Harper glanced at Quaice, who looked down at the table, picking at his food with a fork. He was a bought man, a puppet of the corporations, and doubtless the rest of the Cabinet was also for sale to the highest bidder. She looked across at the eager Neander, who was noting something down on a datapad.
“I think that the best option at present is to give the Lieutenant some time to consider her position. Speaking purely for myself, I will begin to assemble the fuel, as well as a suitable escort to ensure its safety.”
“As will I,” Kilquan added. “Though in the time required, I'm not sure it can be assembled. And I stress again that without a suitably lucrative deal, I will not disrupt the supply lines of my regular customers. I would like to do business with the Confederation, Lieutenant, and would eagerly seek new markets for my people's traders, but I cannot take unnecessary risks.”
“Very well,” Quaice said. “I will consult the Cabinet over the possibility of a Triplanetary fleet being permitted into our territory.”
“There's no need,” Harper said, as the others rose from the table. “My orders were extremely clear on this issue, and...”
“It harms nothing,” Xydic said. “And perhaps gives your superiors options that they might not otherwise have considered. While certainly we cannot provide you with classified information about our defenses, some demonstration of its effectiveness is well within our power.”
“Xydic, will you see the officers back to ground level?” Quaice asked.
“Certainly,” he said, moving over to the elevator. Regretfully leaving his half-finished meal behind him, Maqua followed, Harper more slowly making her way after them, taking a last look at the view before the elevator doors closed.
“You should consider their position,” Xydic said as they dropped through the levels. “You are asking more of our infrastructure than perhaps you know.”
“I have my orders, as do you,” she replied. “All of this is pointless.”
A moment later, the doors opened onto an empty foyer, and the aide said, “Regardless, I will see that the bids are delivered to your ship by the end of the day, though I venture the expense will be higher than you were hoping.” Looking around with a thin smile on his face, he said, “Good day.”
As they stepped out, the doors slid shut, and Harper quickly made her way to the exit, looking around, reaching for her communicator. Maqua followed, a frown on his face, and she urged him on.
“What's the rush, ma'am?”
“Think, Midshipman. This place was full twenty minutes ago. Where have all the people gone?”
Before she could leave the building, half a dozen Neander stepped forward, all with the same stern expression on their faces. Her only surprise was that Kilquan hadn't managed to call in his people as well.
“You have been invited to a tour of our local offices,” the leader said. “Skeuros is very eager to receive your input on a potential bid.”
“I bet he is,” she replied, tapping a control on her communicator, a distress signal instantly pulsing to every Triplanetary installation within range.
“What do we do?” Maqua asked, looking at her.
“Go with them, of course,” she replied. “How can we turn down such a gracious invitation?”
Chapter 13
Salazar's hidden communicator chimed as he jogged along the concourse, racing towards the docking area, and he immediately snatched it out of his secret pocket, ripping open the lining of his jacket along the concealed seam, jamming it to his ear.
“Salazar here. What's happened?”
Scott replied, “We don't know much. Harper's been kidnapped, and we have a partial trace on her location, over by the far side of the commercial distract.” There was a brief pause, and she continued, “About half a mile from your current location.”
“Have the others checked in yet?”
“Rhodes and the rest of the fire team are already on their way.”
“Good. Vector them in towards me. We're going to get her out.”
“Is that a good idea, sir?”
“Probably not,” another voice said, and he turned to see the Neander guard from earlier. “We have some important matters to discuss with your commander, and I don't think any distractions are required.” A thin cylinder appeared in his hand, and Salazar smiled, shaking his head.
“You aren't going to shoot me. Not out in the open.”
“Are you truly willing to wager your life on that presumption?”
Shaking his head, Salazar slid the communicator into his pocket, and asked, “So what happens now?”
“I think we need to pay a visit to somewhere nice and quiet, and we can sit and have a little chat of our own.”
“And then only one of us comes back from there?” He looked around at the crowd, already thinning out around him. There was no sign of any of the security from before. If they were watching, they had decided to keep a low profile.
“Maybe. Maybe not. That depends on how talkative you are likely to be. I think my boss would be very eager to learn what your people have discovered out there, and perhaps would be willing to pay for the information.”
“I don't think you could afford me,” he replied.
“We have deeper pockets than you realize. If you look to your left, you'll see a low building, advertising excellent prices on local produce. As well as good deals, it serves as one of our safe-houses. We can have a nice conversation there. Move.”
Salazar glanced over at the shop, on the edges of a small cluster of houses, the same design as hundreds of other buildings he had seen, and started to walk towards it, making a brisk pace that forced the Neander to run to catch up. He continued to speed up, and then hurled himself to the ground, rolling to the left as a fountain of dirt erupted all around him.
He hadn't brought a pistol into the station. No way of getting it through the detectors, not without too great a risk. A blowgun was another matter, however, and he slid one quickly out of his sleeve, a knock-out dart already in position, and fired it in one smooth motion, the puzzled Neander crumpling to the ground.
“Nice work,” Rhodes said, jogging over. “You've been spending too much time with the grunts.”
