“Jon Gannett reports the forward batteries clear, all intruders accounted for, forward of bulkhead sixteen, all decks,” Hugh said. “Do you want reinforcement?”
For a moment she weighed a faster mop-up here against the evident immediate peril to Bassoon and Sharra’s Gift. Her own ship’s safety had to come first. “Link me to Jon,” she said. “The faster we clear this ship, the faster we can help the others.”
As the Gannetts worked their way aft, they reported on two more intruders, detached individually, trying to break into the ship safe. These were now disposed of, and now Jon spoke in her skullphone.
“Captain, I have you in view. Permission to close up?”
“Come ahead,” Ky said softly. The intruders had shown no sign of having competent acoustic surveillance, but she wasn’t going to take chances. “The intruders are about two meters away, working on the aft port battery bulkhead. Our crew’s in position, ready to surprise them now you’re here. Starboard battery’s got about the same situation, but the enemy haven’t started digging into the bulkhead yet.”
This time Ky felt a wicked glee as she prepared to signal the attack through another one of Osman’s secret panels. She could almost admire him for the way he’d set up the ship. Here they were below the deck level; the panels lifted up. Osman had even installed ricochet baffles, not that those would help much with frangibles.
“On three,” she said, and flicked her fingers—one, two, three—and five deck hatches lifted. She had a perfect view of boots and lower legs as they all fired simultaneously; the low-power solid slugs had plenty of punch to knock the intruders off their legs. Their return fire was wild, unaimed; an instant later the aft battery hatch opened and her battery crew poured through to finish them off. Ky knew her shots had gone home, but it was over so fast she didn’t feel anything but mild satisfaction.
She and the others emerged, set a watch on the passage both ways, and then she and Martin inspected the intruders’ arms and equipment.
“I think they brought only the two drills,” Martin said. “That’s why the starboard squad is just waiting around…”
“They made a mess of that,” Ky said, pointing to the deep grooves in the bulkhead. “We’ll have to get one of the engineers to check it out, and repair it eventually. But for now—secure these drills, and let’s go clear the ship.”
The starboard squad of intruders were standing around “like idiots,” Martin reported, making loud threats to the battery crew, who made no answer. “Lousy communication among them—they should know their people are being massacred.”
“Complacent,” Ky said. “We’d better not be.” This time they attacked at deck level, using the cross-passage between the two batteries. Martin edged ahead, extending a spider probe on the deck itself, where it would be least visible. As Ky’s implant had indicated, the intruders looked careless and complacent, weapons held loosely, the men—they were all men—slouched against the bulkhead with their masks unhooked.
Ky signaled a change of ammunition, to chemical rounds, and checked the seal on her own mask as she slipped out her magazine and fitted another. No one said anything. She checked her implant readings again. Something not quite clear farther aft down that other passage…she called in data from the nearest of Osman’s fish-eyes, and there they were, a squad farther down the passage, just out of line of sight. Weapons ready, masks tight, half facing each way. So they did suspect something, but didn’t know which direction an attack would come from.
Fine. She was in the mood for more of a fight. She signaled again, this time the number and location. Jon Gannett shrugged, grinning behind his mask. She knew she was grinning, too. She took a breath and spun rapidly around the corner, raking the first group with chemstun rounds that shattered on the bulkhead. Two of the intruders fell at once; another tried to seal his mask and fell to Martin’s solid round. As the rear guard moved forward, rounds bouncing off the curve of the bulkhead, the battery hatch opened and the battery crew took them in the flank. Ky hit the deck as rounds richocheted around her. Something slammed into her shoulder; her back. The deck felt hot under her. She heard one of the battery crew swearing in his native language as he took a leg wound.
Then it was over, a firefight that had lasted scant seconds. Martin reached a hand down. “You all right, Captain?”
“Fine,” Ky said. “Thanks to that expensive stuff I bought on Lastway.” The deck was littered with intruders, most of them dead. “Hugh, what’s the overall?”
