The Fleet Book Three: Break Through

by David Drake (ed)

  Diego Bach had been in the Rat long enough to have taken on all the characteristics of an Indie. His skin had gone from white to nearly translucent and his blond hair was streaked with silver from the Chola lamps. More than that, he hadn’t noticed his eyes narrowing and constantly scanning the scene no matter whom he was talking to or what work he was doing. It was precisely that shift that marked him as a true Indie and no longer an engineer, second class, for the Tobishi lines. That he didn’t wear the distinctive colored belt of an Indie here meant only that he was available for any free captain who would meet his requirements. Fifteen days in the Rat was longer than he wanted to spend building the layers of identity that might take him into the Khalian Empire, and it was not nearly long enough.

  He had been here fifteen days and for the fifteenth time he was on his way to the Hole. Overhead, so distant that he could barely make them out, were the warehouses and cargo centers. In the residential section of the environment, shrubs had been planted to block the view of the curvature, so that the whole place looked like a vast park. Unexpected pleasantries had been carefully placed—the stone carving of some obscure god, an artificially weathered bridge, a lantern of filigreed iron hanging from a low branch.

  The Indie costumes had ceased being interesting after the first few days. For once his tattooed snake and the heavy, gold Saint Barbara medal around his neck were simply ordinary adornments, neither gaudy nor uninteresting, but merely on the same order as most of the Indie sign-ons in his age and experience bracket. And the commercial behavior he had seen in these fifteen days had been as untoward as the clothing, and as legal.

  In fact, Diego had almost resigned himself to filing a no-joy on this Rat and maybe moving on. There were at least three, and if rumor was to be believed this was the tamest of the lot.

  “But that’s exactly why we’re sending you there,” Sein had said with a perfectly blank expression. “If there’s anything we want to know about, they are certainly going to try to throw us off the scent. Remember, the worst criminals blend best into society on the smaller matters.”

  Diego hadn’t known that at all. Criminal behavior was quite definitely not one of the areas covered at the academy. Still, the situation irritated him. This gentle environment and well governed public administration were far more prototypical of a good Alliance colony than of a pirate den.

  At the Hole he hesitated at the door, scanning the labor log in the viewer. It listed day work in the warehouses on the other side. He’d signed up for day labor on two occasions to get his hands on shipments, but both times he had seen only the most mundane cargos. Still, it was habit to check the board.

  “Commers is looking for crew.” A hand grabbed Diego from the darkness inside the vast hiring hall and pulled him inside.

  He blinked twice before he recognized his assailant, another second engineer called Tai Jummakan, who had been regularly on the work beat herself for as long as he’d been in the Rat. Tai was one of the reasons he had adjusted so easily. She had been born Indie and didn’t think twice about spacers who chose her way of life. After all, if she hadn’t been born Indie, she would have jumped the first time she’d been within hailing distance of a Rat, that was sure. And she said it every time they talked, every time she poured herself another of the warm, deep brown beers favored in this place.

  “You think you’ll sign on?” Diego asked casually, knowing that he wanted to find something and despairing of ever crossing the line.

  Tai looked at him squarely, her dark eyes narrowing exactly the way they had when he had “jumped” from the Tobishi Lines Lodestone on Kariel. That suspicious squint was the only hesitation she had ever shown about him, and Diego realized just how lucky he had been to contact Tai instead of her shipmates, ex-liners who would have scrutinized him a little more closely than his background could stand.

  “I’m not sure,” she said after a moment of thought. “What about you?”

  “I don’t know Commers,” Diego reminded her quickly. “And you’re the one who read the position board, not me.”

  Tai shrugged and pointed to one of the large boards in the back, the central one that had been blank for days. The crew board. Now it had a single entry, twenty lines long. Diego edged around groups discussing various work options until he was just under the announcement.

  It looked perfectly ordinary. Commers’s ship, the Matilda, had been back-Rat for nearly a month, completely overhauled. The Matilda took a crew of twenty, and only four from their last trip out were signing back on.

