“Just keeping you informed, Kommandant —”
“Well, keep me informed when it’s something important,” Vattermann snapped. “I don’t give a damn what’s happening out there right now — those are all O’Shaugnassey’s ships at the front of the fleet, and the militia dogs are O’Shaugnassey’s problem. The fact is, it doesn’t matter to me if that dummkopf Irishman gets chewed to bits or if he smashes the jackals without taking a single hit. The only thing of interest to me is blowing that TSM bitch to atoms. Tell me what she is doing.”
“Of course, Kommandant.” Holzig swung to his board, currently set to reflect sensor scan, and studied it closely for a moment. “There’s no indication yet of what the TSM ship has planned,” he finally reported, his voice a study in neutrality. “Perhaps....”
“Kommandant!” Gunnar Schultz, flag captain of the Hans Vattermann I, cut off Holzig’s thoughts, his voice tight with tension. “Sir, we have activity by the TSM ship. They’re forming a hyper window!”
“Wass!” Vattermann leaped to his feet and strode forward to a point where he could lean himself against the ship’s command console, directly between Schultz and the actual pilot, whose name Hans had never bothered to learn. “They’re running?”
“I — sir, it would appear that way,” Holzig said, eyes fixed on his scan. “TSM has just humped into hyper.”
Vattermann remained leaning against the command console for a long moment, then turned and without a word walked back to drop his butt into his command throne. Silence reigned across the bridge of the Vattermann I as all hands held their collective breath, waiting for the Kommandant to explode, each one hoping against hope that they would not be the focus of their commander’s wrath. No one exhaled — at least, not right away — even when Vattermann finally reacted to the news, because that reaction was so different, so strange, so unexpected.
He laughed.
It wasn’t just a quiet chuckle, either, it was a laugh that began at the Kommandant’s toes and pushed its way up to the top of his head, making his belly quiver along the way and causing Hans to throw his head back and roar. And roar. And continue roaring with laughter until neither Holzig, nor Schultz, nor any of the rest of those present could resist quietly chuckling for themselves. None of them remembered ever hearing Hans Vattermann laugh with such glee, such gusto ... or with so little apparent cause.
“So,” the Kommandant finally gasped, slowly gaining control of himself. “So the bitch has just up and quit after all. Wunderbar! I should have guessed it would happen. I should have known. That bitch has never had even an ounce of backbone to her name, not then and not now.”
Hans was still laughing, though more quietly, when Holzig again turned his chair around to face the pirate chieftain.
“Sir, there’s an incoming signal from O’Shaugnassey.”
Vattermann struggled to stop laughing, but was still a bit out of breath as he carelessly waved a hand in the general direction of the comm console. “Ja, whatever. On screen.”
The main command screen flickered for a moment before settling into a view of Patrick O’Shaugnassey on the command deck of his own flagship, the Blarney. The Irishman’s face held a look that any observer could see was not even close to laughter.
“This attack has to stop. Now,” O’Shaugnassey growled, his voice low. “The TSM has flown, Vattermann. There’s not a soul here left to be fightin’ with.”
Any hint of laughter fell immediately from Vattermann’s face as well, replaced by a very typical Hans sneer. “It looks to me like you still have a swarm of militia jackals nipping at your heels, Irish. Isn’t that enough for you?”
Patrick’s voice chilled even further, and his eyes iced over. “I didn’t sign up to slaughter my neighbors, Vattermann, not even if they are shootin’ at me. I agreed to this arrangement to stop the military — the real military, the TSM ship. But that ship’s no longer here. They’ve run away. So it’s time to be stoppin’ this falderal.”
Vattermann grew incredibly still but continued to stare at O’Shaugnassey’s image on the screen in front of him. “You stupid, ignorant, Irish, coward,” he finally said, in a tone so quiet and cold it sent chills up the spines of every person in the Vattermann I’s control room. “I recruited you to this operation because I expected you’d want to kill that TSM bitch at least as much as I do. Well, if you don’t, you can just go piss yourself. I’m not going to let her running away stop me from taking over Outpost Station. That’s the real goal of all this, you Irish insect. Turning the bitch into atoms would be a delightful appetizer, but it’s something that I can do later if I don’t get the chance to do it today. If you can’t stomach that reality I might just as well shoot you down like the dog you are. You’ll be good practice for when I get my next chance at the bitch and her bucket of rust.”
