The Bright Black Sea (96 page)

Lifting the ship and its cargo, even with only a .02
gee gravity, was doable, but given the ship's position, looked to
be iffy. Linnor showed me her calculations, but she had to estimate
the resistance of the crater's surface to the movement of the ship
and that was before the ship had been knocked askew. Any hidden
rocks in the dust of the crater wall could impede this upward
movement as well. Still, it was our best prospect, so I adopted
Linnor's confident outlook. If it could be done, she'd do it. No
point being too gloomy.

We finished our tasks – including test firing the
engine briefly – by the end of the third watch.

'Shall we have a go now, or take a break?' she asked
as we stood around the control panel on the engine room
platform.

'Let's go for it,' was the universal response.

'Right,' she turned to me, 'Could I ask you to take
the longboat out and monitor our progress. I don't have much in the
way of working sensors and I'll need to know what's happening to
the ship once we fire the engine in earnest... .'

'Right,' I replied, though I suspected she was just
getting me out of the way in case things went unexpectedly bad, so
I added, 'But since you can run the whole show from the longboat,
why not give that a test as well?'

She glanced at Ivay, and said, 'I think we need to be
on hand to handle any unexpected anomalies. We can test the remote
controls once we've lifted. Pax will get you a radio link that you
can plant in the hangar so we can maintain in communication.'

I'd not do it any differently, so I said, 'Right,'
and after Pax had handed me a relay, I made my way up through the
ship. I set up the link and carefully slipped the longboat out into
the broad, aurora lit crater and up to the crater rim with a clear
view of the
Azurete
. We linked its sensors to the
Azurete
's engine room controls. And with that, we were ready
to lift the battered
Azurete
.

With the working balancing engine on the underside of
the ship, it sent a big plume of dust streaming outwards, and lit
the dust and the crater walls around the ship, in a bright, golden
light. After a long pause, the ship slowly began moving, meter by
meter, mostly sideways, gradually skewing itself away from the top
of the crater wall despite the firing of several steering rockets.
Clearly, that wasn't going to work. Linnor called it quits.

'Stay were you are,' she radioed. 'We'll be out
shortly.'

'What's the plan?'

'Plan B,' was all she said.

I waited the better part of an hour before the gig
had blasted enough of the dust and debris clear to get out of the
hangar door. It was followed a few minutes later by the limping
skip fighter, piloted by Linnor, who maneuvered it with brief
blasts from its undamaged engine.

Once the two boats had settled on the rim of the
crater next to the longboat, Linnor radioed, 'I'm certain it's the
surface drag which is preventing us from lifting. Ivay and Pax will
transfer to the longboat so they can control the balancing engine
and the steering engines from the remote station on the longboat.
You can move over to the gig so that we'll have some flexibility.
When you're ready, I'll send a missile or two into the crater wall
under the ship's bow – the blast should lift the ship's bow and
hopefully free enough of the ship's hull from the surface to get it
off. If need be, I'll put more missiles under it to blow it free,
since I don't have to worry – too much – about damaging the hull,
all I need to do is just keep it intact. Any questions or
suggestions?'

'Don't miss,' I said. It might work, if the
explosions were big enough to lift the ship – but not destroy
it...

'Right...' she replied. 'Not that it'll matter
much...'

I swapped boats with Pax and Ivay, and on Linnor's
signal, Ivay remotely fired the
Azurete
's engine at full
bore, raising more dust as Linnor sent the first of the skip
fighter's missiles into the crater wall, just under its bow. The
bright blast skewed and slowly lifted the bow of the ship, as
expected, and she followed it immediately with a second missile,
further down. The ship reared up out of the cloud of dust and hung
poised pointing towards the sky, half free of the crater wall, but
still showing no sign of upwards movement. As it very slowly began
to settle back down, Linnor fired a third missile again at the
point where the ship came in contact with the ground, followed by a
fourth, even further aft that blew the whole ship almost entirely
clear of the crater wall – any further aft and she'd risk disabling
the engine. Still, it hung there, poised to launch, barely visible
in the great cloud of dust, its balancing rocket and remaining
steering rockets bright specks of flame seen through the haze,
poised unsupported and seemingly unmoving for what seemed like
minutes.