“Ship’s clear. All icons green. Still some chem residue, but I’ll put a work party on that right away. It’ll be safe to unmask in ten minutes.”
“That’s good.” Ky rubbed her shoulder, very glad of the custom armor. “Crew report?”
“Five casualties, three serious, in the ship crew. One in the fighting crew—no, wait, there’s that leg in the battery.”
“Attached to a name,” Ky said.
A brief pause. Then, “Sorry, Captain. Jedrah Puran. No one else has more than minor injuries. What’s the enviro reading at your end?”
“We need cleanup—a lot of chemical residue, both ours and theirs, back here, but everything else looks good. There’s some structural damage to a bulkhead, but they didn’t get through to the circuitry.”
“What do you want done with the prisoners?”
“We only need one,” Ky said. Then she shook her head; they might come in useful. “Secure them all.”
“Good-oh,” Hugh said. “And Pettygrew? Sounds like he might lose his ship.”
Ky turned to Jon Gannett. “We need a boarding party, EVA-qualified, but we also need the forward batteries here operable. Who can you spare?”
“Number two’s capable of operating both, Captain, in a pinch. All us Gannetts are EVA-qualified and experienced.”
“And me,” Stewart Cavanaugh, from aft portside, spoke up. “I can take three of my people who are good EVA and shipside.”
“Excellent,” Ky said. “Jon, you’re senior. Take whatever you think you need; on your way out, let me know how much damage they did to the hull when they breached the aft air lock. You may need to go on to Sharra’s Gift after Bassoon; keep that in mind.” He had already flicked hand signals to his own family, who were moving fast; Cavanaugh waited with his crew. “I’m going to the bridge now; I’ll let Pettygrew know you’re coming, and relay his communications channel to you.”
“Thanks, Captain,” Jon Gannett said. With a brisk salute to her, he waved Cavanaugh into motion.
“You’re not going, are you?” Hugh said in her ear.
“No—I’ve learned my lesson,” Ky said. Martin, at her side, let out a long sigh. She shook her head at him.
“Thanks be,” Hugh said.
Ky ignored that. “Hugh, split the crew of number two forward battery, and get both manned. I’ll be on the bridge as fast as I can; we’re going to close with the other two ships. And power up the beam.”
“Yes, Captain. What about the aft batteries?”
“Standby only for now. My concern is to keep the station from using anything they have.”
“They don’t have much,” Hugh said. “I broke their code ten minutes ago, and they have only one half-power tractor and one LOS. We can pin them—”
“We’re going to demonstrate that.” Ky strode forward, Martin just behind her. Even though both her implant and Hugh reported the ship clear of intruders, Ky did not let her guard down as she jogged back upship. Martin stayed with her, going ahead at the cross-passages and checking out the lift before she got into it. By the time she reached the bridge, her away party was exiting the ship.
“They made a mess around the air lock,” Jon reported. “Idiots figured they’d bring it in for repair, I guess. It won’t be hard to do a rough patch, but we’ll have to keep the next two compartments at vacuum until we do.” He forwarded a visual.
“Did they get the hatch-opening software?”
“Oh, yes. Hardware, software panel, everything.” Ky
wanted to smack someone. It was criminal, stupid, to damage a ship’s air lock. Although she’d accidentally destroyed the forward lock herself, when Osman was attacking Gary Tobai, this was different. She moved abruptly, trying to settle the sudden anger, and winced.
“You were hit,” Hugh said, eyes widening as he pointed to her suit. “How bad is it? Why didn’t you say—”
“It’s nothing,” Ky said, ignoring the stiffness as she shrugged. “Good armor. I’ll probably have some fine bruises tomorrow, though.”
“How many rounds did you take?”
Ky tried to remember. “Three, I think. But I took out more than that.” She grinned at him.
His look was hard to read. “You’ve done close-in killing before.”
“Yes,” Ky said.
“So…no more shakes,” he said.