O’Shaugnassey’s face was beet red by the time Vattermann finished his quiet verbal assault; there was a long moment of silence as the Irish pirate mastered his breathing before he could reply.
“Takin’ over Outpost Station is simply not somethin’ I’ll be party to, Vattermann. I told you as much. And let me be telling you this, now,” he added, his voice gone as quiet and ominous as Vattermann’s had been. “If you shoot at me and mine, bucko, I will be shootin’ back ... and shootin’ back hard.”
Vattermann sat back in his throne, stretched his legs out in front of him and crossed them at the ankles. “Yeah, yeah, I’m terrified,” he said, his voice telegraphing nothing less than boredom. He then waved nonchalantly at the screen and glanced toward Holzig. “Cut the connection to that coward before seeing his ugly face makes me need to throw up.”
4
Patrick O’Shaugnassey had no sooner seen Vattermann blank their connection than Tom Flannery turned to catch his attention. “Another incoming call for you,” the pirate lieutenant said.
“I’m not in the mood to be talkin —” Patrick began, but Flannery cut him off.
“You’ll want to take this one, boss,” he said firmly, and caught Patrick’s eye without flinching even when the other man gave him a sharp, reproachful look. “It’s Chloe.”
Patrick stared, uncomprehending for a moment, then jerked his head in a nod. “On my private screen, here,” he said, and jabbed at the control on his command chair that quickly raised a private comm screen into viewing position. Moments after clicking into position the screen lit with the unmistakable image of Patrick’s niece. His eyes widened as they caught the clear signs that Chloe had been crying ... face flushed, eyes red and puffy. The disagreement with Vattermann fled his mind in an instant as his heart wrenched to see his only flesh and blood in such a state.
“Chloe, luv, what’s wrong?” When there was no immediate response, he muted his mike and raised his eyes to look at Flannery, part way across the control room. “Tom,” he demanded, “where’s she callin’ from? That’s the Brigid Delaney she’s in, I can tell, but....”
“She’s about a quarter AU away,” his lieutenant told him. “Radio lag comes in at 125 seconds.”
“Ugh,” Patrick groaned, then opened his microphone once more. “Chloe,” he said, “we’ve got a radio lag of more than two minutes, luv,” he said. “This can’t be a good talk, so just tell me what’s on yer mind.”
He’d no sooner finished speaking than the Clancy Aodhan shuddered, clearly from a missile or energy hit. “Status,” Patrick demanded.
“Apparently Vattermann’s picked this moment to finally keep his word,” Flannery told him, tension singing in his voice. “That was from his flag ship.”
Patrick’s hands both tightened into fists. “Return the fire,” he ordered, then thought a moment more. “No, not just that. Turn us around, Tom, and send out an order to all our folk to do the same,” he said. “To hell with Vattermann and his plans. He’s more of a threat to us than TSM ever was.”
Flannery had no sooner acknowledged the order and turned back to his station than Chloe began to speak once more on Patrick’s pri
vate comm screen.
“Ah, Uncle Patrick,” his niece said. “Don’t be worryin’ for me, I just shed a few tears over a bit of bad news. But I’m callin’ to say that —” Chloe broke off, listening as Patrick’s amended message reached her. Then she nodded once and fixed her eyes directly at where she knew Patrick’s gaze would be.
“Aye, Uncle, let me be gettin’ to the point. You can’t be shootin’ at the militia folk, Uncle. Those folk are our friends and our neighbors, as if you didn’t know. And now that Captain Chambers has headed off to somewhere .... oh!”
Patrick watched as Chloe turned away to check something she had just seen in the then of two minutes before. When she turned back her eyes had brightened but also added an intensity that Patrick had seldom seen in his only relative.
