The Battle of Hollow Jimmy

by Becky Black

  "Maiga, I would like you to stay here on the Trebuchet."

  "I told you before that I'm no pirate. And if you think I can join you now, after what you've done to me."

  Ah a chink in the armour there, a tiny angry tremor in the voice.

  "But that's exactly the point, isn't it? You can't go back to Hollow Jimmy now. Where else can you go?"

  "Anywhere I want."

  "Such as? Oh, of course, the legendary High Committee." The sniggers of contempt at the words ‘High Committee' amused her and made her think more kindly of her bridge crew. "You think you will find them? And what happens when you run across some alien ship that decides to use you for target practice? A human, helpless and alone, is their favourite sport."

  Maiga didn't answer, she just waited. Yes, that's it. She had an air of waiting about her. What could she be waiting for? Perhaps what Bara said next?

  "Stay here and I will make you my first officer."

  Gasps sounded around the bridge and Maiga herself turned and looked at Alex who stood at the engineering station. Following her gaze Bara tried to gauge his reaction. Hard to say with his dark skin, but there might be a flush there. Anger? Humiliation?

  "You have a first officer," Maiga said.

  "Alex prefers his Chief Engineer duties. Isn't that right, Chief?"

  "Yes, ma'am." A catch in his voice, told her he was working hard to keep it under control. As if he wouldn't be happy to get off the bridge and go snuggle up with the freak beside the nice warm engines.

  Maiga turned back and smiled at Bara.

  "Go to hell."

  It took a moment for Bara to realise she herself had moved and not Maiga. That she'd taken quick steps forward and was up in Maiga's face.

  "You talk of hell? I have seen it, deserter!"

  Control. Control. She stepped back, smoothing her clothes down, her hair too, soothing herself with the touch. For a moment she thought of Max, how his touch had soothed her and thrilled her at once. Ah, Max. So… No, he was a memory to warm herself with later. Now she had to be a commander. And she had to get this insolent prisoner off her bridge, before that sneer made her do something… excessive.

  "Take her to the brig."

  ~o~

  The Trebuchet might be a pirate ship, but Maiga didn't find herself down in the bilges. The brig was as clean as it would have been in the old days. The bunk had a decent mattress on it and she lay down with a sigh. They even let her have her bag, after removing anything they didn't like the look of. Sadly that included her Snapper, leaving her nothing to read.

  Never mind, she'd catch up on some sleep instead. She could be here for a while. Or perhaps not too long. Bara's behaviour during their little encounter on the bridge might see to that. Either way, catching some sleep while she could would be a good idea.

  A man stood guard in the area outside the cell, the front of which, like Neex's holding cells on Hollow Jimmy, was a wall of bars. Maiga made no attempt at conversation, just lay down on the mattress and closed her eyes. A woman in a cell might be expected to be too worried to sleep, but Maiga had known she'd be in this cell. She was right where she expected to be. Her plan was on track, and now all she had to do was wait.

  He will come.

  ~o~

  She didn't sleep for too long. Her watch told her only five hours had passed when the guard called through the bars to her to wake up.

  "You'd better have brought me some coffee," she said, grumpy voiced, but smirking at his frown.

  "Captain wants you on the bridge."

  "Okay. Tell her I'll be there in twenty minutes."

  "Now," he said, not biting.

  They reached the bridge to find it buzzing with activity. Bara stood as Maiga walked in.

  "Ah, Maiga, I thought you might find it interesting to watch this. We're about to collect some salvage."

  She gestured to the guard who steered Maiga to sit at the unmanned communications station on the bridge. The panels were locked out. Clearly whoever the Trebuchet was about to meet, they weren't going to be talking to them.

  She found out a moment later who that was. A Kitsnujitar freighter, just a control section and an engine, separated by a long frame with cargo modules secured to it. Probably nearly all automated, though in a moment the crew member at the scanner station spoke up.

  "Reading five Kits on board."

