My Other Car is a Spaceship (23 page)

All in all,
Hal thought to himself later, it was a successful distraction.

But it’s not enough. We need to find a way to hit ‘em where it hurts.

“It’s just not practical, Tarl,” Ishtawahl explained patiently.

“Why the hell not? We suck all the air out of the fortress and suffocate the bastards and then pump it back in once they’re dead. Piece of cake.”

“Y
ou know better than that, Tarl. Think it through. It took weeks to pump this place full of air when we got here. It would take just as long to suck it all out, even if we had the air tanks to hold it all. Then there is the matter of what to do with all our people while we suck the air out and then pump it back in. Not to mention that Dr. Felmendar and his people would have no way to work on your pet project in the meantime. Do you really want to delay getting that next nuke online by a month or so? And, of course, there are many perishable items—food, chemicals, livestock, and so on—that would be damaged or ruined by exposing them to vacuum.”

Penrod opened his mouth to retort but thought better of it. “Yeah, you’re right. That makes no sense. But these attacks are really getting under my skin. We’re supposed to be fearsome pirates, the scourge of the spaceways, and we’re being beaten at our own game by those
…those…
civilians
!”

He thought for a moment, lips pursed and wrinkles creasing his forehead.

“Okay, what about poison? Can we gas them out—something that works quickly and then fades away? Then we wouldn’t have to evacuate everyone, just give them all gas masks for a few hours, or move people in and out of various sections as we gas them.”

Ishtawahl shook his head. “Unfortunately, no. We do not have enough of any gas to penetrate
hundreds of thousands of cubic meters of tunnels and thousands of chambers, niches, and dead-ends. Nor do we have enough gas masks for everyone. Remember, we have representatives of nearly a dozen different species working here. We would need nearly that many types of masks, in the right quantities and sizes. Given enough time we could have them shipped in, along with the gas, but it would take weeks and cost a small fortune. Is that what you want to do?”

Penrod sighed. “No. But we have to do
some
thing. Those bastards haven’t really hurt us—yet—but the dozens of minor emergencies we’ve had to deal with are distracting us from the business of making money. They’re like ticks on my ass, sucking the fun out of this job.”

The latter reference puzzled
Ishtawahl, but he chose to ignore it.

Penrod took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “All right. On to more interesting subjects. How is the latest nuke coming?”

“Dr. Felmendar says it is repaired. He just needs to run diagnostics on it and make any final adjustments. It should be ready to load aboard
Queen Anne’s Revenge
by tomorrow.”

“Excellent! Some good news for a change. Let
Captain Tro know to expect it. Tell him to be ready to leave on his next mission as soon as the nuke is safely stowed away. It’s time to make some money. And find those damn prisoners. I don’t care what it takes. I don’t care what it
costs
. Just do it!”

“Hal! I am so glad to see you. I have some disquieting news.”

“What’s that, Nude?”

As they had done since locating him five days earlier, either Hal or Kalen visited Nude in his cell nearly every night. Keeping his ears open in the med center, he proved to be an important source of information about what was going on in
Smuggler’s Cove
. Now Hal sat in the near dark on the end of the bunk where he had just awakened Nude.

“Two technicians came in today for treatment of minor radiation contamination. It appears that the pirates did not simply find a working nuke among the wreckage of the Unity ships. They recovered multiple warheads and are in the process of repairing them and building new ones from the fissionable material they recovered as well. From what I could piece together, they may well have a
dozen
operable nukes before long.”

Hal’s jaw dropped. “Oh. My. God.
That changes everything. When we thought they had a couple of nukes, maybe we could afford to look for a way to escape and warn people. But a dozen? Crap. We definitely have to find a way to stop them.

Nude nodded. “My
thoughts exactly. I gave Penrod my word not to attempt escape; however, I made no such promise regarding attempts to defeat him. We must do whatever it takes to destroy those nukes.”

The two men argued between crates at the far end of the warehouse, so as not to disturb Sue and Merry.

Hal stood with hands on hips.
“Fine, so we know where the ships are docked. That’s a far cry from being able to get aboard the ship and sabotage the nuke. Assuming we even knew which ship the nukes were aboard.”

Kalen shrugged. “It’s a start, and Nude’ll let us know if he overhears the name of the ship.”

“Fine. Say he does and we know exactly which ship holds the nukes. Then what? Do we just walk up to the armed guards at the main hatchway to the ship and say, ‘Pretty please, Mr. Pirate, let us aboard your ship so we can blow it all to hell.’?”

Kalen let out an exasperated sigh. “No, of course not. We’ll have to find a way to sneak aboard. They must need supplies before the next mission.
Maybe we can pretend to be dockworkers loading supplies onto the ship.”

Hal pursed his lips in frustration at not being able to get his point across. “
Assuming
they haven’t already loaded the supplies, do you really think no one will notice two dockworkers they’ve never seen before? Especially while everyone is on alert for escaped prisoners? It’s too risky.”

