Empire & Ecolitan (28 page)

Palming the inner lock controls, he gnawed at his lower lip as he waited for the lock to iris open. Luren needed but a nudge before he shoved Kordel in after her and jammed himself in after them both.

While waiting for the inner lock to close and for the evacuation to begin, Jimjoy linked the safety lines around the other two. Then he checked his belt harness to ensure that both needler and stunner were firmly secured, and that the emergency tool kit was also in place.

When the outer door opened, he pushed the other two clear to give himself enough room to extract the broomstick—what passed as an emergency scooter on most Imperial shuttles. Nothing more than a metal tube with limited solid fuel jets and with a padded shock damper on the front.

The shuttle began to reaccelerate fractionally within seconds of his clearing the lock, even before he managed to draw Kordel and Luren to him. Both were gesturing wildly, obviously concerned that they could not talk to him.

He frowned within his helmet as he remembered that he had not told them that their suit communicators were inoperable. He'd taken care of that earlier, since he had not wanted the Impie comm techs to pick up any stray radiation or other indication of their presence.

Jimjoy checked the drift toward the nearest dark silvery hull. It would take most of the stick's power just to kill their relative velocity, assuming he could make contact.

By now the message torp should have fired. It packed more than enough power to dent the station, assuming that all screens were not at full power.

The dark hull of the courier loomed to the right. Jimjoy touched the broomstick controls, hoping his last-minute directional shift wouldn't break the safety line.

Thud
.

The dull sound vibrated, rather than rang, through his suit as the damper end of the broomstick impacted the courier hull. The thin and fragile-seeming tube bent, but the damper grips held. Forcing himself to move methodically, hand over hand, down the tube from the spidery seat, the Special Operative at last reached the hull. He began to look for the bonding pattern that would identify a recessed loop link. After what seemed nearly a standard hour, and probably took but instants, he found the first loop.

To that he attached the two safety leads that led to Luren and Kordel. To the second, located even more quickly, he attached his own line.

As he moved toward the emergency entrance that all couriers had, leaving the two hanging behind him on their lines, he hoped that neither one would panic. But they couldn't move rapidly enough for the next phase of the operation.

The courier might have all four crew members on board, or none, or some number in between. The lack of radiation he had noted earlier argued for less than a full crew.

The simplest way to take the ship would be to force both inner and outer locks and require the crew to breath vacuum. That solution might create more problems than it solved, since there was no guarantee that the courier would have adequate reserves to reatmosphere itself, or that he could guarantee that the ship would remain airtight. In addition, he did not know whether the ship was undergoing maintenance, with the more sophisticated electronics exposed.

He sighed. Nothing to do but bluff it out, if necessary.

He reached the emergency entrance, not much more than a tube big enough to accommodate one suited spacer, and used the command suit's keylock to open the exterior door. Folding himself inside, he closed the outer lock and waited for the atmospheric pressure to build. Within seconds, the light blinked amber, then green, and he touched the lever.

The inner door squealed as it opened, loud enough to alert anyone, awake or asleep, within the small ship and a sure sign that the courier's crew was lax in its inspections. The scout was under minimum gee field, indicating someone was aboard.

He was clear of the hatch and had closed it behind him, quickly making sure that the seals were in place, before he heard the woman's voice.

“Turn around…slowly…”

He did, unfastening the helmet clasps but leaving the helmet in place, just cracking the faceplate.

She wore uniform gray shorts and tunic, both obviously thrown on in haste. Still, she had reached the lock before he had cleared it, which meant that she had reacted to the broomstick's impact on the hull. She held a needler firmly aimed at his midsection.

“Care to explain, stranger?”

“Wright. Major Jimjoy Wright.” He inclined his head. “My shuttle malfunctioned. Have two passengers in emergency suits tethered outside. Didn't want to explain in advance.”

“We'll see. Walk straight ahead, and don't make any sudden moves. Or I'll use the needler.”

