Spice Crimes

by Dale Ivan Smith

  If Masters killed her crew or had gotten them killed, she would murder him.

  “Alisa, did you hear me?” Leonidas’s voice came over the com.

  She jolted upright. She didn’t ever miss a comm. Never. Pilots didn’t do that.

  “Sorry, I’m here.”

  “Is everything all right?” He sounded worried. And why wouldn’t he, if she didn’t answer. He’d think the mismatched misfits tied up behind her had managed to get loose and knock her out, or worse.

  “Yes. I was just considering options. I’ll be focused.”

  “It’s been a long day for all of us,” he said.

  She loved him for so readily recognizing that, and for understanding. Still, it wasn’t going to happen again.

  “What’s the status of the seal?” she asked.

  “Nearly done. We think it will prove sufficient.”

  She nodded to herself. “Glad to hear it.” Just a little while longer then.

  A soft rustle of leather and a faint electric hum behind her alerted Alisa. She swiveled around. Her eyes widened.

  Screechy was up and halfway across the cabin, a strange looking knife in her hand. The open manacles hung from where Leonidas had chained her up. Screechy had a look of pure murder on her face.

  An instant later Alisa realized it was a knife that was humming. A vibro-knife? She’d heard stories that some pirates used them. But where had Screechy hidden it? Leonidas had searched her.

  Oh, yuck. Alisa hadn’t considered certain places a pirate like Screechy might hide items.

  The knife’s quiet hum changed to a loud snarl, and Screechy charged.

  Alisa jabbed a button on the console behind. “Cutting the gravity,” she commed, as Screechy suddenly left the deck less than a meter from Alisa. Alisa flung the metal water bottle at Screechy, the throw sending her back against the console.

  The bottle smashed into the middle of Screechy’s twisted face. Alisa grabbed a seatbelt on the pilot’s chair and pulled herself down. Screechy yelled in pain, and tumbled past Alisa to smack into a bulkhead. The knife’s buzzing changed in pitch and stopped as it floated away from the pirate woman.

  “Is there a problem?” Leonidas commed back.

  “Just a little insurrection,” Alisa panted. She kicked off, one hand still holding onto the strap, and, the other, balled into a fist, punched Screechy’s stomach. The pirate woman rebounded up into the ceiling.

  Alisa turned the tug’s gravity back on. Screechy yelled again and fell to the deck with a loud thump. Alisa lifted the stun gun from under the console and fired at Screechy, who stopped moving. The mafia goon stared wide-eyed at her, as she recovered the vibro-knife and turned it off.

  “I won’t cause any trouble,” he said, still seated. Of course, his hands were still bound, too.

  A moment later the hatch to NavCom opened and Alisa was treated to the lovely sight of Leonidas’s magnificent hulking form, destroyer pistol in hand and a murderous look in his eyes, which vanished as soon as he saw she was fine.

  “Sorry about not giving any warning about dropping the gravity.”

  “That was quick thinking.” He knelt beside Screechy’s unconscious figure. “How did she get out of her manacles?”

  Alisa lifted the vibro-knife. “With this.”

  “But I searched her,” Leonidas pointed out.

  Alisa made a face. “Everywhere except inside her.”

  Leonidas’s face reddened. “I see.”

  “I wish I didn’t,” she said. She felt like she needed a shower and her brain scrubbed.

  Leonidas put Screechy back in her chair, lifted the manacles. The vibro knife had sliced them open. “Useless.” He dropped the manacles, which clattered against the chair.

  Temur entered the cabin, and surveyed the scene, but didn’t ask any questions.

  Alisa raised her eyebrows. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to have a pair of handcuffs in your gear, would you?”

  “No, but I do have zip ties. Not nearly as good, but nothing is inescapable.”

  She tilted her head. Was Temur making a joke?

  Leonidas covered his mouth, trying to hide a smile.

  She gave him a soft swat in the arm. “You’re as bad as him. I’m glad to see you’re doing better at appreciating straight-faced humor, these days.” He was a far cry from the grim, humorless cyborg she’d first met what felt like an age ago, but that in reality had been less than a year.

