Battlecruiser Alamo: Tales from the Vault

by Richard Tongue

   “About five hundred years. I'd say it was produced during the era of the Draconian Commonwealth, but look at the brushwork. Decidedly inferior. Even the constellations are wrong – look at that one! One star too many.”

   “Value?”

   “Hmm...perhaps two thousand kopeks at the outside. For sheer novelty value, if nothing else.”

   “That's just over a hundred kopeks per dead man.”

   “Indeed. I surmise that the late Helena realized that she had made a mistake and fled here, hoping that you would give her protection. Had she simply explained what had happened...but I suppose it was not to be. I must regrettably ask for the return of my money.”

   Logan pulled the envelope out of his pocket, opened it, and pulled out a thousand-kopek note, before passing the envelope on. Maxim looked at him.

   “You are the one who voided the auction, which means we return to the original contract. A thousand-kopek retainer.”

   Maxim shook his head. “Mr. Winter, in the circumstances, you are really in no position to bargain.”

   “Then I'll keep the copy. I can probably auction it for a reasonable amount, as you said.”

   At that, Maxim snorted. Logan placed the note back in the envelope, and handed it to him.

   “I certainly have no objection to that, Mr. Winter. Now my chase begins once again. The picture is still out there; indeed, it is not impossible that it remains on Antillia. There, I think, I will resume my search.”

   Logan held out his hand. “I wish you luck, sir.”

   The grip was tight, Logan thought he felt his fingers crunch. “You know, Mr. Winter, it does not need to be goodbye. Matters did not work out as you had anticipated, but I must admit that I retain a certain admiration for your artistry. I would certainly be willing to offer you a place in my employ; you would be a valuable asset in my search.”

   Logan shook his head. “I'm a free operator. Always have been, always will be. I will take single jobs on a freelance basis, naturally, but not for anyone else. Though I appreciate the offer.”

   Maxim nodded in understanding. “A pity. Miss Vaughan?” He nodded at Anna, who stood up. Logan realized that it was the first time he had heard her last name. “Allow me to take this opportunity to formally dismiss you from my employ. Mr. Winter, if you take my advice, you will leave her behind here. I cannot in all good conscience provide her with an acceptable reference.”

   She sat down again, dejected. Maxim stood up, beckoned his guards, and walked out of the bar. Logan locked the door, and breathed a deep sigh of relief, then poured the pair of them a drink, all the way to the brim, pushing Anna's to her on the bar.

   She turned to face Logan, sidling up against him. Logan shook his head and laughed, and she backed away.

   “I'll say this for you, Anna, you don't give up easily.”

   She looked at him with an icy stare. “What choice have I got?”

   “All the choice in the world. Fortunately for you, I don't generally take references from people who dope me up and threaten to kill me.”

   She brightened, straightened up, ran her hand through her hair and let it cascade down her back.

   “Besides, I've been fairly impressed with your work.”

   She froze. “My work?”

   “I put the last few pieces together this morning. You killed Helena, of course.” Logan said, matter-of-factly.

   “Logan, how could you think that?”

   “Because it's true. There were four players in this game; Helena made sure you had by far the worst hand to play, but you did fairly well with it none-the-less.”

   Logan pulled out one of his pistols, and dropped it on the bar.

   “If that will reassure you that I have no intention of doing anything stupid, you can hold onto it, for a moment.”

   Anna slid it gently across the bar; Logan noted that although she didn't pick it up, she did look to see that it was loaded.

   “Why would I kill her? What reason could I have?”

   “To get her out of the way, to allow you to get close to the person who you presumed she was getting the portrait to – me. You already knew that she had double-crossed Artur, that probably happened near the end of the heist. You also knew that she had no intention of delivering it to Maxim. When you tracked her here, you assumed that she was working with me again.”

   She nodded. Not ashamed; embarrassed. “It wasn't a bad plan. I was improvising. What about the kid?”

   “I never figured him for the shooter. That's why I didn't turn him in. No point; the case would have been buried. He just had the gun with instructions – from you – to head for the hills. You then rescued him with the car, you didn't want him locked up until you had the portrait. I presume the navigator also knew you, so he had to die as well. As for the raid on the mail ship – that had to be you as well. Neither Maxim or Artur had any motive to try and grab the painting at that point; both were expecting me to deliver it to them. You knew better.”

   She took a long sip of her drink, placed it down on the table. The gun still lay between them.

   “Logan...”, she purred. Her left hand stroked his shoulder; he saw her right edging towards the gun.

   “I have no intention of killing you. And if I was going to turn you in, Boris would be here. You can relax.”

   That surprised her. “I killed your partner, your lover!”

   “She cut and ran from me three years ago, with no thought of sharing this particular bounty with me. Until she had no choice, that is. Odds are I would have ended up conned myself, if she could have swung it.”

   She shook her head, confused. “How can you be so...cold?”

   “Don't get me wrong, I regret her death, very much. But she knew the risks she was running, and she ran them anyway. It's part of the game.”

   “And we all lose, Logan. A worthless piece of junk.”

