Angel of Destruction

by Susan R. Matthews

  And he couldn’t.

  He had a duty to the Bench to uphold the rule of Law. That meant not just doing the right thing, but doing it the right way.

  “Pretty exhaustive,” the dock-master said to the freighter on the communications line, as Garol tracked the progress of the docking sequence on the monitors. “This could take some putting together.”

  He had people in position, but if the freighter simply blew in, they would do him no good. He had to trust to the basic mercantile instinct of the Dolgorukij hominid. There was good loot to be had at Honan-gung. Even with its provenance destroyed or forged, the cargo that the freighter was requisitioning would generate a lot of free cash flow. Secret terrorist societies were almost always short of cash for funding.

  “Yes, I know, dock-master.” The freighter captain’s voice was regretful and a little diffident over the communications line. “Unfortunately for me, I’m already on deficit time. Any chance of putting a rush on? I’ve got ten casks of something here. I can’t say it’s drinking alcohol because it’s on my manifest as syrup. We somehow didn’t quite manage to obtain any tariff seals, either, so you know I have to get rid of it somehow before I reach the Port Authority in Lorton. Just in case.”

  So far it conformed to the pattern Daigule had described. There had to be a way to collect the crew all in one place, and it had to be something relatively unremarkable and ordinary, something that wouldn’t arouse any suspicion. The raiders knew that Daigule was at Port Charid; but by the same token — if their intelligence was as good as their historical successes indicated — they also knew that Daigule’s evidence had not been published. No one had been warned; at least not so far as the raiders knew.

  “Well. In that case,” the dock-master said, giving Garol a wink that went by too quickly for him to be sure he’d actually seen it. “I’ll let the crew know. Pressurization sequence initiating. Stand by.”

  This was crucial.

  The outer bay pressurized; the blast curtain rolled back, and the freighter tracked forward slowly into position with its cargo bays accessible.

  The freighter captain’s voice came back across the communications link. “We’ll be doing some cargo shift while we’re here,” the captain said. “Won’t be able to start load immediately. Should be ready by the time cargo’s assembled, hope you understand.”

  Garol nodded to the dock-master. Perfect.

  They didn’t seem to be planning on moving troops onto the floor concealed in cargo cases this time. It was all to the good if the raiders stayed in the freighter until they thought it was time to make their move, though it complicated the task of Shires’s commando. Garol wanted to minimize any potential shooting.

  But there were no cameras, no motion detectors, no surveillance in the murky deeps of the docking bay on the other side of the freighter; there was no way to be sure that Shires and his team could pull it off.

  “No problem,” the dock-master said. “It’ll give us a chance to get organized ourselves. We’ll be ready when you are.”

  Garol hoped so.

  It was all up to Shires now.

  And Shires had even more to lose than he did.

  ###

  Crouched behind the waist-tall roll of ground cloth at the far end of the docking bay, Hilton listened to the feed from the dock-master’s office, scanning the freighter with an assessing eye. Late-model Corense shipyards, deep-space cruiser, fit for live and other perishable cargo; the perfect vehicle for transport of luxury goods, and if it carried cannon, what of it? A freighter had a right to self-defense. There were pirates to contend with.

  “So. How’s the weather in port?” the dock-master asked, her voice casual in Hilton’s ear over the communications feed from the docking bay on the other side of the freighter. Making conversation. Keeping the freighter engaged.

  People were starting to filter into the docking bay; the first cargo crates were arriving. He thought he could see Jevan among the workers.

  Hilton looked down the line to his left. Leaning forward slightly, Ousel met his eyes. Hilton looked to the flank of the freighter and back to Ousel; Ousel nodded.

  Hilton slid to the right over the rough flooring to clear space for Ousel’s people to exit. Four of them, keeping low but not crawling, careful to stay in the shadows that the freighter cast. There would be no sensor net that would pick up a hominid. Corense freighters carried damage control for space debris, but the ship’s comps knew better than to irritate their master by sounding an alarm every time a maintenance crew came belly under in docks.

