Star Risk - 01 Star Risk, Ltd (12 page)

Spada's voice was calm, but M'chel saw a sheen of sweat through his faceplate.

Not that Riss was a picture of calmness. It was very seldom in her combat career that she'd had to just sit and watch, without a gun or a knife or a weapons sight to occupy her attention.

Grok seemed perfectly calm, although Riss didn't know how she would tell if he was excited or disturbed, watching several screens.

"We have a launch, skipper," Spada's weapons officer, Lopez, said, also completely controlled. "Three inbound. All acquired."

"Stand by," Spada ordered. "We'll take them out, then I want a counterlaunch right after, before they have time to figure out they missed.

"I hope. On my command� Launch!"

The ship lurched a little as countermissiles spat from tubes. There were other missiles incoming from the raiders, and other patrol ships' missiles were going after them.

Screens showed little flashes, then nothingness where the incoming missiles had been.

"Main launch� Fire!"

This time, the jolt was a little larger as ship killers, almost an eighth as long as the patrol ships, flashed out.

M'chel heard a bleep in her suit speaker, then three others.

"All missiles have acquired targets� homing," Lopez reported.

"Taking evasive action," Spada announced, and his fingers touched sensors here, there on the control board.

The ship's artificial gravity was almost up to the veers and jumps. Almost. M'chel's stomach reminded her that if d been awhile since it'd been abused like this, then shut up and concentrated on keeping things down.

Grok turned to her, and said calmly, "It would appear my trickery has worked. Mr. Spada, if you'd now order your ships to enter X-One-One on their spoofery boxes?"

"X-One-One," Spada echoed, and 'cast the order to the other patrol ships.

"That should really irk our friends," Grok said. "Instead of small mining ships, we should all now have the signature of small, wildly orbiting rocks."

"Tracking�" the weapons officer droned. "I have a counterlaunch� one of our missiles acquired� destroyed� a hit!"

The oncoming bandits, in spite of their countermissiles, closed into what was almost a spear-wall of oncoming rockets.

"Strike� another strike� incoming missiles� acquired� destroyed," the weapons officer went on, while Spada kept his ship dancing in irregular orbits.

"Firing," he said. "Launch!"

"Wups. They're turning, skipper. We've got them on the run."

M'chel tried to interpret the screen, full of flashes and disappearances. There were five left� no, four.

"We have three on the run," Spada reported.

"Go after them," M'chel said. "We want their base."

Spada spoke quiet orders on the TBS.

There was another flash onscreen, then a second.

"We seem to be doing better than we should," Spada said. "We do want at least one survivor to track. I'll hope those missiles had already been launched before I issued my orders.

"If not," he said ominously, "then my junior bird-man who got trigger-happy shall be in large shit. Pilots are a great deal easier to replace, and cheaper these days, than ships."

Again, he went to the TBS, ordered two other ships to format on him, and the others to hang "back" in the pursuit.

The last remaining raider flashed into N-space.

"A little late, friend," Spada said. "I have a tracer on your young bottom."

Their ship went in, out of N-space twice more, and each time the fleeing raider's blip was onscreen.

Spada turned a speaker on, and an unintelligible chatter filled the compartment.

"He's screaming for help, I'd guess," he said. "But he's not completely out of control, since his signal's in code. Now, all we have to do�"

Again, they came out of hyperspace, and there was a tiny flash on the blip.

"What the hell?" Spada said, touching buttons.

"That's strange," he said. "The bastard appears to have blown up. Look, here, on an infrared. Run it back a few seconds, and here. We've got a flash of energy, almost as strong as the drive, coming from the bow of the ship.

"And now, look at the prog screen over here. Unable to predict an orbit. That ship's now out of control.

"I wonder�"

"Close on that ship," M'chel ordered. "And stand by to let us out. I don't like wondering."

The woman and the huge alien floated near what had been a warship, a former N'yar attack craft. The N'yar had been pacified by the Alliance more than ten years ago, but the ship still qualified as a modern killer on the civilian market.

