Gun Runner

by B. V. Larson

  “This might sell…” I said, taking it and standing over the leader, who was on the edge of consciousness. Despite his broken state, he shied away in fear when I held the lash under his nose.

  “You got more of these?” I asked him. “I’ll pay well for a crate of them. They hurt a lot, right Jort?”

  “Fuck yeah!” Jort said, snarling and clawing at his shoulder. He looked like a man who’d been caught by a swarm of hornets.

  Turning back to the man on the deck, I noted with disappointment that he’d slipped away into unconsciousness. I let go of him and stood straight.

  “Too bad… I really do want to buy some of these.”

  We walked back to our ship at the docks. Long experience in matters such as these told me that we were probably unpopular with the locals by now.

  Sure enough, when we arrived we found a group of five more workers sealing our docking tube so we couldn’t get aboard our ship. Jort and I applied our fists and the energy lash I’d picked up. Soon, they changed their minds and begged us to leave their station.

  It was only a matter of time before more men arrived in armor with real weapons, so I raced to the bridge and cast off.

  “Captain, we haven’t finished refueling yet,” Sosa said.

  “We can make it out of here. Prepare for a rough ride. Jort? Are you too drunk to man the aft neutrino cannons?”

  “Drunk? Who’s drunk?”

  “Good. Get to your station. Take out their top turrets the second we get free of their tubes. Fire right through the hull of their station if you have to.”

  “They aren’t going to like that, Captain,” Sosa informed me.

  “Probably not,” I said, shrugging. “But they started it.”

  Sliding out of port slowly at first, I watched the aft cameras like a hawk. Sure enough, one of them started to rotate, tracking us. I couldn’t take the chance they were just taking our picture.

  “Jort, burn that top turret. Fire now.”

  A silent gush of energy leapt out from our ship and struck the space station’s cannon. There was no visible effect at first—then it started to smoke, releasing a plume of gas into space. A moment later, it kind of popped, like a kernel of popcorn heated to the breaking point. The exterior of the turret was armored too thickly to allow it to outright explode, but it did swell up two or three times its original size, blasting white vapor into space from the seams.

  Three more turrets began to move then, and a few ships came rolling out from the sides of the station. They were fighters, if I didn’t miss my guess.

  “Everybody hold on!”

  I hit the gas, and we roared away with shocking speed. Even the fighters that pursued us with their afterburners glowing lavender-white couldn’t keep up.

  We left Barnard’s Star behind, reached the automated slip-gate, and barreled through.

  “Captain,” Sosa said. “The patrol boat at the slip-gate—I think I saw it launch just before we went through.”

  “Great,” I said. “We’ll have company at the far end of this run. Jort, try to sober up!”

  My command fell on deaf ears. I could hear Jort snoring loudly over the ship’s comm system.

  Chapter Twelve

  The jump was a relatively short one. We had time to eat, rest and plan. When we came out at the far end, we would arrive at Sardez. I knew from long experience what we’d be facing when we got there.

  The patrol ship that had followed us from Barnard’s Star would be right on our tails, only a few minutes behind us. Worse, there would undoubtedly be another patrol boat at the Sardez station as well. That meant we’d soon have two of them to deal with—and we didn’t even have a full tank of fuel.

  “Hmmm…” I said, going over the numbers. “We don’t have enough fuel to reach another star system without either refueling or using a slip-gate.”

  “Why not outrun them again?” Jort asked, rubbing his red eyes. “This ship is fast.”

  “Yes, of course, but flying fast uses more fuel… I think we’re going to have to fight.”

  They both looked alarmed. Even Jort, brave and feral as he was, didn’t like my idea.

  “Fight two patrol ships? You one crazy fucker!”

  “Don’t worry. I didn’t say it was going to be a fair fight.”

  A timer went off then, alerting us. It was the five minute warning. We were about to breach, to come out of the slip-gate and arrive at our destination.

  “Both of you, move! Man the neutrino cannons, fore and aft.”

