Dirty Deeds

by Mark Wandrey

  “So you mean to go through with the rest of it? Jesus man, half your hand was shot off!”

  “Shit happens,” Murdock said and went inside to get the rest of his gear.

  “You’re fucking nuts,” Orlan said when he came out.

  “Not the first time I’ve been told that, and it won’t be the last.” He slung the bag over his shoulder and pointed at the mast. “Keep it on for at least two hours. If I don’t come back, call Atlantis and talk to the police. Explain what happened here so they know what to expect.”

  “What should they expect?” Orlan asked suspiciously.

  “Probably some kind of reprisal, unless I can finish the job. So wish me luck.” Not waiting for a reply, Murdock swung over the side and lowered himself into the pirates’ boat. He needed to finish what he’d started.

  * * * * *

  Chapter Eleven

  Murdock flexed what was left of his right hand and scowled. All those years killing aliens and getting paid, and he got half his fucking hand shot off by pirates—Human pirates. Oh, he was seriously pissed off now.

  He smoked the cigar like it was his last as he got himself down into the boat, then had to get the crew of Shell Game II to assist with lowering his gear. The medic provided him with a fistful of painkillers to help. The nanites repaired a lot of damage and stopped bleeding, but they didn’t heal you completely. The big problem was the chopped-up hand; it would require surgery to be usable, even at a reduced level.

  “Had to be the right hand,” he grumbled as he stowed the gear in the cockpit of the boat. Outside, the fishing boat crew was busy rolling bodies over the side. They were less grossed out than he’d expected them to be. Murdock guessed it was the combination of gutting fish for a living, coupled with the fact that it was the deaths of the murderers of their friends. All told, that made it more of a necessary task than a horrific event’s aftermath.

  While they took care of the mess, including dragging the two head-shot idiots from the cockpit, Murdock went about investigating his new boat. The holes in the cockpit glass he’d made by ventilating the former crew’s brains were less than ten square centimeters each. The glass was actually high-density polycarbonate material. It was another bit of evidence supporting his theory. He examined the control systems then looked for the maintenance kit.

  “You sure about this?” Captain Orlan asked from the door to the craft’s cockpit.

  “Sure,” Murdock said.

  “It’s a little crazy, you know.”

  “I’ve done worse.”

  Orland chuckled and shook his head. “Why am I not surprised? If you make it back, I’m buying the first round.”

  “I’m holding you to that,” Murdock said, and Orlan turned to leave. “Hey, Cap’n?”

  “Yeah?”

  “Tell Sheela I’m doing this for her and Shannon.”

  Orlan nodded and left.

  Murdock found the kit he was looking for in a storage locker. It was just as extensive as he’d thought. It would take a little work. So instead, he went out onto the rear deck just as the last of the fishing crew was climbing back aboard their own boat. He could see others up on the sides repairing battle damage. It was a tough boat, and the wreckage didn’t look too extensive.

  “Ready to cast off!” he called up. The captain was back on his bridge wing, silently watching Murdock. He waved to the captain, who saluted him in reply.

  Murdock ran a quick survey of the rear deck, confirming none of his laser fire had done more than superficial damage, then returned inside. The basic controls were simple enough. He brought the hydrogen fuel cells online, powered the main propeller, and set slow ahead.

  As the boat pulled away from Shell Game II, he read the instructions on the repair kit and applied patches to the window. It took a few minutes to trigger the high-temperature curing process. When he was finished, the window was as strong as it was before, with only two spots of visible distortion where the repairs were installed.

  He throttled up to three-quarters power as he continued to examine the controls. On a small bank of monitors he watched Shell Game II falling away to stern. The pirate boat was fast. Enjoying the speed, he found the controls and engaged the hydrofoil. The craft sped up to more than a hundred kilometers per hour, and he smiled a little as he worked with the computer.

  “They left waypoints,” he said and laughed, “how helpful of them.” Murdock engaged the computer’s autopilot and set about getting ready.

