Rookie Privateer (12 page)

Two more open doors led to empty rooms, except for the ever-present trash. The final door at the end of the hallway was open and lamps were shining up from floor level. Nick had his head jammed up under a bulkhead.

"
They ripped out all of the storage and navigational equipment. And I mean ripped. They removed a few bolts, then yanked it. The wires aren’t just snapped; some of them are stretched. They must have had a powered suit to put this type of force into it," Nick complained, holding up a cable.

"
You think the Navy did this?"

"
Doubt it. What would be the point? They have engineers and tech-bots that could take this thing apart in no time. Probably someone who didn't want the Navy to get whatever info they had on that computer equipment."

"
Will it fly?"

"
No way. I'm no expert, but there are more missing systems than I care to count. They did, however, leave the life systems intact. Right now this is more of an apartment than a spaceship and the hull has more patches than hull. I can see why the Navy wouldn’t want it. By the way, you know Ordena owns 30% of it too, don't you?"

"
Yeah, geez. It’s still gotta be worth something though, right?"

"
Not sure. Scrap value at least. Only real way to tell is by doing a full inspection. At a minimum, we should get it appraised."

"
Hmm, no reason to clean it up before the appraisal if Ordena has a cut. Let’s get him to walk through it and see what he wants to do. Want to sleep here?" I had lost most of my enthusiasm.

"
Not without spraying for bugs. This place is disgusting."

I
spent the night on Nick’s couch again. Before sleep, Nick left a message for Ordena and Commander Sterra’s steward. The steward got back to him immediately and suggested a 2200 dinner on the
Kuznetsov
. It was pretty late for dinner, but Nick and I had promised to take a shift at the rental store.

Big Pete hadn't been on me about helping at the claim recently. I suspected it was a combination of the loss of the shipment, my injury
, and that there would be no payday for another four to six months. No doubt he was still out there going at it hard, but he was giving me some room for a while.

The next morning Ordena got back to us and arranged to meet us in front of the newly named
Sterra’s Gift
. He was bringing a ship mechanic along with him.

"
Xie Mie-su, meet my two favorite clients of all time, Nick James and Liam Hoffen."

Xie was a slight, Asian featured woman
. Her straight black hair was pulled back so it was impossible to see how long it might be behind her vac-suit’s helmet.

"
Nice to meet you. Any friend of Jeremy's is a friend of mine, I always say. But then he’s a lawyer and how many friends can you really have as a lawyer?" Xie's voice was laced with humor. Her face lit up as she spoke and she ended by punching Ordena in the arm. Jeremy? I didn’t think I had ever heard Mr. Ordena’s first name.

"
What? Now we’re not friends?"

"
Aww, you know we all love you Mr. O." She turned back to me. "You see, Mr. O here got me outta some hot water a while back. Bad stuff, I tell you. I owe this big guy a lot, but it doesn’t mean I can’t pick on him, does it?"

I was starting to wonder if Xie had a stop button.

Nick interrupted. "It’s quite a mess in there."

"
Yeah. I brought Ms. Mei-su over to take a look. Not that I don’t trust your assessment and all, but it's best to leave this type of thing to the professionals.

Xie spent time on the outside looking at the engines. Her earlier chattiness had all but dried up. Nick followed her around and they got pretty engrossed in all manner of detail.

"Mr. O." I liked how it sounded when Xie used it so I tried it on. "How about we check out the rest of the ship while they are looking at the guts?"

"
Heck of an idea, Hoffen. I haven’t the faintest idea what they are babbling about back there."

I nodded knowingly. While I felt like I had some knowledge about ships, Nick was by far the better of us with mechanical things. My answer was generally to get hold of a diagnostic algorithm and let the AI walk me through it. I know that’s not as good as being trained, but I managed. Nick had trained on all sorts of machinery. He had never worked on a ship this large, but most of the systems were familiar to him.

After a tour of the front of the ship, I decided it was time to open the mystery door opposite the airlock. I knew it was near the gunnery nest and was hesitant to see the damage I had done. I had killed a man in there and was ashamed at how afraid I was to see inside. Don’t get me wrong, the pirate had it coming by making it his own personal mission to kill us. Knowing that still didn’t make it any easier to open that door.

"
Is that where it happened?" Mr. Ordena’s voice was softer.

"
Yeah, I'm a little afraid to see what’s on the other side."

I wasn’t about to sit around and wallow in it, so I pushed the door open. The room wasn’t large, just a chair sitting under a domed roof with a locking hatch separating it from the room below. I had run the mining drill right up through the chair on one side. The laser would have ripped right through the gunner.

