Battlecruiser Alamo: The Price of Admiralty (6 page)

The channel crackled for a minute; evidently one end or another was having some problems with their equipment. The voice at the other end came through loud and clear, causing Caine to finally crack and burst out laughing.

"Cap'n Danny! If you missed me that much, you could have come over. You've still got my jacket."

He sighed, "This is not a social call. I need you to do a job for me."

"You've got every other shuttle pilot hopping back and forth anyway. I was just about to make a run to the Kepler."

"I need you to come over here instead. I'll arrange for you to take a load of equipment. Make sure you come to one of the emergency docking bays, aft. Don't call dock control for access, go through Tactical instead – Lieutenant Caine."

"Work is work. You smuggling something in? If you are I want a cut."

"You told me that you knew about the equipment that has been stolen from Alamo. Specifically, I need to know where it is. At least the bulk of it."

The young pilot's tone suddenly became a lot more serious. "That's going to cost. No offense, Cap'n Danny, but it's going to make me a few enemies around here. Can't you just get new stuff?"

Marshall looked around the room, shaking his head. "Not in the time. If I can't get the equipment back, I'd have to risk going without, and that's too risky. How does ten thousand credits sound? And with a bit of luck, no-one will know you said a word. I'll have our people slap some pointless charge on you to cover this conversation."

There was a long minute of hesitation at the other end of the line, and uncertainty in her voice. "This that important?"

"Yeah."

"I'll be there in twenty minutes. Set up a secure link and I'll have the information with you before I land. I somehow get the feeling you want to borrow my ship as well..."

"Got to get my people over there in something."

"Triple rates. And one-way only, they can find their own way home. See you soon, Cap'n."

The line closed; Marshall quickly deleted the record of the conversation. The expression on the young espatier had gone from confusion to consternation as she had realized what he was about to ask her to do; Caine was becoming unreadable. Marshall elected to break the ice.

"Ensign, I want you to plan an operation to get back those stores. Assume that you will be using the personnel you have now, and that you will be departing in one hour."

"You want me to break into private property and steal equipment?"

Caine laughed again. "The Captain wants you to find a load of boxes with 'Alamo' stenciled on them and bring them home. I doubt the crooks will report you for stealing back stolen property. Even if they do, what're the security forces going to do? Arrest you for doing their job for them?"

"Sir..."

"I hate asking this, Ensign, but the safety of the ship isn't giving me much of a choice. One more thing – this mission does not leave this room until you get back. Lieutenant, I need you to handle the ship end of it. I suppose you can bring Weitzman in, but no-one else. Clear."

She nodded. "You don't know if anyone who sold the spares is still on-board." A statement, not a question. "I'll have a full investigation started – after the Ensign gets back."

"Dismissed, then. And good luck, Ensign."

The Ensign walked out of the room, looking slightly dejected at her first assignment. Caine remained in her seat, watching her leave the room; when the door closed, she rested her hands on the table. Marshall waited for a moment, then stood up, sitting on the table.

"Go on, Deadeye."

She looked up at him. "First of all, sorry for calling you Danny in front of the Ensign. Won't happen again."

Marshall arched his eyebrows. "You apologizing for breaking protocol? What do you really think?"

A pause. "The troopers will love it once she gets through telling them that they are using non-lethal force only. They tend to enjoy that sort of work. Lousy first day for the poor kid, though. She joins up for high adventure, and you give her a warehouse heist as her first mission."

"Can't all be death or glory."

"We both know that this is a dodgy thing to do. Under any normal circumstances I'd be advising against this. Not that these are particularly normal circumstances, but it potentially sets one hell of a precedent."

"Eight hours and fifty-eight minutes." Marshall looked back up from his watch.

Caine stood up, making her way over to the door. "I'll go and start cleaning up the paper trail from all of this. See you at the mess later?"

"I'll try and get down there in a bit."

She smiled. "Don't worry, Cap'n Danny. I'm sure it'll work out fine." Her laughter was cut off by the closing door.

