That got a rise from her. “Aonghaelaice, the entire Freehold is at stake here,” she said.
“I know, which is why I’m doing this,” I said. “But afterwards, I expect a tidy chunk for betting my ass on your terms. I’m not a line soldier, and I’m risking my life here. You do need this info, no one else has it, and I have good odds of getting jailed or shot by the UN.”
She looked a bit put upon now. “I thought my offer was generous.”
I said, “I am a medic. You’re asking for stuff outside my MTS. If I get caught, I won’t be a Detained Combatant, I’ll be executed as a spy.”
She twisted her mouth and said, “That’s outdated. They should still detain you.”
“I may have spent more time around these systems than you, lady. They could just press me out a lock with a little extra air for delta V, and say they never heard of me. It would save them so many problems.”
“True. What did you have in mind, then?”
“I want a good contract salary and lifetime Residency status paid. Start offering,” I smiled.
She nodded, offered an adequate salary that I sneered at, then made a more reasonable offer. I held out until she cringed, then accepted.
I would never have to work again. I could travel where I wanted, work if and when I wanted, and be completely free.
If I survived.
The next morning I was taken to a literal hole in the wall space and introduced to nine people. They had folding seats with one for me. There was barely enough room for all of us.
Garweil said, “There are no real names here.” I figured that was for my benefit.
“Troops, this is the facilitator you have been advised of. She has traveled extensively in civilian craft and through numerous stations. You will consult with her on travel and cultural climate, and take her advice accordingly on maintaining cover and concealment.”
She looked at me. “A, you understand that they will choose their mission parameters and you will advise them how to accomplish them within the scope of your knowledge. They have ultimate say, but I expect they will defer to your judgment when possible.”
“I understand,” I said. “And none of this will be archived or recorded, of course.”
“Correct. It’s an entirely free form operation, and you’re an attached, consulting, subject matter expert. You are not a combatant under their command, but may engage as one when necessary, reverting to rank for the duration.”
“Just the duration of combat, right? Not permanently.” I had an image of shooting back at someone and getting my pay slashed.
“Correct. During engagements, pay reversion if they happen to last more than half a day. And if they’re logged on return. It’s a legal matter, so you’re a soldier during those times, not a mercenary.”
“Understood,” I agreed.
She said, “Then I’ll leave you to get introduced.” She stood and bounded out of the room. As the door closed, a faint hiss of jamming started.
There were nine of them. Two women, seven men. They were all young, fit, and could mostly pass for crew.
“Are you all space qualified?” I asked.
“Very,” one said. “I’m the ranking member.”
“I’m Hazel, I guess,” I said. That was my grandmother’s name.
He grinned. “It’s fine if you use a real first name. Unless it’s something really off the wall.”
“No, call me Angie, then.” That part was normal enough. “I assume you’re all Blazers,” I said.
“Most of us have been to the school,” he said. “Among other skills. The technicians,” he pointed at three, “have relevant support training. We’re good in space, on the ground, on surface transport including ocean, and pretty good with accents and languages.”
“Then where do you want me to take you and how do we get there?”
“Well, to start with, we have a transport, registered out of Alsace, and we can ID as crew.”
“I’ve been to Alsace recently,” I said.”They’re pretty strict on documents.”
“I’m told they were. The ship is real. We have these names for that purpose.”
“Okay,” I said. So, these were professional spies. This was something they’d been working on.
He said, “I’m Juan Sylvestre Gaspardeau.” He extended hands, we shook. “I’ll be acting captain.” He looked about twenty-five our years, very fit. They were all very fit. Far too fit for lifetime ship crew. I mean, you can maintain that shape, but it takes a lot of work. I carry weights in G, and try to gym when I can, then go dancing. I’m in good shape, but not what I was when active duty. This guy was. Toned, tan, dark/dark hair and eyes, and a faint arch to his nose.
