by Jim Rudnick
"Yup, hidden by the Goddamn shelf off that tor that we just hit … bloody hell!" Radisson swore and shook his head.
"Right, Helm … soon as you've got us upright, use thrusters to get us back up and over the top of it, and let's see if we can find a spot to set down," Radisson said as the ship came more and more vertically upright. Soon, they were moving horizontally toward the tarmac that lay off to the side but was swinging more under the Valiant as they watched. Fog here was thinner, Radisson noted, but he kept the view-screen on full infrared to stay in charge of their movements. In the eastern sky, a band of lighter coloration was creeping up of the distant mountain range.
Minutes later, they were still vertical but slowly moving horizontally above the flat tarmac that glowed slightly red from the infused sunlight it had sat under all day. That ship was slightly redder than that, but as it was sealed off, there were no hot-spots that they could see.
Still brighter red camp buildings lay off to one side as did the glowing red of the mine, its headstock hot with the huge generators and motors controlling the elevators and air circulation machinery too.
"Anyone see anyone down there?" Radisson said.
"There appear to be guards in those watchtowers, a small group of guards around that ship, and isn't that a patrolling vehicle out there too," Frasier answered.
Everyone seemed to nod.
"Right, so with that landing vane now out of true, we're gonna be ditching her right here. Agreed? Or …?" Radisson noted.
Again all the heads nodded.
"Right then, Helm set her down on her belly, bridge up, and let's see who is home."
Jorgenson's hands flew again on his console as the ship moved to full horizontal from vertical, ensuring that the Bridge was on the top side. He moved gently now on the stick with his hand dancing on the sliders, and the Valiant slowly moved on thrusters and did a single loop of the small tarmac and settled down with a thunderous clang, that landing vane beneath the ship.
Moments later as the shutdown protocols were being followed, Radisson had the Ansible officer send one more EYES ONLY off to let them know what had happened. More moments later, the Bridge was shut down, and they sat and waited for whatever would come next. Something would, they knew, and soon as dawn began to break on ITO.
# # # # #
In the ship that was already down sitting on the tarmac before the Valiant arrived, Lady St. August leaned over to her Ansible officer on the Bridge and said simply, "send it now," and she leaned back in her chair to wait again.
The message arrived up at Landers Station in moments and was not read but immediately sent to the administration console marked EYES ONLY. Station Commander Cooper read it at once and, he cursed and leapt to the Ansible himself, pushing the officer who had been sitting there aside. His head bobbed as he spoke forcefully into his throat mic, and his stubby fingers stabbed the keyboard with regular rhythm and energy. He quit the Ansible station and moved back to his administration area but couldn't sit. There'd be hell to pay if they couldn't solve this before news traveled back to the Baroness. That's for sure, he thought as he hit SEND with finality.
Staring at the screen for less than a minute, he nodded as the RECEIVED button lit up. Done.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Marching down the green corridor of Landers Station toward the commander’s office, Tanner was purposely loudly clanging his boots on the steel floor. Behind him were his XO and Lieutenant Sander who seemed to be glancing side to side at the bare walls but didn't miss a cadenced step.
Ahead at the corner where the corridor veered off to the right, they spun in perfect drill order and moved the last few feet to the Barony guard who was at the administrator’s office door.
"Sir?" the guard stated, "your business here?"
He stared straight ahead, Tanner noted, not looking anyone in the eye.
"Captain Scott, RIM Navy to see the station commander, stat!" his XO barked out. He leaned forward to show just how much time was an issue to the guard.
"Sir, yes, Sir" the guard said, "but the station commander is in quarters. Shall I call him, Sir?"
"That'd be a nice thing, Sergeant. Do that for us, would you?" Tanner said dryly. "We'll just wait …"
The guard saluted and whirled to march down the corridor going somewhere, but not apparently willing to divulge that information. The three Navy officers stood and waited. And waited some more.
Tanner wished for drink. Any drink. Just a single shot to help him over the next few minutes. He was still thinking on whether or not a single one would do and wishing he'd had more than that double before leaving his ready room just moments ago when Station Commander Cooper rounded the near corridor and came ambling down the hall.
"Come in, Captain" he said as he palmed the lock-plate screen and waited as the door to the offices slid open.
"Early a bit, is it not, Captain?" he said as he reached for the pot of coffee and poured himself a cup, while the three Navy officers pulled up chairs to sit in front of the desk.
Tanner nodded.
"Yes, we're early but we're on Navy business, Commander. We are here to advise you under the RIM Navy Regs, Section 43 (G) that we're going down to ITO as we are in pursuit of the CS Valiant and its mutineers. This is a mere formality but we were ordered to do this in person."
The station commander stared at them one by one and then turned to the captain in front of him.
"You realize that the Natrium Flu is still rampant below, and as such, no one is allowed to break quarantine, Captain? And these RIM health statutes surpass any Section (G) Reg, acknowledged?" the commander said as he sipped his coffee.
Tanner shook his head.
"Under most circumstances, but not this one, as we are in hot pursuit of these mutineers, and RIM law is quite clear on that," Tanner said, his voice low. He watched the commander carefully as the man leaned back and sipped again.