  * * *

  Lucius liked his job, most days, and he was well paid to do it. It involved a lot of sitting and waiting, though, which wasn’t his favorite part. He needed intel to do the job right, so he used some of the credits he was given every month to pay for it. He’d rather have gathered most of it himself, of course. However, situations often didn’t allow you to run an operation the way you wanted to.

  Lucius’ employers had sent more than one team to accomplish their goals; he knew that much. He got some of his intel from the other team, as well. Most was second hand, purchased from the team members behind its leader’s back. They were paid pretty well, too, but hey, it was never enough, right?

  The problem was the team had stopped talking. It was abrupt, and a little worrisome. Lucius had risked sending someone into Atlantis for news, which was how he’d found out the other team had gone quiet because they were fucking dead. All of them.

  Briefly he considered calling it quits and looking for greener pastures. A good scam on Earth or any of the small outlying colonies didn’t pay as well. It also didn’t have as much of a risk of ending up dead. He didn’t know the other group leader, only that Skees had hired them. She believed in being thorough. Of course, all Veetanho believed in being thorough. The little rat bastards were more like wolves in that way, he guessed.

  “Report on squadron status?” Lucius ordered his comms man.

  “Nothing,” the reply came right away.

  “How long since last contact?”

  “Two hours.”

  Lucius chewed his lower lip and thought. Should have just bugged out, he thought yet again. Only, what was the chance the same crew who’d taken out Grayson would also come for him? It wasn’t uncommon to lose comms with his raiders when they’d gotten far enough out. Not always, though. He usually maintained a signal with at least one of them, and they were never out of comms for two hours.

  “Inform the engine room to stand by,” he ordered.

  Then the comms man spoke up again. “Contact with Skiff #2!”

  “Report,” Lucius said, leaning forward in his seat.

  “They’re only replying in text. They say they were attacked by a gunboat! All other craft lost.”

  “Damnit!” Lucius cursed. “I knew it was something like this. Stand by to recover the last skiff. As soon as its aboard, we’re getting the fuck out of here.”

  “Engine room acknowledges, standing by,” comms said.

  Lucius watched impatiently as the last skiff came into sonar range. It was coming in at an odd angle and he wondered if it was damaged as well. He guessed they were lucky to get back alive at all. Then it stopped a few dozen meters away and just sat there.

  “What the fuck is that idiot doing?” Lucius asked. Nobody had any answer. “Give me visual.” A camera was turned on to show the skiff floating on the surface above them. There were no evident signs of life on board. “Signal them to submerge and dock.”

  “No response, sir,” the comms replied.

  Lucius cursed again. Maybe the skiff had damage to its ballast system. The submersible skiffs were the secret to his success, and the reason the stupid, feckless Valais locals had been unable to locate them, no matter how hard they’d looked. His modified freighter had ballast tanks and they simply stayed submerged a few dozen meters below the surface. “Send the message again.”

  “Still no response,” was the reply a moment later.

  “Surface the ship,” Lucius finally ordered.

  The modified freighter
broke the surface and bobbed in the gentle swells. As soon as it was fully buoyant, the main small craft bay door swung up and the nearby skiff moved toward it. Lucius used his captain’s controls to focus a camera on the skiff. Damage was immediately evident; laser burns on the open flank and bright splashes of red. Blood, he thought. Jesus, what happened out there?

  The skiff was just entering the small craft bay, so Lucius got up and jogged out of the bridge to meet it. Skiff #2 was commanded by Doug Park, one of his more reliable lieutenants. If he’d come back with his tail between his legs, the shit must have been real. He reached the bay just as the hull reverberated with the sound of the skiff’s docking. He pressed the ground-side lock cycle, and the bay door slid open immediately. He strode inside.

  Up close, the damage to the skiff was even more evident. The main forward windscreen was repaired via a field-expedient fix-kit. He shook his head as he went over and pressed the release button, which swung the skiff’s cockpit door open.

  “Park,” he yelled as the door was still opening, “what the fuck happened out there?” He froze as he saw a man standing in the cockpit—who wasn’t Doug Park. A big human holding a laser rifle and smoking a cigar.

