by Terry Mixon
Which meant he was there, in the labyrinth of tunnels near the spaceport, regarding the door to Ferarre’s office through the slit in the black face wrap he wore. In any other place, a man wearing a long cloth strip wound entirely around his head, concealing everything except for his eyes, would’ve drawn attention.
On Oberon, face wraps appeared to be in fashion. There were even versions suitable for the ladies, so Falcone stood beside him, equally anonymous.
Brad had no desire to hang out in the corridor and draw attention, so they might as well get this over. On the other side of the door was a small, dingy waiting room. Instead of a receptionist, four heavily armed men occupied the chairs, their weapons trained on the door. And Brad.
“I’m Donaldson,” Brad said, a small device placed on his throat modifying his voice. “I have an appointment.”
Which was true. The security systems on Ferarre’s computers had really sucked.
One of the thugs stood and checked a wrist-comp that strained to fit around his wrist.
“She stays here,” he rumbled after a moment.
Falcone nodded and found a wall to hold up while she waited.
The man gestured for Brad to proceed him through a door at the back of the room. That led to another roughhewn tunnel.
His trained eye picked out security systems in the tunnel. Even if someone made it past the thugs in the front room, getting through here wouldn’t be a picnic.
At the end of the tunnel, a single door stood unguarded. The thug opened it and gestured Brad inside, standing at something remotely resembling attention.
Before Brad could get a glimpse of the man inside the room, he spoke. “Leave us.”
A long moment passed as Brad watched the thug depart, and then stepped into the room. The sole occupant was a mild-looking man in a business suit that wouldn’t have looked out of place anywhere.
He held a large, ugly-looking pistol trained directly on Brad’s forehead.
A moment passed in silence. “How stupid do you think I am, ‘Mr. Donaldson’? I schedule my own appointments. Those idiots certainly couldn’t do it.
“Of course, I’ll admit I didn’t notice your addition to the schedule until they told me you were here.” He gestured toward a folding chair with his pistol. “Sit.”
Brad regarded him coldly. “I’d rather stand.”
“And I’d rather shoot you,” Ferarre replied. “No one would ever know. This room is sealed against sound. Now sit.”
Brad smiled as he approached the chair and placed his hands on it, as if about to sit down. The chair was unattached to anything, and he sent it flying across the room to smash into Ferarre’s face as he ducked to the side and drew his own weapon.
The man’s gun boomed once as he fell backward out of his office chair, the rogue bullet smashing into the wall behind Brad. Ferarre landed poorly and his pistol went skittering off to spin lazily in the corner.
Before the man could recover, Brad had stood. He trained his weapon on the man as he walked slowly around the desk.
“Lovely security, Mr. Ferarre,” Brad sneered at the trader. The man seemed paralyzed, his eyes locked on the gun. “Now, I’m here for information and you’re going to give it to me.”
Despite his seeming paralysis, the trader shook himself. “I don’t trade info—urg!”
The man’s voice cut off as Brad kicked him in the groin. Ferarre curled into a ball and gagged.
Brad considered his options. This man was a fence and likely a murderer. He deserved everything he got. Yet there were limits to what Brad would do, even to scum like this.
A few years before, he’d have started cutting off fingers to get what he wanted. He wouldn’t have even felt badly about it later.
Those days had passed. His humanity was once more in control of his behavior. Yet the man didn’t have to know that.
Brad drew a knife from his belt and flicked it on. The vibro-blade’s high hum echoed through the office as he knelt next to the whimpering trader.
“You supply the Terror’s base,” he said conversationally. “You labeled him as customer 843837767. Very original. Tell me where the base is.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
Brad shook his head, grabbed the man’s hand, and pulled his arm tight. “Care to change that statement? Last chance.”
“Fuck you!” the Fringer spat at him.
With a swift, economical slash, Brad cut a long gash down the man’s forearm. The heat generating by the vibrating blade’s friction with the air and the flesh partially cauterized the wound. Blood began dripping onto the floor.
