Moon, Elizabeth - Vatta 2 - Marque and Reprisal_v5.txt

by Marque

  She smiled into the screen and saw Osman’s expression stiffen before his mouth widened again. “I’m so glad you’re here,” Ky said. “It means a lot to me to have a senior Vatta captain’s advice.”

  “My advice? I still say you shouldn’t hurry off to Garth,” he said. “Let us escort you, at least. A convoy would be safer.”

  “You won’t have any trouble catching up with us. As you can tell, we have that old-fashioned slow insystem drive. I’m sure you have better.”

  “Well, yes, but . . . you young people are always in such a hurry. Take it from me, haste in dangerous situations can be fatal.”

  “So can sitting around waiting to be shot,” Ky said. “Look here, Cousin, I’m glad to have your protection and your company, but I’m not going to take your orders.”

  “You are definitely Gerry’s child,” Osman said. “Too bad . . .”

  “Too bad?” Ky’s stomach lurched. Here it came, whatever it was.

  “I might have found a use for you,” Osman said in a tone of such fake geniality and regret that Ky wanted to gag. “After all, a daughter of the great Gerard Avondetta Vatta . . . niece to Stavros, the Vatta CEO . . . you might have been very useful. But—” His expression hardened. “—but you are just an arrogant spoiled bitch, fit child to the man who cost me my proper life, the life I should have had as a senior Vatta captain.”

  He couldn’t resist boasting. She had read that about certain kinds of criminals, but she had never seen it.

  “Your father and uncle, the pair of them: stuck-up arrogant prigs that they were, they used me—they ruined me—just to get a step up the corporate ladder. As if they never did anything wrong. As if a Vatta heir weren’t worth twice what some sniveling Engineering apprentice was . . . stupid slut, I gave her a necklace.” The veins bulged on his forehead, she noticed; the old rage still consumed him. “And now, princess Kylara, Gerry’s precious daughter, I’m going to destroy you . I only wish Gerry were here to see it in the moments before I blew him away.”

  “I’m so sorry to disoblige you,” Ky said. Her heart was racing; she hoped he would interpret it as fear. “But I prefer not to be blown away.”

  “Prissy-mouth! What you prefer doesn’t matter . . . you have nothing on that ship to defend yourself with, nothing. Oh, I know you bought a defensive suite at Lastway—we got word of that, no fear. But it’s not worth a minim on a credit, because we have a deal with MilMart: they sell only worthless junk to Vatta, and we don’t destroy them.”

  Ky stiffened her face, but too late; he leered at her. “Ah—I see you hadn’t discovered the flaw yet. You will, about the time your ship comes apart around you. Or . . . I have a better idea. If you’re the honorable sort, like old Gerry, and want to save your crew—or some of them—you can always cut your drive and surrender. I’ll wager they’d rather live than die, and while I won’t promise to make your life pleasant, I have no quarrel with unrelated crew. Unless of course some of them were involved in my embarrassment.” He chuckled. “Go ask them, why don’t you? I can wait.”

  Ky cut the connection. Lee stared at her, wide-eyed but silent; Rafe showed no emotion but the pulse beating in his neck.

  “That was interesting,” Ky said. Her mouth was dry; her voice not as steady as she wished. “So he’s got a grudge against Vatta because my father threw him out. And he’s sure our defensive suite won’t work. I wonder if that’s even true. I can’t imagine that MilMart’s stayed in business if they’re that easy to bribe.”

  “Captain—” That was Quincy, on the ship’s intercom. “We have a problem.”

  “What’s that?” Ky asked. Her voice sounded normal again.

  “Well . . . I didn’t spot this at first, but there’s a problem in the defensive suite—not in the scan components, but in the shields.”

  “I wonder why the Mackensee scan didn’t pick it up,” Ky said. “They had us arm it and said it looked solid.”

  “Yes. I know. I thought that meant it was working, too. But Toby was bored having to watch that miserable pup, and I gave him a stack of instruction cubes to keep him occupied. He went looking for that missing component we replaced from stock, found it, and then thought there was something odd about it. He says it’s not what the manual calls for, and the shields will go on all right but not actually protect against a strong hit.”

