“Perhaps I can make a better deal.”
The guard waved to a figure standing in the corner, “Fontaine, would you help these people?”
A slender woman walked over to them, gray hair curled around her head, wearing a suit that looked as if she was long-overdue for fitting.
“Potential buyers?” she said with a menacing smile.
“If the merchandise is worth it,” Caine replied.
“Do you have a permit?”
Marshall glanced at Caine, then back at her, “I can get a permit, but I’d rather not go to the trouble and expense unless I think it is going to be justified.”
“Oh, naturally, but I fear that I must insist. We don’t want people simply walking in to gawk at the unfortunates.” She chuckled, then said, “They’re in enough trouble already.”
Somehow resisting the urge to hit her, he patted his hand on his wallet, replying, “Surely there must be some alternative.”
With a smile, she replied, “I suppose it will do no harm, this once. Don’t tell anyone you have been, though. I’m a jailer, not a tour guide. Come with me.”
Leading them down a staircase, they stepped into a long, twisting corridor, carved out of the rock, following seams of minerals. The relics of long-ago mining were left on the floor, burn marks from clumsy blasting, a few memorial plaques in a variety of languages scattered around.
“This dates back to the first settlers here. Before the domes, they lived underground. The City Fathers keep talking about turning this into a tourist trap, but it makes such a good cell, and budgets being what they are,” she said, shaking her head. She pointed at another plaque in the corridor, and continued, “That was my grandfather, fifty years ago. Astounding how things change.”
“I’m sorry,” Marshall said.
“Whenever you build a new world, there is a price to be paid. Still, there’s a lesson there. He was an indent, as was my grandmother, and they managed to build themselves up.”
“And now you keep indents prisoner, run the auctions,” Caine said.
“Ironic, isn’t it. This way,” she said, gesturing down a side passage. They walked for another few minutes along a twisting tunnel, before coming to a stop in a cavern. There was a glass partition running down one side of it, a door in the middle, and on the far side were twelve people, sitting in a trio of loose clumps.
It took every ounce of self-control Marshall had not to react, not to immediately attempt to free them, for those were the missing Espatiers. Names on a screen, listed as missing, presumed dead, and all of them were there. Sergeant Forrest, Private Kelly, Private Knight, all of them. None of them looked any the worse for their ordeal.
“Are they physically fit?” Caine said. “No permanent injuries?”
“Of course not!” the woman replied. “We would not sell damaged merchandise. Not that a lot of them don’t have a few scars, of course.” She frowned, then said, “There is a restriction about taking them off-world. I should tell you that, to be fair. One of the oil ships will probably buy their contracts, I expect. Life expectancy out there is down to five years, now.”
“Can they see us?”
“One-way glass.”
Marshall longed to speak to them, to tell them that hope was on the way, but he looked at Caine, who shook her head almost imperceptibly. Reason had to override passion today if he was going to get them out of there; all he could do was continue to bide his time.
“Auction’s in four days, in the morning. Plenty of time for you to get a permit if you still want one. Interested?”
“Not now I know about the off-world restriction, damn it.”
She shrugged, then said, “I know, pretty unusual. Not much choice with this bunch. I don’t know where they came from, and I don’t really care, but they must have done something pretty bad. Attempted to escape, perhaps, from an indent contract. There’ll be another auction coming up in about a month…”
“We won’t be here then,” Caine said. “But thanks for the help.”
With a smile, she said, “I don’t mind doing favors, especially if they are reciprocated.”
Marshall slipped a hand into his wallet, coming out with a hundred-credit note, and made to shake her hand. Afterward, the note was gone, and her smile had widened.
“If you’ve finished, we can go back upstairs.”
“Thank you,” Marshall said, with a last long look at his people in the cell. Now that he knew they were there, he was more determined to break them out, to get them home, than ever before. There had to be an answer, and he was lost in thought as they navigated their way back to the surface, walking out into the street without another word.
He walked towards the heliport at a quick pace, Caine struggling to keep up with him as he weaved silently through the crowds. Right now, they were in the middle of town, with no obvious way out. It might be possible to get them out of their cell, but getting outside and back to their shuttle was going to be far more difficult.
They were the only passengers on the transport helicopter this time, the solitary companion in the cabin a guard who spent most of his time looking out of the window. Marshall was glad of the distraction, and was bursting for a chance to talk, knowing that he didn’t dare say a word unless he was in a secure location, and the shuttle was the only such he knew of on this planet. The only place he could trust, in any case.
Donning his respirator, he walked out to the tarmac, heading for the waiting shuttle, eating the distance away with long, loping strides, the oily puddles splashing up to his trousers. He slammed on the airlock button for entry, climbing into the passenger cabin with a triumphant smile on his face, reinforced when he saw Cooper and Cantrell sitting inside.
“Corporal, I’ve found them!” he said. “They’re in the detention area underneath City Hall, waiting to be auctioned off; we’re going to have to move quickly if we’re going to get them out. I want you and Cantrell back out there right now, scoping out the odds of breaking in tonight.”