  “Oh, about the same, dock-master.” The freighter captain didn’t sound all that interested in the weather, though. “Say. We’ll be ready to start load-in soon. We’d sure appreciate any help you can provide.”

  Jevan would be counting, probably, but there was no way Hilton could see that Jevan could communicate directly with the ship. Maybe the freighter captain was counting as well.

  Filappe next.

  The external accesses on Corense freighters were usually distributed evenly across three intervals aft, mid-ship, and forward. Filappe had the spanners. There were no pressure alarms to fear, since the bay was pressurized. They had all studied the layout. If this wasn’t the ship Kazmer had fingered, they were all in potential trouble — so Hilton wanted to find out as soon as possible.

  “And we’ll really appreciate your discards.” The dock-master’s voice was clear and carried well over the feed from the dock-master’s office that Hilton was carrying. “Got one or two more people yet to notify, but cargo’s coming together beautifully. You’ll see.”

  He got the middle access.

  Three of his team beside him, Hilton crept stealthily to the side of the freighter, anxious to identify his point of entry. He was off by some lengths, but it was all right, because Vogel had worked it with the dock-master. The lighting was on their side as much as possible. He could move down the flank of the freighter safe from observation.

  But get in?

  The bolts on the access port were clean and freshly coated. Hilton felt a moment’s panic as he ran his hand around the outline of the access panel. It was too fresh. Had someone bolted it from inside?

  Shilla had the wrench.

  Torbe slid the cutting edge of a flexible knife around the edges of the bolts where they met the freighter’s skin, then stepped back.

  Shilla fit the tool to bolt and leaned on it, but nothing moved. Backing away, Shilla stared at the bolt with what looked like horror on her face, in the dim light. Then she leaned into the bolt again: it moved this time, it gave against her weight, and going by the grateful glance she flashed at Hilton — grateful for success, and sharing her emotion — it had been sheer anxiety, and not horror, that he’d seen before.

  There were nine bolts.

  Torbe and Vilner held the panel as Shilla pulled the last bolt, easing the panel away from the side of the freighter as it came down. Hilton gave Shilla a hand up into the freighter’s outside maintenance passage. Once he and Shilla were both inside, Torbe and Vilner passed the outer panel through, so that they could lean it up against the wall of the passageway on the inside. No sense in putting it on the ground, where some ill chance might lead to premature discovery.

  Holding up his hand for absolute stillness, Hilton listened for alarms that the ship might send if its hull was breached. There was a good reason to be confident that there would be none; most such alarms depended upon a sudden catastrophic loss of atmosphere, or some anomalous decline in the air pressure within the passageways closest to the hull.

  He didn’t hear any alarms.

  He heard some sounds coming through the open hull, indistinct noises that bounced off the far wall of the docking bay from the opposite side of the ship. He heard — or thought he heard — the stealthy whisper of fabric against fabric from far down the corridors, on his right, on his left, as the other teams worked.

  Satisfied, he gave his team the nod.

  There were access por
tals between the maintenance passageways in the ship’s hull and the ship’s interior. Any such access portal was required by common practice and common sense to have an external override. People got trapped against the hull. It happened. They had to be able to get back into the ship whether or not the portal had been locked off from inside.

  There would be a system alert this time, Hilton was sure of it. There were supposed to be system alerts any time a portal was opened between the maintenance hull and the ship’s interior.

  They had three things in their favor.

  One was the possibility that no one on board would notice the visual alert; that was what the Corense lines used on hull access.

  Then, since their commando attack had been carefully planned to come while the crew was busy, if anybody did notice the telltale alert they might just ignore it — assuming it to be some mechanical malfunction — until the excitement was over and there was slack time to investigate.

  And, finally, they could hope that if anybody noticed, whoever on board went to check on the alert would come alone or in pairs, to be easily overpowered by Langsariks. Real ones.

