by B. V. Larson
Alarms blared, and the ship’s anticollision system fired every forward and half of the lateral thrusters, as well as dumping peak power into the impellers, all to slow and deflect the vessel from smashing into the thing that had popped into existence in their path.
“What kind of ship is that?” he asked, forcing calmness into his voice. “And where did it come from?”
“Inquisitor, I’ve never seen anything like it,” replied the captain, a man named Gibson. “It must have some kind of system for hiding itself. Something to deflect sensors. It’s on a slow approach vector.”
“The ship is broadcasting… in clear Earthan, sir,” said the communications rating.
Captain Gibson looked at Lazarus for guidance.
“Can we enter sidespace yet?” Lazarus asked.
“No, Inquisitor, not for over an hour. Not even by overloading our emitters.”
Lazarus took a deep breath and laced his fingers behind his back. Lockstep had no chance against any sort of warship, no matter how odd or ugly. “Send out a call for assistance.”
“Yes, Inquisitor, but it will take at least three hours for help to arrive.”
“Then let’s see what this intruder has to say. Patch it through, two-way mode with visual.”
“…Mutual Lockstep, cease maneuvering and prepare to be boarded. I have a shipkiller missile ready for launch, as well as enough beam weapons to cut you to pieces. I say again, Mutuality vessel Mutual Lockstep, cease maneuvering and prepare to be boarded…”
“This is Inquisitor Lazarus. You can see me. Show yourself and let’s discuss the situation.”
There came a pause, and then the main screen changed to show a humanoid in a Hundred Worlds pressure suit, knee-deep in liquid and standing in a command center or bridge. He was lit by a greenish glow and surrounded by octopoids—Ruxins, if Lazarus’ copious memory served.
“Lazarus?” the humanoid asked, clearly surprised. It was hard to tell from his green-lit, mottled face. “That’s impossible. I killed you!”
“Yet here I stand, I can do no other,” Lazarus said, thinking furiously. Obviously, this person had murdered a Lazarus clone at some time in the past. Could this be an escapee from Prison Alpha?
The humanoid recovered quickly. “What, more Old Earth quotes?”
“I see you are not entirely uneducated.”
“How can you be alive again?”
Lazarus smiled, enjoying his usual superiority to mongrel humans and aliens. “I would think that was obvious. I’m a clone. The Lazarus cell line has proven itself to be the most efficient ever designed. What could be more Mutual than clones in key positions?”
The humanoid shrugged. “You have a point there, though my friend Loco would say it’s probably on top of your head.”
Lazarus ignored the nonsense spewing from the creature. “Who are you and what are your intentions? If you intend to steal our cargo, I must tell you, what we are carrying will cause you more trouble than you wish.”
“Oh, I highly doubt that. I’m Derek Straker, captain of Revenge. She’s aptly named, since she’s crewed by Ruxins eager to take vengeance on the conquerors of their homeworld.”
“The Mutuality treats the Ruxins as well as any other citizens. They have no cause for quarrel.”
One of the octopoids sloshed into view and spoke in excellent Earthan. “This Ruxin has a quarrel with the Mutuality, as he had the misfortune of experiencing one of your re-education facilities. But I escaped, as you can see, and—”
The humanoid stepped in front of the Ruxin and silenced it with a gesture. “What my officer said is true. These particular Ruxins hate the Mutuality and so do I. You asked what my intentions were, so I’ll tell you. I’m taking your ship. If you cooperate, we’ll be on our way with a minimum of trouble.”
“Cooperate? Cooperate how?” Lazarus asked, buying time. He had no intention of cooperating with these pirates. Even if what this Straker fellow said were true, it was his duty to resist all enemies of the People, even if that meant killing everyone aboard, so promises of leniency didn’t matter.
“You and any crew that wish to will board a lifeboat and head back for Prael. Other crewmembers that want to be liberated from your oppressive system can join me. You’ll leave the troops locked in their compartments. I’ll make a similar pitch to them, and any that want to remain in the Mutuality will also board boats and leave.”
