Queen Anne's Revenge

by Blaze Ward

  By the time Markus got back with the empty truck, Siobhan had already found the next candidate for grand theft. Another big crate, this time filled with frozen milk solids. Siobhan didn’t cook, but Nakisha had assured her that it was the basis of something called a mother sauce, and that Jules would kiss them all for bringing it back. Especially with lots of chickens that he could use to make stock.

  You made chicken stock from used bones?

  It had been just over an hour since they first cracked the outer door. Siobhan wanted to get greedy, but there were limits to how much space Anna had right now, and the one admin shuttle coming down from orbit didn’t have a crane, so they would have to steal a couple of powered sleds here, and then hand-load the truck with small boxes.

  She settled for several meter-sized cubes of juice concentrate, more meat, and whatever small boxes Bok thought they could cram onto the big truck and still have space for the crew to ride. The end of Aisle Three, closest to the garage door, looked like angry beavers had gnawed at it, holes showing up everywhere in the previously-organized shelves, with boxes like wood scraps on the concrete floor.

  The boxes were all insulated, and the design was plugged into the shelf to power onboard systems that kept the contents at a precise temperature. Siobhan figured more rednecking, when they got back, to run two big power cables to the big boxes she was keeping for now.

  Kam would have to break out every extension cable she could find, or just empty the boxes into the fridge up on the ship and break the boxes down. Bunch of good control systems suddenly available for repurposing.

  Out of space to store her stolen goods, Siobhan had closed down the workstation and left the office area, but not before adding a new row to someone’s password list and crossing out the real one. Dedra was evil, but a little juvenile delinquency really made Siobhan laugh, on top of Felony Breaking and Entering, plus Burglary and Grand Theft.

  Just as she and Nakisha exited the office, Trinidad’s voice came over the radio.

  “Possible trouble incoming,” he said quietly. “All hands stand by for gendarmes.”

  Come to think of it, she hadn’t seen him since they arrived. Must have stayed outside the whole time, supervising his fire teams.

  She was just glad he was on the ball.

  “How many?” Siobhan asked, starting to jog.

  Nakisha went by her at a dead run, but the marine chick was like that. All of them were.

  “One land vehicle,” Trinidad replied. “Basic patrol car, but on wheels instead of repulsors. I can see one deputy driving.”

  “Everyone hold fire until my order,” Siobhan called, upping her speed. “Trinidad, try to take him prisoner quietly. Everyone hide where you are. Make him come inside the building where we can ambush him.”

  “Like a bad horror movie, boss,” Trinidad said earnestly.

  Seriously, that boy was strange. Must be not coming up from the ranks, or going to the Academy. The things he said.

  Still, the man went beyond competent. And had a whole team of crazy marines with him, plus Old Man Bok and a couple of his folks.

  Siobhan decided to listen to her own orders. She faded into one of the gaps in Aisle Three, tucked back out of immediate sight, but with a good view through the shelves to the garage door.

  As she watched, Markus piled out of the cab and scampered for cover on Aisle Two.

  The place was suddenly deserted. Kinda even felt like a bad vid, right after the monster had snuck into a warehouse like this and was lying in wait for the gendarme with the flashlight.

  Siobhan found herself peeking backwards, into the darker areas of the silent and eerie warehouse, just to make sure nothing was sneaking up on her right now.

  Damn you, Trinidad. I did not need that in my head right now.

  She took a deep breath and concentrated on stretching her fingers, one after the other. Now was not the time to draw the pistol and be fiddling with it. Probably drop it on the concrete. Or fire a shot into the ceiling accidentally.

  “Okay, he’s parked the vehicle at the intersection,” Trinidad said. “Turning on the spotlight now.”

  Sure enough, Siobhan saw lights paint the open garage door, winking off the front of the truck, currently loaded with the big crate of milk solids, plus half a dozen smaller crates piled precariously atop that. Markus would need to exit the garage doors carefully to keep from scraping everything off the top.

  Siobhan made a note not to have anyone up there until the thing was outside.