  “Can it be made to work?”

  “Yes, if we have time. Hours. The hardware is mostly okay; the software could be, but the installation instructions we were given were wrong. We need to uninstall the software, replace the nonstandard components of the hardware, then reinstall. Seven hours, probably. I know it took longer last time, but then we were unfamiliar with the equipment.”

  A voice in the background. “Not now, Toby,” Quincy said, half into the intercom.

  “But—”

  “Not now, “Quincy said. Then into the intercom. “I’m thinking at least seven hours.”

  They didn’t have seven hours. Not now. Ky tried to think. Shieldless, they were easy prey, as easy as they looked.

  “Quincy, where are the other crates from Mackensee, the ones labeledMODEL 87-TR-5003 ?”

  “Number one hold. Why?”

  “Because we need them, and we need them now. And the ones I called the odor barriers. Get ’em out, unpack ’em, and call me when you have them laid out on the deck.”

  “Let me tell her . . .” came faintly from the intercom. Toby, of course. Pity for the child who had lost all in his ship at Allway and was probably going to be dead in a few hours gave her patience.

  “Let him talk, Quincy,” Ky said. “Go on, Toby.”

  “It won’t take that long,” Toby said. “I was going to tell Quincy, but she called you right away. I located the places where the component needs changing and pre-positioned everything. I wouldn’t do it without asking, Captain. I know that would be wrong, but I thought—I thought it would be all right to do that much.”

  “Good for you,” Ky said. Would it shave the time enough? “Is Jim down there? And Rafe—he’ll come down and help. You can show them where all the points are?” Martin, too, but she might need his help with the mines.

  “Yes, Captain. Some of them are kind of hard to get to—”

  “But you can wiggle in. Fine. Quincy—”

  “Yes—” That from a different station, obviously.

  “Toby’s done part of the work already, he says. Located all the ones that need changing and put out the components needed. Time saved?”

  “Maybe an hour, maybe more,” Quincy said. “You’re trusting a fourteen-year-old kid?”

  “Quincy—it’s that or nothing. We don’t have seven hours; we might have five and a half. He found the problem; he went partway to solving it. I have to go with him.”

  “Right. I’m pulling your crates now—”

  “And I’m sending Rafe down to do the software changes. Give Toby whoever’s free and let him lead them to the locations.”

  Rafe had already left when she turned around. Lack of initiative wasn’t his problem, either. “Lee, you have the bridge; I’ve got to go check out those mines myself. I bought the kind we studied in the Academy; if they’re glitched I know how to fix them.” She hoped. If it was something simple like an unattached connection. The other mines, the ones MacRobert had sent, were more specialized.

  Stella was waiting between the bridge and the recreation area. “How bad is it, and what can I do?”

  “Very bad, and if you’ve got the expertise with software, you can go down to Engineering and help Rafe.”

  “Osman—?”

  “A grudge against our parents. I wonder if he’s the real reason Vatta’s under attack—though his grudge sounds very personal. He could have hit Vatta without involving ISC. But he wants our parents’ children in particular. He doesn’t know you’re here, or Toby. And won’t. Come on—I have to go check out something.”

  CHAPTER

  NINETEEN

  The row of mines looked
eerily like those laid out on the deck of her Academy class on defensive ordnance maintenance procedures. Then there had been only fifteen, one per study group of four, and those had been unarmed. Were these the same, only deadly? Or were they as useless as Osman said the defensive suite was? The bulbous forward end, with its navigational circuitry, and the plump cylinder holding the explosives behind—each, she was relieved to note, with the proper plastic guard inserted to prevent accidental detonation—the knurled section that could be unscrewed to allow a variety of propulsive and attitude adjustment components, depending on need. These came with the basics only: self-contained reaction engine and simplest of the attitude adjustment components. Ky had not been able to afford the extras. Still, a rock could destroy a spaceship if the product of mass and acceleration came to enough force; her instructors had been clear about that.

  “Martin, how familiar are you with these things?”

