by Berg,Alex P.
He drew his pistol and turned to the tied up crew.
“No!” cried Uche. “Nobody needs to get hurt, not any more than they already are. Tarja, put that thing away. Horatio. You can have your ship. Hell, you can have the cargo. I don’t care. All we want is the Agapetes and her crew back.”
Horatio turned back to us, his jaw clenched. He waved at Tarja with the gun. “Deactivate that thing. Put her on the ground an’ step back. Then we talk.”
“I don’t think you understand how hostage situations work,” said Tarja. “If either of us gives up our leverage, we lose. And it’s not like we’re face to face. As soon as this cuts out, I could blow your ship’s guts or you could waste the crew. The difference is I can detonate my grenade remotely.”
“Tarja, please…” Uche’s voice had grown higher pitched.
Horatio scowled. “Ney. The horse-faced asteroid-miner’s daughter’s right. So here’s how this is gonna work. I’ma wait another…seventeen minutes ’til my bots empty ye’ss ship’s cargo hold. Then me an’ my men are gonna head back to our ship through the airlocks. We’ll be bringing ye’ss skraggin’ Captain with us. Any funny stuff, we space ’er an’ grab the next in line. Meanwhile, y’es’ll head back to ye’ss ship through the hold. I sense ye’s anywhere near us, Captain or skragger nummer two or three or whatever dies. An’ trust me, I’ll know.” He pointed to the holorecorders in the command room’s ceiling. “If ye’s do as I say, I gets my cargo an’ nobody dies. Otherwise, lots of people die. Skrag, maybe we’s all do! But that’s a risk I knew I was gettin’ into. Can ye’s say the same?”
Uche butted in before Tarja could say anything. “It’s a deal.”
The pirate captain tapped the pistol against his forehead. “Seventeen minutes. Horatio out.”
The hologram faded and we returned to our surroundings. I glanced at the others. They looked as tense as I felt.
With a flick of her thumb, Tarja deactivated her grenade and returned it to her utility belt. “For the record, I don’t like this. Not one bit.”
“What?” I said. “That you had to resort to violence? Or that you think Horatio is going to double cross us.”
“Neither, although we need to be aware of the latter as a possibility,” said Tarja. “More that if this plays out as planned, we lose Horatio and the cargo and you and I lose our bounty.”
Uche jabbed a finger at Tarja. “Don’t even think about it.”
“Think about what?”
“Anything other than the plan,” said Uche. “This isn’t a game, and there’s more than money on the line. The lives of my captain and crew—my friends, I might add—are at stake here. Do not screw this up.”
Tarja eyed the man warily.
I knew that look. “I’m with Uche, Tarja. We can’t risk it, and not just for the others, which is a pretty darn good reason. If Horatio goes ballistic, what happens to the Agapetes? What happens to us?”
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. “Fine. We’ll have to hope we can track them down later—although given how much evidence they left after their past attacks, I’m not feeling confident about our chances.” She flicked her hand down to her utility belt, paused for a little longer than necessary, then resealed the front. “Let’s head back to the airlock. We’ll wait there.”
The next quarter hour was possibly the longest of my life. Every minute felt like ten. I tried to pass the time watching the loader bots’ efforts through a porthole in the pirates’ cargo bay, but I found myself constantly looking over my shoulder to check for attackers sneaking up from behind. Paige had started a countdown timer and superimposed it in the lower right of my vision, which didn’t do anything to soothe my nerves. The bots shifted the last few bundles of cargo over with two minutes and change left on the clock, and the interior airlock doors flicked open automatically. Hopefully, that meant Horatio was a man of his word.
We shuffled inside, waited while the pumps cycled and the pseudogravity cut out, then exited in single file, making our way down a narrow corridor created by the stacks of ore that had overtaken the hold. As we reached the lip of the Agapetes and launched ourselves inside, Paige gave me a mental poke.
Rich. The Agapetes’ servenet is back online, and without any problems as far as I can tell. I’ve got full access to the ship’s recorders and the rest of the crew’s feed.
