Renegade Patriot

by Oscar Andrews

  Brad shrugged, his hands still high above his head. “I don’t know, maybe we can ask his mother.”

  “I do have a date with her later.”

  The other attackers, clearly no fans of their bad-tempered boss, couldn’t control themselves any longer. They started cracking up, no longer paying attention to what was going on around them. Brad and Neffy suddenly dropped their hands, drawing their weapons with impressive speed. Boris found himself staring wide-eyed down the barrel of Neffy’s gun while Brad’s pressed gently against his temple. He dropped his own weapon without being asked.

  “Oh, fuck!” said one of the men, “We fucked this up!”

  So much for Delta Team always getting their man.

  Neffy gestured for them to drop their weapons and Brad spoke up, “I could understand if you don’t care whether we kill this guy or not, but if you do care you should drop your guns.”

  They did as they were told, and Captain Dunham and his men set about retrieving their own weapons. Despite the amazing rescue, Dunham did not look pleased. He glared at Neffy as he walked past. “Remind me to beat the shit out of you later, Neffy!”

  Corey and Walters came running over, perhaps hoping to get themselves as far as possible from all the mercenaries.

  Brad’s grin was huger than ever. He was clearly pleased with himself. “Not bad, huh Neffy?”

  Before Neffy could answer, he noticed the telltale glow of a teleporter beam spreading out from the center of Brad’s chest and dematerializing his entire body. The same glow had appeared on Corey and Walter’s chests too – and on his own. They were being teleported!

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  In her private quarters on the FFS Troy, Commander Grace sighed with exhaustion as yet another holo-call interrupted her work. She closed her eyes, took a moment to massage her temples with her fingers, then took the call.

  “Commander Grace? This is Flight Sergeant Thomas.”

  He sounded concerned. She opened her eyes again. Thomas looked tired and stressed out, which was exactly how Grace felt. When her assistant was more worried about her well-being than her sarcastic temper, that was not a good sign.

  “Go ahead, Thomas. I’m okay.”

  “Captain Klingerman’s locator has gone dead. We don’t know where he is.”

  She didn’t respond to this at all at first. Her mind simply refused to process another problem. She found herself staring at the holoscreen blankly until Flight Sergeant Thomas started to tap on it. He must have thought his system was glitching.

  She shook it off. “I’m here. Where was Captain Klingerman when he vanished?”

  “The generator building near the rebel outpost.”

  “And the rest of the ground team?”

  “Their comms are down. But as of their last communication, they were in the same building.”

  Grace pondered the situation for a moment. She was starting to get a sense of what must have happened. “Do the scanners show any other life forms?”

  “We’re checking now. I just wanted to update you on this immediately.”

  “I’m coming up directly. I know exactly what’s happened.”

  “Yes, commander?”

  “The team must have been lured into a trap, and Klingerman was teleported. It’s the only explanation.”

  Along with all their other problems, she now had to get Klingerman back too. Trent had been very insistent that she keep Neffy safe, and she knew Trent. The only reason he would be that worried about any agent would be to keep a whole spider’s web of secrets and intrigue from being exposed. Neffy Klingerman must be a very valuable asset…

  +++

  Neffy didn’t know where he was and he didn’t know why, but he did know he had just been teleported and he didn’t like it. His gun was still in his hand so he started to raise it, looking around for a likely target. Someone plucked it from his fingers.

  “Don’t make any bad decisions, Captain Klingerman. In fact, don’t move at all.”

  He saw Brad across from him and two men in dark combat suits. They were busy attaching restraints to his wrists. Brad looked rueful.

  Neffy felt the same way. It had been a long time since he was actually captured, and now this made twice in one day. To be fair to himself and his own skills, no one could possibly have seen that coming. Surprise teleportations were not exactly a daily event. Though having said that, this was his second surprise teleportation since the start of the crisis. What a life…

  Neffy fell back on his training and scanned the room, counting fifteen people in total – himself, Brad, Walters, and Corey plus eleven others. That meant eleven hostiles. Not good odds. Four of their captors held nitro-weapons, ship-safe firearms. They must be in space.