“Shannon Patrick,” offered the guy next to him. He had ruddy-blonde hair a shade lighter than mine, lighter skin, was quite tall, and lean to the point of being wiry. “First officer.”
Sebastian Rujuwa was a rock. He was huge all over, not just fit. He looked like he could move cargo cubes by himself. He looked to be a mix of Zulu and Chamorro.
“I do engines,” he said, and I wondered how he’d get into most access tubes.
Roger Chalfant was almost normal looking, just toned. He had a glint to his eyes that made me wish I’d met him socially. He was measuring me for dinner. He was the purser.
Dylan Rausch was an odd mix I couldn’t place. “Maintenance,” he said. “Of anything.”
That group had one woman.
“Mira Chesney Zelimir,” she said. She was my size, of very mixed ancestry, and looked like a gymnast, only too tall, taller than me. “Astrogation, life support, and equipment.”
Gaspardeau pointed at the others and said, “Our technical staff can provide pretty much anything we need. At first it was a challenge, now it’s just hilarious.”
“Jack Geranio,” said the one. He was plenty fit, but not the obvious gym monsters the rest were.
Teresa Kusumo looked Indonesian and European, very common for Grainne, not that common anywhere else. She was also a bit mousy-looking. “I do equipment maintenance.”
“Mohammed Larssen,” the last one said. I could just see the Arabic under the Scandi, under the Grainne tan. He was my height and didn’t look as imposing, but that was because his torso was a tube. He wasn’t fat, he just had a very straight build.
Gaspardeau said, “Call me Juan, Angie. Or ‘Captain’ when we get into flight.”
“Will do, Juan.”
“We need to get you ID to go with ours. Then we have to load up. Teresa, get her going.”
“Will do. Angie, I need to ask details.”
She got all my vital stats, then faked things like my birthdate and place. A div later I had a new set of cards, chips and scans for my neck wallet. They all looked well-used and well-stamped. In fact, they covered most of the places I’d been professionally. It did say I’d been with this crew for a month, and they even gave me some velcro patches to show I was contract crew. My Alsacien ID said I was “Angelie Brigitte leBlanc.” It sounded very pretty. I spent a few minutes getting the pronunciation right. I was half Alsacien, quarter Japanese from (notmeiji) and a quarter Caledonian. I had no idea how well those IDs would hold up to detailed analysis, but I didn’t think they were supposed to. They were just supposed to pass checkpoint scans. They looked good enough for that, and I had no idea about database interaction.
Then I told them everything I knew about what I’d seen recently, and they asked nonstop questions.
“Does this insignia look familiar?”
“How many space engineers? Either ratio or numbers?”
“Did you see any of their equipment?”
I was able to ID some units by insignia, and some of the crated gear. I gave the numbers I could, locations, and we compared it to the lodging capacities of the stations and my perceptions of available space.
Garweil was present for some of this, and had a tablet with notes. I sat with her and noticed the screen listed “Facilitator Angeleyes.”
“Isn’t that a little dangerous?” I asked.
“No one knows your name except me. It’s in a sealed file not attached to any net. There will eventually be another encrypted log sent to HQ. It’s a reference only used in this context so I can find the file.”
“That’s good,” I admitted. “What happens if you die or the station gets melted before that gets sent?”
“Then you never existed and you don’t get paid.”
“Uh huh,” I said in disgust.
She shrugged. “If it comes down to that, none of us are likely to survive anyway. I was completely serious about this being war to the knife.”
“Yeah,” I agreed.
I was a spy. I had no idea how to be one. I should probably get some loads on the subject when I could.
I was pretty sure spies didn’t live long.
I wondered if I’d figure out how to bail if I needed to.
The rock had a long portable docking assembly, something the engineers had put together from either spare parts or some made-for wartime kit. It swayed in odd bounces from the harmonics of people and loaders moving through it.
I saw Mad Jack at the end. Before that were three smaller boats, two supply tugs, and two others that looked like old civilian or conversion craft. The first one was my destination.
