Kovacs looked them all up and down. “I’m not sure if we need extra mouths to feed.”
“We can feed ourselves, Kovacs,” Harry said. “We just thought we could kick some Imperial ass. Together.”
“I have no love for the Imperials,” the scrounger admitted. “But like I said, I run a salvage operation. The Imperials won’t bother with the likes of me.”
“Wanna bet?” Harry asked with a hard grin. “They’re on their way right now.”
Doubt flickered across Kovacs’s face. “If that’s true, we’ll disappear into the shadows like we always do. The Scrappers always find a way.”
“The Scrappers, eh?” Harry repeated. “You look like good people to have on-side. I’m afraid it’s defend or die, Kovacs. This base is in a prime defensive position.”
Kovacs considered Harry’s pitch for what seemed an eternity.
“Sir, I’m picking up orbital signatures,” said a voice from inside the partition.
“Orientation?”
“At least one warship, sir.”
“You’d better come in,” Kovacs said to Charley. The pirates were permitted behind the partition, but there was at least one gun trained on them at all times. She could understood the precaution - it was folly to trust strangers.
“It’ll be hours before the orbital force is in position to launch a ground invasion,” Harry reassured Kovacs.
“What would you have us do?” the scrounger asked. “There’s only forty of us and we aren’t trained to operate the old tech in this fort.”
“Found a way to jack any of it?” Harry asked.
Kovacs’s eyes narrowed. “I’ve jacked pretty much every bit of tech in this place.”
Charley looked at Kovacs with delight.
“It’s a hobby,” he said, shrugging. “I grew up on the Core Worlds. A child of the streets.”
Charley beamed at Harry. Her dwindling hopes had just been coaxed back to life.
“We might be able to man the weapons in here,” Harry said. “But we need them powered and prepped.”
Assessing his guests one last time, Kovacs remained silent for a moment. Charley made a point of meeting his gaze.
“I’m gonna trust you,” he said. “If we get out of this alive, I might even mean it.”
“Good to hear,” Harry laughed. “If you’ll forgive me, time is of the essence. A quick tour of the base?”
“Of course,” Kovacs replied. “Follow me.”
58
Charley and Harry followed Kovacs into a dark passageway at the rear of the keep.
“This place was once the lair of Krovon IV, a fearsome warlord in this sector,” Kovacs said. “He sent attack barges to nearby systems for over a hundred years.”
“Krovon had some great engineers,” Harry commented. “They knew how to protect their master.”
Kovacs led the pirates into a high chamber. It contained two silo-shaped generators that nearly reached the ceiling.
“These were difficult to jack,” Kovacs said. “But once I had them, my people had energy and warmth against the cold. This is basically our life support.”
A drop shaft took the party to a passageway above the generators. A hydrostatic track ran down the middle of the tunnel.
“We must be under the mountain,” Harry said.
“We are,” Kovacs confirmed. “The effort to excavate back here is astounding.”
The scrounger pressed his finger into a DNA activation panel and a door slid open. Charley held her breath as she walked in - it was a huge missile bay. Long range weapons of all sizes and shapes were stored in rusted racks. Orbital nukes, anti-armor missiles, cluster missiles. A missile for every occasion. Harry looked like a child in a candy store. His eyes glittered with possibilities.
“That hydrostatic track out there in the tunnel,” he said. “It transfers missiles to the guns?”
Kovacs nodded, almost proudly. “Pretty cool isn’t it? Hasn’t been used for over a century, but because the materials are high grade, degeneration is not an issue. We just don’t know how to operate the guns.”
Her mind ticking over, Charley followed the men back down the passageway and into the main keep. They rode a drop shaft to the mezzanine level that admitted to the external rampart. Long, sloping arms of concrete protected the balustrade from air attack. The rampart itself was wide and uncluttered. Regularly-spaced cannons towered above them, three in total. Missile tracks ran into the base of each turret. The ordinance hatches, however, were sealed shut.
