Take The Star Road (The Maxwell Saga)

by Peter Grant

  "Very well, Pilot, make it so. Communications, make the usual arrival signal to System Control, repeated for information to the vessels at the beacon."

  Feeny passed the beacon's co-ordinates from the ship's sensor suite to the astrogation computers. Steve knew that gyros would be precessing as he did so. Slowly the ship's heading began to change in the horizontal and vertical planes as it took up its new course.

  Volschenk took off his headset, unclipped his harness and stood. "You're currently Officer of the Deck, right, Pilot?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "Very well. I'll be in my office. Call me fifteen minutes before we make rendezvous, or earlier if anything requires my attention, particularly any signal from that patrol vessel. You have the conn."

  "Aye aye, Sir. I have the conn."

  The Captain left the bridge, striding briskly down the passage. Steve knew he'd be checking their manifest one more time against the First Mate's offloading plan, and preparing for all the mundane details of their arrival at yet another destination. He suddenly realized that this would be the thirteenth planet he'd visited since joining the ship, and couldn't help thinking to himself, I hope it isn't unlucky thirteen for me! He shook his head at his silliness. Don't be dumb! There's no such thing as 'unlucky thirteen'! That's an old wives' tale!

  The next hour and a half were occupied with a leisurely approach to the navigation beacon. Cabot ambled along at a leisurely pace - so leisurely that Steve was puzzled.

  "Why are we heading towards the rendezvous so slowly, Sir?" he asked.

  Feeny smiled. "Remember, our rate and duration of acceleration has to be matched by our rate and duration of deceleration. If we go rushing over there at full throttle, we'd have to turn the ship when we were halfway there and decelerate at the same energy level, in order to arrive there at rest. That puts extra stress on our drive and power plant for no good reason. It makes more sense to cruise over slowly, without storing up kinetic energy that we'll just have to bleed off again. If we had to be there by a certain time, that would be different; but we don't."

  "Oh. I see."

  "Those two merchies probably - wait a minute, what the hell's going on?"

  Feeny's voice rose to a shout as he stared at the three-dimensional Plot display. The smaller of the merchant ship icons was suddenly highlighted by a spray of smaller dots moving away from her at very high acceleration, headed towards the patrol craft. They were followed more slowly by four larger icons. Two of them headed for the second merchant ship, and two started towards Cabot.

  Feeny lunged for the command console, flipped up a cover and held down a button. Alarm klaxons resounded throughout the ship as he reached for the microphone. "Emergency stations! Emergency stations! Captain to the bridge on the double!"

  "W - what's going on, Sir?" Steve gasped, dumbfounded.

  "Those are missile launches!" Feeny snapped as he twisted around. "That merchie's not a merchie at all. I'm betting she's a pirate! She must have approached the rendezvous all sweet and innocent, as if she had a cargo to deliver to Rosalva, then decided to wait until other ships arrived before launching her attack, to get richer pickings." Even as he spoke, he was entering commands into the navigation computer. Obediently Cabot swung away from the rendezvous, now only a short distance ahead, and began to pick up speed as the drive went to full power.

  Captain Volschenk burst into the bridge. "What's going on?" he demanded.

  "I think we've run into pirates, Sir," Feeny said, pointing at the plot. "Looks like missile launches, followed by boarding parties."

  Volschenk cursed bitterly as he ran to his console. "You're right. That patrol craft hasn't even moved yet! With reactions that slow, they're dead meat."

  As they watched the plot display, the spray of small dots narrowed, concentrating as it approached the patrol craft's icon. Suddenly the plot showed small sunburst traces, and the tiny dots and the patrol craft disappeared from the display with shocking abruptness.

  "W - what were those, Sir?" Steve asked.

  "Warheads exploding," Feeny replied absently as he continued to enter commands. "The patrol craft's been blown out of space. There are no lifeboat or suit beacons, so there probably aren't any survivors."

  The Communication desk suddenly advised, "We're receiving a tight-beam signal from the direction of the rendezvous on the international distress frequency, Sir."

  "Put it over the speakers!" Volschenk demanded.

  The operator at the console pressed a button.

  " - stop at once! I say again, this is Johann de Bouff. I've wiped out that damn patrol boat, and both of you merchies are now my prisoners. Don't try anything stupid, or I'll kill every one of your crews - slowly! I've got the legs of you in my ship, so you can't escape, and you're both within missile range. Don't take to your lifeboats, or I'll blow them out of space! Two of my cutters will board each of you. Resist, and you're dead! Surrender, and you'll be ransomed. Acknowledge! I say again - "

  "Shut the bloody thing off!" Volschenk snarled. Obediently, the Communications rating silenced the broadcast.

  "There's not a damn thing we can do about it," Volschenk said bitterly. "He's too close, and we're moving too slowly. He'll be faster than us, because he's bound to have installed a more powerful drive in his ship. He - wait a minute! Did he say he was de Bouff?"

  "Yes, Sir," Feeny said.

  "Oh, shit!" Volschenk looked desperately around the bridge, and his eye fell on Steve. "Maxwell! I've got a very urgent job for you."

  He grabbed Steve's arm as he hurried over and dragged him to the bridge door, bending close to speak softly in his ear. "Listen carefully. