The Bright Black Sea (97 page)

'Right. I'll get back to you soon.'

'Good, And if you don't mind, I'll start in while you
decide. Time is of the essence.'

'Start in. I don't see how we can refuse, but I need
to confirm that,' I said.

I wasted no time signaling Linnor on the
Azurete
. I reached Kie, on watch in the long boat, and he
transferred me to Linnor working in the hold. I briefed her on
Captain Cho's proposal.

'Can we trust him?'

'The lie detecting AI cleared him and his interests
are just as clear. So yes. And you do have the crippled skip
fighter so you're not defenseless if he proves to be other than
what he advertises to be.' Even crippled, the skip fighter could
probably handle the Vulture.

'The problem is that I'm not authorized to hire
additional help, nor am I in a position to just hand over my ship
to this Cho fellow. It's up to the company to decide its
disposition...'

'But you could turn a blind eye in the name of
expediency.'

'I suppose, though you didn't hear me say that.'

'Good. I'm sure everyone on Tradonia knows the
eventual fate of the
Azurete
. It's just that now we can put
a name to it and they can deal with him when the time comes. As for
the fee to haul you out, I'll pay it out of my charter fee – it'll
be worth it to me, assuming it's reasonable, so you'd need not
concern yourself with that either.'

'Right. With the understanding that you're paying his
fee – and that he can indeed get the ship out significantly faster
than what we can on our own, send him in,' she said.

9

Negotiations with Cho took two minutes. Once he had
the
Azurete
's current position, he gave me a solid delivery
time – nine days, saving us at least nineteen – to tow it into a
position where I'd be comfortable coming alongside and transferring
cargo, and at a fee that I could easily justify with my charter fee
alone, not counting our share of the salvage. That he planned to
keep the hull and tow it all the way to Carivon was not on the
record. With the agreement signed, the Vulture fired it's powerful
rockets and was plunging into the plume using data from our chain
of drones.

Three days later a second ship arrived on the scene,
a drift trader turned hawk by the looks of it on the sensor. It
remained silent and hung out of missile range, content to hang off,
watch, and wait for the golden cargo to be delivered. I didn't lose
– too much – sleep over a single drift hawk. The crippled skip
fighter would be fairly useless in a fight, but with Botts aboard,
I was certain we could handle any pirate or two that turned up.
Botts would only defend us from their attacks, but I could handle
them more roughly if the need arose. My years in the drifts seems
to have sanded off a bit of my Unity Standard scruples.

A second hawk arrived the following day, and a third
and fourth, which pushed me to edge the
Starry Shore
deeper
into the plume to rendezvous with the
Azurete
and Vulture a
day earlier than planned. I felt the slightly elevated danger of
meteors was justified by the accumulating drift hawks in the
offing. They drifted closer as well, keeping us in sensor range but
out of missile range. Two days later we rendezvoused with the
Azurete
and Vulture.

The fact that the
Azurete
had been under tow
had made handling the dense boxes much more awkward so they were
not as prepared for the transfer as I'd have liked – but any planet
in a quantum storm – we'd deal with it. The Vulture ceased its
acceleration once I was in position, hatch to hatch, above the
Azurete
with a clear path to fire missiles from either
side.

Using our ship's cranes and the cargo 'bots, we began
transferring the small, but dense, quarter boxes of gold out of the
Azurete
battered holds. Six of the boxes had been breached,
but the salvage crew had managed to collect most of the loose gold
ingots and secured them in cargo nets. Nearly sixty of the 196
quarter boxes had been torn from their docks, damaging their
docking connectors. These we transferred first, stacking them
against the after bulkhead of no. 3 hold and lock them in with a
solid stack of properly secured boxes. Working around the clock, we
completed the transfer in just under five days. Those five days,
however, saw the appearance of six more ships on the fringe of the
meteor plume, patiently awaiting either the completion of our work
or the arrival of confederates.

'What do you make of them, Tern?' I asked the salvage
tug skipper, who, with his first mate, and cat, I'd invited on
board for a final confab over dinner.