Chapter 5

Ensign Esposito had chosen the quietest part of the ship she could immediately find to gather her squad together. There'd been quite a bit of grumbling at losing the opportunity to grab the best bunks for themselves, but their Lance-Sergeant, a grizzled old veteran named Hunter who had only joined the Triplanetary Espatier Corps because the Martian Marines were about to throw him on the scrapheap, had pointed out that it actually meant that they wouldn't spend the day carrying heavy boxes around.

They'd already stowed their plasma weapons in the armory, but most of their low-impact shipboard weapons were still in evidence, holstered on belts or hanging over shoulders; several of them were checking them over, making sure they hadn't been damaged in transit.

Orlova was lurking in the background, trying not to attract anyone's attention. Aside from a couple of catcalls, she had succeeded. Esposito counted under her breath for a minute, then dropped a pocket holoprojector on the ground, throwing up a schematic of the lower portions of Mariner Station.

"Listen up. Our new Captain's given us a job, and we've got damn little time to throw it together, so pay attention."

Hunter looked over at a scrappy young man at the back, a single stripe down his sleeve, his eyes wandering. "That means you, Wolfe. We may have let you graduate training early, but that does not give you speaking privileges!"

Esposito looked at her sergeant, wondering how he managed to lace his voice with such easy authority. She looked around the troopers in front of her – a nice mix of male and female cut-throats, all of them looking as if they could take on the universe before breakfast without breaking a sweat. Typical space marines, even if a lot of them looked as if shaving was a recently-acquired skill.

"Our orders are to retrieve an assortment of mission-critical components that were stolen from this ship over the last forty-eight hours. They are being stored in warehouse levels here, and here," she gestured at two spots on the map, buried in a maze of tunnels and corridors, "and presumably guarded by civilian security."

One of the troopers at the back raised her hand. "Yes, Riley?"

"Ma'am, you telling us that we're being ordered to move some crates around?"

Hunter shook his head, "You deaf, Corporal? We've being ordered to beat up some bad guys who stole our kit and get it back. We love this stuff. I'm guessing non-lethal weapons only on this operation, Ensign?"

Esposito nodded. One of the group at the back muttered something to the medic, Floyd. "What is it, Private McBride?" asked Esposito, trying to get a stern tone in her voice.

"I was just saying to Doc here that I can't go on this operation."

"Why would that be, Private?"

"Because my hands are lethal weapons, ma'am!"

A couple of the other espatiers on either side grabbed the hands in question, and some of the others applauded. "Easy enough to fix, Private," Esposito replied. "I know I've got a combat knife around here somewhere."

That set off another round of laughter from the men. The stony-faced squad Corporal, Clarke, frowned, "How are we being inserted?"

"Civilian transport shuttle will drop us off at the nearest dock. You'll have time on the way through to go over the route with the squad holoprojectors."

Orlova shook her head, and stood up, making her way over to the officer. "That's not going to be any good at all, Ensign. You basing those on the schematics in the system?"

"Yes."

"Those decks have been torn down about a dozen times since the station went operational back in the '20s. I doubt a single panel remains of the original corridors. All you'll do if you follow those projections is get yourselves lost."

The troopers mumbled, shifting around, evidently unhappy. Sergeant Hunter kicked the wall with his boot, sending a ringing noise running down the corridor, and somehow managed to give each of them their own personal glare at the same time.

"What do you suggest, pilot?" Esposito asked, frowning.

The young shuttle pilot looked around, slightly uncertain. "I can give you directions, I guess."

"We'd be better if you showed us the way. Obviously you know the area we're heading into rather too well."

Orlova sighed. "That wasn't the deal. I'll write down some directions for you on the flight over. Once we're there, you're on your own."

"What's the matter, kid? Scared of us big ugly marines?" yelled one of the troopers.

"Who wouldn't be scared of you, Henderson?" replied Hunter.

