by A. D. Bloom
They jogged through as quickly as possible and after another set of hatches, they were inside the command tower of a Staas Company built frigate. "The blue paint is from this sections days as part of UNS Hedge." Samhain felt safer now; he didn't have to constantly fight the urge to put his helmet back on once he took it off.
It was only a few strides to the lift, and from the moment the doors opened, Samhain was struck by how much the bridge of Absolom resembled the bridge of the Company Cutter he'd been piloting less than three days ago. The NAV console was the same unit as was Tactical, OPS and the others, but in more than one place, Shediri chairs had been welded to the deck next to the human chairs. The biggest difference was the captain.
Before he rose to politely greet them, Samhain couldn't see the Absolom's captain, but looking at the back of his chair and the back of his head, the coldness and ruthlessness of his mind's machinations reached Samhain like the sound of a great-geared machine grinding too close for comfort.
The ship's XO strode past them to the tactical console as the captain rose and turned. In a single moment he seemed to somehow glance into both their eyes. "I'm Hank Devlin." He said it like he wasn't proud of the name, but it didn't stop him from smiling at them after that.
He looked too young to be Ram Devlin's son. He had scars, but no wrinkles other than where he'd been burnt. For some reason his hair had turned white as a young man. His eyes were bright. They glinted with something sharp and dangerous like broken glass.
Another detonation rocked Absolom, this time from the port side. Samhain looked out the bridge's windows to port to see what was left of a plasma-wave breaking over the side of the ship. A few more Ks out, rapidly expanding distant flashes and cascading nebula blooms marked detonations of the same weapon that had missed them with the omnidirectional burst of hyperaccelerated plasma it generated on detonation. Those were warship-launched, anti-ship mines.
"It's a very low-yield fission device with a casing made to convert to plasma," Hank Devlin said. High energy scatter from surrounding dets shot through the fast-expanding clouds like sparking rain. "The plasma from the L-mines they're launching in wide spreads is what's hitting the hull, of course. Apparently, a pair of Staas Cutters were nearby and running quiet when we picked you up from the Andrea Laguna. Our getaway wasn't as quiet as I would have liked. Our ships have all split up and we will escape, but if there's any more traps ahead and either of you know about them, then it would be a very good idea to tell me as you'll note the weapons they're using do not and will not discriminate between privateers like ourselves and Staas Intelligence's 4SI Operators." Samhain and Scilla both blinked at Hank Devlin with blank expressions. "That's you."
"I have a message for Ram Devlin," said Samhain, immediately regretting it.
The captain held a hand up, gloved palm facing him as if to deflect his words. "Not four days ago you were on a Company Cutter. And as a bridge officer no less. I think maybe they're running low on fodder at 4SI. And who are you again, miss?
"I'm Scilla Price."
"Adventuress extraordinaire," added the XO as a det flashed to starboard and Absolom shook from a slamming wave of plasma.
"You're Mr. Samhain's posh lady friend that likes to volunteer for kidnappings...For some reason I keep thinking I know you."
"It's not as impossible as you think," she said, and Samhain saw her shine reflect off Hank Devlin's eyes. "Don't you remember?" He wanted to scream for her not to try it with this man, but there was no time. She said, "Remember when you left our dear Haverford School without saying a word. No little farewell note. Nothing. You and I were only eight at the time, but a girl's heart breaks easily that young. I certainly didn't forget you. Besides the hair, you look the same to me."
For the briefest moment the Captain's eyes softened, but the sharp glint returned. He didn't twinge, but he increased both the speed of the and the level of dispassion in his speech at the mention of his distant past. He glanced back and forth between them. "I'm not going to trouble my mind with all the questions the two of you raise. For the record, I could not help but deduce that you, Martin Samhain were a trap of some kind the minute I heard of you. I didn't want to detour here to steal you. And now that I have you, I'd like to simply toss you out the airlock, but my father has other ideas. He thinks you're worth an absurd amount of risk. Is he right about that, Mr. Samhain?"
"I don't know."
