by Eric Thomson
Tran glanced back at Decker, who gave him a thumbs up.
“Go. Head straight for their command post. With any luck, Nik and Sal will keep them guessing in the rabbit warren below.”
He nodded and then spat out a few quick orders, sending his lead squad down the corridor to the nearest intersection, where they took covering positions in case anyone tried to take them from the side. Then, the next team leapfrogged past them to do the same at the second intersection. It wasn’t until the third squad ran past the remainder that shooting broke out on their level.
Zack, biting back his desire to join in the fight, stayed well out of it, letting Kidder’s sergeants to their thing. He knew they were good: he’d trained them. Then it seemed like it was all over. Those Kalin who weren’t lying half-charred in a pool of their own blood were surrendering in droves.
They burst into the improvised control center, cuffing the few technicians who didn’t want to fight.
“That was a little too easy,” the platoon leader commented, flipping up his visor to show a sweat-streaked face. “I don’t understand why the security goons couldn’t handle it. I’ve got a few singed troops, a couple of bruised ones, but nothing that a few days rest won’t cure.”
Decker grinned.
“Surprise, my son. One of the principles of war. We caught them with their pants around their ankles. They figured we couldn’t get in the lower entrances without making a big noise that would give the game away. And the local rent-a-cops? They simply aren’t trained to do what we do. Sometimes size isn’t everything.”
“Major,” Nik Vulin called out from the far corridor, “there’s a ship docked at this end.”
“Really?” He leaned over one of the consoles and quickly scanned the readout. “It’s locked on. Can’t go anywhere without our permission, at least not without tearing off the outside of their airlock. Shall we go say hi and see if they shouldn’t be paying some docking fees to the proper management of Tortuga?”
Then, something tugged at his memory, and he looked at the readout again, staring long and hard at the ship’s image. His face tightened as the vision of a wrecked freighter and a dying woman danced before his eyes. Rage blossomed so suddenly and with such force that a red veil descended over him.
“Oh, we’re definitely going to say hi,” he said between clenched teeth as he fought to retain his self-control. “Just in case they decide to play dumb, call Dragonfly and have someone send a rocket launcher and a few rounds. That ship isn’t going anywhere ever again under that crew.”
He tapped a communications screen.
“Vessel docked to the Kalin syndicate’s airlock, this is Tortuga station security. Your captain is ordered to step ashore and join us in the control room. We have administrative matters to discuss, now that the Kalin have joined with the station management. Do not try to leave – you’ll just damage yourself.”
When he didn’t get a reply, he repeated his message.
“You’d think they’ve at least seen Nik’s guys on their security sensor.” Aran glanced down the corridor leading to the dock.
“Just as long as they haven’t seen me yet,” he replied through clenched teeth.
The heavy platoon leader eyed him curiously.
“Would I be right to think you have a grudge against that ship?”
“Not the ship, Sal, but its crew. I’ll know it’s the right one when I see its captain.”
“Airlock’s opening, major. Someone’s coming out.”
Decker turned to the security monitor and watched intently as a human female of indeterminate age with close-cropped hair appeared. He had no difficulties recognizing the hard, black eyes set deeply in a seamed face turned almost leathery by decades of exposure to deep space radiation.
She could still pass for any number of humanoid aliens whose reptilian ancestry left them with a rough hide, but she was clearly of his own species. A smile promising deadly violence spread across his face, alarming the nearest troopers.
When she stepped into the control room, she suddenly stopped, eyes on Zack’s face
“You...” she whispered, fear replacing the look of annoyance she’d worn seconds earlier.
“Glad you recognize me.” He started walking towards her, tossing his carbine at a nearby soldier. “We have some unfinished business.”
She tried to back away, but Vulin’s platoon sergeant pushed her towards Zack.
“It was just a contract, Decker, you know how it is,” she gibbered, terror turning her worn features into a gargoyle mask. “No hard feelings.”
“You owe me a life,” he roared, wrapping his massive hand around her throat, lifting her off the floor.
“Zack, no!” Cyone’s shout momentarily stopped him from tossing the pirate captain head-first into the stone wall.
“This is none of your business, Lora. I’ve told you that I had a debt to collect, and her life is the first installment.”
“She’s the one whose crew captured you and killed your wife.”
“Right on target.”
The soldiers stared at their infuriated commanding officer and his captive with sick interest. Most of them had nurtured their own revenge fantasies since the day they fell into slaver hands. Watching Zack’s vengeance unfold right before their eyes was as close to a private heaven as they could come. None would object if he executed pirate captain right there and then.
“She didn’t hold the trigger, but she took the money,” he said.
“Then get the guys behind the trigger out of her ship and kill them too.”
Surprised at Lora’s calm suggestion, he walked his prisoner over to the console and roughly dropped her to the ground.
“Tell your crew to disembark.”
“So you can kill them?”
“They’re dead already, but you’re not - yet.”
“You’re seriously going to spare my life?” She cackled. “Why don’t you go get them yourself?”
Decker smacked the woman hard behind the head, sending her nose on a direct collision with the smooth metal of the panel. In the silence, they heard a sickening crack, then a flow of blood erupted.
