Hard Strike

by Eric Thomson

  Piracy, however, had been off limits ever since a group of disaffected veterans of the Shrehari War started the Confederacy seventy years earlier, and for an exceedingly simple reason. The penalties for piracy, if caught red-handed, were severe and immediate, thanks to an intolerant Navy acting as judge, jury, and executioner.

  Confederacy chieftains were, in their own way, business people who weighed risks against rewards. For example, it was easier and considerably safer to suborn spaceport stevedores or squeeze starship captains for protection money than steal cargo or take hostages for ransom in deep space.

  Two armed and masked goons preparing to invade a passenger cabin meant this was an abduction for hire. Decker searched his memory for the faces of that cabin’s passengers. Two women. One had kept her appearance carefully hidden the few times she’d left their quarters, though judging by her hands, she was several years younger than Talyn.

  The other, also in her late forties, perhaps even early fifties, seemed to be a bodyguard of sorts or a duenna. Her eyes held that special watchfulness though she didn’t move like a predator. Whenever they entered the passengers’ saloon, the pair remained aloof, speaking with no one, taking their meals with boot camp speed and then vanishing again.

  Decker tapped out abduction on Talyn’s hand, followed by do we stop it?

  The sound of a cabin door being forced open lent urgency to his question.

  Your call, Talyn tapped back. She nudged him with the barrel of her blaster, smaller than Decker’s Shrehari hand artillery but no less deadly in the hands of a professional assassin. It was her signal authorizing Decker to shoot and kill as necessary.

  He stowed the sensor and drew his gun before whispering, “Near,” indicating he would take the closest target while relying on her to drop the other, then, “Go!”

  — Sixteen —

  Talyn yanked the door wide open, and Decker stepped out into the corridor, blaster held up at eye level, barrel settling on the first Howler’s unarmored neck. Talyn, quick as a flash, was out behind him, aiming at the second would-be abductor.

  “Freeze or die, assholes,” Decker snarled, his face contorted into a mask of rage that promised unrestrained violence.

  Two helmeted heads turned to the right, eyes behind transparent visors widening in surprise. Then, almost simultaneously, the cover man’s gun barrel came up just as the door kicker tilted his head to one side in the natural and unconscious motion of someone with a helmet radio opening a link.

  As if connected by telepathy, both operatives fired at once, the sneeze of Talyn’s smaller blaster drowned out by the basso cough of Decker’s alien gun. Neither of the intruders stood a chance. Not against a Marine who qualified as an expert marksman on every small arm in the Fleets’ inventory, and then some. Even less against one of Naval Intelligence’s designated assassins with more kills to her credit than she cared to remember.

  Each of the Howlers took a single, deadly hit in the narrow strip between the top of the breastplate and the bottom of the helmet chin guard, where a battledress tunic collar was the only protection. Good enough against scattergun pellets, needler darts, chemically propelled bullets or bladed weapons, but not sufficient to stop a blaster’s super-heated round.

  The Confederacy of the Howling Stars enforcers died almost at once, their windpipes and spines severed. They crumpled to the deck one after the other with a dull thump. Decker, hoping neither had time to sound the alarm but keeping his ears alert for any fresh footsteps coming up the metal staircase, knelt beside the door kicker’s body.

  He took the man’s scattergun and searched him while Talyn did the same with the other. While his hands dug into pockets, the Marine’s gaze turned to the partially open cabin door his downed target was forcing moments before he died. Beyond it, a pair of hard eyes watched him from the shadows — the presumed bodyguard or duenna. His assumption was proved right moments later when he saw the shape of a wicked needler in her hand.

  He raised his chin at her. “You — try to lock that door again. Or even better, take your companion and hide in our cabin. These clowns aren’t alone, and their buddies will come looking to see what’s taking so long. They know where you’re berthed, and that means you need to move.”

  The woman seemed to hesitate, then her face and the needler disappeared, though Decker heard urgent whispers coming through the narrow opening. He turned to Talyn, now standing with the cover man’s scattergun slung over one shoulder and his helmet hanging from her left hand. She raised it to waist level.

