By Darkness Forged (Seeker's Tales from the Golden Age of the Solar Clipper Book 3)

by Nathan Lowell

  The chief nodded. “I have some people who can do that for us. I’ll get a decon unit on standby.”

  “Later. Come on, Murawsky. We got a bad guy to bag.”

  I dropped down the ladder with Murawsky behind me and got halfway across engineering before a frangible round spanged off the deck in front of me. The streak of glass pointed at the shooter and I tucked behind one of the Burlesons. Murawsky had cover behind one of the support stanchions.

  “Hold your fire, Murawsky.”

  “Holding fire, aye, sar.”

  “You with the gun. How much do you want to die today?”

  A woman’s voice, muffled by a breathing mask, echoed around the engine room. “You can’t get out of here. You’re locked to a ship full of our friends and we’re the only ones with weapons.”

  “Murawsky, one round only in the general direction of our misguided friend.”

  “One round only, aye, aye, Captain.” She reached around cover and put a spike of glass into the bulkhead on the far side.

  “So, clearly you aren’t the only ones with weapons,” I said. “You also won’t survive very long in that hood.”

  “I don’t have to survive very long. Only until our people come in.”

  “You don’t understand. The people on that ship are our friends, not yours. Your friend Davie released a nerve agent. Sarin. You die from skin contact or inhalation. All of our people are in suits that protect us from it, and we’re going to vent the ship shortly so there’ll be no air. Your people put you here to die. They didn’t tell you the gas would kill you even if you wore the hoods, did they?”

  A long pause gave me hope that I’d reached her.

  “If that’s so, why am I still alive?”

  “Because the chief killed the recycling blowers as soon as the hull breach alarm went off. All the gas is in the environmental section at the moment, but eventually it’s going to seep out here. The longer you argue, the closer you get to dying. I’m in a suit. I can last a very long time, can even walk through the gas without being hurt. I need to get in there to assess the situation before we vent ship. I can wait until the gas kills you, if I need to. I’d rather not wait that long.”

  Another long pause.

  “Listen. Do you hear the blowers?” I asked. “Throw your gun out and come out with your hands up. We’ll get you into a suit.”

  The pause continued. I looked at Murawsky, who shrugged. I looked at the ladder down to environmental.

  “Have it your way,” I said.

  I grinned at Murawsky and bolted for the ladder. The shooter had no angle on me so I made it without any additional shots.

  Somebody had closed and dogged the airtight door at the foot of the ladder. I gave the handle a tug, just to prove to myself that the handle was blocked on the other side.

  I sighed and sat on the step, keying my suit radio on and shutting off the external speaker. “Larson? This is the captain. Can you hear me?”

  The channel remained quiet.

  “Chief?”

  “Go ahead, Skipper.”

  “We have one shooter here on the engineering deck.”

  “We heard.”

  “The airtight door into environmental is closed, dogged, and the handle won’t budge.”

  “We can blow it out, burn it out, or wait it out. Your call.” The chief sounded serious.

  “I was hoping for another solution,” I said.

  “I figured as much but those are the only ones I’ve got. Did you try knocking?”

  I tried pounding with my fist but the suit glove sounded like I was knocking with a pillow. I spotted a fire extinguisher in the rack at the top of the ladder. I crept up, snagged it, and pulled back before our shooty friend could get a shot off. One came, but I was already halfway back down the ladder.

  The fire extinguisher made a much more satisfying noise when applied to the door.

  “I knocked,” I said.

  “It sounded like you used a hammer,” the chief said.

  “I would have preferred a hammer. I used the fire extinguisher.”

  I waited for another few heartbeats and raised the extinguisher again but the dogging lever moved, the dogs withdrew, and the door swung inward to reveal a suited Engineman Larson holding a weapon aimed at my nose.

  “Larson,” I said.

  I lowered the fire extinguisher so he could see my face better, then pointed at my sleeve where the suit communicator rested.

  His lips formed an “O” and he lowered the weapon, pointing it at the deck.