   “Not that worthless. Nineteen people died for it. You still want your share?”

   “Share? Of what, a couple of thousand lousy kopeks?”

   “Let's get back to the ship, anyway.” He beckoned at the body of Artur. “It's his round.”

  Chapter 11

   Anna brought the car down next to the ship. The remains of the Even Odds had been cleared away from the field; a couple of technicians were sorting over scrap for salvage. Logan clambered out, the portrait under his arm, and opened the airlock; Anna followed, cautiously, as though still expecting a trap. Boris was waiting for them, still in his uniform; he looked surprised when he saw what Logan was carrying.

   “You've still got the picture.”

   Logan nodded.“Yes. Is the ship ready?”

   “Preflight checks all completed, pile hot, course plotted for orbital escape trajectory. Why have you still got the picture?”

   “Come on.”

   Logan walked down the corridor into the ship's lounge. Melissa was waiting there, sprawled lavishly on a chair, smoking a cigarette. She bristled when she saw Anna walking in.

   Boris shook his head. “Logan, if this has gone sour, we need to be getting out of here.”

   “Not yet. Clear the table, will you? Anna, go into locker three, get out the laser scanner.”

   While the other two worked, Logan hung the picture on the wall, clamping it tight; he took the laser scanner from Anna, and pointed it at the extra star in the constellation.

   “Whatever I can say about the late Helena, she wasn't dumb enough to risk her life for a painting she must have known was a fake.”

   Anna shook her head. “What makes you think that she didn't find out it was fake after she'd snatched it?”

   “Three years preparation? She'd have been damn sure of what she was stealing, trust me.” He reached over and switched on the scanner; a ruby-red beam fired at the painting, and data began to run through his pad. He nodded, and smiled.

   “Remember why
your government settled this planet in the first place, Boris? To try and find a route through the Sargasso Nebula?”

   Light dawned on first Boris', then Anna's face. Melissa looked confused. Logan continued to speak.

   “No-one in known space has been able to calculate new hyperspace routes since the Draconis Commonwealth. Since this portrait was painted.”

   Anna shook her head, and walked up to Logan. “So someone hid the calculations for the route in the extra star. Nano-encoded?”

   “Precisely.”

   Boris and Anna burst out into smiles. Melissa still shook her head.

   “I don't get it.”

   “Honey, it's simple. That jump route is worth money. Rather a lot, I suspect. No point trying to sell it here, but the Imperial Bureau of Trade will pay a small fortune for it. At least a couple of hundred thousand kopeks, maybe more. If they won't bite one of the corporations will.”

   That set her smiling. Boris frowned for a moment, and looked at him.

   “When did you work this out?”

   “After I ran those photographs I took through an image intensifier. I couldn't get the full data without making a visible mark, but I could tell there was something there.”

   “And you went through with that farce of an auction for what reason?”

   “I knew that Maxim and Artur would have figured that I was double-crossing them. What I said about delivering it to one and not the other was quite true; if I'd told them both it was a fake, they would never have believed me. Either I would have ended up dead, or I would never have been rid of them.”

   Anna nodded. “But this way, Artur won't bother anyone any more, and Maxim's off on a wild goose chase to find the original painting. More to the point, you'd have ended up with fifteen thousand kopeks at most.”

   “Whereas now, we all get a decent share. Boris, you want to program a course to Zemlya? I'll be up in a minute.”

   Boris nodded; he and Melissa headed up to the cockpit. Logan went back to his cabin, and after a minute, Anna followed him. She closed the door behind him.

   “Logan, why am I here?”

   “That's too deep a question for this late at night.”

   “I mean it. You could have left me in that bar. Boris you need to make the contacts at Zemlya, and Melissa would have been hard to get rid of – she knows too much.”

   “As do you.” Logan frowned.

   “But if I said anything, I'd be setting myself up for two murder charges.”

   Logan nodded, and sat down on the bed. She sat down next to him.

   “We're going to get enough money to have a bit of fun for a while. A while, nothing more. I'll burn through most of mine putting my ship back together again. You may have noticed that it is rather desperately in need of maintenance.”

   “It'll be a fun while, though.”

   “Then what? Back on the drift again. I like it that way, but...have you noticed that I carry two guns?”

   “Yes. What's that got to do with it?”

   “I'm not ambidextrous. I can shoot with my left hand if I have to, but I'm nowhere near as accurate and I have to concentrate too much. So why do I carry two guns?”

   “Backup?”

   “Precisely. If one jams, or one gets knocked out of my hands, I've always got a spare. The moral of this story?”

   “Two guns are better than one.”

   “As are two people. I need a new partner. It's been getting more and more obvious lately. You fit the bill.”

   “What do you mean?”

   “To put it bluntly, a partner in crime. You had a lousy hand in this game, but you played it well.”

   “Nothing more?”

   Logan laughed. “I'll leave that to you. But I certainly won't be opposed, let's put it that way.”

   She shook her head again. “What makes you think you can trust me?”

   “I don't trust you, I trust your sense of self-interest.”

