"Got it. I see Marny headed out the back of the warehouse. I'll warn Silver and Ada," she said.
"Copy that," I said.
I was right by the armory and palmed the security panel to enter. I slipped a shoulder holster on, equipped a blaster pistol, plucked a blaster rifle from the rack and stepped back into the short hallway separating the armory from the exit hatch.
"What's going on, Liam?" Dad stood in the doorway that led back onto the Berth Deck.
"Not sure. Reported intruder in the control room," I said. "Mom's still in the warehouse, you might bring her a flechette."
"No need, she's got her Ruger," he said. It surprised me, but I didn't have time to talk about it. I knew Mom owned a Ruger laser pistol, but I hadn't seen her carrying it.
I popped through the energy barrier of the external hatch and fired my arc-jets. Hotspur was clamped on the side of the asteroid less than ten meters from the front of the warehouse. I landed behind the warehouse, just out of visual range of the corridor.
Marny had a flechette drawn and holstered it on my approach. I handed her the blaster rifle.
Establish tactical channel with Marny and Nick.
"Sit-rep," I said.
"Three armed in the tube, eighty meters in." Marny said.
"Nick, what's your weapon status?"
"Flechette," he said. I mentally kicked myself. I couldn't imagine why we'd been so confident that no one would breach an open hole behind the warehouse that we hadn't secured it at all.
"Focus, Cap," Marny said. Somehow she always knew when I was getting distracted.
"Simple plan. I'll confront them, no weapons drawn and see if I can de-escalate," I said.
"That's risky," Marny said. "What if they decide to fire on you?"
"We don't even know who these guys are. It could be kids for all we know. But, if it's an attack on the control room, I'd like to know that before they get to Nick. They're in the open right now and that gives us leverage," I said. "Nick, contact Dad and get him back into the warehouse, and send Tabby out. I'd like another body out here."
"Will do," he said.
"Marny, cover me," I said.
"Aye."
While I had confidence in Marny's accuracy with a blaster rifle at eighty meters, I knew that if everything went to crap, I wasn't going to be in the best spot. I wished I'd had time to pull on an armored vac-suit, or at least grab a riot-shield.
The corridor was three meters across and roughly squared out. I entered it and laid into my arc-jets. My HUD displayed the three figures who'd made it another twenty meters and were getting too close to Nick's position for my comfort. Their suit lights popped on and they turned when I got within thirty meters. I slowed my approach and flipped over, keeping my feet towards them. It was common courtesy for spacers to orient themselves when in zero-g but I wanted to present the smallest possible target.
"Identify yourselves," I said, flipping on my own suit lamps.
The middle figure raised a blaster rifle and aimed it generally in my direction.
"Marny, not yet," I said. I didn't want to be the first to fire. I could imagine her annoyance and was glad that Tabby wasn't behind me yet. My directive would have been lost on her.
"You first, bitch." My AI recognized the voice and displayed the name Teodorov Tsankov. He'd been one of the pod-ball players from Oberrhein. He was a nasty player and very fast.
"Put your weapons down, Tsankov. You're trespassing," I said.
"You first," he said.
"I don't have a weapon pointed at you," I said.
"Maybe I'm not talking to you," he said.
"That's not going to happen," Tabby's voice came over the channel. "You want to get out of this in one piece, you put it down. Otherwise, I'm drilling for gold in that ugly dome of yours."
Uncontrollably, I rolled my eyes. Somehow Tabby and I were going to need to get on the same page with our approach. That said, her reputation of being a hothead had some benefit. Tsankov lowered his blaster so it wasn't pointing directly at me. It was something at least.
"We were just looking for the head and got lost," he said. "Do you treat all of your guests like this?"
"Lay your weapons on the ground," I said, still not holding my own. My HUD showed the tactically chosen targets. Tabby had Tsankov, Marny had the guy on his left and they'd tagged the woman on the right as my target.
"Not going to happen," Tsankov said.
