“Yeah, I guessed that much,” I snarled. “How about you see if you can cool off my fist before it hits your face?” I raised it for another punch, but a burly pilot appeared from the throng and seized my arm by the elbow.
Blaze was getting up, with the assistance of two members of his entourage. “I take it you weren’t impressed by what we’re doing on Cantrabargid,” he said grimly.
“Impressed?!” I echoed. “It’s an insult! You’re turning the Golden Age of star piloting into a plying theme park!”
He straightened his back, and his eyes set to a-twinkling again, but this time it was a sad twinkle, like the glistening of light off held-back tears. “The Golden Age is over. That’s what I need you and everyone else to understand. We can’t deny that and we can’t change it. What we can do is commemorate it.”
“Oh, right,” I said, nodding. “With bikini girls and cuddly toys?”
“No, it’s not an accurate re-creation of that specific war. But it’s the same basic story as every other planet that star pilots have saved. We’re just compressing all of those histories into one. The spirit, the true meaning, of what you did for Cantrabargid, and what all the other pilots did for all those other planets—that’s what’s going to live on. That’s all that matters.”
“But it’s not true!” I insisted.
He folded his arms. “Look, you can’t just tell people not to be bored. You have to meet them halfway. We’ve spiced it up for broader appeal so that the message can reach as many people as possible.”
“But . . .” I faltered. “Malcolm Sturb should be in jail, at least.”
“He’s changed. A lot of things have changed.” Blaze’s chest puffed up with melancholy passion. “Quantunneling changed everything. Either you change with it, or you spend your whole life scuttling around the wreckage of everything else that couldn’t change. Like some kind of . . .”
“Cockroach,” said Warden from somewhere behind me. I very deliberately avoided looking at her. “Can we move on? Is the station being evacuated?”
Blaze deflated, crestfallen. “Yes. A Terran fleet is approaching from multiple directions.”
“We noticed,” said Warden, deadpan.
“But there’s a gap in the perimeter, and we’re getting as many of our people through it as we can before they arrive.” He seemed to notice the growing crowd of onlookers and waved them away. They immediately returned to their escape preparations.
“A gap in the perimeter, you say,” said Warden, giving me an accusing look.
“You know full well it would have taken too long to check,” I said, from the corner of my mouth.
“At first, I thought they were the fleet that had come to get Daniel back,” said Blaze. “I’d already called his father and told him where he was.”
“For a reward,” I interjected.
He sighed. He didn’t look guilty, just sad. “But they haven’t responded to any of my offers to return him. I fear this may be our debts being called in sooner than I expected.”
“The United Republic don’t even interfere with Ritsuko City, and that’s right on the Earth’s doorstep,” said Warden. “They have even less interest in the finances of deep space pseudo-colonies.”
“Yeah, they’re here for Jemima, not you,” I clarified.
Blaze’s brow furrowed. “The girl? Why?”
“She’s the president’s daughter.” His eyes bulged, and I felt moved to interrupt as he opened his mouth to say something incredulous. “Yes, she really is the president’s daughter. And not that you deserve it, but we’ve brought her back here so that you can hand her over before this place gets turned upside down, and in return, you can—”
I was raising my voice over an engine roar that I had, up to this point, been attributing to one of the remaining ships in the docking bay heading off to join the evacuation fleet. But then I remembered that there was only one ship in the bay whose engine sounded like the drawn-out, dying fart of a beached whale.
I darted back a step and stood, stunned, in the entrance to the docking bay as the Platinum God of Whale Sharks lurched out of the station. The engine noise ceased abruptly as the ship passed through the force field into the vacuum of space, then bobbed sickeningly and sped out of sight. Jemima and Daniel were nowhere to be seen.
My hands clenched pointlessly at the air. My first instinct had been to run forward and yell something along the lines of “come back,” but that already felt stupid. Instead, I let my arms drop and my entire upper body slumped forward.