  “These brain buckets aren’t keyed to their previous owners. If your plan is to repel the rest of the Howler boarding party, take his. It might fool them for that one second we need to fire the first shot.”

  The duenna stuck her head through the door and studied both agents for a few seconds.

  “Who are you?” Her voice sounded like it came from the bottom of a stone crusher and her accent from the deepest corners of the frontier.

  “Concerned citizens with an allergy to pirates, Sera,” Talyn replied.

  “Pirates?” Her eyes dropped to the door kicker, now lying on the floor helmetless. “That tattoo running up his neck makes him a Jackal, and they don’t do piracy.”

  “No fan of the Confederacy, then?” Decker hefted the helmet and grinned at her.

  She looked up at the Marine again with a suspicious expression.

  “Who are you, really? Concerned citizens usually can’t manage throat shots at three meters on the first try.”

  “When we’re not concerned citizens, she and I are soldiers of fortune,” the Marine replied. “It’s your luck we’re light sleepers and happen to bunk across the hall from you. Now if you’ll excuse us, I’d like to carve a few more notches in my blaster’s grip. My partner here, who hates late night shenanigans, needs to unleash her bad mood on someone and I’d rather it wasn’t me. Are you taking our cabin?”

  The woman nodded once. “We probably should. Temporarily.”

  “Good. I had to fiddle with the lock, but I’m sure you can fix it and make yourself secure. If you need a drink, there’s a bottle of high octane, low-quality stuff pretending to be whiskey on the sideboard. Help yourself and offer your client a dram.”

  “What makes you think she’s my client?”

  Decker tapped the side of his oft-broken nose with an extended index finger and grinned.

  “Call it a hunch. When we return, the recognition signal is vee for victory. You know it?”

  “Three quick knocks, a pause, one knock.”

  He gave her thumbs up, then pulled the helmet on.

  “Time to rumble.”

  Door kicker’s brain bucket was a basic model, available at any surplus store in the sovereign star systems. Comms, heads-up display with basic telemetry and limited night vision, radio and protection against direct hits from anything smaller than a twenty millimeter round. Though without an armored neckpiece as support, whiplash from the impact of solid projectiles might be enough to kill the wearer. Or at least give him a killer migraine. If Decker had his druthers, he wouldn’t bother with the helmet, but it was camouflage, and an easy way to eavesdrop on enemy communications.

  “Main airlock?” Talyn gestured toward the spiral staircase.

  “You mean take their shuttle and wait in ambush for the rest?” When she nodded, he smirked. “I’m gratified to see my lovely apprentice has mastered the fine art of fucking with enemy boarding parties.”

  “What can I say? You’re rubbing off on me, honey.” She blew him a kiss through the open helmet visor

  “In more ways than one. But since I’m your plasma catcher along with everything else, decent or otherwise, please step aside and let me lead the way.” He glanced back at the bodyguard, now staring at them with an expression bordering on disbelief and winked. “We’re actually nuttier than we sound, but that always seems to work in our favor.”

  A faint, high-pitched guffaw reached his ears from somewhere behind the bodyguard, but
he ignored it in favor of holstering his blaster to brandish the late door kicker’s scattergun.

  “Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more.”

  “Go,” Talyn growled, “before I shout Cry God for Harry, England and Saint George.” She shook her head in despair. “Now he’s got me doing it too.”

  But Decker, as light on his feet as a professional dancer, was already in the stairwell, making no more noise on the metallic treads than one of the ship’s cats, those four-legged, merciless killers Talyn found endlessly fascinating. Especially after witnessing the final moments of a successful vermin hunt. With a shrug, she followed him, her own footsteps just as quiet and assured.

  Nothing came through their helmet radios, not even the faintest crackle, and Decker mentally congratulated the soon to be late Howlers on their communications discipline. Few non-Fleet boarding parties could work without incessant chatter, most of which was unnecessary and only a result of nerves because when ordinary humans felt anxious, they generally flapped their lips. When Marines felt uneasy, they stayed quiet, found a target, and applied the rules of engagement.

