Wholesale Slaughter

by Rick Partlow

  This was her life. She sent out an automated undocking notice to the station’s traffic control computer, ignoring the warning in return telling her she was not next in line and she’d face a heavy fine against the credit account set up when they’d docked if she didn’t wait her turn.

  “I love spending government money,” she said, smirking at the thought of all those zeros disappearing from the Military Intelligence black-book spending account with just a nudge of the thrusters.

  Thank you, taxpayers. She felt their wrath in the hammer-blow of the maneuvering jets kicking her free from the berth. Thank you so very much.

  Logan Conner had never been in a space battle before, and he decided he didn’t like it much. It had mostly involved being squashed under the hobnailed boot of eight or nine gravities of acceleration and not knowing what the hell was going on.

  “Kammy,” Lyta Randell gritted out past clenched teeth from somewhere to his right, too far out of his line of sight for him to risk turning his head, since it weighed about fifteen kilos at the moment, “how many of them are there?”

  “Two.” The big man’s voice didn’t sound as strained as Lyta’s, perhaps because he was more used to dealing with the heavy boost. “Not military-grade, just cargo transports with armor strapped on and weapons pods rigged up in the freight bays.”

  Logan could see the big man; his acceleration couch was directly behind the pilot’s station. Somehow Kammy managed a shrug, which was more than Logan could have done.

  “They’re enough to blow us into little, glowing chunks though, if they can get close enough.”

  The bounty hunter ships had been on them since about two minutes after they’d boosted out of Gateway’s docking collar. While Logan wasn’t sure exactly where Osceola’s ship was, he was pretty certain it was too far away. He would have asked the captain, but the man had passed out a few seconds into the initial boost. Combat acceleration and cracked ribs really didn’t go together.

  “Shouldn’t we be in suits?” He’d tried to yell the question, but it came out as a pained grunt.

  “Sure,” Kammy agreed with his unflagging good cheer. “I’ll just call time-out and cut thrust for a bit so we can all go change. I’m sure these dudes won’t mind.”

  A warning light began flashing red in a corner of the main viewscreen with the musical accompaniment of an annoying, whining alert.

  “What’s that?” he asked.

  “Mining laser they got rigged up as an anti-ship weapon.”

  The boost cut out for the space of two seconds and maneuvering jets pushed his abused body into whole new sections of the acceleration couch, shaking him back and forth like a bone in a dog’s teeth before the main engines kicked in again with their steady, crushing torture.

  “Okay, we’re good for a minute,” Kammy announced. “The other guy is gonna flank us though. He’s riding the angle to cut us off and ain’t no way we can take him out without cutting boost and changing course, which’d make us a sitting duck for this guy.”

  “They aren’t using missiles?” Lyta wondered. Logan understood the question. If the bounty hunters had radar-guided missiles like the ones military assault shuttles used, this bird was toast.

  “Gateway don’t like no one using missiles or cannon in their shipping lanes,” Kammy assured her. “They don’t care if we take potshots at each other, but if we start sending shit downrange that could just keep going and hit one of their customers, that could be bad for business, and they got some bad-ass defense systems to enforce those rules. These assholes won’t be using anything except lasers if they know what’s good for them.”

  Logan forced his right arm to move, despite the crushing weight piled atop it, touched a control on his ‘link. He’d put his earpiece in place before he’d strapped in, so at least he didn’t have to try to do anything that delicate under this sort of acceleration.

  “Katy,” he grunted the words out, “need you to take down one of these birds. You are cleared hot.”

  Her voice was calm and measured and professional and exactly what he needed to hear.

  “Roger that, Captain Slaughter. Give me two mikes.”

  The enemy bird was tubby and ungainly, a bulbous lifting-body meant for delivering heavy payloads from orbit. In any sort of atmosphere, it would have been nearly helpless; but out here in the vacuum, its outsized drive gave it plenty of thrust to haul around extra tons of armor and weapons. It was pretty much untouchable by the weapons a civilian or even a crew of bounty hunters could afford.