"We'll give 'em back when you leave. Your weapons aren't allowed on our station as was clearly communicated," I said. "This isn't negotiable."
"Liam, we have a problem in the warehouse," Dad said over a separate comm channel.
As long as I preceded communication with a name, my AI would correctly route the comms. "Dad, emergency or under control?"
"Under control, but needs attention," he said.
"Roger that, we'll be there shortly," I said, then turned back to the problem at hand. "Tsankov, whatever you had planned didn't work. The warehouse is secure. Put your weapons down or we'll do this hard."
There was a long silence. I'd zoomed in on Tsankov and could see that he was talking to someone over a private comm. I used the distraction to pull out my own blaster, but held it in a neutral though easy to point position. Nick had come out of the control room and had targeted Tsankov also.
The three let go of their weapons and allowed them to float slowly toward me. It was a provocative move. I knew that with their pod-ball experience they'd be able to recover them quickly if necessary.
"Drop your AGB boots," I said.
"You're mad," he said.
"Do it."
They complied. I directed them to fly slowly out. Most of a person's thrust when using AGBs came from the boots and by removing them, I'd left myself with a significant advantage. When we reached the end of the corridor, Marny removed their gloves and zip-tied their hands together while Tabby held a blaster rifle on them.
"What are we going to do with them?" I asked. I'd expected we'd just release them.
"We've a situation in the warehouse," Marny said. "We can't deal with them right now."
"Right you are," Tabby said. She grabbed Teo and pulled him upward as she pushed off with her boots. At one hundred meters she zeroed their delta-v with the station and left him.
"What are you doing?" I asked.
"Temporary brig," she said.
I shrugged, it wasn't a bad idea.
"Nick, take their weapons and hole up in the control center," I said.
"Can do," he said.
I grabbed the second male, whom I was able to identify as Mihael Ivov, the one who'd injured Marny and had his wrist broken by Tabby. I set him ten meters away from Tsankov as Tabby dropped off the third, a woman I recognized as Petar's girlfriend, although I didn't know her name.
Add Big Pete, Mom and Ada to tactical channel.
"Dad, we're on our way in. What's going on?"
"You'll see," he said.
We cycled through the airlock. The warehouse had transformed from the festive environment we'd left. A dead silence hung in the air while people quietly packed up their belongings. Mom was standing by the front airlock with her shiny silver Ruger laser pistol in hand. She smiled grimly at me and nodded toward a stack of shelves, behind which we'd stored all of the items that weren't part of the swap meet.
As we walked through, the families we'd had such a fun time with just half an hour ago avoided making eye contact. I couldn't imagine what had changed in such a short period of time.
Behind the shelves, I found Big Pete and Ada standing behind Petar Kiirilov and two others that I recognized as Oberrhein. The three had their hands tied behind their backs and were kneeling on the floor of the warehouse.
"What's this about?" I asked, looking to Dad.
Petar spoke first. "You should kill me now, Hoffen. As far as Oberrhein is concerned, you and your family are all dead."
Big Pete stepped forward and bashed the back side of Petar's head. F
or a moment I thought he'd killed him, but movement convinced me otherwise.
"What the frak, Dad?" I said.
"Sorry, just really getting tired of hearing that from him," he said.
"You want to fill me in?" I asked.
"Ask her," he said. "She seems to be his second."
He nodded to a woman who I'd seen at one of the Belirand banquets. She was compact with dark olive skin and short black hair. Her scarred face suggested a hard past. I noticed that she had several blades strapped to her vac-suit.
"You are who?" I asked.
"Bacheva," she said. "Petar may have underestimated you, but it will not change your fate. Your family has been marked as enemies of the Oberrhein nation. We have informed the rest of the expedition that if they continue to fraternize with you they will be granted a similar status. We are not without compassion, though. We're allowing for a short period of amnesty for those who have chosen the wrong side. You will now see who your friends truly are."
"Care to tell me why?" I said.