I floated toward the far airlock, the one that didn’t lead to an evacuated corridor in lockdown. How’s Rhees?
See for yourself.
Paige superimposed Rhees’ Brain feed over a portion of my own vision. I saw her through first person perspective, being dragged down a hallway close to the ship’s airlocks. Urrupain, Wilkins, and Kass followed her, pistols holstered, shoulders tense and faces drawn.
I heard Horatio’s voice. “That’s it. Nay closer, ye’s skrags!”
The crew stopped. I heard the puff of a door opening followed by Rhees’ own grunt as she was thrown to the floor. She looked back at the airlock, giving me a good view of Horatio and his men retreating into their ship, guns drawn and pointed at the crew.
Horatio’s face burned beet red, his eyes wild. Spittle flew as he shouted. “Don’a think this is over, ye’s skraggers! I’ll track ye’s down, ye’s an’ that whore of a Saladian goat-herder who threatened my ship. Any place, anytime. Ye’s can’t hide. An’ trust me, ye’s’ll rue the day ye’s crossed paths with Captain Horatio Halloföl! Ye’s hear me? Rue the day!”
The door snapped shut, and Paige cut the feed. Rue the day? Who talks like that?
I blinked. I was more interested by something else he’d said.
We neared the airlock. Uche skirted it and drifted to its side, where he wrapped his arm around a piece of netting hanging from the wall. He cut in via Brain. Get over here. Grab hold.
What about the airlock? I said.
Do it. NOW, he said.
I followed his lead, as did Tarja. As I slipped my arm into the netting, I felt the ship groan, probably from the pirate vessel’s airlock releasing our own.
I snorted. Were you worried about us losing our footing? We’re not even under pseudo—
A bright flash of light blinded me, and I felt the Agapetes shudder and shake. A blast of hot air pushed me against the wall and spun my head toward the back of the bay, giving me a brief glimpse of a roiling fireball that was quickly swallowed behind a veil of purest black.
30
The cargo bay doors slammed shut, but a cloud of debris had already entered the hold. Carl threw himself over me to protect me from the smaller pieces of high speed shrapnel, but they were few in number and dispersed rapidly. I’m not sure if any hit Carl, although a few smacked into the walls around us.
Airlock. Now, said Uche.
Carl flung me inside before I could protest, and Tarja flew in with her usual grace. The doors shut behind us, and the pumps whirred.
I turned to Tarja. You blew them up? What the hell is wrong with you?
It wasn’t me.
Oh come on, I said. I saw you palm something back in the pirate’s control room, before you resealed your suit.
Yeah, she said. A tracker, which I planted outside the Wumpus’s airlock and which I didn’t tell anyone about so it wouldn’t be found. If we were going to lose the bastards, it was the least I could do, even if the tracker’s function is limited by light speed communications.
I turned to Uche. He’d instructed us to hold on seconds before the blast. He’d also claimed to have followed us aboard the Wumpus, but none of us had noticed him doing so. What had he really been doing there?
The pumps finished cycling, and I snapped open my faceplate. “Uche. What the hell just happened?”
He retracted his own faceplate. “It would appear the pirates’ vessel exploded.”
“You think?” I said.
The airlock doors puffed open, and Uche took off down the corridor at a jog. I followed, shouting after him. “Hey! I’m talking
to you.”
He ignored me, racing through the corridors to the sound of the ship’s alarm—a new one, not the cyclical woop woop of before but a more subdued blare, stop, blare pattern. His legs reached farther than my own, and I struggled to keep up.
Where the heck is he going? I asked Paige.
There’s your answer.
Captain Rhees sprinted down the corridor toward us, flanked by Kass. Several welts marred the captain’s face, and her lower lip had swelled to twice its normal size, but the injuries didn’t seem to slow her in the least.
“Jones. Status report,” she said.
“Damage in the cargo bay,” he said. “Debris from the explosion nicked up the interior, but nothing structural as far as I can tell. Airlock two is operational. Shrapnel didn’t compromise any of the corridor windows other than the one destroyed during the attack. Not as bad as it could be, to be honest.”