“Uncle, the Cahan Morrigan didn’t run away, she’s jumped out here, close to where I am. I imagine Captain Chambers doesn’t want the likes of you to be knowin that, but there it is. I’ll be callin’ the Captain in a moment, puttin’ in a word on your behalf and makin’ a plea as well for ... for someone I know, who’s got herself caught up in this fight against her will. Uncle Patrick, break off the fight! I’ve met Sydney Chambers. She is not the TSM villain that you think. She will help us here at Cygni, I truly believe that she will. Give her a chance, Uncle. Give me a chance.”
Patrick stared at his comm for a long moment before he could speak. Why is it, he asked himself, that Chloe so often sees things so much clearer than do I? Finally he drew a breath and answered.
“Chloe, luv, by the time you get this answer you’ll no doubt be seein’ that I’ve turned my ships around. Vattermann’s declared war on me, now, right along with the TSM, and I’m bloody well not going to run from the fight. Tell that to your Captain Chambers, if you want. And always be rememberin’ that I love you, no matter what happens here.”
The Blarney shuddered around him as he shut the connection. “Status, Tom,” he said, his voice remarkably calm, considering.
“All of our ships are turned, or turning, boss,” Flannery told him. “We’re returning fire on Vattermann’s ships, but of course that means that they’re sending more fire our way as well.”
“Of course,” Patrick muttered, then gathered himself to command a battle that he hadn’t anticipated. “Broadcast this to our folk, Tom. ‘Form up with the Blarney and concentrate all weapons on Vattermann’s ships. I expect you’ll still be gettin’ a shot or two from the militia types; do not return that fire. I repeat, if the militia shoot at you, ignore them. From this moment Hans Vattermann is our sole enemy....”
5
Lieutenant Cami Frye felt her comm vibrate to an incoming signal. Dragging her attention away from the jawboning going on between Walter Rudolph, Station Security chief Anthony Beckworth, and the chief’s two senior assistants, she pulled the unit from her pocket to check the incoming signal as unobtrusively as she could.
SEND MESSAGE NOW, the screen read, followed by a destination code. Cami felt a wave of excitement rush up her spine, and an unintentional chirp of excitement escaped her lips.
Beckworth broke off what he was saying and turned his head to pin Cami with an annoyed look. “Lieutenant, is there an issue?”
She waved the comm at her commanding officer. “It’s the urgent message from Captain Chambers, sir,” she said, barely managing not to stutter.
“Ah,” Beckworth responded, the anger on his face immediately replaced by a visage of pure business. “Of course, Lieutenant. Be about it, then.”
Cami nodded once and fled from Rudolph’s office, making the best time that she could in the direction of the TSM contact link.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
1
Morrigan cleared hyperspace in mere seconds, so short was the jump away from Outpost Station, but as always the passage through that odd realm scrambled the senses of the ship’s crew, requiring a moment for each of them to shake off. Sydney was nonetheless on her feet in an instant.
“Status.”
There was the slightest of hesitations from Shannon McInerny at scan as she gathered her wits and studied her displays. “Right on target, Captain,” she reported after a moment. “Nothing here but — check that. There is a small vessel five hundred miles off our port side. It’s ... Captain, it reads as the Brigid Delaney, Chloe O’Shaugnassey’s ship.”
Sydney frowned. “Out here? Do you read armament, Ms. McInerny? Or is she broken down again?”
“No, Ma’am,” the scan officer reported, “no weaponry, and the ship reads as operational. It’s just —”
Ensign Reiger broke into McInerny’s description. “Receiving incoming transmission from Brigid Delaney, Captain.”
Sydney sighed briefly. “Route it to my chair’s comm station, Mr. Reiger,” she ordered, resuming her seat and activating the chair’s screen mode. Momentarily Chloe’s face appeared, etched with what Sydney immediately identified as worry.
“What can I do for you, Ms. O’Shaugnassey,” Sydney answered, schooling her own features into as bland a visage as she could. “We are seriously short on time right now....”
“Captain, I’m callin to ask you to not be destroyin’ my uncle. He’s out there, I admit. I just spoke to him, though, and he realizes now that he was wrong to have come.”
Now Sydney did frown. “Excuse me,” she said. “Are you telling me that Patrick O’Shaugnassey is in one of the pirate ships currently aimed to attack Outpost Station?”