  We all scrambled to our stations. At the helm controls, my hands felt sticky with sweat. I hated when they did that.

  Coming out of the slip-gate, I didn’t do anything suspicious. Instead, I took a ten-second look around. All seemed normal. I saw nothing to indicate the station people at Sardez were suspecting anything yet.

  Still, they were on the ball. This star system was off-limits for the most part. Ships only passed through it, few were allowed to explore it.

  “Royal Fortune,” a voice said in my headset, “this is a restricted system. Your registry isn’t in my database. Park your vessel a thousand kilometers sunward. Prepare to be boarded and inspected.”

  I winced at this. Normally, I wouldn’t have minded an inspection. After all, the hold was empty—we hadn’t picked up our illicit cargo yet. After a brief delay, we’d be sent on our way.

  But we couldn’t afford any delays today. The patrol ship from Barnard’s Star was only five minutes behind me—maybe less.

  “Can I get a little fuel first?” I asked. “I’m low.”

  “Negative. Do it after… my sensors indicate there’s another ship coming in soon, right on your tail.”

  “Pulling over,” I replied, and I let the ship gently glide toward the designated location. I took my time, trying to look as harmless as possible.

  “Jort, Sosa, target their engines. Use the forward cannon to lock onto their starboard engine. Aft cannon hit the port side. We’ll knock them both out and run.”

  “Are you sure you want to do this, Captain?” Sosa asked me. “All we did was run from some pirates who were trying to steal our ship back there at Barnard’s. Maybe we should report them and talk our way out.”

  It was a good idea—but it wouldn’t work. I’d never really explained to Sosa—or Kersen, for that matter—that I was already on the run from the Conclave police. They still wanted me for stealing Rose’s family yacht. By this time, word of my exploits would have spread across the Conclave.

  Watching the patrol ship glide closer, I wondered about Rose. I wished I knew how she was doing, and if I’d ever see her again.

  I’d met a lot of women in my time—or rather, the original William Gorman had. I had to keep reminding myself that I was a clone. My memories of past relationships were really the memories lived out by someone else. In my own personal lifespan, I’d been kept frozen for a decade then thawed out and chased around by everyone I crossed paths with. So far, Rose had been the only kind, concerned person I’d met in my new existence.

  “Sir, they’re unlimbering their guns,” Sosa said.

  “They spotted our cannons!” Jort said.

  “Gunners, on my mark,” I said. “Three… two… one… Mark! Fire and hold the trigger down until her engines pop!”

  Twin beams of radiation streamed out from our ship. It took longer this time to see the effect than it had back at Barnard’s space station. The patrol ship’s engines must have been heavily shielded.

  But after maybe three seconds, the starboard engine flamed out.

  “Missiles launched!” Sosa called.

  “Fire torpedoes, Gorman!” Jort demanded. “We must kill them now.”

  “Finish burning that port engine, Jort.”

  He kept beaming, and despite the fact the enemy captain was trying to maneuver, his second engine flared and went black.

  Heaving Royal Fortune over on her back, I hit the thrusters and gave us a sickening burst of power. My gunners complained, bu
t they’d been smart enough to strap in this time. No one dashed their brains out.

  My ship flashed away from the crippled patrol boat. The missiles gave chase, but they couldn’t catch us. All by itself, that was a testament to the raw power of the corvette’s engines.

  “Fuel is down into the critical range,” Sosa told me, coming back onto the bridge.

  “Tell me something I don’t know.”

  She glanced over the instruments. “The second patrol ship is in the system now, headed our way.”

  “Great. Prepare for a fight.”

  There were several ways you could fuel a hungry spaceship. One was to skim a dim sun. Sometimes they let off a lot of gas and heat you could use. Another was to dip into the atmosphere of a planet. Big gas-ball planets were common, with trillions of tons of consumables just floating around them for the taking.

  But neither of those approaches were going to work here. I needed a pump, and the only one I knew of in the remote Sardez system was at the slip-gate. Because of this, I couldn’t afford to move too far away from it.