“Where is the Terror’s base?” Brad demanded again.
“I don’t know anything about the Terror,” the man said, whimpering.
“Second lie, Mr. Ferarre,” Brad said softly. He reached higher and made a deep incision on the man’s upper arm. The Fringer screamed.
“Tell me and the pain stops,” Brad said flatly.
“I honestly don’t know,” the man sobbed.
“Pity.” Brad raised the knife.
“Wait!” the man screamed. “I really don’t know! My ship makes a rendezvous with another ship to transfer the cargo.”
Brad lowered the knife slightly, regarding the trader. “Where?”
For a moment, the man stopped whimpering. “I can’t tell you! He’d kill me!”
Another slash and accompanying scream. “If you don’t tell me, I’ll keep cutting you. Consider the options. A hypothetical death later if the Terror finds out you betrayed him, or a certain death now if you don’t.”
Ferarre was sobbing incoherently, nothing intelligible coming out past his burbling. Brad smashed him across the face with the hilt of the vibro-knife. “Consider your choices carefully, but it’s time for talking or cutting. Which will it be?”
“I don’t know the rendezvous,” the trader got out past his sobs. “It’s only given to the ship captains and only just before they leave.”
“Really?” Brad asked in an inquiring tone, moving the blade over the man’s palm.
“I swear to Light!”
“How do I find one of these captains?” Brad demanded, allowing the knife to cut just a little into the flesh to encourage the man. “Who gives them the coordinates?”
“Amarea,” Ferarre choked out, his sobs distorting what he said. “She leaves in an hour. I gave her captain the code phrase the customer gave me with the order. One of the dockhands will use it to give her the coordinates. Probably already has.”
“Thank you, Mr. Ferarre. It’s been a real pleasure doing business with you.”
Ferarre was staring at the knife in Brad’s hand. “Please let me live.”
“Oh, I have no intention of killing you,” Brad assured him as he turned the knife off and holstered it. “I’ll leave that to the Cadre when they figure out who must’ve betrayed them.
“I hope you have a fast ship and a deep cover. Have fun looking over your shoulder for the rest of your miserably short life.”
With one economical movement, he drew his pistol and smashed the man on the side of the head. It didn’t knock him out, so he repeated the blow, sending the man to the deck, unconscious.
The thugs seemed a bit surprised at him coming back out, but pleased. Oddly, genuinely pleased, even though Falcone had disarmed them and tied them to their chairs.
“About time you finished up,” she said, rising to her feet. “The boys and I have been discussing the situation and how it was going to turn out. We had a bet. If you walked out alive, they got to live. If not, well, let’s just say they’re pleased to see you.”
“It went okay,” Brad allowed. “Ferarre wanted to play some games, but we found common ground. I think I have what we need.”
“Excellent. Let’s get out of here. This place smells like feet.”
The two of them made their way into the corridor, not bothering to untie the goons. Either their employer would do so later, or they’d get loose on their own.
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As they headed for the dock where he’d left Oath’s shuttle, he called Shelly on his wrist-comp.
“Shelly,” the response came. “Everything work out?”
“Our target is a ship called Amarea. She’s either a freighter or transport. She should be leaving within the hour.
“I want you to keep an eye on her. Once we get back to the ship, we’ll shadow her out and see if we can make new friends. Tell Randall to make sure the stealth system is operating at one hundred percent. That ship is going to be our guide to the Terror’s base.”
“There she goes,” Jason said softly. On the screen, a small freighter had broken clear of the wisps of gases Oberon pretended was an atmosphere.
“Do we have a lock on her course?” Brad asked as he settled into Oath’s command chair.
He’d planned to have a mostly different bridge crew on the destroyer, but Marshal’s death and the ensuing chaos had some of the hiring on hold. He’d figure it all out once they had this matter settled.