“Aye,” Chloe began, then violently shook her head. “No! Uncle Patrick was never here to attack the station. And he swore to me that he’ll not be shootin’ at the militia folk, either. Hans Vattermann told him that a show of force would be a help, don’t you see? But now Vattermann’s uppin’ the stakes and declarin’ my uncle’s as much of an enemy as —” She broke off, suddenly realizing what she’d been about to say. “Well, he’s gone and got himself stuck in the middle, he has.”
Sydney took a moment to wade through the thick brogue — troublesome to understand at the best of times, but even more obscure in Chloe’s clearly emotional state. When she decided that she understood what the woman was saying, she granted Chloe a severely skeptical look.
“So what you’re saying is that your uncle brought his entire fleet here for a peaceful protest, and now his ally Vattermann is employing more violent measures.”
“Aye!” The word almost erupted from the younger woman and Sydney was sure that there were tears welling in her pleading eyes. “Vattermann’s shootin’ at him! Uncle Patrick has never wanted anythin’ but to better the lives of those back home on Aerieland. He’s never wanted to be fightin’ ... never hurt any but a few corporate bottom lines.” Her chin visibly trembled. “Please, Captain. If I learned anythin’ of you when you helped me, ’tis that you’re an honorable woman. Please, please — give my Uncle Patrick a chance.”
“A moment, Ms. O’Shaugnassey.” The captain muted her comm and turned to her exec, who had sidled up beside her. “Any thoughts, XO?”
“What she says is consistent with what we saw in our brief encounter, Captain,” Garvey said. “It’s also consistent with O’Shaugnassey’s rep.”
Sydney nodded, then glanced across the bridge. “Ms. McInerny.”
“Captain?”
“Any signs of weapons fire against Outpost Station?”
“Ah....” McInerny touched her controls, looking intently at her outputs as she did so. “There is weapons fire, Ma’am, but it seems to be aimed away from the station. In fact, from what I can see the lead ships have turned and begun firing at those behind them.”
Garvey exhaled a loud breath. “Sounds like Ms. O’Shaugnassey may be correct, Captain.”
“Huh.” Sydney drummed her fingers on her chair console for a moment. “Still, I’m not about to make a promise that I may not be able to keep.” She activated her comm once again.
“Ms. O’Shaugnassey, I am not prepared at this time to grant what amounts to blanket amnesty to a known and avowed pira
te,” she said, considering her words carefully. “I will, however, make you one promise. I will not engage any of your uncle’s vessels if they do not shoot at me, at a militia member, or at Outpost Station.”
Chloe’s face reflected obvious relief. “Thank you, Captain,” she said, her voice now slower but even more filled with emotion than during her rapid-fire pleading. “You’ll not be regrettin’ it.”
Sydney sighed again, briefly. “I hope that you are correct, Ms. O’Shaugnassey,” she said. “For all our sakes. Now, watch out. Morrigan will transit momentarily, and will be in and out of this location more than once.”
Chloe swallowed hard. “I understand,” she said. “I’ll hold to exactly where I am, so you can know where not to be runnin’ into me. But ... I need to be asking one other thing of you, Captain.”
Sydney couldn’t help a brief twinge at something that she saw in the other woman’s face, but a glance at the chronometer dictated that any further pleas would have to wait. “Understood, but we are on an extremely tight schedule at the moment. Your information is appreciated, and I will take a few moments to hear your request on our return to these coordinates. Morrigan out.” She blanked the comm and turned once more to Garvey. “Any other thoughts, XO?”
The exec looked thoughtful. “If she’s right, it does improve the odds.”
“Indeed. Mr. Womack.”
“Captain,” answered the navigator, swiveling at his station to face his captain. “Pre-defined course laid in.”
“Very good. Ms. Francis?”
“Ready on all armament,” the ensign reported. “Mr. Grelkin reports ready as well from the auxiliary control weapons station.”
“Very good, Ensign,” Sydney acknowledged. “Amended orders for both you and Mr. Grelkin. You are authorized to target any vessel found facing toward or actively attacking Outpost Station when we emerge from hyper ... but only vessels so situated. You may fire at will on any such vessel.”
Sydney Chambers Page 22