  “Mr. Larson, turn on the radio.” I pointed at my wrist again.

  He fumbled the weapon until I held out a hand. With a sheepish shrug, he handed me the gun and keyed his suit radio on. “It working now?” he asked.

  “Yes, Mr. Larson. Where’s Davie?”

  He turned and pointed to a figure collapsed against the bulkhead, face down. He wore a breather like the rest.

  “Where’s the canister?” I asked.

  “It rolled under the sedimentation tank, sar. I tried to reach it but I need longer arms. I think it’s empty now.”

  “Chief? How do we clean up this mess?” I asked.

  “Close the door and dog it again. That should help keep the gas from spreading.”

  “Al, you on?” I asked.

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “Round up the rest of our guests. Get them into suits.”

  “We have somebody at the lock, Skipper,” Al said.

  “Trying to get out or get in?”

  “In. They’ve been ringing the lock call for the last few minutes.”

  “Chief?” I asked.

  “I’ve warned them about the gas,” she said. “You can let them in.”

  “You heard her. My compliments to Mr. Bentley, if he’d open the lock and let them in, I’m sure we’d all appreciate it.”

  Larson pushed the door closed and dogged it again. “Sorry about that, Captain.”

  “You did well, Mr. Larson.” I looked at the body on the floor and shook my head. “What a waste.”

  “What’s that, Skipper?” the chief asked.

  “They didn’t give Davie any protective gear either.”

  “We’ll save some of them,” she said. “Enough to get some answers.”

  Eventually, I heard a knock at the airtight door and opened it to find a portable decontamination lock mated to the outside. Four people in full hazmat regalia stood outside. I stepped back to let them in.

  One of them said, “We need to get you out of the hot zone, Captain.”

  I pointed to Larson and one of the agents escorted him up the ladder and through the outgoing lock.

  “Can you give me the highlights?” he asked.

  I pointed at the body. “According to Larson, he opened the canister and fell almost immediately. It’s under that tank over there. The room’s been sealed and the blowers are secured. It should be contained in this room. The chief has the sensor data.”

  He nodded and pointed out two of his compatriots. One of them pulled out a folding stretcher and laid it next to the body, while his buddy spread an open body bag on top of it. They rolled the body onto it. When they did, the smoke hood fell off.

  I stared at the face. I felt a little light-headed and braced myself on the bulkhead.

  “Skipper? You all right?” the agent asked.

  “No. Yes. It’s not the gas.” I just stared at him. “Davie,” I said. I took a deep breath and blew it out, letting the memories all play out in my mind.

  “What is it?” he asked.

  I swallowed the bile down and had to wet my lips before I could speak. “I know him. Percival Haring. Although I think he’s also known as David Patterson.”

  The chief’s voice came over the radio. “David Patterson, aka Percival Haring. There’s a file on him. Murder. Green Fields, Diurnia. Greta Gerheart. Check for other aliases.”

  “He supposedly worked for William Simpson,” I said. “Pip told me he was a TIC assassin
and only moonlighted for Simpson.”

  “Anything else I should know about in here?” the agent asked. “We need to evacuate you from the area, Captain.”

  I shook my head and he ushered me up the ladder and into the decontamination corridor, where they washed the suit with soapy water and brushes before having me strip out of it and leave it on the deck. I stepped into the next room where I had to strip out of my ship suit while they showered me off. It was the first time I’d had to go through the process since the academy, but I knew what to expect and suffered the abuse as stoically as I could. The chief handed me a fresh shipsuit and unders, then turned her back to offer a bit of privacy while I changed.

  “My tablet is still in the shipsuit,” I said.

  “You can get it back tomorrow. Along with your stars.” She handed me an injector. “If your nose or eyes start running, your eyes hurt, tightness in the chest—use that. Just jam it against your thigh and push the button.”

  I slipped the injector into my sleeve pocket.

  “How do you feel?” she asked.

  “I need to take a leak,” I said.

