Angeleyes - eARC (29 page)

“Controller Ambril, I must officially ask you to lay off. We need to minimize talking.” He cleared his throat slightly, then said, “Maven, Mav, please, we’re fine.”

“Sorry, Lou. I needed to check. You’re cleared for departure. Have some honey tea and get better.”

“We will. Thank you.”

Pneumatics started shoving us off.

Juan said, “I’m not assuming they’re convinced. Ultimately, the live crew might save ours, though I’d rather we all got away than wound up prisoners.”

“Where are we bound?” I asked.

“We’re going from here to Alsace and Chersonessus to continue bonafides, then resume combat if we can. If not, the backup is to cause minor mayhem wherever possible, disrupting operations, until caught, and beg for status.”

I was trusting them to make that unnecessary, because I couldn’t think of a way that didn’t result in our deaths. Then I realized I was completely over the fear. Either we died or we didn’t. It was just the nature of things. Then I was scared that I wasn’t scared.

I remembered when I was young and tried to have the longest orgasm I could. After a couple of segs, I could still feel vibrations and neural response, but there was no more cortisol in my system. It was just an irritating buzz. This was like that.

There was another brief run-in connecting the train. It was automated, but Roger had to be out to sign off. The station crew didn’t recognize him. He pleaded being a sub on contract. They seemed to accept it.

We got under way, with a bunch of Mo’s hand-built sensors giving us every spectrum possible. If someone came at us, we wanted to know.

With all the post-launch taken care of, we had to try to create good relations with our captives, and find a spot for Bert.

I found a chunk of foam and a box I could insert it in for Bert to dump in, and he was quite happy at the foot of my bunk. The little snit was getting a touch of gray at his muzzle and eartips. I wondered how old he was and how long he had left, assuming we didn’t blow up together.

That really didn’t take long, and I wandered aft. Shannon and Mira had C-deck, Bast and Mo had stern, the rest of us were freeish and went to check on Juan’s discussions with the former crew.

He unlashed them and had them sit on the bunk and the deck.

“First, let me assure you of your safety at present. We have tried very hard to avoid collateral casualties, and would prefer to avoid them now. You will be fed and kept safe for as long as our resources permit, and transferred off board as soon as is feasible. I apologize for any roughness in our transition, and our medic will be happy to treat any injuries or discomfort you have.”

The guy I figure was captain-owner said, “This is still piracy, sir.”

“The last time it was only commandeerment. This time it most . . . likely is piracy. I will make no apologies. You can assume our origin and purpose. We hope and intend to all come through this alive, with the ship intact. We do not require your cooperation to achieve that, but we recommend not trying to hinder us. You are not combatants. We are. If you act as partisans, then you can be treated as hostiles. Your position is not great.”

The captain asked, “And what is your ultimate goal? Be specific, sir.”

I liked him. He might be our prisoner, but he was still captain of his ship. Good man.

“To continue our operations. Had we been able to just take your ship without you, we would have. It would have been simplest to space you all on departure, but I would prefer not to kill civilians. Please accept that and act with grace.”

The woman cuddling the two year old and ten-year-old looked like they were all cried out.

She said, “I want my children to live. Whatever you need . . .”

He said, “I want them to live, too, Ms. Keral. It wasn’t our intention to take children. The manifest we had didn’t show them.”

She and the captain exchanged looks. They were still scared, but it was true, if we needed them dead, we would have done it already.

Juan said, “I will place a vac gap a frame forward of here. Please don’t attempt to cross it. Food will be brought to you. Engineer, vac gap a frame forward.”

Bast replied over intercom. “Yes, sir.”

Flight through to Alsace was unhindered, but the ship was a relic. I almost thought they’d be better off if we put them off and scuttled it. Half the kitchen elements had taped repairs. I felt engine rumbles now and then. Mira cursed something in another language. There were deep scratches near my bunk where years of stuff being moved about had worn away at the bulkhead. One of the locks had a nonstandard replacement switch. It worked, but it wasn’t able to be secured. But that’s why I carried a lock pin. Although I’d rarely used it for its intended purpose.

I took food through to them personally for breakfast and dinner, and made sure they had cold goods for lunch and late night. I rationed out sweets for the two children.

