Heart of Vengeance (Vigilante Book 1)

by Terry Mixon

  Brad threw up his hands in mock disgust and headed for the hatch. The man was incorrigible.

  The ship’s galley wasn’t that big a space, but on a heavy corvette with just over a dozen people in the final headcount, it didn’t have to be. In a pinch, twice that number could crowd in at the small tables.

  The mess and attached galley had been the very first things Hiroshi had refurbished. Brad hadn’t been certain the man had his priorities right until he realized that everyone was using it: crew, workers, and visitors. It truly was Heart’s heart.

  He walked into the compartment and found a young, very attractive woman in a Fleet uniform sitting at one of the tables.

  She rose as he stepped over to her. “Captain Madrid? I’m Lieutenant Jean Greer, Fleet Security. Thank you for seeing me on such short notice.”

  “I always have time for Fleet,” he told her with a smile. “Your people saved my life. Let me grab some tea and you can tell me what you need.”

  Brad stepped into the gleaming kitchen and poured himself a mug. The equipment around him didn’t look like it belonged on a ship at all. It certainly wouldn’t have fit on Mandrake’s Heart when he was growing up. This place looked like a brand-new restaurant kitchen.

  That only made sense. Hiroshi had picked up a complete set of gear from a café on one of the Io space stations that had gone under before they’d even opened..

  The yardmaster had claimed there was very little he had to modify to make a station restaurant kitchen work on a ship and the equipment was both more capable and less costly than the variety normally marketed to ships.

  Brad trusted the man to know what he was talking about. He certainly had no complaints about the quality of the food a skilled cook could make with it. When one was lucky enough to have a skilled cook, that was.

  That thought brought a wry smile to his face. Saburo’s claim that his people could do basic kitchen work was accurate enough. Unfortunately, what could keep one alive wasn’t the same as what tasted good. They’d do in a pinch, but he’d be interviewing a cook—also, thankfully, a medic—shortly.

  The extra man was worth the money. Brad would let the mercenaries with the “cooking skills” kill people in the more traditional way going forward.

  Tea in hand, Brad made his way back to the lieutenant and sat across from her. “What can I do for Fleet today, Lieutenant Greer?”

  “I’ve been working on the information that came out of the attack on Louisiana Rain. Captain Jaeger sent us images of the dead attackers and scans of what fingerprints he could.

  “As one would expect, most of them were either unidentifiable or known criminals. One of them, however, was a surprise. A missing Fleet Marine.” She tapped her wrist-comp and sent him several images.

  He pulled them up on his own wrist-comp and studied the man. The first image was obviously from Fleet records. The man had close-cropped brown hair and seemed unremarkable.

  The second image was a dead pirate. One that looked vaguely familiar.

  “I think I killed him,” Brad said slowly. “I’m not completely sure, but I found a Fleet weapon on a guy that looked like him. That’s why I took him out so fast, actually.”

  “We’re pretty sure that’s correct,” she confirmed. “He went missing with his weapon, and the serial numbers match.”

  Brad took a long sip of his tea. “I’m not sure what I can tell you about him other than that. Our interaction was very brief and nonverbal.”

  That made her smile a bit. “I understand. Honestly, I’m hoping you could share your impressions of the attack itself. Did it feel like a regular pirate attack, or were there some aspects that felt off?”

  He nodded immediately. “They liked their weapons a lot more than most pirates I’ve ever heard about. Pirates prefer blades, pistols for backup. A few have shotguns, but that’s about it. They rely on the general fear of monofilament blades and pirates to keep order among the crew and passengers.

  “These guys had a grenade launcher and lots of guns. They sealed the passengers away from the fighting and then tried to wipe the crew out.”

  “That matches my impression pretty well,” Greer confirmed. “Did you find anything interesting on the ship during your refit?”

  “Not so far. The refit is still underway, so it’s always possible something interesting will turn up. What are you thinking? Hidden compartments?”