“Tell your crew to get off the ship.”
“Go fuck yourself.”
This time, he slammed her midriff hard with a gauntleted fist, sending her into a paroxysm of dry heaves as she struggled to breathe beneath a badly bruised sternum.
“Tell your crew to get off the ship or I’m going to shoot it open with my rocket launcher, and you’ll be my aiming point for the first round.”
“Spare my life and I’ll do it,” she finally said, between tortured puffs of breath.
“Sure.” Decker’s evil grin didn’t fool Lora, but it seemed not to register with the agonizing pirate.
“Nik,” he called out in Danjori, sure that his prisoner didn’t understand a word of it, “get some men by the airlock, the moment it opens, seize the ship. I don’t trust the bitch. She’ll manage to warn her crew somehow.”
“Got it, balukbashi.”
When he was sure Vulin and his men had taken up their positions, he tapped the communications panel and jabbed the pirate hard in the kidney.
“Talk to them. One word out of place, and I’ll rip off your right ear. After that, I might just get nasty.”
She tried to staunch the flow of blood from her nose but gave up under Decker’s glare.
“Do it now.”
Leaning over the communications panel, she said, “Garek, it’s the captain. Have the crew join me here.”
A raspy voice responded a few moments later.
“Are you all right? You sound funny and not ha-ha funny either.”
“Just have the crew come out here.” She tried not to think about the blaster stuck in her ear. “We’ve got some explaining to do.”
There was a second or two of silence. Then, “Wilco, captain.”
“That was foolish of you.” Decker cut the communication and screwed the barrel of his gun deeper int
o the side of her head. “Not that it matters.”
Shouts suddenly rang out in the corridor to the docking bay, punctuated by the cough of plasma weapons. Sal Aran gestured at his senior sergeant to get ready, but Vulin’s men didn’t need the support.
A steady stream of beaten, bleeding and shot pirates began to emerge into the control center, hands firmly placed on the top of their heads. Each was roughly taken in charge by Kidder’s troops, had his hands tied behind his back with plastic restraints and was forced down on his knees. Decker watched in silence until he saw the faces that had leered at him as he was captured and beaten, and the woman he loved more than anything in the universe lying on the deck of Demetria, gut shot.
Finally, the fighting died down. Vulin showed up shortly after that and gave Zack a thumbs-up.
“There are a couple of fatalities and severely injured pirates we left in place. They got one of mine, but the bastard who did for him died a second later. Other than that, I’ve got a few singed and bruised troops.”
“Shoot the pirates you left on the ship.”
Vulin looked surprised but nodded.
“I’ll do it myself.”
“Good man.”
“Now,” Zack turned on the row of kneeling pirates, to whose number the captain had been added, and removed his helmet. “I sincerely hope that you fuckers recognize me because I sure as hell remember who you are. You ever heard the saying that payback’s a bitch?”
They stared at him uncomprehendingly, until a light went on in the eyes of the crewman he’d sucker-punched before leaving their ship.
“Yeah,” he pointed at the grey-skinned humanoid, “you remember, don’t you.”
“Captain Cyone, form the troops in a hollow square. I’m about to hold a summary court-martial.”
She gave him a sad look but obeyed without demur. When they were done, Decker walked up and down the line of kneeling pirates, staring each one in the eyes – at least those who were brave enough to meet his.
“You are hereby accused of piracy, kidnapping, murder, and slavery. As a victim of said piracy, kidnapping and slavery, and eye-witness of the charge of murder, I find you guilty on all counts. Under the laws of all civilized sentient species, the punishment for those crimes is death.”
Decker looked around the room at his soldiers and found nothing but approval in their expressions, although some seemed a little squeamish. Lora gave him a slight nod, knowing that summary execution for piracy wouldn’t be questioned by honest folks in the badlands. She also understood that the soldiers of Decker’s Demons wouldn’t refuse the chance to get their own back on the likes of those who’d captured them.
Stopping in front of the captain, Zack raised his blaster in a fluid motion and pulled the trigger. It coughed, leaving a smoking hole between her eyes and she slumped down, instantly dead. In the stunned silence that followed, he quickly shot the pirates who’d boarded Demetria.
The stench of burned flesh and voided bowels filled the compartment until it became almost unbearable. He looked within himself for a reaction, a feeling of liberation if not of triumph and felt nothing.
The deaths had given him neither pleasure nor guilt. Perhaps he’d lost his ability to feel when they took away the one person he’d cared for the most. If that was the case, then all that remained was the implacable mathematics of frontier justice. It was time to end this and move on.
“Platoon leaders,” he called out, voice harsh, “one volunteer from each squad to execute the remainder.”
Sorting that out took longer than expected. Almost every single former slave soldier raised his hand, but in the end, the entire crew of the ship was sprawled on the deck, in various poses of death.
Lora walked up to him after dismissing the company.
“You don’t look like someone who’s happy at having handed out retribution.”
“It wasn’t supposed to make me happy,” he replied, eyes still on the row of bodies. “It was meant to get scum out of the star lanes permanently. Nothing will ever bring her back, and nothing will ever give me back what they’ve taken. I will however, keep taking from those responsible. This was only the first step, and I’m damned lucky I got to them so quickly. Now I won’t have to scour the badlands.”
