by Eric Thomson
“Ugh.” Kidder made a face. “We go there, the environmentals are going to die an ugly death while we’re still in deep space.”
As if on cue, the emergence klaxon sounded three times and Zack quickly scanned the hold to make sure all the troops still on the parkour course froze in place. Smashing one’s face against the armored glacis of a skimmer, on top of the usual nausea, wouldn’t do much for morale.
Thankfully, everyone in sight had the brains to stop and hang on to the nearest solid surface, though Decker suspected they’d find the odd dumbass among the riflemen kissing the deck at something closer to terminal velocity than was healthy for a human.
Emergence queasiness gripped them without warning and Zack felt a fiery spear thrust through his guts. But before he could even acknowledge the awful feeling, it was gone. Dragonfly was back in normal space and at its most vulnerable. He hoped the ship’s gunner was alert to any lurking asshole who thought bagging a nice fat freighter would be a good idea, such as the fine folks who sold him into slavery.
The intercom chimed twice, and a voice called out urgently.
“Major Decker, please report to the bridge at once.”
“Uh oh,” Jase Resson grimaced. “That doesn’t sound like Berand wants to serve you a cup of coffee.”
“No, it doesn’t. Wrap up the parkour exercise and get the troops ready for action. I want Nunez’s detachment at their stations stat. If we’ve got a bad guy on our tail, we just might get to test the theory that bored ex-Marines make good starship gunners. I doubt we’ll have to repel boarders but what the heck, never waste the opportunity for a good battle drill.”
*
“What’s up?” Decker, sweat-soaked towel still wrapped around his neck, stepped into a bridge seething with fevered activity.
“Two ships showing high power readings are accelerating our way. In these parts, they can’t be honest. You claim you’ve got more experience with this kind of stuff than the rest of us, so do your best warship Marine act, Zack.”
“Any identification on the bogeys?”
“None, sir,” the rating at the gunnery console replied without looking back at him. “Just fast and powerful.”
“Most ships transiting the nebula drop out of hyperspace to take a sighting, so I’m not surprised that bad guys would be lurking. It’s just that this time, our number came up.” Berand sounded worried.
“Sir, we’re being hailed.”
Decker looked at the first officer in surprise.
“It’s coming from those two, Jenny?”
“Yes, sir. It’s in a language I can’t understand. I’m running it through the translator, but so far, it’s drawing a blank.”
“Put it on.” Zack grimaced at Dragonfly’s captain. “It’s never good news when pirates want to talk to you.”
As soon as the first words rang out from the speakers, his grimace became pained. Decker not only recognized the language. He understood it all too well.
“That,” he said, “is Danjori, spoken exclusively on Danjor and taught to all who become slave soldiers of the Atabek.”
“What do they want?” Berand blanched at Decker’s words.
“Us. When we disappeared from Chuluk, his royal grossness the Gwangar must have sent a pungently-worded complaint via subspace to my former owner. As we’re likely the first Danjoran silahdars to ever escape, it looks bad for business. I can’t imagine how expensive it must have been for the Atabek to charter a pair of ships. That is if he didn’t charter more than just those two to retrieve us, but there has to be considerable pride involved. I’d say that the end goal is to bring all of us back to Danjor for a lengthy stay in the juluk pits, until we die in agony, as a warning to others.”
Berand shuddered at the thought, having been treated to a lengthy and detailed description of the ordeal over a cup of coffee one night watch when both were feeling restless.
“Basically,” Decker continued, “you’re being ordered to heave to and surrender us to the Atabek’s men – in this case, men being figurative since, by the accent, the crews of those ships are likely all Danjoran. If you cooperate, you may keep the equipment as compensation, and you’ll be allowed to continue on your travels. If you don’t...” he made a cutting gesture across his throat.
“Do you think they’d really let us go if I surrender you?”
Zack laughed humorlessly.