"Wow, that’s a lot of ammo."

It wasn’t the very last thing I had expected to hear, but darn close. He was right. The walls of the room had deep shelves with cases and cases of ammunition. A quick inspection revealed that most of the boxes were full. There were also four empty missile racks.

Mr. Ordena continued, "I bet that’s worth more than this ship to the right buyer."

"
Seriously?" It didn’t add up to me.

"
No doubt in my mind. It's not illegal to own slug-thrower ammo. I'm surprised the bastards who tore the place up didn’t steal it. Probably didn’t have time. It's hard to hide a couple of tonnes of ammo crates. The ammo is probably worth a hundred-fifty thousand if we could sell it on Puskar Stellar or Bura Manush."

Bura Manush, another mining colony, was significantly closer than Puskar Stellar which was a city on Mars.
"Not sure you’d cover fuel back and forth though." I was just talking out loud.

Ordena gave me an appraising look.
"Be a shame to fly all the way to Puskar with just ammo to sell. You boys give me a ring when Xie gets done."

Nick and Xie Mie-su spent another hour fluttering in and out of the engine room and finally made their way up to the bridge.

"So what do you think?" I asked her.

"
It’s a pile of junk if you ask me." She winked. "Which you just did. The engines are better than I expected but all the nav storage systems have been removed. There isn’t a single vid panel on the entire ship and some shiza drilled holes from top to bottom through a couple of spots. You are one good bump from venting atmo in a dozen places. This baby has seen a lot of action. I'd recommend it make one last trip to a junk yard."

"
You saying it won’t fly?"

"
Didn’t say that and you don’t listen too well. She’ll sail just fine if you get a new nav system. You don’t need all of those other systems up in the bridge either. They're just for safety and tracking and all that. It’s a warship and it used to do a whole lot more than sail. What I am saying is that I don’t think it would be worth refitting. Its old, heavy, beat to shiza and missing a couple hundred thousand in parts."

My heart started sinking,
"We'd need two hundred thousand to get her flying again?"

"
Now you are listening. Yeah, and I bet that would be a low number." She considered it a little longer. "Well, it’d be pretty close. At least around here. You know the score. Ship parts cost ten times as much out here." She gave one last look around. "Well, I gotta jet. Come visit me sometime boys. I live in The Down Under by Maintenance Bay Twelve."

Everything south of the equator on P-Zero was referred to as The Down Under. It was a somewhat sketchy part of the station. Mostly, it was just people who had trouble keeping a steady job or had fallen onto hard times. I appreciated Xie’s willingness to toss it out there like it wasn’t any big deal. Most people would have tried to hide it
.

At 2155, Nick and I had finished our work for Wendy, cleaned up and were at the docking bay. Corporal Dahwan and Private Gunders were back at their original posts. When we got closer, Private Gunders made eye contact and gave me a slight smile and an up-nod of the head. I wasn’t sure how to address her so I offered a friendly "Heya."

Corporal Dahwan looked up, as if he hadn’t seen us approach, and held up his tablet.
"Retinal scan."

Nick and I didn’t stumble over each other this time. It was small progress.

"Commander Sterra is expecting you. This way." Dahwan turned and strode down the gang plank leading to the airlock of the
Kuznetsov
.

This time, instead of taking a right toward the aft of the ship, he led us to the left and up a short flight of stairs forward into the ship. I was struck by how free of debris and clean the paint was in the hallway. The floor was covered with a plastic mat that our boots sunk into as we walked, making it a little difficult with my new foot, given the lack of proper feedback. I had to catch myself occasionally as my toe dragged on the surface and found more friction than expected.
No doubt it was an advantage to people who were moving quickly in an emergency versus the harder, more slippery surface in our ship.

The stairs led to a small alcove that opened onto a hallway I considered to be quite large when compared to our new prize. The hallway went both forward and aft. Corporal Dahwan led us aft and we passed through a bulkhead's open door that could be closed in case of depressurization. We hadn’t yet passed anyone in the hallway but I could hear the low tones of a few people chatting up ahead.

The corporal stopped on the opposite side of an open doorway leading to the middle of the ship. "Commander Sterra, your dinner guests have arrived."

"
Our guests of honor. So good of you to join us." Commander Sterra rose and was accompanied by three other men around a free-standing table decked out with white linens and plates, glasses and silverware. I had never eaten at a table set in this way before.

