Which was probably true. All Tui did for fun was exercise, and he didn’t have any bad habits that anyone on the crew knew of. “Yeah, yeah. Are we done?”
Tui looked to Hilker, who gave a thumbs-up. “We’re good. Time to move.”
* * *
The Tar Heel was a Multipurpose Supply Vehicle, which was an old Earth War designation for a really big transport. It was in the standard configuration, with the propulsion system in the stern, the habitat ring fore, and everything else dedicated to cargo. The long central cargo space they were in now felt like a monstrous warehouse. Containers could be attached all over the exterior as well, but those were exposed to micrometeorite hits and depressurization. For some things that was acceptable, but everything else went inside where it was climate controlled and relatively safe. Sometimes the cargo was alive. Shade had, on occasion, brokered transportation of rare and illegal fauna from various worlds. But it wasn’t just the living stuff that needed protection. Their bread and butter was smuggling munitions, and nobody wanted an XG missile or a container of bombs getting hit by a fast-flying projectile.
Jackson and Tui jump-zoomed their way to the hatch and entered the tube exchange, which was a section of the ship that could spin independently of the habitat ring. The exchange allowed you to go from spin to stationary and vice versa. Currently the ring was stationary, so they floated right down the corridor to the hub. From there they could enter any of the five spokes of the habitat ring.
When they reached the hub, they entered the spoke that led up to the main living area, stepped onto the lift, and stuck on. Once they were set, they activated the lift and accelerated along the spoke, which was a little over one hundred meters long. The diameter of the whole habitat ring was double that, about two hundred and twenty-five meters, which meant the circumference of the outer ring was just over half a klick wide.
These old Earth War transports had stuffed the ring with long barracks for transporting troops. Only, the captain had served his time and never wanted to be in the business of driving a bus for large numbers of people ever again. There were now only about a hundred crew members total, living in a ship that had been originally designed to hold thousands. Some of the barracks had been converted to more comfortable living space, some to special cargo space that needed a semblance of gravity.
The lift accelerated, cruised for a bit, then began to decelerate. It brought them to a stop at the ring. The smell of food was in the air.
“Sweet. It’s almost chow time,” Tui said.
“We’re not in the clear yet,” Jackson warned.
“Yeah, but even if the captain calls battle stations and we make a run for it, it isn’t like my guys have anything to do until we get boarded or the place catches on fire. So until then, food. Bummer you have to go report first.”
“And explain how I almost blew the entire op because I ran into a dirtbag with a good memory and his dog? Fun. Save me some, would you?”
“I’ll do my best.”
And so they split, Tui going one way, Jackson push-floating away in the other direction.
“Captain?” he pinged.
“On the bridge,” Captain Holloway replied.
The corridor wrapped around the whole ring, an unending walk. It was three meters wide. Large enough to allow quick movement of lots of people. Little ports dotted the wall of the eternal corridor, allowing you to look out at the stars or switch to one of the many stationary camera views.
Jackson went to one of the portals and clicked for an area image. It appeared they were traveling at a leisurely speed away from the port. Ships couldn’t use their main drives this close to a planet, something about the gravity well. The actual math was way over his head, but Jackson guessed they had another five or ten minutes at this speed before they could kick it into high gear. He switched to an image of the port. The gigantic Splendid Ventures ship, Profit, was still docked, but there weren’t any flashing lights there. Or really anywhere around the port.
He pushed on and floated down the corridor. It was punctuated every ten meters by extra-wide doors. In case of an emergency, the doors would automatically shut to seal that section off, for things like depressurization or fire, although in the three years he’d spent on the Tar Heel he’d only ever seen them activated to contain living things. Like one trip when someone had screwed up the sedative for a Kodiak bear they were hauling. It woke up angry and hungry, smelled food of the human variety, and blundered into the ring. Or the time some moronic Caliman terrorists had tried to hijack them. Good times.