It looked to Riss like an Earth cuttlefish she'd seen in holos, sleek from its stern to midsection. But there it blossomed out, alloy tentacles splayed.

The two pulled themselves closer, went into the ruins of the ship's nose.

"Interesting blast pattern," Grok said.

"It is," Riss said. "Very interesting."

"You have a theory?"

"Better. I have an explanation," M'chel said. "Now, let's see if the explosion left anything worth picking through."

"There's no question," M'chel said, turning away from the holo of the N'yar ship, "the raider ship was destroyed by an explosion from within. We weren't within range at all."

"An accident?" Jasmine King asked. She got up, went to a sideboard of the Boop-Boop-A-Doop, poured chilled tea for herself.

"Probably not," Baldur said.

"Certainly not," Goodnight agreed.

"The ship was 'casting to its home base for support when it exploded," Grok said.

"A booby trap," Riss said. "Put in by the raiders' leader, certainly without the knowledge of the ships' crews. Probably command-triggered."

"Poor bassid shouldn't have hollered for Momma," Goodnight said. "Momma wouldn't've blown him up, otherwise.

"I assume you shook down the wreckage."

"You assume right," M'chel said. "The control room, and the crew, were shredded. The other compartments all had standard-issue Alliance surplus. No letters home, no nice little star charts with 'we live here' no nothing worth talking about."

"At least we have two more facts!" Baldur said. "First, since the raiders made no attempt to challenge or seize what they thought were miners returning to their claims, we have further verification of my theory that the bandits are simply trying to drive Transkootenay away, for still unknown reasons."

"I have a strange thought," Riss said. "Jasmine, would Cerberus Systems be evil enough to want to snatch up what Transkootenay's got, and they're running the raiders?"

King thought.

"They're morally capable of anything," she decided. "But I don't think they'd pull a grab. Word might get out, and that kind of thing would lose them more clients than whatever they could gain by ending up with the Foley System's goodies.

"I don't care how rich these asteroids are, or if there's some incredible discovery that's been made that the raiders are after."

"Now there's something we haven't gone after," Goodnight said. "I've got all of the raw reports from my brother. I wonder if there's anything in common that the guys who got their ass shot off could've found?"

"Like what?" Riss asked.

"Like� hell, I'm not a geologist. God, diamonds, the apes of Ophir. But I'll see if I can find anything worth taking," Goodnight said.

"Your second fact?" King asked Baldur.

"Thank you. We were veering. The second, obvious fact is that whoever is running this little operation wants to keep his little secrets, whatever they are, secret, which is the reason for the booby trap. Also, which is heartening, we now know that he or she actually has little secrets, which is what we should be going after."

"I'm going after a drink," Goodnight said, and went to the sideboard.

Baldur ignored him.

"Another thing that just occurred to me," he said. "We took zed casualties in this little battle. The oppo, assuming that each of those N'yar ships were half-manned, and Jane's lists them as having a twelve-person crew, took sixty losses. That may be no more than an unfortunate skirmish to the Alliance, but to anyone in the private sector, that's a catastrophe.

"So, if we hear no more of these bandits, we may assume they were merely a collection of freelances, working for their common good. But if they are still strong for the fray, then we have a single opponent, with a defined, if unknown goal. Which, of course, will make our task a bit harder, and worthy of renegotiating our contract with Transkootenay."

"I think we should give this unknown a name," Riss suggested.

"It would be better than a vague him or her," Baldur agreed.

"Call her� him� Murgatroyd," M'chel said, suddenly remembering an archaic romance she'd read as a raw recruit.

"Murgatroyd?" Goodnight said with a great deal of skepticism.

"Murgatroyd," Riss said firmly.

"Murgatroyd it is," King said. "So entered in our records."

"Something else that should be entered," Grok said. "The score is now high-graders one, heroes one.

"Or better.

"I think we should attempt to further change the score."

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SEVENTEEN � ^ � Murgatroyd did, indeed, appear to have both an organization and a goal. Within the next week, two isolated mining stations were wiped out, and a small processing center was hit and badly damaged.