“Captain,” Cooper began, but Marshall carried on talking.
“I’m going to let Race know the news, see if we can get some orbital coordination in on this. I want our eyes in the sky watching every move they make. Then we can get the hell out of here and back to Alamo.”
“Where?” an unfamiliar voice said, walking into the cabin. He turned to see a scrappy young woman wearing battered clothes standing at the threshold, eying him warily. Marshall turned to Cooper, his smile vanishing in a heartbeat.
“Cooper, you’d better have a damn good explanation.”
“This is Jacqui, skipper. She helped us get away from the security forces, and in exchange, we offered her passage from this planet.”
“You did.”
“It seemed like the right thing to do.”
“What the hell is going on?” Jacqui said, pulling a pistol out of a hidden pocket. “You didn’t think I only carried two, did you? Or that I’d go anywhere unarmed with people I didn't trust?”
“We’re going to have words, Corporal,” Marshall said.
“Right now, in fact,” Jacqui said. “Are you Fleet? Is this a loyalty test?”
Turning to face her square on, Marshall decided to throw caution to the wind, and said, “I am Lieutenant-Captain Daniel Marshall, commander of the Battlecruiser Alamo. These are Corporal Cooper and Spaceman Cantrell, behind me is my Tactical Officer, Lieutenant Caine. We’re with the Triplanetary Fleet.”
“You don’t look like pirates and murderers.”
“Come on,” Cooper said, “You don’t actually believe the junk they’re saying, do you?”
“I don’t believe anything that I don’t see with my own eyes.”
“Cooper offered you passage from this world, and I will deliver on that. It will have to be to the Triplanetary Confederation, though.”
“Where?”
/> “Sol. Mars, most likely,” Caine said.
Shaking her head, she said, “My great-great-grandfather came from Mars. One of the first colonists, left when it got too quiet.”
“He should have stayed,” Cantrell said.
“Damn right he should.” She looked around the room, “What are you doing here, then? Cooper said something about property.”
“Twelve of my men have been captured. I intend to free them. That’s all.”
“You came all this way to rescue twelve of your men? They important crewmen or something?”
“All of them are. I’m going to get them home, or die in the attempt.” Cooper smiled at that, though Cantrell seemed to be somewhat less happy about the idea.”
“I don’t buy it,” she said. “No-one here would do that.”
“You came back for us,” Cooper said. “What’s the difference?”
“That wasn’t the same thing at all.”
“Yes, it was.”
Marshall said, “Put the gun down. I can understand why you drew it, but you don’t need it.”
“I don’t trust you,” she said.
“Then you’d better get on and shoot me, and turn me over to the authorities. I’m sure they’ll reward you well.”
“Damn Proctor would take all the credit anyway,” she said, holstering her gun. “I’ll keep this, if you don’t mind.”
“If it makes you feel better.”
“Getting off this rock would make me feel a lot better.” She turned to Cooper, “You’re going to try and break into City Hall?”
“We’re going to try,” he said.
“You’ll never do it. Security is far too tight.”
“Danny, she’s right,” Caine said. “Even if we did manage it, we’d never get them through the city. I hate to suggest this, but couldn’t we just buy them? We’ve got enough Cabal currency on board.”
“And if the Cabal find out, they’ll be raiding our stations for captives to auction back to us,” Marshall said. “I’d really rather not set that particular precedent.”
“Then what are we going to do?”
Jacqui said, “Why don’t you wait until the convoy is on the move, and hit them then.”
“Or better still,” Caine said, “have the driver of their truck as one of us.” Turning to Jacqui, she said, “I like it.”
“We haven’t got any passes or identification for that. Nor even uniforms,” Cantrell said. “No time to get them, and we haven’t got the forging equipment on Ouroboros.”
With a sigh, Jacqui said, “This is where I get dragged in, isn’t it.”
“You could just go back up to the ship,” Marshall said with a smile. “No-one here is going to force you to do anything.”
“My Mom always said my conscience would kill me,” Jacqui replied. “Guess she was right. Ah, to hell with it. You get caught, the Proctor will figure I was working with you anyway. I might as well do something worth getting shot for.”
“That’s the spirit,” Marshall said. There was a chirp from the airlock, and he peered through the hatch, “Looks like Orlova’s made it back as well. Let’s get this worked out.”
Orlova stepped into the shuttle, looking around with a frown at the new arrivals, “No-one told me we had guests.”
“Maggie,” Marshall said, “how do you fancy being a truck driver?”
Chapter 25
Barbara swung the hammer again, running a series of scratches down the side of the shuttle as she methodically continued to work. She couldn’t make a dent in the hull, but she could certainly make a mess of the paintwork. Behind her, Wilson was busily tearing pieces out of one of the starboard sensor clusters, and pieces of a dismantled thruster were on the deck behind him.
Cooper walked in and did a double-take, looking at the carefully-crafted devastation before him. He drifted over to Barbara as she smashed the hammer into the hull, chips and fragments rebounding into the air behind her.
“This looks a bit much, doesn’t it?”