“We can activate the missile system,” Kovacs said, “but we can’t open those doors or access the tower systems.”
“A problem,” Harry agreed.
“FIGJAM?” Charley said to her PalBot. “What do you think?”
“I think you’re screwed,” the robot concluded. “But I’ll take a look anyway.”
Charley let FIGJAM roll over to the access node on one of the missile towers. It used its traction setting to climb the wall to the panel. The PalBot was plugged in for a half minute before it spoke.
“Like I said, you’re all fucked,” it announced, rolling back to Charley. She popped it back in her utility belt with an embarrassed shrug.
“Any advice, FIGJAM?” she asked.
“Get someone with the right DNA. These towers will only work if they recognize one of the local bloodlines. Crude, I know.”
Charley wanted to ask more questions but the annoying PalBot had gone offline.
“I’ll get my people to try logging in,” Kovacs said. “I’m not hopeful though - most of my guys are off-world.”
“Then one of the villagers might be able to do it,” Harry suggested. “We’re not done yet.”
“Molly, let me know when the villagers arrive,” Charley said into her wrist com.
“I’ve got one more thing to show you,” Kovacs said. Armories were situated at opposite ends of the rampart. The northern chamber contained over a hundred pulse rifles. Harry cocked one and primed it.
“Old tech, but well made,” he said. “These will pack a punch.”
“They don’t make them like that anymore, eh?” Kovacs agreed. “The other armory has cryo-grenades. Boxes and boxes of them. The more settlers you bring, the better chance we have of surviving the next twenty four hours.”
Harry slapped Kovacs on the back.
“You’ve made my day,” he said warmly. “With your permission, I’ll supervise turret activation.”
Harry gave Charley a peck on the cheek and sauntered out. The old pirate had energy to burn. Charley adored his passion.
“Good to see pirates aren’t just a modern myth,” Kovacs said, leaning back against a weapons rack. The man looked every inch a scoundrel in his black leathers.
“I’m sorry if I was rude earlier,” he said conversationally. “You can’t be too careful in this day and age.”
“Oh, I couldn’t agree more,” Charley said, enjoying her view of the well put-together scrounger. “Survival is the game.”
“You said it,” Kovacs said. “Say, Charley, can I ask you a personal question?”
“Sure.”
“Do you have a special relationship with the old man?”
Charley blushed.
“He’s my mentor,” she said. “’Love’ is a strong word, but he’s growing on me.”
Kovacs looked at Charley with eyes that had lost their bright, casual warmth. They were now clouded with lust.
“What would you say if I asked you to unzip that suit, Charley?”
Charley looked Kovacs in the eye.
“I’m not that kind of girl,” she said evenly. “I’m sorry, Jack.”
The scrounger nodded curtly and was gone in a flash. What was that all about?
59
Settling her nerves, Charley headed back out to the rampart and into the main keep. Harry and Vanessa were checking the long range scan projections in the scroungers’ command center. Enemy movement was clear as f
ar as they could tell, but the villagers were arriving. Kovacs opened the inner doors to allow Durant and some sixty refugees into the main hall. The filed down the steps looking tired and afraid. Charley’s heart melted when she saw women and children among them. Families who had led tough lives. They weren’t criminals, bandits or thieves. They were just folks who had planted a flag and would defend it with their lives. People who hoped for a better future and valued freedom above all things. The kinship Charley felt with these refugees was nothing short of amazing. She knew right then that she’d made the right decision to stay and fight on Frostfire.
To that end, she made sure she looked each of the villagers in the eye, determined to give them a reason to believe. Harry and Kovacs looked on in open admiration as Charley went about her work. She supposed she was simply becoming more comfortable in her skin as a space pirate. Once her interaction was complete, Kovacs showed everyone to the kitchen and invited them to come and go as they pleased. The scroungers were adept at hunting game out on the plateau and there was no shortage of meat and fresh herbs.