"Docking here at Landers Station, shuttling over, and then waiting for me to get into work is hardly what anyone would call 'hot pursuit,'" he answered.
"Do you even know where these mutineers are, Captain?" the commander asked, his coffee halfway to his mouth but now frozen in mid-movement to his face.
Tanner shook his head.
"Not a clue, but we do know the Ansible registration on the Valiant, so we'll begin with that and search grid-wise for that signature."
Over on the bookshelf that stood near the desk, an old-fashioned clock chimed for a few times. There was no other noise within the office for a full minute or more. The surroundings were, if one even cared to notice, what one might call “retro” though to Tanner’s eyes, plain out-of-date would be a bit more accurate.
"Right, you’ve been notified," Tanner said, rose quickly, and flashed a salute to the commander still seated behind his desk.
"I will file a Notice of Objection on this, Captain, and it will be on the Baroness’s desk before you leave the dock."
"Of course you will, Commander, and yet we're still going down to get those mutineers—that's what the RIM Navy is all about."
They turned and strode out of the offices and moved toward the lift back to the dock where the Marwick lay.
"Did anyone else think it odd," the XO said, "that that coffee was hot and freshly made before we arrived?"
Tanner nodded.
"Not that we were offered any," he commented as they continued down on the lift.
Moments later, the EYES ONLY went out from the station Ansible to Neres and another to the Avalon and Rhys, who was less than a half-day out and who Cooper knew would return with a vengeance.
Hot pursuit indeed …
# # # # #
As they lined up to go to the mess hall, the hostages were haphazardly leaving their barracks in twos and threes. The sky was just lit by the new dawn, and there were still bars of reddish and pink sky immediately to the east behind the mountain range. With more than 500 hostages, it usually took a while to get organized and then have them tr
ooped off to eat their skimpy breakfast.
Not that it's really even good for building up the needed strength, Roison thought as she filled the spot in line directly behind her aunt. She peered about for a second and then used her Adept sweep to see that she was not being watched all that closely and sent a familiar sentiment and smile to Michelle. Her aunt pushed a hand behind her back and crossed her fingers. Today they had roles to play …
Marching, or what might be called that, was not a skill that many of the hostages had—after all they were far from military personnel in their other life. It was more of a walk in semi-straight lines toward the large hall at the end of the row of barracks. Beneath their feet, the gravel pathway crunched under foot as they moved slowly forward to enter the hall up the few front steps.
Inside, the leading hostages picked up their trays and cutlery and moved toward the cafeteria-styled service line. The food they were served was generally tasteless, bland, and in small portions as it was dished out by the staff in their white uniforms, and today was no different.
Finding a seat as usual beside her aunt, Roison moved over the bench and sat down. Her porridge and Garnuthian fruit were quickly devoured as she knew she had to eat as there was no guarantee that they'd eat this evening. Her glances around the hall showed not a thing out of the ordinary, all were eating and the couple of guards were chatting over against the far wall. Not a thing was out of place.
At the head-frame on the collar, they waited to go down last as usual in the cage to level two. The hostages who were the miners all went down first and began to hack away at the ore, and it was tossed and shoveled and thrown into a nearby goat that the level goat crews moved back to the main shaft, leaving a full one and taking an empty goat face-down the tunnel to the ore face.
Moving slowly, the cage took Roison and her crew of three others down to the bottom level where the miners had been at work the longest. Moving the full goats onto the cage was hard work; she sweated even now in the cool morning breezes. The four goats filled up the cage with the crew of four and they were moving back up the shaft passing other tunnels and up to the surface.
Unloading meant manhandling those goats off the cage and into the tracks leading to the cart hookup to the powered engine that would pull the line of goats to the far refinery.
Roison winced as her finger got pinched when a block of ore slid down the inner edge of the goat and the resulting blood blister swelled immediately. She nursed it with her lips and sucked on the finger as it began to sting. Shaking her head, she reminded herself for the hundredth time since she'd been moving goats around to never ever stick her fingers over the top edge where the ore lay. And once more she returned to the cage to take the trip down to the next tunnel. Down, then up, down, and then up, again and again.
By almost midday with the ITO sun now almost directly overhead, Roison was tired, and sweat slid down her back as she again pushed the goat, worrying it back and forth to get the wheels to engage with the rails just below. The guard who usually worked the top of the shaft on the collar stood and watched. Roison never asked for help as she knew that'd get her a needle blast to her leg. Finally the goat wheels engaged the rails, and she was able to easily push it along at the end of the lineup.
The mental blast from her aunt caught her by surprise, but she knew not to react to the simple phrase “next trip up,” and she sent back a plain head nod. So it begins, she thought.
This trip was down only to tunnel number three, so the cage was loaded and up it began to move until it reached an area just a few hundred feet above tunnel number two. When they hit that spot, Roison concentrated and put all her mind to making a fuse way, way up in the head-frame mechanical room blow—and blow it did with a huge bang.
