by Ginger Booth
That threat neutralized, he swerved onto a new heading, at right angles to a straight line between the Prosper and the final remaining skiff. He rolled the Prosper to present its tough belly and his captured vessel toward the assailant. And he paused except for a constant back and forth diagonal rocking of about 8 degrees.
Your choice, sucker. Approach and risk the grapples? Fire and risk hitting the other skiff? Or run.
“Unknown skiff,” he hailed them. “Back off or I will fire.” He swiveled four guns to bear on them, any one of which could practically vaporize the puny skiff. His targeting AI was happily churning out angles safe to fire into, to miss the many other valuable objects in near space. He gave them two beats to respond, then fired into one of those safe directions, missing the skiff by one meter.
“Retreating!” the skiff leader screeched.
“Identify yourself!” Ben demanded. “Wilder, was this one of the skiffs that holed my hull?”
“I get turned around, cap,” his security chief replied apologetically.
The skiff didn’t reply, though it was retreating.
Ben huffed a laugh. “Understood. Computer, which skiffs fired on us? And hit us.”
“Skiff 4-C holed the ventral hull at 8 forward,” the computer replied. “Skiff 7-H grazed the sidewall at 7 aft.”
“Who yelled ‘retreating’?” Ben inquired. “And which skiff is in the grapples?”
“Skiff 4-C is retreating, and 7-H is in the grapples.”
Ben selected his next shot far more carefully, based on this information. MO was in the way as 4-C headed home. He just needed a little bit of infinity in the distance –
“Cap, Kassidy. Both holes secured!” Kassidy announced proudly. “Pressure in the cargo hold should –”
“Not now!” Ben barked. He paused to purse his lips and blow out softly. “Pardon me, Mr. Yang. Well done. I need to focus now. Captain out.”
She replied with a guilty, “Oops!” and fell silent.
Ben missed his first slice of yawning empty. Now one of the station’s immense remote solar snowflakes lay beyond the skiff. This was annoying as hell. Ben had 15 years experience by now as a PO-3 gunner. Hell, he’d even excavated and built scenic hills and overlooks for the pompous Vitality Hall estate that now housed the settler government outside Schuyler. Prosper was moving dead slow on a straight line. Ben wouldn’t miss by as much as a micron. Still, he just couldn’t shoot with something valuable behind. That skiff was a deathtrap, a fragile eggshell compared to his ringship, useful lifespan five years tops. Even if he hit it dead on, there was a chance his big guns would blow right through and hit something else.
But the solar snowflake was sliding past. Just a moment more –
“Ben, Cope.” The captain’s ear-piece startled him so badly that he threw his hands up in surrender and stepped back from the podium. Cope being Cope, he simply resumed their conversation as of an eternity ago. Was it 15 minutes? “To speed things up, Pollan poured my last three pieces at the same time. Setting that up pushed back completion of our most important –”
“Chief? Busy here. Under attack.” This wasn’t quite true. Ben was the one hunting.
“ETD 1.6 hours,” the chief provided succinctly. “Call me. Cope out.”
Ben grasped the podium with both hands and hung his head a moment. ETD…oh. Estimated Time of Departure. He drummed his fingers. He didn’t need to shoot this skiff. Fully crewed, there could be four human beings on that paper airplane over there, no protection save their pressure suits.
This was sort of mean.
“Cap, it’s Judge,” yet a third person interrupted him. Not that it mattered. Another solar array drifted behind his quarry. No doubt a strident red light demanding an answer was blinking on the bridge console upstairs, from MO Control. He trusted Wilder to ignore that. Fueled by adrenaline, a half hundred moving pieces and considerations shot through his head like popcorn.
Judge continued, “Can I come in yet? Sleds are secure in the container.”
Sleds. There was another way to go here, Ben realized. And didn’t Cope need a shuttle or something for Teke’s experiments? Why buy one when these idiots had volunteered Rego Vultures property for seizure? Most of the mine skiffs were RV.
“I’m in the forward airlock?” Judge prompted uneasily, when the captain didn’t respond promptly. All he knew was that the shooting was over. The attackers were captured or retreating. “Let me in?”