Once the refugees were settled, Charley checked in on Harry at the command post. Night had settled outside and a strong wind flayed the outer walls. The regional situation was perilous. The Imperial cruiser had continued its run west, ravaging towns and villages as it went. The newly arrived warship was already deploying troop carriers some 750 miles in the same direction. They clearly intended to secure the planet as quickly as possible. For the moment, Ghost Fort was not in the line of fire, but Harry predicted a ground assault would be launched sometime in the next twenty-four hours.
Charley had no experience of large-scale battle and the prospect seemed more than a little terrifying. At that moment there were barely one hundred people within Ghost Fort’s keep. If the defenders couldn’t get the gun turrets up and running, they were in for a world of pain. Even if they miraculously held off an Imperial attack, what then? They would need supplies and personnel to maintain their position. Evidently Harry was thinking along the same lines.
“Our first priorities are those turrets,” he said. “We need to find Kovacs and have him run the refugees up to the rampart. I don’t care how exhausted they are.”
Charley found Kovacs in the kitchens serving food to the refugees. Galvanized by the arrival of troop carriers in the west, Kovacs helped her shepherd the tired folk up to the rampart. Man, woman and child each attempted to unlock the DNA-activated turrets. Many claimed to have bloodlines running back several generations on Frostfire, but it wasn’t until the third last settler stepped up that Charley actually saw some physical evidence. The man’s name was Fandir and he had startling facial features. His cheekbones were prominent and his eyes were a striking ice blue. Fandir was also taller and thinner than most of the refugees.
A heavy silence reigned as the quiet, modest hunter pressed his hand against the lock. A horrible few seconds passed before it glowed a reassuring green. The refugees stirred anxiously as the turrets powered to life with a deep, rumbling hum. Charley ran the length of the rampart, unable to contain her excitement. She descended the keep stairs three at a time. Harry face lit up when she delivered the news.
“Our chances just improved from impossible to unlikely,” he said with a smile.
“We should all get some sleep,” Kovacs said, appearing behind Charley..
“Set up pallets here in the keep, just beyond your command post,” Charley said with authority. “At first light, I want everyone up on the rampart reporting for duty.”
Kovacs looked a little bemused at Charley’s sudden air of command, but went off to see to the pallets all the same. Yawning, Charley ordered her pirates to follow her. They eventually found a warm chamber above the kitchen. There weren’t any beds as such, but there were several bedrolls stacked against the wall. The pirate captain settled on the floor with her crew. The last sound she heard as she drifted off was the bass hum of the gun turrets.
Dawn light filtered through cracks in the walls and coaxed Charley from her slumber. Though she’d slept well, the thin bedroll had been murder on her body. Stretching the stiffness from her neck, she woke the others and made her way down to the kitchen. She found a haunch of rabbit over the fire and ate hungrily, encouraging her crew to follow suit. Gronko happily consumed his own body weight in meat and greens. Charley didn’t admonish him, figuring she’d need the burly renki at his best later on.
Once everyone had eaten their fill, the pirates regrouped on the rampart, where a bracing cold wind screamed in from the plain. The river to the south was glossy with ice. Charley swore to herself, figuring enemy ground troops would now have an easy way across. Unless…
“We can melt that ice with plasma at the right time,” she observed.
Harry nodded. “That would only work once, but it would definitely slow them down.”
A heartening sight were the hundreds of refugees stumbling across the ice further south.
“We put a call out to some of the southern settlements,” Kovacs said, joining the defenders on the rampart. “Folks from all over the plain will be rolling in today. Most are orchard farmers, trappers and the like, but they know how to fire a gun, which is all that matters.”
Watching the settlers scramble their way to the Ghost Fort, Charley estimated that there could be as many as two thousand able-bodied defenders by the end of the day.
“I don’t know if we’ve got a chance in hell of surviving, but we’ll take more than a few with us,” Harry murmured.
“Agreed,” Molly said. “In my experience, you can’t storm a fort like this one without heavy losses.”
“Kovacs,” Charley said, “Molly here will be able to advise on the keep’s weak points, if any.”