  Shilla cracked the seal on the access to the opening edge of the hatch to judge the potential air-pressure differential between the outer hull and the interior of the ship, to get an advance warning on whether or not the interior doors on the freighter were open or closed. Hilton didn’t hear any hiss or sigh of air moving as she pushed the hatch open; so either the ship was open inside — or someone unsympathetic had opened the connecting door to whatever room this hatch led to and was waiting for them with a weapon at the ready.

  They flattened themselves against the inner wall of the maintenance passageway, hiding themselves as best they could to be ready for an attack if one should come. Shilla pushed the hatch cover full open, with her body blocking anyone’s view of the passage behind her. Hilton was impressed by her courage — it took nerve to expose yourself to enemy fire in order to win time for your team to respond.

  Nobody shot Shilla.

  Sticking her head through the open access port quickly, she checked left, then right, then left again; and then climbed through.

  After a moment she was back. “All clear,” she said, but quietly. A mere gesture might have been coerced at weapons point; this way they knew that she was her own woman and could follow her through with confidence.

  Storeroom, and almost filled with crates except for the safety requirement of the clearway to the door.

  The crates all carried Combine markings; but in the low light Hilton thought he could see the ghost of other seals, altered but not entirely obliterated.

  So this was where at least some of the contraband was stored. On a freighter, in orbit. There would be little chance of the stores being discovered under Combine seal — and the foreman, Fisner Feraltz, had the chop. Ingenious. He would have to remember that. He had to complete his mission first and foremost, though, so Hilton went to the doorway, to listen.

  All of the doorways would be open, if the evidence of this one could be taken as a measure. Freighters habitually opened all their doors when they were docked, to get the maximum benefit of free air circulation and replenishment. Trading old air for new.

  He heard someone moving, but the sound was indistinct; he couldn’t quite make it out. He was going to have to get closer. Hilton slipped out into the corridor, with his people behind him concealing themselves within open doorways and following as they could.

  Somebody spoke.

  “Well, that’s done, then.”

  Hilton knew the voice.

  “Come on, let’s go tell the boss. Wonder if he’s got all the cargo ready, yet.”

  It was Ippolit, from the warehouse construction site at Port Charid.

  Hilton looked back over his shoulder at Vilner and Shilla, who were closest, and gave the sign. At least two. Probably not more than three. They had a small advantage of number if there were three. The advantage of surprise more than covered any potential difference.

  Hilton straightened up and stepped across the threshold, a glad expression on his face.

  “Hey! Ippolit! I didn’t know you were here, friend, it’s good to see you. What are you doing here?”

  They could well know that he was at Honan-gung Yards, he’d gotten leave from Feraltz in person after all. He could almost see the calculation in Ippolit’s face, the swift assessment of risk factors leading to a conclusion and a plan for action.

  “Shires. Well. As I live and breathe. Have you met Berd, Shires?”

  Reaching out for him to put a hand to Hilton’s shoulder in friendly greeting, Ippolit advanced on Hilton. Hilton knew he couldn’t let Ippolit lay hands on him, and retreated into the corridor. “I thought this was a Bortic ship. Second job, Ippolit?”

  Ippolit followed; Hilton gave him no other choice. This was going to be tricky. Berd was still inside the storeroom, watching. Hilton needed to dislodge Berd from his defensive position in order to control the situation.

  Ippolit helped.

  “Well, it’s a little more complicated than that, I’ll tell you all about it. Berd! Berd, this is Hilton Shires from the warehouse. Langsarik. I’ve told you about him, come out and shake his hand.”

  The others on his team were nowhere in sight. Hilton didn’t know which nearby open doorway might be sheltering whom. He certainly hoped that they were nearby.

  “Oh. Yeah. Right, Shires, from the warehouse.” Shifting himself out from behind the cargo crates that he’d been rearranging, Berd followed Ippolit out into the corridor. Hilton retreated from Ippolit’s advance, hoping he wasn’t too obvious, wondering where his people were.