The bridge door was open, and Jackson swung in. The displays were monitoring traffic between the port and the SVC ship. The crew manning the consoles looked a little tense. From the looks some of them gave him, Jackson knew the mood was his fault.
The commander’s station was typical of an old Earth ship, plastic and stainless steel, however, Captain Holloway had spruced it up with a small red, white, blue, and gold flag of North Carolina on one wall. Below the flag was a plaque with the phrase “c.”
The captain had activated the mag lock on his boots, and he was standing there, hands clasped behind his back, watching the camera feeds carefully. He was unaugmented Earth standard fifties, bald, with a scruffy beard. He glanced over when Jackson floated in.
“How was the ride, Mr. Rook?”
“The Citadel is awesome,” Jackson said. “Are you sure we can’t keep it?”
“You miss it much?”
He was referring to the full connection, the plug into the skull, the thing that had turned Jackson into a monster, the thing he’d been saved from. “No, sir. Not in the least.”
The captain nodded. He knew what Jackson had been, because he had been the one to go into that hell, get Jackson, and take him to Jane, so she could save his soul. “And to think you almost didn’t get to make that test drive.”
“Sometimes you have to improvise.”
“Did you have to stir up the whole planet in the process?” a woman said from behind him.
Jackson glanced over to see that their broker had entered the bridge after him. “No, Shade, I didn’t. That was Jeet Prunkard’s doing. Not mine.”
The name on her passport was Julie Thomas—whether that was her real name, none of them knew—but Shade had stuck, and she liked it that way. Nobody called her Ms. Thomas, or Julie. She wasn’t nearly approachable enough for that level of familiarity. Some of the crew referred to her as Grandma, but only behind her back. Not because she looked like any kind of grandma. In fact, just the opposite. She had dark eyes, smooth skin, and currently had a suicide blonde thing going on, her hair pale, and standing up on end in the weightless environment. The codename Grandma came from the fact that she was probably the oldest person on the crew. But she’d had so many genetic mods and upgrades that nobody knew for sure if she was fifty, sixty, or pushing eighty.
Those kinds of therapies were expensive, so she must have been money once, or come from one of the worlds rich enough that sort of thing wasn’t a big deal. Which planet? None of the crew knew that either. From her condescending attitude they assumed it had to be one of the wealthier of the thirty worlds. Nor did they know much of anything about her except that she had contacts on seemingly every colony and station, arranged their deals, and was one of the only people who could actually sway the captain’s opinion on anything.
Shade asked, “Do you think you can do one op where something doesn’t go to pieces?”
Jackson held out his hands apologetically. “How was I supposed to know Prunkard was going to be there? And you’re the reason Prunkard even knew who I was to begin with.”
“He’s got a point,” the captain said.
“You should have just slipped away.”
“Easy for you to say. You ever try to outrun a hornet’s nest?”
“Yes—I have in fact.” Shade gave him a very patronizing grin. “Only I wouldn’t have needed to because they never would have seen me to begin with. Sadly, I subcontracted you
lot to do it for me. My mistake. My clients hire this ship to supply them because they require discretion. You know who that Citadel is for. He can’t afford that kind of attention.”
“Well, that sucks for him.”
“I like you, Jack, but you’re too damn expensive.”
Which meant she would hang Jackson out to dry.
“Listen, Shade, my job is to fly the mechs we liberate. I’m not a spy or whatever it is you used to be in your old glory days. I did the pickpocket job because the captain ordered me to. I’m assuming he figured I’d be good at it.”
“He’s pretty decent at that whole sleight-of-hand thing,” the captain admitted.
“That’s because of where I grew up,” Jackson said. “Kids either learned how to steal or starve.”
The captain snorted. “And this whole time I just figured you were practicing for a lucrative career as a stage magician.”
Jackson turned back to Shade. “I didn’t ask to go down there and get chased by a mobster you decided to steal from in the first place. I got away. We adapted. We overcame. I was the one out there risking my ass while you were up here safe, yet somehow you get a bigger share than I do.”