“Wouldn't dream of it. But can we hurry. One was hysterical even before I put him in the suit.”

“Him?”

“It happens.” He turned and took a step forward, as she had indicated.

From behind him, she laughed. “One point in your favor. No man would invent a hysterical male.”

Jimjoy listened. There were no other sounds. Since the woman wanted him to move forward toward the controls, it meant no one else was aboard. He could feel his own stunner at his belt, but did not look down as he carefully stepped along the short passage, ensuring that he did not encourage the other officer to pot him on the spot.

After he entered the control area, he stopped.

“If you are who you say you are, you should understand the board. Call your control point and report you and your passengers are safe.”

“Fine. Where are we safe?”

“This is Dauntless two.”

She wasn't even giving him the courier's name, but he leaned forward slowly, his hand brushing the equipment belt and taking the stunner with it.

“Clumsy in gauntlets,” he observed conversationally, letting his armored fingers click on the flat board's surface. He touched the activation stud before she could accuse him of stalling and waited until the automatic check sequence completed itself.

“…shuttle malfunction has impacted gamma three. Beta complex in full-suit isolation. No casualties except for possible victims on shuttle.”

“Two for you,” observed the woman. “Maybe one minus for drek piloting. Go ahead. Report.”

His timing would have to be perfect. He touched the activation stud long enough for the tone to sound, but did not actually key it.

Cling
.

“Shuttle control, this is Charon two—”

Thrum!

Clang!

He had dropped, twisted, and triggered the stunner in a single fluid motion.

She had fired the needler, but not quickly enough, and the needle had ricocheted off the overhead. The needler bounced from her suddenly limp hand as she folded into a heap, mouth open in surprise. She was still breathing.

Jimjoy did not remember resetting the stunner, but he was just as glad the shot had not been fatal. He slipped the needler up and put it in his belt where he had kept the stunner. He held the stunner ready as he swept by the unconscious officer, checking each of the closet-sized cabins and the single small room that served as recreation, mess, and meeting room all in one.

His initial assumption had been correct. No one else was on board.

He refastened his helmet as he headed for the main lock, hoping the rest of the courier's crew was not returning. Unless they were already en route, he doubted that they would be heading out until the mess in orbit control was straightened out.

With the main lock empty, he stepped inside, closed the inner door, and jabbed the bleed valve to vent the atmosphere. The outer door irised at his touch, and he scrambled out, scanning the emptiness around the courier. Nothing.

Kordel and Luren were still linked to the courier, but Luren had reeled herself into the hull and had begun to draw Kordel to her. She turned her head, alerted by the glint of his armor. Then she pointed to the still figure at the end of the safety line, and shook her head vigorously and negatively.

Jimjoy nodded in return to signify his understanding. Kordel was probably suffering from shock, space fugue, or who knew what. But it couldn't be helped. Not now.

He took over the job of reeling in the inert figure, slowly, until the man floated near his shoulder. Then he unclipped both rebels' lines from the ship and linked them to his belt. His own was attached to the courier's lock.

He could sense Luren's impatience with his slow and methodical progress—both in reeling in Kordel and in making his way back to the lock. But since weightlessness scarcely equated to masslessness, he did not speed up his efforts.

Once he had shepherded them both inside the lock, he almost breathed a sigh of relief. Instead, he used the manual lock seals to ensure that no one else would be able to surprise him.

Kordel sagged into a heap in the light grav of the courier. Aside from quickly removing the man's helmet, Jimjoy made no other effort to help him. As Luren removed her helmet, he snapped, “Crew quarters to the left. Get Kordel strapped into one of the lower bunks. Then come up here.” He pointed. “Control room. Understand?”

“Yes, great and wondrous protector. I do understand.”

“Wha—” Then he grinned. “You win that one.”

“Everything's to be won…” She did not look at him as she began to struggle out of her suit.