  “I happened,” the man said, exhaling smoke, and he shot Lucius.

  * * *

  Murdock watched the man step back in surprise as he burned a hole through his abdomen. By the way he stumbled and fell, Murdock guessed the guy’s spine had been hit as well. Sucked to be him. The person hit the deck, letting out a surprised gasp as he landed, and put hands over the smoking hole in his abdomen.

  “You aren’t Park,” he said incredulously.

  “Oh?” Murdock asked. “Figured that out, did you?” The former merc bent over the gut-shot man and gave him an efficient frisking. “Not armed? What kind of pirate are you, anyway?”

  “This is just a job,” the man said through gritted teeth.

  Pain must be hitting him finally, Murdock thought. “Yeah? Well, this is justice.” He shot the guy between the eyes and moved off to see who else might be aboard the ship.

  Someone must have realized something was wrong, because the first corner he turned, there were two guys with machine pistols. Unfortunately for them, they didn’t have the guns up and ready. Probably on safe, chamber empty, he scoffed silently.

  Murdock fired from the hip, using years of instinct with a weapon. The first shot pinned the guy on the right square through the center of his chest. His rifle was a chemical laser, like all man-portable lasers. It only fired a five-kilowatt beam, just a tenth of what the skiff’s mount did. That might not seem like much, but a well-attenuated five KW beam of the right frequency could melt through a one-centimeter steel plate in a couple of seconds. The hapless pirate’s chest wasn’t a steel plate. It speared him like a bug on a pinboard.

  Laser energy wasn’t clean; it imparted heat. A lot of heat. As it passed through the man’s chest, it flash-boiled flesh and organs all along the wound channel. The end result was a wound channel just as massive as a high-powered rifle, if not as messy. The man gave a stunned little “Oof,” and fell face first to the deck, a good portion of his heart cooked medium rare.

  The second man was shocked for a split second, then brought his machine pistol up. To Murdock’s amazement, it began spitting lead. Color me surprised, he thought as he took a step to the right, shifted aim, and fired again. He felt a hammer blow to his chest, which caused his aim to be a bit off. This guy caught the beam through the side of his chest.

  The wounded man screamed in agony as his lung was partially cooked. He slowly dropped to his knees. Murdock moved forward, his left hand sweeping his chest before holding it up into his view. No blood; the armor had done its job. Flexible light combat armor was usually effective against small arms fire. Usually.

  He wasn’t in a forgiving mood. Coming up next to the man just sitting back on his knees, Murdock kicked the pistol out of his hand and knelt in front of him. He couldn’t be more than thirty. He had that ‘this can’t be happening’ look all tough guys get when you shoot them.

  “How many?” he asked.

  “You s-shot me,” the man said, gasping for breath. “Can’t b-breathe.” As he spoke there was a gurgling sound from the burnt front of his jacket.

  “Yeah,” Murdock said, “sucking chest wound. Probably a collapsed lung. How many more of you on this tub?”

  “Will you help me?” the man asked.

  “Sure, tell me how many?”

  “Twenty-five,” he said and gasped in pain. Murdock got up and walked down the corridor. “You said y-you’d help!” he cried piteously.

  “Oh, right,” Murdock said, half-turned, and shot him through the back of the head. “Feel better now?” The man fell with a thump, a rasping final exhale his only answer. “Twenty-five,” Murdock said and checked the shot count on his rifle. His right hand was starting to throb again. Ten shots left in the magazine, one more twenty-shot mag in a thigh pouch. He’d used a lot of ammo in the initial ambush. He had other weapons, sure, but the laser rifle was just so damned effective in this environment. No bouncers or bullets ricocheting off walls. To make matters worse, the cigar was used up. He dropped the tiny stub on the floor.

  With the first asshole he’d shot, the guy in charge if he guessed right, and the two just then, Murdock pegged the count at 22 pirate scum remaining. The laser was next to silent, just a high-pitched whine from each shot. The problem was the last punk had gotten a burst off, and the rest were sure to know the shit was going sideways. As if on cue, a buzzer started sounding and red lights flashed all down the corridor. Yep, he thought, now it gets fun.

