Nothing happened.
Frowning, he uttered the number again.
Still nothing.
“I just bought the damned thing,” he said apologetically, “and I guess I haven't memorized the codes yet.” He began reaching his hand into a side pocket.
“Hold it!” snapped Austen sharply. “What are you doing?”
“Getting the code log,” answered Cole. “Unless you want to stand here all day.”
“You stand still,” said Austen. “I'll get it.”
“I'm not armed.”
“Maybe not with a burner or a screecher, but how the hell do I know what you have in that pocket? It could be a knife, it could be anything.”
Austen reached a hand into Cole's pocket—and as he did so, Cole spun around and knocked the burner from his hand. It went flying through the air, landing on the concrete some twenty feet away and skidding for another ten feet.
Austen cursed and took a swing at Cole, who blocked it with a forearm and lashed out with a foot, catching Austen on the knee. There was a crunching sound and the young man collapsed, writhing in pain.
Cole walked over to where the burner lay and picked it up, then returned to Austen.
“This is your lucky day, Mr. Austen.”
“Fuck you!” muttered Austen.
“Oh, you probably feel that you've lost a fortune, and maybe you have, but I'm letting you live, and that ought to be even more to you than filthy lucre.”
“You wouldn't dare kill me!” snarled Austen. “There are security cameras all the hell around the spaceport. Within an hour every world in the Republic would be on the alert for you!”
“I thought the Republic had more important things to do,” commented Cole dryly.
Suddenly Austen's eyes went wide at the mention of the Republic. “Now I know where I've seen you! Your holo's been on every newscast in the galaxy! You bet your ass the Republic has more important things to do than chasing down a jewel thief or a killer! They've got to hunt down Wilson Cole and kill him for the goddamned turncoat he is!”
“Brave words for an unarmed man with a shattered knee,” commented Cole.
“Fuck you, traitor! Shoot and get it over with!”
“Don't tempt me,” said Cole. He pointed the burner at a spot between Austen's eyes, and the younger man immediately fell silent. “You know,” continued Cole, “I spent more than a decade as an officer in the Republic's Navy. I won four Medals of Courage. I can't tell you how many times I put my life on the line. It's when I realize I did all that for people like you that I feel like the biggest sucker ever born.”
“So now you fight for the Teroni Federation!” accused Austen.
“I have no more use for them than I have for the Republic,” answered Cole. “Now I fight for me.”
“That just makes you a common criminal.”
“No,” said Cole. Suddenly he smiled. “I prefer to think of myself as an uncommon one. I'm so uncommon that I'm not even going to shoot you down in cold blood. You're going to walk with a limp for the rest of your life, and your superiors will be informed of what you planned to do behind their backs. I think that's punishment enough.”
He ordered the hatch to open.
“I'll tell the Navy, and they'll come after you!” vowed Austen. “They'll never rest until you're dead!”
“There's a war going on,” said Cole just before he closed the hatch behind him. “They've got better things to do than chase after one man.”
He said it with bravado, and it sounded logical—but deep down in his gut, he knew it wasn't true.
Cole knew he had to get rid of his ship before rejoining the Teddy R. There were no signs of pursuit, but the registration was a matter of record, and he was sure Austen would have reported his presence to the authorities even before he was carted off to the hospital.
He set the ship's scrambler on a prearranged code and then made contact with the Teddy R.
“Where are you, sir?” asked Rachel Marcos, who was running the communications system when the connection was made.
“I'd prefer not to say, just to be on the safe side.”
Rachel frowned. “Are you all right, sir?”
“So far so good. But I've got to dump this ship and either find another one or contact you later and tell you where to pick me up.”
“If you're in danger—” she began.
“I'm not in any immediate danger,” said Cole. “Capture my transmission and pass it on to Four Eyes, Christine, and Sharon.”
“Yes, sir. How long before we hear from you again?”
“I don't know. Probably no more than a day or two. I want to go deeper into the Frontier to make sure I'm not being followed. Then I'll see about replacing this ship.”
“At least you have the money from the jewelry to pay for it,” said Rachel.
“We'll talk about that when I rejoin the Teddy R. I'm going to break off the communication now. If this transmission's being monitored, I don't want anyone to trace it to your end, and Christine tells me that it takes about two minutes. I've been in contact for ninety seconds.”
He broke the connection, then had his navigational computer throw up a three-dimensional map of the sector in which he found himself. There were ninety-three inhabited worlds within five hundred light-years, fifty-one of them human colonies, agricultural and mining worlds, and various outposts. He recognized only a few names—Ophir, a gold-mining world; Bluegrass, an agricultural world specializing in enormous mutated cattle; and Alpha Jameson II, known more commonly as Bombast, valued for its uranium deposits and famed for its erratic and frequent volcanic eruptions. Finally he hit upon Basilisk, a small world that seemed to have only a single tradertown, one of those ramshackle ports that appealed to independent miners, adventurers, and misfits. Most tradertowns boasted a few hotels (though in bygone days bed-and-breakfasts would better describe them), survey and assay offices, whorehouses that were rarely populated exclusively by females or even humans, a few bars, a few drug dens, and a casino or two. Cole never understood the attraction of the tradertowns, but then he never understood what would make a man want to farm or mine a desolate world a trillion miles from the comforts of civilization. He was an officer in the Republic's Navy by choice, and a pirate on the Inner Frontier merely by happenstance.