  “He’s on the radio now,” Trinidad’s commentary continued. “We may be blown, if he’s calling for reinforcements. Stand by.”

  Another comm circuit chimed suddenly.

  “Team Anna, this is Heather Lau aboard 405,” the woman suddenly said. “Evan is reading local communications with our sensors. Stand by for his relay.”

  Seriously, 405 could listen in on a low-powered police radio from orbit?

  Siobhan had always concentrated on flying. But they were a scout, with two monstrously-huge sensor arrays at the ends of the ship, where other corvettes had their Type-3-Tuned beams. Maybe there was something to all the sneakiness a scout could be.

  “Beel, looks like someone broke into the warehouse,” a man’s voice said in a weary tone. “Probably another bored drunk on a dare.”

  “Understood, Mohr,” another local replied, choppy with signal attenuation. “Check it out, but be careful, especially if they’re drunk. If I don’t hear back in five minutes, I’ll send the cavalry.”

  “Thank you, Beel.”

  “All hands,” Trinidad took up the narrative. “Vehicle in motion. Now he’s parking in the lot out front. Anybody up in the office?”

  “Negative, Trinidad,” Siobhan answered. “We’ve cleared out and are in the main facility.”

  “Roger that,” he whispered over the line. “Deputy is out of the vehicle, parked right up at the corner. Seen enough bad movies in his time, too. One hand on an undrawn sidearm, other hand holding a billy club with a flashlight at the end. Checking the office. Taking his time. Now he’s walking down to the corner. Everybody duck now.”

  Siobhan felt herself do the same, and cursed. That boy had a great radio voice. Compelling.

  “Okay, he seems satisfied,” the whispers continued. “Sneaking down the side of the building with the light off and the gun drawn. Wants to make an entrance. Everyone inside now.”

  This was where being in command was nice. Siobhan just had to stay here and let folks like Nakisha, Trinidad, and Bok handle things. Poor cop was outnumbered eight to one right now, if they moved quickly on him.

  Siobhan saw the officer slip around the corner of the door, pistol pointed at the cab of the truck, probably expecting to find a laughing drunk trying to make off with something. So far, the man was acting utterly professional. He walked to the side of the truck, climbed up on the running boards, and looked inside.

  There was nobody home.

  Smart guy, he holstered the pistol before he jumped back down, landing rather like a cat.

  “Now would be a very good time to surrender, Officer,” Nakisha’s calm voice floated across the darkness. “Otherwise, we will shoot you.”

  Slight emphasis on the we. Let him know there are odds, and those are bad.

  The man froze.

  A flashlight on the front rails of a heavy rifle speared the man in its cone. Then a second. And a third.

  Hands went very slowly, very deliberately into the air. The universal symbol that transcended languages.

  Bok suddenly climbed out from under the truck and took the pistol and flashlight away from the cop. Under the truck? Where? Okay, whatever.

  Handcuffs were located and utilized. He got set down on a handy crate. The radio got absconded. Siobhan decided to join the group.

  “What is all this?” the officer demanded. “Thieves?”

  “Pirates,” Siobhan corrected him with a hard smile. “The Imperial Fribourg Fleet has finally made it as far as Ba
rnaul.”

  That got through to the man. His golden skin paled considerably.

  “This is merely a raid,” she continued. “We’re not here to drop orbital bombs on your city, like The Eldest did to our worlds.”

  Not ours, but we’re pretending to wear the flag. And buddy, there are a lot of angry people out there. Grand Admiral Wachturm probably would have asked us to burn the city to the ground if he were here.

  But this guy was just a cop, doing his job on a border world filled with miners.

  The radio beeped.

  “Mohr, how’s it looking?” the man apparently known as Beel asked.

  Siobhan looked at the truck, already loaded, and did the math.

  “Clock’s ticking people,” she said. “Cut and run time.”

  Nakisha surprised the hell out of Siobhan by leaning in close and shooting the prisoner in the center of the chest, with his own pistol.

  “Damn it, sailor,” she snarled angrily. “Did I order that?”