  Leonidas grew serious. “We’re ready for what you need to do next.”

  She nodded. “Buckle yourselves in, gentlemen. We’re going to land this tub, once we arrive over Waro Moon.” Arriving would be the easy part.

  It turned out arriving wasn’t so easy after all. Waro Moon had just become visible in the view screen, a distant green disk, when the sensors picked up two vessels a few thousand kilometers distant from the Crimson Hercules. Alisa increased the sensors’ strength. She was still getting a handle on the tug’s massive sensor array.

  The holo display showed a red-hulled ship venting gasses from the side of its drive system. Behind Alisa Screechy gasped.

  “That’s the old Stellar Fortune! Someone’s done a number on her,” Screechy muttered to herself. “I told Captain Ricketts his shields were weak, but he said surprise was what mattered. Idiot.”

  The second ship sped toward the disabled pirate vessel. Sensors indicated the second ship’s weapons were readying to fire.

  “Looks like we came in on the middle of an argument,” she told Leonidas and Temur. Young-Hee was in the little sickbay along with Abelardus, who was still in the fluid tank, recovering from his wounds.

  Alisa altered course to give the two other ships a wide berth.

  “Who has it in for you?” she asked Screechy over her shoulder.

  “I don’t know. It depends! Gods, no!” Screechy shouted, as e-cannons let loose from the attacking ship and hit the crippled pirate vessel in a fusillade of energy bolts.

  The holo display rendered the Hercules’ sensor data in vivid-looking three-dimensional detail. The holo of the Crimson Stars Pirate ship spewed flame. An instant later, the ship disappeared in a white flash, leaving a cloud of expanding gas.

  “Damn,” Alisa said. “Those people mean business.” An indicator on the console lit. Alisa read the incoming sensor data on the attacker. “According to the tug’s computer, the attacking ship was a Protection Inc. vessel named Past Due,” she said. “Mafia and their ship names.” They were ridiculous, but it didn’t make the mafia ship any less deadly.

  Leonidas nodded grimly. “Can we outrun them?”

  “I’m sure going to try,” Alisa said, and increased the tug’s acceleration to maximum. The Hercules vibrated as the drive powered up.

  The Past Due banked and came about onto a parallel course. Alisa swung the tug to port, trying to open the distance, but the mafia vessel was faster. The Past Due’s speed advantage meant it would intercept the Hercules just as the tug neared Waro Moon. At the same time, the stresses atmospheric entry would inflict on the Hercules, especially given the tug’s current acceleration, might very well tear it to pieces. That assumed the heat of reentry didn’t overwhelm the tug’s shields, which looked to be weaker than the Nomad’s.

  Think, Alisa told herself. There had to be a way out of this.

  Leonidas and Temur didn’t say anything.

  “Surrender and my people will let you live,” the goon said.

  She and Screechy both snorted at this. “Really?” Alisa shook her head. “Don’t waste my time with lies. I’m way too busy trying to keep us alive.” She glanced over her shoulder at him. “I don’t suppose they’d consider you a valuable enough hostage to hold off attacking us.”

  He gave her a flat look. “No.”

  “Great. I’m stuck with a goon and a pirate and no leverage.”

  The parallel chase continued, with the Past Due, still beyond weapons range, pulling ahead of the Hercules as Waro Moon drew closer. The interception point whe
re the tug would be within e-cannon range would probably occur less than two hundred kilometers above the moon’s surface. If only the Hercules had weapons of its own. Perhaps she had missed something. She double-checked the ship’s systems, trying to find e-cannons, a hidden torpedo tube, anything.

  “This tug has no weapons,” she said.

  “None?” Leonidas asked.

  “None.” All it had was the massive grab beam array, nothing else. Not even a lousy particle cannon.”

  Alisa blinked, then grinned.

  Leonidas raised an eyebrow. “You have an idea, don’t you?” he asked.

  She laughed. “I do. I have an insanely dangerous idea in fact.”

  His eyebrow went higher. “That sounds promising.”

  She grinned again.

  “What are you up to?” Screechy asked, her voice cracking.