“An old Squadron Sergeant-Major at the Academy taught me,” he replied, snatching up the unfamiliar weapon. There were no sights, and no visible means reloading it, just a single button at the bottom of the wand that evidently served as a trigger, and a series of notches that indicated direction. Stuffing into a pocket, he turned back towards the docking bay, Rhodes behind him.
“The others are heading for Harper,” he said. “When your signal stopped so quickly, I figured you might be having some problems.”
“Good guess,” Salazar replied.
“Don't take this badly, sir, but you usually seem to find any trouble that's going around.”
“How are you deployed?”
“One moving to every entrance, hiding in the crowd. And to answer your next question, sir, we're only armed with close melee weapons. I wasn't able to find any firearms.” Sliding a shining blade from his sleeve, he added, “Steak knives, though, I could buy in some numbers. And we've got our blowguns as well, of course.”
Pulling out his communicator, Salazar said, “Sorry about the interruption, Kat. Anything new?”
“Only that I'm now sitting on Shuttle One, on final approach for docking, with Spaceman Garland back in the passenger compartment with a medical kit on standby.”
“I'm scared to ask who you left in command.”
“Lieutenant, why would I need to? Leaving the ship would be a court-martial offense.”
With a smile, he replied, “Don't worry, I won't talk.”
“Just up ahead,” Rhodes said. “Higgins and Medodkis are in position.”
Frowning, Salazar replied, “Storming a building with a few blowguns is g
oing to be entertaining.”
“I don't think we'll be doing a matinee performance, sir.”
“No.” He looked around, then smiled, saying, “We don't have to.”
Harper and Maqua were walking down the concourse, flanked on all sides by obviously armed guards. The other troopers had seen the hostage on their way to the building, less than a moment before they would be locked away, impossible to access.
“What do we do, sir?” Rhodes asked.
For a split-second, Salazar searched his brain, trying to come up with some sort of a plan. They had next to nothing to work with, no real cover, no sign of any allies on the way, no armament, and facing superior opposition. No matter how hard he tried, he could only come up with one option.
“Charge!” he yelled, racing forward, pulling his blowgun free. The Neander guards paused for a moment, shock rippling across their faces as though they were unable to comprehend the audacity, or insanity, of the lone figure sprinting down the street towards them. Maqua acted first, hurling himself at the nearest of his captors, sending the two of them rolling into the dust, a trio of shots flying into the air as the Neander caught the trigger.
The burst of noise seemed to bring everyone to life, and the crowd ran for cover, sprinting in all directions in a bid to flee the upcoming melee. If local security wasn't planning to intervene before, they didn't have much of a choice now, and they only had a matter of a few minutes to work in.
Wave of fire smashed into the ground all around him as Salazar raced forward, weaving from side to side in precisely the way described by the manual. Belatedly, he remembered his stolen weapon, and pulled it from his pocket, lining up roughly on one of the Neander, hoping that he was pointing it in the right direction.
A burst of flame erupted from the end of the tube, a ruffian tumbling to the ground to avoid the bullet. Behind him, Rhodes and the others were kneeling, providing a low-technology suppressing fire with the blowguns, one of the Neander collapsing to the ground with a dart in his neck.
Harper was moving now, snatching a pistol from one of her captors and firing it into his foot with a single action before charging out of the clutches of the enemy. Maqua, scrambling up, was right behind her, the Neander diving to the side to aim their shots, heedless of the public display they were providing.
A siren blared over the landscape, long and loud, echoing from the buildings as the street emptied, only the combatants remaining on the field. To the left, a stream of Neander boiled out of the office block, all of them wearing armor and carrying rifles in their hands, taking advantage of some well-placed ornamental bushes to provide cover.
“Come on, come on!” Salazar said as Harper raced past him, grabbing Maqua and pushing him forward as more bullets rang out all around. Rhodes and the others had sensibly abandoned their position, and the group was sprinting for the presumed safety of the docking port, forming a loose clump to avoid being hit by enemy fire. Somehow, so far, none of them had been wounded, though Higgins was sporting a lovely black eye from diving too abruptly into cover. no one could be that lucky, and hopefully that meant that the leader of their would-be captors was reluctant to use deadly force.
“Oh, crap,” Rhodes said, and Salazar turned to see half a dozen albinos running towards them, weapons at the ready, in between them and the safety of the docking terminal. Swearing under his breath, he charged towards them, pointing his weapon at the approaching enemy. Pulling the trigger only yielded an empty, hollow click, and after the second failed attempt he threw the useless device away.
“Keep moving!” Harper yelled, taking the lead, charging for the airlock, and the rest followed her as bullets rang out all around them.,A pair of local security enforcers cowered in terror behind their barricade, content to let this battle play out rather than intervene. They knew when they were over-matched, and if nothing else, Salazar admired their common sense.
A loud scream from behind brought a brief smile to Salazar's face as he realized that the two enemies were just as interested in fighting each other as they were the Daedalus crew, though his smile soon turned sour as he thought through the implications, watching as the two rival gangs moved to encircle them. They'd fight to the death, and the survivors would end up with he, Harper and the rest as a prize, all chasing some nonexistent piece of salvage in an adjacent system.