My first trip, dinner, they thanked me but ignored me otherwise. At breakfast I asked what they wanted for dinner, and they settled on beef stew. I asked about breakfast when I took that.

They liked the stew. “That was good,” the captain said at breakfast. “Thank you.”

“You’re welcome. I’m sorry you’re stuck where you are.”

The boy asked, “When are you leaving our ship?”

That was a tough one, and I really didn’t want to disappoint him.

“I don’t know. I’m only crew, not in charge. I was with another ship before this.”

“Are you a prisoner too?”

“No, but I’m noncombatant. It’s complicated.”

I left, because I didn’t want to let anything slip.

CHAPTER 36

By the time we reached Alsace JP1, Les Atterissages, they were in decent spirits and seemed to accept we weren’t a threat to them.

But I remembered the plan had been to kill them as needed.

When we arrived, we had contracted cargo and loaded it. Juan made specific inquiries with the real crew.

“Is there anyone we’re supposed to know, or names we’re supposed to use? Your safety depends on this as much as ours.”

Captain Lou said, “There’s a list of ships who know us. You’ll need to avoid them. I don’t think anyone at control knows us personally.”

“Can you tell me which ships?”

“You tell me, I’ll check them off.”

I really hoped they weren’t going to try to be heroic. I wanted them to live.

We pulled out with no trouble, but we were a bit low on load. The contracted stuff was aboard. We hadn’t stuck around to try to fill capacity. We did the usual news/data transfer as we jumped through.

Two jumps with no action did reduce my stress level. Just because I’d accepted impending death didn’t mean I liked it. I felt much better after those jumps.

Then we docked at Pyli—Gateway, in Chersonnesus, brand new on their only jump point, though a direct one to Earth was due to open in a few months.

There were cops and inspectors waiting as we locked.

In what seemed like ten seconds, Teresa and Jack handed us pistols and ammo. He also handed me a scarf.

“If it’s legit, we’ll take those back at once,” she said.

I wrapped the scarf over my head and loaded the pistol.

Juan asked, “Do you know a safe hole outside entry control?”

“I think so.” Again, I’d been here rarely.

“I hope so.”

He went to the lock personally, and I heard the ranking woman present him with a warrant to inspect, for both contraband and standard safety requirements. That seemed like something we could argue our way out of, if we didn’t have a kidnapped crew aboard.

He stepped back and ushered them in, turned, took a pistol that Teresa held ready, turned back and started shooting.

It was so eerily like the previous fight, only out of the dock, not in.

By the time I reached the lock, all six were dead and I think it was Juan who got them all—headshots.

I ran to keep up with the team, and I’ve never seen anyone move so fast. The techs and I brought up the rear. We bounded down the ramp at 70% G, went past another lock, and someone rolled a smoke grenade into it. We kept going, and it turned into a huge, confusing mess for everyone else.

I’m sure some of those grenades killed bystanders. It was a panic evacuation and they were using it to create more mayhem.

I wondered later if that was the primary intent at that point. We probably could have made it off the dock before anyone really noticed. The shots weren’t that loud with the loads we had, and industrial noise is common in docks.

Twenty seconds in, though, there were several explosions, three ships with smoke and a couple of other things smoking. Then I saw a fire flare up on a tug, from an incendiary.

They were just unloading ordnance as fast as they could.

I have no idea how they ran that fast. I was last and gasping as we reached entry control, and the monitors there were dead. At least one had a broken neck and the rest had been shot.

“This way,” Jack said, and pointed.

They had scattered into a crowd that didn’t yet know what was happening. The alarms finally started going off just then.

They were still wearing hats and scarves.

As we rounded a corner, Roger, next to me, peeled his jacket, wadded it and stuffed it into a trash can. I was only wearing a shipsuit, no jacket.

Then Teresa pulled my scarf off and handed me a poncho. I shimmied into it. It was a brown that went well enough with the coverall, and made it less obvious it was a coverall.

There was a maintenance room here, or should be. I didn’t have a code for it, but I figured Jack did.

There was. I turned to it and barely pointed. Jack came up and went to it, and had it open in moments. It wasn’t majorly locked.

I went in first and almost ran into a pair of maintenance guys. I stopped and stared, they stopped and were about to say something, when Roger and Glenn came past me and put them on the ground, unconscious but probably still alive. Probably.