  Luckily, Katy wasn’t flying a civilian shuttle, even if it was dressed up like one and wearing a civvie registration number. Nine gravities of boost flattened her into the gel cushioning of the acceleration couch, the tight, familiar embrace of an old friend, and the closest of the two cargo transports seemed to leap toward her in the view screens. It gleamed silver-grey against the darker hues of Gateway looming behind it as big as a world, the station’s radiator vanes nearly outshining the system’s primary in their race to cool it down.

  What the hell was the name of that star, anyway?

  She couldn’t remember, so she concentrated on centering the targeting reticle on the cargo transport’s weapons pod, a grey tumor protruding from the open loading doors on the craft’s belly. They could armor up the rest of the boat, but they couldn’t put much armor on the laser or it would overheat, which was the weakness of a civilian ship retrofitted for a fight. Her shuttle was built for combat, and the cooling systems for the laser were twisted vanes of liquid nitrogen deep inside the armored belly. The reticle went from a flashing red to a steady, confident green and she pushed the firing stud.

  They were in a hard vacuum; there was no sound, no visible beam. But the tactical computer supplied the imagery of a broken red line between her shuttle and the enemy ship, a representation of the second-long burst of laser pulses from the flower-petal emitter lens which had unfolded just beneath the cockpit. It didn’t have to simulate the flash of sublimating metal and boron when the pulses struck. Those were lit up from the flare of their own burning gasses, an expanding white globe nearly as big as the shuttle.

  She couldn’t see anything through the ball of gas, not even on thermal, but the radar was reporting bits of the fuselage flaking off and the cargo transport was going off course, its vector altered by the thrust from the directional blast. The miniature star-burst of the drive flickered and then died and the transport ceased accelerating, still heading off in a skewed vector from its momentum. They might still be alive in there, but they were out of this fight and they’d need help if they didn’t want to drift off into interstellar space and die of anoxia in a few days.

  My first shots fired in anger, she mused. It had felt like nothing, like a simulator. People could have died and she felt nothing. Should that worry her?

  “Splash one,” she transmitted to Logan on Osceola’s shuttle, her voice flat and unemotional. “Targeting the second boat now.”

  She shoved the control yoke to her left and downward and throttled back the thrust during the course adjustment, changing her shuttle’s vector to intercept the second bounty hunter cargo bird. As it turned out, she needn’t have bothered. The pilot of the second transport had broken off and changed course, decelerating and turning to go after the wounded craft.

  Guess she has friends on board.

  Katy killed the drive and took a deep breath for the first time in nearly a half an hour, then hit the ‘link control again.

  “Second boat has broken off,” she informed Logan. “Awaiting instructions.”

  There was a long pause and she wondered if he was puking. A lot of groundpounders puked after their first taste of high-g maneuvering. His voice was hoarse and rasping when he finally spoke.

  “Follow us in, Katy. We’re heading for the Shakak.”

  “Roger that,” she acknowledged.

  She fixed the shuttle’s radar and lidar lock on Osceola’s bird and let the computer match velocities with it. Suddenly,
her mouth was dry and her hands were beginning to shake. It took her a few minutes to get her breathing back under control and her heart rate down. Then it was past.

  Just a bit of post-adrenaline withdrawal. Nothing emotional. I’m good. Dr. Saito can go to hell.

  If she kept saying it long enough, she might even believe it.

  “There she is.”

  Logan saw Kammy smiling at the image on the shuttle’s main view screen, though he didn’t see much to smile about. The ship was nestled behind a smallish rock, hidden from the view of Gateway in an oppositional orbit, and if he was being brutally honest…

  “That looks like a big pile of scrap metal.”

  Osceola glared at him, but Lyta couldn’t quite contain a snorting laugh.

  “Welcome to the Shakak, Captain Slaughter,” she said, waving at the ship. “Despite her looks, I think she’ll suit us just fine.”

  Logan shook his head. He hadn’t been exaggerating. The Shakak had the lines of a converted cargo hauler, one of the older models from early in the Reconstruction, all bulbous and rounded at the nose, cylindrical and tubby behind, with ungainly protrusions at the waist to shelter heavy-lift cargo shuttles beneath heavy shielding while under way. A separate bay for passenger shuttles was set along the belly just behind the nose armor like the mouth of a sperm whale, growing brighter and looming larger as they approached.

