Retribution Required

by C. R. Daems

  I took an empty seat at the bar and found each seat had a built in computer so you could view each of the registered devices, view previous battles, and make wages. Multiple monitors hung on the wall behind the bar, giving a view of the ongoing action in the arena.

  What will you have, Spacer? asked a tall good-looking man. He appeared to have a mechanical arm and half his face looked like metal. I noticed all of the help appeared to have mechanical body parts.

  "Whatever local beer you have on tap," I said.

  "Anything else?" he asked when he returned with my beer.

  "Where can I find Mr. Tuitt?" I asked. Surveying the room, I could see no one who stood out as a likely owner or boss.

  "Mr. Tuitt is probably in the contestant’s area." He nodded to a hallway with a sign over the arched entrance reading: Contestants Only. "But you need a pass to get back there."

  "Can you let Mr. Tuitt know Zenaida is here to see him?" I asked. He turned and spoke low for several seconds before turning back to me. "Mr. Tuitt will meet you at the Contestant's entrance."

  As I approached the area where two well-armed guards stood, a young man appeared wearing black slacks, a white silk shirt open at the neck, a steel gray vest, and a metal skull cap that looked like the real thing.

  "Good evening, Pilot Zenaida. It is indeed a pleasure to meet you. At the Ranch you are indeed famous. And I personally owe you for giving me the opportunity to buy the Ranch." He extended his hand. His smile was welcoming and his eyes twinkled with a child's enthusiasm.

  "I like what you've done with the Ranch. In my opinion, it's a marked improvement."

  "Technology saved my life when I was a child and gave me my own personal computer," he pointed to his head, "so it became my hobby, obsession, and business. People like to gamble, to be entertained while they do, and love to watch things being destroyed. And so the new Ranch was born."

  "My delivery doesn't seem to fit that model." I usually wasn't interested in how or why my customers used what I brought them, but my curiosity overcame me. He smiled.

  "Good news, bad news situation. My implant saved my life. Without it I would have been a vegetable—good news. With it however I have trouble with reality—bad news. The drug we are discussing has the opposite effect on me as it tends to on others, it stabilizes me and offsets most of the bad side effects of my implant."

  "I'd be careful. That medication is worth a lot of money and worth killing for."

  "Yes, it's very expensive but worth every credit and, as you can see, I can afford it." He waved to include the entire facility. "Come, let's retire to my office." As he marched down the hallway we passed a large open area where people were working on machines of every shape and size. At the end he pressed his hand against a plate beside the door and his eye to a small window and the door slid open. When we stepped inside the door closed. He then spoke or rather sang part of a song in a language I hadn't heard before, and a door opened into a large comfortable room which looked to be multifunctional: to relax, entertain, and work, judging by the desk, comfortable chairs, couch, electronic equipment, and small kitchen and bar. Several monitors were active: activities in the contestant's area, the main facility, and outside perimeter. I nodded to a door I hoped was a bathroom. He nodded.

  When I returned I handed him the pouch of Black. He smiled. "Thank you. He usually sends only small amounts and sometimes it gets lost or delayed." He typed something on a tablet, part of the wall opened, and a large safe appeared. After he stored the kilo he gave me a long appraising look. "I would pay you a bonus to deliver my medicine on a regular basis."

  "Isn't it dangerous, even with all your security, to have this much on hand?" I asked. That kilo of Black must be worth a fortune, based on what I was paid to deliver it.

  "No. My doctor mixes it with other drugs, negating some of its potency and significantly reducing its value."

  "I'd like to provide you a regular supply, however I'm afraid if word got out I’d have every thief and customs agent hunting me."

  "Too bad. Stay and enjoy the activities. Charge everything to me."

  "That's very generous, but I need to get back to my ship."

  When I arrived back Kraig was still gone. I checked and, sure enough, someone had been on my ship. I couldn't resist a look since there hadn't been anything marked for Lietzow. Inside the second missile compartment I found a package addressed to Captain and marked Dacca in Kangi and Urgent printed in red letters. That was thrice interesting: how did they know I was going back to Dacca, Captain appeared more like it was intended for the Raiders than the Black Hand, and what could be Urgent? If it were to the Raiders, then logically it had to be information concerning the raids or…ACS…or AIA…or us!