Warden appeared in my peripheral vision, so I jabbed a finger in her direction. “You know,” I growled, “for an oppressive regime, you lot are really plying bad at keeping the children disciplined.”
“Yeah, we saw the Whale Shark,” said Peter, his voice emanating from Blaze’s speakerphone. “It broke off from the evac fleet and was heading toward Black Central Point.”
Blaze gripped his phone tightly, his knuckles whitening. “That’s not a safe zone,” he said. “We haven’t cleared the pirate clans out yet. There might even be Zoobs.” The point of his hook rattled nervously against his phone’s touchscreen.
“You’d almost think something had given the impression that the Black was a fun place where there isn’t any real danger,” I said, leaning against a nearby pillar with arms folded.
“There’s something else,” said Peter. He was all business, so presumably Pippa wasn’t in the room with him. “We did a check on the incoming fleet. It’s a couple of hours away still. But it’s not just Republic Navy.”
Blaze met my look. “What is it?”
“It’s mostly Republic, maybe eighty percent, but they’ve made up the numbers with, er, mercenary talent.”
“You mean star pilots,” I said.
“Yeah,” he admitted sheepishly. “Looks like they’ve hired every contractor in Ritsuko City.”
“Yes, that all sounds to be in order,” said Warden, fiddling with her datapad. “Even a partial perimeter would severely tax the Republic Navy. Since civil disobedience is the bigger problem, a lot of the government wonders why they even need an interstellar navy at all.”
Blaze’s legs gave out under him, and he sat on the floor, staring at his phone. His face was as gray as ash. His mouth opened and closed silently like a kicked dog mournfully licking up spilled peanut butter. “The very people I’m doing all this for,” he mumbled. He looked up, a little bit of that Robert Blaze fire sparking and dying in his eyes. “I can’t let it all be for nothing. I can’t let them rip apart the one thing that could have helped them. That’s not star piloting. Is it?”
I’d been angry at him, but that anger was being drowned out by my feelings at seeing my biggest hero plop down on the floor, defeated. It was like seeing my dad cry, only without being able to blame it on the cheap whiskey. I coughed uncomfortably. “Could we conceivably just call the navy and tell them Jemima isn’t on the station now?”
“I see you’re not familiar with United Republic antiterror procedure,” said Warden down her nose. “If we tell them that, it will only make them wonder why we’re so keen for them to not come here.”
Blaze shook his head, eyes wide. “We can’t let them search the station top to bottom. It’s practically wallpapered in stolen goods.”
“And if they can’t find Jemima, they will certainly be looking for reasons to justify their incursion,” said Warden thoughtfully, tapping her foot.
I sighed. “We’re going after Jemima.”
“We are,” said Warden. With her usual infuriating lack of expression, I wasn’t completely sure if she’d put a question mark on the end or not.
“We’ll bring her back,” I continued. “And then the navy can take her and go away happy. And then we can have a very fruitful conversation about the future of your whole project out here.”
He stared up at me in wonder, his eyes not quite doing the twinkle thing, but certainly on twinkle standby. “You would do that for me? Why?”
“
Gratitude,” I said.
“For what?”
I held out my uninjured hand. “For very kindly returning my ID chip.”
The twinkle standby ended, and his face darkened a little. But he dug into his jeans pocket and produced a brown envelope, stained with a little blood. I checked its contents. A tiny piece of plastic the size of a rice grain. I’d never seen an ID chip outside the skin before, but it seemed legit.
“Right,” I said, closing my fist around the envelope. “I’m gonna need a couple of lads to flip our shuttle over.”
I started heading back to the docking bay, gesturing to a couple of the burlier, less argumentative-looking members of the throng, but Blaze quickly rose to his feet. “You know that you’re not actually entitled to Jacques McKeown’s money?”
That made me stop, and I gave him a thoughtful look over my shoulder, the kind a chess master makes when his opponent wanders straight into an unbelievably obvious trap. “Yeah. Remind me how you know that?”
