In Earth's Service (Mapped Space Book 2) Page 17

  “You’re not coming with us?” he asked.

  “We have one more to job do here, then we’ll catch the Link back.”

  “What job, Captain?” Izin asked.

  “Put the Consortium out of the arms business, at least for a while.”

  “How are you going to do that?” Hadley asked.

  “I’m going to blow up the Merak Star,” I said simply. It would take the Consortium at least a year to get a replacement ship sent out from Core System space. That would give Lena Voss and Earth Navy time to figure out how to put a permanent end to the Consortium’s gun running racket. It was the best disruption I could manage at short notice.

  “This is a big ship,” Hadley said. “How are you going to destroy it?”

  “An energy core collapse ought to do it.”

  Hadley’s eyes widened. “How big an explosion will that cause?”

  “Izin?” I said.

  He thought for a moment. “Based on the size of the energy plant, a collapse would generate a two kilometer hypocenter surrounded by a ten to twelve kilometer blast wave.”

  “That puts Hadley’s Retreat outside the danger zone,” I assured him.

  Hadley look shocked. “But you’ll destroy the cable station and the spaceport!”

  “Loport mesa itself will cease to exist,” Izin said.

  “More than that,” I declared. “If we time it right, we’ll vaporize the Cyclops as well!”

  The Merak Star was equipped with safeguards designed to protect densely populated Core System worlds from the kind of attack human religious fanatics had launched against the Matarons fifteen hundred years ago. Disabling them proved to be a slow process, made more difficult by Izin’s absence. We were far from finished when the ship’s sensors detected a large contact plunging through the atmosphere toward us. Soon thermal and optical images of the Cyclops’s dark cylindrical mass filled the bridge’s four screens, while heat blooms on her bow and amidships revealed she was coming down weapons hot. With her transponder off, the colony’s surface batteries should have been hammering away at her, but they simply watched and did nothing.

  “She’s got targeting beams on us and all eight gun emplacements,” Jase said.

  “Not exactly trusting are they,” I replied.

  The Cyclops set down close to the Merak Star leaving her weapons charged and her maneuvering engines on standby in case she needed to jump back to space at short notice.

  “Now what?” Jase asked.

  “We bluff,” I said, loading detonators into my gun. If it came to a fight with the Drakes, area effect exploding ammo would even the odds.

  We hurried down to number one hold and waited above the door-ramp as the ground cooled beneath the Cyclops.

  “Give them a good look,” I said, certain they had us on screen and were wondering where Nazari was.

  “You think they can see my knees shaking?” Jase asked lightly.

  “Act like an Orie merc. Make them believe you belong.”

  Jase assumed a swaggering bearing, leaned against the bulkhead and crossed his arms. “I belong everywhere!”

  A mechanical whir sounded from the Cyclops as its massive armored door lowered to the ground, then Anya appeared, followed by Domar Trask and his two O-Force bookends. They eyed us suspiciously as they approached, stopping at the foot of the cargo ramp. I opened my mouth, about to introduce myself, when Jase cut me off.

  “JAG-40s?” He said contemptuously, nodding at the weapons the three Orie mercs carried. He straightened, placing his hands on his hips. “I guess kissing Drake butt don’t pay well.”

  Trask’s eyes narrowed while his two cannon humpers bristled. I realized Jase had initiated some kind of Oresund ego-flexing ritual designed to determine who was the alpha of alphas. Either he’d get us killed or earn us some grudging respect.

  “I’d take one of these over those popguns you’re wearing,” Trask growled, taking the bait.

  Quick as a flash, Jase had both fraggers out and aimed at Trask’s head. “Are you sure about that now, squaddie?”

  Trask blinked, surprised at Jase’s speed and ready aggression. “I’m ready to put it to the test right now, if you are.” As he spoke, Julkka Olen and Stina Kron moved out to the flanks, placing distance between themselves and turning their guns on us.

  Jase gave him a cocky grin. “Anywhere, anytime, grandpa.”

  “Before you boys start blasting each other,” Anya said, “do you want to tell me where Captain Nazari is?”