  * * *

  "You look like you've been up all night," Kraig said when he entered the galley early the next morning.

  "That's because I was," I said, nursing a beer for breakfast, one of five since finding the new contraband. I nodded to the package sitting on the table.

  "New delivery?" he asked, picking it up and examining it.

  "Bimbo to the Raider Commander via the Black Hand."

  "What system is this symbol?"

  "Dacca!"

  "How did they know—"

  "I was given a high priority delivery about an hour ago. Guess where."

  "Dacca," Kraig said, his eyes gleaming with excitement. "That means we were right. The base is somewhere in the Dacca system, probably one of the five uninhabited planets or an asteroid or moon orbiting one."

  "I think we should see what's inside," I said.

  "You think it's about us?" Kraig asked, frowning at the package. "I doubt it. Could be a trap to see if you know about the missiles. It might not be about us, and we could blow our cover since we will have to damage the packaging to open it."

  "Only the sender knows what the packaging looks like. For that matter, only the sender knows he sent it. The Captain doesn't."

  "So if it's about us it could save our lives. If it isn't it could cost us our lives," Kraig said.

  "That about sums it up."

  "Let's think it over on the way back to Dacca," Kraig said

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  Star System: Somewhere is Dacca space.

  "If you're right and the Raiders didn't have to stop for urgent repairs, we should only have a two-day wait," I said as we sat in the galley having breakfast. I had parked the Tykhe at the extreme edge of my electronic detection equipment from the exit point to enter Dacca space. The last thing I wanted was a pissing contest with two Raider cruisers. Killing us would be cheap. Given we managed to get away, repairs to a starship wouldn't.

  "With seriously wounded and major ship damage, I would imagine they will want to get back to their main facility as soon as possible. I wish we could get close enough to determine how much damage the ACS cruiser caused," Kraig said with a faraway look.

  "I'm not that curious, thank you. If they have wounded and dead they are going to be in an ugly mood. And in reality, what difference does it make?" Yes, it's satisfying that the good guys caught the bad guys in the act, saved the system's civilians, and killed some bad guys…but in the process, hundreds of military personnel died." I paused for a mouthful of the crepe I was eating. "The bad guys will recruit replacements and the military will activate more personnel and life will go on as before—nothing will have changed."

  "That's very cynical," Kraig said, frowning in my direction.

  "If you live on the Rim long enough it's clear man's greed makes good and bad a never-ending cycle. Never ending because good and bad are constantly changing," I said before continuing to eat.

  "Good doesn't change!" Kraig said emphatically. I laughed.

  "Thou shall not kill…" I looked at Kraig, waiting for a response. Eventually he nodded through narrowed eyes. "Except when you are in the military and told to kill. Except when you think someone is trying to kill you. Except when the government thinks someone may be a danger to the count
ry." I looked to Kraig, who didn't say anything. "Bad is anything the government makes illegal. That's fine except the laws aren’t the same in every system or, in many cases, within the various governments in a system. Therefore what is legal or illegal varies so its illegal except on such and such planet. So good changes by place, time, and who is in power."

  "I'm talking about basic good and evil," Kraig said with frustration in his voice.

  "Fine, give me a basic good and evil." I said, actually interested. "We've already concluded killing isn't inherently evil."

  Kraig switched tactics. "So smuggling isn't wrong."

  "Since all drugs aren't illegal in all systems, maybe it's the laws that are wrong—" Just then the communications suite went active, indicating a disturbance. "Two ships…they look like cruisers," I said, looking at the control panel.

  "The timing is right for the Raiders," Kraig said, his face flushed with excitement. "Can you tell where they are headed?"

  "I think the outermost planet, Motif."

  "Then we know their location!"

  "Not really. Motif is a gas giant, however it has seven or more moons and an asteroid belt.