  The chief looked at Larson. “Looks like the suit drills paid off. How’d that go?”

  “He put his gun down and pulled that hood on. The hull breach alarm went off and I grabbed a suit and was in it while he was still fighting to get the canister out of its carrier. I had the suit on and checked with the bridge before he started to open the valve.” He took a deep breath and glanced at the corpse. “All that practice saved my life. I’ll have to thank Schulteis when I see him.”

  “You did good, Mr. Larson.”

  Four people in black and silver jumpsuits marched down the ladder to the engine room. The first guy in line stopped in front of the chief, standing not quite at attention. “Ship’s secured, ma’am. We’re running the rest of the crew through the showers and keeping them on the other ship for now.”

  “Good. I’ll come over for a full debrief as soon as I can,” the chief said. She looked back at me. “You sure you’re all right?”

  I nodded. “It just surprised me. I never expected to see him again.”

  She nodded at the guy. “That’s all.”

  “Thank you, ma’am.” He and his colleagues left the way they’d come.

  “Interesting company you keep, Chief,” I said.

  She chuckled. “Handy helpers.”

  “What else do we need to do?” I asked.

  “I want both of you to go to the med-bay and let the auto-doc check you out. I don’t think it’ll find anything, but I’d hate to be wrong.” She looked at Larson. “You’re off duty. I want this place isolated for a full day. Any residual sarin will have broken down by then and we can start putting the ship back together.”

  “Can we go that long without scrubbers and filters?” Larson asked.

  “Yeah. We’ll leave everybody on the mega while we void the ship. I don’t want to restart the circulation until we’ve given any residue a chance to break down.”

  “That’s why they used sarin,” I said.

  She nodded. “Probably.”

  “I don’t get it, sar,” Larson said.

  “The gas is an old, old compound. It got overtaken by better ways to kill people. They developed some really vile stuff. Persistent as hell,” the chief said. “Luckily, sarin breaks down into harmless compounds in a matter of stans.”

  Larson shook his head. “No. Why did they want to kill us if we’re supposed to take the can back?”

  The chief looked at me with a raised eyebrow.

  “They didn’t want the can,” I said. “They wanted the ship.”

  Larson swallowed hard. “That was close,” he said.

  The chief clapped him on the shoulder. “It was, Mr. Larson, but right now you have a date with the auto-doc. Take the skipper with you and make sure he gets tested for me, would you?”

  He grinned and nodded. “Skipper tested, aye, aye, sar.”

  The chief winked at him and turned to me. “Go. First principles.”

  “Feed the crew?” I asked, puzzled by the reference.

  “Put your own suit on first.”

  I couldn’t argue with that. “See you later, Chief.”

  Larson led the way up the ladder and I followed on rubbery legs.

  It had been a near thing. Too near. I wondered if I had done the right thing by letting the hijackers have the run of the ship instead of scooping them up when I could. Would I have done the same thing had I known that Patterson was the ringleader? Had I missed a bet by not tracking him down sooner?

  I’d never know.

  But I also knew he’d never hurt anybody again.

  Karma was a bitch, and I had just been reminded why I should stay on her good side.

  Chapter 36

  Telluride System: 2376, March 22

  We stayed docked to the mega for two days. It wasn’t much in terms of a liberty port, but we treated it as if we were on portside duty. I toured the mega’s bridge with Al one afternoon. It didn’t look that much different from our own. On the whole, the ship was a bit of an anticlimax.

  The chief’s handy helpers always seemed to be nearby whenever we went through the lock. They seldom spoke. I never heard them talking with each other. None of their jumpsuits bore insignia of any kind, except there always seemed to be one person with a circular gold badge on their collar tab. I could never figure out if it was significant. For all I knew, it singled out the person who did the best job making their bunk that morning.

