The Knockabouts

by DK Williamson

  A few minutes later, the giant and Mech were bent over the work surface, Ord armed with a thermal cutter, Ho marking the sever point with a designator and illuminating the job with a light.

  Ord pushed the blade through the cable, a tiny wisp of smoke rising from the seared cable insulator. He picked up the length of cable and passed it to Ho. “How close are we?”

  The Mech looked at the cable, measuring it via his photoreceptors. “Well under a Standard millimetunit length. Thirty-five more to the same tolerance.”

  Ned walked into the workshop carrying a small roll of fine opticable he’d pulled from the common room’s vid deck. “We won’t have vids to watch until we fix the set, but we have our cable.”

  “You think this will work?” Teller asked.

  Jessop shrugged. “If it doesn’t, we’ll have to go to one of the stations or Tagamo.”

  “That’s risky, is it not?” Ho said.

  Teller curled a lip. “Sure is. We can change the transponder, but considering we drew a cruiser from Syndic space here… I’d imagine any vessel that has even a passing resemblance to the Lance is going to get eyeballed very hard for awhile. We could hide on this polluted rock and create a new breed of Human, but I doubt Urs wants to give birth to the next step in Human development, so that thing better work… for her sake.”

  “It will work or it won’t. If it fails, we’ll have to consider something else.”

  “Will work,” Ord said without looking up from his task.

  . . .

  “We’ve recovered the second body, Swift. Confirmed that it is Lieutenant Bates, flying Swift-Three.” the pilot of Swift’s launch said. “Proceeding to the next point.”

  “No transponder signals?”

  “Negative, Swift. Swift-Three and Swift-Four are the only ones whose transponders were squawking.”

  “They’re headed our way,” Teller said. “Let’s hope Miz Launch Pilot isn’t too keen on scraping the planet for proof of our demise.”

  “They won’t find us here,” Jessop said. He watched Ord and Ho assembling the makeshift disseminator. “Worst case, they’ll think we put the planet between us and them and slipped away.”

  “Swift, we’re over the site. I see no bodies or even body parts. There is debris on both sides of a ridgeline. I see the engine bank from one of the fighters, but it appears all three ships over here were torn into little pieces. We’ll run some scan passes over the area.”

  “Any sign of the ship they were pursuing?”

  “I believe so. No large pieces, none bigger than that of the fighters. I wonder if they might have collided. There is debris strewn over a wide area and it’s difficult to discern it from older refuse.”

  “You might have something there. The energy event points we detected were in close proximity and within a very small time span. A freighter is mostly empty space anyway if they don’t have a load aboard.”

  “We’ll scan. It will take awhile.”

  . . .

  “Everything is in place,” Ho said. “Should I replace the cover panel?”

  “No,” Teller replied. “If you do, you’ll have to take it off again when it doesn’t work.”

  “You have so little faith in our abilities?” the Mech said with a cant of his head.

  Teller laughed. “It’s not that. It’s spacer superstition. Leave the panel off, everything will work fine and you’ll have to return and close it up. Put it on, and you’ll have to take it off again to fix whatever is still wrong. It falls into the Spacer’s Luck category.”

  “And you believe in this, Spacer’s Luck?”

  “When it suits me. Considering our current situation, I’ll take what we can get.”

  Ned watched the readout on the front of the Raker Effect generators. “Looks like it’s working, Tell.”

  “The luck or the fix?”

  “Both.” He shook his head. “How in the great blue blazes you did that….” He turned and looked at Ord and Ho. “Magic, fellows.”

  “You make better?” Ord said.

  Jessop was puzzled by Ord’s question for a moment, then he smiled. “Maybe. Let’s see if I can work a little magic of my own. But first, let’s let the ship’s diagnostics give it a pass.”

  “While you do that, I have some interesting information to relay,” Ursula said holding Feng’s data pad.

  . . .

  “Feng has… had, a meet set up already,” Ursula said.

  Ned looked impressed. “Confident, wasn’t he?”

  “Who is the buyer?” Teller asked.