  Whatever ship had snatched them was probably in orbit around New Atlantia. There was even a chance he was getting close to the device, not farther away from it. At least the ship had artificial gravity.

  Neffy was not feeling at his most gracious. “You got us captured, Brad! What the hell were you thinking?”

  “What do you mean I got us captured?”

  Someone nearby said, “Shut up!” but Neffy didn’t listen.

  “Walking straight in the door instead of calling for backup? That doesn’t seem a little moronic to you?”

  “I said shut up! The teleporter got you both captured.”

  Brad was not willing to take the blame. “That didn’t have anything to do with what happened anyway! Neither of us knew about that teleporter!”

  One of the hostiles stepped out from behind Neffy. “What the hell is your problem, you two? Why won’t you shut up? Are you two married or something? We teleported you up here in case Delta Team fucked up. That’s all there is to it. Now shut up!”

  Neffy suspected that Brad was stalling, buying time to size up the room. If they could coordinate a surprise attack they could get a weapon, then shoot their way to an escape pod if they had to. It was worth a try, though they were so badly outnumbered their chances seemed remote.

  A ship’s officer stepped forward. “Get these two out of here. The last thing I want to deal with is this kind of nonsense. They can practice their comedy routine in one of the cages.”

  Neffy was worried about Corey and Walters, but he wasn’t sure how worried he ought to be. Going to the generator building had been their idea, and there was always the possibility the women were playing them. If the whole plan had been a set-up, then two traitors had just escaped Federation custody. He had much bigger problems just now.

  The men with the nitro-weapons prodded them along, occasionally poking the barrel of a gun into the small of Neffy’s back to keep him moving. They were taken down a corridor made of old-style metal grating, then up in a cargo lift – the kind often used by interstellar shipping vessels. In all likelihood that was what this was, which meant it was probably a corporate ship. But which corporation?

  The whole ship looked big and functional and ugly – but even more so the cages, huge lockers with shelving units for cargo. The guards were muttering to each other about the locker numbers, arguing about who was supposed to remember what.

  “It’s 4563.”

  “No it isn’t, genius. Try again.”

  “4536 then.”

  “You were supposed to have this memorized by now!”

  “So were you!”

  Neffy made a point of remembering the numbers. They wouldn’t be able to reach the keypads from inside the cages, but it couldn’t hurt to pay attention. One of the men took his hands off Brad for a moment, and Neffy waited for him to do something. Brad caught his eye and shook his head just slightly. They were too heavily outnumbered and outgunned to make a move.

  The shelves in their cage were as wide as benches, so Neffy hopped up on one and sat down. I might as well rest. The guards locked the cage door behind them with a few meaningless parting insults. Brad remained standing and folded his arms. The two of them just looked at each other in total silence.

  CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE

  In the server stacks of the same old cargo vessel, Sergeant Alice Montgomery was waiting. She’d been waiting and listening for so many hours now that she almost felt like she was dreaming, lost in thoughts and memories. Most of these memories were of Neffy Klingerman and all the experiences they had shared together over the years. The memories hurt her, but she kept coming back to them. She couldn’t help herself. Her mind seemed to want to punish her for what she had done, even though she knew her suffering would never balance out the scales.

  At least she was in a position to do something about it now, as unexpected as that was. The first several hours after her attempt on Neffy’s life were the worst she could remember, tortured by guilt and regret. She would have done anything to undo her actions, but that was impossible.

  After Neffy went out the airlock, Ally’s intention had been to brave it out, cover up her role in what had happened, and count on her wits to get her through. Somehow she just hadn’t been able to make herself do it. Instead she hid on the Aegelweard for a time, but she knew all along that she wouldn’t be able to stay there. The Drewdonians would find her eventually and she’d be charged with murder. Knowing that her only chance of escape was to hitch a ride with another ship, Ally had stayed near the docking bay until she saw her chance. When a small delivery vessel from the Goliath corporation dropped off some supplies for the Drewdonians, she snuck on board and hid herself in a tiny crawl space. The delivery ship went back to its mother vessel, and she slipped out and looked for a good place to stowaway.