  Decker stopped on the landing one deck beneath the passenger accommodations. The main port side airlock was on this level and approximately ten meters aft of the stairwell, just before the shielded bulkhead separating Thebes’ engineering section from the rest of the ship. Crew quarters and the bridge were in the other direction, toward the bow, separated from this section by airtight doors, while the stairs ended on a level further down, at an airlock leading to the cargo hold.

  He fed the translucent sensor probe around the bulkhead and was gratified see four gangsters, two forward and two aft, keeping the kidnapper’s withdrawal route clear. But their posture and the way they held their weapons seemed relaxed enough to suggest they expected no opposition. An inside job, then. Or someone persuaded Thebes’ captain ahead of time to cooperate.

  Talyn touched the back of his hand with her fingertips. How many?

  Decker flipped his hand around so he could tap out a reply. Four. Two on the left near the airlock, two on the right. They’re not expecting trouble. I take left, you take right. Shoot to kill. When they drop, we rush the airlock and take their shuttle.

  She nodded once, pushed the slung scattergun out of the way and drew her blaster again, imitated by Decker. The latter held up three fingers, then slowly folded them one by one. When the last vanished into his massive fist, the two operatives stepped out of the stairwell, back to back and raised their weapons.

  — Seventeen —

  The four Confederacy enforcers, alerted by movement coming from the stairwell and expecting their comrades, were slow to react, even though Talyn was visibly smaller than the gorilla whose helmet she wore. They turned toward Decker and his partner with expectant looks behind open visors. Those expressions quickly turned to disbelief when they noticed themselves staring into the barrels of two wicked-looking blasters, one of which could pass for a hand cannon.

  Decker’s first shot obliterated a goon’s nose and flash-fried his brain. He collapsed like a deflated balloon. The next one, snapped off with a slightly less steady aim, landed partially on the side of the second Howler’s helmet, spattering droplets of molten composite and plasma on his face. He fell to his knees, flailing about in agony and Decker’s third shot missed completely, digging a divot in the far bulkhead. The fourth shot, taken with more deliberation, put the screaming man out of his misery.

  Meanwhile, Talyn dispatched the pair by the forward doors with two well-placed rounds each, double-tap style, confirming her status as one of Naval Intelligence’s deadliest shots. They dropped to the deck with a dull twin thump.

  “Clear,” she said in a low voice, pitched for Decker’s ears only.

  “Clear,” he replied in the same tone as he prepared to launch himself through the port side airlock’s inner door. At that moment, the radio came to life, and a male voice demanded someone give him a situation report.

  The Marine plunged through the opening, hunched as low as possible, his blaster held out before him, ready to fire, but the airlock itself was empty. The outer door, however, gave onto the inside of a small craft, a sublight shuttle mated to the freighter’s side. It framed the anxious face of a man holding the same type of scattergun as the rest.

  Decker checked his step, fired once at the Howler, then without waiting to see the result, crashed into him with his shoulder, throwing the body across the shuttle’s passenger compartment. Fighting to regain his balance, he stumbled aboard, turned his head left, then right, to orient himself and find the cockpit. If his latest kill wasn’t the pilot, there was an eighth gangster still alive and dangerous.

  A hard body slammed into Decker from just outside his field of vision, and he careened into the opposite bulkhead, dropping his blaster under the force of the impact. He turned to face his opponent in time to see a knife flash between them.

  With no time to roll out of the way, he raised his left arm to block the Howler’s stroke while reaching out to grab his wrist with the right hand. The blade bounced off his synthetic leather jacket’s sleeve, but the force of forearm meeting forearm sent a shudder up to his shoulder. Decker’s fingers wrapped around the offending hand as the man, using his greater leverage forced his knife’s tip every closer to the Marine’s left eye.

  Then, a blaster coughed. The goon’s muscles twitched once before turning to jelly, and his body draped itself over Decker. Grimacing at the stench of burned flesh, he pushed the remains off and climbed to his feet.