"That's the first honest thing either of you have said. Is the artifact made by the Weirdlings as powerful as Gellanden believed?
"Again, I don't know."
"Staas Company killed him because he destroyed his data and irretrievably erased his own memory. Did you know that?" Without waiting to observe a reaction, Hank Devlin turned from them abruptly to his XO. "Please escort our two guests to compartment 16b. Since my father isn't here, you can put them in his quarters. Place a guard on the door."
6
ICV Belle Tiger, Alcyone System
Ram Devlin left Biko and Split Aces in the outer Alcyone system and rode home on Belle Tiger, a 400-meter freighter like a hundred others in the lanes. She'd come through the transit from Danae, on the far side of the system where the Ekkai homeworld currently orbited. Joined stations and shipyards ringed it like a reef, orbiting over the icy hydrocarbon oceans under which the Ekkai lived, but with the exception of the patrol boats, most of the clams' home fleet remained hidden to the hauler. Belle Tiger's arrays had no hope of cutting their stealth without a string of proxies to provide multiple views with parallax.
The Ekkai didn't worry him. Random stops by Staas Company Cutters were what they had to watch out for. That came hours later, when they'd rounded Alcyone and began to close on the third planet.
"They searched us recently," said Captain Fabian. "I hope they remember that." He turned from Ram to the front windows of his bridge and addressed his next words to the crews of the Staas ships between them and the third planet. "You remember when you stopped us and searched us two days ago? The fear of Staas Company and almighty god is already in us, lads, no need to oppress the locals any further. Take a half-day and put in for beers."
Ram said, "If we're lucky, they'll hear you and you won't have any Company trouble from this run. I'll be gone before the customs inspections on the pads, of course. You can't breathe easy yet, but soon I think."
"A little extra sweat is all it is," said Fabian as the ship's NAV console displayed the positions of three Company Cutters on patrol. "They'll cross about half-a-K in front of us if we don't change course."
"Think they mean to board us?"
"They're just trying to spook us," said Fabian. "But we're just little old Belle bringing in a load of TP and solar cells, don't you mind us Captain Cutter, you've got other business."
The ten-centimeter long ships projected over the NAV console spun together like compass needles until they pointed behind the Belle Tiger, to a bigger, 600-meter hauler with a transponder that flicked on and off every few seconds like it might be using a spoofing device.
Devlin said, "Is that one of your friends on the ship back there behind us with the blinkard beacon?"
"I'll never tell," said Fabian. "But we aren't just hauling TP, I've got an entire hold full of contraband on this boat. Half of it is going to jump ship same time you do."
Fabian's XO said, "Besides commercial and Shediri traffic, it's clear skies from here all the way in. And the Shediri won't bother us of course. Hrt'ee the Usurper likes her beefsteaks too much. We bring her the best."
Before Ram entered Belle Tiger's cargo bay, Captain Fabian dismissed the pair of sailors his XO had detailed to launch their contraband cargo to its recipients. They ran that part of the operation mostly on automation anyway because the timing, the aim, and the force of the launch were so critical.
Once he passed through the secondary locks, the knuckledragger suits had already moved the first of the three, 7-meter shipping containers onto the accelerator. They would launch before him. Alcyone's r
ays made the surface of the containers on the rails shimmer with iridescence that played over Fabian's suit.
"I know it looks a little sparkly for a stealth coating, but these containers Hive Hr'tee made for us are perfect for the transfers. The chitin has something in it that frequency shifts what it can't absorb so far-away arrays with a narrow return frequency range miss the reflection. Looks just like regular noise in a Staas Company array."
The planet and all its orbiting stations and shipyards and fabrication shops and foundries hung high in the upper right corner of the Belle Tiger's open bay doors. The pale blue constellations that moved against the background were Staas Cutters and patrol boats. He'd never seen so many buzzing around the planet at once. He counted fifteen in three squadrons.
Captain Fabian said. "I'm a businessman. Keeping that many ships around Otherworld to interdict indie exports of minerals and metals from Otherworld costs the Company more than it saves them in business lost to indie operators. Why do they do it?"