“Not yet. They’re just leaving orbit. I’ll know more in an hour or so.”
“Take us out on a different heading and engage the stealth system once we’re out of sight. Then we’ll circle around and pick her up again.”
Three days out from Oberon, they reached what Brad suspected was Amarea’s rendezvous point: the cluster of asteroids and other spatial debris floating at the third Saturn–Sol Lagrange point.
Following the freighter for three days without being seen had not been fun. Even on standby, ships radiated enough thermal energy to stick out like a sore thumb. Oath possessed a great deal of expensive—and potentially illegal—hardware to conceal her presence, but even she had to be careful when she brought her drives online.
Nonetheless, they seemed to have done it.
“There’s definitely something in there,” Jason confirmed. “I’m picking up a faint thermal signature and what appears to be a metal hull.”
“Gotcha,” Brad whispered softly. “Can you work out a vector as to where it came from?”
“Negative. They’re just sitting there.”
“Damn. All right, we watch. When they leave, lock in their vector and follow them.”
He turned to Falcone. “I suspect the cargo is going to get dropped here and picked up by the waiting ship. Then it will head for the Cadre base. Odds are good they’ll be careful not to pick up observers, so we’ll have to move very carefully going forward.”
“What is your eventual plan?” she asked from the spare bridge console. “This is a powerful little ship, but she’s no match for the Terror’s flagship, much less all the other ships he’ll have. Oh, and let’s not forget the fixed defenses to keep Fleet at bay.”
Brad shrugged. “I’m not sure. At the very least, we’ll get good readings of everything and send tight-beam messages to Senator Barnes and Commodore Bailey with the encryption codes we worked out. Between the two of them, they’ll be able to follow up on what we find, even if we aren’t around to enjoy it.”
She raised her eyebrow. “You’re not going to try and bring the Mercenary Guild in on an overriding contract?”
He shook his head. “The slavers’ base was almost more than they could handle. This is a job for Fleet. All we have to do is keep the location under wraps and stop anyone from the Fleet units from telling them who is coming. The Cadre’s days are numbered.”
Brad hoped that didn’t sound as farfetched to her as it did to him.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
The tension level on Oath’s bridge rose as they watched the ship concealed in the asteroid cluster bring its drive online and come out to meet Amarea. After nearly ten minutes of maneuvering, Amarea’s captain clearly thought the other ship was close enough and detached the cargo capsules she carried.
As soon as the capsules were clear, the freighter came about and headed back toward Oberon. Amarea’s projected vector didn’t bring her anywhere near Oath, so Brad wasn’t going to worry about her for now.
Whoever was in command of the Cadre transport clearly was not in a hurry. By the time they’d picked up the last of the capsules, Amarea was well past the point at which she could detect anything happening in the cluster, barring an exchange of torpedoes.
Despite that, the transport remained motionless once she’d picked up the last capsule. Brad felt his hands clenching as the minutes passed, and forced himself to relax. He could wait. He’d waited three years for this opportunity. He was not going to blow it now.
Finally, nearly half an hour after Amarea had dropped off Oath’s passive sensors, the transport began to move. And move she did. The instant her captain decided it was safe, she brought her drives online and was blazing out-system at four meters per second squared—not much less than Oath herself could put out.
The speed of her engines was a surprise. This must be a former Fleet transport to have this kind of acceleration.
“Watch the bafflers,” Brad instructed quietly.
The transport’s course would bring her past Oath at less than eight thousand kilometers—well within active torpedo range. “You have her vector yet?”
“Another minute at least,” Jason replied. “We’re still gathering data.”
Brad nodded and turned his gaze back to the tactical display. Which meant his eyes were on the screen when the sensors picked up two new signatures and put them on-screen.
“Jason!” he snapped.
His executive officer froze for a long second as he too took in the new signatures. “Two ships. They’re on a rendezvous course with the transport, so I’d guess they’re her Cadre escorts. My best guess is two destroyers. They were lying out there in hiding, just like us.”