  “You took your sweet time.”

  Talyn shoved her gun back into its shoulder holster and made a face at him.

  “If that’s the thanks I get for saving your life, you can find a new partner, darling.”

  “I was handling the situation.”

  “Looked like you were close to losing an eye, if not more.”

  Decker looked at the dead Howler. Talyn’s shot had neatly severed his spine just below the shoulder blades before frying his heart.

  “He wasn’t exactly small, was he? Stupid gangster, though. If he and his buddy over there,” Decker pointed at the crumpled form in the far corner, “bothered to wear the same armor and helmets as their colleagues, this might not be over yet.”

  “Or if this last one hadn’t been afraid to damage the inside of his shuttle with gunfire instead of pulling a knife, you and I might not be talking right now.”

  Decker gave his partner a rueful shrug.

  “True. I should have figured there would be at least one switched-on goon in the bunch. I just didn’t think it would be the shuttle pilot.”

  “When you’re running an unindicted criminal organization, you make sure the switched-on foot soldiers are in charge of the expensive gear, Big Boy. What’s our next move?”

  “Fly this junk heap back to its mothership, which can’t be more than a hundred klicks away, and turn the tables on them?”

  “Fun as that sounds, we risk Thebes’ captain taking fright and buggering off without us. Then, if the Howlers try again before entering Cimmeria orbit, unlikely as that might sound, we won’t be there to help your damsel in distress. And I want to know who she is, why she’s traveling incognito with a bodyguard who seems able to give a good account of herself, and most importantly why the Confederacy of the Howling Stars is after her.”

  “You think there’s a national security angle to this?”

  Talyn snorted.

  “We’re in the Rim Sector. Everything has a national security angle out here. Besides, Howlers trying to pull a deep space kidnapping is a federal case, and in the absence of a duly sworn Constabulary officer, it’s one for the Navy. I’m a Navy officer, and you’re my Marine Corps muscle.”

  “This has to be more than just you satisfying your curiosity, Hera. What gives?”

  “Call it instinct. Something smells distinctly rancid to my finely honed paranoia. It may be nothing, but we can’t take that chance, and our orders give us pl
enty of latitude.”

  “You’re the boss, boss. But let’s not forget why we’re headed for the Rim Sector’s sparkling capital. I doubt this incident is connected to the lovely folks we terminated on Mission or their asshole buddies on Cimmeria who will join them in terrorist hell. How about we drag the bodies into this garbage scow, cast it off and send it home on automatic with a pink bow and a love note?”

  “You drag the bodies. I will figure out how this crate’s controls work. It’s called division of labor based on individual strengths.”

  “Meaning I’m your beast of burden once again.” Decker snapped off a mock salute. “I hear and obey, oh Angel of Death.”

  Talyn gave him the rigid digit before vanishing into the shuttle’s cockpit.

  **

  “Funny how the ship’s crew stayed really quiet throughout this,” Decker said. He and Talyn stood by the airlock’s porthole and watched the Howler shuttle move away from Thebes toward its unseen mothership. “They must have watched via the surveillance cameras.”

  “Or someone ordered them to shut the cameras off on pain of eternal torment until after the abduction. You can’t testify to something you didn’t see, let alone record.”

  “But if they watched, I’d say the captain won’t be our number one fan right now. Screwing up a Howler operation makes us the ultimate persona non grata aboard.”

  Talyn’s shoulders twitched in a dismissive shrug.

  “So we take control of this garbage scow. You and I can stay awake until we dock at Valerys Station. But it won’t come to that. Either no one saw a damn thing, or if they did, this incident never happened.”

  Decker glanced up at the deckhead and said, “I know you little buggers are watching, so here’s a hint. Go FTL on that final leg to Cimmeria’s hyperlimit and everyone will be happier. Otherwise, I might pay your bridge a little visit...”

  When neither of them felt the characteristic nausea caused by a starship shifting between the normal universe and hyperspace, the Marine made a face.