“Considering that I’d not allow us to be handed over, the question is moot, but for what it’s worth, your crew would end up taking our places in the ranks of the slave soldier regiment. I can’t see the Atabek letting prime human flesh go. I certainly can’t believe that he’d let anyone keep the gear. The bugger likes his profit.”
“That’s what I thought.” Berand nodded. “What do you propose?”
“First, we don’t answer them. If they can’t come up with a transmission in Anglic, they don’t deserve a reply. How long until we’re ready to jump?”
“At least thirty minutes, but ideally forty-five. Crossing the Coalsack shouldn’t be taken lightly and if the engines aren’t properly tuned or the course accurately calculated, we might have some problems coming out on the other side. Some weird navigational hazards are lurking inside all that dust, and they reach into hyperspace for reasons no one has ever been able to figure.”
Zack leaned over the gunner’s mate and studied the sensor readout.
“They’ll overtake us in twenty-five minutes at the earliest, but if they have missiles and are willing to risk using them, we’ll likely be in range in fifteen. It all depends on whether the Atabek gave them leeway to take us alive or dead. I suppose a few symbolic offerings for the juluk pits would be enough to restore face.”
“How confident are you in the troops you assigned to man my weapons?”
“With all due respect to your lads,” he clapped the gunner’s mate on the shoulder, “they’ll be better at it than your crew – no shame on them by the way. The Fleet simply trains folks better than the merchant service, at least when it comes to ordnance.”
He turned back to Berand.
“I suggest you sound battle stations. Jase is already getting the troops ready, but there’s nothing like a siren to get the lead out. And Dirk, it would be best if you let me manage the fight. I’ve done it before in an armed freighter. You’ll have to be ready to maneuver the ship at my orders, though.”
Zack saw reluctance in the captain’s eyes. Relinquishing control of one’s own bridge was a tough pill to swallow for a ship’s master, but he could see the sense in letting a warrior take over. Berand stepped away from the command chair and nodded.
“Not necessary.” Decker shook his head. “I’ll be fighting from the gunnery console.” He tapped the gunner’s mate again. “Off you go, lad. Take the spare seat at the back of the bridge and follow what I’m doing. I might need an extra pair of eyes, hands and whatever.”
Once the siren had died down, the intercom chimed.
“Bridge, this is Resson. Gunnery detachment is at its station, and the remainder of the Demons are ready to repel boarders. I’m guessing we have bad guys on our butts. Any idea who?”
“Three guesses, Jase. And they all end in the juluk pits.”
He could almost see his second-in-command blanch.
“The Atabek sent ships after us.”
“Got it in one. They want Captain Berand to surrender us on the promise of safe passage and our gear as compensation.”
A female voice laughed bitterly at the other end of the intercom.
“I do hope the good captain understands that it’s an empty promise,” Lora Cyone said. “That Danjoran sonofabitch isn’t going to let anyone connected with the failure of his new model battalion live to tell the tale.”
“I do understand, Lora,” Dragonfly’s master replied soberly. “Not that I would have considered handing you over in any case.”
“Glad to hear it, captain,” Jase said. “By the look in Lora’s eyes right now, you might not hav
e liked what she obviously had in mind if you’d decided to negotiate with the bastards.”
“Jase, Lora – we have...” he glanced at the sensor readout, “twenty-one minutes before they overtake us. We’ll need at least five more than that to finish spooling up for the next jump, and I suspect that the Atabek will be just as happy with a few survivors as he would for the entire company.”
“Understood. We’ll do what we can.”
“Bridge, out.”
*
“They’ve begun decelerating,” the gunner’s mate said from the spare console ten minutes later.
“Just about on time, if they want to match our velocity for a little ship-to-ship action. Boarding action that is.”
“Sirs,” Jenny Marsh piped up from the first officer’s station. “They’re transmitting in Anglic now.”
“Aha. Someone in the Danjoran brain trust has begun to wonder whether we Danjori speakers are actually on board, which explains why they’re decelerating instead of launching a few birds.”
“Put it on speakers,” Berand ordered.