  “Feng didn’t mention it. There is a party he was to meet four days from now on Turgis Station. I don’t know where that is.”

  “Hadley system, I think,” Teller said. “The astrogation system will have it.”

  “You are correct on the location,” Ho said. He turned to face Ursula. “Do you still favor this course of action?”

  She nodded. “I do. Little has changed save for Feng no longer being a part of it. I’m not comfortable with going to the media people. That seems a very unpredictable venture. Maybe as a last resort. I favor pursuing Feng’s contact. It’s business… of a sort. I know that field.”

  Teller stood. “All right. We’ll go that route unless something changes.”

  “What might change?”

  “Speedwell’s people might find something. That’s our next stop.”

  “Can we make it there and then to Hadley in four days?”

  Teller nodded. “Unless the cruiser decides to hang around for a few days or the repairs to the Lance take longer than that.”

  “I looked at the data Feng had. It appears to be what he said it was. Mostly in-group discussions, snippets of them fretting over the shortcomings of the program. There are two mentions of means to deal with the issue, but no details.”

  “We know what the means were,” Teller said. “We’re living with them.”

  . . .

  A woman’s voice broke the silence on the cruiser’s communications link.

  “Launch, Commander Farr here. Any indication our quarry might still be on the run?”

  “None, Commander,” the launch pilot said. “We have parts strewn over a wide area that supports the supposition of a collision between Swift-One, Two, and the freighter. Pieces of all three vehicles are evident.”

  “Then we can conclude our mission shortly.”

  “I think you cleaned up, Commander. That Feng character was confirmed dead on the station, and if the bounty hunter had the case… I’d say you’ve tied it up quite well.”

  Teller rolled his eyes. “What a suckup. She’s got her head so far up the commander’s nozzles that I’m surprised she can breathe.”

  “We did well. Just four losses, but mission accomplished.”

  “A brilliant plan, Commander. Such audacity, and fighters and fighter pilots can be replaced.”

  Teller burst into laughter. “She’ll have stars on her collar before she’s through.”

  “True. It was a simple yet flexible plan, lieutenant. Once we discovered this Throckmorton was closing in on Feng, it was just a matter of execution. Follow him, find Feng, and he’d lead us to the murderers from Commerce Station. It was simply good fortune it happened so quickly.”

  “Fortune favors the bold, Commander.”

  Teller placed his head in his hands. “She’ll get elected the leader of Boddan-Three. That’s weapons grade brown-nosing we’re listening to.”

  “This operation required boldness, lieutenant. Entering Confederation space was a necessity. Perhaps necessity precipitates boldness.”

  Teller stood and shook his head. “I’d bet the people of Boddan-Three have no idea of the caliber of people they have serving them. I’m going to the latrine. It’s a more productive endeavor than listening to that.”

  “Launch, this is Swift Control. Return to Swift immediately. A Confederation of Planets task force just exited slipspace and is headed our way.”

  “Affirmative, Swift
. Launch returning.”

  “So much for boldness,” Tell said pausing at the command deck hatch. “Let me know if Swift’s CO follows Throckmorton’s example.”

  . . .

  “There will be an inquiry concerning your incursion, Swift,” the commander of the CoP task force said. His unit, with its pair of heavy cruisers and accompanying vessels, had Swift at a tremendous disadvantage. He knew it, as did Swift’s skipper. The only issue that remained was how the incident would conclude.

  “And we will be found to be justified in our actions, Archer. Mass murder and a dire threat to state security should be sufficient reasons. Surely you must be aware of the situation.”

  “As a matter of fact, I am not, Swift. Nor do I care. This is not Syndic space and your actions risk a great deal. You will return to Syndic space immediately.”

  “We will comply, Archer. Our task is finished.”

  “We’ll tag along to make sure you have a seamless transit.”

  Teller sighed loudly from his pilot’s seat and stood. “We can depart in a couple of hours. Now it’s just a question if we can make slipspace.”