  Coming about, I cut the engines and let Royal Fortune glide for a few seconds. We’d already outrun the first patrol ship’s missiles, and they didn’t have enough fuel to chase us indefinitely. We were also safely out of range of her guns.

  The second patrol ship was the problem. It wouldn’t be possible to sucker-punch them the way I’d done with the first ship. This time, it was going to be a fair fight.

  “Torpedoes, Captain?” Jort asked suggestively.

  I hesitated. I didn’t like using lethal force if I didn’t have to. It was my experience that once you went down that road, there was no turning back. Once provoked, the patrolmen seemed to grow more and more wrathful, swarming with increasingly frenzied urgency until they got you.

  And if they ever did catch up, they weren’t kind. Not at all.

  “Sosa, man the aft neutrino cannon. Jort, move to the torpedo room—but hold your fire.”

  My skeleton crew scuttled through the passages that interconnected the various chambers and decks of the ship. I waited tensely, watching the patrol ship as she approached.

  She did so warily, like a predator that stalks dangerous prey.

  The comm light blinked yellow, so I answered it. There was no harm in that, I figured.

  “William Gorman,” a bland voice spoke. “You will stand down and submit to arrest, or you will be destroyed.”

  “Is that right? How should I submit to your authority, sir?”

  “You’re surrendering?”

  “That’s what I said. Tell me how to do it.”

  The patrol captain was a robot—probably a model-Q—but he wasn’t totally stupid.

  “After reviewing past interaction reports, I’ve classified this action on your part as a ruse,” he informed me.

  “I’ve been classified? By who?”

  “By my higher functions. But your intentions are irrelevant. You must be given instructions and the opportunity to follow them.”

  I smiled. I’d been counting on that. Anyone who always followed a well-known script could be outwitted by people like me.

  The boring patrolman proceeded to tell me how to surrender, and I played along every step of the way. We sat idle, and he crept closer. When he came into gun-range, we closed up our turrets. True, we could have spun the two cannon turrets out quickly and fired , but that would give them time to fire on us while they were locking on.

  In fact, they were unimaginatively targeting my neutrino cannons the entire time as they approached. When they were quite close, I extended a docking tube that was meant to link up with theirs. We were that close—something like fifty meters apart.

  “Sosa, move away from the neutrino cannon you’re manning. Jort, open tube two and fire a single torpedo.”

  “But Captain… at this range the back-blast—”

  While Jort wasted time, I saw the docking tube ripple. An android was doubtlessly sliding through it.

  “Fire Two! Now!”

  Jort stopped whining. The external weapon’s port snicked open, and in the same instant the torpedo shot out. It was a puff of silent flame in space.

  Immediately, alarms went off all over the ship. The hull shuddered, and I knew we’d take a hit in return.

  “Sosa? Sosa!”

  “I’m still here, Captain. But the aft neutrino cannon isn’t.”

  “Play damage control. What’s the condition of the patrol ship? I can’t see it from here.”

  “That’s because she’s tumbling and spitting vapor, sir. She’s dying…”

  The viewports cleared just then, and I had a full view. We’d struck the enemy ship in the guts at point-blank range. She’d tried to escape by accelerating and firing back—but her guns had only managed to blow away one of our two cannon turrets. She’d had no time to launch missiles.

  “Fire again?” Jort asked me. “To make sure?”

  “No. We don’t have enough torpedoes to waste them.”

  “Captain?” Sosa asked. Her voice sounded somewhat emotional. “Were there men on that ship? Real men?”

  “Nah…” I said. “Just robots. You heard their captain’s voice.”

  She didn’t ask anything further. We watched in fascination as the patrol ship tumbled and vented, like a stricken animal spraying its lifeblood everywhere.

  The patrol boat never fired again, and its engines didn’t try to stop the spin. Whatever kind of mind had been piloting that ship, it was dead now.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Using the few liters of fuel we had left, I turned Royal Fortune around and took her back to the slip-gate. There was no one there but a few model-Ds to oppose us. After hacking the dispenser, we began to fill our tanks with fresh fuel.