Two solo miners vanished, but that could have been by accident�mining isn't the safest occupation, on- or offplanet.

"Of course, we can provide security for you and your partners," Jasmine King said in a soothing voice, almost a coo.

Off-camera, Chas Goodnight grinned, made credit-counting motions with his thumb and left hand.

"I'd suggest," King said, "that you first provide yourself with area safety. We have a missile and detection package I'm sure you'd be interested in, at a price far below any independent weapons dealer could provide, capable of covering the area around your asteroid.

"I thought you'd be interested," King said, making notes. "What about an autocannon for your mine?

"Ah. No, if you're still working the surface, without enough trace yet to warrant sinking a shaft, our autocannon isn't needed.

"Yet. We can discuss that at a later date. Also, you'll be pleased to know that if your claim doesn't work out, our missile system is easily transportable to a new claim.

"Now, you'll also need personal weaponry, I would assume. No? You brought your own with you.

"What about communications gear? We've found that's a weakness for almost all of our clients, especially�"

"You did well on your first action," Reg Goodnight complimented Baldur. "Now, might I ask your next step?"

"Keeping the pressure on," Baldur said vaguely, smiling into the com.

Goodnight looked slightly dissatisfied, and the conversation trailed off.

Baldur shut off the com.

"He is right, you know," he said to Riss. "We could use a bit of a plan, a general strategy against our foe."

"No," Jasmine King said. "First we need to take care of ourselves."

"I thought we were," Baldur said. "The bank account is comfortably afloat."

"There are," Jasmine said dryly, "other dangers than bankruptcy."

"Oh. Yes. That's true."

"We're vulnerable in three areas," King said. "First and most importantly, especially to me, is the Boop-Boop-A-Doop. For it� her� we need vastly improved detection devices�"

"Which I am already working on," Grok interrupted.

"As well as sector security when we're grounded.

"The second area of concern," King went on, "is the hotel with the flight crews."

Goodnight winced. "Shit. I never even thought about it."

"I did," Jasmine said. "Finally, of course, we need to protect our ships. I've already taken care of that. Transkootenay has agreed to give up their secondary landing field, and I've hired a construction company to build revetments for the ships, razor-wire and alarm the field, and again, Grok will provide electronic security."

"Have I told you I love you lately?" M'chel said. "You remember everything."

"Of course," King said. "That's my job, isn't it?"

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EIGHTEEN � ^ � The security guard scanned the various screens showing various angles on Star Risk's flight crew quarters, yawned.

It was a job, he thought. A dull, dull job. But it paid well, and, if he kept his body out of the bars and his nose out of the jar, he'd be able to squirrel up enough for another grubstake, and get out where a man could get rich.

In the meantime, it was four hours till dawn.

He touched sensors, and the screens cleared, showed other views of the former hotel.

Exciting, he thought. Thrilling.

How frigging dull can things�

An indicator flickered, then returned to normal. If he hadn't been looking, he probably wouldn't have noticed it.

Probably nothing except that goddamned gorilla's circuitry hiccupping.

But, just for drill, he turned three screens, one infrared, on the area.

This time, the flicker was pronounced, and stayed on.

He zoomed in, saw two humans, both wearing some kind of suits� heat-shielded, he guessed, which was why they didn't show up when they somehow got through the outer perimeter.

Two men� both wearing heavy packs.

Even as he watched, the man was pressing sensors, and pillow alarms were going off in the guardhouse. He felt bootheels hit the floor above his head, faintly heard the clatter of guns being pulled from weapons racks.

The man hit another sensor, this one setting off alarms in the Boop-Boop-A-Doop, parked not far distant.

But the two figures were moving, moving fast, toward the hotel, toward the man, toward the women and men he'd been hired to protect.

He grabbed a gunbelt, buckled it on, knowing how futile it was, and how it was almost certainly too late.

The first figure paused, and the second touched the first's backpack, here, there, and very suddenly the screen went blank, the infrared screen next to it went up through overload to black to blankness, and the ex-hotel trembled, rocked, as the blastwave shook it like a puppy shakes a rag.