  Maiga saw Bara grin. Easy pickings. Big, fat, slow easy pickings. No weapons to speak of. Decent shields though, which the Kitsnujitar ship raised as the Trebuchet approached. It slowed down almost to a stop, diverting all its engine power into the shields, as the Trebuchet opened fire

  Maiga looked up startled at the alarm that sounded from external sensors. A radiation warning. She recalled, oh how long ago it seemed now, the first time she saw the Trebuchet in action. Wixa had mentioned the radiation that the stolen guns gave off. The internal sensors didn't squeak though. The engineers must have added extra shielding to protect the interior.

  Nobody else on the bridge paid any attention to the alarm, clearly used to hearing it during battle. If you could call this a battle.

  "We'll concentrate there on the aft shield," Bara said. "There's a small weakness, where the field generators don't give enough overlap at the edges. We break through there and we can cripple their engine and power generator."

  She's talking to me, Maiga thought. Giving me a guided tour of her little escapade. Wants me to watch her attack a helpless ship, slaughter the crew and steal what she wants from the cargo. She's showing off. She thinks I'll be impressed by this act of piracy.

  More than piracy though, isn't it? An act of vengeance too. Taking out her rage on those innocent traders. Maiga had killed plenty of Kitsnujitar soldiers in her time. But that was the point wasn't it? They'd been soldiers, trying to kill her in return. Not just freighter crew trying to get through a long dull voyage without going crazy. Please, don't have her take me on board to watch her marines murder the crew.

  Maiga glanced over at Alex, fielding reports from Engineering and orders from Bara. Again torn between his duties as first officer and his duties as chief engineer and right now, looking as if he enjoyed neither.

  Bara looked rather glum too, Maiga thought. Perhaps she wanted a more interesting fight to show off with, not just sitting here trying to winkle open a freighter like a stubborn oyster.

  She got her wish.

  "Captain!" The scanner station crewmember called. "I've got two contacts, approaching rapidly."

  "Identify," Bara snapped.

  "Getting it now…Kitsnujitar warships, ma'am. Escort class."

  "Damn!"

  "It's a trap," Maiga said. Of course. The freighter was too good to be true. Too easy and tempting. The attack vessels had waited out of range and now they were shrieking in to finish the Trebuchet off. "Get us out of here. You can't fight two of them."

  Bara glared at her. "You underestimate me."

  Well, she just took that as a challenge.

  "Battle stations," Bara ordered. "Use the freighter as cover and wait for them to come to us. Prepare to fire on my command."

  The battle stations alarm sounded. Maiga glanced at the comms station she sat at and frowned at another alarm she saw on a panel.

  "They're monitoring your communications, internal and external." It came naturally to her to report it. She might not want to help the pirates, but she'd die here too if the Trebuchet lost this fight.

  Bara turned to stare at her. "How?"

  "They're good with comms," Maiga said.

  "So are you."

  That wasn't a question. Maiga shrugged, which was a question. I am. So what?

  "Get us a secure channel to engineering at least," Bara ordered her.

  Maiga frowned. Would she follow an order from Bara? It was her own ass on the line too. Perhaps if she heard the magic word.

  "Please," Bara said, in a polite, one officer to another, tone. Certainly no pleading in it.

  "Give me five minut
es. And you should still get the hell out of here." Maiga turned to the comms board, the panels illuminating under her hands as the lockout released.

  "You should have access now," Alex called to her.

  "Got it." She started working, but like everyone else on the bridge she turned to look at the forward viewer when the scanning operator called out.

  "Visual contact." The two Kitsnujitar warships appeared on screen. Fast, light and manoeuvrable, the same class of ship as the Trebuchet. "In weapons range. Opening fire."

  Maiga tried to ignore the shaking as the Kitsnujitar guns rattled the Trebuchet's shields. Rarely more than glancing blows, Bara had a good helmsman. The ships dodged and swooped around the freighter using it as cover, and many of both side's shots grazed the freighter. Maiga quickly managed to tap into the ship to ship communications between the freighter and the warships. And just as quickly discovered how unhappy these manoeuvres made the freighter's captain.

  "The freighter is about to move off," Maiga reported. "We should do the same."

  "If I want your advice--" Bara began.

  "She's right, Captain," Alex called from his engineering station. "We're using too much power. We can't sustain it much longer."