"The Company is prepared to pay what it takes to eliminate local competition before it begins. Did you have to dump anything when they came aboard two days ago?"
"We'd already sent the Shediri containers ahead. When they got us all we had was made-for-export garbage we keep in the holds just in case. Need any earth-made bamboo umbrellas?"
"You're hauling bamboo umbrellas? There's bamboo all over that planet now. Don't we make any umbrellas you could export?"
"Of course we do. The legal cargo is for appearances. Captain Fabian of the Belle Tiger must appear to care only about the money or I'll look like some kind of radical or a potential troublemaker. Once they've pegged me for a rebel, you can forget getting free rides and free steaks out of me after that."
Two minutes later, Ram use his helmet's visor to zoom in and get a clear view of the Shediri vessel almost 5000 Ks off the Belle Tiger's starboard side. It had the dazzle-camo of a military vessel. The stripes never bothered Ram's eyes, but to a compound eye that judged motion by the transition from light to dark and vice versa, the black and white stripes made a thing seem to be coming and going at the same time. The curve of their bow bulged with the drive coils. She ran quiet, tilting the space in front of her until it contracted and then riding the slope of the standing wave. It was almost as fast as classic Newtonian thrust engines and a lot harder to spot.
Ram made a point to stay out of the way of the four-meter mechs that lined up to place the 2nd and 3rd shots on the launching rails after the first fired. "How long?"
"Bout a minute until we send out the beef. Then, it'll be your turn. I already preset the variables on that slimjim gas belt for you. I don't recommend you actually use it for flight corrections, just the landing. They're pulse projecting a grav field in their bay to make the catches and they're used to catching bigger things than you. So be prepared for gees."
"Right."
Captain Fabian turned his visor to Ram and Ram saw himself reflected in the man's helmet, warped and distorted. "We're ready, Mr. Devlin."
"I thought the containers were going out first and then it's my turn."
"No. I mean my crew. We're ready for what's coming. We're ready for it to happen."
He couldn't just stare off into space and try not to give anything away. Ram was forced to meet Fabian's gaze and say something. "That's good to know. I can't sa-"
"I know you can't tell me. You know my bridge crew, but you don't know the rest of 'em. I got 25 privateer vets on this ship and all of 'em were throwaways to the Company. There's only one thing they want to know. Is it soon?"
"Sooner than you think."
The accelerator bars fired and the first of the containers turned to a dark, rainbow shaded blur as it leaped out of the Tiger Belle's bay. It diminished in size so quickly that it effectively vanished. The mechs loaded the second and third of the stealthed containers filled entirely with sides of beef the Shediri would age to delicacy. As always, he hoped they knew enough not to offer a human any. The bugs aged meat like crocodiles, holding it under water in a warm salt brine for weeks.
"You're next, Mr. Devlin," said Fabian. "Step up to the rails just for aiming purposes, please."
Ram stepped up the half-meter to the top of the mag-rails and the blocks of shielding that served double duty as structural supports. "Against the rear block. That's where we measure the distance from."
"This look right?"
"Perfect. My XO did this once. He said it was a fun ride."
"Oh." Fun means a lot of things to a lot of people, thought Ram. "Didn't your XO pilot assault fighters once?"
"Yeah. Liu is nuts. Godspeed, Mr. Devlin. The belt is going to fire now. Brace for 5 second jet at 80%. You will launch on my mark in...3...2...1...mark."
He was driven forward with his hands and feet trailing behind until the bay fell away on all sides and the starry blackness surrounding Otherworld engulfed him.
55 meters per second, his suit said. It flashed the number in the upper left corner of his visor, but now, his limbs had caught up and unless he turned to watch the Belle Tiger shrink or zoomed in on the ship that would be in front of him when he crossed its path, there was no point of reference close enough to tell his eye he was moving, only a feeling of speed that spacers detected by a tingle of thrill in their bones.
