Starship Blackbeard

by Michael Wallace

  “Ah, you ain’t half bad, Tolvern.” Capp’s hand slid up Carvalho’s thigh. “When I met you, I thought you had the biggest stick up your backside I’d ever seen.”

  “It’s still there. You just can’t see it because my butt cheeks are clenched too tight. This place makes me nervous.”

  The other woman laughed and tossed back the rest of her rum. She fished out a couple of silver shillings, which she slapped on the table, then patted Carvalho’s cheek. “Get us another round, luv.”

  He rose obediently and made his way to the bar. It might take a minute. There were a crowd of men and women struggling to get the barman’s attention.

  “I can ditch him any time, you know,” Capp said. “You want to get lucky tonight, let me know, and we’ll jump those two blokes at the bar.”

  “Wouldn’t your boyfriend be furious?”

  Capp shrugged. “Nah, he’d take it as license to find some bar wench and take her upstairs. Whadya say?”

  Tolvern had already had a snootful of rum and was starting to feel warm and reckless. She cast her glance at the two men. They were looking at her this time, and one of them leaned in to whisper something in his mate’s ear. The man glanced at her and winked. She looked away, feeling flushed.

  “You pick first,” Capp said. “Mr. Muscles or the dark one?”

  “They’re probably pirates.”

  “So are we!”

  “It’s not that I’m not . . .” Tolvern’s voice trailed off.

  “Horny?”

  “Curious. I’m curious. But, well. No, I don’t think so. Not tonight.” Just as quickly, the reckless feeling dissolved into the thick air.

  “I knew it,” Capp said, nodding sagely. “You’re hot for the captain. Well, believe me, you ain’t getting far with that one, not the way you’re playing coy and all. You want that man, you’ll have to jump his bones.” She looked toward the bar, irritation flickering across her face. “Where is our rum? I’m dying of thirst here.”

  #

  Tolvern’s job was to keep an eye on Capp and Carvalho, not get herself smashed, but the other woman kept ordering up the rum. Tolvern was already feeling wobbly when Capp and Carvalho dragged her to the dance floor, where the three of them joined the sweating, writhing bodies. She wasn’t a great dancer under the best of circumstances, and with so much rum in her belly, she knew she was flailing about ridiculously. Capp grabbed her wrist and pulled her deeper in, and soon she was in so tight with other bodies that her rhythm, or lack thereof, didn’t matter so much.

  At last she was so hot and sweaty and drunk that she had to come out to take a break. She ordered a mineral water at the bar, then went looking for a washroom. She pushed through a circle of Hroom smoking a water pipe, through a mixed group of Hroom and human playing some sort of dice game, and then through a crowd packed in near the washroom entrance. She staggered past the men and Hroom at a long, trough-like urinal, and pushed herself into the stall. A wave of nausea washed over her as she sat, but it passed.

  She remembered something her father had said once when she’d had too much Christmas eggnog and complained of a hangover. After the first glass, you were only borrowing future happiness. Soon enough you’d have to pay it back, with interest. What’s more, as she’d been recently accepted into the Academy at the time, getting drunk was the quickest way to remind others that she was a commoner. A baron’s son might get away with it, but if she got drunk in public, people of better breeding would shake their heads and remind themselves that she was a steward’s daughter.

  Tolvern stood and stared down as the bowl emptied and refilled with rust-colored water. The swirling looked like how her stomach felt.

  “No more rum,” she mumbled.

  When she came out of the bathroom, two Hroom were on the floor, fighting, while humans and other Hroom surrounded them, making bets, passing money. The brawlers had the light-pink skin of eaters, and she figured it was something over sugar. Carvalho stood to one side with another man, short and bald, one ear clipped. The two men stood in close, exchanging something, one palm to the other.

  Tolvern figured it was another bet on the fighting Hroom, but then the bald man reached into a pocket and removed a heavy coin purse. Carvalho pulled apart the string and peered inside, his eyes widening. He quickly drew the string and shoved it into a pocket. He leaned in and whispered to the bald man, who nodded before slipping furtively away.