“Are there any more?”
The other man shrugged. “We’ll find out when they start accelerating.”
Brad had made sure that Hiroshi Kawa had made Oath punch above her weight class, but the two ships coming their way outmassed—and likely outgunned—Oath of Vengeance nearly two to one. This was going to be an unpleasant fight unless he evened the odds.
“How close will the destroyers get to Oath?” Brad asked.
“They’ll pass the transport before they match its velocity. They’ll zero with it about four thousand kilometers away from us.”
At four thousand kilometers, there was no way they’d miss Oath. They needed to be maneuvering and firing long before the enemy destroyers hit torpedo range if they were going to have any chance at all of surviving this fight.
“Torp the transport with half a salvo,” Brad said. “Shelly, take us down the buggers’ throats.”
Four small icons appeared on the screen, tracking across the thousands of kilometers between Oath and the Cadre transport.
As soon as they launched, Oath’s icon changed, vector data shifting as the destroyer brought her drives online and surged toward the remaining enemy ships. The data on the enemy ships became a lot better as their scanners went active.
They didn’t need to pay attention to the transport. It had no chance of escaping their torpedoes. The unarmed Cadre vessel was already dead. It just hadn’t finished running and screaming yet.
As soon as the Cadre warships saw Oath, they spread out to clear each other’s firing lanes. They didn’t bother to stop decelerating, though. They’d want the maximum time possible to blow Oath into small pieces.
Or so they thought. Brad grinned coldly and typed a code into his repeaters. “Jason, I’ve released four torpedoes from epsilon magazine’s locked rounds. I want them to be half of your first salvo.”
Jason looked up sharply. “I’ve been wondering what you had hiding in there. Do I want to know?”
Brad ignored the gunnery officer for a moment as he continued to type things into the repeaters, and then he leaned back. “Probably, but I’ll let them surprise you.”
“You’re the boss,” Jason said with a grin. “We’ll be in active torpedo range in nine minutes.”
“All right,” Brad acknowledged, his ey
es locked on the screen. “When we’re in range, I want the first salvo of torpedoes and a couple of salvos of driver rounds aimed at the lead destroyer. Then switch everything to the other one.”
“Sir?”
“If it confuses them half as much as it’s confusing you, they aren’t going to enjoy this encounter one little bit.”
They were still twelve thousand kilometers clear when the two Cadre warships opened up with their mass drivers. Streams of little red dots began to cross the screen, thousand-kilometer-per-second steel arrows.
Before Brad could say anything, he felt Oath lurch as Shelly took them into evasive patterns. A moment later, a green circle appeared around Oath, marking her active torpedo range. The enemy edged slowly toward it.
Three minutes passed and the Cadre ships hadn’t managed a single hit. The crisscrossing and twisting lines of their fire were beginning to box Oath in, though, and Shelly swore as a burst slammed into the hull.
“Damage report,” Brad requested of engineering via his com.
“Fuck-all,” Randall replied immediately. “But that’s not going to last if you keep letting them shoot us.”
Brad said nothing, watching the range indicators. In front of him, Jason cleared his throat and looked back at him. “Active range, sir.”
“Engage as specified,” Brad ordered coolly.
“Four from Epsilon and four regular torps away,” Jason responded immediately, as eight small icons marked the torpedoes on his repeater. “Engaging with mass drivers.”
As lines of green dots began to appear on the screen, red icons flashed up.
“Enemy launches detected,” Jason reported without missing a beat. “Eight torpedoes from each destroyer.”
“Route gatlings Five through Twelve to torpedo defense,” Brad ordered. “Lock One through Four on the second destroyer and engage with standard torps.”
The lines of green dots began to shift as the gatlings’ steady round-every-two-seconds changed targets, tracking the incoming torpedoes. The pattern cut off the torpedo’s evasive movements, and two of the red icons vanished from the screen.
