Back From the Dead (29 page)

“Sure,” Helton answers. “Try them, up to 99% of whatever Stenson says their max is, just to see if they can do it. If it looks like they can’t, then lift on the Harmon drives.”

“Alrighty, here we go.” He works the controls and twist the yoke. The readouts rise slowly through the green up into orange, getting close to the red. On their screens, the curve of the planet slowly changes as they clear atmosphere.

“They are calling us,” Allonia says. “Something about having to return to the facility?”

“Don’t answer,” Helton orders. “On screen.”

The Warehouse Master appears on a side screen, apoplectic, yelling, and angry. “You MUST return to the warehouse IMMEDIATELY! You do NOT have proper clearance to lift! You are in violation of the hazardous material disposal act, and you MUST return this INSTANT to unload until you have the proper forms filled out! You are NOT cleared to LIFT or UNLOAD or DISPOSE of ANY of that Material until proper procedure has been followed! You MUST come back THIS INSTANT!”

Helton motions Allonia to cut the transmission.

“Like I said, way too easy,” Lag says. “He didn’t get dumped there. He got set up for life there.”

“That explains the brother who is an environmental law judge,” Bipasha realizes. “He passes summary orders against ships hauling stuff to or away from the facility. Makes shaking them down easier. The longer a buyer is stuck there, the more they can take. Likely we’re not the first buyer of that ‘amazingly good deal’ on ammo.”

Lag nods. “If we go back, he’ll make us unload by hand, inspect everything, charge us twenty-percent plus and overtime, and impound the ship until he gets his ego soothed that we managed to load and lift before he finished his night’s sleep. Or just take the payoff and keep the ammo. He expected to have a lot more time.”

“If they have a judge’s order,” Bipasha says uncertainly, “even if it’s not really the most legit thing…”

Cooper is more openly skeptical. “We could land, but–”

Kaushik shakes his head firmly. “Once in their hands, we lose all control over our lives until they are done messing with us.”

“No, don’t go back,” Allonia says. “Not if they are going to lock us up.”

“Unanimous enough,” Helton decides. “Seems there is a lot of atmospheric interference with radio signals. Cooper, make a course that’ll clear the system as soon as possible.” He looks at Lag. “Any direction?”

“You’ll want to avoid any of the Emirate navy, especially the cruiser
Hussein
. It may not get involved in a local squabble, but–”

“That’s the one his uncle is the commander of!” Bipasha exclaims.

“Ah. In that case, I think we can assume it’s one big happy family, and the
Hussein
will get involved. Last known location was near the outside gas giant. It’s supposed to have the new interceptors I was trying to find out about. I’m sure they’d love to get a chance to push an old freighter around.”

“Let’s hope we don’t find out too much about them the hard way,” Helton says. “Get an exact fix if you can, plot a fast course–”

“With an extra four thousand tons and only two engines, there are no fast courses in this bucket!” Cooper objects.

“Plot the fastest
possible
course that avoids the cruiser, and any other Emirate Navy ships they might call, and gets us out of the system. Let’s just hope they’re not very efficient at passing orders.”

“Really, Stenson?” Helton says over the intercom. “Now?”

Stenson has the guts of a hunk of hardware spread out on a work cradle in Engineering. “Efficiency was dropping fast. They needed some major adjustments.”

“How soon?” Helton demands.

“All offline for at least a day before I get the first one up, then another few hours or so each for each of the other two.”

“Shit. Well, at least the Sokolovs are moving us. If there is
anything
anyone can do to help…”

“Coffee, room service, and any spare induction coils you can find that match the specs on the number three coil from the Harmons. I may need your hands if you can be spared in a little while. Oh, and if you plan on running low-profile, you might want to zero out the settings on the transponder.”

“I think we should be named
Inigo Montoya
, registered in
You Killed My Father
. Class
Prepare to die
. Or should I just turn it off completely?”

“Better to just blank it to default zero so it doesn’t broadcast. If they ping us, it tells them NO DATA for all fields. Shortest possible burst back. If it’s totally disabled, then it stands out like a light to any other ship we pass, screaming ‘we are trying to not be identified!’ NO DATA looks more like a malfunction.”