“Good,” said Rhees, “because we need you on level two. We’ve had multiple breaches. Exterior corridors two c, two e, and two f have all gone into lockdown, and according to the ship’s computers, we’re suffering a loss of pressure somewhere up there. Kass, grab your suit and go with him.”
The ensign nodded. “Yes, Captain. But what about engineering?”
“Wilkins can handle the stress on the fusion reactor. The energy draw caused by those warp bubble peaks is already evening out. Right now that pressure leak is priority number one.”
“Yes, sir.” Kass darted off down the corridor in the direction we’d come, and Uche followed her. Rhees turned to go.
“Hold on a second,” I said. “We need to talk.”
Rhees eyed my space suit. “It’s good you’re staying prepared, but I don’t need your help right now. Unless you know how to use a portable gas metal arc welder in vacuum and zero gravity, in which case, come with me.”
“You blew up the pirate ship!” I said. “Are you insane? There were two or three dozen men aboard that vessel. Now they’re dead. Vaporized. Atomized. Whatever.”
Rhees’ eyes narrowed. “Those thieving marauders got what they deserved.”
“How can you be so cavalier about this?” I said. “Their blood is on your hands.”
“No,” she said, gritting her teeth and pointing to her face. “My blood is quite literally on their hands. Or it was before they exploded.”
I couldn’t argue that point. I’d been shot at, but I hadn’t been tied up, beaten, savaged, and held at gunpoint—twice. “But what about us? You put every man, woman, and Tak aboard this ship at risk with that stunt. We could’ve been killed. Based on what you told Uche and Kass, we could still die. And what about the pirate’s tech? I don’t know how they did it, but the InterSTELLA brass were right. Those guys had warp drive technology nobody has ever seen. And you destroyed it!”
Rhees took a deep breath. “Look here, Mr. Weed. Officially, I have no idea what happened to those pirates. For all I know, their advanced tech caused their engine to overheat and rupture. Or maybe Miss Olli went behind your back on another of her personal vendettas. But I assure you I put the safety of my crew above all else, including my loyalty to my employer. If I thought a course of action would put our lives at risk, I wouldn’t go through with it.
“Now as far as InterSTELLA is concerned, trust me when I tell you they’d much rather have the piracy situation dealt with than have access to improved Alcubierre drive technology. But that goes along with the territory. You don’t need to get any stronger when you’re already the top dog.”
“You can’t honestly expect me to believe that,” I said. “That the ship blew up on accident. Uche was there. He brought the explosives with him. I mean, I didn’t see him do it, but he must’ve. Somehow…”
Come to think of it, how had he planted the explosives? The pirates had hacked into the Agapetes, and they’d monitored everyone on board. There was no way he could’ve smuggled enough explosives onto the Wumpus to create that level of explosion without anyone noticing. Of course, they’d apparently lost track of Tarja while they swarmed me and Carl in the cargo bay, but I assumed that had more to do with a lack of attention on the part of the trio of pirates attacking me than a lack of overall surveillance. Besides, they’d started tracking us again when we broke through their airlock.
Uche claimed he used the airlock after us, that he broke in without their notice. Perhaps he had, but the destruction of the pirate’s vessel had to have been premeditated, and how would he have known we’d go there ourselves, giving him a path to follow? There was no way.
Then I remembered. When we’d first explored the cargo bay and checked the doors, I’d turned to inspect the rest of the area. Uche had stopped me. Claimed he was busy and needed us to hurry. But what if he didn’t want us to look at the cargo too closely. The loader bots surely hadn’t. They’d been too busy moving it into the Wumpus with extreme efficiency.
Rhees eyed me sideways. “You seem distracted, and I have matters to attend to. I’d suggest you wait in your quarters and keep your suit on. And, if you’re the pious sort, you might want to ask your deity of choice for help.”
She stormed off. I turned around, still trying to figure out if I was right. Carl stood behind me, though Tarja had disappeared.
