Visibly relaxing, Robishaw breathed a sigh of relief. “That’s great Mr. Yu. I’m glad something is going right, my nerves can only take so much before I have to switch to decaf.”
“I get that,” Yu replied. “By the way, do you know what is the most nerve-wracking moment in a man’s life?”
“Huh?” Imagining he was about to share some Buddhist philosophy, she said, “I’ve no idea.”
Over the speaker, she heard her Second Officer answer loud and clear, “Attempting your first silent fart in public after a longer period of diarrhea.”
Manly and Robishaw simultaneously groaned, “Yu!”
On the other end of the line was only laughter followed by, “Yang-He out.”
Manly turned to her. “Well, at least that was one of his better ones.”
She shook her head. “I need to research Buddhism, because, if he learned those jokes in a monastery, I’m going to avoid all such temples for the rest of my life.”
“Ma’am, you’re an atheist. You wouldn't set foot in religious places anyway.”
“Wrong, Manly.” She let out a sigh. “My husband, John, is a Roman Catholic. I get dragged to mass for every High Holy Day when I’m dirt-side whether I like it or not. He insists it’s good for our kids.”
“Well, speaking of dirt-side. It’s time we get our game faces on. Two minutes to touchdown.”
Robishaw looked out the canopy and saw the landing site clear as day. This time Lady Nastya’s welcoming party was already assembled and waiting. Inwardly, she’d been glad of Yu’s sense of humor, it gave her a moment’s reprieve from all the stress she swam in. Just twenty meters below her, surrounded by swords and crossbows, stood another third of the landing party who hoped to be freed by lunch.
“Right,” she said, “Game face,” and then reached for her bottle of modo-aspirins.
When the landing gear kissed the ground, Robishaw turned to nod at Chief Sanchez and his team. This time the whole squad of them would exit the shuttle with her. They would be the ones to carry the crates of medication the exchange required. Although, it truth, it annoyed her that she was forced to give the drugs Lady Nasty in exchange for hostages when Robishaw would have given medications freely if the bitch had only asked nicely.
The hatch opened, and the cold air blew in her face. Scanning the natives, she noted the absence of elite forces. Not one soldier bore any semblance of a red ribbon on their outfits. She also noticed Lady Nastya’s mouthpiece, Ruslan, stood front and center in the crowd.
Faking a pleasant demeanor, she said, “Hello, again, Ruslan. How are you today?”
“Fine, Ms. Robishaw. Did you bring medicine?”
“Oh, yes.” She motioned to Sanchez and company who followed Robishaw down the gangway lugging the ungainly crates.”
When all the boxes were laid out on the ground between them, Robishaw announced, “There you are, Minister, now, would you please release our shipmates.”
Ruslan shook his head. “Not until we have verified that medicine is in chests.”
He waved his arm to his soldiers and a group of them ran up to the crates to inspect the contents. As before, they fumbled with the fasteners a bit, but in the end, managed to open the crates.
Robishaw doubted that these medieval grunts knew what they were looking at, but that wasn’t really her problem. Still, on second thought, she figured it wouldn’t hurt to be helpful. “Those little books taped to the lids are in Ukrainian and will tell your physicians everything they need to know about the medicines.”
The soldiers sealed the crates and carried them back to the assembly of troops and hostages. And after some babbling with the boss, the troops started walking back toward the castle. Ruslan spoke up, “We thank you. Your shipmates have all been well treated, and tomorrow you get captain back, and we get our rifles.”
Robishaw considered it more than a little arrogant of him to refer to the Yang-He’s property as “our rifles,” but she let that slip. “Fine, Ruslan, that’s just fine. We will have rifles for you tomorrow. Same time. Same place. Same terms.”
And as the last of Sanchez’s guys slipped past her, Robishaw stepped in to seal the hatch and prepare for the return flight to the Yang-He. Wiping her brow, she said, “And thus ends the easy ones.”
***
As the old military maxim goes; if you’re early you’re on time—if you’re on time, you’re late—and if you’re late, that is unacceptable! Therefore, Robishaw made sure she was fifteen minutes early for the briefing in the recreation room. That turned out to be a good thing too, as it allowed her the time to reconfigure the game table into a map reader; a task that took far longer than it should have. Nevertheless, she’d be dammed if she’d be tardy for a meeting she’d scheduled.