  That was how Ally had found herself on board the Goliath cargo ship, but she had learned so much since then. The easiest place for her to hide was among the server stacks, where no one would go except to fix a problem or perform routine maintenance. Without anything to do to help her pass the time, it was inevitable that she would eventually hack into the ship’s systems and start listening in. At first she didn’t hear anything except the usual chatter of a working ship, but eventually she stumbled on the circuit for the operations room and slowly pieced together what she heard them saying there. She couldn’t believe her luck, but somehow she had stowed away on the very ship behind the theft of the device and the kidnapping of Dr. Sacre!

  Hearing DeMarques and Raj-Henry talk about “Captain Klingerman,” Ally had learned that Neffy was still alive. The news was such a relief to her that she could have cried, but she was also terrified of what it meant. She had tried to kill him, and even if he didn’t know that for a fact yet he surely would. She knew he would never be her friend again, but she had to help him. It was the only way she could ease her guilt, even if only a little. If she ever saw him again she would tell the truth and deal with the consequences whatever they were. For now, she had to figure out how to help him somehow.

  Ally plugged her cord into the main server and resumed her eavesdropping. Ever since discovering the presence of Jesus DeMarques, she had focused her efforts on the secret control room. She knew they’d been trying to get their hands on Neffy for days and from the sound of it they might have succeeded.

  The first voice she heard was Raj-Henry, the fawning lieutenant with the Indian accent. “Yes, that’s right, sir. Package acquired.”

  What a ridiculous euphemism for taking a person prisoner. “Package acquired.” Both of them knew exactly what they were talking about, so why play games? It reminded her of the sort of person who had never served with the Federation military, yet who constantly tried to use military jargon. It was like they were playing pretend, but with very real consequences.

  The second voice was Jesus DeMarques. The man with the plan, as Ally thought of him. Oddly enough, his plans never seemed to work out as well as he expected them to. This voice was deeper and more confident, though Ally detected a hint of fear.

  “And you’re sure it’s the Federation negotiator? It wouldn’t be the first time he’s slipped through our fingers.”

  Raj-Henry’s voice had an unpleasant smugness. “Yes sir. They’re sure. They have him in holding now.”

  “Excellent. Where are they keeping him?”

  “In one of the unused locker cages. Commander Cramer is in there with him.”

  They must be talking about Neffy. Neffy was on the ship somewhere!

  DeMarques sounded impatient. “And what about the engineer?”

  “We’re still waiting for an update from the pilot, but we should have him shortly.”

  “That is unacceptable! We are running out of time here. We need to get everything in order and move out. We’re both lucky things haven’t been much worse already, but that could change at any time. I need Sacre on this ship immediately. See to it yourself, Raj-Henry.”

  “Yes, my lord.”

  Ally shook her head, befuddled. She still had no idea why Raj-Henry kept calling DeMarques that. Lords and ladies had nothing to do with the structure of Goliath or any other corporation. Was it some sort of personal fantasy about being the right-hand man to a feudal aristocrat? Did he want to be a flunky for one of the Borgia popes, or for a Byzantine emperor perhaps? Whatever the reason for it, it was one of the stranger affectations she had ever come across.

  The sound of approaching footsteps warned Ally to unplug and find a hiding place. She moved just in time, ducking behind one of the huge server stacks like a child crouching behind a library bookshelf in a game of hide and seek.

  She had been here for nearly a week so far and had managed to escape detection despite the fact that the servers were maintained more regularly than she had originally expected. Whoever was in charge of the servers always sounded heavy to her. Heavy footsteps and labored breathing. A large man slowly and ponderously moving from task to task. The lights came on, meaning that he had some task in this section of the stacks. Ally crouched in her hiding place, ready to move to another hiding place if she had to.