  He shook his head. “Sorry, ma’am, but it’s been years since I armed or disarmed one. I know what they are, but ordnance wasn’t ever my specialty.”

  That was a disappointment. “You’d better go help reinstall the defensive suite, then,” she said. “I’ll work on these.”

  Ky loaded the instruction tab into her hand display, and was reassured to find that what she thought she should do first was in fact what she should do first. She pulled out the bundle of safety cords that had come in theCOMMAND PACKET carton, freed one, and slipped its magnetic clip into a slot on the detonation control panel before removing the plastic guard that had served the same function. Now that mine couldn’t detonate, no matter what mistakes she made during the examination and programming. She red-corded all of them first, then opened the navigational compartment of the first. Another glance at the instruction manual refreshed her memory; the mine’s innards still looked familiar, and all the parts that should be there, were . . . A purple-coated wire caught her eye. It should have been attached . . . there. She clipped it in place, and opened the next control panel. The same purple-coated wire to reattach. Very simple sabotage, easy to fix if you were looking for something wrong. Did that mean she was missing something subtler? She hoped not. She didn’t have time to disassemble each completely. Another look at the instruction manual. Attitude adjusters, main engine controls, each with one disabling wrong connection. She glanced at the chronometer. Ten minutes gone. Ten times twenty-one was two hundred ten minutes. Too long—she had to move faster. But carefully.

  And how was she going to place them without Osman or his allies noticing? All very well to place what amounted to explosive rocks in the enemy’s path, but that required accuracy. If their drives were on, they’d be detected, could be avoided. She didn’t have enough to create a broad barrier behind the ship. She needed a way to get them away from her ship that Osman couldn’t detect . . .

  She had four of them done when Lee called down from the bridge. “He’s hailing us again.”

  “He can wait,” Ky said.

  “He’s offering the crew their lives if we overpower you, and a reward if we deliver you alive.”

  “So are you going to take it?” Ky asked.

  Lee snorted. “Not me, Captain. I don’t believe him.”

  “You don’t have to tell him that,” Ky said. “If he thinks he’s got a taker, he might tell his friends to hold their fire.”

  “I thought of that, but I didn’t want to do it without asking.”

  “Do it,” Ky said. “Every minute helps.” Even as she talked, her fingers raced over the tasks . . . open a hatch, find the loose connection, reattach, check that other components were normal, close and seal, open the next . . . “And if he closes in . . . maybe we get a new hull.”

  “Suits?”

  Ky paused, hands still for a moment. Their suits might save them . . . or condemn them to a slow death outside the ship. They’d be clumsier in suits . . . “Not quite yet,” she said. “But tell me if he closes, and be sure you don’t let him know you’re doing it.”

  “Right, Captain. Uh . . . I’ll need another crewmember to act the part of mutineer. Who should I get? Rafe?”

  “Not Rafe,” Ky said instantly. Osman would see Rafe for what he was, and while he might believe that Rafe would turn on her, he would not trust anything Rafe said. Her mind flicked through the personnel files. Alene? Sherry? Mitt? Beeah? No, Osman might recognize any longtime Vatta employee. Not Martin: he was too obviously military. “Jim,” she said. “You’ll have to explain it to him; I don’t have time.”

  “Will do,” Lee said.

  Ky went back to the mines, surprised to find that she was already on the sixth. Her mind wanted to wander off to the best deployment again, but she dragged it back. She must not make any mistakes here and now. Sixth, seventh, eighth . . .

  Then Lee piped down to the nearest speaker the conversation he and Jim were having with Osman.

  “. . . just disable her,” Osman said.

  “You don’t understand.” Jim’s voice sounded tense, whiny with the Belintan nasal accent. “She’s killed mutineers before. She’s dangerous.”

  “So am I,” said Osman. “If you don’t get control of that ship, I’ll have to destroy it. And you. Look—she suspected trouble before. She thinks she’s got a perfectly loyal crew now—”

  “And most of ’em are, I’m sure,” Lee said. “I mean . . . she’s not bad, exactly . . .”