  “Those would be fascinating, no doubt, but I’m more interested in the larger areas of this ship. Were there any facilities for holding people?”

  Brad frowned and thought back over what he’d seen in the original search of the ship. “Sort of. They had a bunch of cuffs in the main cargo hold.”

  “Would you mind if I took a look?”

  “Not at all. The cuffs are gone, though.”

  “That’s fine. I just want to get a feel for the room.”

  They drank their tea and he put the mugs into the washer. Someone would kick it off once it was full.

  The main cargo hold wasn’t empty now. The refit crew was using it to sort equipment as it was brought aboard. There was still quite a bit of open area, though.

  “This is a bigger space than I imagined a warship of this class needed,” Greer said, turning in place to look around once they were inside. “What do you use it all for?”

  “We’ll need quite a bit of space to store ammunition and other combat equipment once we’re operational, but I agree with you. This is a lot bigger than the basic plan for the Fidelis calls for. The previous management obviously made some modifications. Maybe to haul their take away if the target ship can’t move under its own power.”

  She nodded thoughtfully, walked over to the closest bulkhead, and started walking down it. After only a few steps, she paused and knelt to examine something more closely. It was a small hole in the metal of the wall, just big enough to run a strap through.

  “Are these standard?” she asked, looking up at him.

  He nodded. “Sure. It makes sense to secure cargo with straps. If we have to maneuver under heavy acceleration, things would get tossed around.”

  “Do you normally see this many, though?”

  Brad looked past her and saw what she meant. There were attachment points roughly every foot. He hadn’t noticed before as the cargo space had been at the absolute bottom of his priority list—a chunk of it was even due to be sectioned off for torpedo magazines in the next two days.

  “Not normally, no.”

  Greer stood and brushed her hands off. “I don’t think these people were pirates in the traditional sense. I think they were slavers.”

  They examined more of the ship as she explained what she was thinking, but nothing else provided any insight into her investigation. It did leave him a lot to consider as soon as she’d left, though.

  Slavers. The word alone woke an entirely new level of rage inside him.

  He’d known the Cadre and other pirates took people from their prizes. A few made it back to civilization every year with horrible tales of lawless enclaves out on the Fringe where the poor bastards toiled away for the pirates.

  Brad had hoped to find out more one day, because there was a chance someone from Mandrake’s Heart had survived the attack that left him a Dutchman.

  Not Shari, of course. He’d seen the life drain out of his girlfriend, but maybe his uncle or some other member of the crew had been taken. If so, he might be able to find them. Eventually.

  The idea that there were professional—to use the term loosely—slavers was a shock, though. In a way, that was even worse than the piracy itself. It gave a kind of legitimacy to the Cadre enclaves when others tried to fill roles in supplying their needs.

  Greer had left a folder of information with him, asking that he review it discreetly. It had been surprisingly thick and contained what certainly appeared to be unredacted investigation files.

  The direct evidence was sparse. Not many people got back home once they’d been taken. The pirates always took steps
to make certain no one survived to tell any awkward tales when Fleet caught them in an infrequent raid.

  Not that the raids themselves were infrequent. No, Fleet was always trying to find out where the Cadre was operating. It was the general lack of success on Fleet’s part that had Brad worried.

  The Cadre had Fleet penetrated. Perhaps not directly, but extremely thoroughly. Someone was feeding them information.

  It was silly to think Fleet didn’t know. They had to. So, why hadn’t they caught the spies? What was keeping them from locating the Cadre?

  The answer was simple and chilling. Someone powerful was protecting the pirates and, by extension, the slavers.

  Lieutenant Greer had been very chatty about Fleet’s investigation into the slavers as the two of them had searched Heart for any other oddities. That, in conjunction with the folder of investigative notes, made him certain she’d had a deeper agenda than sparking any thoughts he might have over the events on Rain.