“Maybe later. Not now. There’s work to do.” She settled into her seat; her back twinged again. Yes, she was going to feel it later. “What’s the status on our wounded?”
“Teams are working on them,” Hugh said. “I hope the stuff we bought is what it’s supposed to be; I don’t trust this place.”
“They expected to get it all back,” Ky said. “Sell it to the next ship they were going to rob. It’s a neat scam, when you think about it. They don’t even need factories: all they need is the initial inventory, since they’ll get it back plus the money paid, the ship itself, and the crew for slave labor downplanet.”
“Or to sell to slavers,” Hugh said. “What you’ve told me about Osman, sounds like he could have been in that trade.”
“If it was bad, Osman was in it,” Ky said. On scan, her team was nearly to Bassoon. “Have you got Pettygrew on the horn?”
“Channel Two,” Hugh said.
Ky flipped over to 2. “Vatta here,” she said. “My team’s almost at your hull. What’s the signal?”
“Fairway,” Pettygrew said. He sounded steady again, if tense. “We just can’t hold them—they’re up to the forward batteries. It’s the smoke they’re using; we can’t see.”
“My team has IR and other modes,” Ky said. “Full space armor. Jon Gannett’s in charge. I’ll give him the signal; here’s his code for you—” She sent it over.
“You’re not coming yourself?” he asked.
“I’m about to give the station what-for,” Ky said. “Don’t be surprised at anything.” On her other channel, she gave Gannett the password; he acknowledged. Then, to Pettygrew again: “You have an open channel here. If you need to tell me anything, don’t hesitate. I’ll also have someone monitoring my team. Otherwise, I’ll be keeping the station busy so they don’t interfere. They expected to have control before we’d moved out to a safe range: they’re about to find out how wrong they were.”
“Right, Captain Vatta.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Gannett said. “We’re about to go in the same hole the rats used.”
The tricky thing was figuring out the best angle of attack, given the limited traverse. Her forward beam had only a twenty-seven-degree cone; the forward missile batteries could not track that far forward. Given the station’s size, she could hit the disk on one end with the beam, and the disk on the other with a single battery, but that left the middle, where most of the population—and the missiles—were. Which would be scarier to them, a beam or a missile? The beam…and it could take out their one weak LOS weapon. They knew how many missiles she’d bought, and what guidance systems, but not the power of her beam.
“Bring the beam up,” she told Dannon.
“Yes, ma’am,” he said. As the beam’s tracker came online, Ky hailed the station.
“Attention. Attention. Attention. Stationmaster, Gretna Station, you are under my guns—” Obsolete language, but the traditional term ought to get their attention. “Your personnel have illegally breached and boarded my ships and injured my crew: you will immediately inform them that they should cease resistance and surrender to lawful authority—”
“What are you talking about?” The stationmaster came onscreen, buttoning his tunic. “You’re crazy—turn that thing off or we’ll—”
“I am protecting my ships and crew,” Ky said. “If you attempt to reinforce your intruders or harm my ships, I will fire on your station. If you do not immediately order your criminals to surrender, they will all be killed.”
“You can’t do that—you’re thieves—they just acted to take back property you’d stolen—”
“Don’t even try that,” Ky said. “Either comply with my orders or take the consequences.”
“You wouldn’t dare fire on the station. On civilians—”
“Use the targeting laser,” Ky told Dannon. “Half power will take some skin off their noses, but not kill them. There might be some innocents on that station.” She hadn’t seen any children, but she hadn’t explored the station. “Next shot, take out their LOS weapon.” It wasn’t even warmed up yet, but it was the one thing on the station that might damage them.
“Just scorch ’em for now. Yes, ma’am.” He touched the controls. On Ky’s scan of the station, a part of the hull in the central disk suddenly showed up as a bright white spot: hot enough to ablate a layer of hull a few millimeters thick.
“Stop!” the stationmaster yelled, eyes bulging. “You can’t—”
“I can. I will. How many people do you want to lose?”
