Wanderer's Escape (12 page)

We can't go to the Empire for help.  They won't care about a few slaves.  Why should they?  They keep so many themselves.  We have no strong allies, no strings to pull.  We only have one hope
– your ship.

We interrogated the prisoners.  They told us you destroyed an Imperial corvette.  That makes your ship more than powerful enough to put the fear of god into a bunch of miners.  Without it we will never see our people again.  I will never see my daughter, her husband or my grandson.  We are desperate, truly desperate.  So we have to do this.  We have your two friends, they are in a cell.  If you want to see them again, and unhurt, then you will do as we ask.  We don't want to take your ship but we must use it.  You will allow twenty of our security guards onto the ship and fly them to Stone Snake.  You will intimidate the miners with your ship's firepower then return with our people.

When you return with all our people your friends will be freed and all of you can go on your way, without any interference from us.  Please don't get any ideas about intimidating us.  You have no idea where your friends are and we are desperate.  Most people on the station lost friends or members of their family to the kidnappers.  If you take any aggressive action we will kill one of your friends.  Immediately.  The other will be held hostage for your cooperation.”

She stared intently at the screen for a moment.

“Please believe me, for the sake of your friends.  You have ten minutes to decide.  Out.”

The message ended.  Jess realised his hands were clenched into fists, anger was boiling in his chest.  The ship signalled that weapons were ready to be fired at the station, only the protocol he'd added before to prevent subconscious commands being executed had prevented them being fired.

“Jess!  Jess!”

He heard Matt shouting as if from a long way away, turned towards him in a daze.  Matt dragged himself up, grabbed Jess by the shoulders and shook him.

“Jess!” he shouted again.  “Listen to me.  Don't do anything.  I know you're angry but Sal and Ali need you to calm down.  Don't risk their lives!”

The words reached Jess but he still struggled for control.  Words failed him.  He pulled away from Matt and stalked around the room
– unable to stay still.

“
We can't let them do this.  We can't let them hurt Sal and Ali.  I'll rip the station apart if I have to.  I'll tear...”

As his steps brought him past Matt the old man lashed out, cuffing him around the head.

“For god's sake Jess!” he shouted.  “Listen to yourself.  What you're planning will guarantee their deaths.  These people are desperate.  We have to find the best way to deal with this.  I think we have to go to this mining station.”

“
What?”  Jess was shouting into Matt's face now.  “What?  Just do as they say?  Let their guards board and fly off under their orders.”

“
No!  No.  That would be a terrible idea.  Look kid – just calm down and listen to me for a minute.  I'm not saying we cave in.  But we need to think about how to get the best out of this situation.  Under no circumstances are we letting anyone on this ship.  Even if they're on the level now I can guarantee that when it came time to give up their control they'd find another reason to keep us under their control.  And another, then another and so on.  So, we don't let them on the ship.  Right?”

Jess fought down his anger, realising he was out of control.  He stepped away from Matt again, took a shaky breath then nodded.  Not trusting himself to speak.

“Right, so no one comes on board,” Matt said.  “But I think we are going to have to do as they ask.  Go to this mining station, put the fear of this ship into them and grab the kidnapped people.  Hell kid, they've been made into slaves.  You and I know what that means.  Maybe we'd have agreed to do this anyway, if the governor had asked instead of threatening.

So... we go there, get their people.  Once they're on board we make damn sure to keep them locked away from us then head back here.  At that point we've got the power.  They have two hostages, we have over a hundred.  Plus the firepower to tear their station apart.  They'll have to give us Sal and Ali, we drop their people off and then we leave
– blasting a few non critical bits of the station off on the way, if I've got anything to do with it.  How does that sound?”

Jess could feel tears coming, hating the feeling of helplessness.  Angrily he fought them back.

“We can't just leave them here though.  For four days.  What will they think?”

“
They'll know we're coming back for them.  That we'll get them out. That's one of the conditions I'll insist on.  That we have to speak to Sal and Ali before leaving.”

“
You'll insist on?  Why you?”

“
Kid... Jess.  Don't take this the wrong way.  You're angry as hell and damn near out of control.  That's understandable and it's no bad thing.  At your age I'd have been spitting teeth too.  But in a negotiation like this it's a weakness the other side will use.  I'm a lot older and a lot harder.  I'm still mad as hell inside, but I can negotiate this without them getting me so angry I make a mistake.  This is going to be tricky to pull off but I can do it.”

“
You're sure?  That they'll be safe?”

“
I'm sure.  These people are desperate but they aren't evil.  If we don't push them into doing anything the girls will be fine.”

Jess thought hard but he couldn't see any flaw in Matt's logic, and he couldn't think of any better ideas.  Reluctantly, very reluctantly, he agreed.

The governor fought hard against Matt's proposal but the old man refused to budge and in the end she agreed.  Matt had already warned Jess to stay off camera, especially while Matt spoke to Sal and Ali.  They couldn't let any sign of weakness be seen.  Watching Sal and Ali on the screen, watching them listen as Matt laid out the plan, without being able to talk to them Jess realised how much he'd come to care for both of them.  Love them.  Sal as a friend and Ali
– well, definitely as a friend but something more.  He wanted to protect both of them but Ali he wanted to wrap his arms around and never let go.  Once the screen went dead Matt had the sensitivity to busy himself and not comment on the tears running down Jess's face.

Several minutes later the Wanderer disconnected from Glory Falls station and pulled away.  Not wanting to give away the ships unique jump abilities they waited till they'd reached the normal clear distance then made the jump for Stone Snake mining complex.