  “Say. Guys. What’s this all about? You should be at Port Charid. Why were those crates marked Combine, if this is a Bortic ship?” Hilton asked nervously, backing down the corridor. Ippolit and Berd came on with steady confidence, as if secure that Hilton couldn’t get away. He was backing up toward the front of the ship. There would be more of the raiding party waiting there, clearly.

  “It’s very simple, really,” Ippolit assured him. “You see, Shires – ”

  Ippolit charged.

  Right past an open doorway that let into a darkened storage room.

  Torbe was there.

  Stepping out swiftly from his concealment, Torbe clubbed Ippolit as he went past. As soon as Torbe made his move, Vilner and Shilla made theirs; they had Berd restrained and silenced before Berd had time to react.

  Maintenance tape, three times around the wrists behind the back, twice between, and the tag end pressed down firmly on the outside of the hand. The same thing again around the ankles, to control movement of the feet and prevent bolting or kicking.

  Maintenance tape again in a broad patch over the lower part of the face, to cover the mouth. It could be worked loose over time, of course, with determination and enough spit. But it would do for as long as they needed to keep the two men from giving an alarm by calling out.

  Two down.

  How many to go?

  They had to hurry.

  Vogel would stall on the outside for as long as he could. They had to be ready to finish the act before the raid leader realized he was discovered and took some desperate measure to avoid capture.

  Hilton wanted all of these people alive.

  He would settle for nothing less than complete exoneration.

  ###

  When the Melrick’s captain finally deigned to make an appearance Garol retreated from the dock-master’s office into her secured room and pulled a detail scan up on screen. The dock-master herself went out to talk to the freighter captain.

  The freighter captain was not someone Garol recognized — he looked vaguely familiar in form, perhaps, but no more than that, and even that could just be his ethnicity — but there was no sense in making the false assumption that the freighter captain would not recognize him after he’d been in Port Charid for days.

  Listening in on the conversation between the dock-master and the freig
hter captain, Garol waited.

  “Ah, I’d hate to come across as ungrateful for your help,” the freighter captain was saying. “Is it me, or is this taking a little longer than we’d hoped?”

  Garol knew what the problem was: Shires hadn’t shown up. They would particularly want Shires’s presence on the record, as well as being sure to collect him for general purposes of leaving no survivors. The load-out was going as well as anyone could wish, the cargo manifest almost made up and ready to load. The raiders would want to quarantine the warehouse crew as soon as the work of fetching the booty had been completed.

  “I think everybody’s here,” the dock-master replied, reassuringly. “You’ve got their full cooperation, no question about that.”

  Garol got the signal from Shires.

  The freighter was secure.

  It was time.

  He pulsed the dock-master in turn; and she made a suggestion to the freighter captain, as if it was an afterthought.

  “I’m not sure I see one of my people, though, you’re quite right about that. Maybe Jevan knows, he and Shires were teaming on maintenance earlier. Hey! Jevan!”

  Garol watched on the internal monitor, inside the dock-master’s inner room. Jevan came into view on the screens, trotting across the floor to join the freighter captain and the dock-master. He wanted Jevan to be with the freighter captain, so that he would be able to take them together. The freighter captain would be relying on Jevan to know where everybody was.

  “Jevan. Where’s Shires? I don’t see him.”

  Jevan looked from the dock-master to the freighter captain, but the picture was too small for Garol to decide on his exact expression. “He said he was going to go call up the people in the remote tunnels. Ames and Teller. They’re here, he must have said something to them.”

  The dock-master nodded. “Well, I’ll just go find out. No, you stay here, Jevan, entertain the captain, I’ll be right back.”

  Garol had warned her to get clear of the freighter captain when the time came for him to make his move, to avoid any unpleasantness with hostage-taking. Turning around, the dock-master moved toward her work crew, calling for the people Jevan had identified. “Hey. You two. Over here, I need to ask you something.”