“Well we have to do
something
! Those nukes are my responsibility. I can’t just leave a dozen nukes in the hands of ruthless pirates and say, ‘oh, it was too
dangerous
to try to stop them’.” Kalen’s voice rose in anger, as did the color in his cheeks.

Now Hal was angry, too.
Weeks of pent-up frustration at their situation burst forth. “That’s not fair, damn it! I never said we shouldn’t try to
stop
them, only that there must be a better way to do it than what you suggested. Something less foolhardy; something with a higher chance of success.”

“Fine! Like
what,
mister know-it-all?”

“How the hell should
I
know? We’ve had less than an hour to think about this. It takes time to come up with something—maybe a day or two.”

“And what if we don’t
have
a day or two? What if the ship is set to leave today?”

“And what if it isn’t? We have no idea when it’s supposed to leave. Would
n’t it be pretty stupid to rush into something, get caught, and then discover that we
could
have taken two days to plan it out?”

“Damn it, Hal, what if we take two days to plan and the ship leaves before we’re ready? Could you live with the results? Could you make peace with having hundreds or thousands of innocent lives on your hands
if we do nothing and the pirates use the nukes?”

Hal’
s eyes flashed. “You know damn well—!”

He was interrupted by a
loud wailing coming from back where they’d left Sue and Merry. The two men ran toward the sound. They arrived to find that Merry had locked both arms around Sue’s legs.

“Stop it, stop it,
stop
it!” Merry wailed. “Stop
fighting!”

Sue lit into the men. “If you two
must
argue, could you do it more quietly? Merry is terrified! You two are friends. How about acting like it?”

The fight went out of Kalen’s eyes.
He nodded to Sue.

“I w-want my m-mommy! I w-want my d-daddy! I w-w-want to go
home
!” Merry’s tears washed muddy rivulets down her face.

Kalen knelt beside her. “We all do, sweetheart. I’m sorry we scared you.
”

He turned his head back to Hal. “I know
I
couldn’t live with myself,” he said softly in answer to his own earlier question. “I couldn’t just stand by and let them leave without trying to stop them.”

A shadow seemed to pass behind his eyes, dulling the glint. “If that happened, I’d never be able to sleep again. I’d picture their faces; I’d hear their cries. I’d think about the families destroyed and the children who’d never have the chance to grow up and get married.”

Hal’s anger also had dissipated. “Well then, we’ll just have to see that doesn’t happen.”

Merry transferred her deathgrip to Kalen
. “Can we go home now?
Ple-e-ease?”

Kalen turned to Hal and gave him a look that seemed to say, ‘
This
is why we have to stop the pirates.’

The
captain put his arms around Merry. “Soon, sweetie, soon.” He hugged her tighter and kissed her forehead. “Do you believe me?”

She snuggled in his arms and nodded.

“Good.”

Now I just have to find a way to fulfill that promise
.

He
picked up the little girl and the quartet walked slowly back to the pillow crate.

Kalen had nearly finished a scouting mission when he reached an intersection. Just ahead, two guards had stopped a human that met Hal’s general description.

Damn. Another sweep. They’re doing them more and more often. This isn’t good.

He made a left at the crossing corridor, walking nonchalantly. Behind him, he heard, “I think that was one of them! Halt!” followed by the pounding of footsteps heading Kalen’s way.

The jig’s up.
Kalen ran for all he was worth. He had perhaps a twenty-meter lead on the guard, but the Melphim was slowly gaining due to his longer legs.

“Halt!”

The buzz of an energy weapon sizzled past Kalen’s head, causing him to duck. Another shot shriveled the hairs on the top of his head.

Jesus!
He’s not taking prisoners! I’ve got to lose him somehow.
He rounded a curve, momentarily blocking the guard’s shot. Kalen heard snatches of the conversation the guard was having with someone else on his radio.
Crap. He’s calling for reinforcements.

Kalen reached an intersection where three corridors crossed.
Given a choice of five directions to go and no time to decide, he turned right, down the narrowest one.
They’re less likely to be coming from this direction—I hope. It doesn’t lead to any populated areas, just a maze of old interconnected mining tunnels.

Behind him, he heard the footfalls stop.
He’s not sure which corridor I took.
Kalen stopped running and listened, straining to hear over the pounding of his pulse in his ears, and the rasping of his breath.

C’mon. Pick the wrong one. Do it!

He kept listening, his tension growing by the second.
Damn! Here he comes!
Kalen took off again turning left, then right, then right again. He was well inside the maze now, and the guard’s footsteps were louder, echoing off the unpolished rock walls and floor. Or was the sound coming from more than one pair of boots?

Shit
! I have to lose them. But how?

“I don’t like it.” Hal paced back and forth between a crate of machine parts and a pallet of fertilizer for the hydroponics garden.

“He should have been back hours ago.”