  She stared hard. The bald man—she’d seen him before, and suddenly remembered where. He was one of the men she’d led in a surly procession from the captured pirate frigate. Drake had forced the pirates to sign papers renouncing their rights to their ship in return for the privilege of being spared their lives. The captain and his daughter had muttered dark oaths, but they had signed, together with the rest of the crew. Hadn’t Carvalho and Capp been in the party that handcuffed the prisoners and sent them to the space elevator to be unceremoniously dumped onto the surface? Tolvern thought they had.

  She shrank into the crowd as Carvalho turned to scan his surroundings. That was a big coin purse. If stuffed with guineas and half crowns, it might hold several hundred pounds. What the devil had Carvalho given or told the bald man to get a payoff of that size?

  Then, while she was still standing there, trying not to be seen, another figure picked her way through the crowd to Carvalho’s side. Capp!

  The two of them embraced, but it wasn’t for amorous purposes. Instead, Carvalho leaned in and whispered in her ear. In response to whatever he’d said, she reached out a hand and patted his bulging pocket where he’d stuffed the coin purse.

  Tolvern retreated into the bathroom, her heart pounding, her face flushed with rage at the betrayal.

  Chapter Seventeen

  A Hroom strapped the four passengers into the railgun car: Drake and Tolvern in the front seats, Barker and Oglethorpe in the back. Harnesses swung over their shoulders to hold them in place as if they were in an amusement park rollercoaster. Drake looked doubtfully at the track that cut at a near-vertical angle into the hazy red mist. He could just see the distant tower that marked the cars of the space elevator, where they would dock and continue their journey into space where Ajax waited.

  The Hroom spoke in Ladino with a greasy-handed female operator, then turned to the four passengers. “There is a technical issue. We expect it to be resolved in two minutes.”

  “One of these days,” Barker said from behind Drake’s shoulder, “this thing is going to launch right off the tracks.”

  “What makes you think it hasn’t already?” Drake said.

  The elevator itself was several centuries old—Hroom Empire tech from before the wars. Composed of the counterweight of a small moon in orbit and a carbon nanotube structure stretching to the ground, it had once whisked passengers and goods back and forth from terra firma to space, saving a fortune on fuel to lift mass out of San Pablo’s gravity well. Civilization had collapsed on the world not long after the Ladino settlers—themselves a mixture of Brazilians, Argentines, and Spaniards—had migrated out from the home systems. Several decades ago, the lower machinery had failed, as had attempts to repair it. Albion engineers could have built a new elevator at great cost, but the present solution was this rail gun to launch passengers up to the lowest functioning levels of the elevator.

  None of them had done it before; Drake would have brought Ajax and Captain Kidd down from orbit, but he’d needed to suss out the situation on the ground first. Make sure they could get in and out safely. Until he knew, he wouldn’t bring the ship planetside where it would be vulnerable.

  After several minutes, the Hroom came back from the small stone building housing the control equipment for the rail gun. He popped open the canopy. “Excuse me. The problem should be resolved shortly.”

  “How long?” Drake asked.

  “Five minutes, perhaps ten.” The Hroom left without shutting the canopy.

  Tolvern cleared her throat. She still looked pale from her drinking of the pre
vious evening. “This is the point where Jane would say ‘recalculating,’ and then fall into an endless loop. ‘Recalculating . . . recalculating . . . recalculating.’”

  “I just want it over with,” Oglethorpe groaned from the back seat.

  “Have you thought anything more about what I told you, Captain?” Tolvern asked.

  “I have. I’m looking for other explanations.”

  “It was a lot of money. Must have been hundreds of pounds.”

  “But you didn’t see it.”

  “It was heavy,” she insisted. “Had to be a lot, even if only shillings. What could that mean? You and I both know that there’s not a blessed thing of value in our possession except the ships themselves.”

  He knew that. He’d spent the day yesterday haggling with spaceport operators. The initial findings were discouraging. Turns out this sector of space was awash with equipment left kicking around after the war. Captain Kidd’s plasma engine hadn’t fetched ten thousand pounds, or even eight, as Barker had suggested, but six. The rest of the ship would bring just under four thousand more. Twenty-five hundred if he insisted on stripping out the weapons systems first. He’d wanted to keep both arms and armaments, but needed that money.