Shannon asked, “Does this go anywhere?”

“Into maintenance space.”

“Not ideal, but lead us out to main passages.”

Everyone was changing. Mira yanked off my poncho and handed me a stylish turban. She then started spraying a dye that turned my coverall a dull purple. That was one of the service colors.

I turned, she finished spraying. Teresa slapped patches on the two unconscious workers to keep them out. The guys were mostly changed into casual business wear. I hadn’t seen a bag.

I led the way, they all had viewplates out. I made up some dialog as I went.

“The conduits are one of the items on your list. I’d like your opinion on them, so please note them for followup. The locks and latches are functional, but an upgrade wouldn’t be a bad idea . . .”

I took a cross passage, then turned north along the axis and found a door to main passage.

Shannon had a sterile phone out—either we had a crate of them, or acquired lots as we went—and said, “There’s a Shelton sotel not far from here.” He increased his pace and pulled ahead.

By the time the rest of us reached it, he’d logged into a room. He left some kind of sign and Roger took me to the room. The others arrived a few minutes apart.

It was a king suite with a second parlor, big enough to hide us for a bit.

Food arrived by delivery. There was stir fry, sausages, burgers and crab cakes. I started munching because I suddenly realized I was hungry. The guys and Mira were voracious. Those insane sprints had taken a lot of energy, I figured.

The news mentioned us, but the images they had were terrible quality, and didn’t really show us. They had some older pictures of us, but a bit of hair and makeup work would fix that. They admitted to having no clear DNA signatures. Their descriptions came down to us looking like average people. They called us, “Notorious terrorists with professional training from the Grainne rebel paramilitary.”

They claimed twelve of us.

Juan clicked on a noise generator/damper field of some kind and started briefing us.

“This is as far as we go with ships. They’ve cracked down to where we can’t effectively do anything. From here on, we will travel independently as crew and passengers. We have less than a month to reach several locations. Angie, I’m including you in this because you’ll be acting as courier. Also, as commander, I want to officially thank you for your support and assistance. I would estimate you personally made us at least fifty percent more effective, and we learned a lot from you in the process. You were absolutely critical to the missions.”

“Thank you . . . sir.”

“So,” he said, “we have orders for a pending major offensive. We’ve got a short time to reach three of Earth’s jump stations if we can, and we’re going to dispatch personnel to each.”

“Alright. And no ship?”

“No, it’s no longer safe. We’ll either fly contract or pay funds out of pocket using emergency IDs.”

“So what are we inserting for?”

“You’re not. We are. You will courier information home. Our orders are to disable the stations to hinder logistical lines.”

I chuckled. “I can’t wait to hear how two or three of you are going to disable a station.”

No one laughed back. Juan just stared at me, while the others looked around at each other.

I realized I’d make a really bad joke at a bad time. How were two or three people going to disable a station? They were going to render it uninhabitable . . . while aboard.

“Goddess, you’re not serious.”

“You’ve seen images from back home,” he said. “You know some of what ships we’ve lost. There isn’t much left. Either we stop their infrastructure now, or we go under.”

“So you’re going to . . .”

“Render their infrastructure unable to transfer materiel, or to process jumps.”

I didn’t know how they’d do that, but I knew what the result would be.

“Gods dammit, you’re all going to die!” I shouted at him.

“We know,” he said. “I am so sorry we find ourselves here.”

“I’m coming along,” I said. I was terrified of dying, but more afraid of leaving them. They were my people, the only people I’d had in a decade.

He said, “Your offer is appreciated, but I need you elsewhere. You will help maintain crew manifest and manual operations. You will deliver our post action reviews.”

I was relieved he said that, but wanted to argue, but didn’t really, and felt sick and cowardly for being relieved, and angry that I wasn’t included, and angry with myself for being all whiny when they were the ones on a suicide mission.

Teresa handed me a flask. It had some strong liquor in it, and I took a gulp and choked.

Juan said, “I think our odds are good for the mission, and for the war concluding. We actually have acceptable odds of surviving. We’re not just blowing the stations up.”