"So naïve. We are Buccaneers. We take what we want from who we want. If you stand against us then you are our enemies. You could have avoided all of this if you had simply complied. Your hubris will be your end. Did you really think you could stand against an entire nation?"
SLOW RIDE
In the end, we asked everyone to leave. The Lichts were the last to go. While emotionally tough, there wasn't a choice to be made. They had no capacity to stand up against Oberrhein.
We'd decided to release Petar and his crew. We had no capability to hold them and there was no court with jurisdiction over the asteroid belt. I'd like to say that it didn't cross my mind to simply space the entire group, but as vile as they were, they hadn't earned a death sentence.
"We'll collect our items and stay on the station for a while," Dad said. Originally, he'd wanted to tough it out on their claim, but Mom convinced him that was a bad idea.
"Marny, if Oberrhein is still in the area, how should we approach getting Mom and Dad's stuff? I don't want to get caught off-guard again," I said.
"You and Tabby in Hotspur with Pete and Silver. Ada and I will provide backup from Sterra's Gift, but we'll stay within the defensive perimeter. Nick stays in the control room," she said.
"Any objections?" I asked.
We'd all changed into armored vac-suits. I wasn't completely sure what to think about our predicament. Was I causing all of this? Was it all hubris? Should we have stayed safe back at Sol? I pulled myself back to the present, knowing that Marny would bust me for reveling in non-productive thoughts when I was needed in the present.
Prepare for departure, I said. The AI keyed on those words and unclamped, making sure we were locked up tight. It also forwarded the message to all inhabitants of the ship.
Mom and Dad both reported back a green status from Marny and Nick's workstations.
Engage silent running, I said. I couldn't fathom just how valuable the stealth capacity of Hotspur had become to us. I remembered being somewhat ambivalent about it when we'd talked to Weird Wally.
I pulled us away from the surface of the asteroid and exited the defensive perimeter in the opposite direction of Mom and Dad's claim. Marny transmitted Sterra's Gift's full sensor package data stream on an encrypted channel, effectively overcoming the fact that Hotspur could only use passive sensors while running silent.
We slowly approached their claim and I was relieved to see that all the equipment was neatly ordered and laid out just like it always had been when I was growing up.
"Looks clear, Dad," I said. I swung the ship around so that the armored glass panel between the two crew stations was directly aligned with his claim.
"Keep sailing, Liam," he said quietly. The intensity of his voice alarmed me.
"What do you see?" I asked.
"I'd hoped it was nothing. Shortly before Oberrhein arrived at the warehouse, I lost contact with my system," he said.
"How do you know it's trouble?" I asked.
"Take us back, son. Let's get to a safe location before we discuss it," he said.
I heard Tabby take a sharp breath and looked back at the habitat. Everything still looked good to me. Nonetheless, I gave a short punch to the throttle and sailed on past.
"What?" I looked at Tabby.
"Just get us out of here," she said.
Without any ships nearby, I throttled up and sailed back to the station. I held my questions until we'd all gathered in the warehouse.
"What's the word, Pete?" Marny asked.
"Explosive charges rigged on the habitation domes, I assume they'd done the equipment too," he said. "I didn't get a great look, but I saw enough to do us in a few times over."
"I didn't see it," I said.
"Not unexpected. You don't have any experience destroying buildings. I was looking for it," he said.
"You have experience destroying buildings?"
"More than you'd expect," he said with no hint of sarcasm in his voice.
I gave him an appraising look. He wasn't much for joking, so I put it in the back of my mind to be followed up on later. "Can it be salvaged?" I asked.
"Depends on what type of trigger they have. It looks like they were trying to hurt someone. We might be able to disarm them with the right kind of bot," Marny said.
"Nothing we can do right now." Pete slumped into a chair, defeat on his face. Oberrhein was taking his life's work away - again.
"So, what? We hunker down and wait for our supplies to run out?" Tabby asked provocatively.
"Hotspur doesn't have any problems moving around. We could retreat to Léger Nuage," I said.
"That's what they want," Nick said. "Did anyone really think we wouldn't have to fight for what is ours?"