“Maybe not,” Ben replied. “Hold, Judge.” He flipped channels and hailed the two skiffs still in range. The third prudently ducked behind the Rock by now. “Skiffs 4-C and 7-H. Prosper Actual. Prepare to abandon ship. I repeat, abandon ship! Your skiffs are forfeit. Exit your vehicles and hold. A sled will be provided for transit to MO. Repeat, abandon ship quickly. I will fire upon you in five minutes. Acknowledge.”
Both skiff leaders swore vividly at him in response. One vowed that Rego Vultures would retaliate. They were only following orders.
Thanks for admitting to industrial sabotage! Ben trusted MO Control overheard that.
He switched channels. “Judge, can you deliver those sleds?” He’d left his temporary spacer patched in to listen-only during his harangue. “The captured skiff is easy. The other, you’ll need to ride back to MO yourself with the crew. It’s been an honor and a privilege, and I wish I could keep you. Safe journey.”
“Cap, please let me stay. I can deliver that sled remotely. Done it a thousand times.”
Ben doubted that number. A pesky side effect of his engineering degree – incurable numeracy. “Maybe thirty.”
“What?”
“Judge, sorry man, but I ain’t docking at MO again this trip. Are you really ready to bail on your life, right this minute?”
“Hell, yeah! Sign me up!”
Ben checked his cameras. Sluggish compliance began to emerge from 7-H, caught in his grapples. Maybe they didn’t realize that Prosper’s guns could hit them. The distant 4-C, being actively hunted, was more inclined to believe Ben would shoot. They poured out of their workaday home as fast as they could.
The thing was, Judge said all the right things. His skills were top notch. His attitude was fantastic. He even got along with Wilder, the wanker. If Judge were Ben’s crewman, he’d tell him right now to take over and coordinate this skiff evacuation. And that settled the matter.
“Patching you in. Skiff 4-C and 7-H, Prosper Actual. Coordinate with my crewman Judge Frampton for delivery of your sleds. Judge, these turkeys are all yours. Prosper out.”
Then he had only to step back, watch, listen and learn. With a fluent mastery of miner’s jargon and years of experience bossing them around, Judge made quick work of getting both EVA crews to clamp themselves into line formation.
He sent a sled to the distant skiff first, just in case he missed. Ben hadn’t even realized it was possible to send an unmanned sled like that. Maybe the miners did it all the time, to toss tools or air tanks back and forth. The remote crew caught the sled, and soon puttered away toward MO at a quarter speed, dangling four times the sled’s rated load behind it. Once that crew’s lives were assured, Judge simply handed the second sled to 7-H’s team, and they were off.
Ben told the computer to officially add Judge to the crew, so the man could open the airlock for himself. The captain turned his attention to collecting his second prize, and grappled both skiffs to snuggle neatly flush under the hull. “Judge, I need the skiffs on hard tie-down rather than grapples, please. Contact Kassidy if you need a hand. Welcome to the Prosper.”
He didn’t dwell on his new hire. Sighing, he trotted up to the bridge to relieve Wilder. No doubt MO Control wished to vent at him. But at least he could endure that from his comfy chair, with access to his full instrument panel.
The Vultures might try again.
77
“– Can’t tell you how much this means to me, Ben,” Gorky assured him. “I need just a couple days to clear payment on this trip. But I swear to you,
I’ll cover your loan payment for the month. I’ll fly back up here, four days max –”
Ben had switched to whiskey by now, and took a swig. Four days my ass. Gorky needed to land on Mahina, with MO shooting any wayward asteroids out of his path. Then unload a few hundred miners. Ben knew that run. He always ended with a couple dozen broken-hearted leftovers no one came to collect. You could kiss your evening plans goodbye when you brought miners home. Next day or six, Gorky needed to offload and sell his own cargo, plus Ben’s. Lawyers always wanted a piece of you. And Gorky was president of his own company, unlike Ben’s sweetheart deal with Thrive Spaceways and his ex. Taxes to be paid, and wasn’t Ben delighted to let Cope’s accountants deal with that. His crew would need shore leave, and at least one would bail and not come back.
And then there was Mrs. Gorky and the little gorklets. Teenagers, if he recalled correctly.
“– I warned you about those Ring Vultures execs who came up with me,” the other captain droned on. “They’re leaning on me like you wouldn’t believe –”
But the price was right. Gorky’s failing inertial dampeners were why Cope took out the loan on the Prosper in the first place. Ben was happy to babysit the Heavenly Bodies to Hell’s Bell’s if he could get Gorky to finally pay off that note instead of Spaceways.