She turned, then said, “I’ve got to fly this beast, remember. There were two choices. Either we make it look as if I have had a crash landing, or I actually have a crash landing. Given that I don’t like my chances of being able to bring her up again, this is the best way to do it.”
“Yes, but,” he replied, gesturing around, “Don’t you need any of this stuff?”
“Most of it is just safety gear, nothing serious.”
“Just safety gear?”
She shrugged, and said, “These things are pretty over-engineered anyway. Ludicrously so, sometimes. All this stuff takes up processing power and adds extra weight. One of these days I want to build a really stripped-down shuttle, see what we can do if we throw out the rulebook.”
“Go spiraling down to your doom,” Wilson said, tugging the last piece of the cluster free. “I think we’ve done about as much as we can without you actually crashing, so we’d better leave it there.”
Glancing across at him, she nodded, “You might be right. I should be able to slam her down on the deck hard enough to shake some stuff up, anyway.” Turning to Cooper, she said, “Have we heard from the resistance yet?”
“It took some cajoling, but we have indeed.” He tossed her a datapad, then said, “That’s what I came to tell you. They finally sent us up the data we were looking for.”
“About damn time,” she replied. “Three days we’ve been waiting for this.”
“Give them a break”, he said. “We couldn’t have done much until now, anyway.”
“I still say this whole thing is a crazy idea. Pretending to crash land a shuttle…”
Shaking his head, Cooper replied, “You don’t think they’d give us permission to land somewhere other than the starport otherwise, do you? This way we get two shuttles down on the deck exactly where we want them.”
As she read through the report, her eyes widened. “Gabe, have you read this?”
“Good tactically. There’s a road running all the way to the site.”
“To get down, I’ve got to fly over a pair of mountains, then duck around some swampy mess. If I don't smash into the peaks I’ll sink the damn shuttle into quicksand. Is this really the best they could come up with?”
“Looks like there was a reason they abandoned it.” He reached over and flicked the page, “There’s a bonus, though. Old landing equipment is all there already. That should make it a lot easier to take off again.”
“Fine,” she replied. “Stand back while I do the impossible yet again. Be sure to notify my next of kin that this wasn’t my stupid idea.”
“You aren’t going alone,” he said.
“Gabe…”
“No. The only reason you are here is because of me, and if you’re going to take risks like this, I’m going with you.” He flashed a smile, then said, “Besides, I can help.”
“How?”
“My magnetic charm and winning personality aren’t enough for you?”
Shaking her head, she replied, “Fine, get on board. Just remember to do exactly what I tell you, no matter what that is, right?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
The two of them climbed into their couches, tightly strapping themselves in. This was likely to be a rather abrupt landing, if nothing else, and neither of them was anxious to add head injuries to their list of problems. Barbara handled the pre-flight with rather more than usual care, punctuated with a series of alarms and warning sirens as the computer attempted to operate systems that she had sabotaged.
“Apparently, I’m launching at my own risk,” she said. “You handle the communications, I’m not going to have time to be distracted. Better call Traffic Control.”
“Right,” he said, flicking a switch and pulling a headset on. “This is Ouroboros Shuttle Three, requesting landing clearance for passenger pic
kup.”
A bored-sounding voice replied, “You are clear, Shuttle. Make Runway Two, and I’ll send the surface data up to your computer.”
“Thank you, Control,” he said, closing the channel with another switch. “You want the data?” he asked Barbara.
“Dump it. It’ll be a different micro-climate, and you might as well give me today’s weather forecast for Titan. I’m going to have to do this on manual – and don’t distract me again until we’re down on the deck.”
“Sorry.”
She replied, “No, I am. I just don’t like the idea of intentionally crashing, that’s all.”
“Can’t think why.”
“Me either. Here we go.” She pulled down a lever, and the shuttle began to slide through the elevator airlock, drifting away from the ship. Punching a trio of buttons, she fired the main engines, and the planet began to slowly rise towards them, the shuttle drifting a little to the right as she struggled to compensate.
“Report a thruster malfunction,” she said, her eyes fixed on her controls.
“Ground Control, this is Shuttle Three, reporting thruster malfunction.”
The voice was suddenly more alert, “We read you. Are you aborting?”
“Negative, just keeping you informed in case it gets worse.”
“Shuttle, we recommend you abort. I’m looking at your trajectory…”
“Not our call, Control. Captain’s in a hurry. Cross your fingers. Shuttle out.”
Flames began to tear around the nose of the shuttle as it bit into the atmosphere, leaping columns of red and orange flames dancing across the viewscreen. The ship shuddered, drifting to the right, and the fire burned white-hot until Barbara could get them back onto an even course. A trail of smoke followed them through the sky as they struggled to make their descent.
Cooper glanced up at the status board, watching amber lights flick to red one after another. This was all beginning to look worryingly real – and they needed this shuttle in one piece if they were going to use it to rescue the prisoners on the surface. Barbara’s face was bathed in sweat, her eyes darting from one instrument to the next, her fingers racing across the controls as she struggled to bring the shuttle in.
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