“The only reason there are shares at all is because of the deals I cut,” Shade snapped. “Get it through your head, Jackson, you’re hired help.”
The captain gave Jackson a sideways glance and shook his head.
He didn’t want to let it go, but he did, out of respect for his boss, mentor, and friend. “We got the goods. We’re good.”
“Not quite yet.” The captain nodded at the display. “There’s a Nivaas security cutter shadowing us still. Hopefully, he’s just giving us the eyeball. Any activity from the SVC ship yet, Ms. Alligood?”
“Nothing, Cap.” Their electronic warfare tech was hunched over a console, watching for any sign of trouble. “They still think they’ve got the right container as far as I can tell. No alarms. No chatter. Gate control has us marked as a regular law-abiding trader.”
Jackson blew out a breath, then looked at the wall display showing the area around the Tar Heel. The spaceport was marked with green. Smaller dots were the gremlins and transport cars coming up from the surface. There were also red triangles representing security ships. There were several of them nearby.
Nivaas was still a relatively new settlement, but everyone made enemies. Potential hostiles could still lob projectiles from millions of klicks away. If the target was mobile and could detect such things, there was time to evade. If you were stationary, or traveling in a consistent orbit, you could be in big trouble. So the security for a planet and its orbitals usually extended a few hundred thousand klicks into space. A prosperous planet would have an array of thousands of sentinels in a grid to track ships and relay information. Nivaas only had a few dozen, but their defensive measures were integrated with a couple of beefy installations on Nivaas’ moon and some of the larger asteroids.
Which meant that there was no way in hell their old, lumbering beast of a ship could make a run for it successfully.
“You think they’re onto us?” Shade asked.
“I don’t know. Jane covered our tracks. Even if they do figure out they got robbed, there’s a hundred and eighty other ships in range that could have snagged it.” Captain Holloway walked back to his chair and retrieved his thermos of coffee, his magnetic boots clanking as he went. “We’ll find out if they’re suspicious of us in particular when they light up their railguns and send a line of steel cutters to shave the thrusters off our hind end.”
“I really wish you hadn’t used that mafia Shine,” Shade muttered.
“Hm. Shine or get caught? Such a hard decision. Were you wanting me to get caught?”
She glared at him. Him getting caught was better than all of them getting caught, but that went unsaid.
“Ditching you might have saved us some money on the books, but, no, I didn’t want you to get caught. Because if you did, their forensic techs would discover that they were dealing with well-supplied professionals, instead of some common street gang.”
“I’m overwhelmed with your concern for my safety.”
Jackson had a strong urge to bring up his recording and review the facts of the situation with her, but knew now wasn’t the time. Later, they’d rerun the video and see. He was confident there had been nothing else he could have done. “What about Prunkard alerting them?”
“The rest of us should be fine. I don’t think he ever found out who you were working for when you robbed him. You, however, I’d advise you not to plan any vacations on Nivaas anytime soon.” The captain sounded genuinely amused by that. “Regardless, Jeet’s a little occupied right now, what with Jane sending over a fake warrant saying that he’s wanted on Earth for terrorism and whatnot.”
“Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy. Well, despite a few wrinkles, the good news is that you now have this.” Jackson pulled out the Citadel’s medallion and held it out to Shade. She took it and nodded.
“Don’t count on Prunkard being out, though,” the captain said. “He’s got money and lawyers. He’ll get it sorted, and if you thought he hated you before, now he’s really going to hate you. Speaking of which, Alligood, put up that shot we got of Prunkard’s ship.”
Another freighter appeared on their display. The CSS Downward Spiral was from the same class as the Tar Heel, but a lot newer, and flying under the Caliman flag, which meant basically nothing because anybody who could afford the bribe could register with them. From the nominal readings on the display, it was hanging back, far outside Nivaas security’s jurisdiction. Prunkard must have taken a smaller vessel down to the surface.