“We could try to be badass, and put in something like
mysterious
, or
if you can read this, we will have to kill you!”

“Do what you like, but my vote is KISS, ordinary factory default.”

“Killjoy.”

“Just busy.”

Kwon and Sar are prepping lunch in the galley when Helton strides in and heads for the range. He pops the top open, reaches in, and pulls out four round, flat disks from flip-up sockets. Kwon and Sar look at Helton like he’s gone nuts. He hefts them; eight inches across, an inch thick, plug in the side. “Stenson needs ‘em in engineering. We’ll get you new ones later.”

The main screen on
Tajemnica
’s bridge shows a local system diagram, plotting the locations of planets and ships.

• The second planetary orbit ring has three planets:
  Emirate
  at 1 o’clock, a gas giant at 3 o’clock, and
  Geminorum
  at 5 o’clock.
  
• The third ring has a dot labeled Rings at 9 o’clock.
  
• The fourth ring has another trio of planets at 11, 2, and 4 o’clock.
  
• The fifth ring has a planet at 6 o’clock.
  
• The area to the outside of
  Tajemnica
  ’s green icon shows what looks like a picket line of red Navy ships.
  

“Crap!” Cooper snarls. “They are scattered all over outside. Anything heading directly out of the system runs right into one of them. We have to cut inside, go out past the ringed planet near where we came in. Anything else…” He shakes his head in frustration.

Helton takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. “Well, if that’s the only path, then that’s the only path, even if it’s deeper into the well. Do it.”

HMS Hussein

The spacious bridge of the
HMS Hussein
has a raised command dais with a large comfy chair. More than a dozen stations surround it, with at least a score of personnel, all men, all wearing bright dress uniforms with many decorations. The man sitting in the command seat has a high-peaked cap with lots of gold braid and medals. He is, it would appear, the big cheese wheel in the dairy.

“Sir?” a crewman calls.

“What?”

“Official call from your nephew.”

“I’ll take it in my ready-room.” The captain smiles and walks off the bridge. The crew go to rigid attention, whether standing or sitting, then back at ease after he passes.

His ready-room is large and opulent, full of cushy seats, settees, and decorations. Standing next to the central seat is a boyish young man of 12 or 14 years, slender, wearing sheer, tight-fitting clothes, with a cloth over the crook of one arm like a waiter. As the Captain approaches, the servant hands him a drink. The Captain accepts it, eyes the young man for a moment, then waves him out of the room. As the boy leaves, the Captain sits down in the large central seat and addresses the ship AI.

“Put the message on screen.”

The Warehouse Master’s face replaces the decorative image of a hugely fat, nearly nude woman on a large screen to the side. He’s angry and flustered.

“I’m terribly sorry to bother you on such short notice. A shipper showed up ahead of schedule and managed to load and lift before a judgment against them could be filed! I don’t know what kind of evil magic they performed to load so fast, but they slipped out at dawn and did not respond to orders to return.

“It’s a small ship, an old Meridian. The load barely fit. The
Tajmagica
they said. And the dogs hacked the computers here as they were leaving! Left no record of their being here. NOTHING. Just a ‘delivered as required’ notice with no personnel, ship transponder data, or company information! NOTHING! They messed with the backup accounting records, too!

“Hunt them down and GET THEM BACK HERE! The judgment should be official shortly! Please, HURRY!”

The transmission ends, replaced by the previous image. The captain sits motionless for a moment, then shakes his head in disappointment. “He’s got one job. One. Keep people from loading too fast, and he can’t even do that. Even manages to have the accounts hacked. Pathetic. Might need to hire a different nephew.” He sighs and hefts himself up out of his seat, heading for the door. It slides silently open, and he starts barking orders. “Sensors, track ALL ships leaving the DMS! Find a small transport! Navigation, plot for Emirate, shortest time! Wing Commander, prep four interceptors for launch and get the pilots ready! We are going to go rumble some thieves, bring them back for trial and execution!”