  The ship was all slapped-together, the armor plating layered in scales, the welds ugly and obvious, the weapons pods cancerous growths extruding from the flanks of the great beast, out of place and awkward. It looked very much as he would expect the ship of a crew of shoestring mercenaries to look, and he’d been hoping for something more.

  “Shuttle Two,” a female voice blared harsh and grating over the cockpit speakers, “I’m picking up a trail behind you. You want I should light them up?”

  “Negative, Tara,” Osceola told the woman, the scowl he shot at Logan indicating he’d had to consider the answer. “They’re a friendly. Stand down weapons and tell the docking crews to prepare for two incoming birds.”

  “Got it, boss.”

  At least they asked.

  “How are your ribs doing, Don?” Lyta asked the master of the junk heap.

  He winced, rubbing his side gingerly.

  “They hurt like hell,” he admitted. “But I guess it beats the alternative. I owe you one, Lyta.”

  Logan cleared his throat and earned another dirty look.

  “Okay, I owe both of you.” Osceola granted him. “But that’s just me. I have to think about my whole crew, so I’m not committing to anything until I hear the full risk assessment.”

  The pilot, the big slab of marbled beef called Kammy, had flipped the shuttle end for end and was firing the main engine in short bursts for deceleration, the jolting bangs of thrust making conversation impossible for a few minutes until he’d matched velocities with the Shakak. A few more hammer blows to the hull, softer this time but still obnoxious, and the shuttle was floating backward relative to the big ship, slipping into the open berth with practiced ease. There was a shudder and then a sharp jerk as the bird was pulled into the magnetic grapples. Then they were still.

  Relatively, he reminded himself. The whole ship, them included, was still moving thousands of meters per second around the asteroid, which was orbiting some gravitational center at thousands of meters per second, which was, in turn, orbiting the primary star, which was orbiting the galactic center, etc.… Nothing was ever “still” in space, but this was close enough for government work.

  Osceola leaned forward in his seat and hit a control to switch the view from the dull grey of the interior of the docking berth to an exterior camera showing Katy’s approach in the Sparta-made assault shuttle. The bird was angular and deadly, not fooling anyone with its civilian markings.

  “Let’s see how your girlfriend does bringing her bird home,” Osceola said, leering back at him.

  “How did you know…” Logan tripped over the words, shut his mouth. “I mean, what makes you think she’s my girlfriend?”

  Osceola barked a laugh, cutting loose of his restraints.

  “Kid, you are as transparent as the observation bubble on a star cruiser. Even half-conscious, I could hear the way you talked to her when you were asking for help.”

  Logan tried to maintain a poker face, but he’d always been horrible at poker and he could feel his ears warming. He tried to avoid Osceola’s eyes and concentrate on watching Katy’s approach. Pride surged in his chest as she brought the assault shuttle in smoothly, without a hesitation or last-minute burst of maneuvering jets, sliding into the docking berth as if she’d been stationed on the Shakak for years and docked with her a thousand times.

  “Sweet,” Kammy commented, drawing the word out a few extra syllables and nodding his appreciation. “She got some smooth moves there, brother.”

  “Well, let’s not keep the lady waiting.” Osceola yanked down the red-painted lever to release the airlock and pulled the door inward, bracing himself against the fuselage. “Damn!” he hissed, clutching his side again.

  “Oh, Mithra’s horns, Don,” Lyta sighed, pushing across the cockpit and pulled the door the rest of the way open, before going through and undogged the outer door. “How the hell have you kept your head on straight without me?”

  “It ain’t been easy, love.” He hissed out a breath, letting Kammy squeeze past him, offering a comforting pat on the arm.

  Logan glanced between Osceola and Lyta Randell, wondering again just how close the two of them had been and if their relationship was the reason she’d wanted him for the mission. But he couldn’t imagine the Ranger captain ever putting her personal feelings ahead of the mission, and he suspected the only reason he was even having the thought was his own guilt at bringing Katy along.