As difficult a time as I was having dealing with the events of the last few minutes, Carl, due to his subroutines, looked to be taking it worse.
“I still can’t believe she did it,” I said. “Blew them up. I mean…I guess I can. The crew must’ve been prepared, and Rhees must’ve been under orders. But to endanger her whole crew like that? It doesn’t make sense.”
Carl shook his head, his face drawn. “She had to Rich. It was the only way they could be sure.”
“Of what?”
“The bomb they planted. It had to be triggered before the pirates left. A remote activation wouldn’t have been possible once the warp bubble closed.”
“You’re right, I suppose. But…this isn’t how I envisioned things ending.” I sighed. “Come on. We should find Ducic. And maybe start praying.”
The panicked blare of the ship’s siren dogged us as we jogged back to our quarters.
31
I stood in my room, staring out one of the Samus Aran’s windows. Far off in the distance, I thought I made out the gleam of the Snowbell’s hull. It was a welcome sight, but I wouldn’t be completely happy until I set foot back on Cetie and felt the planet’s firm gravitational embrace.
The past few days had been harrowing, to say the least, but the first few hours had been the worst. I don’t think I’d ever banish from my mind the sounds of the Agapetes’ various sirens. Every time one had silenced, a new one had sprung from the ashes of the last, eager to take on its predecessor’s message of panic and impending doom. The intermittent blare of the pressure loss alarm. The high pitched wail of the oxygenator’s flow blockage alarm. The low droning of the emergency power systems signifying the switching of life support systems to battery power.
Things got worse before they got better. Roughly half the ship had to be shut down, pumped, and vented, first to ensure the pressure leaks—there’d been more than one—were resolved, second to preserve oxygen and filler gas for the remainder of the ship. A substantial portion of the ship’s reserves had been lost in the immediate aftermath of the explosion, which meant we all got real cozy on the return warp trip, which hadn’t included a stop in the Sol system.
Due to the timing of the pirate attack, we still had on the order of sixty percent of the trip left to complete. Given our lack of cargo and the Agapetes’ precarious condition, Captain Rhees ordered we cut out of warp and return to Tau Ceti. Of course, that had ended up being another gut-clenching source of excitement, as the ship’s Alcubierre drive hadn’t immediately kicked in on the return burn due to a sudden loss of power. Thanks to quick thinking on the parts of Wilkins and Kass and my own prayers to a dozen different deities, the crew diverted enough power from other systems to get
the initial push powered. From there we had three and a half days of smooth flying and hoping the ship wouldn’t disintegrate under our feet before we exited warp and found an InterSTELLA support vehicle orbiting the asteroid belt.
Tarja had held it together better than I had, but when we finally set foot back on the Samus, she broke out in the biggest grin I’d ever seen. She’d flashed teeth and everything.
Once en route to the Snowbell, I’d finally calmed enough to do a little more digging, although it helped to be out of warp and in a position where Paige could send search queries again. Even with Ducic’s password, we hadn’t found any record of a supply ship making contact with the Agapetes prior to our own first contact with them, but Paige did come across a press release from a few weeks prior naming InterSTELLA the new official carrier for a major explosives manufacturer. It didn’t take much to connect the dots.
Whoever had delivered the bomb and instructed Rhees and Jones in its usage must’ve had a higher clearance level than Ducic, but thankfully, that same clearance must’ve exceeded that of the pirates’ inside man—someone I was now certain existed. Their presence explained why the Agapetes had been targeted following our doctoring of InterSTELLA’s travel database, and Horatio had all but admitted to having access to those files when he noted the lack of Tarja’s presence from the ship’s roster. Part of me wondered how the mole would react when they found out about the pirates’ demise, but if they were smart, they wouldn’t do a thing. Because of our subterfuge, it was possible no one knew about them besides Tarja, Ducic, and me. Not that they’d know that, of course.
Tarja cut in on my thoughts via Brain. Hey, folks. Meet me in the main cabin. Vijay’s requesting a live holofeed.
I frowned. Why? Aren’t we meeting him on the Snowbell?