  “Stun pistol, Commander?” Nakisha admitted sheepishly, holding it out sideways.

  Mohr had slumped over and fallen off the box, but his chest was not currently smoldering.

  Siobhan took a deep breath and swallowed the sudden rage. That really was a stun pistol, and it had been a good idea.

  Nakisha was using marine-thinking to solve the problem. They did that.

  Siobhan had to think bigger.

  “Load everything we can, right now,” she ordered loudly. “If he’s got a stunner, the next folks won’t, and we do not need to be trapped here. Markus, get the truck outside now, so we can load things and not worry about clearance. Trinidad, let me know when the next set of lights come. They won’t be on this channel, since they’ll be assuming we’re doing exactly what we are.”

  “Affirmative, Team Anna,” Heather’s Goddess-From-The-Skies broadcast came through. “Evan reports significant radio traffic on a different frequency. Currently, all scrambled and he doesn’t think he’ll be able to crack it fast enough.”

  “You heard the woman,” Siobhan yelled. “Pack and run.”

  An ant nest exploded around her, bodies headed every direction.

  “Bok,” she called. “Anything in here burn?”

  He wasn’t in sight, but that didn’t matter.

  “Doubt it,” the Boatswain replied over the radio. “Concrete and steel.”

  “What about the office?” Nakisha Onks came on the line.

  “Burn it,” Siobhan ordered. “But not until we’re ready to leave.”

  “Team Anna, this is Yeoman Yamaguchi, aboard shuttle Cherokee,” another voice came in. “I’m close to landing. Should I abort?”

  Siobhan had forgotten about him, and the plan to drop in a park nearby. Too many moving parts right now. She would need to do better, if she really wanted to become a pirate.

  “Negative on abort, Cherokee,” she answered. “But shift to secondary zone now and land close to Anna. We’ll be coming hot with materials to load aboard you, but I’m not sure how quickly the authorities will be onto us. Might be a running chase to the port, so prepare to scramble empty on my order.”

  “Roger that, Anna. Aborting primary now. See you at secondary.”

  Siobhan took a breath and tried to place all the game pieces in her head. Phil was way better at this, but that was why he was a Command Centurion, and she was just a pilot.

  For now.

  Markus had the truck in motion, humming politely as it waddled carefully out the garage door, like a pregnant woman.

  Load and run, just like that. Nothing Siobhan had seen suggested orbital defenses of any kind.

  She jogged towards the door, stepping over Officer Mohr’s legs as Dedra dragged him off to safety.

  They just had to get away.

  Showtime (April 20, 402)

  “Markus, go ahead and park it right there,” Trinidad called over the radio, judging the truck’s roof and his own athletic abilities. “Just don’t leave without me.”

  “Understood,” the engineer replied, setting the big beast down on landing skids with the faintest squeak.

  Trinidad found it amusing that most of the conversations on the ground had been in Mongolian, except when they needed to talk to one of the newcomers for whom Mandarin might be a stretch. Then it was English or Bulgarian.

  But the crew of Anna’s Vindication thought and spoke in Mongolian these days.

  Awesome, but they might need to add subtitles to the gig at a later date.

  Trinidad shifted back around to the corner of the building overlooking the main street out front, the side where they were, and the police car below him.

  Thoughts of juvenile delinquency reared their ugly heads as he considered the virgin, concrete walls around here.

  “Gerry, this is Trinidad,” he said. “Grab a thermal grenade from Nakisha if you don’t have one and place it underneath the police cruiser, but don’t arm it. Just right under the front bumper like an apple.”

  “Coming up,” Gerry replied, jogging into view like a giant sloth lumbering after the fox in Trinidad’s favorite cartoons.

  “Nakisha,” Trinidad continued. “Your job will be to take the shot at that grenade, after you set the office on fire.”

  “Going for high score here, boss?” she snarked back at him.

  “Chase sequence montage,” he answered. “You always need pyrotechnical effects for the bad guys to drive through as they start the chase. Far be it for me to deny them an entrance. Just need some theme music now.”

  “Asked Heather?” Nakisha laughed.