"
Liam Hoffen, Nicholas James, I believe you are already well acquainted with my First Officer, Lieutenant Commander Brandon Telish." He nodded at us with a smile.

Commander Sterra continued,
"I am pleased to introduce you to Second Officer, Lieutenant Gregor Belcose." She paused while we shook hands with Gregor, who was one of the thickest men I had ever seen. He wasn’t fat as you would expect from a military officer, but his physical mass was impressive. His muscles were evident under his non-armored vac-suit and they rippled as he moved. His hand swallowed my own as we shook and his grip was like iron, although he didn’t attempt to crush my hand.

Commander Sterra continued,
"And finally, our engineer, Ensign Ke Lok." Where Gregor was medium height and burly, Ke Lok was slightly shorter with a thin frame, but he also appeared to be in very good shape. Ensign Lok’s handshake was quick and accompanied by a friendly smile.

"
Gentlemen, please have a seat. Steward Gellar has prepared a fabulous meal for us."

As promised, the food was delicious. I wasn’t sure how and when to use all of the different utensils
, but I gave it my best shot. I probably didn’t do it right, but no one at the table seemed any the wiser. Second Officer Belcose was very interested in the attack and how we had responded.

"
What in Sol inspired you to launch those containers with the exploding mining bags and how did you know it would work?" His accent was thick, like the Russian accents I had heard in vids.

"
To be honest, it worked a lot better than I thought it would. We use those bags to break apart rock shelves but we never expect the rock to move very far. It is really just to cause it to separate so we can collect it faster. It was Nick’s idea to use the station foam on those guys in the security control tower. That was genius." As the words left my mouth I realized I'd never attributed that action to Nick before and he might think I blamed him for my lost foot.

Commander Sterra must have picked up on it but took a path I wouldn’t have considered,
"Liam, how are you adjusting to life without your foot?"

I paused.
"It's weird. Since I don’t have much feeling down there, sometimes I trip on things. I haven’t been able to get back to mining because I can’t yet use most of the equipment. Truthfully, I don’t see that I will be going back to that life."

"
Would you do it again, knowing the price?" she asked.

"
How could we not? They were shooting at our families. Tabby’s dad works in that refinery. My dad was being shot at. We couldn't know what other damage the pirates would cause after they had the freighter loaded. They had total control of the perimeter defenses. Judging by the number of missiles and slug-throwers on that ship we captured, I think they could have caused damage for days. So yeah, I would do it again."

"
That’s right, Liam. You three stood against lawlessness in our universe which makes what I have to say even harder. I want you to hear this Liam. Sacrifice is giving up something of value for the benefit of others. Your sacrifice has already cost you more than you might know. If you had remained whole, I could have offered you a scholarship to the Mars Protectorate Naval Academy."

Her words hit me like a tonne of gravel. I knew I’d never be able to afford to go to school, but now a naval career had slipped through my fingers as well.

"You should also know you have an extremely loyal friend in Mr. James. He turned down that same offer earlier today. I apologize for being so direct, but we have a limited amount of time and many things to discuss."

My head was reeling, but this I couldn't let go. I turned to Nick with an urgent plea,
"Nick, you can't. You have to."

"
No. There is nothing to discuss," he replied.

"
How can you be so certain?" I knew that look. Nick was done talking about it. I couldn't understand how he could have passed on such a chance. Then, guilt set in when I realized how relieved I was that he intended to stick around.

"
Let's get through this conversation and then, if you still want to know why, we can talk it through."

Frak, that got my attention. Nick was on to something. He was calling a play and I would run it.
"Okay," I replied uneasily.

Commander Sterra gave Nick an appraising look and continued,
"Mr. James, I believe that to underestimate you will be your adversary's greatest downfall. Which brings me to what I wanted to discuss with the two of you. You may have wondered why Mars Protectorate granted your petition for a Letter of Marque. You have no need to protect corporate assets, nor do you have the means to provide this protection. As sympathetic as I am to your physical losses, that is not a compelling reason to grant your petition. If anything, it is a dis-incentive as you might consider looking for some sort of payback.

"
No, the reason to grant your petition is relatively straightforward. Mars Protectorate needs enterprising young privateers to help us. We are not fighting a war against other nations; instead we are waging a war against highly organized criminal corporations who are able to evade us at nearly every turn. These corporations are, in some cases, supported by unfriendly foreign nations and in other cases, merely allowed to operate and take refuge.