“There aren’t enough boats to hold all the soldiers.”
The humanoid smiled. “Do you really think so many will stay with you after the hell you’ve put them through?”
“Perhaps a few reversionary criminals will defect, but by and large, yes, I believe they will stay loyal to the Mutuality.”
“Then they can triple up in the boats and I’ll take the criminals off your hands. If necessary, those who stay can put on exo suits and float in space. Nobody needs to die. Your destroyer is already heading this way at high burn to pick you all up. It will be here in a few hours, but by that time, we’ll be gone.”
Lazarus pursed his lips and cast his eyes down, miming uncertainty. “I must discuss this with my officers.”
“I’m well aware that we’re on a ballistic course toward a position where you can enter sidespace. I won’t give you the time. You have five minutes to agree, or I’ll punch holes in your ship with beams until you surrender or die.”
“Then you won’t get what you came for.”
“I’ll settle for as many of the infantry as I can rescue and whatever I can salvage. That’s half a win for me, but a total loss for you. If I have to do it, I’ll kill everyone left.”
“I will call you in five minutes.” Lazarus made a chopping motion and the screen blanked.
“What do you plan to do, Inquisitor?” asked Captain Gibson, fear in his eyes.
“We will fight, as is our duty,” Lazarus replied. “If necessary, we will overload the power system and self-destruct. Begin the sequence, but do not do anything that will alert the enemy of our plans. Once that is done, open all the troop compartment doors. I will brief the soldiers.”
“But sir, the troops will go on a rampage!”
Lazarus stared coldly at the captain. “Don’t be ridiculous. They have been re-educated under my personal supervision. A few miscreants like the Ritter brothers will not matter.”
Captain Gibson exchanged glances with his first officer, who widened his eyes and slowly shook his head. The others that made up the small crew of the freighter did the same in turn.
The captain opened a compartment in his acceleration chair and removed a compact laser pistol, aiming it at Lazarus. “I’m sorry, Inquisitor. We’re not ready to die just yet.”
Righteous anger filled Lazarus-211. He pointed his arm, index finger extended, at the treasonous captain. “You will comply with the will of the People, which flows through me! You will carry out my orders, or else—”
“Or else what, Inquisitor? If we do what you say, we die. If we refuse to do what you say, but we don’t join these pirates, you’ll have us re-educated, or worse. We have families. I can’t let them be thrown out of their homes when you brand us ‘enemies of the People’.”
Lazarus ground his teeth, forcing himself to see things from this traitor’s point of view. Now that he’d taken the step of defying an Inquisitor, he had nothing to lose. How could Lazarus salvage this situation? It galled him to bargain with a subordinate, but he was not inflexible. He had an idea.
“Captain, I understand your position. Like this Straker fellow said, I must be happy with half a loaf. If you and your crew will evacuate to the lifeboats, I give you my word as an Inquisitor of the Lazarus cell line that I will not report your momentary weakness. In return for this favor of mine, you will order the soldiers to abandon ship, telling them there has been a catastrophic systems failure, and you will set the self-destruct sequence as we leave. We shall thereby deny the enemy his prize, and we will all survive. In fact, I’ll sweeten the pot by putting every memb
er of your crew in for commendations. We can all come out ahead.”
The captain motioned his first officer over, never wavering in his pistol’s aim. After a brief, whispered discussion, Gibson spoke.
“Sorry, Inquisitor. I have a better plan.”
The first laser shot burned into the center of Lazarus’ chest, intentionally missing his heart. The wound was cauterized, as designed, to the point at which it imparted enough energy to merely boil blood rather than burn flesh.
Pain such as Lazarus had never known doubled him over. “You… you…”
Lazarus-211 didn’t feel that next shot, the one that sliced through the top of his head and cooked his brain.
Chapter 33
Space, near planet Prael.
“It’s been five minutes,” Straker said, fidgeting and moving from foot to foot. He’d found that pacing in the soggy environment of the Revenge was difficult and unsatisfying, so he stayed near his captain’s seat. It was only a chair brought in from the Liberator and bolted to the deck of the bridge, but at least it was comfortable.