By five minutes past late, her landing party had all taken their seats, and she could finally get started. Leaning over the game table, Robishaw addressed the assembled crew. “Okay, people, this is for all the marbles.”
Chief Sanchez interrupted. “Marbles?”
She let out a sigh. “Never mind the marbles. What I meant to say was; this is the exchange that really counts. After they release the last of our people, Lady Nastya will have no more leverage over us and she knows it. Therefore, she has to get the most bang for her buck. If she’s going to try treachery, this will be her moment. That’s why we have to be a little treacherous on our own.”
Yu mumbled, “Sic vis picum…”
“Para bellum,” Manly replied.
Sanchez threw up his hands. “Oh for the love o’ Pete! I let the marbles thing go, but what does the Latin gibberish mean?”
“If you seek peace,” Robishaw answered, “prepare for war. And that’s exactly what we’re doing; seeking peace while preparing for things to go downhill fast if Lady Nasty decides to bring the violence.” Turning to Manly, she said, “That’s why I want you to take the shuttle and land it in those clearings we identified in the woods at the opposite end of her castle. I want her to think we have those one-hundred marines and that we are deploying them on her flank. That should keep her best troops back at the fort. When you’re done with that diversion, we’ll load up the shuttle with the rifles and head to the exchange point.”
Manly nodded. “It’s just too bad that we don’t have two shuttles anymore.”
Robishaw pointed to the map on the game table. “From overhead surveillance, it looks like they’ve already stripped Shuttle One of everything they can carry off her. I doubt if it’s spaceworthy anymore. Hell, it probably can’t even get off the ground. And since I’ve no intention of fighting over a dead shuttle we won’t be trying to retrieve it.”
Yu’s voice was little more than a whisper, “Perhaps it should come out of the captain’s pay.”
Robishaw cast him a withering glare. Blaming the captain was useless at this point. No doubt there would be a court of inquiry when they got back to Earth, but that wasn’t her problem for now. To Yu she just said, “I only hope those replicas will fool the local yokels.”
Yu nodded, “They don’t look exactly like ACRs, but they do look like guns. They have the weight and feel of actual weapons anyway. The only problem is we were only able to put simulators in ten of them.”
Manly sat up in his chair. “Wait. What do you mean by ‘replicas’?”
It was Sanchez who explained. “We never had the one-hundred rifles to begin with, let alone the ammunition they’re demanding so trickery is our only option at this juncture. That’s especially true considering that the captain has convinced them that we have one-hundred fictitious marines to arm. If we tell Lady Nastya the truth, she’d be unlikely to believe us.”
“That’s right, Manly,” Robishaw added. “And only ten of the faux rifles will have simulator ammunition and be able to shoot even paintball rounds. We only had ten training kits to begin with and Yu’s people have fitted those into some of our fake rifles. If the rubes don’t look any closer than they did the crates of pills, we should be fine.”
>
Manly leaned in. “And if they do look closer?”
“If we can’t dazzle them with dexterity,” she replied, “we’ll try baffling them with bullshit.”
“And if they don’t buy our bull?” Yu asked
Chief Sanchez folded his arms and answered simply, “Parra bellum.”
***
This time when the shuttle’s hatch opened, Robishaw didn’t see her breath as she took in the Gaulish air. She figured it for either an unusually warm day or the first blush of spring. And if spring was in the air on this pitiful little world war would likely follow. And as repugnant as Lady Nastya was, Robishaw knew those promised rifles were life or death to her people. Just as getting this exchange right was life or death for Robishaw’s hostage shipmates.
No one was present to greet her when Shuttle Two touched down, and that was fine by Robishaw as it gave her time to clear her head. The modo-aspirins she’d taken back on the Yang-He were kicking in, and she wanted them to reach full effect before the fecal matter hit the rotating air ventilator.
“Warm day,” Manly said as he stepped out onto the gangway to join her.
“Congratulations on your promotion, Captain Obvious.”
