eyes got big.
Javier shrugged.
“I don’t place nice with pirates,” he observed. “Only civilians.”
“So now what?” Sykora asked harshly.
“In about eight or ten minutes, dipshit will surface,” Javier replied. “You’ll take him and his friend into custody and put them with the rest. The two botanists and I will take a quick tour of the facility and then meet you back here in thirty minutes.”
The civilians both nodded like rabbits, but Javier’s look didn’t brook a lot of disagreement at the moment. He could tell Sykora wa
nted to argue, but just scowled.
“Probe. Access Command Mode,” Javier said aloud. “Identify Mornan and St. Kitts as friendly.”
“Acknowledged,” the mechanical voice replied.
Javier had to bite his tongue to keep from commenting at how silly Suvi sounded when she did that. She was obviously up to something. He’d have to ask her when they got some privacy. And botanists didn’t count as trusted confidants.
Instead, he scowled up at Sykora, almost daring her to comment that it wasn’t safe.
She held her peace. Today.
“Dr. Mornan,” Javier said. “Dr. St. Kitts. Since he’s down a level and approaching, let’s go up one for now. The probe is armed, but I’d rather avoid any accidental unpleasantries.”
They both nodded and kind of fell into his wake.
Javier chatted to keep up a façade, but his brain was still racing.
Silence from orbit.
Hopefully, that meant that Sokolov had gone dark and the folks upstairs were engaged in a silent tango. The alternative was that Storm Gauntlet had been chased off or destroyed.
And he was up a creek if that happened.
Dr. St. Kitts began to recover her color before the older boffin.
“What are you really up to, Navarre?” she asked hesitantly.
“Making sure your delivery package wasn’t damaged,” he replied rather breezily. “After that, maybe finding some gooseberry seeds I can use to improve my breeding program back on the ship.”
“That wasn’t a story?” she seemed surprised.
Honest mistake. Pirates didn’t do botany.
Most of them, anyway.
“I maintain a full arboretum in a forward cargo bay,” he replied, listing off all the species. “Oh, and four chickens.”
“Chickens?” Dr. Mornan finally spoke.
“Chickens,” Javier agreed. “Athos, Porthos, Aramis, and d'Artagnan.”
“No roosters?” St. Kitts asked.
“Not currently,” Javier replied. “Will need to pick one up in another year or so. And possibly get a younger generation of girls. These are all getting a bit long in the tooth.”
“Fascinating,” she said.
“The tall, crazy woman knits,” Javier explained. “There’s a goldsmith committing art for the purser. I need something to keep me from talking to bulkheads.”
“We’re almost there,” Dr. St. Kitts observed, pointing down a side corridor. “Your seeds should be somewhere along this hallway.”
Javier smiled at her, and then at the other man.
“Can I trust you two to recover them without supervision?” he asked. “There is a computer station here and I’d like to check something in the library.”
Both of them blinked, and then nodded. Javier waved them off and watched them go.
“Suvi,” he whispered. “Plug yourself into the i/o port and scan the system for me, please.”
The gray pumpkin descended and settled on the console silently. A plug emerged from the side and Suvi maneuvered herself into the plug with a click.
“What are we looking for?” she whispered back in her normal voice.
“How much free space is there?” Javier replied.
A click. A whir. A second of silence.
“Huh,” she said, louder. “It’s a library model. The OS and the whole data system take up less than eight percent.”
“Is there enough space for you to drop a full backup of yourself?” Javier asked.
“You mean, like everything?”
“Yes,” he said. “Like everything.”
“Sure,” she replied. “But it will take a few minutes.”
“Fire in the hole, young lady,” he commanded.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Why?”
“In case something happens,” Javier said. “It’s a dangerous universe out there. Another you could spin up from this exact point in time as a backup.”
“You’re supposed to live forever, ya know,” Suvi said quietly.
“Suvi, you were born before my grandfather was,” Javier observed. “I’d like to think you’ll outlive me by a long ways. Lord knows I don’t have any other kids.”
Sentiences weren’t supposed to sniffle.
But most of them barely qualified as intelligent creatures anyway. Linear beasts just able to pass the ancient Turing Test. No Sentience that he was aware of composed music for fun.
If he only had one offspring, at least he could make sure she turned out to be a nice girl.
“It’s done,” she said in a tiny, scared voice. “Secured and encrypted.”
“Thank you,” he said. “That’s a load off my mind. You can always come back for yourself later.”
The two boffins returned a few moments later, preventing any further conversation.
“Are you okay?” Dr. St. Kitts asked in a concerned voice as she saw his face.
“Contemplating my eventual mortality,” Javier replied honestly. “This is a doomsday vault, after all. When the rest of the galaxy goes to hell, this will still be here, protecting the past.”