  A doorway at the end of the corridor started to slide open. Murdock raised his laser rifle and used the sight to target the first man who ran out. A single shot through the side of the head put him down. Another man was one step out when the guy Murdock had just shot jerked and a smoking hole appeared in his head. The second man instantly reversed back into the doorway before Murdock could get a sight picture. He moved the rifle to where the guy would be behind the door frame, slid the power control up, and squeezed the rifle’s trigger.

  The weapon gave a much higher-pitched whine and he felt a flash of heat from the combustion chamber as the double-powered shot went off. Ten kilowatts of energy was enough to melt through the doorframe and the man hiding behind it. There was a gasping cry and the man fell forward into the corridor, rolling onto his side to put a hand against the burnt hole in his stomach.

  Murdock started to trot toward him, planning to just crush his head with a bootheel, when the man started fumbling for a weapon, forcing Murdock to put him down with another shot. Total of four charges expended, with only two down. Yeah, he wasn’t going to have enough laser ammo. Fuck.

  Murdock let the rifle hang from its sling as he rolled the dead asshole over and took the weapon he’d been reaching for, a piece of shit ninth generation Glock-89 in 11mm. Just like the gen one shit out of Austria, a lot of newbie mercs bought them when they couldn’t afford a Ctech, or they just bought into the hype from all the Tri-V advertisements. He grumbled as he stuck it in an oversized pocket on his old uniform pants. Better than nothing, I guess.

  The deck where the hangar was situated seemed about midline on the converted freighter. Since it wasn’t a warship, that meant no CIC. Combat information centers were overkill for a ship this small without major offensive capabilities. It would have a bridge, way above the waterline as it floated. He hadn’t looked for it on approach because he didn’t want to appear too obvious. Murdock simply had no clue what kind of sensors the thing had. His best bet was taking the bridge and then going from there.

  Since the leader had been stupid enough to come and let Murdock kill him, the survivors would lack cohesion. Point in his favor. However, they knew the layout, and that they were under attack. Two big points in their favor. He figured most of their hard hitters had been on the skiffs, and if the four he’d whacked so far were any indication, that was a f
act. Things just about even out, he thought.

  Murdock checked out the room the two had come out of. It was a galley. Two partially eaten meals sat on one of six available tables. An older model autochef was installed in one wall, and a smaller cooking alcove complemented it. Autochefs were good for a quick, light meal. They didn’t do well at feeding two dozen hungry crewmen, though.

  Not in any hurry, he went in and explored a bit. There was considerable dry-goods storage, which was less than half full. In addition, he found a pair of large freezers built into a wall. One held a little frozen meat from Human colonies, the other was full of local fish. He grunted as he closed the freezer and turned to go. That was when he heard a low moan.

  Murdock turned and trained his laser rifle on the source; a cabinet he guessed could contain cooking implements. His finger tensed on the trigger stud, then relaxed. The cabinet wasn’t big enough for a full-grown man. He moved closer and used a foot to push the sliding door aside. A boy no more than ten was cringing amidst the dozens of pots and pans. He was curled into a ball, hands shielding his head, and trembling in fear.

  “What are you hiding in there for, kid?”

  “I saw you kill Pete and Orlan, and figured I’m next!” The kid’s English was perfect, despite his obvious fear.

  “Your father one of these scum?”

  “No sir,” he said.

  “Then why you here? You work for them?”

  “They wrecked my family’s mining ship. They killed everyone except me. I’m useful, I guess. Captain Lucius has me cook, clean, and I’m small enough to get into the air vents and clean them. But I can barely fit now. Some of the men have been joking they were going to blow me out into space when I can’t fit no more.”

  Now that he looked, he could see the kid was both malnourished and sported numerous bruises. His eyes were sunken into his skull, and he had the haunted look you only saw on men much, much older. “Fucking slavers, too,” Murdock growled, “that’s just awesome.” He spoke to the kid again. “How long they been here?”