  So, ten thousand quid, tops, for repairs that would have taken thirty thousand to do properly in Royal Navy spaceyards with navy contractors. But the good news was that if the wrecks themselves were going cheap, so was labor. Navy contracts had dried up with the end of the war. He’d found two different yards that bid hard and fast for the right to repair Ajax. What’s more, the master boatwright at one yard offered to trade the hulk of Captain Kidd—minus engines—against the cost of the shield repair. The yard owner would use some of the wreck to complete the patches and keep the rest.

  The end result would look like the unholy offspring of a Punisher-class cruiser and a pirate frigate, but they’d be back in fighting trim. And Drake needed them battle ready. He meant to charge for Hot Barsa the instant the repairs were done.

  “The question,” Drake said, “is whether Captain Vargus is scheming to get his ship back, or if he has darker plans.”

  “His ship is a wreck,” Tolvern said. “Why would he want it back when we’re practically going to deliver Ajax to him? He saw her in action, he knows what she’s capable of.”

  “In the right hands. Namely, mine.”

  Tolvern turned her head, an eyebrow raised. “That sounds like a boast.”

  Drake allowed a half smile. “Perhaps it is. Vargus didn’t show particular skill in command of his own vessel. Could be that he’s used to forcing surrender on pure swagger. A pirate’s fearsome reputation, and all that rubbish. But I suspect he wasn’t that good. It was hardly a fair fight, not like facing Rutherford.”

  “We bested Rutherford, too,” Tolvern said.

  “Aye, that we did,” Barker said from behind them. “But some of that was the element of surprise.”

  “Bested him twice, in fact,” Tolvern said.

  “Would you place money on a third time?” Barker asked. “I’d be gobsmacked if he didn’t bring a whole task force next time he comes after us. For all we know, we’ll be facing the bloody Dreadnought this time. You want to go up against her?”

  The chief engineer’s more choleric assessment brought the captain some needed perspective. Drake was planning an assault on Royal Navy and York Company resources—not to mention the personal estates of Lord Malthorne himself—when at the moment he was at risk of losing his ship, and possibly his life, to a ragtag group of pirates. First, he had to take care of that small detail before worrying about Rutherford and the rest.

  “The question for now,” Drake said, “is how we keep those villains from taking our ship.”

  “Cancel shore leave,” Tolvern said. “Anyone who doesn’t return to space is off the crew. Anyone else—from the former prisoners, I mean—we arrest as soon as they get on board.”

  “So they’re all against us, is that what you’re saying?”

  Tolvern played with the straps on her harness. “What is Capp thinking? You promoted her, you gave her what she wanted. If only she weren’t involved with that cursed Carvalho. He must have turned her.”

  “Where is that Hroom, anyway?” Oglethorpe asked. “This waiting is awful. It’s so bloody hot, I’m melting.”

  “Whining isn’t going to help any,” Barker growled back.

  The engineer was only voicing what the captain was thinking himself. Not that Oglethorpe was wrong. Drake was wrung out from the heat. And tired of lying in the rail car on his back, looking up into the hazy red sky. Somewhere up there was Ajax, and he was anxious to get back on the bridge of his ship.

  “The problem is,” he said, after turning it over in his head, “we can’t toss aside crew because they might be against us. I think we need to let it play out at the yards.”

  “How are we going to do that?” Tolvern said. “Say Vargus paid off Carvalho to get us out of the way. Carvalho takes some up-front money, finds fools in the city who are short on money and long on weapons and free time. Could be twenty men coming after us.”

  “In that case,” Drake said. “I’d say we buy our own muscle.”

  “With what?” Tolvern said. “What will we have once we’re done paying those thieves at the yard?”

  “Not much,” Drake agreed, “but we have a bit. And the promise of a whole lot more. People see us hauling the sorry carcass of Captain Kidd planetside, see Ajax come thundering down, her guns bristling, they’ll know what we’re capable of.”

  “More piracy?” Barker said. “That’s what you’re talking about? More pirates on board, these ones supposedly replacing the unreliable ones we’ve already got? Is that about right?”

  The Hroom came over again, and conversation died.