'Well, Willy, they don't advertise who they are. The
two tugs I know, of course. They don't count. They're just hanging
around now to see if they can get what's left of your hull after
the hawks have picked it over. The other eight are here for the
gold. Of those, the two small drifteers, don't count either.
They're hyenas hoping for a small cut by helping out, or if things
get nasty while picking over the corpse of your ship, grabbing a
box or two in the fray. Three of the tramps look to be independent
operators. There's plenty of gold to go around, so the big hawks
may decide to form an ad hock fleet to insure success and they're
hoping to be invited to join that fleet. That said, the ones who
you're going to have to deal with are these three 60 box drift
tramps, here, here and here,' he said, pointing them out on the
viewpanel. 'They're too similar and too carefully positioned to be
anything but from one outfit. Since any drift hawk who gets this
prize will have to keep it as well, the prudent ones will've come
in force. Those 60 boxers are pretty big ships for your standard
issue, freelance drift hawk, which suggests that they're from a big
outfit – deep drift traders who dabble in piracy when the chance
offers itself. If I was a betting man, I'd say you're looking at
Falcon Rock Transport and Mining ships.'

'Pretty formidable, I suppose.'

'Aye, they've a reputation for ruthlessness. What's
more, they'll likely have more in their forward holds than cargo
boxes on this voyage. I suspect they likely have missile modules
installed, so you're going to be facing three small warships, and
good luck with that. Hope you came as prepared as you suggested you
were.

'We've a full and varied magazine and an A-level
targeting system, armed droids, and a skip fighter.'

'Which is crippled.'

'I've got the engineers working on replacing the
damaged engine now. It won't be as good as new, but it'll be
serviceable if and when we need it. It alone seemed to have kept
the drift hawks at bay all these years.'

'Well, the
Azurete
was never the sitting duck
like you are. And you can bet that they're aware of it as well,
since they sent three ships. And as businessmen, they're not going
to risk getting a ship knocked up on a fifty-fifty proposition,
which is why I'm thinking they sent three virtual warships ships to
make it cut and dry. Truthfully, Willy, I'm glad I'm not in your
orbit.'

'I'm not jumping for joy either. Can we deal with
them?'

'They might offer you a deal, but I'd advise against
taking it. You're unlikely to get out with your lives no matter
what they promise. The dead tell no tales. Either take to the reef
and hope to evade three ships, or run fast and hard and hope that
your anti-missile missiles don't run out before their missiles
do.

'The one thing you've got going for you, is that they
want your cargo intact, so they'll have to be mighty careful not to
blow your ship to atoms. No market for gold vapor. They'll be
sending inert missiles into your engine and crew sections.
(Missiles with dense D-matter heads that punch holes in ships, but
have no exploding warhead.) You, on the other hand, should try your
Neb-blasted damnedest to destroy them – meaning they'll have to
approach you cautiously and with overwhelming force when they do.
With a lot of luck, you might be able to lead them on a long, long
chase. But I'll tell you this, Wil, if they're Falcon Rock ships,
they'll have oversized engines in 'em and good luck trying to
outrun them,' he shook his head sadly. 'Good luck is about all you
can count on, Willy.'

'Do you think they'd settle for a few boxes pushed
out the hatch to save themselves the trouble and the risk of either
blowing up the gold or getting blown up? Even a quarter box of gold
would pay their expenses,' I asked, thinking of ploys.

'It wouldn't hurt to try – as a last resort... Though
they might just leave it for the small fry with a full cargo of
them for the taking.' he said. 'If you've any empty boxes aboard
you want to get rid of them in the chase. Make'em think. Bring any
along any?'

'No, I should've thought of that. Oh, well, we'll
just have to deal with them. I went into this with my eyes open,' I
admitted.

He gave me a look and shook his head. 'You should be
more worried ,Willy.'