“Yeah, alright, Gork. Look, I gotta go. See you soon! Costly out.”
And the comms screen blinked from MO again. At least this time they left a message instead of demanding his urgent attention.
“Got a minute yet?” Cope asked.
Ben craned his neck to glance back. He hadn’t realized the chief was leaning in the doorway. He’d stuck his head in earlier after his shuttle returned, looking somewhere between annoyed and amused. But Ben was occupied leaving town while getting chewed out by the MO station captain.
He waved to the gunner’s seat and added another couple fingers of whiskey to his glass. He offered the bottle to his ex, who declined with a shake of the head.
“What was that with Gorky?”
“The Vultures are trying to buy him out,” Ben reported. “You know the goal, monopoly stranglehold on all trade coming through MO. Now that we’re crimed, and Lavelle, Gorky is the…garrote? Strangler thingy?”
Cope blinked at him, amused. “Maybe I should take the pilot seat.”
“The AI’s holding course fine. Anyway, Gorky still needs those inertial dampeners fixed, or he has to cave and sell. We can’t fix them anymore. Hell’s Bells can, but he needs escort. Slower trip for us, but you’ve got your parts. You can start building your contraption. And I’ve got a cargo – his ship. He’ll pay our note for two months in exchange for safe transit, plus whatever we do to help the repairs.”
Cope pursed his lips. “You already committed to this.”
Ben scowled back. “I believe we’re under way, chief.”
“And you hired Judge.”
“Cope, you should’ve seen him during the great skiff battle! You’d have hired him on the spot, too. Same reason I hired Willow back. Look, the old Thrive crew means well, and they’re willing. But you and Teke need to build your…whatever. I’m stuck playing captain, chief engineer, first mate, supervise housekeeping, and all-purpose flunky. He cleans his tools, Cope. He finished the hard tie-downs on our new skiffs single-handed. Oh, and you’re welcome, by the way. No need to buy a crap shuttle if we’ve got two skiffs.”
The engineer cracked a grin at that. “Yeah, that was clever. Well done!” His eyes gradually lost their mirth. “Hey, next time? When you get a second, maybe you could spare a moment to comm? Tell me you’re alright.”
“Sorry I scared you,” Ben conceded. “I scared me too. Rego hell, space combat! We’ve got five skyships left around Pono, only two space-worthy. The sole skyship building company – us! – is nearly bankrupt. And those sons of bitches decide to start firing at us. This is now official. Rego Vultures is going down.”
“You’re preaching to the choir, buddy,” Cope agreed. He reached for Ben’s glass instead of the bottle and held onto it. “Judge. Willow. And Elise Pointreau.”
“What about Elise?”
Cope scratched his nose sheepishly. “We’re giving her a ride to Hell’s Bells.”
The captain laughed. “Thank you! Now I can stop feeling guilty about hiring the crewman I so desperately need!” He attempted to recapture his whiskey tumbler, but Cope held it out of reach. He conceded the point. He’d had enough. Zan could keep station overnight blind-folded, but Ben couldn’t delegate the irate comms traffic to a Denali hunter.
“No choice,” Cope muttered. “Elise is too smart. I can’t have her let something slip to the Vultures. She wants in, by the way. On behalf of Sagamore, or at least the government in exile.”
Ben shrugged one shoulder. “We can keep them out of officer country, but. We need a better lie. Maybe a fourth gen sky drive. Or the next generation inertial compensator. No, Gorky wants that. Oh, I know, remote gunnery so you can go twice as fast.”
“We tried that. It didn’t work,” Cope reminded him. “You’re still limited by reaction time. Besides, those look nothing like what we’re making.”
“Could get honest,” Ben suggested. “We’re testing a next generation propulsion system. Over twice as fast as current technologies. Don’t mention how.”
Cope chuckled. “I like that. Over twice as fast. Hey, Ben, I’m sorry. I had no idea this would get so ugly.” He gazed out the window at the stunning panorama of stars, the curving racetrack of the rings gleaming below. “Do we need a way to back out?”