  "If we can find their location we will have completed our mission and you will be a rich woman and free of any obligation to the ACS."

  "You're suggesting we follow them?" I asked, close to hysterical.

  "Not exactly. Determine their vector, wait a day, and then get closer. The Easy Trader should be arriving soon. If we can determine its vector we should know which moon."

  "Given we aren't discovered," I said, although I liked the idea of being free of the AIA and, by extension, the ACS. And if I were careful… "All right. I'll wait twenty-four hours then approach on the same vector at minimum power. If the space gods aren't in a playful mood we might get lucky."

  * * *

  A day later I positioned the Tykhe on the same vector as the Raider's cruisers, then cut all but essential power, hoping to look like just another random object in space. For the next two days we slowly approached Motif. Based on my calculations, given we began following the vector twenty-four hours later and at a significantly reduced speed, the Raiders appeared to be heading for either one of two moons: M314 or M194…or one of a thousand asteroids in the ring that circled Motif. It was difficult to tell as the asteroid ring obscured a good view of the moons from this distance and the Tykhe sensors are in passive mode. Motif had seven recorded moons but there could be other smaller ones.

  "Shit!" I shouted, as I scanned the sensor information. "The Easy Trader is approaching."

  "That's what we wanted," Kraig said, his voice rising with excitement. "We will at very least know if the Raiders have a base on one of the asteroids or a moon and if a—"

  "You don't understand. They are on the exact vector we are and started from a point very close to where we did. They are going to all but run into us."

  "They may not be paying attention and mistake us for a stray rock in space," Kraig said and shrugged. "After all they are a merchant ship not a war cruiser."

  "Sure, a merchant on a routine approach to a Raider installation carrying Raider crew. Why would they need to be alert? They will be using passive sensors so as to be less visible but they will have their best operator on duty and when they see a rock on the same vector, they are going to go active. And in active mode we aren't going to look like a rock."

  "How long?"

  "Maybe an hour. They are coming in close to max acceleration, around four hundred gravities versus our twenty-five. We have a life and death decision to make. Assume they aren’t paying attention or their operator has a hangover and they miss us, or run for the asteroid belt and hope we can lose them or see if we can destroy them."

  "Why destroy them? We will lose the opportunity to see where they are going. They won't know who we are."

  "Not precisely, since I'm not broadcasting our identification but they will know the class of ship, which will narrow the search… I think it's time to open that urgent package. It may help with the decision."

  "Or not." Kraig said. His priorities and mine were poles apart at this moment. His was to save the ACS and mine was to save me…and Kraig.

  "Kraig, open that damn package. We don't have time to debate our options and what is in that package may help us decide."

  "Or not." Kraig gave a genuine laugh as he opened the package, took out a flash drive, and inserted it into the control panel's input. "You were right. The sender, no name, indicates AIA has an agent, again no name, working with a merchant, also no name, to locate the Raiders. Suggest you use the Black Hand to identify and eliminate."

  "Interesting, the package was given to the Black Hand to deliver to the Raiders but was through their ACS resources. That means you have a leak. Not high up enough to know our names but high enough to know the mission."

  "No. I think reporting to Colonel Sherman. She wisely decided to withhold our names when she discussed the mission. That makes me wonder if the Raiders don't include at least some ex-ACS personnel."

  "That doesn't help me decide what to do about the Easy Trader. At our current rate we will reach the asteroid belt in fifteen minutes but the Easy Trader will catch up five minutes before that. If I accelerate beginning now we could reach the asteroid belt ten minutes ahead of them. In the first case they may not identify us but in the second case there is no doubt," I said, having decided to run for it. "Forget it. They just went active so it's no longer a choice."

  The acceleration pushed us back into our seats as the Tykhe's engines kicked in before the compensators adjusted to the sudden change.

  "You aren't intending to enter that asteroid field at this speed," Kraig said, watching the acceleration rising past one hundred gravities.