“Unidentified ship, this the Danjoran vessel Xeriak on a mission for the Atabek of the Great Kashdushiya.” The voice was gravelly, the words were slurred, but the speaker definitely came from of the same species as the Demons’ former owner. “You are believed to carry something that belongs to the Atabek, namely a portion of the Fifth Orta that was tasked to fight for the Gwangar of Chuluk.”
Berand raised his eyebrows in question when his eyes met Decker’s.
“Go ahead. The longer we can keep them talking the better. They’ll be less inclined to start shooting. Just play stupid. The lizards are probably better at it than you, but if you try hard enough...” He winked.
“Danjoran vessel Xeriak, this is Captain Dirk Berand, master of the Commonwealth-flagged freighter Dragonfly. You’ll have to excuse me, but I don’t understand what you’re after. I must confess I’ve never heard of this Atabek person for whom you work, and you’ll have to explain what an orta is, and why you think I might carry part of it. We did make a delivery to Chuluk recently, but took on no cargo there.”
A human might have been irritated by Berand’s whiny, plaintive tone, but the Danjoran seemed unmoved.
“Then you’ll allow us to board and inspect your vessel. If you do not carry that which we seek, you shall be allowed to go on your way unharmed. If you do not permit us to inspect your vessel, we shall assume you do carry the Atabek’s property, and we will seize it by force.”
Decker made a cutting motion, and Jenny Marsh muted the transmission.
“Agree to an inspection, Dirk. It’ll buy us time. Those jokers over there probably aren’t all that good at matching velocities in a hurry. If we do a little jigging of our own – blame it on bad engines – we can drag it out until we’re ready to jump.”
Berand nodded, but he swallowed a few times before speaking again.
“Put them back on, Jenny.” When the first officer nodded, he squared his shoulders and spoke.
“Danjoran vessel, an inspection is agreeable to us, even though I do not recognize your authority to board me. I just want to get back to my home port for fresh cargo, so in the interests of time, I’m willing to comply. Every day I spend in space with my holds empty eats away at my profits. I shall strive to maintain my current course and speed, but be advised that my engines are jumpy.”
“Acknowledged,” the alien replied. “Keep in mind that we will respond to any hostile act with maximum force. We shall speak again momentarily. Stand by.”
When the radio link was broken, Berand wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead and looked anxiously at his second officer.
“How much longer before we can jump, Markus?”
“Fifteen minutes at the earliest, captain. The engines are on the up cycle now, but we still have to run the full readiness test. I’ve got the course plotted and laid in, but if our so-called jumpy engines slew us around too much, I’ll have to adjust on the fly.”
“Understood.”
*
“Why don’t we just go back to the Kashdushiya?” Ker Terkis asked angrily, pacing back and forth in the starboard cargo hold that doubled as barracks for half of Decker’s Demons. “It wasn’t such a bad life. I’d rather that than being blown up by anti-ship missiles.”
“Because the moment we fall back into the Atabek’s hands, you idiot, we’re dead. Not just easy dead like with a bullet through the skull, but tortured dead. No thanks. I’d rather be on the wrong end of a missile.”
Nik Vulin was quickly tiring of his fellow platoon leader’s constant complaints.
Lora Cyone, sensing the potential for an unseemly display in front of the soldiers, stepped between the two lieutenants and grabbed each by the upper arm.
“That’ll be enough out of the both of you,” she hissed. “Terkis, defeatism is an ugly thing. Any more of it out of you and it’s a turn in the brig as a private. Vulin, a bit more forbearance goes a long way. Major Decker expects the both of you to do your duty to the best of your abilities and so do the soldiers under your care. Capisce?”
Terkis nodded angrily, then he shook Cyone’s hand loose and stalked off to the other end of the compartment.
“Nik,” she held the other officer’s gaze intently, “keep an eye on Ker. If he looks like he’s about to do something stupid, you have my blessing to take him out – with a round between the eyes if necessary. I don’t know what the major has planned, but I do know that he’s a sneaky bastard, and we can’t afford Ker or anyone else messing up whatever scheme he’s running to get this ship away from the Atabek’s hounds.”