We should've been, because on the face of it, there
was no apparent reason for our confidence. I was worried, but it
was my job to worry. But the rest of my crew were too Neb-blasted
carefree, largely on account of the fact that Botts was so
Neb-blasted carefree. Just like it'd been when it claimed driving
through the Despar Reef was as safe as a run to the moon and back.
(And look how that turned out.) Most of them had either witnessed
Botts in action, or heard not only the yarns about that incident,
but all the yarns Botts spun of its days as the captain of Viletre
"Villain" Viseor's yacht which seemed to have been used for some
very non-yachty ventures. For a vastly rich First World
businessperson, Viseor had a lot of strange dealings deep in the
drifts. In any event, we weren't as concerned as a Unity Standard
Guild tramp crew should've been in the face of half a dozen armed
drift hawks hungry for gold. And that showed.

I shrugged. 'Trust me, I didn't take this charter
without figuring we'd have to fight our way out. We've the smartest
missiles and most up to date control and guidance system available.
Plus the skip fighter and the armed drones. I hope they're good
businessmen, who, when we make it clear that it'll cost them
dearly, and that we'd blow the cargo to atoms ourselves rather than
let them have it, they will decide to settle for a box or two, and
their lives... We can afford that.'

Tern sighed, shook his head and sipped his drink. 'A
hundred thousand tons of gold will make men do some very foolish
things, I think.' And gave me a meaningful look.

I had to smile and say, 'Yah, I guess so.'

Once the boxes were aboard and secured, we said
good-bye to Tern Cho and the Vulture, who was in a hurry to get
clear with the battered
Azurete
in tow. I don't blame him.
We were still working on installing the replacement engine for the
skip fighter, but I decided not to wait on that. Fixing it was
mostly for show – I was trusting Botts, and so I didn't care to
stick around for more drift hawks to arrive. Once clear of the
wreck, I set our course for Amdia after deciding that running into
the Kryver would only delay action. And once clear of the meteor
plume, I gave Molaye orders to bring the ship up to mark 7. All ten
of our shadows began to accelerate along the line of our course a
well. The three suspected Falcon Rock ships converged, the five
smaller drift hawks hung back, but not too far back, and the two
tugs followed behind, optimistic they'd find business sooner or
later, if we weren't blown to atoms.

10

'You realize, Captain, that despite my attachment to
you and my shipmates, I can do no more than defend this ship,' said
Botts as I looked in on it in the tech office to plan our response
to the drift hawks.

I had the real Botts locked in the tech systems
office where it could be directly connected to the ship and fire
control. Keeping critical offices like the tech and environmental
secured when guests were about was considered standard procedure,
and needed no explanation. We'd gotten Botts II out of storage to
keep Botts at large in the ship for our guest's sake while he was
standing guard.

I'm certain, however, that our guests, having been
aboard for nearly half a year, had questions about Botts. Secrets
are hard to keep aboard a ship, and both Botts and the crew did
only the minimum to keep its secret. Since Botts could monitor the
ship's systems, it always knew where our guests were at any time,
and would tone down its banter when they were present. Slightly. I
rather doubt Linnor or her crew totally bought into the story that
Botts was a legal gentleman's bot, since it turned up all over the
ship in places where it made no sense for it to be – like brewing a
mug of cha for me in my office when Linnor looked in, or helping
Riv in the engineering workshop when Ivay happened by. Nor did
Botts' tone down its very outgoing personality profile, so that it
displayed an awful lot of leeway for a legal class 2 AI machine in
its interactions with humans. Even its explanation – that it had
spent many decades serving owners in the drifts, where its
interface program had picked up its free and easy ways – seemed
pretty thin. As did its explanation for all the yarns it spun in
our guests' company – 'I was stocked with an extensive library of
space adventure fiction of the most improbable kind to please my
former drift owners.' All of which, was, of course, a lie – which
it shouldn't be able to do as a non-sentient machine – mind you.
Still, what could I do? I'm pretty sure they suspect it wasn't a
legal machine, in the end, if they wanted it tested, Botts II would
be proven legal, so any doubts anyone may've had, would remain just
that – unfounded doubts.

'Aye,' I said. 'I'll see to the offensive end of
things should that prove necessary. We can share the targeting
system, can't we?'