  "Can you handle the missile panel?" I asked. The Easy Trader just fired two missiles. And no, I expect to enter the field at maximum acceleration so I need you to concentrate on the incoming missiles. They don't intend to let us leave."

  "Got it," Kraig said, clearly comfortable with the responsibility. I nodded as the Easy Trader changed course, removing all doubt about their intention. Four minutes later we entered the field at three hundred gravities and were racing past rocks of all sizes from baseballs to small cities.

  "Missiles destroyed, chaff sent one off course the other hit something," Kraig announced. "They appear to be Sidewinder class missiles in the mid-price range. Good if your opponent’s electronic countermeasures aren't military grade. Our upgrade should be able to handle them normally. However in an asteroid field, the rocks and debris do somewhat degrade their capability. Two more incoming." Kraig laughed. "ECM isn't necessary with the evasive measures you are having to take to keep from slamming into one of those asteroids. It’s a miracle you haven’t hit one yet.”

  “You can thank my father. We had regular training sessions in asteroid fields. He said it would be the easiest way to lose a pursuing enemy whether merchant, Raider, or cruiser. Consequently, periodically he would detour to an asteroid field and we would practice for days: running with and against the rotation and hiding. It was a fun time."

  "If I hadn't been busy with the ECM I would be bald and probably need a heart transplant," Kraig said, looking a bit pale.

  "The Easy Trader is slowing," I said, smiling.

  "Shows they’re sane."

  "I'm going to park the Tykhe as soon as we get enough distance between us. Get a couple of missiles ready in case they find us. If not, maybe we can follow them to wherever they are going."

  "Aye, Aye, Captain." He waved a salute before turning his attention back to the weapons panel.

  "Now we wait," I said fifteen minutes later when I thought we had put enough distance to make it next to impossible to track us. Slowing, I matched speed with an asteroid the size of a small town, landed, and cut power to little more than life support.

  "My heart thanks you. Your father was a very smart man," Kraig said as I cut the engines.

  "He was but he underestimat
ed his enemy. That got him killed and me their virtual camp whore to be used at will."

  "Sounds like a lesson in that."

  "Yes, never assume you are smarter than your opponent no matter how clever you think you are and how stupid you think him," I said with tears in my eyes. I loved my father and if he hadn't tried to outsmart the Black Hand we would be together now, free of the ACS, the Black Hand, and not playing tag with Raiders.

  "Good advice. What’s the plan now?"

  "Live to see Colonel Sherman." I smiled. "If we can destroy the Easy Trader I think we may live to see her." I closed my eyes and shook my head in frustration. "I think we're in real trouble. One of the Raider's cruisers has joined the search. Which means the second one is around someplace."

  "New plan?"

  "No. We have to destroy the Easy Trader or return to the ACS and retire."

  "And how do you plan to do that?"

  "We've little choice except to sit tight, hope one of those ships doesn't find us, and wait for the right opportunity."

  "That's a great plan." Kraig gave a snort. For the next hour we sat waiting. When nothing happened I turned the sensors on passive for a few seconds every five minutes. After an hour I concluded there were no ships in the area.

  "They are either lying dormant waiting for us to move, or they have expanded their search and are a long gone," I said. "But it doesn't matter. We have to find the Easy Trader." I activated the engines and slowly rose off the asteroid and watched the passive sensors for any activity.

  "Damn it," I swore as the sensors detected a cruiser's active sensors a thousand kilometers ahead. "At least one was powered down, waiting. I pushed the engine control to full power and the Tykhe responded and the acceleration began to climb five gravities per second.

  "Shouldn't we be going in the opposite direction?" Kraig asked as I zigzagged through the asteroids but in the direction of the cruiser.

  "Kraig, fire when ready," I said, then a second later, "now!" I shouted since Kraig appeared momentarily frozen. His head jerked back to the weapons board and fired a second later, just as the cruiser fired. The difference was the cruiser was stationary and the Tykhe was accelerating. As we sped by I immediately steered right, passing behind a large asteroid, causing their missiles to lose track. Our two missiles hit.