   It was Anna's turn to laugh; Logan smiled.

   “What about Boris?”

   “Reach into the right pocket of my jacket.”

   Anna slid her hand over Logan's chest, running it down his side into his pocket. She pulled out a battered old service revolver. Logan took it from her.

   “If you already have two guns in holsters, no-one expects you to be carrying a third.”

   The pair of them laughed, as Logan returned the pistol to his pocket.

   “Anna, there's no need to feel forced into anything here. If you want, you can cut and run when we reach Zemlya.”

   Anna stood up, looked at the viewport. The ship had already taken off, and she could see the curve of Wrangel falling away in the stars. She turned to Logan, and sat down on the bed.

   “You do realize, Logan, that it's still all about the money.”

   Logan wrapped his hand around her shoulder, and pulled himself close.

   “I wouldn't expect anything else.”

   She huddled slightly closer to him, flashing that coquettish smile once more. “How long is it to Zemlya?”

   “In this ship? Four, five days maybe.”

   “And what do you suggest we do until then?”

   “I'm quite open to suggestions...partner.”

   They missed the jump to hyperspace completely.

  MALWARE BLUES

  Chapter 1

   Logan Winter sat at the pilot's console on the Lucifer Kiss, watching the flight software slowly update itself to cope with the upgrades he had just spent an extortionate amount installing. His last job had been his most lucrative for five years; the few remnants of this fortune in his wallet might just be enough for dinner tonight.

   He looked out through the window at the bustling starport; ships flying back and forth, the periodic boom of the maglev train bringing passengers back and forth. The sky was clear and blue, not a cloud in the sky; Weather Control would probably have had a fit if there had been.

   Fifty-one updates still to go. Naturally there was no need for anyone to be sitting watching the systems update, but somehow there remained a visceral desire to make sure everything was working. Never mind that without a wide range of advanced degrees and specialist training, there wasn't a thing Logan could do about it.

   “Logan?” a voice called out behind him. Logan jumped out of his seat, almost spilling his beer he. He turned to look at a figure wearing a brand-new flight suit, carrying a pair of datapads in his hand.

   “Boris, dammit, you scared the life out of me.”

   “Have you quite finished watching a succession of blue lights run up a screen?”

   “Not quite yet. I reckon it'll probably take at least another couple of hours. We in a hurry?”

   “On a beautiful day like this?”

   “Given the starport fees we're paying, it had better be a beautiful day.”

   “There you have stumbled upon the very topic I had intended to raise.” Boris punched at one of the datapads, passing it over to Logan.

   “The money's run out.”

   “It will have by tomorrow. We agreed that the ship would come first, and the improvements required were rather more extreme than even I had thought.”

   Logan laughed. “Perhaps I should have spent less on bribing damage inspectors and more on repairs.”

   “We have enough in the ship fund for another week, Logan. I can only speak for myself, but my personal funds are also reaching their limit. This is an expensive planet.”

   “Particularly for your expensive tastes.”

   Boris smiled at that. “I don't know about Anna, but Melissa is likewise holding an empty purse.”

   “Those music promoters saw her coming.”

   “We did both warn her. She's not untalented, but...nevertheless. We need a job. Have you any leads on cargo?”

   “The megacorps have a lock on anything going out to any
where worth going to. There's a reason I didn't come here before.”

   Footsteps heading towards the bridge distracted the two of them; they turned to see the admirable figure of Anna slide into the room. Blonde hair cascading down her back, red ruby lips; she was somehow managing to make a jumpsuit look sexy, no mean feat.

   “Anna, excellent. Logan and I were just discussing the parlous state of our finances.”

   Logan rolled his eyes. “I knew I should never have bought you that dictionary. It's going to have to be some sort of a job, there's no way we're going to get any cargo.”

   Boris was still punching at the datapad. “Even then we'd struggle to make much of a profit with our limited cargo space.”

   “I could convert your room back into the ventral cargo bay, if you want?”

   “No, thank you.”

   Logan pulled himself to his feet. “I'd better head into the undertown, see if I can shake anything out of the local syndicates. Someone always wants to move something.”

   Anna shook her head. “Not tonight you aren't. We're going out.”

   “My poor wallet! Anna, I think I've got about three hundred kopeks left. I'm going to need that to shake down some sort of work. You can come with me if you want.”

   Boris nodded. “That might be a good idea. I'll go and get my holster, I'll come as lookout.”

   “We're going out to the Legate's Ball.”

   Logan crashed back down onto the pilot's chair. This time his beer did spill, fizzing out over his brand new trousers.

   “You'll need to change,” she continued, looking down at the growing stain.

   Logan looked around, slightly confused. “How in the...those tickets must cost a couple of thousand kopeks each. Unless you happen to be in one of the society guilds.”

   Leaning forward, Boris held out his hand. “Let me take a look at the invitation. Someone may be trying to pull some sort of a practical joke; I assure you that it isn't I.”

   Anna passed over a pink envelope; Boris opened it, pulled out a card and ran his datapad over it.

   “It's real. Where did you get this?”