  “Do they want to live or are they happy to die loyal?” Osman asked. “Ask them that. Not all of them. That old fool Quincy I’m sure would rather burn than betray a Vatta.” His voice had acquired a sneer. “But that’s the choice. Work with me, or die. And you don’t have much time . . . No, leave the connection live.”

  He didn’t trust Lee and Jim, and no wonder.

  “I can’t do that,” Lee said. “If she comes back to the bridge, she’ll notice . . . she told me not to answer.”

  “Where is she now?”

  “All over the damn ship,” Lee said. “She’s checking on everything, but I know she’ll come back in here—an’ anyway, we have to get some others. Two of us, me and Jim, we’re not enough. If that Quincy finds out—”

  Ky was fascinated by Lee’s glibness. Either he had some experience she didn’t know about, or she had corrupted him in the past several months. She suspected both.

  “How many do you think will join you?”

  “Allie,” Jim said, speaking up. “She’s unhappy anyway; she doesn’t like that new cargomaster, she told me.”

  “Mitt might join us,” Lee said. “And he’s good in a fight. Sheryl probably. Like you said, Cap’n, Quincy’s no use to us and she’s the one most likely to tell our captain.”

  “You can have twenty minutes,” Osman said. “Then report back and tell me how it’s going.”

  “What if she’s on the bridge?”

  “If you’ve got four people and you can’t take down one, you’re useless,” Osman said.

  “Right,” Lee said.

  Ky finished the ninth mine, her mind now racing on the larger problem. Or was it a problem? Maybe it was an opportunity. He wanted to close and board . . . if she had a crew trained in EVA, she could send someone over to his ship with a mine when they were close enough. She didn’t have a crew trained in EVA. Besides, that would damage or destroy the hull she wanted, and would signal Osman’s allies that the mutiny was faked. If she could knock out his ship’s systems—she stopped moving, immobile for long seconds as her mind threw up yet another scenario. Pictures flickered through her mind, almost too fast to follow. Transfer tube. Air locks open. A blurred shape flying through the tube . . . not this mine, but one of the others, one of the EMP weapons MacRobert had sent her.

  “Quincy. Martin.”

  “Yes, Captain?”

  “Do we have any kind of . . . of machine or something that can throw a . . . say . . . seventy-kilogram mass about a hundred, two hundred meters?”

  “You mean like a hydraulic piston sort of thing? No.”

  No. Not
the answer she wanted, needed. Her mind threw up the picture of Mehar’s pistol bow. Made it bigger. Back in the dawn of time, people had used big machines of that type to throw rocks or something . . . but they didn’t have time to build one, and it would have to be wider than the escape passage anyway. Could some of the crew—all the crew—heave the thing down the passage fast enough? Almost certainly not. Twang! The sound of a packing cord coming loose made her jump. Then the plan appeared, bright and clear and complete in her mind.

  “Quincy, how many packing cords would it take to accelerate that seventy-kilo mass?”

  “Packing cords . . . packingcords!” Ky could see the engineering mind at work, as clearly as if Quincy’s implant were printing the figures on her forehead. “That’s the craziest—but—Alene! Sheryl! Get me all the packing cords you can grab—the priority on purple and green, three meters . . . you’ll want some way to fasten them . . .”

  “Yes.” And some way to make sure the load was lined up with the internal and external hatches, and some way to be sure that Osman’s air lock was open, and some way to take advantage of the confusion that would result if this worked and to recover from the mess if it didn’t. But she felt a wave of confidence. It was a workable idea, the first she’d had, and from it flowed concatenated consequences—using Osman’s ship as a shield against his allies, once she gained control.

  “Ma’am, that’s a very dangerous plan—” Martin began.

  “We have a very dangerous situation,” Ky said. “As several people, including you, pointed out earlier. Have you got a better plan? If this works it will prevent a boarding situation.”

  His plan if they were boarded had been complex, and she was not at all sure her crew could carry it out. Especially the last phase.

  “I understand that, ma’am.”

  “Oh, and Quincy—with just the EMP pulse aimed into his ship, estimate the damage to grapples, transfer tube, and our control systems . . .” She ripped open one of the cartons.