"My shuttle's parked aft of here. Plenty of space for all of your gear, you can take seats in the passenger compartment," said Orlova, ignoring the remark. "Don't touch any buttons, the crate's barely holding together as it is."

The troopers looked at each other, grumbling, and headed down to the nearest equipment lockers, shedding themselves of a truly impressive array of lethal items, before grousing their way down the corridor, led by the sergeant. Esposito stayed behind with Orlova, watching them.

"Force of nature, aren't they, Ensign?"

"That they are. Look, we really would be better off if you would come with us. Those schematics are useless enough as it is."

The pilot shook her head. "I can't risk it. You and your apes down there get to fly off in this big fancy ship once this mission of yours is over. I have to live here. Something I might not get to do for that long if certain people found out I told you were certain goods were stored."

"Pity."

The two of them followed the troopers down the corridor and into the airlock; none of them seemed to have noticed the accumulated junk scattered across the cabin, instead concentrating on getting themselves settled down as comfortably as possible. Paradise for a espatier – an assault run with no weapons to prepare, no tactics to memorize, no battle plan to discuss. Hunter looked like he was contemplating finding something suitably diverting to do, while Orlova and Esposito strapped themselves down in the forward couches. Without bothering with a warning, the pilot detached the shuttle from the side of the ship, using the spilled atmosphere in the airlock to provide the initial boost. Not waiting for a launch approval that was unlikely to come, she kicked the engines into full and punched in a course for the lower levels of Mariner Station, again making an attempt to look like a part of the normal traffic flow. She ostentatiously sat back in her chair, her feet up on her pilot's console, and relaxed.

"Is that it?" asked the Ensign.

"I can pull on levers and push buttons to make it look good if you want, but it won't make any difference. Old Man Newton is in the driver's seat right now, I'm just watching the computer."

Esposito looked nervously around the cabin, as if expecting one of the panels to explode at any moment. With an effort, she pushed aside some of the used food wrappers and hunched over a datapad, looking over some schematics. After tapping some directions onto a datapad for a few minutes, Orlova looked over at the ensign.

"What's that?"

"Personnel files on the squad."

"Ah." She waited for another minute or two. "Don't you know all that stuff already?"

Esposito sighed, put the pad away and turned to face the pilot. "Yes and no. I've read it, but...you don't get the idea how anything will actually go until you lead them into action. Not that I've ever done that before, and they all know it."

"Nervous, then."

"Not at all. I spent three years training down on Mars for this in ROTC. I know what I'm doing."

Orlova chuckled, shaking her head. "No you don't. That's exactly how I felt when I did my first solo. Confident as hell on the outside – had to be to talk the instructor into letting me take that shuttle up ahead of schedule. Inside I was a bundle of nerves. I'm still here, though, and I'm a damned good pilot, so something obviously worked."

The young espatier looked around, out at the stars. "If you are trying to say something..."

"Only that the only reason I know you are nervous is that I've been where you are. It doesn't show. Let that sergeant of yours do all the barking, that's what he's paid for. Just keep them all pointed in the right direction, and you'll be fine."

Esposito looked over at the pilot with a slightly quizzical look, before nodding. "I'll remember that. Thanks."

"We're coming into dock. Hold on."

The shuttle spun around on the thrusters, spilling powdered aluminum liberally, then the engines briefly flared dull red before dimming as the craft slowed down to a crawl, the station getting dangerously close.

A final tap on the thrusters – which yielded an interesting series of warning flashes that translated to 'are you sure you want to do this damn stupid thing' on Orlova's panel – and they dropped down a dozen levels to the airlock they were looking for. With a dangerously loud slam that rattled the entire ship, they docked.

Hunter was out of his seat first, running towards the airlock. With a single movement he overrode the safeties and opened both doors at once, peering out into the corridor to see if anyone was about. He looked back at his officer, who curtly nodded, then stepped back from the door.

"What the hell are you morons sitting about for! Tactical deployment by fire teams, get moving people!"