It didn’t have a name on the lockway. I knew it was named NCA Henri Pieper. The hull design looked fifty Earth years old, which wasn’t great, but I knew of older ones.
I swam aboard and realized this was already starting out hazardous. Pieper was not in great shape.
Juan was waiting, and said, “Yes, she’s rough. We had to take what we could get, cheap.”
“I understand,” I said, as I brushed some peeling laminate off the lock controls. That would have to come off before it clogged vents or got into someone’s eyes.
The galley was old. The infirmary had adequate civilian gear, but nothing for serious battle trauma. Many of the meds were within months of expiration. That’s not as critical with modern storage and the ability to reprocess, but it’s still less than ideal.
I was glad I didn’t know anything about engines. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know what they were like. I did recognize the controls. I’ve been on ships fifty E-years old. I changed my guess to seventy. I had no idea where they got spare boards. Then I realized some of them were newer boards mounted in cases fastened to the existing cases. The air plant was old, with lots of brazed and epoxied repairs, but it seemed sound. I assumed the tech crew trusted it. They’d be as dead as the rest of us if it failed.
I stowed my gear in the locker under my bunk. All three females were in a bunkbay made for four, the men in another, with Juan and Shannon in officer staterooms. There was little privacy, but at least they had a good shower, with jet sprays all around.
They had a hold full of cargo. I figured out a lot of it was supplies for them to use—vacsuits, tools, refined metals for electronic supply. Chemicals for explosives. You’d have to know what you were doing, and it was all tagged for delivery. But I found out by accident later that all the masses were slightly off. They could make stuff disappear and still be on manifest for payload.
I wondered when and where it was going to go, and how they’d keep it hidden. I assumed they had a plan, and there are a number of places you can stow stuff on a ship so it can’t be found without a plate by plate sonar or mmw scan. No, I’m not going to tell you. It varies by ship and I might need to do it again.
There were a handful of small arms aboard, but nothing bigger than a standard rifle. Some were hunting rifles or shotguns, some appeared to have been acquired from terry gangs, and they had stuff from several generations and militaries. I could swear a couple of them were a century and a half old. There was even a revolver, if you’ve ever seen one of those on a history load.
A couple of the rifles were gorgeous. Carved stocks inlaid with engraved metal work. They were high-end hunting pieces. Except, I took a closer look at one, and the engraving wasn’t hand done. They were clones. Still, they were tagged from a supplier, to a receiver, which meant they weren’t really our business, except as cargo. I hoped that would work, and I wondered what they planned to do with them. Or perhaps they were actual cargo. There was so much in cubes, TEUs, pallets, cages and nets I wasn’t sure which was which.
I helped make sure it was all pinned and tied, and went EVA with Roger and Dylan to attach a short cargo train. It wasn’t much, but if we were a tramper, we needed to look like one at least.
“Roger,” I asked.
“Yes, Angie?”
“I assume you have some sort of track of all this.”
“Yup.”
“It’s all bound for destinations?”
“Yes, everything is itemized and billed.”
“Except the bits that are overmass.”
He raised an eyebrow and smiled. “Well, occasional errors do happen. Better to estimate slightly over for mass ratio balancing.”
“Natch,” I agreed.
I didn’t want to know more. They’d already started something.
CHAPTER 14
I still don’t know where that rock was. I think there were at least three, because I talked to other people who’d gone from them to the jump points, and unless some megafast drive was involved, they were all within a few days flight of a Jump Point. Since they were in the outer Halo, not in-system, that meant there had to be multiples.
Mira and Juan dialed up the drive until we were above Grainne G, probably at 135% of Earth G. I had to guess, because I’d never experienced natural E-g, and it had been years since I’d felt G-g. Whatever, we moved at a good clip, and five days later we were in pattern for Jump Point 2 back to Caledonia.