  Something about that nagged at Diego, although he knew it was perfectly normal among Indies to change ships more often than they changed their underwear. So the Matilda had made a good run with top profits. Any Indie crew would lay ashore after that with enough money in the till for a nice long vacation and maybe enough to take the family on a tour of the planetary playgrounds. That was always popular. A month was a very short lay-over, especially after a good run.

  Or, Diego considered, it might have been not such a good run. Which could be why Commers was going right back out and why most of his crew didn’t want to ship with him. He hadn’t met an Indie in the Rat who didn’t believe in “bad luck ships” and “ghost riders” and a whole host of other nonsense that Diego dismissed as simply traditional, foolish, or both.

  As he considered it, something else about the entry seemed strange. Diego scanned it again and stopped cold. The third column was blank; no destination was listed for the Matilda, no ports of call.

  “So,” Bach whispered through his teeth.

  “Yeah,” Tai agreed. “You see what I mean. Commers has a rep, you know? He likes to play it close to the edge.”

  Diego felt a lump of cold lead in his stomach, his hunch meter going off at max. Like Sein’s hunch about the Indies in general, this was one he couldn’t really back up, but he knew. Reading the anomalies was like reading it written plain on the wall.

  His rational mind rebelled, gibbering away about probabilities and lack of data. He could not, it screamed at him, sign on here without more detailed information. Not unless he wanted to blow this job completely. Not unless he was ready to fail.

  Diego bit his lip contemplating the board. His hand went by habit to the heavy gold Saint Barbara medal around his neck. Somewhere here he was going to have to take a chance. There was nothing in the Rat, nothing to do but go out and pray. That was the best there was. That was all there was.

  He thought momentarily about his family who had raised him in all the Fleet’s finest traditions and had expected his career to follow the traditional path, all the way back to his Fuentes forebearer who had fought with Bolívar. He had struck out on his own. Now, had he stayed, he would have been maybe a lieutenant j.g. in the Fast Attack Wing. Sexy, sure, and with plenty of the kind of flash that decorations and personnel files were made of. But there, like in his parents’ home, the decision would not have been his, nor the responsibility either. How long did it take you, Mom, Dad, to get where I am now? Diego wondered. Or did you ever? Or do you still sit around and execute orders that you find idiotic? How much do you ever do on your own? How do you know that your decisions count?

  “What’s the matter? Your eyes freeze shut or something?” Tai asked teasingly.

  Diego grinned at her, the grin he had spent weeks perfecting on the Lodestone that pretended intimacy. Then he walked up and pressed his palm to the board. Hell. Might as well make it official before someone else took the berth. This was as good as it was going to get.

  “All right,” Tai said, exhaling strongly. “Now that means that I have to buy.”

  Diego grinned again, a little more evilly. He’d heard of that custom, among others, but hadn’t expected to be treated. He didn’t really know anyone here well enough to drink with. Including Tai. But it was impossible to refuse.

  They left the hiring hall and took the main avenue through the administrative
district to where it met the small entertainment quarter. A large public theater dominated one side of the street, and expensive shops selling all the loot of the universe lined the other. The shops he had expected, richly appointed and filled with soft-voiced salespeople who never pressed and always treated spacers with respect. The theater had been a surprise, even more so the varied schedule listed outside, not what he had expected from a forbidden, hidden pirate stronghold. Ruddigore and Patience were being presented in repertory for one more week, followed by two bands with unfamiliar names, Chekov’s The Cherry Orchard, and a Sunday noon presentation of Mozart’s Prague Symphony. Not to mention two recitals, a poetry reading, and a public execution.

  Tai sighed as they passed the colorful poster advertising Ruddigore. “Last year I was in the chorus of Princess Ida,” she said wistfully. “And I really wanted to do Ruddigore. But I was out when auditions were held. Anyway, maybe next year, if I get a good enough run to pay for the audition.”

