With three more crewmembers at their back, they went to get their captive Damarg from the airlock.
Air flooded the shuttle bay.
“He’s going to talk. One way or another, he’s going to talk,” Colleen said, and Telford feared for her. He would do everything he could to prevent her from doing something she would regret for the rest of her life. But he hadn’t high hopes of succeeding. Not when it concerned the welfare of her husband.
The Damarg had recovered consciousness, and peered through the small viewport. When he saw the humans approaching in numbers, he turned around.
Colleen understood before anyone else.
“No!” she shouted, turned and ran back towards the Cargo Master’s Control Room.
Then Telford understood. He went up to the viewport just in time to see the Damarg disappear.
“No!” This time the word came out as a wail. He turned and ran to where she had collapsed.
CHAPTER 28
Rossiya
Scout-1 dropped out of hyperspace at Rossiya.
“Radio them.” Sean set course for Station Mir, and began acceleration.
Doreen dialed up the FTL frequency. “FTL Mir, this is Blue Powder Scout-1.”
“Scout-1, Mir FTL, go ahead.”
She took a deep breath. “Scout-1 reporting a pirate attack at Rossiya-Fandaff Waypoint 2.”
“At the waypoint?” She could hear the doubt in the voice. Pirates attacked at stations, within systems, not at waypoints.
“With three, repeat, three hyperspace-capable ships. Blue Powder sabotaged, unable to run or jump. Boarded. We need to mount a rescue mission.”
And if that didn’t cause a flurry of action in the FTL office, nothing would. However, by the time they could get ships together, convince them to go to a place where pirates could conceivably attack them, too, and return to the waypoint, would anyone still survive? Would the pirates have left Blue Powder, destroyed her, taken her with them?
“Who’s present?” Sean asked as they burned for Mir.
“One Tannon ship, two Treverstons, and a Fontaine.” Doreen looked up from the detector. “Think any of them will help?”
By the time they reached Mir, all four ships had begun unloading passengers and/or cargo.
Ken Treverston, FTL Rep on Mir met them at the dock.
“We’ve a meeting in the conference room.” He eyed them. “Everyone’s somewhat agitated.”
“I’d think so.” Sean didn’t want to hear it. He just wanted action.
“Any clue who?”
“Damargs. We had heard they had pirates, but that they didn’t operate outside of Damarg space.” Doreen sounded calm enough, but Sean put no faith in that.
“Mr Korsh never said anything about them having hyperspace-capable ships. At least not that I heard.” Sean wanted Treverston to walk faster. But one minute, more or less, would make little difference.
“When will the rescue party be ready to leave,” Doreen asked.
“Tomorrow. Maybe the next day.”
Sean froze. “That long?”
“They don’t want to take passengers into danger – as you might well expect. And they want to lighten their ships for better acceleration – just in case.”
“I’ll need to have my ship refuelled. I’m not waiting two days to head back.”
“Sean—”
“I’m not, Dor. They’re counting on us. If we’re even nearby, the pirates will think twice about destroying the ship after looting it – and it will take them a few days to completely empty the holds.”
“Talk to your Family Rep,” Ken said. “Right now, we want a briefing.” He opened the door to the conference room.
Sean had rarely seen a grimmer bunch.
“Tell us what you know,” Tanya Konstantin said as soon as the doors closed.
Sean began while Doreen plugged in her datastick.
“They targeted you out to twelve thousand kilometres?”
“And accurately. They have first-class detectors and fire control.” Sean could see that no one liked that idea.
Sylvie Yrden took the floor. “We have the answer in our history books. During the aftermath of The War, we had pirates who would hit us at waypoints, at stations. We started dropping slightly further out. The pirates sat near the beacons so that when we dropped we would find ourselves under their guns and missiles.”
And the discussion went in that direction – exactly opposite to where he wanted it to go. They had to get back to the waypoint, to find out what happened, to rescue survivors if they needed rescuing.