He saw no reason to remain awake during the voyage, so he directed the computer to take him to Basilisk, and to wake him when the ship entered orbit around the planet or received a transmission from Basilisk's spaceport.
“One more thing,” he said as he leaned back and his command chair morphed into a small bed. “There's a chance that we're being followed. If we are, they're being damned clever about it. No one's going to be directly on our tail, but keep an eye out and let me know if you spot anything funny.”
“I have no eye, and therefore cannot keep one out,” answered the computer. “And I have no sense of humor, so I cannot possibly identify anything funny.”
“That being the case,” said Cole, “just let me know if we're being followed.”
He leaned back, clasped his fingers behind his head, and was asleep within a matter of seconds.
“Sir,” said the computer's mechanical voice.
“What is it?” asked Cole. “Am I supposed to sign off before I take my nap?”
“We are entering orbit around Basilisk,” announced the ship.
“You're kidding!”
“I am incapable of any form of humor,” the computer explained.
“It feels like I just closed my eyes a second ago,” said Cole. “How long was I asleep?”
“Five hours, seventeen minutes, and four seconds, sir, based on your pulse, heartbeat, blood pressure, and respiration.”
“Has anyone from the planet asked for your registration, my ID, our flight plan, anything?”
“No, sir.”
“They've got to know we're here.” Suddenly a satisfied smile crossed Cole's face. “That means I chose the right world. It's so small we're not going to
need permission to land, and they won't ask for your registration or my passport. There'll be no Customs, no Immigration, no temporary visas, nothing.” He paused. “Okay, from the information that was programmed into you, there seems to be just one tradertown. Find out where all the ships and shuttles are clustered and land there.”
The ship entered the atmosphere and touched down a few minutes later. Cole climbed out, ordered the hatch to close and lock, and walked just under a mile to the largest of the three bars. There were a number of tables spread across the front half of the room; toward the back were the various gambling games. Men mingled with aliens, some dressed in brilliant finery, others wearing outfits that looked like they hadn't been washed in years. The newly rich and the newly poor rubbed shoulders at the tables and at the long polished bar.
Cole surveyed his surroundings, then walked over to the bar, shouldering his way through the crowd clustered there. A robot, all head, arms, torso, and wheels, slid down the length of it until it stopped opposite him.
“What can I serve you?” it asked.
“A beer.”
“What brand, sir?”
“What have you got?”
“We have fifty-three brands from forty-two different planets, sir.”
“You choose one.”
“I am not programmed to make value judgments, sir. I can produce a list of our beer brands if you wish.”
“Forget it. Give me whatever's on tap.”
“We have fourteen brands on tap.”
“He'll take a Blue Star,” said a feminine voice off to his left. “And he'll buy me one, too.”
“Sir…” began the robot.
“Do what the lady says,” ordered Cole.
He turned to see who he was buying the beer for, and almost had to physically stop himself from doing a double take. Standing there—and he was sure she hadn't been there when he walked in a minute or two ago—was a woman with flaming red hair, proportioned like a model but standing an inch or two above six and a half feet. She wore an outfit of glistening metallic fabric that clung to her body, and a pair of thigh-high boots with the handle of a weapon peeking out of the top of each. She wore long gloves, and Cole could see the outlines of daggers through each one. He couldn't decide at first glance if she was a prostitute or an assassin, or maybe just a refugee from a masquerade; she seemed dressed for any of them.
“Thanks,” said the woman as the robot delivered her beer.
“Happy to oblige,” said Cole, taking a swallow from his glass.
“Blue Star's good drinking stuff,” she said. “I know the guy who makes it. Well, I knew him,” she amended. “But his family's carrying on and doing okay with it.”
Cole picked up his glass. “It's getting a little noisy here. Care to join me at a table?”
“Sure,” she said, following him to a small table about halfway between the entrance and the bar.
“Have you got a name?” he asked when they were seated.
“Lots of ‘em,” she replied. “This week it's Dominick.”
“Dominick?” he repeated. “I never met a woman named Dominick before.”
“You probably never will again,” she replied. “He was my seventh lover. Or was it my eighth? No, seventh. So this week I'm memorializing his name. Fourth time around for it. Once or twice more and I'll know that I'll never forget him.”
“So you really want me to call you Dominick?”
“This week, anyway,” she said. “Last week I was the Queen of Sheba. And what do I call you?”
“Delveccio.”
She shook her head. “No, that's no good.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“That name's blown. Choose another one, Wilson Cole.” She stared at him. “And keep your hands off your weapons. If I wanted to expose you, I could have done it at the bar when everyone could hear me.”
“What makes you think I'm this Cole person?” he asked.
“Because you went and busted up some guy on McAllister, and he went public with who you are. Your holo is on every newscast in the Republic, on both Frontiers, and in the Arm.” She smiled. “The Navy thinks you've been a naughty boy.”