  This was a harrowing time. At any moment more traffic could come through the gates. Or worse, some other vessel could come out of the dark and find us stealing gas while two patrol ships lie wrecked nearby.

  The human captain of the first patrol ship wasn’t making that possibility any less remote. He was cursing and carrying on, declaring on a dozen channels all the depraved things he planned to do to my steaming corpse when he finally tracked me down.

  “You sure know how to make friends, Gorman,” Sosa told me.

  “It’s been a life-long gift of mine.”

  At last, we were topped off. I roared away from the station, leaving behind the alternating pleading and threats from the still living captain of the first boat.

  “He must be asshole guy to be stationed out here, huh?” Jort remarked.

  “Just listen to him. Would you want a complainer like that in your system?”

  Jort laughed uproariously. Sosa, however, was looking worried. She kept bringing up screenshots of the boat we’d toasted. I supposed she was checking it for signs of life. I let her do it, knowing there wouldn’t be any.

  After we put a few hundred thousand kilometers of space between us and our most recent crimes, I headed for the out-system.

  “Where are we going, sir?” Jort asked.

  “There’s an OORT cloud of snowballs out past the farthest planet. Most single-star systems have them. A region filled with comets, asteroids and random puffs of gas. It’s out there we’ll find what we’re looking for.”

  “Your stash of weapons?” Sosa asked me.

  “That’s what we came for.”

  After cruising for nine hours, we left the last planet behind. After that, there was only darkness.

  “Scanners up,” I said.

  “We looking for metallics?” Sosa asked.

  “Nope. Just scan and tell me if you see anything interesting.”

  “Nothing but ice-balls. Comets with no tail, hurtling along.”

  “Right: that’s the stuff that’s not interesting. Tell me if you see anything else.”

  Puzzled, Sosa kept her eyes in the scopes, watching closely.

  An hour passed. Then another. She yawned and stretched. “You sure you can find it?
”

  “If it’s still out here, I’ll find it.”

  During the third hour, Sosa was nodding off, but she suddenly sat up.

  “I’ve got a contact… a heat signature? That’s not normal… not out here.”

  “Ah… put it on the main screen for me. Switch the graphics to infrared.”

  She flashed up a holographic map of the region. It was a few million cubic kilometers of nothing much. Ice shards. A few rocks… and one glowing point of heat. It showed as a deep cherry-red on the field, which was otherwise all purples and blues.

  Gently, I gave Royal Fortune a tiny squirt of her jets. I didn’t brake hard, which would have created a big plume of heat plasma and particle radiation. Just a tap to correct our course, that’s all that was needed.

  Heavy boots sounded on the deck behind me. Jort came up behind us, panting. He leaned over my shoulder, making the headrest on my chair fold down with his bulk.

  Puffs of steamy breath almost parted my hair.

  “Do you mind, Jort?”

  “That’s it, isn’t it?” he asked, eyes glowing. “Right there—but what’s making it hot?”

  “It’s a small planet. A geologically active planet.”

  “Out this far?” Sosa objected.

  “That’s right. To any normal scan, it’s invisible. You have to come out here to find it—and you have to look for heat.”

  Jort looked down at me and grinned. “Tricky again! A devil in man-skin! That’s what you are, Gorman!”

  “Thanks… I’ll take that as a compliment.”

  We closed with the object, and soon it became clear. In most star systems, the inner planets might be small rocky things that could harbor life. Warmed by their sun, they enjoyed high visibility and a reasonable level of gravity. Often, they even had atmospheres. A few could be inhabited.

  Farther out in most systems were the gas giants. These puffy planets were almost as big as small suns themselves. Some even smoldered with flashes of fusion, their size and mass was so great.

  At the very edge of many systems was a silent disk of cold debris. Stuff that never formed into planets. These relics were like frozen ice-sculptures, destined to never see the light of day. Even so, they were still trapped by the gravitational tug of the distant star they circled forever.