  The chief brought the atmospheric recycling system back online on the morning of our second day and spent the whole day making sure that the system hadn’t been contaminated. She gave it her blessing at the end of the day, and we made plans to head back to Dark Knight the following morning. The crew seemed pleased by the news. After the voyage out, just going home seemed like a cause for celebration and, as a liberty port, the damaged freighter lacked the amenities that crews looked forward to. Or any amenities, for that matter.

  Sometime during the second day, one of the black-clad helpers knocked on the cabin door.

  I looked up from a fascinating report on the amount of damage the ship had sustained while venting the gas, as well as the estimated replacement cost of the suits we’d given over as evidence. “Yes?”

  “Captain, we need to take the cargo as evidence. We have a replacement for you.”

  “And the equipment to swap the cans?” I asked.

  “Yes, Captain. And the personnel to make it all work. The new can is yours to do with as you wish. We’ll send you a bill of lading and sale so you won’t have any trouble disposing of it.”

  “Thank you for informing me,” I said.

  He nodded, turned smartly on his heel, and left.

  I wondered what—if anything—was in the replacement can. I supposed I’d find out on the other end.

  Al called the crew to navigation stations at 0900, giving Ms. Sharps a chance to clean up from the morning mess. We settled in and Ms. Fortuner sent the request for departure clearance. The response came almost immediately. “We are cleared for departure, Ms. Ross.”

  “Captain, the ship is clear for departure,” she said. “No shore ties. Lock is secured.”

  “Mr. Reed?” I asked. “Do we have a course?”

  “We do, Captain. Sending to the helm, now.”

  “Helm shows course locked. Ready for departure, Captain.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Torkelson. Ms. Ross, if you’d do the honors?”

  “Releasing docking clamps, aye, Captain.” Al tapped some keys and the docking clamps released the ship. “Ship is free in space, Captain.”

  “Thank you, Ms. Ross. Helm, take us out.”

  “Take us out, aye, aye, sar.” Ms. Torkelson tapped the bow thrusters once, just a tiny push to start the separation between our two docking rings. As we got farther away, she tapped them again and again.

  “One hundred meters, Captain,” Al said.

  “Yaw one-t
wenty, follow the beam, if you please,” I said.

  “Aye, aye. Yaw one-twenty, follow the beam, Skipper,” Ms. Torkelson said.

  “How soon can we jump, Mr. Reed?” I asked.

  “We’ll need to bring the ship around to the proper vector, Captain. Estimating time to jump at just over a stan.”

  We puttered away from the mega on just our directional thrusters. We needed be going in the right direction more than we needed to be going fast. Ms. Torkelson played the helm like a concert pianist and I remained quiet, giving her a chance to focus.

  The minutes ticked by, giving me plenty of time to ponder the vagaries of the cosmos.

  I glanced at the chief, sitting at the engineering console on the bridge. I knew she’d spent at least some time in the engineering section of the mega. We hadn’t had much time to talk with each other. Between coordinating the efforts of her handy helpers—who were still “processing” the crew of the mega, whatever that meant—and getting environmental up and running, I suspected she had a hard time finding time to hit the head.

  I had time to consider the irony in Patterson’s death. As much as Pip had seemed convinced that Patterson should be my target—even as he assured me there was nothing I could do to him if I found him—lying dead in my environmental section had never been how I’d expected to find him. Running across him in a bar? Bumping into him on the docking gallery of some station? Playing poker in any of the casinos? Sure. Doing the things that people did in stations.

  Leading a hijacking operation against my ship? No. Never.

  I couldn’t fathom the odds that—of all the freighters in all the systems in the whole Western Annex—he showed up on mine. Not finding him until he’d been killed by his own boss, face down on the deck in environmental? Those were all just gravy.

  “Coming up on it, Skipper,” Al said.

  “Mr. Reed? Do we have a plan?” I asked.

  “I can’t speak for you, Skipper, but I plan a long jump from here. We’ll do a bit of recharge and then jump back-to-back with a long and a short that should drop us into Dark Knight day after tomorrow.”

  I laughed. “Too bad you haven’t given this any thought at all, Mr. Reed.”