“Get some sleep,” Sylvie told him and Doreen. “Get some sleep. Tomorrow will come soon enough. When you wake, you’ll find Blue Powder’s scoutship ready to go. We’ll have decided upon a course of action. There’s nothing you can do right now.”
“We could start back.”
“No.”
And that ended that. Sean stalked off. Doreen caught up to him halfway down the corridor.
“We need to rest,” she said, “and not the four hours on, four hours off that we had on our way here.”
He refused to answer.
She took his arm and led him to the transient quarters, where they booked a room. Inside, she started taking off his jacket.
“I can do that myself.”
“We have our orders.”
“I ran out on them, took you with me.”
“You volunteered for what looked like a suicide mission.”
“We’re still alive.”
And if their friends weren’t, he didn’t know if he could ever forgive himself.
* * *
Doreen McTavish walked along the dock, seeing it busier than she had ever seen it before. Sean still lay asleep, which argued in favour of Sylvie Yrden’s order to spend the night. He ran on the very edge of collapse.
She yawned. Not that she did much better.
Blue Powder’s scout opened to her code, and she checked the interior before heading for the flight deck. Fuel checked out as topped up; the Yrdens had refuelled it while its pilots had slept.
She went through the checklist. Nothing caught her eye. As soon as Sean wakened and they received orders, they could leave. The detector, hooked in to the station’s feed, showed the four ships still in orbit, workboats plying their way between them and the station.
“Hello?”
“Sylvie?”
The Yrden rep entered and took a seat beside her. That didn’t bode well.
“When do we leave?” Doreen asked.
“In an hour,” Sylvie answered.
Doreen frowned. “What aren’t you telling me?” She had heard something in the Rep’s tone that unsettled her.
“You aren’t going back to Waypoint 2.”
Her stomach clenched. “Well, you can tell that to Sean, because I certainly won’t.”
“I’ll find you a new co-pilot,” Sylvie said.
“You’ll find another pilot, then.”
“Don’t make this more difficult than it already is,” Sylvie snapped. “But if you want it that way, I’ll give it to you that way.”
Doreen took a mental step backwards.
Sylvie continued. “Don’t you think I want to go, too? But I can’t. And neither can Scout-1. If we have armed raiders, hyperspace-capable, then everyone needs to know. If they are Damargs, then every ship skirting Damarg space needs to know.” She paused forcing Doreen to look her in the eyes. “And we have an Yrden ship scheduled into Daiovan Station en route to Pallinteth with both cargo and several Families’ reps for the new trade desk. They absolutely need to know.”
Doreen collapsed inside. “And you want us to tell them.”
Sylvie checked her chrono. “And whoever pilots Scout-1, here, will inform them – and drop the news at every station and waypoint buoy on the way there, and on the route back, which will differ. This needs to go wide, fast.”
“Before anyone else gets caught; I understand. I’ll tell Sean.” It wouldn’t do
their partnership any good.
“No, I’ll tell him. As Yrden Rep, here, that’s my job.” Her face softened. “You have to fly with him. Better that he hates me than you.”
Doreen turned off the detector, and the icons of the other ships vanished from the NavTank, as she turned it off, too.
“Hey, what about the scouts on the other ships?” Why should Blue Powder’s scout get singled out.
“Two of them have already left in other directions. The third leaves in an hour.” Sylvie stood. “Like I said, wide and fast.”
“At least that will take some of the sting out of it. I suggest you start there, and then give Sean our orders.”
“Thanks. I’m going to tell him now. You get this bird ready to soar.”
Doreen turned the NavTank back on. She had just finished the checklist when Sean walked in, angry.
“Have you heard?”
“I’ve heard.”
“That rep. One of these days I’m going to—”
“Do nothing. She’s right, and you know it.”
“Our friends—”
“Would want us to warn their friends and families. Or do you think Brian, with whom you shared everything on Blue Powder back when we joined, would thank you for allowing his family to jump unwarned into a pirate trap?”