  “Wait and see.” Her plan needed one more thing to have a chance of working. She commed sick bay. “Young-Hee, how’s Abelardus?”

  “Better. Still not fully healed, but given the angle of the wound, a slice across his chest rather than a thrust into it, he will recover soon.”

  “I’m glad to hear it,” Alisa said. “I need your help.” She filled in the situation for Young-Hee. “Can you make the weapon’s operator hesitate, for even a minute?” That might not be long enough, but it was better than no hesitation at all.

  “Perhaps? But what if there is more than one person assigned to the weapons?”

  I can help with that, Abelardus said in Alisa’s mind. Let’s make things interesting on that mafia ship.

  “But do you have enough strength?” Alisa said.

  I’ll have to.

  Time passed. Waro Moon grew larger in the view screen. The Past Due had changed its vector to cut across the Hercules’s course. They were only minutes away from being within the mafia ship’s weapons range.

  Alisa’s hands played across the console, pushing the tug’s drive to maximum power. The drive couldn’t function at that level for long. Using the massive sensory array, she located the Nomad, in the middle of a jungle region. The Nomad had touched down in a clearing near a river and cliffs. The river fed into a lake just a few kilometers away. “Lucky,” she said to herself.

  Leonidas watched her from the co-pilot’s chair, eyebrow raised.

  “We have a landing zone,” she said. “A lake. Assuming we can survive the next few minutes.”

  “Good.” He was calm.

  “Aren’t you worried?” she asked him.

  “I’m not the one at the controls,” he said. “You are. I have confidence in your abilities.”

  She snorted. “No pressure.” Then she smiled at him. “Thanks.

  Now she just needed to make this work. She would have to enter Waro Moon’s atmosphere at the right angle. The tug would steer like a brick in the air, but it should get them down.

  The green mass of Waro Moon glimmered in the Hercules’s view screens. Alisa swallowed.

  Leonidas’s reassuringly large hand squeezed her shoulder. “Take a deep breath,” he told her. “You can do this.”

  “Easy-peasy,” she said. It was a good thing Mica wasn’t here. She’d think Alisa was insane for doing this, and she’d be right. She fired the tug’s thrusters until it headed straight at the mafia ship, which was coming about to bring its e-cannons to bear on the Hercules.

  “What are you doing?” Screechy yelled.

  “Now!” she commed Young-Hee.

  An alarm sounded on the console. The Past Due’s weapons had locked on to the Hercules. Alisa winced.

  But, the mafia ship did not fire. The distance closed rapidly until the two vessels were only a few hundred meters apart.

  “Got you,” Alisa said. She activated the grab beam array. The mafia ship shuddered as the tug’s grab beams seized it. Alisa reduced the power to the drive, and at the same time, boosted the power to the grab beams. The beams pushed the Past Due ahead of the Hercules as the two ships hurled toward Waro Moon.

  A fight has broken out on the mafia ship, Abelardus said in her mind. He sounded strained, but there was a hint of his old smugness.

  “Bravo to you both,” Alisa said. He’d earned the smugness.

  Thank you, Young-Hee whispered telepathically.

  The Past Due’s shields began to flare as friction from the moon’s thick atmosphere built up. Alisa’s fingers danced between the controls for the grab beam array and piloting the Hercules. The mafia ship shook, and Alisa had to compensate. The tug’s grab beams held their lock on the Past Due as the two ships plunged deeper into Waro Moon’s atmosphere. She maxed out the power to the tug’s thrusters, further slowing the Hercules.

  The mafia ship’s shield flared and then the ship’s hull began to redden.

  “Did their shield’s just go down?” Leonidas asked.

  Alisa nodded. The Past Due was atmospheric capable, provided it wasn’t being held by grab beams. The angle was wrong to use the aerodynamic lift of the mafia ship’s wings, and the port wing was losing its structural integrity. Time to let go, Alisa decided. She turned the grab beams off. The Past Due dropped away. A shuttle flew from the mafia ship’s hangar bay just before the port wing snapped off. The Past Due plunged toward the surface of Waro Moon, spinning wildly, flames shooting from its hull.

  The Hercules began to shudder as it plowed through the atmosphere.