Sue sighed in annoyance. “You have been saying that for two hours now. It changes nothing. He will return when he returns. Pacing will change nothing.”

Hal turned on her. “Maybe not, but it makes me feel better,
okay
? I can’t just sit here doing nothing. My head would explode.”

She frowned. “I do not see how that is possib—”

Hal waved her off. “Not literally. I— Oh, never mind.”

“Uncle Hal,” Merry as
ked, with a tremor in her voice, “Uncle Kalen’s coming back, isn’t he?”

“I don’t know, kiddo. It’s possible he got caught.”

Merry burst into tears. “But I don’t
want
him to get caught! He’s supposed to take me to my mommy and daddy!” She began trembling.

Sue gathered Merry into her arms and stared at Hal with accusing eyes. “Why did you have to say that? You are frightening the poor child.”

“Would you rather I lied and told her, ‘Sure, he’s coming back.’? Then what happens if he
doesn’t
come back?”

She had no response to that.
The two adults sat in silence for the next forty minutes, each thinking dark thoughts.
What if…?

Merry sobbed softly, her face buried in Sue’s gown.

The hiss of a door opening brought them all to their feet.

“Uncle K—!” Merry began before Hal covered her mouth with his hand and whispered “Shh!” in her ear.
“It might be anyone. Now hurry—in the crate!”

He and Sue
shoved the lid aside. Sue climbed in first and took Merry from Hal, who followed. He wrestled the lid closed while the other two burrowed down under the pillows. Hal joined them and the three listened in silence. After a couple of minutes they heard a shuffling sound; a minute later, a thump and a muffled curse. Hal looked to Sue, who shrugged.

After a prolonged period of silence a bump jostled the crate and then the lid was shoved back, illuminating the interior with bright light.

“Well, aren’t you going to welcome me back?”

“Uncle Kalen!” Merry squealed with delight. She practically shot out of the crate, into Kalen’s arms.

He stumbled backward and nearly fell. “Whoa, there! Give a guy a break, would you?”

He sat on the sack of
tubers leaning against the small crate they used as a stepstool. He was filthy and drawn, but Merry didn’t seem to mind. She plopped herself down on his lap, eliciting a wince and a groan, and hugged his chest.

Hal climbed out of the crate
and looked at his Captain with concern. “Are you all right?”

Kalen nodded. “I will be. I was spotted by a patrol. They chased me into that mess of tunnels down near the
hangar where I was doing some intel-gathering. I managed to lose them eventually, but then I got lost myself in the maze. If that wasn’t bad enough, I tripped over an uneven patch and hit my knee. So then I had to limp the rest of the way back.”

Hal gripped the other’s shoulder. “At least you made it back in one piece—more or less.”

Kalen gave him a weak smile in return. “Yeah, but we’re going to have to find something else to wear. They saw me in the black coveralls, so they’ll be looking for those in the future.”

“Don’t worry about it. We’ll think of something. The important thing is you got away.”

“This time. But it’s getting harder and harder to avoid those patrols, and they’re getting increasingly suspicious. Worst of all, they didn’t even
try
to capture me. They shot at my head! I don’t know how much longer we can get away with this.”

“You let him get away
again
?” A vein pulsed in Penrod’s forehead and he sat up straight in his chair. “I want you to double the patrols, around the clock—every guard you’ve got, working double shifts—until you get them! No more excuses. It’s either them or you. Got it?”

“As you say, sir. We will catch them.”
Ishtawahl nodded firmly.

“So you keep saying!” Penrod stopped to take a deep breath. Afterward, he spoke in a more measured tone. “But this is your final chance. If you can’t do the job, I’ll find someone who can.
”

Before an awkward silence could emerge, he continued. “So how’s the nuke coming?”

Ishtawahl relaxed. This time he had good news to report. “It was loaded an hour ago.
Queen Anne’s Revenge
should be ready to depart within two hours.”

“Good. It’s nice to see
something
going according to plan.”

“Today? They’re leaving
today
? Damn!” Hal looked over his shoulder to see whether anyone had overheard his muttered outburst. The corridor had been clear when he pulled Nude’s tiny note from the crack in the stone corridor wall they’d agreed to use as a dead drop to leave each other messages—but you never knew when someone might come around the bend.

The note said
Queen Anne’s Revenge
was leaving within hours—with two nukes aboard. The note identified which hangar the ship waited in and said that Nude had dosed a crewman with a mild emetic to induce a brief case of vomiting.

Crap. There’s four ships docked
in the hangar. How the hell do we identify the right one, get aboard a ship full of armed pirates, sabotage either the missiles or the ship, and get out in one piece?
And
do it all in the next hour or two?

I sure hope Kalen
can come up with something.

Kalen frowned. “All we can do is sneak down there and try to find a way onto the ship. Once aboard, we look for a way to stop them from using the nukes.”

“That’s it?” Hal countered. “It’s not much of a plan.”