“Will do, captain.”
*
“We’re only going to get one stab at this, folks,” Decker said between clenched teeth as he tried to picture the relative positions of the ships in his mind. The computer was better at it than he was, but it had no gut instinct, and their escape would have to be based on a judgment call, not some fancy algorithm if it were going to work.
“Sergeant Nunez reports everything ready, sir,” the gunner’s mate said, sounding scared enough to prove he actually understood their precarious situation.
“How long until the jump drives have finished cycling?”
“Three more minutes, if you don’t want to analyze the report,” Berand replied. “Twice that if you want to make sure we didn’t miss a minor flaw.”
“We’ll have to skip the review, Dirk. They’re abeam of us and getting impatient. The moment I fire off a volley, we need to feel like we want to puke. I don’t think we’ll be able to shrug off anything they throw at us in return.”
The radio came to life with barely understandable instructions and threats from the Danjorans, and Berand did his best to win the game of stupid without being too obvious. Zack’s gunnery console had lit up with hostile targeting emissions, and he knew they could be seconds away from a volley that could slice their hyperdrive nacelles off.
If he allowed that to happen, they might as well self-destruct. He had briefly considered turning the tables on the enemy and forcing an armed boarding onto their ships, but it was so dicey as to be irresponsible in light of the countdown to their next jump.
“All drives green, course confirmed – we’re ready to go,” the second officer shouted.
“Wait for it,” Decker’s voice cut through the sudden surge of hope. “Targeting on – firing now.”
Dragonfly’s sides erupted in a massive bloom of plasma bolts.
“Jump!”
Nineteen
“Congratulations, Zack, you came the closest to giving me a heart attack since the day I found my wife in bed with my former first officer,” Berand said, slumping in the command chair once the bout of nausea had passed.
“Yeah, but unlike that unfortunate episode, the other guy got screwed this time. Oh, wait a minute,” the ex-Marine laughed, “I think I got that backward.”
“You’re a right bastard, Decker,” Berand grinned, “but not
enough of one to send you back into slavery. If you ever need a berth on a merchant ship once we get home, I’ll be glad to sign you on.”
“I might take you up on that, but you sail through a part of the galaxy where my picture is likely to adorn the most wanted list for a while. I’ve done the Atabek’s juluk pits once. I don’t intend to volunteer for a return visit.”
Berand waved his objections away wearily.
“Never mind then. Jenny, sound the all clear and put the ship at hyperspace cruising stations.”
“Why shoot at them if we were jumping out?” The second officer asked, sounding genuinely curious.
Zack shrugged.
“There’s a chance I might have caused enough damage to make them abandon the chase and even if I didn’t, they’ll not be mistaking us for an easy target the next time if there is one. Plus,” he smiled, “it felt good to fire at the buggers.”
“Do you think they’ll pursue?”
“Hard to say, Dirk.” Decker frowned. “If they do, we’ll have to be ready for them when we next drop back to sub-light. They didn’t look big enough to carry anything that could force us out of FTL. I figure they’ll be tracking us by our wake and waiting for it to vanish, which means the next time we see them, they’ll be five hundred thousand to a million kilometers ahead of us, and that’ll make escape more difficult.”
“You’re a real bucket of cheer, you know that?”
“Hey don’t blame me, buddy. I’m a victim in all this. One moment I was minding my business hauling ropi oil from Yotai to Dordogne. The next, I was conscripted into some bizarre slave army. I just want to go back to my old, money-grubbing ways.”
“I have a hard time seeing you hustling for cargo, Decker. You’re a soldier and nothing else. You have no idea how alive you looked just now when you were scheming to outfox the Danjorans.”
“And on that note,” Zack said, faintly embarrassed, “I’ll go see how my little flock is doing. May I assume that we’ll be sailing the dark channels of hyperspace for a very long time this leg?”