  “No,” he said. “Doubt they’d get the joke.”

  Lights up the road caught his eye suddenly. Vehicles, coming closer at high speed, but silent. Probably thought they were sneaking up on him, or something. He counted noses quickly.

  “All hands, we have three vehicles incoming,” Trinidad said over the comm. “Marines move to the front corner of the building to lay down suppressing fire. Nakisha, prepare to start your fire inside and then join us here. Gerry, stay with the truck and cover the rear flank.”

  Gerry was big. And strong. But his forte was close combat. Blades and fists, not rifles. Him covering the rear let him be useful and free up one of the better shots.

  Assents over the radio. Trinidad glanced back and watched Siobhan climb up into the cab. Good. Bok and his team didn’t need her in the way while loading, and there wasn’t much she could do to help at this point. Better to have her thinking, rather than manual labor.

  That’s what the rest of them were for.

  Trinidad found cover behind a vertical pillar about a quarter of the way along the front wall and became still as the lights approached. The vehicles pulled into the lot near the front door and parked, not quite below him, but not that far off. Half a dozen men and women piled out of the vehicles, some of them pulling on jackets. Two of them were still in civilian gear, probably woken up in the dead of night for a riot.

  Oh, you got no idea, pal.

  Nakisha worked explosives like she drove, right out at the edge of crazy.

  The front of the building erupted outwards like the best video games or bank-heist movies, showering the parking lot with broken safety glass and metal bits, in a flash of heat and light, followed by a dull roar.

  That crazy marine must have rolled it right up against the front door to get that effect. Trinidad liked it. Made a note to add it to the repertoire, next movie he made with this crew.

  The cops on this side of the cars had all been knocked on their asses, but that was mostly surprise and shock, rather than concussion. Thermal grenades didn’t throw much shrapnel, and the glass door was going to be tempered and coated, like the control tower had been.

  Scary, but not lethal, more like being pelted with hail than bullets.

  Trinidad felt like he was in one of those kids cartoons, where good guys and bad guys shoot at each other constantly with pulse weapons and nobody ever got hurt. Just vehicles hit, everyone bail
s out, and then it crashes in a pretty fireball.

  He could work with that sort of a ratings system here.

  “All hands, destroy the vehicles,” Trinidad ordered, standing up just enough to get a hand and pistol over the parapet. “Keep them pinned, but don’t kill anyone. Whoever has the stun pistol, feel free to test the range on it. I want some impressive special effects here.”

  Laughter on the radio greeted him.

  His team knew he was weird. Reveled in it, from what he could tell. Commanders like Navin the Black or Vo Arlo were all spit-polish and angry, most of the time. His people loved starring in adventure vids.

  Pulse rifles at this distance were also a lot of fun, when you cranked the charge up for damage, instead of range. Holes started appearing in the sides of the cars accompanied by loud bangs.

  The tires were apparently solid rubber, because somebody managed to put three, rapid shots into one and set it on fire, acrid smoke suddenly adding that element of atmosphere that had been missing.

  Trinidad realized that this kind of night scene was almost always shot with rain drizzling in the background. He had forgotten.

  Need to raid a wetter planet next time.

  Or figure out how to generate a sandstorm. The possibilities were both silly, and endless.

  The cops were madly scrambling for cover now. They had the trunks of their vehicles open and were pulling out longer firearms to try to engage, suddenly in way over their heads with the situation. Trinidad held his fire and watched. If they didn’t know he was here, he could be that drone in the sky filming the fight scene.

  Sure enough, one of the women gestured and two of the cops took off at a mad dash for the other end of the building.

  “All hands, they have split up to attempt a flank,” he said. “Gerry, two coming your way, but they’ll be a while circling the whole building. Siobhan, that’s probably our cue to call it a night.”

  “Acknowledged, Trinidad,” the commander said. “Make sure the vehicles are too damaged to follow, and then withdraw.”

  “Everybody concentrate fire on the farthest car,” Trinidad said amidst the snaps and pops of fire going both ways. “Put it out of commission now.”