“You fight dirty.”
She laughed. “I don’t want to fight at all. We have a job to do. Let’s do it.”
Sean took his seat. “Right. Kick off the station as soon as you have clearance. Wake me up when we get to the jump point.”
He leaned back in his seat.
Doreen took them out, and did a mild burn to accelerate them nicely – without waking Sean.
Two hours into the flight, she shook him awake.
“Not there already?”
“Something’s dropping. Nothing’s scheduled for the next two days.”
Both of them looked at the detector screens, waiting. They got a return, a ship coming in at a high rate of speed.
“She’s moving!” Sean turned to the NavTank to look at her projected course, but his head whipped back at Doreen’s gasp.
The icon on the detector read: Blue Powder.
CHAPTER 29
Blue Powder
Adrian Telford ran to Colleen, as she appeared about to collapse on the deck of Hold Number 1. Her knees started to buckle, but he reached her first.
“Captain Yrden,” he said. “Your orders?”
She blinked twice, and then he saw her pull herself together. “Clean the ship. Mr Telford, you are now in charge of Security. Investigate. See what you can find. I’m going to the bridge to figure out where the pirates had intended on taking us.”
“Yes, Captain,” Telford said, not showing his relief. He turned to the others. “You heard the Captain. Let’s get the ship cleaned.”
He turned to the Cargo master. “Mr Yrden, we’ll need a check of each hold against manifest. Find out exactly what they took. I’ll need it for my report.”
Gerard nodded. He turned and watched Colleen walk out.
“Thank you, Mr Telford.”
“For what?” He turned to the other crewmembers. “We’ll need to bring all the bodies down here before we let the passengers out of the Catastrophe Core. We’ll set up a temporary morgue.”
Telford checked each room that the Damargs had used, but found nothing of interest in any of them. Then he began the dirty job of checking each body. Some had documents. He recorded each face, and listed the possessions of each, though he could read nothing. Perhaps one of their Pagayan contacts might translate the documents for them.
“We’ll put the bodies in one of the cold storage units,” he told Gerard after he had inspected everything.
On the way to the bridge to report, he saw the final mopping up of the blood on the deck where humans and Damargs had died. Inside the bridge, the deck looked clean, and he hoped that Brint and Al Waxman had done the cleaning before Colleen arrived. She didn’t need to see any reminders of the violence on the bridge.
“Well, Mr Telford?”
“Everything taken care of as far as I can take it. Bodies in a makeshift morgue in the cold storage unit of Hold Number 1. I have the personal effects of the Damargs gathered together – each labelled according to the respective body it came from. Can’t make head nor tail of them. Other than that, I’ve found nothing of any use.”
“We’re going to Rossiya.”
“Good. Ms Pendleton needs more than we can give her here,” Telford said. “And we owe – I owe.”
“We owe,” Colleen agreed. Her voice went cold, harsh. “I’m going to—”
“Captain Yrden, if I could see you in your Day Cabin?”
“Brint, you have the bridge.”
“I have the bridge.”
“What is it, Adrian?” she asked, and Telford felt a wave of relief go through him. The cold ‘Mr Telford’ she had used had worried him.
“Perhaps best not to make threats on the bridge, Ms Yrden,” he said. “Take the time to think over what we can do, what we need to do, before committing the ship to action.”
She went cold on him again. “I know what we need to do. We need to find and kill those who did this. We need to find Clay and the others they took.”
So, she would not admit that they had probably been killed. He had heard the shooting on the bridge, Clay’s last gasp, before Korsh cut the InShip.
“Very well. We need to find our missing crew – or their bodies – and to bring the Damargs to justice. Agreed. However, you also have a personal duty to perform.”
She raised her eyebrows, her face a frown.
“Yes?”
“We know that some of the crew died. Teemo has a wife. Bev needs to be told. Your children need to be told that their father is missing. Those of the crew need to be told of our losses.”