  The footsteps came closer, and she heard the sound of a plastic wrapper being torn open. Buttons clicked as they were pushed. Then the heavy footsteps moved away, and Ally breathed a sigh of relief. The lights went off, only to flicker back on again a moment later. The footsteps returned, and Ally panicked.

  Had she been discovered? Had the server maintenance guy heard something, or did he see something she left behind?

  She started moving, trying to stay one stack ahead of the footsteps. She knew it was probably a mistake to move, but she did it anyway – like a rabbit scared into bolting from its hole. The footsteps stopped again, and Ally stopped moving too so she wouldn’t give herself away.

  For the next few minutes, there was nothing but silence in the server stacks. If the man wasn’t moving, then he must be listening. Perhaps a vague suspicion, a sense of not being alone in the room. He’d be standing there silently, wondering if he was only imagining the whole thing or if there was really a stowaway. Ally tried to stay frozen, to return his silence with equal silence.

  The steps moved on and after a few seconds the lights went out. Ally ran back to plug into the main server and catch the rest of the conversation. Too late – it was over. What could she do?

  If she could figure out which ship would be bringing in Dr. Sacre, she’d have something useful to offer Neffy. She pulled up flight plans, data on ship sizes, cargo manifests – anything that might help her narrow it down. Once she had a few likely candidates, she focused on ships docking in the next two hours. There was only one, a four-person car with hyperdrive capabilities. She downloaded all data associated with the car and unplugged from the server.

  Neffy was in the cargo hold, so that part was easy. She knew she could get there through the ventilation ducts, and once she found him she could figure out some way to help him escape from the locker cages.

  That wasn’t the hard part. Avoiding Goliath personnel as she moved through the ship would be somewhat challenging, but that wasn’t really the hard part either.

  The hard part was Neffy. In just a little while, she would have to face Neffy and tell him what she’d done. Ally wasn’t real
ly scared of anything except for that.

  She had read the message he sent her over and over again, and each time hurt worse than the last.

  NEFFY: Ally, where are you? What happened with the airlock? Worried about you and want to help, but need to understand what’s going on here!

  Well, Neffy would understand soon enough. She screwed up her courage, popped the grill off one of the ventilation ducts, and slithered on in.

  +++

  “What about rescuing Captain Klingerman?”

  Commander Grace’s question had to be asked – it would be irresponsible of them not to consider it. But Flight Sergeant Thomas was not optimistic. “If we’re talking about rescuing him before he’s killed, we would need to know where he is in the first place. He’s most likely on a ship, but figuring out which ship will not be easy.”

  Grace pulled up a holoscreen and pointed at the data as it scrolled past. “This is a list of all the cargo ships currently in orbit around New Atlantia. My guess is that Klingerman is in one of these.”

  Thomas nodded. “That makes sense. The kidnappers wouldn’t have a warship; that would give them away. It stands to reason that they have him on a cargo vessel.”

  “So how do we narrow down the list?”

  “That’s exactly the problem. It would take days to thoroughly search even one of those vessels, and we don’t have days.”

  Commander Grace knew Flight Sergeant Thomas as a competent soldier and one who was always keen to excel at his job. His lack of optimism concerned her.

  “Are you losing hope on this one, Thomas?”

  “Yes, I am. I don’t see how we can narrow down the list in time to get him out.”

  Grace leaned back in her chair for a moment and closed her eyes, trying to see around the corners of the problem…“Wait. I have something. Neffy’s notes did say something about a correlation between Goliath ships and incidents of violence in some of the colony worlds. Are any of these cargo ships Goliath vessels?”

  Thomas perked up a little and examined the list. “It looks like there’s more than one, which is not surprising. Goliath is a massive corporation after all. They do a lot of the resupply for other vessels. Looks like the Drewdonian ship has a Goliath resupply contract.”