  “We’re all going to die!” Screechy shrieked.

  A stun gun went zap and she abruptly went silent.

  “You don’t need to stun me,” the goon said, his hands up in a defensive gesture.

  There was another zap. The goon slumped down.

  “Better to be safe,” Temur said.

  The tug shook violently now. Alisa’s bones rattled from the force of the vibration.

  “You can do this,” Alisa whispered to the tug. Leonidas squeezed her shoulder again.

  “You both can,” he said.

  The tug shuddered again. The stars behind disappeared as the tug descended into clouds.

  Alisa slowed the tug. The view screen showed only white, now. She watched the radar display. They were descending rapidly, only ten kilometers up from the surface. She checked their angle, too steep. She brought the tug’s nose up, but that meant they were going to overshoot.

  “I’m going to have to bring her around again,” Alisa told Leonidas and Temur. “I don’t have the correct angle at this altitude.”

  Neither said anything, just waited patiently. Alisa applied thrust on the starboard side of the tug, and the Hercules yawed hard as she fought to keep it level. The shuddering was nearly non-stop at this point. There were reasons why space tugs didn’t enter atmosphere.

  She thought fast. The indicators showed that the tug’s body was suffering what would soon be critical damage. “Hang on!” she yelled and began spinning the ship, trying to even out the shuddering. And then she brought the nose down and into a loop. The yaw started up again.

  The view screen cleared, the mist being replaced by a wildly rotating scene, as jungle rose up; a ribbon of river flashing by. Why did I ever take that stupid job? flashed through Alisa’s head. Her stomach lurched at the gee force pulling at her. She heard Leonidas and Temur both grunt under the strain. For an instant, the tug was pointed straight down, then the nose came up again. She slowed the pitching. There was a sound like the end of the world behind her. She managed to raise her head enough to see the hangar camera. The shuttle had broken free, and taken a chunk of the hull with it.

  The Hercules wouldn’t last much longer at this rate. She slowed the tug as much as she could with the thrusters, but the Hercules was still going too fast. A lake filled the view screen for the forward cameras.

  “Here we go.”

  “Finally,” Leonidas said from the co-pilot’s seat. “I was getting bored with all this buffeting and tumbling.”

  She grinned. It looked like her humor really was rubbing off on him.

  The angle was still too steep.
She brought up the nose as the water rushed up to greet the plummeting space tug.

  The tug slammed into the lake, and plunged beneath the waves. Metal screamed and ground with a tearing sound. The image on the screen bobbed between water and the surface of the lake; they weren’t sinking.

  “We got lucky,” Alisa groaned. The tug must have grounded on rocks or a low spot in the river. Regardless, they needed to get out. Now.

  Alisa unbuckled herself, and Leonidas and Temur did the same. Their two captives were still slumped, unconscious in their seats.

  “There’s one for each of you,” Alisa said. “If you don’t mind.”

  She grabbed their weapons and put them in a bag she’d found earlier. Young-Hee helped a barely conscious Abelardus join them by the crew hatch. Alisa led the others outside.

  “Hopefully it gets easier after this,” she said.

  10

  Khouri sat in NavCom and watched the pirate pound away with a pneumatic hammer on the rear cargo hatch. Seven pirates stood in a semi-circle watching their companion hammer away. Hammerman’s jaw thrust forward as he worked. It might take a while, but he’d eventually break in.

  “We have to stop this, now,” Khouri said.

  The day hadn’t gone at all as advertised. She wanted to liberate a cargo from thieves to help the less fortunate; be a hero to the poor and downtrodden. Zavon had concocted the scheme to fund his foundation to do just that. Or so he had claimed.

  She pushed the thought away. She’d been dwelling on it too much; she needed to let it go and get on with the situation at hand. That was what mattered right now.

  And the math was against the two of them. There were the four captives aboard the ship. She hadn’t had time to interview the fourth, the ship’s doctor, but guessed that Alejandro wouldn’t be any more inclined to help her and Zavon than the others.

  It might be worth trying though, because if the pirates broke in they’d all be at their mercy unless the Nomad’s crew would cooperate, but it didn’t seem likely.