Her mouth opened, but no words came out.
“The Captain has duty, also. You must get Doctor Yrden to declare Teemo Yrden and Jerry Parsons dead. Death Certificates. The others must be listed as missing. You’ll want to send communications to both Family and the families of the otherhires. You are Blue Powder’s Captain.”
Colleen Yrden sat down in the Captain’s chair.
“Thank you, Adrian. Yes, I have duties to perform. Will you stay?”
“As long as you like.”
“You’re a good friend, Adrian.”
But he didn’t want to be a friend. To bring that up now, however, would constitute the worst of all possible actions. Until she could admit that Clay had died in defence of Blue Powder, he could do nothing that wouldn’t look opportunistic.
“I’ll call the Doctor Yrden for you,” Telford said, and went to the comm.
* * *
Blue Powder entered Rossiya space blazingly fast. Colleen watched the NavTank flicker and settle as it received information from the detectors.
“Captain,” Brint Yrden called out, “our Scout-1 is outbound.”
“Call them.”
“Sean?”
“Colleen?” Sean sounded both surprised and elated. “We were worried. We have four ships forming a rescue party – heading for your last known co-ordinates.”
Good of them. Late, but still, they had dropped everything. “I’ll call them up and thank them. Where are you going?”
“Daiovan with information about the pirate raid. We have a ship there bound for Pallinteth. Then Sylvie Yrden ordered us to return here via another route – to spread the information.”
She considered that. “Continue on. But wait for us at Daiovan.” She paused a moment. “Sean, we’ve lost friends. Minimum two dead. Eighteen more missing. Clay’s one of the latter.”
A long silence came from the other end. Finally Doreen’s voice came over. “I’m so sorry, Colleen.”
She couldn’t deal with pity at the moment. She had to stay focused. “Thank you. I’m including a report which you can add to the info drops as an attachment. That’s all. Stay safe.
Blue Powder out.”
“Brint, contact Mir, get me Sylvie.”
“Yes, Captain.”
She appreciated the formality. Perhaps Mr Telford had a point in maintaining distance from everyone.
Sylvie’s face appeared in her screen. “Thank God, Colleen. It’s good to see you and Blue Powder.”
Colleen went straight to the point. “We lost twenty Family and Crew, Sylvie. We have two bodies. The Damarg raiders took the rest. We don’t know anything of their condition.”
Sylvie gasped.
“Here’s what I need. One: Ms Pendleton, a passenger, took a bullet in defence of the ship. She’s in a bad way. Organize a trip to a hospital – I’ll send Gunther’s records. Two: I’m dropping all passengers and cargo here at Rossiya as soon as I get there. You’ll have to organize their ongoing itinerary. If any of the ships already docked can take them, then we’ll book passage for them if they want it. Otherwise, we’ll need to do as Starfield did – call on other Yrden ships to cover for us. Three: I’ll want to refuel as soon as I dock. Then I’m returning to Daiovan – and to Pallinteth after that.”
“You’re not serious.”
“Deadly serious. If the Damarg Trade Desk at Daiovan can’t help me, then I’ll take it up with their officials at Pallinteth. If they can’t help me, I’ll go higher.” She needed to forestall any objections. “This can’t wait. Every minute we delay will allow the pirates to get farther away. I’m going and not waiting for Jenna to approve.”
“I can’t recommend this.”
“Then don’t. And you know Jenna wouldn’t hesitate, either. Can you do the job, or should I contact the other ships myself?”
Sylvie’s head went back. “I can do the job.”
“Good. I’ll attach a full report on the attack. See that the other ships get it. We want this spread. We haven’t seen anything like this in over four hundred years.”
“We’ve already sent out word. Old rules in effect: drop further out from waypoint buoys.”
“Good. Finally: I’m sending a list of our missing and dead. We need to inform next of kin – where next of kin aren’t already on Blue Powder. Two confirmed dead, eighteen others missing or dead.”
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