“Q ship?” Jackson asked.
“Total sleeper. I’d bet my life on it.”
“Well, you do know a thing or two about making a mean ship look harmless.”
“I wrote the book on it.” And the captain wasn’t joking. He literally had authored the manual Earth Block Navy used on the subject. “I’ve got no idea what that pirate is doing here, but I’m sure it’s something nefarious. If we didn’t have a delivery to make, I’d try to find out what he’s here to steal, so I could steal it first.”
Alligood interrupted their captain’s musings about their potential nemesis slash business competitor. “Port Control is signaling us.”
“What now?” He sighed. “Put them through.”
“MSV Tar Heel. You have been picked for random inspection. Please reduce speed and prepare for boarding.”
He looked at Shade and spread his hands apologetically. As a privately registered trader, not flying under anyone’s flag, there was no legal way to turn them down.
“Tar Heel,” the port controller repeated. “Do you copy?”
The captain responded, “Roger that, Port. Tar Heel is halting progress.” He punched a few buttons to kill the feed. “Random, my ass.” Then he turned on the ship’s intercom. “Prepare for jackdaw. This is not a drill. Prepare for jackdaw.”
There was no way they could escape. Their ship was far more capable than it looked, but there was no way they could engage a planetary defense force in battle and survive. Score lots of hits maybe, but then die horribly. So they couldn’t win a fight, but at the same time, it was much harder to convict you if you didn’t have any stolen goods in your possession. Jackdaw meant jettisoning their containers, including those with the most damning contraband. Shoot them out like rockets. Send them hurtling toward the planet’s atmosphere where hopefully the really illegal stuff burned up before it could be retrieved as evidence. It was the high-tech version of a junkie tossing their stash out the window when their car got pulled over by the police. There was a fine for jettisoning cargo close to a port, but better to pay a fine than go to prison.
“Damn it,” Jackson muttered. He’d got shot at, hornet stung, and nearly asphyxiated for nothing. No Citadel and no munitions meant no big payoff. The crew wouldn’t just lose out on their shares of the smuggling, but worse, they couldn’t just dump the il
licit stuff and keep the legal cargo. That would be too suspicious. Jackdaw meant dumping the whole bay, and then blaming it on an industrial accident.
“That’s a lot of valuable tonnage,” Shade said.
“Sorry, Shade. This ship is my life savings, and its crew are my responsibility.”
“This is Hilker. Cargo bay standing by. Say the word, Cap and the good people of Nivaas will have quite the meteor shower.”
“The client is going to be very upset if we burn that Citadel,” Shade warned.
“He can leave me a bad review,” the captain said. “I’m too pretty for jail.”
“Do you know how long I worked to set this deal up?”
“Time to call in your favors then.”
“I work deals, not miracles.” But she brought up her assistant and began speaking to it in hushed tones, obviously trying to send a message to whoever it was Shade had inside the provincial government.
Jackson closed his eyes. So much for this operation. He wondered what Nivaasian prisons were like. On the display, the port was sending them new trajectory information, herding them out of the regular traffic lanes. A cutter was inbound. ETA, two minutes.
“Shade?” the captain asked.
Shade held up a finger for him to be quiet. Then everyone on the bridge got to hear her half of the conversation.
“Simon, it’s me. What’s going on?” There was a pause. “I don’t care about some container explosion, I’ve got a schedule to keep.” Another pause. “If this ship is boarded then I’d have no choice but to release the records of every transaction we’ve conducted over the years to the ISF auditors, and believe me, Simon, I keep meticulous records.”
A beat passed.
“I’ll give you fifty thousand,” Shade said. “Not an anna more.”
Another pause. Jackson looked nervously toward the display. The cutter—the NSS Kolkata—was getting awfully close.
“I’m waiting,” she said.
A moment later, the port controller contacted them. “Never mind, Tar Heel. That random inspection is cancelled. You are clear to proceed.”
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