Kovacs bowed and left with Charley’s security adviser.
“All this waiting is killing me,” Harry said. “Wish I could do something.”
“There’s always something,” Charley mused with a smile. “Fancy a spot of firing practice?”
Within an hour, over a hundred rifle-wielding refugees had been arranged along the rampart. Charley had dispatched Gronko to go look for more firearms. One hundred guns was nice, but two hundred would allow them to keep armed troops in reserve. Harry instructed the refugees in the use of the plasma rifle. There was only so much he could do in the available time, but he was an excellent communicator and she could sense the hesitant locals were gaining much confidence from him.
“You’re all about to experience fear like you wouldn’t believe,” the old pirate said in a strong voice. “When that happens, all you need to do is focus on your target and fire. That’s it. Once you get your first shot off, whether it hits or not, you’ll be in the game. Riding that wave right to the end.”
The advice was bleak but strangely comforting. Harry had seen a lot of action, including pitched battles like the one they would soon be facing. Charley appreciated the fact that pirates found themselves entangled in all kinds of conflicts. There could be no doubt she was on the right side of this one, and that her conscience was crystal clear. She headed down to the command post with Harry’s words ringing in her ears.
Kovacs had finished her tour with Molly and was standing before a bank of light screens. He turned to Charley with a frown.
“The advance has begun,” he reported. “The Imperials have landed south of Ottova, here.”
He jabbed a finger at the projection. Ottova was one of the larger towns to the south, beyond the Hanov Range.
“Once they’ve secured Ottova, they’ll press north through the Hanov Pass and continue to the Ghost Fort. ETA is three o’clock this afternoon.”
“Giving them one hour of daylight to storm the fort,” Charley said. “Call your lieutenants.”
Five minutes later, Charley was seated in a quiet chamber with the scrounger leadership group.
“How many of you are familiar with those missile turrets?” she asked, getting straight down to business.
“None,” Kovacs said cri
sply.
“But we know the programming behind the interface,” said Summer, a blond scrounger.
“Can you control our long range targeting during the battle, Summer?” Charley asked hopefully.
The scrounger nodded. “I was hoping to man the rampart, but so be it.”
“You have my thanks,” Charley said. “If things don’t go to plan you’ll be needed up there anyway.”
Other matters were discussed in detail, including the provisioning of troops over the coming days should the initial attack be repelled. Kovacs and two of his best hunters would slip out that night and scrounge as much food as they could. There was also the question of security. It was agreed that two armed guards would be placed at each of the potential weak points Molly had identified. These guards would report breaches as soon as they occurred. Charley summoned Harry using her wrist pad. The old pirate believed they would be best served by pretending the missile turrets were inoperable. Once the Imperial forces had massed within point blank range, they could activate the towers and open fire with everything they had.
Kovacs pointed out that for such a plan to work, the defenders would need to mount a reasonable approximation of battle, otherwise the attackers would suspect a trap. Harry admitted that the refugees would indeed need to fight from the rampart, where there would be heavy losses.
Everyone in the room knew instinctively that Harry’s plan was the only one that had a chance in hell of succeeding.
“Let’s get to it,” Charley said. “Summer, go and deactivate the missile turrets, but be ready to re-engage on my command.”
Summer left immediately. Charley was a little surprised at how readily these folk obeyed her orders. Then again, the discipline of organized defense was the perfect way to harness and control fear.
60
The final matter was that of ground deployment. Gronko had found a further seventy-five pistols in what used to be an infantry barracks. They were old and dusty, but functional. The grand total came to one hundred rifles and seventy-five pistols. The riflemen would man the rampart. Charley saw sense in replacing defenders as soon as they fell to give the illusion of a large army waiting in the wings. A platoon of refugees under Charley’s command would be allocated the pistols and held in reserve to snuff out enemy incursions should they arise. She nominated Gronko as a perfect second-in-command.
The Pirate Guild Page 28