Aboard the ships that ringed it and on the planet itself were thousands and tens of thousands just like Fabian and his crew, discarded veterans of an endless war. Some had volunteered and some had to choose between fighting for the Otherworld Legion and rotting in a cell, but all of them had expected more from the company after their service had ended. Some would have served unto death had they not been replaced with younger recruits from a new population surge across two human planets.
In the lillypad archipelago of construction docks and fabrication foundries a new squadron of destroyers perched eagerly for launch, almost straining at their struts. Soon, crews would cut the umbilicals and steam them out to fight, but they wouldn't be commanded by officers from Earth. When those ships launched, they would have rebel captains and crews and they'd probably have to launch under fire.
He'd been planning it ever since he heard a dozen destroyers would be built here. All of his people would have to do their jobs and do them well to pull this off. The plan was a set of interlocking dependencies just waiting to fail if his trust in any link of the chain had been misplaced.
High over the off-color skies of Otherworld, he could make out two of the main continents below and blue-black oceans. His eye found the lights of New Madras and the smaller cities. The Legion's citadel on the coast of the Northern continent twinkled with the launch flares of another squadron. Down there, he was trusting in the Otherworld Legion's NCOs to take control without spilling the blood of their Company officers. The Legion's ranks had been drawn from the prison colonies;when control changed hands it had to be bloodless or it would look like a prison riot to Earth.
If he screwed this up, millions might die in the conflict. If he did nothing, they'd die slower, exploited by Staas Company as cheap and inexhaustible cannon fodder to be thrown at the endless war against the Imperium that demanded ships and men daily, both of which Staas sold. Preparations were almost complete. Very soon, there would be nothing to do but trust in his people. He crossed his arms over his chest and closed his eyes, basking in the wild tingle of blind motion in his bones as he hurtled towards the Shediri vessel.
Ram Devlin's path intersected with that of the Shediri boat and his organs tried to jump out of his body when he landed in the projected gravity field they used like a net. Thankfully, the Shediri had been kind enough to modulate it as he approached so it wasn't still projecting the force required to stop a shipping container.
The cargo transferred from the hauler had been moved to the side by a squad of Stripeys, and as they shut down the field, Ram came under their local gravity and fell to the deck, landing on his feet.
The bay doors began to close over his head, locking him
in the dim, red-lit interior of the Shediri ship as the chitin on chitin sound filled his ears inside his helmet. It came over the local suit comms channel and it was the sound of Shediri beating their chests in salute. When he looked right, he saw Ix framed in the oval hatch, miming the human gesture of applause with all four of his hands, the two sets coming off his torso clapping together.
Inside the Shediri's helmet, he saw the jaw moving as the bug swayed at him, and translated words spoke in his ear. "Ram Devlin is a side of beef," the Shediri said, chatter-clacking for emphasis of surprise.
The joke didn't really translate for Ram, but the Stripeys in the bay all made that keening noise that signifies group recognition of a kind of linguistic or situational significance they call humor like an irony or a pun or homonym. It was probably another joke about how humans look just like a mammal the Shediri farm for protein. Ram said, "Interrogative: Shediri invite (verb) to dine. Action is truth."
That comeback must have translated well because the Stripeys listening in keened before Ix did and the former 'Ambassador to War' of fallen Hive Kesik led the bugs in a brief chest thump that resonated through their suits to their microphones. "The sons of Kesik do not eat our own."
The domed ceiling of the chamber they brought him to just inside the locks was covered in whiptails. The prehistoric-looking, purpose-made creatures hung in the redlit dim, pumping out oxygen to refresh the ship's largely neon atmo. He sat on one of the bugs' seating mounds arranged in a circle for conference, though only Ix himself sat opposite.
As the lighting panels flickered and leaked charge into the glowing atmo, they handed him the cis'tik-kt, the bitterness to drink to salute them. Ram Devlin and the six Shediri raised the little horns full of inky fluids together and honored each other with the awful taste. It always tasted bitter like pale bile to Ram because it tasted like the opposite of whatever you'd grown to like. The whole point of it was to show what you'd go through to honor them. He'd gotten used to this game. His face curdled every time, but the bugs didn't mind that as long as you didn't puke it up.