'Lift, baby, go!' Pax muttered over the com link.

'Perhaps I can use the gig to give it a little
push...' I mused out loud. There seemed enough of a gap between the
ship and surface, and the single rocket left plenty of room for the
boat to find a surface to push against...

'I think it's lifting!' exclaimed Linnor.

It took the sensor screen to show it, but it did
appear to be rising, slow enough, at first, that I could've walked
alongside of it, but lifting. Slowly it gained speed and within
five minutes, cleared the crater wall. An hour later we were all
back onboard and laboriously setting a course for the
Starry
Shore
, with its few working steering motors.

Three days later, with the
Azurete
slowly
accelerating outbound, Molaye and Elena, along with Kie, Dici, and
Sol, plus the cargo bots, set out in our longboat to help get the
Azurete
's cargo in shape for transfer. Elena and I took the
longboat back. I'd my fill of wrecks and longboats.

08

I'd been back aboard the
Starry Shore
for only
a day when Rafe alerted me that the first ship had appeared on our
long range sensors. I stepped around to the bridge and watched its
approach as Rafe worked to pull it into focus.

'Looks like deep space tug,' said Rafe, as the image
on the screen began to take on a bird-like shape. It had multiple
engine pods set on wide, wing-like struts allowing it to tow
another ship behind the central hull.

'A vulture, not a hawk.'

'Perhaps,' said Rafe, and added, with a laugh,
'Exactly, in fact. We're getting a signal from the ship claiming to
be the Vulture owned by Cho Salvage out of Carivon. You must be
psychic Shall I respond?'

'Aye, standard reply. If they want a conversation,
I'll be in my office,' I said, heading that way. I heard Rafe
talking and as I swung into my office, the con link signal light
blinked on my desk.

'Tern Cho, captain and owner of the Vulture, out of
Carivon,' said Cho as I opened the com connection. 'Greetings,
Captain Wilcrofter.'

'Greetings, Captain Cho,' I replied. Cho looked to be
a burly, rumpled and squared off man with an easy smile, but shrewd
eyes. There was a large yellow cat on his desk that was watching me
as well. It looked a lot less rumpled and every bit as shrewd. But
, all cats appear to be shrewd.

'This is Skipper,' he said. 'He thinks he runs this
boat.'

Skipper meowed.

'He says enough small talk,' Cho laughed. 'So on to
business. We're sorry to have missed you on Carivon, Captain,' he
said. 'You sailed before we'd a chance to talk. Not that I blame
you, every hour counts in a venture like this. But in your haste,
you left some business undone.'

'Oh? What was that?'

'Engaging my services. It would've only taken an
hour.'

'I don't recall that on my schedule. Must be
confusing us with some other party. I don't think we've any use for
a salvage tug,' I replied thoughtfully – play acting and not even
fooling the cat – while I called up his references on a second
screen.

Skipper meowed and Cho smiled. 'Ol'Skipper here is
not buying that, Captain. You're here to salvage the
Azurete
's cargo – a treasure ship by any reckoning – one
that's sure to attract a lot of interest in the darker reefs.
Skipper and I run a respectable salvage business and have a great
deal of experience – we should've been consulted. But no matter.
Here we are. We can talk now.'

I had his data up now, so there was no point
stringing this out any longer, so I said, 'We've got everything in
hand. I don't think we've anything to talk about.'

'We're not one to waste time, which is why I'm here
first. However, I won't be the last. You're here to salvage the
Azurete
's cargo of gold and precious metals. I'm here to
salvage the
Azurete
. There's no rivalry between us, so
working together will benefit both of us. You can be sure the
treasure seekers are on their way. I've extensive lines of
informants all the way to Amdia so I may've gotten the word several
days, perhaps a week, before everyone else, but the others will be
arriving shortly. The
Azurete
's cargo will see to that.'

'So?'

