“Pascal, this is Friedrich. I copy.”
“…you broken… clear.”
Eric sighed, cursed his radio, and began moving as fast as he could down to the quarterdeck where he transmitted again. “Pascal, Friedrich. Do you copy, over?”
“...rich, Pascal. Much clearer. What’s… status?”
“Your signal’s still breaking up, wait a second,” Eric replied as he worked open the hatch back to the airlock he’d entered from. As he opened the door, his headset crackled again.
“Friedrich, Pascal, how copy, over?”
“Pascal, Friedrich, signal’s clear. Mine?”
“Clear now. What’s your status?”
“I found the bridge and the captain’s quarters. You won’t believe what’s up here.”
“What’d you find?”
“Well, first off, this isn’t a privateer. It’s a warship.”
“Good, and?”
“The crew’s all dead. Looks like radiation burns, but the only thing radioactive is the bodies. They’re barely above background. That’s not what’s crazy though.”
The lieutenant sighed, “What’s crazy, Friedrich?”
“The captain’s ident lists his birthday as nineteen sixty-five.”
Pause. “Say again.”
“You heard me. Nineteen sixty-five.”
“That’s not possible. That’s--”
“I know. It’s December third, 216 PE. That date has to be from before humanity came to the stars. Lieutenant, this ship’s from Earth!”
“Hey, let’s not get carried away. In fact, keep that to yourself until we can go talk to the captain and see what he says. I highly doubt this ship is five hundred years old, not when its design includes artificial grav. Grav plates have only been around for-- Hold on, command channel.” Eric glanced back at the corpse whose pistol he’d taken as seconds ticked by. “Friedrich, get your ass down here, fast. Fortune’s leaving in five minutes, with or without us.”
Eric nearly stumbled. “What?”
“You heard me. Beat feet, spacer. Captain thinks there’s someone else out there and he’s spooling up the drive.”
Shit shit shit!
Eric disengaged his maglocks and launched himself down the passageway. Using the bar to correct his trajectory, Eric sailed most of the length of the corridor in a fraction of the time it had taken him to walk it. He nearly bounced off the wall at the end of the hallway, but engaged his maglocks to keep from flying off.
“Hurry up, this way,” the lieutenant yelled. He stood on the inside of the airlock door. As Eric ducked through, Pascal worked the next door and waited for Friedrich to seal his door before opening the next. Working together, they managed to maintain the atmospheric integrity of the ship while moving quickly. Eric stopped to cycle the outside airlock shut, but Pascal pointed towards Eric’s maneuvering pack and moved to cycle the airlock shut himself.
“We’ve got two minutes. We’re good, Friedrich. Had them leave a sled for us,” Pascal said as the airlock door slid shut.
Pascal pushed off, leaving Eric to follow him through the chimney several seconds behind.
Pascal cleared the jagged maw of the tunnel entrance and immediately spat, “Son of a bitch.”
“What?” Eric asked. Pascal didn’t need to answer, he saw for himself as he drifted free of the ice. The Fortune was moving away at speed. “Motherfucker. They left us!”
“I know, I know. Give me a second.”
Eric saw a small flash out of the corner of his eye followed by an ephemeral line of violet motes that traced an almost perfect path to the Fortune.
Lieutenant Pascal’s shoulders slumped and his helmet settled in the palm of his hand. “Fuck me.”
“What was--,” Eric started to ask.
“Railgun.”
“Fuck.”
Eric’s headset blared static into his ears.
“Attention pirate vessel, this is Captain Hines of the PMV Shrike. By the authority granted to me by the Protectorate of Man, I order you to stand to and prepare to be boarded.”
The Fortune’s engines flared, going to maximum burn. Flickering pinpricks of light along the hull caught Eric’s eye as the Fortune began to veer into a sharp turn. The Fortune’s point defense turrets were spitting a hail of slugs toward the pirate hunter. Shock froze Eric’s gut.
What do they hope to do, piss them off?
There was a brief flash as a rail slug slammed through the Fortune’s unarmored hull at over a hundred kilometers a second. Eric blinked as the ship he’d grown up on came apart in slow motion. Gasses escaped through ruptured plating as the ship bent in on itself and spewed a cloud of glowing dust and debris. Two engines guttered out, unbalancing forward thrust. The wreck began a lazy, twisting cartwheel. Several heartbeats later, a brilliant, blinding actinic flash replaced the blackness of space as the fusion containment dewars failed. It was horrible. It was beautiful.
Dumbstruck, Eric and Pascal could do little but watch.
“Any surviving pirate personnel activate your personal beacons if you have them or transmit in the clear. You will be afforded all legal protections set forth in the Charter by the Protectorate of Man until you can be tried for your crimes. You have fifteen minutes before we depart.”
The Right of the Line Page 45