“I will try to contact them again,” Zaxby said. “Ah, here they are.”
The picture that popped onto the screen showed Lazarus—that particular Lazarus, Straker supposed, now that he knew the Lazaruses were clones—lying on the deck, seared brains outside his head. A stocky, grizzled man in a worn, rumpled Mutuality naval uniform with captain’s stripes on it stood over the body, laser pistol in hand.
“Captain Straker,” the man said, “my crew and I have decided we’ll cooperate and join you, as long as you promise to treat us well.”
“You’ll be treated just as well as all the rest of my people, Captain…?”
“Gibson. We’ve all volunteered to stay with the Lockstep. Hell, we’ve been aboard her for years. She’s home, even more than the places where our families live. But about our families…”
“I can’t promise anything, Captain Gibson. I’m on a timeline here and I can’t divert to go on a rescue mission to some Mutuality planet.”
“I understand, sir. I had to ask.”
Straker stroked his jaw. “Are the soldiers all still locked in their holds?”
“Yes. The Inquisitor wanted us to let them loose to fight you, and for us to self-destruct our ship.”
“I figured it was something like that.” Actually, Straker hadn’t figured that at all, and he’d been startled to see Lazarus dead on the deck. However, as Engels had reminded him more than once, it paid to cultivate an all-knowing image. “I’m surprised, though, that you went against your conditioning.”
“I wasn’t born to this tyranny. I was captured off a Hundred Worlds freighter more than thirty years ago,” said Gibson. “I’ll never forget the torture the Inquisitors put me through, and I’ll never forgive them for it. How they expect anyone not to hate them when they do that to people, I don’t know.”
“I’m with you, Captain. Now, to business. I believe you, but as a great leader from Old Earth once said, ‘trust, but verify.’ I’ll be joining you on your bridge.”
“I’ll open the crew docking port for you, sir.”
Zaxby skillfully mated the two ships, and soon Straker, Heiser and his two marines Nazario and Redwolf, entered the bridge of the Lockstep.
Straker began stripping off his suit after setting a sodden bag on the deck. The other three men did the same, keeping their weapons handy. “Sorry, Captain Gibson, but we’ve spent two weeks soaking wet. I think I’m beginning to grow mildew between my toes. We’d appreciate a change of clothes while this is being cleaned and dried.”
Gibson sent one of his people to find something, and soon Straker and the others had coveralls.
The freighter crewmembers stared as he was changing. Gibson asked, “Captain Straker, why do you look like…?”
“Like a Hok, a little? They gave me the injection but I got the antidote in time.”
“I wasn’t aware there was an antidote.”
“There is, but I still don’t know if my skin will go back to normal. Captain, how far are we from earliest transition?” Straker asked.
“Forty-five minutes or so.”
“How long until the Mutuality destroyer gets in firing range?”
“They could fire shipkillers at any time. They’ve been trying to communicate with us, but we haven’t answered. So, missiles aside, call it three hours.”
Straker nodded. “Good. Now the trick is to get the loyalists off without things going to hell, and here’s how we’re going to do it.”
* * *
After his preparations were complete, Straker spoke over the ship’s public address system. The audio clone software the Ruxins had provided made his voice sound like Lazarus.
“Soldiers of the Mutuality, this is Inquisitor Lazarus. A directive has come down from the Committee, and I am proud to pass it on to you. The Mutuality needs your help. Our re-education camps require guards, pain therapists and executioners. Those who volunteer now will be sent back to Prael for training. Once qualified, volunteers will be given privileges commensurate with their new status, including access to luxury goods and concubines. Some of you might even be selected for the Inquisitor program! Troop holds will be opened in turn, beginning with Number One and ending with Number Ten. Volunteers, leave all your equipment with your fellows and report to the crewmen as you exit the holds.”
Captain Gibson came on the comlink, speaking quietly. “Opening Hold One now. Looks like… six volunteers. Transferring them to the lifeboat. They seem happy, boisterous. They don’t look like bad people. Captain Straker, are you sure…?”