  They turned down a side street and into their usual pub. It was Tai who had introduced him to the place and Tai who held court at their usual table, second from the back on the left. Only this afternoon she waved away all the other regulars and concentrated on Diego alone.

  “I have a funny feeling about this,” she began softly, her voice nearly drowned out by the sound of other conversations and some ungodly sentimental tune. “Commers has a rep, like I said. His runs are generally very profitable, but like I said, he plays it close to the edge.”

  Diego watched her very carefully. “What, exactly, do you mean by that?”

  She shrugged and stared into her beer. “I’m not sure how to explain it. His operations aren’t always, well, what you would call well inside Alliance territory. That’s for one thing. For another, his background. He was an officer in the Fleet once, at least that’s what the scuttlebutt says.”

  Diego felt the lump in his stomach grow. His hunch mechanism was working overtime, and part of him wanted to bolt this place, take out a scooter, and run to the first Fleet ship he found. But there’s no hard evidence, he told himself. Less than worthless without data. Besides, you could be wrong. It has happened.

  It had happened on precisely four occasions Bach could count, and he didn’t like recalling any of them. Only this was different. This time he knew.

  Suddenly Diego had a vision of himself, of Sein, and they were the same. Sein knew things and then sent out people like Diego to prove them. Not because of the hunch, but because of the times he’d been wrong. Because it mattered.

  “Well,” Tai was saying, “since you went and did it, I guess I don’t have too much choice. You’ve got yourself a shipmate.”

  She smiled and Diego noticed, not quite for the first time, that she was really very pretty. Very pretty indeed. And she was going to ship with him. The implications of that were very pleasant. And very very dangerous. Diego reminded himself to remain aware of the threat. And he even remembered all the way to report on the Matilda.

  The ship lay outside the habitat, visible through the sectionals in the port sector. If the Lodestone was a ration can, this thing is foil-wrap, Diego thought when he saw the Matilda and tried to suppress a shudder. Flimsy was not exactly the word to describe the appearance of the ship. It wouldn’t stand up to a ship of the Fleet, not even to the smallest scout. Maybe there was a good reason that most of Commers’s crew didn’t sign back on.

  Well, he’d printed the board and taken the red-yellow-violet belt that went with the job. By Indie honor there was no turning back now. With a resignation that masked something akin to fear, Diego boarded the Matilda through the port tunnel. Tai took the lead and brought them to the galley where the eighteen other crew members waited for their captain.

  Gar Commers entered at exactly noon, Matilda time, took one of the wire-mesh seats with no ceremony, and leaned forward on the stained plastic table with his elbows. He was younger than Diego had expected, and small, but he moved with the compact grace of a trained fighter.

  Diego braced himself. He knew the type; one had graduated ahead of him at the academy. Diego had never been pleased with that second place, and even though the Chola lamps had bleached out the captain’s hair and skin to a dusty pale beige, his features bore enough resemblance to those of Midshipman Cheng Lo-Sen that it was almost déjà-vu. Cheng had what Diego was convinced was a Napoleon complex; he liked to play it faster, dirtier and harder than anyone else. Someone had once dubbed him the Weasel; hell knew he was mean enough for one. Only the name never stuck, not after the joker ended up with two broken legs in a sparring match.

  Commers smiled at them. Diego knew it was all over. There was nothing of pleasure and only private humor in that expression.

  “Welcome to the Matilda,” Commers said in a voice that was shocking in its richness. “I have been through the manifest, and I must admit I’m delighted by the experience and skills you represent. Perhaps the biggest question is the lack of a destination on the board. The reason I couldn’t list one was that we are going to rendezvous with a ship, a human ship, let there be no mistake, to take on cargo. We should reach the rendezvous point in two days. Any questions?”

  Commers flashed the smile again. This time everyone knew that the request for query was merely form. If Commers wasn’t talking about their rendezvous or the cargo up front, it was because he didn’t want them to know.

  “Well, that’s why we’re Indies,” Tai said finally when they found a moment to discuss the business that evening over coffee. “You think Tobishi Lines would meet a stranger ship, or carry unnamed cargo?”