The deadlock was ended by a burst of machine-gun fire from the airlock, Scott stepping through it and firing a series of bursts, sending the albino gunmen running into cover, ducking behind trees and benches.
“That's a hell of a beautiful sight, sir!” Rhodes yelled, leading the charge to the airlock. As Salazar made it inside, he saw Garland holding a submachine pistol on a pack of customs officials, none of them willing to be the one to learn whether or not he would use his weapon in anger. The Neander made a last attempt to bring them down, this time shooting more carefully, choosing their shots, winging Higgins in the arm. Medodkis grabbed him by the side, urging him on, while Rhodes dropped back to give his men covering fire.
The tenor of the sirens grew, the noise more urgent. As the airlock swung shut he could see dozens of uniformed guards sweeping down the street towards them, gathered in sufficient strength to overwhelm any conceivable enemy force. Only one shuttle was docked at the bay, the welcoming lines of a Triplanetary spaceship inviting him in. Clapping Rhodes on the back as the soldier ducked inside, he watched as Garland abandoned his captives and dove through the hatch on the first try. Finally, Salazar climbed in, locking the hatch and disengaging the docking clamps manually.
He raced up to the cockpit, sliding in beside Scott as she fired the engines, Daedalus on the move up ahead, slowly gathering speed to build some distance between the ship and the station. All around, ships crept, warships altering course in a last attempt to catch them.
“Let me have it,” he said, and a relieved Scott transferred flight control to the co-pilot's station. Now he was back in his element, and he ran the throttles up past the red line, into the hazy space between engineering caution and certain death, firing the thrusters in spasmodic bursts to hurl them from side to side, confounding any attempt to obtain a targeting solution.
“Signal from the station,” Scott said. “Apparently we are violating traffic regulations, and are to return to the docking terminal to be placed under arrest.”
“I think you can tell them what they can do with their traffic regulations, Sub-Lieutenant,” he replied, as Daedalus loomed ahead, the helmsman turning to give him a clear run at the docking port. They were well over acceptable limits for link-up, but all that meant was that he had to get it right on the first try, and he gently ran his fingers over the fine thrusters to adjust their track, curving smoothly in towards their target.
A series of welcoming clangs announced their arrival, and as soon as the two ships had engaged, the acceleration ramped up to full power, kicking them safely away from the station defense perimeter. Harper stepped forward, exchanging glances with Salazar, and shook her head.
“That could have gone a lot better.”
“Only you, Kris. Only you could go to a diplomatic lunch and end up starting a city-wide gunfight.” Rubbing his hand across his forehead, he said, “Not that I did much better. There's a criminal syndicate that is convinced that we've found Captain Kidd's treasure, I think.”
“Or the Lost Prospector's Asteroid,” Harper said. “Turns out that telling the truth only seems to make people think you have something to hide. We'll have to try a different approach next time.”
Maqua moved forward, looking from left to right, and asked, “Is it always like this, sir?”
“No, Midshipman,” Salazar replied. “It isn't. That was tame compared to some of our missions.” With a sigh, he added, “We're stuck, aren't we. There are three people who are able to provide the fuel we need to rescue the fleet, and none of them are willing to help us.”
“Not
without signing half the Confederation to them, anyway.” Harper peered at the sensor display, and shook her head. “Judging by the course plot, they've got some pretty sharp teeth as well. Though God only knows who they all belong to.”
Shaking his head, Salazar said, “It's worse than that. We didn't exactly keep a low profile out there, and every two-credit hustler with a starship and a missile rack will be out for a piece of the action. If we let anyone know where Alamo is, they'll have a fleet of local warships heading their way before you can say 'collateral damage.' I'm afraid this mission is a bust.”
“Alamo could beat them,” Maqua said.
“What about hijacking a tanker?” Scott asked. “I know it won't be easy, but...”
“Can you imagine the security they'll have out there?” Salazar replied. “Besides, I'm not sure that we want to give the Confederation the reputation stealing a ship would provide.”
“With all respect, sir, I don't think we're that well thought of at the moment.”
“Midshipman, what did you say?” Harper asked.
“That Alamo could beat them, ma'am. None of the ships are large, and they won't be working together. If it's like it was back there, then they'll be fighting each other as happily as they'll be fighting us.”
A smile spread across Harper's face, and she replied, “Midshipman, you are a genius.”
“He is?” Scott asked.
“Pavel, we've had some pretty good chances to take a look at those ships, haven't we? Enough to make a guess about their fuel load?”
“Probably, but does it make much difference?” he replied. “They've only got to make two jumps. One out, and one to return.”
“Humor me.”
“What are you thinking, Kris?” Salazar asked.
Looking at the sensor display again, she said, “We're not going to get a tanker from here. We'll never convince anyone to sell us the fuel, and I don't think we'd have a chance of stealing one. Even if we could ride out the consequences, security would be tight beyond belief, and we don't have enough people to properly crew Daedalus, let alone a ship with two, three times the crew requirements.”
Battlecruiser Alamo: Final Testament Page 12