He lowered his head. “I don’t expect to walk out of this with my rank intact, ma’am. What happened was my fault. And when we get home, I’m sure to face charges. But sorry as I am, you’ll get my best every day from here to Earth.”
Robishaw closed her eyes. “We’re all human, Mr. Manly. Now, let’s just hope I’m not about to make some similar colossal mistake.”
“It’s a good plan,” he reassured her.
“True,” she opened her eyes, “but you know as well as I do that no plan has ever survived first contact with the enemy.”
Manly pointed to the trees. “Speak of the devil, and she’s even wearing red.”
Out of the woods emerged a large group of locals. This time, twice as many natives came as before. And in the middle, strode the Lady herself all dressed in red and flanked by troops armed with ACRs and sporting red ribbons upon their chests. But the elite troops were not alone. On the edges of the crowd stood the familiar crossbowmen; ready as before to back up any threats.
When clear of the tree line, Lady Nastya gave a long diatribe in Ukrainian. Her lapdog, Ruslan translated, “First Officer Robishaw, it is I, the Lady Nastya of Kamianets. We have dealt honorably with you so far and expect nothing less of you on this occasion.” A sweeping arm indicated the knot of Yang-He spacers in the midst of the crowd, to include one miserable looking captain. “We have come to return your people to you for sake of goodwill between our community and Great Confederation. Do you similarly have a gesture of goodwill for us?”
Robishaw blanched at the notion that this bitch was actually trying to slough off hostage taking as some kind of détente. She turned to Manly, “Have Sanchez’s team bring out the crates.” Then, addressing Lady Nastya, she said, “Pleased to finally meet you, Lady Nastya. My crew are bringing out the laser rifles now.”
Ruslan choked. “Laser rifles?”
“Why, yes,” Robishaw demurred. “You don’t think we’d issue our marines outdated slug throwers, do you?”
“I, uh…”
Ignoring Ruslan’s confusion, she pressed on with her lie. As Sanchez’s team laid out the crates, she spun her tangled web hoping she was selling it to the assembled clods with sufficient vigor. “Slug throwers are what we issue to spacers whose main duties are ship bound. Marines have the training necessary to handle our more advanced weapons. You asked for one-hundred rifles, and we are giving you one-hundred rifles. You’ll find the instruction manuals taped to the lids of the crates just like before.”
She closed her eyes and thought, about what fine works of fiction those manuals were, as the power requirements of an actual laser rifle were way beyond anything the Confederation could produce just yet.
Several of Nastya’s soldiers stepped forward to open the crates revealing that the locals had at last mastered the modern clasps. Luckily they opened the ones that Sanchez ensured were on top of the pile.
Hesitantly, a soldier with red ribbons withdrew one of the ten fakers that housed a simulator mount within. He pointed it at a tree and squeezed the trigger but nothing happened.
Chief Sanchez intervened, snatching the toy rifle from the soldier’s hand. “Not like that, you nit-wit. You have to take the safety off first.” Sanchez flipped the actuator switch and took aim at a tree some fifty meters away. With a squeeze of the trigger, he sent a simulated round of black paint at high velocity dead into the center of it. “See, singed a hole right through the bark. You just need to read what’s in those instruction manuals, son.”
Pushing with the momentum Sanchez had given her, Robishaw demanded, “Now, send us our shipmates. We’ve kept up our end.”
Ruslan translated for his mistress and then gave her reply. “And what of troops you have landed in the woods beyond our castle? Are they part of that end you hold?”
“Lady, you’ve sent troops to every exchange so far—despite the fact that we agreed otherwise. I know you’re not a fool, please don’t think I am either.”
“Is no matter,” the lady replied through Ruslan, “We have over five hundred soldiers ready to defend our homeland, and your marines now lack rifles.” She waved her arm, and the locals began hauling the crates away.
“Now, release my people!” Robishaw demanded.
At a nod from Lady Nastya, hostages began to shuffle forward. Robishaw almost dared to breathe a sigh of relief until she noticed a red-ribboned soldier walking toward the tree Sanchez had shot. “Hurry, hurry, hurry,” she mumbled as her captive shipmates drew ever closer.
And just as the first hostage reached the gangway, it all went to hell.