  “A couple more passes in the diagnostics and we’ll be set,” Jessop said. “We’ll be slower producing a field with but one generator and a less efficient disseminator.”

  “Will work,” Ord said.

  Ned smiled. “No doubt about it.”

  . . .

  Jessop looked at the results from the latest diagnostic run on the Raker Effect generator system.

  “I can fine tune this when we start producing a field in space. I’m estimating I can get six percent more efficiency with a few adjustments. Never had to assist in the construction of a disseminator before, even when a ship like this was my place of employment.”

  “How long did you crew these?” Teller asked.

  “A little over three Standard Years.” He paused in thought. “Served on five different birds, but the last was the best. The PFS Dagger. Two years I spent with her. She earned a name for herself.”

  Ord grunted. “Ned helped earn this, yes?”

  Jessop smiled. “I did my part. She’d been in service for a long time before I crewed her. Since well before the insurrection. Sound ships are best I think.” He turned his seat to face the panels at his station. “Can’t tell you how many hours I spent in a position like this.” His right hand gripped the work surface, his thumb flattening on the upper surface as he squeezed.

  Teller noticed. “That where you picked up the habit?”

  Ned turned to look at the pilot. “Habit?”

  Teller pointed. “Gripping the work surface like that.”

  He laughed. “It was a nervous tic that became a good luck ritual. I actually wore a groove into the bottom of the surface on the Dagger. Served aboard her long enough to manage that.” He stopped and looked around the command deck, dormant memories swirling as they came back to him. “We took down the Kuntur over the Caseus Moon. Nine sloops taking on a front-line cruiser from the Empire Fleet.” He grimaced and shook his head. “Suicide they said, and they were right. We were just trying to buy time, but somehow we managed to kill the Kuntur. We lost six of the nine sloops we started with, but we did it. Dagger took down Kuntur’s port engine bank. She carried a laser turret up top, and a pair of longitudinal coil guns, all spitting with everything they had. It was Kuntur or us. We had the coolers in the bay running at full bore to fight the heat generated by the weapons, spools of slug ammo drums rotating back there with a steady clack, clack, clack…,” he said living within the memory for a moment, then he paused with a look of sadness. “That was the killer for her. Slotted into a gap in her fire coverage while she was killing two other sloops… punched a shield and then the engine bank. Kuntur’s shields went down, half of her weapons went offline… it was over.”

  Ord pointed at the station. “We rebuilt command deck. Before, under top, there was a groove. Work surface needed replacing, so it is gone now. Shaped like hook,” he said, demonstrating the shape with his own finger.

  Ned’s brow furrowed as he swiveled the seat to face the station’s display panels. He grasped the flat work surface, thumb on top, index finger under. “Here?” he asked over his shoulder.

  “Yes.”

  He snorted and shook his head. “Dog my hatch. I’d like to think the Dagger was still operational, but maybe I wasn’t the only engineer that did that.”

  “You remember her tail ID?” Tell said.

  “Of course. She was my home for quite some time. She was my bird. What good would it do? The factory primary registration plate is gone. I noticed that when I did the walk around on Maelstrom.”

  “Yes. It was long gone when I took possession, so they gave her a new registration ID. She still carried an identity code on the vertical stabilizer. Black script on a sky blue band.”

  “All Prausian ships were marked in such a manner. The likelihood this is the Dagger is remote.”

  “Sure it is,” Teller said as he punched keys on the panel in front of him. “What was your old crate’s code? I have it recorded.”

  “L-Eight-Nine-dash-Seven-Five-Seven-Five.”

  Teller punched more keys on the panel and looked at the display. He raised an eyebrow. “Take a look,” he said with a point.

  Jessop stood and leaned over to see the screen. L89-7575 blinked on the readout. “That’s it!” His eyes welled with tears as he fell back into his seat. He patted the work surface beside him. “You always were a lucky bird,” he said in amazement. He glanced at Tell and Ord in embarrassment, wiping his eyes. “An engineer doesn’t believe in luck, but a crewman on a warbird sure as Hades does. This girl saw me through a war. You keep crewing her right and she’ll see us through this.”