He was trying to reassure me. To take down command and control with all its redundancy, emergency power and O2, and hinder the docks, meant bombs and structural damage with air leaks. If they actually took a station down . . . I’d seen what happened when a habitat tried to evacuate. If the Jump Point was down they were going to swim around, because not all those ships are in-system capable. Even if they were, those are long trips. That’s assuming they were able to undock, or had enough time to board evacuees. They probably had to just slam locks and blow out before they got caught in the failure.

There are no small disasters in space.

Then, every UN troop and monitor would be looking for them, hard. I figured they’d snag anyone the slightest bit questionable. Even if they didn’t space them all immediately.

I nodded, though, lying that I believed his lie, so he could lie to himself that he’d reassured me.

His plan called for two each of the main six to deploy to each station. Mo and Jack would set up on the NovRos side of that point. Teresa was going to Caledonia, and would go somewhere then. At that point, I was released from obligation and could report back if we won or go obscure with a sanitized ID if we didn’t.

He was completely calm. They were going to blow up chunks of three stations, damage two others, kill hundreds of enemy personnel, a lot of them noncombatants, and probably collateral some civilians. Even if they didn’t die, if they got caught, they weren’t going to get a trial. They’d be “lost during the attacks they caused” or something.

But he sounded like he was discussing dinner plans.

The evening was spent drinking strong liquor. No one got drunk, but they did drink enough to act as a tranq. There was Sparkle in use, too. I took a dusting, because I knew more would be bad.

Honestly, I was surprised we’d lived as long as we had. We . . . they, had really torn up some infrastructure for the size of the group, and for very little money, since we’d done it around shipping contracts that offset some of the cost and neutralized all the transport expenses.

I went into the back parlor to collect my thoughts. I’m not religious, but I needed to center, ground and meditate.

I was on the couch. A bit later, Mira came in, quietly, gave me a questioning look, nodded and folded out the bed. She took one side and lay down.

I heard her sobbing. I wasn’t going to say anything, if she didn’t ask. She didn’t.

I lay back on the couch and dropped a Nitey Nite. I wasn’t going to sleep without one.

“Lights ten,” I said.

I slept badly. They weren’t nightmares, but they were weird, ugly, shapeless dreams, and I couldn’t wake up.

When I finally did jolt awake, I looked around in 10% light and Mira was already gone. Teresa was in the bed, sleeping and twitching and muttering. Poor woman.

There was a note on my pillow, hand written on a piece of food box.

Thanks, Angie. You were professional and courageous beyond your calling, and a fine shipmate and friend. Make sure you destroy this. Mira.

We’d never interacted much off duty. I really wanted to keep the note as a souvenir, but it would be a bad idea. She was right.

I tore it into tiny shreds and pocketed them in three napkins to drop into trash later. Then I thought about it and chewed and swallowed them in a handful of water.

Teresa woke up with a stiffening twitch.

“Morning,” I said, to reassure her where she was.

“Hi,” she replied, and rolled out. She went into the bathroom. I needed to go but I could wait a bit, and we’d always been good about not hogging time.

I opened the door to the main parlor to check on the guys, and saw they were pretty much ready. I realized that everything had been left on the previous ship. The only gear we had was those things we’d picked up or acquired on this leg. Packing was depressingly easy.

They looked up, I nodded and closed the door to leave them to it.

“I’m out next,” Teresa said.

“Good luck. Really, really good luck.”

“Thank you,” she said very seriously. “I want to ask something before I leave.”

“Go ahead.”

She blushed and shifted.

“It’s not appropriate. Never mind.”

“How long have we been around, Teresa? I’ve done your makeup and dress. You patched me up after I was beaten and naked. Hell, I’ve kissed you.”

“Yeah. That was good, actually. I . . . one for the road?” She blushed even more.

Oh.

I asked, “What, kiss? Or bed wrestle?”

Her eyes flared and she heaved her chest. She really was interested in me. I was flattered, and if she wanted to, sure, I would enjoy it well enough and she deserved it.

“I better stop with the kiss,” she said. Then she stood there, hesitating.

I pulled her shoulder, and she clung to me while locking mouths. She really did want more. But we didn’t have time and she had her reasons.

I think it was the closest embrace I’ve ever had. I could feel her pressed against me from knees to head. She felt tiny like this. And warm. Her hands gripped my shoulders, then ran down my back and over my ass. She settled them on my hips.