  No, the more he considered the idea, the more likely it sounded. She was hoping he’d look into the matter himself.

  Perhaps partly as a way around the ears and eyes she’d probably known he’d suspect were watching her and the investigation closely. More directly, he suspected she hoped he shot some slavers up and did what Fleet seemed unable to do: find their bases and unravel their secrets.

  If so, he’d happily play along. There was no way his demon would let him pass up the opportunity. The slavers were worthwhile in and of themselves, but they’d lead him to the Cadre, too.

  If they were going to tangle with slavers, though, they’d need some additional equipment. Mercenaries were good at shooting people. Less so at shooting only some people while protecting others.

  He went in search of Saburo and found the noncom in the bay he shared with his squad.

  The man looked up from the pistol he was cleaning. “Captain.”

  “Do you have a few minutes to discuss some contingencies I was thinking about?”

  “I’ve always got time to work out operational details. Have a seat.”

  Brad did so after unholstering his weapon. He removed the magazine and carefully ejected the round in the chamber. Once he was doubly sure it was empty, he started disassembling it for cleaning. If he was going to be sitting there with all the equipment, he might as well use it.

  “I just spent a few hours talking with a Fleet investigator about this ship, among other things,” he said as he ran a cleaning patch coated with oil down the barrel of his pistol.

  The mercenary noncom nodded. “I heard Pilot Marshal discussing her.”

  Brad could only imagine what Marshal had said. “Moving beyond her purely physical attributes, she seemed to be a very smart cookie.”

  He explained what she’d said, what she hadn’t, and the wealth of information she’d left in his care.

  The other man listened intently, his eyes narrowing as the scope of the files became clear. He said nothing until Brad finished. In fact, he cleaned his pistol in silence for a good while after Brad finished, even switching to a new weapon before he spoke.

  “I think you’re on to something, Captain,” Saburo said after a long while. “She’s a lot smarter than Marshal gave her credit for. All that and cute, too. She had our good pilot in range long before he knew she was scoping him out.”

  “We’ll keep him in the dark on that,” Brad said with a smile. “We wouldn’t want to blunt his ego.”

  That earned him a snort and a grin.

  “In any case, I get where you’re going,” Saburo said. “If we just happen to chance across some slavers, we’ll want a means to disable them without killing their prisoners. In fact, we’ll need to actively protect any prisoners from hostile countermeasures while we kill their captors.”

  “Exactly. I know elite police organizations have some things that might work, but no one has been going after these kinds of people with capture in mind. No one will have worked out the tactics and gear we’ll need.

  “I want you to run this past your people and your father. He knows people. He might have a source we can tap to get specialized gear we don’t even know exists.”

  Saburo nodded slowly, his eyes narrowed in thought. “He might even be able to come up with something no one has considered before. My father is an engineer by trade and an exceptionally clever man. He has many other clever men and women in his employ.”

  “We need to keep things quiet,” Brad warned. “If these slavers—or the Cadre, for that matter—have as many eyes and ears scattered around as I expect, they’ll get word of any unhealthy curiosity. I’d prefer to avoid that.”

  “Don’t take me for an idiot,” the man said bluntly. “I know how to maintain operational security, and my father didn’t build a successful business by letting people see what he was up to.”

  This wasn’t the first time Brad had evoked this kind of response from the mercenary. Unlike the man’s former commanders, he didn’t care if he got some talkback, so long as Saburo respected his ultimate authority and shared his goals.

  That didn’t make interaction easy, of course. And, as he’d partly expected, Saburo and Mike Randall got along like oil and water. Occasionally oil and water that were on fire.

  To their credit, though, neither one of them did any more than argue like an old married couple. They worked together seamlessly on the things that mattered.

  “There’s a difference between keeping things quiet and going out of your way to make sure no one learns what we’re up to,” Brad said soothingly. “I want to be sure you and your father actively make sure that there are alternate, believable explanations for everything you’re doing. That keeps us all safe from preemptive reprisals.”