All expression immediately left his face in a very deliberate kind of way, so that he and Warden, standing next to each other, were like a pair of Buddha statues. But I’d already seen that momentary flash of guilt.
I pointed at his face. “Conversation. Later.”
Chapter 24
My confidence drained somewhat after the shuttle had been uprighted and Warden and I had set off, bound vaguely for the Black’s central point. The shuttle had taken more damage than I’d thought, probably from when the nacelle had hit the turret gun on our way in. It was trundling up to top speed like a rickshaw driver ten years past optimal retirement age.
Of course, the Platinum God of Whale Sharks moved like a rickshaw driver twenty years past prime that had managed to run himself over with his own vehicle, so whether or not we would catch up with the Jemima (along with the other Jemima) wasn’t so much an issueh as whether or not we could do so in time.
Blaze had lent us one of his more efficient scanning units, which was now taking up most of what little wiggle room there was in the cockpit, and I was spamming the blip constantly as we flew. The navy fleet lit up the screen like a perfectly laid-out semicircular flowerbed, with the star pilot fleet forming the uppermost section of the arc like an unwanted dog turd. The gap between them and Salvation was closing a lot faster than the one between us and the fat little blob that represented the Jemima.
“We aren’t going to make it,” I said darkly. “By the time we get there and back, Salvation’ll be turned upside down.”
“Perhaps there is a way to delay the navy,” said Warden, who had been sitting thoughtfully in silence for some time, tapping her chin with a finger. “Can you contact them?”
I raised an eyebrow at her. “This shuttle’s designed for ship-to-surface transport; it’s only got short-range comms. We’d need to get in close to a manned ship. Assuming there are any manned ships.”
“There’d have to be, for command and boarding. Almost certainly in the center.” She pointed to the midpoint of the fleet on the scanner screen.
“So what do we tell them?”
“Just leave that to me, McKeown.”
I eyed her with open suspicion. “Are you really that invested in saving Salvation? Trac, that sounded weird.”
“It remains my best hope for a place to exist out here that can make some use of my skill set.” She eyed the scanner screen. “Hopefully this venture will prove that. But a little more incentive wouldn’t hurt.”
She met my gaze. I felt my mouth tighten up. “What else do you want?”
“Do you remember the deal we made the last time you needed me to delay a United Republic military unit? I would like to make the same deal.”
“You . . . want to hold onto my blaster again?”
“How many shots are left in it?”
I took it out of my shoulder holster and checked. I really should have taken the opportunity to find a new cell while I was on Salvation, but everything had been rather flustered. “Depending on the setting, it could stun maybe two or three people. Or blow one person’s leg off. What do you want it for this time?”
“I wouldn’t expect you to understand, Mr. McKeown. As we’ve established, you’re not the kind of person who plans ahead.”
She raised an eyebrow slightly, which was her equivalent of a cocky, trac-eating grin. I didn’t like it.
“You are obstructing a United Republic peacekeeping force in the execution of urgent official duties,” said a voice from the short-range communicator. It sounded bored, but not automated. “This statement is to be considered for all official purposes your one mandated warning.”
Like a rubber mouse dangling before the face of a deceptively immobile cat, our shuttle hung in front of the large battleship that lay in the exact center of the naval fleet. It was only by hailing every ship within broadcast range that we had been able to identify the manned ships. For obvious tactical purposes, they were identical to the automated ones: sleek black lines and barely concealed weapon tubes, unpretentiously broadcasting on every visual level that something was about to get ground into space dust under the unfeeling jackboot of power.
Unintimidated, Warden leaned in close to the communicator, resting her folded arms upon the console. “My name is Penelope Warden, and I currently represent the ruling authority of the Salvation Station deep space colony,” she droned. “I am formally requesting an explanation for your incursion upon sovereign territory.”
There was a slightly stunned pause, then a fluttering of paperwork, before the poor bracket manning the ship’s communication console replied. “Our orders are to search this sector and the pirate station and rescue the president’s daughter.”