  “Okay,” he said, sounding more cheerful. “This time we’re definitely ready for launch. We thought there might be a broken segment of rail. Turns out not.”

  “What do you mean?” Barker asked in a sharp tone. “How do you think the rail might be broken? It’s either broken or it isn’t.”

  “No worries. It’s all fixed now.” With that, the Hroom shut the plastic canopy and hurried off.

  “Are you sure we can’t stay here forever?” Oglethorpe asked. “All of a sudden it doesn’t feel so hot.”

  A buzzing traveled along the rails beneath them. The rail car vibrated. It felt suddenly very small and fragile, the hazy lines of the space elevator so distant, and the rail beneath them as slender as a ribbon of glass.

  “Here we go,” Barker said in a low voice. “King’s balls.”

  They launched. One moment, Drake was lying on his back, motionless, his heart picking up speed. The next, a giant fist slammed into his chest, and he was hurtling upward.

  Oglethorpe screamed, a long wail of “Aaaaaaaaah!” that seemed to go on forever.

  Drake had traveled at 20,000 miles a second, but this rapid acceleration with no anti-grav, with the air blasting over the capsule, was a different matter. Only a few hundred miles an hour now, but still accelerating. Drake closed his eyes. The air howled outside the canopy.

  It didn’t cut the sound of Oglethorpe’s scream. “Aaaaaaaaah!”

  Chapter Eighteen

  The next day, Tolvern eyed Drake as she followed him away from Ajax, which sat hissing and popping behind them on the tarmac. It was just the two of them, but the captain walked with a confident swagger, seeming not to care if they were ambushed or picked off by snipers from atop one of the surrounding warehouses or hangars. When had he become such a risk taker, a bluffer, like a high-stakes poker player?

  Drake wore a side arm slung low on his hip, a long-barreled hand cannon. Tolvern had a revolver, plus a shotgun over her shoulder. She’d have brought even more weaponry, but Drake didn’t want them entering the yard like they were expecting a fight. Well? Weren’t they?

  “Where’s Capp?” she asked.

  “Sitting with a big old pile of money, waiting for us in
the hangar.”

  “Together with about twenty other pirates, I should figure.”

  “We’ll see.” He didn’t sound concerned.

  “Meanwhile, someone comes and grabs Ajax while we’re inside messing around.”

  Drake gave her a side look. “Anyone tries to storm the ship, and the deck gun will settle their hash in short order.”

  Trucks came rolling across the tarmac toward Ajax, ready to haul her into the largest of the hangars, a vast warehouse where men and Hroom and equipment would spend the next two weeks assisting Ajax’s own boatswains in patching her up.

  Ajax stretched long and dark and mean-looking beneath the ruddy, soot-stained sky over San Pablo. Her surface was pitted and battered, but this somehow made her look only more sinister. And still a Royal Navy cruiser. Tolvern didn’t fancy the thought of patching her with parts salvaged from Captain Kidd. Whatever came out the other side, it would be ugly.

  The spaceyard was so large that it took ten minutes to walk across the tarmac, dodging support vehicles and smaller spacecraft, until they reached the vast open doors of the yard’s second-largest hangar. Inside lay Captain Kidd. She’d looked a proper wreck when Capp untethered and dropped her into the atmosphere, bandaged with temporary foam shields just so she could survive the heat of reentry. Now she looked pathetic, like an abandoned derelict floating in the abyss of deep space, barely fit for salvage.

  Workers swarmed over the hull of the captured pirate ship, a dozen blowtorches cutting away chunks of shielding and the paneling beneath, which were lifted away by cranes to be stacked in one corner. Workers there numbered and labeled the pieces, which ranged in size from a few square feet to vast segments that, once removed, revealed the passages and interior chambers.

  The biggest crane of all was secured to Captain Kidd’s plasma engine, which it strained to lift clear. The chains went taut until it looked like they would snap. The entire back end of the wreck started to lift, and workers atop the ship shouted and cursed as they were nearly bucked off. There was no net, and little safety equipment of any kind. Turned out the engine hadn’t been completely cut free of the ship, so they sent in a pair of Hroom with blowtorches to finish the job.