I had a flashback to Churchill. I’d crewed on her for two weeks, and served in combat, and I felt crappy for running out on them. Part of it was I knew I was less likely to die here, though more likely to be captured. If I did die, it would be quick. But I wanted to live, and I guess that colored my departure. I wished Churchill well. I had no idea at the time what their mission or combat status was.
That was how most of the war was for me, honestly. I wasn’t sure where we were a lot of the time. I didn’t know who the targets specifically were, or what, until after an explosion. We did a lot of running for our lives.
The food was decent enough. Much of it was pre-prep, but Roger and Teresa were both good cooks and switched off with me. I’d figured to be bored in my cubby, but Juan was captain and insisted we run through all the drills—Reactor Overload, Puncture, Dutchman, CO2 Overage, everything. I was brisk enough, but they were very rusty. So we ran through again, and they were spot on. I remember the klaxon sounding for Puncture, and running for the nearest kit. I had the mask on in under eight seconds, per the manual, snugged to my head, and had my hand wrapped through the harness as I snapped that to a stanchion. That helps keep you inboard if an entire plate fails. I turned as I shimmied into the harness properly, and saw the rest were already in four points, adjusting the tension.
After two days of drills and inspection, we fell to and scraped paint, laminate, oxide, checked fasteners and covers, ran resistance tests and photon leak tests on all the cabling, and generally checked her over. Teresa, Jack and Sebastian fixed a few things that were shaky. I felt a lot better when that was done.
After that, Juan wanted unarmed combat and boarding practice. It seemed to make sense. We were combatants, and this was a military transport, though I wasn’t sure what ten of us could do against a real warship.
Still, exercise is good. Or rather, I hate it, but I hate not exercising more. So we pulled tensioners in the hold, under g and under emgee, and Juan had us pair off for unarmed combat.
I was a bit bigger than Teresa, and she was squirmy, but I was stronger. Actually, she was fun to wrestle. I’m not much into women, but she had nice form, and feeling her strain out of my clutch was fun. She got my arm against my neck the next round, and I had to try to scissor her.
She was so lithe I got my knees together and it didn’t bother her at all.
After ten minutes of struggling, I had about three points on her. I wanted more practice.
Mohammed, who went by Mo, and Sebastian—Bast— paired off, and I thought they were going to break things. They were big, tough and bounded around the compartment, sort of a 3D sumo or Icelandic wrestle. I was sure some of those impacts hurt, but they only grunted from time to time. After a couple of minutes, Sebastian bent Mo in half over his knee, and Mo tapped out.
After Juan and Roger, I matched up with Mira. She was my size, close enough, though she was a bit taller and I thought I was sturdier and a bit better padded.
She came at me, grabbed, twisted, and she had her arm across my throat while my shoulder was bent in a way it shouldn’t. She leaned in slowly, and when the nerves started firing, I tapped.
That was frightening. It had taken three seconds from contact to disable.
What was terrifying was when she and Shannon paired off and he bent her into a pretzel in under five seconds, her hands out between her thighs and a foot behind her head with his knee across her throat. I’m sure there’s money for that, naked. I just hoped they never got drunk and wanted to slapfight with me. They were insanely strong.
Had I been that out of practice and out of g? Or were they complete unarmed combat bamfs as well as everything else?
I decided I’d get into the gym and work on some muscle groups.
We didn’t have much for repelling boarders. There were plenty of tools to use as melee weapons, and Juan had one stunner. The real guns couldn’t come out except under extreme circumstances. Mostly we practiced depressurizing spaces and pressure-locking hatches. And really, boarder repel is a tradition, but not something that’s ever going to be needed in the real world.
A lot of this was to keep us busy. Commercial ships can be lazy in between. The pay per functional work time is ridiculous, because there’s little to do in between, but people need enough money to take the job. That’s also why most ships have pretty damned good cooks, VR kits, and yattobytes of porn, with either simulacra or paid companions.
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