  “That says much,” Ord said. He pressed a wide palm on a bulkhead. “Lance is tried and trusted. This is a truth Ord has suspected for much time.” He patted the bulkhead and went aft.

  “What did he mean?” Jessop asked with a jut of his chin at the hatch.

  Teller waved a hand dismissively. “Ord’s from a backward world. They practice animism of some sort.” He rolled his eyes. “You know, ‘this hammer good hammer. This hammer friend.’,” he said mimicking Ord’s voice. “That kind of thing. Primitives. He’s like that with his weapon too. Now I’ll have to put up with him treating this crate like she’s alive.”

  Ned smiled. “Ex-mil spacers like us know better. Gear is gear.”

  “Right.”

  “You never thought of your aerospace fighters like that.”

  “Nah, course not.”

  Ned stood and walked across the command deck, stopping at the edge of the hatch opening, patting it. “Just a piece of equipment,” he said with a smile.

  Teller rubbed the panel in front of him. “Yeah. No spirit in the machine. Silly to think otherwise.”

  “Ludicrous.” Jessop patted the edge once more.

  Both men laughed.

  “She’ll see us through,” they said simultaneously.

  . . .

  Teller eased the Lance from the mine entrance and the imposing processing machinery outside. Once clear, he lifted the ship well clear of any hazard using repulsors and hovered in place.

  “Anything on sensors?”

  “None,” Ord said.

  Ned and Ho echoed the giant.

  Teller looked over his shoulder at Ursula. “Do a scan pass.”

  “System finds no threats. Routine space traffic, but Tagamo and the space stations are on the other side of Sessler-Four presently.”

  “We’ll keep it that way. They think we’re dead. If we wanted to sell the cases and take up new lives, now’s the time.”

  Ursula glared at him. “You can’t be serious.”

  Teller smiled. “Just wanted to put it out there.”

  “Well, I’d like my old life back.”

  The giant growled from his copilot’s seat. “Ord wants to fight. Wants to beat those that wronged us.”

  Teller laughed s
oftly, and then his expression hardened. “You and me both, pal.”

  “I share that sentiment,” Ho said.

  “As do I,” Jessop said.

  Ursula nodded. “Include me in this as well.”

  Teller nodded, then grinned. “We’re just a pack of idiots ready to take on the whole galaxy, aren’t we. Let’s get out of here.”

  He advanced the thruster controls and ARC Lance made for space, then pushed to clear the gravity well.

  “Since we’re deficient on the time it takes to produce a Raker Effect field, we’ll trim a little off by pushing up the velocity. Orsto’s not a populated system so our velocity coming out of slipspace won’t scare any traffic or station controllers. Let’s start producing an RE field,” Teller said.

  Ord activated the system. “Building field.”

  Ned, Ord, and Teller watched their displays.

  “I can make a few improvements,” Jessop said as he went to work. A minute later, he sat back and said, “Seven percent efficiency gain.”

  Teller glanced at the engineer. “You guessed six.”

  Jessop grinned and said, “Old engineer’s trick regarding repairs. Overstate the time or degree, grumble about how it’ll take a miracle, say you’re giving it all you have. Then, tell’em you have it fixed just before the deadline, wipe your brow, and add in a ‘if it’ll just hold together’ for extra drama if you wish. When they pat you on the back and tell you what a tremendous engineer you are, you finish it all off with an ‘I was just doing my job.’ It’s in the manual.”

  Teller laughed. “Let’s go find Speedwell.”

  . . .

  Malcolm Speedwell was an underground legend. An off-the-grid shipbuilder, tech, mechanist, engineer, designer, salvager, and more, he was rumored to be one of the most wanted beings in the galaxy. A pirate, some said. A builder of illegal ships said others, but never defining exactly what an illegal ship might be. Whatever his background, he employed a band of highly capable beings and used portable structures that could be erected or torn down rapidly, plying his trade from out of the way places. Always prepared to pack up and move in no time, Speedwell had evaded capture for decades.