  “He’s dead,” I said. “Binge snorted four stimhalers in one night. Never came out of it.”

  Anya’s eyes arched, but she didn’t look surprised. “I warned him about that stuff.”

  “A lot of people did,” I said.

  “What about Mouad?” Trask demanded.

  “He’s dead too,” Jase said with cold menace. “I retired him for letting Nazari die.”

  Understanding appeared on Trask’s face as he guessed Jase was the new Consortium hitman, sent to replace his failed predecessor, then he turned to me, “And you are?”

  “Sirius Kade, Nazari’s replacement. The Consortium gave me the job because I don’t use ‘halers and they don’t want any more mistakes.”

  “I’ve never heard of you,” Trask said bluntly.

  “That’s because I’m discreet.”

  Anya gave Trask a slight nod of approval, then the three Orie renegades lowered their guns. Jase made a show of twirling his fraggers and sliding them back into their holsters.

  “She just saved your life,” Jase said.

  Trask scowled. “There’s three of us and only one of you.”

  “Yeah, but I have two guns, which means I’d have shot you twice before they got me once.” He grinned, making a show of enjoying himself. He was so overbearingly confident, even I was almost convinced he lacked any fear. Not for the first time, I wondered how Oresund had developed such a strangely militaristic culture. Clearly, any sign of weakness was punished, while a reckless disregard for death earned respect.

  “So do you want the cargo?” I asked. “Or are we going to stand here all day arguing about who has the biggest pistol?”

  “We want it,” Anya said, “but there’s been a change of plan.”

  “What change?”

  “You’re coming with us to pick up the return shipment,” Trask said.

  “Why didn’t you bring it with you?”

  “It was too large for the Cyclops,” Anya said.

  “I don’t have orders to go anywhere with you,” I replied, taking a risk that no such order had been issued to Nazari.

  “You do now,” Trask snapped.

  “Go where?” Jase demanded, asserting his authority as the Consortium representative.

  “That’s not your concern,” Trask replied.

  “I’ll be programming your autonav,” Anya said. “You’ll never see the coordinates.”

  “You expect me to let a bunch of Drakes take control of a Consortium ship?” I asked.

  “The Consortium and the Brotherhood are both being well paid to follow orders,” Trask said. “If you have a problem with that, we’ll terminate your involvement now and take the ship.”

  His tone was a thinly veiled threat to terminate more than my contract, but it was his other words that shocked me. Neither the Consortium or the Brotherhood were calling the shots! They were both working for an unknown third party, someone with the resources to recruit both the largest organized crime syndicate in Mapped Space and the notoriously treacherous pirate collective.

  “I’m just doing what I’m paid to do,” I said, “looking after the Consortium’s interests.”

  “And I’m looking after the Brotherhood’s interests,” Anya said, “which is why we’ll be loading a bomb aboard your ship. It will detonate if you try to access the autonav or look at your destination’s coordinates.”

  I’d wanted to destroy the Merak Star, but not with us aboard!

  “How am I supposed to fly the
ship?”

  “You’ll have thrusters and maneuvering engines,” she said, “but no control over your bubble. It will activate automatically once you reach the jump off point.”

  Jase and I exchanged wary looks. We were about to become prisoners aboard a Drake controlled flying bomb, heading to coordinates unknown, to collect a cargo whose purpose remained a mystery while masquerading as Consortium agents.

  At least we’d be rid of Hardfall’s onerous gravity.

  “Two people aren’t enough to operate this ship,” Anya said suspiciously as her engineer knelt at the back of the bridge’s central console. He slid a spherical device inscribed with Chinese hanzi graphemes into the console and attached it to the Merak Star’s autonav. My threading had identified it as an orbital diver warhead, a weapon designed to destroy ground targets from space and more than capable of vaporizing the Merak Star.

  “There wasn’t time to recruit a full crew after Nazari’s death,” I replied.

  “What was wrong with the old crew?”

  “They wouldn’t serve on the same ship as him,” I nodded toward Jase who was watching the engineer, hoping to find a way to undo his work. “We’ve got enough maintenance bots to keep her going until I sign more crew.”