  The other man’s eyes narrowed even further, not in anger but in consideration. “You believe the slavers have us under surveillance.”

  “We have what they consider one of their ships. They’d like to get it back and make us pay, I’m sure. On top of that, we just had a friendly visit by Fleet Security. If we start doing something that smacks of hunting slavers, they’ll focus even more attention on us.”

  The smaller man nodded sharply. “Good thinking. Let me consider our options. My father and I can come up with believable cover stories. Better yet, we might even be able to identify any potential watchers now that we have reason to suspect direct surveillance.”

  Brad finished cleaning his pistol and reassembled it. “What do you imagine we’d do to any watchers you manage to identify?”

  The mercenary grinned coldly. “Nothing I’ll admit to a senior officer, but accidents happen. People disappear.”

  “Make sure you have no doubts before you even think about that,” Brad cautioned the man. “This isn’t the kind of thing you want to make a mistake over.”

  He stood before the other man could respond, loaded his weapon, and holstered it. “Run your thoughts on equipment past Randall. We’ll need to involve him in installing anything larger than hand weapons.”

  Saburo scowled. “Why did you have to ruin what was promising to be an enjoyable mental exercise like that?”

  “It’s how I roll. Keep me in the loop.”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Brad leaned back in his command chair, surveying Heart of Vengeance’s vastly changed bridge. The ship was in so much better condition now and he could hardly wait to take her out on the shakedown cruise for her new systems and engines in a few days.

  The rest of the crew was ready to get off the shipyard too. Perhaps no one more so than Saburo. The mercenary noncom was annoyed that he hadn’t identified anyone associated with the slavers or the Cadre.

  The best he’d been able to manage was finding an industrial spy in the employ of his father’s largest competitor. He’d had to settle for telling Hiroshi and letting him “discover” the mole rather than dealing with him personally, and that had made the short man grumpy.

  Well, he’d get the chance to make someone hurt before too much longer.

&n
bsp; A scuff at the hatch made him glance up just as Jason Finley, his new tactical officer, entered the bridge.

  “Good morning, Captain,” the man said cheerfully.

  “And a good morning to you, too.”

  Finley and his lover, Shelly Weldon, had turned up to their interviews together. She’d made a good fit for the communication officer’s position. Brad wasn’t thrilled with having a couple aboard the ship at first, but they’d both impressed him with their skills, so he’d taken a chance.

  It had paid off. The two of them worked together extremely well, even if they occasionally had spats like most couples. Better yet, Shelly had a way with their cantankerous engineer. She was the Randall Whisperer. That was worth a lot by itself.

  Rather than heading for his console, Jason stopped beside Brad’s chair. “There’s a guy at the airlock looking for you. Should I let him in?”

  Brad wasn’t expecting anyone. They’d finished filling their crew complement a month earlier when Randall had finally found another engineer—a young native of Io named Jim Shoulter—that he could tolerate for more than twelve seconds.

  “That depends on who he is and what he wants,” Brad said slowly. “Did he give you a name?”

  “Nope,” the tactical officer said. “He was all mysterious and just handed me this.” Jason handed him a blank-faced data card.

  Brad brought up a secure reader on his wrist comp. The card listed his visitor as Jack Mader, a special assistant to the Governor of Io. Interesting if true. Anyone could have a card made up to say whatever they wanted.

  “Show him in,” Brad said. “I’ll meet him in my office.” The tiny room off the bridge was hardly worthy of the name, but he had to conduct his business somewhere.

  “Be right back.” Jason turned on his heel and headed back to the airlock to collect their visitor.

  Jason showed the governor’s man into Brad’s office a few minutes later. And, of course, he had to add a florid bow.

  Brad shot his new tactical officer a reproving glare, but the man just grinned. The man was irrepressible. The hatch slid shut behind the departing tactical officer, and Brad faced his visitor.