“Back out of what, I wonder?” Ben returned. He enumerated on his fingers. “We are currently flying a spaceship that we own. You’re doing R&D on an advanced system for space propulsion – that’s our charter. I plan to escort a lame ship to a repair yard. Also in line with the Spaceways mission. Taking skiffs that fired upon me? Cope, I’ve answered a bunch of squawking complaints today. I haven’t apologized for that.”
“No,” Cope agreed. “Not for any of that.”
“We are absenting ourselves, Gorky, and Lavelle from service on the space to Mahina run. MO and Mahina are effectively cut off. Ring Vultures is likely to experience cash flow problems.”
Cope slowly broke into a grin. “Without warning. No chance to stockpile first.”
“Gorky will warn them,” Ben assured him. “To drive up the price of our last cargoes. Way up.”
“I hope Carmack doesn’t block his launch,” Cope worried. “Force him…”
Ben shrugged that off. “The rings are out of Mahina’s control, Cope. We’re a lawless bunch up here. But what we lack in laws, we make up in honor. It could be me or Lavelle in Gorky’s shoes. We bail each other out.”
“Might be smarter to let him fail. Then you have dibs on Mahina, and Lavelle Saggy-side.”
“I don’t care,” Ben returned. “Gork watched my back at KM-2, and again today. Space is damned big, Cope. These ships are old and fragile. You remember what it was like to face empty space alone with a broken ship.”
From his face, Cope remembered. “Yeah. And you’re right, it’s our mission. Even if Vultures came to us, we’d do it.”
“So back out of what?” Ben asked softly. “We can’t back out of unintended consequences.”
“No. We could give up on the FTL though. Go home, raise our kids.”
“And lose my ship! Screw that.”
“You’re sure?”
“Hell, yeah. Get off my bridge. I got work.”
Two new crew, Willow in the closet, and another scolding from MO blinking on the console. But first he really ought to record a message for his father. Dad was doubtless hearing a warped story on the news about his son in a space battle.
Judge Frampton reached wonderingly for the pile of loincloths on the galley table. With everything else the captain had to deal with tonight, he took time to make a ship-wide announcement. All male crew to donate one full set of underwear to their new crew mate, socks, briefs, and a
T-shirt minimum. Taller crew (Ben named them) to also offer shoes and coveralls or something else that might fit the spacer.
Three Denali on board, but the pile included 5 loincloths. He picked up one patterned like Mahina camouflage in pink and peach. The nap was like fine leather, but it stretched.
He’d received a standard pay package on his comm, Thrive Spaceways employment terms and his salary grade, chief petty officer. No bonuses mentioned, but no docked pay for his team’s screw-ups or failing to make quota, either. He went into this hoping for a huge windfall from the Vultures, to the tune of 10k maximum, more likely only 1k – in MO-bucks. But Ben would pay him that in a year and throw in room and board, clothes and equipment besides, and his salary was quoted in Mahina credits.
He loved this ship! He loved his new boss! He loved the auto-doc on hand, and Quire’s funky fruit, and the smell of the trees in the crew cabin. He’d share with Wilder, Zan, and Teke, all high class guys compared to the skiff leaders he shared a quad with on the rock.
But Willow and RV knew him as their plant. And Thrive Spaceways was failing. For his next job he’d be stuck returning to the Vultures. That would fly better as a team player who helped them win. As a traitor, best he could pray for was skiff crew off Hell’s Bells. Or go home. Judge Frampton would sooner die in space.
Quire drifted closer. “I can teach you how to tie that.”
Judge hastily relinquished the pink loincloth. “I was just – what’s that made of?”
“Caterpillar leather, I think,” Quire offered. He looked it up on his comm, then handed him a picture. “This is a blue-green one.”
The mottled ‘caterpillar’ lay draped over a habitation dome. Each segment sported a hairy leg. Its ends vanished into the disturbing Denali rain forest, replete with fans, corkscrews, curling vines, and webs, in rich colors other than green. “I guess that’s not friendly.”
“No,” Quire confirmed. “We are not the same size. I’m sorry.”
“Oh, no!” Judge denied. “Everyone’s been so generous!” Most of the crew was hanging out around the galley quaffing beer, waiting to see what he picked from the potluck buffet of spare clothes. Shoes. He had boots. Coveralls. It was an awfully long way to Hell’s Bells with only one pair of pants.