  Diego shook his head firmly. “Not possible. You sound like stranger ships aren’t that uncommon. I never heard of one before.”

  Tai just shrugged. “I don’t know. There are a few. Humans, free traders, Indies, I guess. Only they port in at the Rats, not that anyone knows. Maybe they’re all descended from the Atlantis complement. That’s what most people think, anyway.”

  Diego groaned. “Don’t tell me you really believe that. Next thing is they’ll be the lost tribes of Israel,” he said, hunching over the dull galley table that was now spread with an abandoned game of solitaire. The Atlantis had maybe existed sometime in the primordial days of space travel, a generation ship that had been lost forever behind the reaches of time and space. It was not the only lost ship, only the most famous because of its ill-fated name.

  Tai, however, had lost all interest. “You’re Indie now, Diego,” she insisted again. “More danger, more profit. Sure, it would be nice hauling innocent, unassuming produce around well inside the Alliance, but that doesn’t cut our shares.” She laughed and tugged him up. “Come on. Like I said, you’re Indie now.”

  Bach came out of his seat and followed her. Once upon a time he would have kept his distance, kept apart. Sein had told him it was the most sensible thing to do, and he had tried. Only it had been so very long and she was very lovely and he had been cut off for too long. So he followed her to the tiny cabin she shared with a navigator on the late watch, and prayed that she wouldn’t press him too far.

  He had forgotten about the snake. Stupidly. Even in one-quarter light it showed against his pale skin, a violet tattoo that ran from his knee to his shoulder, a memento of his first assignment. And his first kill.

  Tai traced the path of it on his skin, looked at him with a sad knowingness, and said nothing.

  * * *

  When they docked with the Hansa, Diego was already impatiently waiting on the shift lines. Only Commers wouldn’t be involved in transferring cargo. Even the first mate was assigned a position, although it was not exactly the heaviest job in the lot.

  By the time the red docking light had stopped blinking madly, the bos’n was handing out padded brown gloves and masks. Diego pulled the mask over his face and drew on the gloves with a sense of accomplishment. Only when handling something very dangerous or sterile would cargo handler
s be required to wear protective garments.

  Then the link line opened and there wasn’t any time for thought. They were herded down into what seemed to be only one of several cargo bays. Diego tried to catch information on the way as they raced through the ship. The people were human, all right, at least from the look of them. But he couldn’t identify the language they spoke together, nor did the writing—which looked like a child’s scribbling—on the various doors help.

  “In will you here find your cargoes,” their chief shepherd had informed them through a heavy accent.

  Seventeen members of the Matilda’s crew—each reluctantly—took a crate. They were small and solid, with tiny holes on the top. And they were amazingly light, Diego realized, far too light to carry the prefabs he had hoped to find.

  But there had to be some connection. He could feel it. He could taste it. Sein had a hunch, and the man was almost never wrong. Damn it, the Fleet needed the information on where the Weasels, were getting their equipment, and these were only humans trading with other humans for something ... well, Diego didn’t know what, exactly.

  He followed the rest back to the Matilda’s hold. The crate in his arms shifted weight suddenly and there was a scratching sound. Animals? As he set the crate down near the others and returned to the Hansa for more, Diego cornered the bos’n on the way.

  “Sam, you know what’s in those things?” he asked in a hushed whisper.

  The oversized handler chuckled. “You bet, kiddo. Them there’s sables.”

  “Huh?”

  The bos’n shook his head. “Sables. Animals. Close relatives of the weasel, if I have my facts straight. Best fur in the universe, though. Get enough of them to breed ’em, and you got the softest fortune ever walked on legs.”

  “And where are we taking them?” Bach insisted.

  The bos’n just shook his head. “Should have asked that before you signed on, boy. We’re headed back home. Hannibal Crane wants these critters real bad. And when he wants something bad he gets it. And he pays for it, too, don’t you worry. You are looking at one long vacation if you want to take it.”