Chapter Eleven

Matt continued his determined recovery from the operation.  Within a few hours of their departure from Glory Falls he was almost back to his old self, though he still needed to take more frequent rests.  Jess had stopped worrying that Matt would overdo things, more because he realised there was no way to prevent it than that he thought the danger was past.

The time stuck helpless had grated badly on Matt.  He told Jess how much he'd hated it, then went on to say how worried he was with only the two of them in the ship.

“
What if something happened to you kid?  You fall ill and we come under attack?  Or you're so ill the ship can't help and we need to get you to a doctor?  I need to be able to pilot the ship in an emergency.”

The arguments made sense to Jess.  Together with what Ali had told him about not doing everything himself, he was sure it was for the best.

“OK.  I can get the ship to format some basic controls so you can manoeuvre, dock if needed.  Weapons and combat will take a lot longer to learn and we'd need to be in real space for that time.”

“
That's fine kid.  Can we get started now?  I've been sitting around doing nothing for far too long.”

“
Sure.  Let's get up to the flight deck.”

Matt quickly learnt the controls – he said they weren't that different from other ships he'd flown.  For Jess the lessons took his mind off Sal and Ali, and off the reception they were likely to get at Stone Snake.  Before long he was back to worrying though.  Trying to find any flaws in Matt's plan or any areas he could improve.  He didn't find any.

Jess was a solid knot of tension as they neared Stone Snake.  Matt had decided they should drop into normal space a long way out.  Despite Matt's assurances that they could pull this off Jess wasn't sure.

“
I'm so glad you're with me,” he told his friend.  “I couldn't do this without you.  Couldn't have come up with this plan.  Thanks.”

Matt patted Jess's shoulder.

“You're welcome kid.  You're young, still quite naïve.  Nothing wrong with that – especially growing up a slave.  There's lots of people out there that would take advantage of you, run rings around you.  I aim to make sure that doesn't happen, not to mention getting Sal and Ali back as soon as possible. 

We've got a few minutes till real space then things are going to get intense pretty damn quickly.  I'm going to grab a drink now, you should too.  What do you want?
”

“
Just a juice please.”

“
Sure.  Back in a minute.”

Matt returned just in time for the return to real space, handed Jess's drink over and settled into his seat.  As Matt had predicted the mining complex was huge, with a number of bulk freighters docked and many smaller ships and shuttles on the move in the area.

“Damn.  Sometimes I hate being right.  Right kid, better drink that quickly.  Things are going to get real busy for us.”

Putting action to his words Matt downed his own drink in one.  Jess followed suit.  Suddenly the cabin started to spin around him and the floor felt like it was dropping away.

“Matt, I really don't feel...” he started to say.  Then everything went black.

Chapter Twelve

Jess groaned and struggled to open his eyes.  Blinking against the light the first thing he saw was Matt's face peering down at him.  Not the most pleasant of sights, but one that was incredibly welcome.

“What... what happened?” he managed to croak out.

“
You're OK?  I was getting worried about you there for a moment.  Take it easy.”

Jess struggled into a sitting position then just stared at his surroundings.  They were in some form of cell, his life as a prisoner meant he had no doubt about that.  The room was about three metres by two with a hard bed that he lay on, a toilet that was little more than a hole in the floor and nothing else. The floor was stone as was the ceiling and the walls.  A solid metal door was set into one wall with no window or bars.  Two small gaps in the ceiling supplied stale seeming air to the room.

“What happened?” he asked again.  “How did we get caught?”

“
We didn't.  You did.  By me.”

Matt looked sheepish as he spoke.  Jess just stared at him in disbelief.  After a pause the old man spoke again.

“You're too trusting kid.  Much too trusting.  And too naïve.  Someone was going to get the ship from you or get you, and so the ship, under their control.  And it was probably going to happen pretty soon.  Look what happened to Sal and Ali.  So if someone was going to get control of the ship I decided it should be us.”

“
Us?  What us?”

“
I know Stone Snake well.  I operated from here for years.  I know the people.  They are the closest thing to a family I've got.  The place is more than a mining complex, much more.  It's also a base for an organisation that gets involved in some less than legal actions.”

“
What?  Piracy?  Slave trading?”

“
Yes, and more.  I told you before kid – this is a tough universe.  The Empire makes sure of that.  The rest of us make do as best we can.  You and the ship are too good an opportunity to miss.  And if it makes you feel better at least this way the Empire will never get control of the ship.”

“
Nor will you.  Do you realise what this means?  Sal and Ali are going to be killed.  And it will be your fault!”

“
No they won't.  They're safe.  About the only chance of them being killed was if you'd started shooting up the station and hit the section they were in.  Threatening to kill one of only two hostages is useless, a sign of amateurs.  If they were serious the threat would have been to hurt them, maybe cut bits off.  Something that put pressure on you without wasting a hostage.”

“
What?  But you said they were in danger.  That we had to come here and... oh.”

“
Exactly.  I needed you to come here.  You were kind enough to teach me the basic controls on the Wanderer so once we dropped into normal space I gave you a drugged drink. As soon as you were out I contacted the station, explained about the ship and flew her in.  For some reason the ship wouldn't cycle the airlock with anyone else in it so I had to drag you out myself.  No fun I can tell you with the way I'm still feeling.  Once outside the others took you, brought you down here to this cell – which is fully shielded I should tell you.  Your link to the ship is cut.  We don't want it powering up weapons or anything else unfriendly like that.”