  The engineer looked up at Anya. “Ready.”

  She approached one of the control consoles, then motioned Jase and I to the far side of the bridge. Once we moved to where we couldn’t see the console’s interface, she entered our destination’s coordinates into the autonav.

  “Are you ready to launch?” she asked.

  “Why?”

  “I’m activating the autonav timer. When it runs out you bubble, ready or not.”

  If the ship’s superluminal bubble tried to form while we were still in space steeply curved by the planet’s gravity, it would be a very short trip. “I was planning to strip the port engine –”

  “There’s no time for that,” she said. “How long do you need to clear the planet’s gravity well?”

  “Two hours,” I said playing for time.

  “You’ve got thirty minutes.”

  “Nazari was a stimhead, not a maintenance engineer! That’s why we’ve only got one good engine. With the load we’re carrying, even if we burn thrusters all the way, we won’t make it. Either give us more time or detonate your bomb right now!”

  She gave me a long, dubious look, then relented. “You have one hour.” She entered commands into the console then closed the interface. “Don’t be late.”

  The Drake engineer leaned in to the open console, made a final connection, then replaced the rear panel. “It’s armed,” he said as he stood, turning to me. “If you touch the autonav or try to disconnect the bomb,” he smirked, “– boom!”

  “What happens at the other end?” I asked.

  “We’ll be waiting for you,” Anya said. “If you don’t show up, we’ll assume you did something stupid.” She followed her engineer to the bridge’s pressure door. “In case you’re thinking of jumping ship, the Cyclops will stay grounded until you launch. We’ve also disabled your lifeboat.”

  “You’ve thought of everything.”

  “You better get started,” she said, then headed for the corridor outside.

  When they’d taken the elevator down to the cargo deck, Jase removed the panel concealing the bomb. “There must be a way to disarm this thing.”

  “If there is, we don’t have the time or the skills to do it.” Even if we did, I wanted to see where we were going and what cargo Trask had waiting for us. “Start preflight,” I said as Anya and her engineer appeared on one of our bridge screens hurrying back to the Cyclops.

  “We’re going?” Jase asked surprised.

  “You heard the lady, we’ve got one hour,” I said, sliding onto the pilot’s acceleration couch and ordering the cargo door sealed. “Struts-up in two minutes.”

  “What about Izin?”

  “That depends on him.”

  Jase slid into the copilot’s station and began checking systems while I familiarized myself with the Merak Star’s flight controls. She was four times the mass of the Silver Lining with much greater internal volume, and by the look of her propulsion systems, she was underpowered. Flying on one engine would be tricky, but I had to make the Drakes believe I’d been telling the truth.

  “Ready,” Jase announced at last.

  We launched with the port engine feathering at twenty percent, climbing into the sky like a feeble elephant. Once we cleared the landing ground, the Cyclops blasted off. The old assault carrier was big and heavy, but she went barreling past us like we were standing still, eager to escape the vulnerabilities of being planet bound. She quickly reduced in size to a point of brilliant white light, shooting out of the upper atmosphere before we’d even cleared the stratosphere. While we limped skywards, feigning engine trouble, the Cyclops hurtled toward flat space, showing no interest in nursemaiding us away from Hardfall.

  “We can land after they bubble,” Jase said, “jump a cable car and let her blow.”

  “No we can’t.” When Jase gave me a puzzled look, I explained. “They waited for us to launch. Now that we’re committed, they’re leaving us behind because they know we can’t go back. The bomb must be rigged to explode if we land.”

  “Why didn’t Anya warn us?”

  “Because she’s testing us. If we go back now, we fail and the Consortium will be looking for a new ship.”

  Realization spread across his face. “What a bitch!”

  “Let’s see what’s happening below?”

  Jase oriented the sensors toward Hardfall Colony. All eight surface batteries were tracking us, but none made any attempt to stop us, or even offer a parting hail. Over at Hiport, the Silver Lining sat on the ground showing no sign of life.