Cole looked around the bar. No one seemed to be paying him any attention.
“Don't worry, Commander Cole,” said Dominick. “You're safe for the time being.”
“Captain Cole,” he corrected her. “And what makes you think I'm safe? If you could spot me, so can someone else.”
“At least two others have,” she replied. “Maybe three. But you're not in any immediate danger.”
“Why not?” he asked.
“Because you're with me.”
“You're that formidable?”
“I suppose you could ask the men who didn't think so, but they're mostly dead, or recovering in hospitals.”
He stared at her. “I can believe it. You remind me of a Valkyrie.”
“What's a Valkyrie?” she asked.
He told her.
“That's my new name,” she announced happily. “Call me Val for short.”
“It's none of my business, but why do you change names so often?”
“My real name drew a little more attention that I could handle, especially the last few years,” replied Val. “Besides, I'm on a mission, and it's better that the people I'm after don't know where I am.”
“It's not a mission for the Republic,” noted Cole. “Not if you aren't interested in turning me in.”
“It's for the Pegasus.”
“The Pegasus?”
“My ship!” she said, her face a sudden mask of fury. “I was the greatest pirate on the Frontier until I lost it!”
“Well, I'll be damned!” said Cole with a smile.
“What's so funny?” she demanded.
“I used to read about pirate queens in adventure novels when I was a kid, and I'd see them in the holos, but I never thought I'd run into a real live one. Come to think of it, they all dressed like you.”
“Yeah, well I'm a pirate queen without a ship,” said Val. “When I get it back, someone besides me is going to rue the day they took it away from me.”
“How did it happen?”
“We were attacked by the Hammerhead Shark.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“He's an alien,” she explained. “He's got scaly skin, and eyes sticking out to the sides like the hammerheads of old Earth's oceans.”
“He's a pirate too?”
She nodded. “The worst. I fought like a woman possessed. I must have killed twenty of the bastards, but finally their numbers overwhelmed me. They set me down on Nirvain II and flew off with my ship.”
“And your crew?”
“Those that survived had to swear fealty to the Shark,” she said bitterly.
“Fascinating story,” said Cole. He paused. “It'd make a great holo—but you wouldn't think much of me if I believed it. Why don't you tell me what really happened?”
“I was sleeping off a drunk right here on Basilisk and my fucking crew sold me out!” she bellowed.
“That one I believe.”
“I'll kill every last one of the bastards when I catch up with them!”
“I believe that too.”
“How about you?” she asked, calming down almost instantly. “What's the most wanted man in the galaxy doing on a grubby little world like this?”
“Making sure I haven't been followed before I rejoin my ship.”
“Your ship?” she repeated. “You're not still in the Navy, are you? This hasn't all been some kind of ruse to get you close to the Teronis?”
“No, it's no ruse.”
She smiled. “Then you're a pirate too. How else could you feed your crew and power your ship?”
“We're kind of apprentice pirates,” he replied. “It's more complicated than it looks.”
“I'll bet you were the ones who sacked the Achilles!” she said suddenly. “I knew there was a new player in the game, but until twenty seconds ago I didn't kn
ow who.”
“Yeah, that was us. Getting their treasure was a nice, simple military operation.” He grimaced. “Unloading it has proven a little more difficult.”
“That's because Windsail was a fool,” said Val contemptuously. “If you're going to be a pirate, you'd better learn the trade. You go around murdering Republic miners and trying to make a profit selling hot jewelry and you're begging for trouble.”
“So I'm finding out—about the jewelry, anyway,” said Cole. “What does the competent pirate steal these days?”
“Anything that you can sell directly on the Inner Frontier, without going through a middleman.”
“For instance?”
“Grain shipments. Shipments of ball bearings and machine tools. Things that colony worlds need, things like frozen livestock embryos. When you think about it, who really needs a diamond necklace?”
“Makes sense,” he admitted. “I guess I watched too many pirate shows when I was a kid.” A sudden smile. “I've been a victim of false doctrine.”
“You should have just asked someone on your crew.”
“Except for a teenaged kid who doesn't really know the score, my crew came with me from the Republic,” answered Cole. “We haven't had time to recruit anyone out here. In fact, except for the crew of the Achilles, all of whom wanted to kill us, I haven't met any pirates.” He paused and stared at her. “Until now.”
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked suspiciously.
“I'm about to make you a proposition.”
“Sexual or business?”
“Business.”
“All right, I'm listening.”
“You need a ship. I need an education. Why don't you join the crew of the Theodore Roosevelt until we find out where the Shark has taken your ship? Once we hunt it down, we'll help you get it back in exchange for half of any loot he's stolen since taking it over. Anything that was in the ship before that is yours.”
“Some pirate!” she snorted. “How will you know I'm not lying to you? Maybe I'll claim some stuff that the Shark stole.”
“How do you know I'll let you take a damned thing?” countered Cole.
Val studied him for a moment, then laughed. “Cole, only an honest man would make such a dumb statement to me and expect to live. You've got yourself a deal!” She reached out and shook his hand vigorously. “When do we leave for your ship?”
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