The curious guy with the red ribbons reached the tree to discover a paint stain instead of a scorch mark and cried out to his mistress that all was not well. In one smooth motion, twenty advanced combat rifles unslung from twenty shoulders and were raised to take aim at the visitors from Earth.
Sanchez shouted, “Weapons free!” And his team drew their snub pistols with equal dexterity. Robishaw jumped off the gangway to make way for the hostages to run aboard the shuttle. Having no weapon herself, all she could do was take cover and watch as the horror unfolded before her eyes. Lady Nasty’s elite guard blazed away ineffectively with weapons they barely understood while the chief’s team returned well placed shots turning red ribboned chests a far deeper hue of crimson.
But the lady had brought more than just clumsy riflemen. The crossbowmen were well practiced in their skills and Robishaw stared helplessly as two of Sanchez’s team fell with arrows in their chests.
Hoping that they were still alive, Robishaw dashed across open ground to grab the closest one to her. Grasping the man by his wrists, she dragged him back up the gangway as fast as she could while ceramic bullets zipped around her head.
Just as she reached the shuttle’s hatch, Robishaw caught a glimpse of Manly dragging back the other casualty. Shoving her wounded man inside, she shouted to her recently liberated shipmates, “First aid kits are on the aft bulkhead. Treat this man!” And then she ran back out to give Manly a hand.
Manly had made it half way to safety with his wounded ward, when Robishaw saw a bullet burst out of his collarbone. He fell upon the man he’d been dragging and was struggling to get up when Robishaw arrived by his side.
She yelled, “I got him!” as she grabbed the wounded man by the arm and started to drag him to safety. “You get clear.”
Manly nodded and struggled to his feet. Looking around, Robishaw saw that three more of Sanchez’s men, and one of his women, were also wounded. Thankfully, they were being rescued by their teammates who continued to lay down fire as they retreated back to the shuttle. Casualties, however, were not one-sided. Over a dozen of Lady Nastya’s troops lay dead as the tyrant shouted orders in a near hysterical voice. It was then that Robishaw noticed that not all
the hostages had been freed. VanDer now knelt below Ruslan—and Ruslan held a knife to the captain’s throat.
Manly saw it too. He fixed a quick gaze at Robishaw and then sprinted, full tilt for Ruslan.
Robishaw shouted, “No!” as Manly careened into the Minister knocking him flat to the ground. The impact of Manly’s charge was so great that Ruslan seemed unable to get back up. VanDer, however, did get up and looked around as if unsure what he was supposed to do, then he turned to see Manly bleeding into the dirt.
“Get him to the shuttle!” Robishaw cried, and Van Der did his best to comply. Together, the two senior officers scuffled across the bloody field, each dragging a casualty under a hail of fire. They barely managed to get inside the shuttle with their injured comrades and seal the hatch behind them. Blood stained the deck of the shuttle—far too much blood.
Outside pandemonium reigned as arrows, and ACR rounds ineffectively struck the side of the Gazelle. Robishaw realized that her success, was primarily due to the ineptitude of these natives, but she didn't care. Lady Nasty and her brood could rot in John’s Catholic hell for all eternity as far as she gave a damn.
Robishaw strode into the cockpit. She strapped herself into the pilot’s seat. She engaged the drive and lifted off. Later, she’d mourn Third Officer Manly.
***
As with the entire ship, the temperature in VanDer’s office was set at a regulation twenty-one degrees Celsius, but the heat felt much higher. There was no tea, and no coffee—just Robishaw and her captain seated in the functional office chairs before an empty command desk. She glared at him as he stared at the deck plates while contemplating who knew what.
“I…I don’t know what to say,” VanDer mumbled.
“Oh, I’m sure you don’t.” Robishaw shot back. “You don’t know what to say, and you sure as shit don’t know what to do in a crisis. I’ll be flat out honest with you, sir, I didn’t expect much when I got the word that you’d be my CO, but what I got was a lot less than even that. Honestly, did you have any training in leadership, in diplomacy, in the art of command before you shoved your foot in the door and nudged your way into this position? If you did, you flunked the course and pushed your way in anyhow. What the hell made you think you could be a ship’s captain in the first place?”
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