  “Switch on the transponder,” I said.

  Jase looked puzzled. “Those grunts know who we are. They’re not going to fire.”

  “It’s not them I’m signaling.”

  Jase started broadcasting our identity while I kept our climb rate to a steady crawl, hoping the Cyclops wouldn’t get suspicious and Izin was paying attention. The Silver Lining remained asleep at Hiport while, to my relief, all eight surface batteries continued to track us. Better they were locked onto us than the Lining.

  “That stupid tamph’s got his head stuck in the processing core again!” Jase said.

  “He’s waiting.” Far out beyond the edge of Hardfall’s gravity well, the Cyclops vanished from our screens as it bubbled away. “For that.”

  The Silver Lining’s maneuvering engines immediately glowed to life. She lifted off, but instead of climbing, she power dived over the cliff toward the ground, leveling off at the last moment and heading north west, away from the colony. Her engines went to full power, sending her streaking fast and low over the plains. She was halfway to the horizon before Hardfall’s surface batteries began target locking her. The north side domes rotated slowly, bringing their guns to bear, but they were anti-orbital weapons not designed to track fast, ground skimming targets at close range. Agonizing seconds passed before the Hiport battery fired, sending a blast of energy flashing above the Silver Lining. Citadel’s northern batteries followed suit seconds later, but it was all too slow, too late. The Lining followed the planet’s curvature, putting ground between her and the big guns. When she was safely beyond the horizon, she stayed low for another five hundred clicks then began climbing, never letting Hardfall’s batteries see her.

  “Not bad flying for a tamph,” Jase admitted grudgingly.

  “I’ll tell him you said that.”

  “If you do, I’ll mutiny!”

  While we lumbered away, the Silver Lining cleared Hardfall’s atmosphere above the planet’s north pole and headed for deep space, keeping the planet’s bulk between her and the colony’s heavy weapons. Only once she was outside their effective range, did she begin a long curving trajectory toward us.

  Jase nodded to himself. “That’s why you were
playing for time! So Izin could catch us outside Hardfall’s range.”

  “I couldn’t leave my favorite tamph behind!”

  “So we’re transferring over?” he said relieved.

  “Nope.”

  We were halfway to the bubble point when the Silver Lining became visible to Hardfall’s space guns again, already further from the planet than we were. The surface batteries began firing as soon as they saw her, but their blasts dissipated with distance, flashing harmlessly against her battle shield. Soon the Silver Lining rolled bow over stern and began decelerating toward a point ahead of the Merak Star.

  We weren’t yet out of range of Hardfall’s guns and I didn’t want to make Izin’s job harder by taking evasive action, so I began transmitting on all channels. “Mayday, mayday, this is the Merak Star. We are being pursued by a hostile ship. Request assistance.”

  Jase gave me an incredulous look. “Skipper, what are you doing?”

  “Confusing the grunts. In their eyes, we’re the good guys. I don’t want them shooting at us.” We only needed to keep them scratching their heads for a few minutes, then we too would be out of their reach.

  Izin was listening and knew immediately what I was doing. His synthesized voice come back on all channels. “Heave too Merak Star and prepare to be boarded. We will open fire if you do not obey.”

  Jase shook his head slowly. “A pirate tamph! Now I’ve seen it all!”

  I smiled. “He does seem to be enjoying this.”

  “Merak Star, you are moving out of our firing envelope,” the same female controller who’d given us instructions on our arrival said. “Reverse course immediately. Enter orbit above Hardfall Colony’s meridian.”

  “Say again Hardfall! They’re jamming our communications,” I yelled, then switched off the communicator.

  I cut our engines, giving Izin an easy matching maneuver as we drifted out of range of Hardfall’s heavies. Izin immediately fine tuned his course, coming alongside a few minutes later. Hardfall stopped firing at the Lining for fear of hitting us, then I pumped the pressure in the stern cargo hold to ten atmospheres, released the magnetic deck locks holding the cargo in place then opened the hull doors on both sides. The hold explosively decompressed, hurling hundreds of containers full of Drake munitions into space.