He turned and made for the controls. He hadn't needed to hurry. The Imperial officer was still unconscious. Her short red hair framed her face like a halo. He checked her pulse. Regular and strong, and her breathing indicated she would be out for some time.

He unfastened the heavy gauntlets and clipped them to his belt, then extracted two equipment loops from the armor's regular supply pouch. The loops bound the woman's hands and feet tightly. For the moment, he left her laid out in the passage.

Luren had removed her own suit and knelt only a few meters away, easing the limp Kordel out of his suit. Jimjoy stepped around them both as he walked back to the emergency lock, where he checked the manual seals to ensure no unnoticed visitors would repeat his own entry.

Since the manual seals prevent easy exit, as well as easy entry, their use in space was generally forbidden by Imperial regulations.

Jimjoy rubbed his neck, then began to strip off his own armor, racking each piece into one of the recessed lockers by the main ship lock after he removed it.

He looked at Luren, who was still preoccupied with Kordel.

“Once you have him safely strapped in, would you please stow your suits into one of the empty lockers?”

She nodded, but did not look up.

Jimjoy again stepped around and over the pair, awkwardly, as he headed toward the control room. Before entering, he scooped up the slender officer and strapped her unstirring form onto the narrow couch behind the copilot's station. He thought about a blindfold, but decided it was irrelevant. She had seen his face, and besides, stealing a courier without murdering someone else was the least of his sins to date.

As he straightened, he watched Luren stuff an all-purpose space suit into the locker, close the cover, and sigh. She took another deep breath and headed toward him, looking over at the strapped-down woman.

“Now what?”

“She's only unconscious.”

“Now you're just collecting them?”

“Got any better ideas?”

She shook her head tiredly, standing there as if waiting for him to move. He did, slipping into the pilot's couch. He scanned the board, then began to touch the controls necessary to bring the courier out of stand-down into full operational status.

He touched the audio, realized he was holding his breath as he did so. He forced himself to exhale, and to take a deep breath.

“Red four, beta secondary. Negative on transshipment this time. Negative on fatalities.”

“Beta secondary, this is Medallion Strike. Interrogative instructions this time…”

Jimjoy listened even as his fingers began to key the courier for orbit break, hoping that the telltale emissions from the courier's systems would be overlooked as merely an emergency precaution.

He glanced up at Luren, who had been watching him from the archway between the passageway and the control section. “Strap in.”

She started forward.

“Is Kordel strapped in? Look like he'll be all right?”

“Do you care, really?”

He ignored the bitterness. “Care as much as I can afford to. Any more, and I wouldn't be around to do any caring. Might give some thought to that.”

“He's asleep. Whether he'll be all right or stay in that trance state, I couldn't tell you.”

“Your straps secure?” he questioned, as the last of the pre-break telltales flashed green.

“Just about.”

He nodded and touched the screen controls.

“Power…green…”

“…locks…secure…”

Forcing himself to remain deliberate, he went through the entire checklist, until the console screen blinked and scripted the go-ahead.

“Ship is ready for break. Insert course cube.”

Jimjoy did not have a course tape for Accord, nor would he have used one had he owned it. Instead he tapped in the instructions.

“Negative cube. Unprogrammed destination.”

“Insert course and acceleration requirements.”

He nodded at Luren. “You ready?”

She nodded.

Jimjoy tapped in the course line—a straight shot to the nearest point in the system that would allow a jump. At maximum acceleration. As he touched the last digit and keyed the override, he automatically straightened in the acceleration couch.

The nearly instant pressure gradually pushed him back into the cushions that felt less and less yielding.

“Hades…” The remainder of Luren's exclamation was lost as she worked just to breathe.

“Beta control…beta secondary…this is Medallion Strike. Interrogative on outbounds. Interrogative on departures.”

Jimjoy cursed silently. Medallion Strike had to be the battle cruiser, and whoever the watch officer was, he was sharper than Jimjoy would have preferred.