  The Trebuchet's guns fired, destroying a cargo module on the freighter, scattering debris, and fouling the field of battle briefly. Maiga heard that radiation alarm again.

  Ah. Idea.

  "Captain," she said to Bara, not liking using the title, but they were in battle. "I've got a secure channel to engineering, opening it now. I've got a plan to give us a window to get out of here. You want me to effect it?"

  "Explain," Bara snapped.

  "No time. Chief, tell Engineering to disregard anything they hear me ordering them to do."

  "Er, they would anyway," Alex said.

  "Yeah." Maiga grinned. "But first, on the secure channel tell them to report a critical reactor overload. Tell them to report that to the bridge on an unsecured channel"

  "What?" Alex cried. Bara looked at her for a moment, their eyes locked. Then she turned and nodded at Alex.

  "Do it."

  Maiga turned back to her board, leaving them to do their jobs. A moment later she heard Sev's voice, a note of panic in it, reporting that the reactor had gone critical and there was nothing he could do to stop it, the ship was doomed to explode.

  "Engineering," Maiga responded, imitating Bara's voice and hoping she did it well enough to fool the aliens listening on a tapped channel. She added a little interference to help, some static hiss. "Keep the shields up as long as you can. If they scan the radiation build up, they'll have time to get away. We might as well take as many of the bastards with us as we can."

  "Aye, Captain, but the shields are weakening. We could lose them any moment." Bright boy, Mr Sev, you get it.

  "Shields losing power," Alex reported.

  "They're scanning us," another bridge station reported.

  Maiga smiled as she heard the report. Of course they were, for weakening shields and for radiation. They'd be showing plenty of high readings on the latter.

  "The warships are moving off!" The scanning operator called. "The freighter is picking up speed."

  "Prepare for star drive," Bara ordered, "On my command."

  Maiga watched the Kitsnujitar ships retreating, their eavesdropping commanders afraid they were about to be engulfed by the inferno of a gone-critical reactor. Any moment now, they'd analyse their readings more thoroughly and realise they'd been fooled, realise that they were only reading the leaking radiation from the salvaged Chia guns.

  Any moment.

  "We should go now." Maiga's foot started to tap. She moved to stand up, but the marine she'd forgotten about, put his hand on her shoulder and pushed her back down into her seat.

  "Wait for it," Bara said. "Wait."

  "They're slowing," the scanning station reported. "Turning."

  "Now!" Bara ordered. "Engage star drive!"

  The freighter and the warships vanished as the distorted hyperspace view filled the screen, stars smearing across it.

  Maiga sighed and relaxed in her seat, at the exact second Bara did the same thing in the command chair. The Kitsnujitar could try to follow them into hyperspace of course. But they wouldn't have had time to track their course, and the Trebuchet had an unassailable head start. And we didn't have to kill them to do it, Maiga thought, and liked that part best. Bara didn't though.

  "We shouldn't have left them alive," she said, scowling. "They will report us."

  Why did she care about that? Maiga wondered. She was a pirate, everyone knew it. Or perhaps they did, but only unofficially. Once someone had her red-handed, that could change things. Not just out here, but back there, back on Hollow Jimmy, where officially she was a perfectly respectable salvage trader.

  "Had to happen one day," Alex said, "You've said that yourself, Captain."

  She glared at him and he took a step back towards the engineering station. But Bara turned from him to Maiga and her scowl cleared. She smiled. "Thank you for your help. It was a clever plan."

  "I don't want to die either," Maiga said.

  Bara grinned and for a moment Maiga, still feeling the effects of the adrenaline rush of combat, wanted to grin back. She did smile.

  "We made quite a team, Maiga," Bara said. "I knew we would."

  Maiga's smile vanished. What next? Should they high-five each other and go for a drink together? No. That was just necessity. Maiga did not want to work with this woman. She came here for a different purpose.

  "Can I go back to the brig now?" Maiga asked. "I was trying to get some sleep."

  The calm question made Bara come to her feet as if Maiga had hurled an insult at her.