Not a Hockey Player

The Captain of the
HMS Hussein
sits in his raised command chair, brooding. One of the sensor techs turns in his seat and calls out “Sir, I think I found them!” as he puts a diagram up on the main screen. It shows:

• The sun
  
• Half a dozen planets
  
• An icon for the
  HMS Hussein
  at 2 o’clock, near the fourth-ring gas giant. A vector arrow points inward.
  
• An icon for the suspected
  Tajemnica
  , with a shorter vector arrow pointing away from the
  Hussein
  , inward across the system toward 9 o’clock.
  
• Dotted lines for expected future courses.
  

The
Hussein
is far away from
Tajemnica
, but much faster. A data box pops up in the lower right. It reads:

Name: NO DATA
Class: NO DATA
Registered: NO DATA

“They obviously reset it,” the sensor tech says. “Everything else in the area is known and verified.”

“Navigation, any chance they can transition before we get there?” the captain snaps.

“Not likely, sir. Acceleration barely two.”

The sensor tech evaluates the data coming up on his screens. “A two-drive Sokolov calliope. We have three times their acceleration. The interceptors, five.”

The captain smiles with glee. “You can run, but not fast enough.”

The transponder data changes. NO DATA disappears, and in its place:

Name: Irony
Class: Nightmare
Registered: Once upon a time, somewhere, someone knew me

The captain snorts in derision. “So, the jokers think they have a sense of humor, eh. Well. Joke’s on them. We know who you are now! Lay an intercept course! Get ready to launch when we are eight hours away unless it looks like they manage to get a little more acceleration under themselves. You can run, little freighter, but you can’t hide. You can’t hide.”

The main display screen on
Tajemnica
’s bridge diagrams their situation.

• An icon for
  Tajemnica
  
• An icon for
  HMS Hussein
  . Close to her, a small icon with a “4” next to it.
  
• A series of arcs running this way and that, all of which converge at one point or another.
  
• The planet labeled Rings, with a small moon nearby
  
• Not too far from that, a red line, near the edge of the display, labeled
  Transition
  

Helton’s frustration is palpable. “Damn. Those interceptors will get to us before we can transition.”

“Can’t we hide behind that moon?” Bipasha asks.

“Nope.” Cooper states flatly. “That’s the one that surprised us on the way in.”

Helton nods. “Yeah, we should avoid it if we can.”

“What’s the exclusion zone look like?” Kaushik asks. On the display a circle appears around the moon. It extends just past the planet.

Helton considers it a moment. “Hmmm… Not too bad. Maybe we could curve around behind it; we’re slower, we can make a sharper turn. They’d have to decelerate to get around it. Then they’d have to rumble us at a much slower speed.”

“Rumble?” Allonia asks.

“Pass at high acceleration and set up a drive field interference problem that would make us shake and vibrate,” Cooper explains. “You break engines that way if you’re not careful.”

“That wouldn’t be very smart.” Lag says. “We have a lot more mass than they do. I’d do a radio threat and missiles, not a rumble. This thing’s drives are set up more like a tug than a racer.”

“You said you worked here a while back,” Helton presses. “Think they are smart enough to know that?”

“Good point. Likely not. Give an asshole yokel the best equipment in the system, and he’s still an asshole yokel, regardless of rank and name. They’d want to show off their new toys. I think you’re right, they
are
likely to try to rumble us.”

“Plot a curve behind that moon, make them slow down a bit, or else they’d overshoot going too fast and have no choice but to launch at us. I’m sure they’d like to get their ammo back cleanly to sell again, and missiles are
so
messy. But not too close. It buys a bit of time.”

“Another hour,” Stenson says. “More for even basic testing.” He and his crew are working frantically in Engineering to get the drives operational.

“We don’t have that much time,” Helton says.

“The Sokolovs are moving us. We have to shut them down to spin up the Harmons, and that change is going to take a couple of minutes
minimum
, if everything is perfect on the first try. Synchronizing will take more time.”

“We don’t have any guns, missiles, beams, anything offensive. We only have running, with a shitload of extra mass and no time to dump it! We need those drives up!”

“Working as fast as I can, but I’m not a miracle worker!”