"We're seriously outgunned," I said.
"We don't have to outgun anyone," Ada said.
She was the last person I expected to step into the conversation. I wasn't alone in my surprise, as the whispered side conversations stopped and the room grew quiet. We all looked at Ada.
"Space is big. All we need is a forty minute head start and even the Adela Chen can't be caught," she said.
"What are you proposing?" Silver asked.
"We make an ore delivery. If you count Licht's pile, we're two-thirds full," she said.
"Don't you think they'll want that back?" I asked.
"No. I already asked Selig," she said.
Things began to click in my mind and a plan began to form.
"Nick, does Belirand buy ore for Tipperary credits?" If we were going to be in the Tipperary system very long, we needed the local credits.
"They do, but it looks like they're charging a fifteen percent premium. We can offset that by buying supplies there. Belirand's price on fuel, O2 and most supplies are actually better than what we got in Sol - as long as you're trading for ore," Nick said.
"What do you think about Ada's idea, Marny?" I asked.
"We'd have the element of surprise. We just need a good distraction," she said.
"Silver and I could sail the tug," Dad said. "It's not like we have anything else to do."
I caught Ada's eye and could tell she wasn't interested in being left behind.
"What about mining? I'll make you a pretty good deal if you'll work for me," I said.
Dad laughed sardonically. "Ouch. You'd be my boss now?"
"Nothing like that. We need the co-op hollowed out and someone to man the control room. How about you cut me in for twenty percent of the net on the ore you mine and work with Marny to keep the perimeter secure," I said.
"We could do that," Pete said, sitting up straighter.
"Aye. I already consult with Pete on station security. It'd certainly free me up to travel," Marny said. "Plus, Oberrhein won't be expecting us to leave so soon. It's a risk, but then what isn't."
It had been a long day, although I couldn't imagine sleeping. "Dad, you can take over Sterra's Gift or build a habitation dome, really it's up to you. If you could make
sure that Muir doesn't run out of food, that'd be good. He doesn't like to talk much, so I don't think he'll bother you," I said.
"So, it's a plan?" Tabby asked.
I looked around the group and realized they were waiting for me to make a decision.
"It is. We set sail in three hours," I said.
"Don't you think you all should get some sleep first?" Mom asked.
"I couldn't sleep right now if I wanted to. Tabby and I will load fuel and consumables for both ships. Nick and Marny, can you check Mom and Dad out on station security?"
"What about me?" Ada asked.
"We need a navigation plan that gets the Adela Chen out of the belt as quickly as possible and a meetup spot for Hotspur," I said.
With tasks handed out, the meeting broke up.
Tabby and I arc-jetted to the top of the asteroid and grabbed a grav-sled. We'd use it to move fuel to the ships.
"I've a bad feeling about this," Tabby said, as we picked up our first load of fuel and flew over to Hotspur.
"A bad feeling about this trip? That's not a hard call," I said.
"Not just the trip. Something feels off and I can't put my finger on it," she said.
"What? Aside from being named an enemy of one of the two nations we've come in contact with in the system?"
"It's more than that. Tell me, why would Belirand pay to have us come out here, just to put the squeeze on us? We have one of the few ships which can transport ore. It's like they don't want Terminal Seven to get built."
"Maybe Oberrhein doesn't. That doesn't mean Belirand doesn't," I said.
"So you're telling me that Belirand, the company that runs TransLoc terminals in four solar systems, isn't smart enough to figure out that Oberrhein is a threat? How many billion credits do you think they've got at risk?" Tabby asked.
I didn't have an answer. She had a good point, though. We'd seen Belirand's fleet and it was hard to imagine any small country wanting to tangle with them.
"Who's riding with Ada?" Tabby asked.
"Probably me," I said.
"Yeah. I don't think so," Tabby said with a finger on my chest. " Ada can sail Hotspur just fine. I'm not taking another two week trip by myself."
Buccaneers (Privateer Tales Book 8) Page 17