  But she proved herself. All he’s done so far is fuck up.

  The docking umbilical led them out into a narrow corridor, just wide enough for crew, without even a viewscreen to show the docked shuttles much less a window like the station. It would be claustrophobic, if Logan had been given to that sort of thing, though the microgravity helped to ameliorate the feeling; but he didn’t know how the hell Kammy could stand it, since the man’s shoulders were nearly as wide as the tunnel.

  The corridor curved around to meet the outlets from the other docking berths, and Katy was already heading out of the central one, still dressed in her grey Navy flight suit, a sidearm holstered at her waist. She never went anywhere without a gun, which he’d noticed but hadn’t mentioned. Whatever she needed to do to cope, she’d earned it.

  “Lieutenant Kathren Margolis,” Lyta introduced, “meet Captain Donner Osceola and his First Mate Kamehameha-Nui Johannsen.”

  “That was some nifty flying, ma’am,” Kammy told her with a nod of appreciation. “Thanks for pulling our butts out of the fire.”

  “It was my job,” Katy told the big man. “If things work out here, then it’ll have been my pleasure.”

  “Whoo, she’s a cool one, isn’t she?” Osceola laughed. “You got your hands full, boy.”

  “Boss, you guys okay?”

  Logan recognized the voice from the transmission to the shuttle, female but sounding as if she gargled with broken glass. The face matched the voice, rough and weathered and scarred, her hair cut short and spiky, brown with just a touch of grey. Osceola and Kammy had come to Gateway in civilian spacer’s clothes, but this woman wore what appeared to be some sort of ship uniform, brown fatigues with Shakak emblazoned across a patch on the left breast.

  She pushed herself out of an access hub, a tube running down the core of the crewed part of any large ship, the fastest way to get around in free-fall. And clambering out behind her was…

  “Shit!” Logan blurted, clawing at his holster, forgetting to hold onto the guide-rail on the side of the passageway and floating off, shoulders impacting the bulkhead behind him.

  Behind Tara was a Jeuta. There was no mistaking them. The t
hing’s skin was thick and dark and rubbery, like a sea lion’s, where it emerged from his brown, sleeveless shirt, nearly as big as Kammy’s. Its ears were concave recesses in the side of its smooth, almost featureless head, and twin slits lay flush where a nose would be on a human. The eyes were shark-black and sheltered under bony ridges, but the most alien thing about a Jeuta was the mouth. Slitted and broad, snakelike, with teeth to match, always hanging open for cooling.

  They were The Enemy with huge capital letters and Logan had trained to fight them every day of four years in the Academy. His gun was millimeters from clearing leather when Lyta Randell’s hand closed over his, pinning the weapon in place.

  “It’s okay,” she insisted, her voice low and commanding. “He’s not a threat, Captain Slaughter.” The use of his nom de guerre shocked him out of his conditioned response and he met her dark eyes, saw the reassurance in them. “He’s part of the crew.”

  Logan glanced back and forth between her, Osceola, and the Jeuta, his eyes wide. The Jeuta was staring back, but he couldn’t read the thing’s eyes, couldn’t tell if it was angry or scared or simply bored. He finally saw the ship logo on its vest and he let a deep breath from between his teeth.

  “Meet Tara Gerard, my Tactical Officer,” Osceola said, a wry smile playing across his face, obviously amused at Logan’s reaction, “and Wihtgar, one of my Engineering techs.” He shrugged, smiled more broadly. “Well, he also doubles as ship’s security, ‘cause, you know…” He waved at the size of the Jeuta, the taloned vice grips it had for hands.

  “Tara, Wihtgar, this is Captain Jonathan Slaughter, the man who wants to hire us. Say hello to the nice man.”

  “Pleased to make your acquaintance.” The Jeuta spoke.

  He knew they could speak, of course. They couldn’t have had a technological civilization otherwise—well, they couldn’t have maintained what passed for a technological civilization, anyway. But all the intelligence reports on them said they only conversed in their own tongue, never deigning to speak Basic, only using computer translators when they dealt with humans. Something about how they didn’t care to use what they still called their “slave language.” He’d never heard one speak in the human language before.