“But we’re—we have weapons—”
“Not mounted,” Ky said. “And you’ve got only lightspeed communication with your defensive platforms; it’ll be hours before you can give them targeting information on us, and I doubt even your best targeting systems can distinguish between us—this close to you—and the station.” She grinned at the man, and he flinched. “You’re screwed,” she said cheerfully. “Do you want to call off your goons, or do you want to hope you can retrieve the parts later?”
“Parts?”
“Parts. I see no reason to be careful with the remains of inshore pirates.”
He was wringing his hands now. “We can’t—we don’t have any way to talk to them.”
“Too bad,” Ky said. “We’ll just have to deal with them ourselves. Dannon—”
“Wait—I can try—”
“You have one minute. In the meantime—” Ky nodded to her weapons officer, who touched the controls; another hot spot appeared on the station’s hull, this time at the mounting of the station’s LOS weapon. It sagged to one side; a fountain of electrical discharge showed that they’d gotten the main power cables. On her scan, its icon went to black.
It was only forty seconds before Captain Pettygrew called from Bassoon. “They’re dropping their weapons and begging for mercy,” he said. “Are we feeling merciful?”
“Depends,” Ky said. “I’ll talk to Captain Argelos and get back to you.”
Captain Argelos answered her hail with a cheerful, “Are we done yet, and can I chuck the lot of them out the air lock?”
“Are you sure your ship’s secure? All of them located and neutralized?”
“Well, two more fell out of the overhead about a minute ago, but I think that’s the lot. Scruffy bunch. Apparently they didn’t realize that people who buy thousands of rounds of ammo are likely to know how to use it. We got them all with small arms, except the last two.” He didn’t specify how they’d been taken down.
“Here’s the situation,” Ky said. “I’ve got the station under my beam; they’re trying to claim innocence, not very successfully. I’m not sure how many we had total—do you have a count?”
“Fifty on my ship,” Argelos said. “Thirty-seven are dead; thirteen are alive, but eight won’t make it.”
“How about your people?” Ky asked.
“Two dead, fourteen casualties, from minor to serious. All should recover, though.”
“Pettygrew had it worst,” Ky said. “Ship design as much as anything, from what they said.” Bassoon’s design made deep penetration easier; the defensive positions were more exposed, and the smoke screen the attack
ers used had worked well. “But he’s secured his ship. The question is, what do we do now?”
“I’d like to blow that scumsucking station out of the region,” Pettygrew said. “It’s outrageous, a contravention of every treaty—”
“Vanguard, Vanguard! Please answer!” That hail, on conventional com, carried the ID of Dryas, the ship from Polson.
“Vanguard, Captain Vatta,” Ky said. “Identify yourself, please.”
The image on the screen was blurry, badly focused. “Captain Vatta, I’m Captain Partsin. We’re in distress…we’ve been sitting here for days, they won’t let us dock, because we’re humods. Please—can you do something? Make them let us have supplies, at least?”
“What kind of distress?” Ky asked. That would be an easy claim for a pirate ship to make. “And why didn’t you call on us when we came into the system?”
The image cleared a little, enough to show a gaunt-faced man with staring eyes and obvious humodifications: chem-sensor probes on either side of his nose, now curled into smooth knobs, and one forearm split giving him a three-fingered hand and a socket into which various tools could fit. His uniform hung loosely on him; it was clear he was malnourished.
“Our system was attacked—by pirates, we think—and I got away with a shipload of survivors, but we’re out of supplies. We couldn’t take anything but the people, and we’re…it’s bad, Captain Vatta. We’re almost out of water; we’ve been out of food for days. If we don’t resupply—”
“Those scum!” Ky said. She felt an exhilarating rush of white rage. Aid to disaster survivors was a basic human value; nothing could be worse than refusing to help them because of their appearance. “Captains—” This to Argelos and Pettygrew as well as Partsin. “Gretna Station needs a lesson it won’t forget. Stay tuned; this could be fun.” For a definition of fun she didn’t want to think about right then.
Command Decision Page 9