  "Your stay can become much less pleasant if you continue to provoke me, deserter!" The sudden outburst of temper startled Maiga and made the rest of the bridge crew go quiet, nervous, waiting for the next word from either woman. After a moment the colour drained from Bara's cheeks. She pulled her hair out of the band holding it back and re-tied it.

  "My apologies. I'm quite tired myself after that. I think I'll retire. Take her back to the brig." She didn't wait, turned away and spoke to Alex. "You have the bridge. I'll be in my quarters."

  "Yes, ma'am. Teams are initiating repairs of battle damage."

  "Very good. Carry on." She walked off the bridge, a dazed look on her face. Alex watched her go and turned back to meet Maiga's eyes.

  You know. You know she has to be stopped. You know it. Just a word from you.

  He spoke. To the marine guarding Maiga.

  "You heard the captain. Return the prisoner to the brig."

  Chapter 33

  Chervaz sat in his office with his face resting on his crossed arms on his desk. He wouldn't have looked up if Jaff had rushed in to say Major Jax's girls were about to stage a nude protest in the Plaza and that station security planned to break up the demonstration by spraying them in whipped cream.

  Not that Jaff would come here if that was about to happen. He'd be too busy stealing some industrial adhesive to glue his boots to the floor of the Plaza.

  Even these foolish thoughts couldn't raise a smile from Chervaz. Almost a week had passed since she left the station and he missed her so much. Not only in his bed and in his arms, but the feeling she gave him. Of safety. That someone would sort it all out in the end. Would slap down the people acting like idiots. Now everything felt out of control, as if it had started to build up to something. Something big.

  A bleep from his console made him open his eyes to look at a panel only an inch or two from his nose. A message. He went almost cross-eyed reading the details and at once sat up. He'd had messages like this before. The source obscured, anonymous and yet the contents always accurate. The title of this message read. ‘Bara news. IMPORTANT.'

  He thumbed the message open and read it, and gasped, actually gasped. Could it be true? These anonymous messages usually were, but he didn't just go to press without some
kind of confirmation. And there was only one place to get confirmation of this. A few taps on this console and he heard Chief Neex's voice.

  "Hello, Mr Chervaz. What can I do for you?"

  "Chief, I would like confirmation on some information I just received. Is it true that the Trebuchet has been banned from the station?" There was a silence on the line for a moment. "Chief?"

  "You are certainly quick with the news, Mr Chervaz. How did you find this out?"

  "I have my sources." Now if only he knew who they were.

  "Wait a moment." Neex put him on hold and a moment later came back on the line. "Would you please meet me at my office, right away? I will give you further details."

  "I'll be there at once." Chervaz grabbed his jacket from the back of his chair even as Neex signed off. How many times had he asked Neex for an interview? And now Neex was asking him.

  Locking the office door behind him, he hurried to the Plaza and, though he couldn't really afford it, took one of the electric pedicabs. That would get him there quicker. Wixa, Jasini and the rest of them sat at their usual tables in Chullan's and he waved at them, grinning, and wondered if they'd heard the news yet. They waved back, looking puzzled by his enthusiasm. No wonder. He'd been mooning around the place the last few days, sometimes just staring at a coffee in Chullan's for hours, opposite an equally glum and silent Wixa.

  When he reached station security he found Neex waiting outside. Paying off the cabbie, he stepped up to the chief.

  "Come this way, Mr Chervaz." Neex led him along a corridor marked ‘Private', towards a lift.

  "We're not going to your office?"

  "No."

  Chervaz felt nervous for a moment, fearing that he was about to be arrested for the crime of "knowing stuff", something journalists had been persecuted for down the centuries. Were they heading for the holding cells? Well at least when you went to a holding cell they took down your name. You couldn't just vanish.

  Enough paranoia, he thought, as he stepped into the lift car. The Klaff are good guys. Neex is a good guy. The good guy tapped his blue skinned fingers on the panel and the lift moved off.

  "You may take notes. But you may not use any recording devices. "

  "I see. Where are we going?"

  Their arrival gave him his answer. CCC. Command and Control Centre. The heart of the station. The very hub of the core itself. Chervaz stared around the large circular room. It had three levels, connected by steps, manned… staffed that is, by Klaff exclusively.