'So, you need my help. The gold is neither dust nor
gas to me. I'm here for the hull. And I'll get it, or a share of
it, whether you object or not. But it doesn't have to be like that.
If the
Azurete
is in that disruption ahead, and I'm sure it
is, I'm willing to go in and tow it to a position where you can
offload the cargo and be on your way before most of the other
salvagers arrive, which makes my offer very valuable, I assure
you.'

'You've come all this way to offer this service with
no guarantee that we'd either need or accept it? A rather
speculative proposition, Captain.'

'Not at all, Captain. The Cho Salvage Yards is a long
established and reputable firm with extensive experience in
recovery, towing and salvage. – as you now know, if you've looked
us up in your Murvey's Ship Master's Guide. We're far more
experienced and better equipped to get the job done expeditiously
than you are. Perhaps the need for speed and secrecy trumped our
expertise back on Carivon, but here it's a different story. I'm
here now, and still offering my services at my standard fees on a
per day basis. However, the longer you wait to agree, the higher
the price will go.'

'Why? Why offer it at all, if you're only here for
the hull?'

'Because we salvagers have an informal agreement – if
I don't have the hull in hand when the others arrive, I'll have to
divide the profit with those on hand – we're businessmen, not
pirates. But since I'm here first, I want it all, so the towing fee
will be just something to make it all Guild legal. I'll make my
profit from the hull.'

'I rather doubt we can just give you the hull,' I
said.

'Oh, you don't have to. Let me worry about that.
You'll have plenty of other things to worry about. The
Azurete
's cargo is so wildly valuable that it'll draw
scavengers from all over this sector of the drifts. And since it is
so large, it can be profitably shared by ad-hoc combines, if
necessary. If you don't hurry, you won't stand a chance of keeping
the gold. Or getting out alive, which is why I've no interest in
the cargo...'

'None?'

'None whatsoever. It isn't worth my life, and that'd
be its price. No. I just want the
Azurete
or what's left of
her. That's my line of work. And, well, lets not be shy about this,
the hull is of no consequence to you or the owners.'

'As I said, that's not for me to say...'

'Don't be coy. The hull is worthless to its owners
here on the Kryver Coast and the cost of towing it to Carivon, much
less Tradonia would be prohibitive. Trust me, I know the rates. I
set' em. But there are credits to be made on it, and I intend to
make them, and there's nothing you can do about that. If the owners
want the hull, they can pay me my towage fees. Otherwise, I'll just
pay the insurance company a nominal fee, which they'll be glad to
get, and it's mine.'

'You've seen the sensor data. Do you really want to
go into that mess?'

'Pulling wrecks out of reefs is routine for me.
That's were you find 'em. The ol'Vulture's built for the work. I'll
save you precious days no matter where the
Azurete
lies,
which translates into a better chance of getting out of this affair
alive. And trust me, you're going to need every chance you get that
comes your way. I'd think that's worth a small fee... Don't you?'
he asked and settled back in his chair, as Skipper, somehow,
managed to look down on me from the screen, and dared me to
disagree with a superior sounding 'meow'.

I had indeed called up Murvey's on the second screen
and his credentials checked out. Plus he called on a straight vid
feed that allowed my com link AI to analyze his speech for
truthfulness, which he easily cleared. His stake in the business
was clear as well, so I felt I could take Cho at his word. And
being more than three weeks away from rendezvous, any time saved
would be well worth any reasonable charge. I knew Captain Cho
wasn't exaggerating the siren call of this wreck.

'Fair enough, Captain,' I said. 'However, it's not my
decision to make. I'll have to pass it along to my charter party
and get back to you as soon as possible. But I'll just add, so we
understand each other – I've been sailing the drifts for some years
now, and I knew what this wreck would draw when I agreed to the
charter. If I wasn't confident we could deal with whatever showed
up, I wouldn't be here. That goes for everyone...'

His smile widened. 'Point taken. However, I believe
my interests in this affair are clear-cut and convincing. As long
as I stay clear of the cargo, I'll be safe. You, however, will need
to look after yourself, and the longer you're here, the more likely
you'll have to do it with missiles.'