Straker’s words were piped into Gibson’s headset. “You agreed to cooperate, Gibson, and you agreed this was necessary. Anyone that would volunteer for that kind of duty is scum. They deserve their fate.”
“Yes, but… my people and me, we’re not killers.”
“You are now, Gibson. You already killed Lazarus. You’ve joined a war, and in war, we kill the enemy. These are the enemy. If you can’t accept that, get in a lifeboat and bail out. Are you with me?”
Gibson swallowed. “I’m with you, sir.”
“Good man.”
Straker watched internal feeds on the screens as the crewmen led the scumbags to the main airlock. The crew dogged the hatch, and Gibson, after hesitating slightly, input commands into the control panel there.
“It’s done,” Gibson said heavily.
“And it will have to be done again,” said Straker. “You don’t have to feel good about it, but you have to do it.”
“Aye aye, Captain.”
Even now, the scumbags who’d entered the airlock were ejected into space. Without helmets, they died quickly in vacuum. Straker watched as Gibson headed to Hold Number Two. There, he repeated the process of collecting the volunteers. Out of the fifty in each numbered hold, he led a handful to the ‘lifeboats.’
Straker felt no twinge of conscience, no more than when he’d killed Skorza or Lazarus. Those people had put themselves on the side of evil. They were self-declared enlistees to torture and murder their fellow humans in exchange for a few privileges.
Fortunately, Engels wasn’t here to complain about it. He loved her dearly, but he got tired of her objections when it came to getting rid of filth. There was no way such men would serve under him without treachery.
He was glad when it was over. The next step might be a lot trickier.
Straker checked the chrono and the approach of the Mutuality destroyer. Two and a half hours until the warship was in effective weapons range, or less if they decided to fire missiles. The Revenge, still mated with the Lockstep, was making slow impeller maneuvers to foil any long-range fire. He had to work fast.
“Do you have those Ritter brothers separated out yet?” Straker asked Gibson as he pulled on his own clothes again, a fancy naval captain’s uniform he’d had made for this operation. It had been dried out in the ship’s laundry. Though it still smelled like Ruxin seawater, it looked impressive.
Heiser and the other two donned clean marine-style fatigues and Ruxin-made body armor.
“Yes, Captain Straker. They’re in the wardroom.”
“Good. I’ll be right there.”
When Straker and his bodyguards swaggered into the guarded wardroom, he saw three men: one small, one middle-sized, one as large as he, all with the same family look. The smallest was blonde, the middle one dark-haired, and the largest sported a flaming red mane, just beginning to grow out. They stared at him in consternation from under sullen brows.
“Who za hell are you?” the smallest said in an odd accent that made all his consonants sound harsh.
Straker smiled. “I’m Captain Derek Straker, your liberator. With the help of the crew of Lockstep, I’ve seized this ship and all aboard her. Are you really brothers? The Ritter brothers?”
“Half-brothers,” said the biggest one. “Father had three wives.”
Straker chuckled grimly. “Liberty, Equality, and Mutuality?”
“Our family wasn’t part of this disgusting system. We’re from Sachsen, an independent planet until these Mutuality scum arrived and conquered us with their Hok freaks.”
“Well, you’re free now.”
“Free?” said the middle one. “Free to do what?”
“To join me, if you like. I’ve looked at the files on this shipment of ‘product,’ as they call the re-educated. They say you three are troublemakers with disloyal tendencies, not to be allowed to associate. They also say you refused to self-critique and have cycled four times through the camp.”
“All true,” said the largest. “We also refused to rat on our fellow prisoners or help turn them. The only reason we’re here now is they threatened to turn us into Hok, so we decided to play along in hopes of something breaking our way.” The man grinned. “I suppose something has.”
“If you join me, you’ll have a chance to strike back at these tyrants, and liberate as many people as possible. Are you in?”
“Hell, ya!” said the last, the smallest one. The others echoed him. “Eventually we’ll want to liberate our homeworld, though.”