“Perhaps the Fates had something to do with it.” Her voice was soft, almost philosophical. Decker would do what he wanted, and she could no more hold him back than she could strap hyperdrives to her legs and sail home solo.
He shrugged.
“It’s time to get our payment and leave this rotting hunk of stone before I give in to my urge to sterilize the entire place.”
He reached for the comms panel.
“Manager Tragg, this is Major Decker.”
After almost a minute, the man’s voice came on.
“I gather you’re about to report that you’ve completed the mission. I’ve just been watching your soldiers exit the galleries in good order.”
“The Kalin are all either dead or have been captured. The area is yours again. I expect our payment to be delivered to Dragonfly within the hour.”
“Now, now, major, let’s not be hasty. The job appears to have been much easier than expected and payment was contingent on the level of difficulty. I fear I must insist we review the terms of our contract.”
Decker’s face twisted in anger.
“The only review that’s going to happen is a clean-up of the station’s management, Demon-style. You think the Kalin gave you trouble? Wait until a company of pissed-off professional infantry comes down on your fat ass. I’ll have my payment delivered to the ship now, Tragg, or you’ll be chatting with the Kalin and their pirate friends in whatever hell scum like you get sent to.”
There was a moment of silence.
“Pirate friends?”
“Didn’t I tell you? You’re getting a bonus, sunshine. They had a marauder docked. It’s now minus a crew and therefore all yours. Consider it my gift to you for the prompt delivery of our payment. In case your scruples keep you from enjoying my present, I know from first-hand experience that they were slave takers. They made the mistake of taking me. Don’t make that kind of error, Mister Tragg.”
“All right, all right.” He sounded more irritated that frightened. “I’ll have everything at the docking port in an hour. You’re welcome to run a full scan and satisfy yourself that I’m not trying to screw you over. The quicker you get off my station, the happier I’ll be.”
Decker’s evil smile returned.
“Pleasure doing business with you.”
He cut the link and glanced at Lora.
“Time to make tracks. I don’t think we’ll need to worry about rowdy troops on shore leave after all.”
*
Tragg had been honest, probably frightened by a free mercenary unit that could solve his long-standing problem in a matter of hours and take on a pirate crew as well. The parts were new, in working condition and the food fresh. They undocked minutes after the last case of ale had been stowed, Berand wanting to get away from Tortuga as fast as he could before the business manager changed his mind.
That night, after holding a brief memorial service for the dead trooper, the men and women of Decker’s Demons, less the more severely wounded still in the freighter’s small sickbay, hoisted their first ale in a long, long time; for some, the first time in their lives. Because of that, Zack had restricted them to one bulb apiece. The remainder was under lock and key in the captain’s private hold. They’d gone to bed rather quickly after that, the ship already in hyperspace and leaving the Coalsack far behind.
Decker, lying on his bunk in a darkened cabin, ran his hand over Cyone’s lean limbs, feeling the warmth of her perspiration and the hardness of her muscles. When his fingers danced up her neck and over the back of her head, he chuckled.
“I’ll be damned. You’re growing peach fuzz on your noggin. The suppressant must be wearing off. It’ll be interesting to see how you look with hair.”
Lora
snorted.
“It’ll be gray and stringy, so I won’t be any closer to winning a beauty prize. You on the other hand,” she said, reaching up to touch his skull, “are still as slick and shiny as a newborn.”
“Could a newborn do this,” he asked, guiding her hand down.
“Considering its size, I’d say no.”
“No meaning you’re not interested?”
She grabbed a hold of him and latched her lips onto his. There was no need for conversation after that.
Twenty-One
“Yotai?” Decker raised his eyebrows in surprise. “That’s a change in plans.”
He carefully filled his coffee mug, all too aware that the captain’s stock of roasted beans was dwindling fast.
“Sure,” Dirk Berand nodded at the navigation plot shimmering on the cabin’s screen, “but we can make it in two jumps. Right now, I want to get us as far away as possible from our previously planned course, so your little hunting buddies lose the scent. If I could do it in one, I would, but we need to get a clean fix and retune the drives. I doubt they’ll track us down that far from the nebula and dare go that close to the Commonwealth. Plus, seeing as how it’s the biggest shipping hub in the sector these days, I wouldn’t be surprised to find a Navy ship patrolling the system.”
“Hey, whatever gets us home the fastest. As much as I like a good pleasure cruise with amusing shore excursions, I have unfinished business to take care of.”
Berand nodded, understanding the sentiment. His only reaction upon hearing about the summary execution of an entire pirate ship’s crew was ‘good riddance.’
“At least we have enough fresh food to last us until then. No need to go back on those awful rations you folks carry.”
“It does keep the risk of mutiny down to a controllable level. So what happens after Yotai?” He dropped into the compartment’s only other chair.
“Depends on your Navy, doesn’t it. I expect we’ll be carrying you into the Commonwealth proper, but when it comes to where we set you loose, I’m sure we’ll get very precise instructions. Somehow, I can’t see anyone wanting an unlicensed, unbonded mercenary outfit running around without adult supervision.”