“Then please submit your warrant so that the local authorities can assess the situation and come to an extradition agreement, as laid out in the Extrasolar Nation and Colony Diplomatic Protocols. In accordance with the same document, the station is considered a sovereign nation, meeting the requirements for population, government, and local law enforcement.”
“Could you hold, please?” Then a click.
“Is that a real document?” I asked, while we waited.
“It was very hastily drawn up a long time ago, more for political point scoring than anything else,” said Warden, not looking away from some dense, technical-looking documents on her datapad, of which she was busily refreshing her memory. “It’s full of loopholes but has never been assessed or amended because the Republic has little interest in external affairs. I see no reason why—”
The comms unit suddenly ceased playing electronic smooth jazz with an ugly crackle. “Ms. Warden, is that you?” said a female voice.
Warden went white. “Ms. Sternall,” she said, fighting to keep expression out of her voice.
It took me a moment to remember. It was the woman I’d seen with Henderson on the landing pad when we’d first taken off in the God of Whale Sharks. The one who had basically been a younger, slightly prettier clone of Warden, and who had taken over her duties after her “promotion.”
“What a wonderful surprise to hear from you,” said Sternall, with the kind of warmth that fails to make even an icecube sweat.
“Likewise,” replied Warden, her lips quivering like she was about to throw up.
“So good to hear you’re managing to stay active,” continued Sternall. “But you don’t seem to be fully familiar with the law. No extradition or warrant is required of a United Republic naval search-and-extraction excursion if it is taking place in United Republic territory.”
Warden caught my eye, perhaps in a failed attempt to reassure. “But this is not United Republic territory.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, if you’d read Extrasolar Nation and Colony Diplomatic Protocols properly, you would have known that, considering the impracticality of establishing embassies on every little extrasolar colony that has its own government, any territory occupied by an official United Republic ambassador to within a radius of fifty meters is considered a de facto e
mbassy, and under United Republic responsibility, in order to ensure the safety of our representative.”
“So?”
“So, in accordance with the Timmler Act, all close relations of United Republic presidents are automatically granted ambassadorial status while abroad,” concluded Sternall with unshaking confidence. “This was made law after the incident with President Timmler’s son and the urine fountain.”
“Surely they can’t actually do that,” I whispered to Warden, practically mouthing the words. She appeared to have frozen. Were it not for the visible beads of sweat, I might as well have been talking to a mannequin for an extremely boring clothes shop.
“So, you have already had your warning,” added Sternall when no reply came. “Please move out of the way so that we can take care of this internal matter.”
“Jemima is not currently on Salvation Station,” said Warden, closing her eyes tightly.
“Then you will have no objection to us searching it, very, very thoroughly. Because I’m sure you wouldn’t be trying to hide something there.”
The scanner reported that one of the ships in the fleet had powered up its weapons. And once it had broken that particular taboo, the rest of them quickly followed suit, sending their icons flashing like rows of Christmas lights. Warden was still silent and unmoving.
I sighed and took up the joysticks. “Well, so much for that.”
Warden’s hand snapped around my wrist apparently without moving through any of the intervening space. She squeezed so hard that all my fingers detached from the joystick at once. “Wait,” she barked, delivering the word like an iron rivet being hammered home.
“Warden . . .” said Sternall tiredly.
Warden’s fingers began flying across her datapad, her many short, sharp movements sending little sprinkles of sweat across the enclosed cabin. “According to your manifest, you are carrying a company of marines, armed and equipped for boardings, infiltrations, and suppression?”
“As I said, the search of the station will be very, very thorough,” said Sternall, still smug but sensing danger. “The team will need to be equipped to suppress anything that obstructs their official duties. That applies to locked doors, security systems, walls, and human throats. All in accordance with naval regulations, as I’m sure you know.” She delivered the emphasis on sure like a dagger under the ribs.
Will Save the Galaxy for Food Page 26