The cage shuddered and then fell about fifteen feet until the fail-safes kicked in and locked the cage to the I-beam frames that surrounded the shaft. An alarm bell began to clang and from above came some shouting, but as the cage was down at least 500 feet from the surface, Roison could not make out anything that was yelled.
She moved to a near corner of the cage and sat with her back wedged into the V behind her. Nursing her now broken, seeping blood blister with her mouth, she knew that her job was done for now.
She knew that someone would eventually think of the bank of fuses in the mechanical room way above and replace the one she'd just blown.
One of the other crew members, the one named Pamela, walked over to her and said, "So … any ideas on what happened?" and then smiled at her.
"Not a clue," Roison said.
"You sure you didn't maybe do this? ’Cause if you did and they find out ... remember, there's four of us on this crew," Pamela said with a note of derision in her voice.
"All I can say is that if I were you, I'd find a safe spot to sit and hang on," Roison said.
"Uh … thanks, I think," Pamela said with a hint of mockery in her voice. But she moved away from Roison and parked herself in the farthest away corner. The other two crew members were new to Roison, but after watching that exchange, they said nothing and soon each of the four cage corners had a hostage wedged in and holding on for what only one of them knew was coming.
Must be a lack of techies around, Roison thought as she waited like the rest of the hostages. They would need to do a diagnostic, she figured, and then think about fuses. How long that should take she didn't know, but the timing was pretty important and the cage did not move a bit.
But more importantly, as she and her aunt had learned via the Master Adept just days earlier, the hostages were now safe. They were locked in the mines away from guards and harm could not befall them. The mine was a prison but one that would keep them safe until help came. Roison hoped that'd be soon … but as long as she could hold the cage right there, they'd all be safe.
# # # # #
Aboard the Avalon, Rhys sat in his darkened ready room, reading the EYES ONLY that the Landers Station commander had just sent. The orange type on the black background was made to be read easily, yet he read it over and then again. The solid block of orange marked the cursor down at the bottom, and it flashed over and over awaiting input.
He slammed his knotted fist down on the desktop, and the keyboard jumped and came down with a clatter.
"Hot pursuit is not even close," he swore and the keyboard jumped again.
He reread the short message as he leaned back, and while he stared out the view-port on his left, his forefinger stabbed the BACK key and the previous EYES ONLY replaced the station commander's message.
She had been blunt and the tone was an order that she expected him to simply follow. No questions. No equivocation. No thinking—just follow her orders.
He watched as the upcoming edge of an arm of the Free Channel nebula appeared as they were moving back to ITO which was now less than two hours away. They soon were passing through this orange and pink cloud and then only a single hour more to reach the planet. Then drop down to the mine. And do her bidding.
A sharp rap on his ready room door broke his reverie.
"Enter," he said.
His Adept Lieutenant Coriander entered and came to attention, saluting her captain, and he saluted her back.
"Sir, thought you should know stat—that the mine is currently closed down due to equipment malfunction—we just got a message up from the admin there—seems something is affecting the cage, and the mine is full of our hostage miners until repairs can be made to bring them all up, Sir," she spit out in one long sentence, standing at attention.
"Fine, Lieutenant. Noted. Keep her at max impulse as usual and go to light-speed when we clear the arm," he said flatly.
"Aye, Captain," she said.
He nodded and dismissed her and watched as she spun on her heels and filed out of the room and back to the Bridge.
It was over and tomorrow the Avalon and the crew would be back to being Barony Navy regulars.
It was the end of the Pirates, and of course, by default, the end of the need for the
mine.
This meant that it was also the end of the need for hostages, and that was the cleanup duty that he was ordered to handle.
At least it appeared that a simple mine cave-in would be easy to arrange and not only end the problem of what to do with the hostages now that the Pirates were finished. Buried in the mine was the best way. Simplest. And with the plasma cannon on the Avalon as the weapon of choice, this whole Pirate sojourn could be forgotten.
The orange cursor block still pulsed on the screen, and he stabbed the Acknowledge key. He knew the Baroness would receive his compliance with her orders in minutes.
Rhys stood to stand in front of the view-port and watched as the swirls of ocher and red flitted by, sometimes opening up to show an occasional star or two. For a few moments, the port would be solid dusty colors of pink or orange and that would thin as this arm was right on the edge of the nebula.
He stood and watched as the port slowly cleared and dead ahead lay ITO. And the end of the hostages.
# # # # #
Uh … Ma’am, can I help you?"
The Barony guard at the mine's compound gate was nervous. He had never even seen a Royal before in real life and in front of him stood Lady St. August.
"Open up, Guard," she said and waved her arm up to show that she wished the gate to be raised.
Behind her stood one of those Adepts, the corporal could see, and a phalanx of about fifty dozen Elite Guards, their blue boots now dirty from the soil covering the edge of the landing tarmac. They had all just marched over from those two frigates that sat on the landing field a hundred yards away.
"Uh … Ma’am, I am sorry, but no one is allowed within the compound. Orders are no one, Ma’am," he said, his voice cracking just a bit.
"But Guard, you know who I am. I am a member of the Royal family—no rules apply to me or anyone with me, correct? Is that not a part of your training?" she said quietly.