"
These organizations see us coming from a million kilometers and disappear on the solar winds. Your counterattack on the station was the first productive action we have seen within the last dozen years."

"
The raids are coordinated?" There were always reports of raids on smaller colonies and Colony 40 was by far the largest mining colony to have been attacked, probably due to the perimeter defense guns.

"
Gregor?"

Belcose sat up a little straighter in his chair and gave a quick downward tug on his vac-suit in an attempt to remove any wrinkles. I found the gesture amusing, as if a wrinkle could find its way into the fabric so tightly stretched around his massive frame.

"Coordinated is not strictly the right word for the raids we have seen over the last nine to fourteen months, but they are certainly related. We have good reason to believe the raids on this colony, Baru Manush, Delta and Jeratorn all have ties back to the same Asian corporation called Red Houzi. What isn't clear is the objective. Certainly there is a profit motive. In each case, however, they knew exactly how and when to best strike the colony."

Commander Sterra added,
"They are getting bolder and better organized on each strike."

"
I feel slow in this conversation," I interrupted. "I think Nick has already figured it out, but how can we help the Navy? What can the two of us do that you can't? You're the Navy. All we have is a broken down old ship that can't even fly."

"
I think there is a much more important question. Are you willing to help the Mars Protectorate? Are you patriots or simply capitalists? Liam, I saw your team in action. You didn't hesitate when the right course of action became evident. You were willing to put yourselves in harm’s way to protect those you love. That is what I am asking for. The Mars Protectorate is a worthy cause, Liam. I am asking you to stand with us. Will you take that stand again?"

I have to admit I am a bit of a sucker for an impassioned speech and the Commander could obviously read me like a new headline. I looked around the table and saw pride in the faces of the other naval officers who sat straight in their chairs. When I turned to Nick, he gave an almost imperceptible nod.

"We're in Commander, but I gotta admit I still don't understand how we can help."

The tension level around the table dropped by degrees. At that moment, Steward Gellar brought out a tray loaded with plates of chocolate cake topped with chocolate frosting.

"Polly, your timing is impeccable as always. Is this the real cocoa?"

"
Why yes, Commander. We just happened to have some of that left."

Commander Sterra chuckled at an apparent inside joke,
"I am glad you decided on the Navy, Miss Gellar. We would all be in big trouble if you had decided on a life of crime."

"
I couldn't agree more, Commander."

I know I had never had chocolate before that moment in time. I would have definitely remembered it. I also had never tasted cake that moist, sweet, and just plain delicious. It was pure heaven.

"So what would she have brought out if I had said we wanted no part?"

"
Some things are best not asked, Liam." The commander delivered the last seriously enough that I considered she might not be kidding.

Steward Gellar also delivered coffee. The smell was incredible. The first sip burned my tongue and I was afraid I wouldn't be able to taste the cake anymore. Fortunately, that wasn't the case. I didn't initially love the coffee, it seemed to have an unusually bitter taste. But, when it had cooled and mixed with the flavors of the cake, I couldn't imagine anything better. It was a combination I'd never forget.

For a moment, the only sounds at the table were that of clinking forks on plates. "Have you been able to discover where the freighter went from here?" An idea started to form in my mind.

Commander Sterra put her fork down and looked at me steadily,
"Ideas, yes. We have several of them, but that's not your question. You want to know if there is any chance to recover that cargo. The answer to that is no. Before we even arrived, that cargo had been offloaded and scattered. It is not the freighter you are interested in."

That pissed me off. She may have been right, but that cargo represented everything Big Pete had worked for. My next words came out hotter than I expected,
"Yeah, so what am I interested in?"

"
Blaen Xid."

"
The Sheriff?"

"
Yes. We have completed our investigation and prosecuted the pirates you captured. Their only contact was with Xid. He hired them, provided the ship, organized the raid, identified Old Millie’s as a target, subverted the station's defenses and turned Deputy Zong. You want Xid."

"
Revenge?" My mind whirred as I tried to process her words.

"
Maybe. But revenge is not a long-term motivator. The Red Houzi will continue to prey on colonies and then run off and hide. We believe Xid had help here. The problem is, without Xid, we can't find the traitor. Liam, Red Houzi is still on this station."

"
Who?"

"
We don't know."

I looked at Nick again for confirmation. I could see it in his face. He was already there, but needed me to catch up.

"How can we help?" I looked back to Commander Sterra.

"
What were you planning to do before you came over for dinner?"

Nick stepped in. He knew I was in over my head,
"Repair the ship and set up a run."