“Are you sure you are really a pirate, young man?” Dr. Mornan solicited.
“That is a fundamentally complicated question, Alex,” Javier answered him. “One I cannot answer easily. Søren Kierkegaard might not be able to parse that inquiry, easily.”
“Would more seeds help?” Rainier asked, putting a cute smile on her face as she held up a small, clear bag.
Javier could see at least two breeds, from the different sizes of seeds contained. Hopefully, his dreamberries could be turned into something that he could just drop on any planet, a modern-day Johnny Appleseed on a galactic scale.
Another way to live forever.
“They would,” Javier took them and kissed her hand.
Just because he could.
“Now, let us get back,” he said. “There are still the other pirates to thwart.”
Book Fifteen: Ajax
Part One
There had been no explosions in orbit, nor on the surface of the planet. Zakhar considered that a win at this point. The longer this went on, the higher the risks, but the greater chance that they could pull it off.
Ajax was out there somewhere, but she was staffed by pirates. Not the most creative or silly folks. They would be facing Javier for craziness. And Zakhar felt a ruthless edge creeping into his smile.
An evil thought struck him. Too much time around Javier, obviously. He was starting to think like a Concord Fleet Officer again, and not a corsair.
Bad for the digestion. Good for the crew.
“Engineering,” he said, keying open a line and waiting for someone to answer.
He ended up with Ilan Yu, Javier’s assistant, Machinist’s Mate, and chicken keeper on the screen.
“Engineering, Captain,” Yu replied.
“Research project,” Zakhar said. “How long would it take to build, test, and deploy a cubesat capable of taking a tight-beam laser from us under cloak and providing a communications relay to Del on the ground or in orbit?”
It was fascinating to watch the man’s eye find a spot on the horizon and calculate. Three years ago, Ilan could barely find his way around the engineering bays without a map.
Another one that had grown up and turned out pretty satisfactory, as a result of Zakhar hiring himself a science officer.
“Short term only?” the man replied. “Unsecured? Unarmored? Simple phase relay to let us stay cloaked?”
“That’s right,” Zakhar said. “Probably several, if he won’t take the bait immediately.”
“Give me an hour,” Ilan said. “Chief Engineer almost has the jump drives tuned, so we’ll have more people available. Most of the parts are on a shelf somewhere.”
The line closed and Zakhar leaned back. Del would like some level of encryption, but there wasn’t anything that someone else couldn’t punch through fairly easily. They might need to invest in some better crypto gear soon.
Especially i
f one of the other pirate clans had decided to start a war.
A whole bunch of assumptions were likely to change, if that happened.
“Science Station,” Zakhar called, getting Gibney to look up from his console expectantly. “We’ll drop that satellite into orbit with a probe fired from under cloak. Ajax will come looking for it, and us. How do we hide? How do we find Ajax?”
Gibney had that same far-away look for a moment.
“Drop the probe cold with a ten-minute timer,” the man replied. “It will run on our orbital path trailing us as it slowly diverges. Alternatively, fire it hot and insert it ahead of us, and hope they’re not looking at that moment.”
“They’ll have to unmask to shoot it, Mary-Elizabeth,” Zakhar turned to his Gunner next. “That will be your cue.”
She gave him an evil smile.
“I have a very expensive solution, Captain,” she said in an evasive voice. “Do we think Walvisbaai Industrial has declared a public war on the Jarre Foundation? Or is this personal?”
And that cut to the root of it. Was this a fool’s errand from a disgruntled former victim somewhere along the line, or had something significant changed? The pirate clans were never friendly, but never at each other’s throats before this, either.
Zakhar knew that Javier, in his role as the semi-imaginary Captain Navarre, had made a lot of folks nervous, first by destroying Abraam Tamaz and the Q-freighter Salekhard, another Walvisbaai vessel, and then by successfully raiding the mega-yacht Shangdu, The Pleasure Dome.
How many other enemies had Zakhar and his crew made along the way? Hiring Ajax for an ambush mission against a heavily-armed foe like Storm Gauntlet would be an incredibly expensive undertaking.
“What did you have in mind, Mary-Elizabeth?” Zakhar finally asked.
“We have seven torpedoes aboard,” she said. “And you never let me use them because they are expensive and hard to replace and we should only use them in an emergency. This qualifies.”
“No way they’ll miss us uncloaking to loose a torpedo,” Zakhar replied.
“True,” she agreed with a smile. “What if we just roll it out of the flight bay by hand and let it coast on gyros. Then we launch the probe ahead of us and slowly drift off to one side. When we get ready to fire, he’ll be looking right at us and might miss a torpedo lighting on a different flank, especially if it’s already in terminal-guidance mode, passively tracking Ajax’s targeting systems.”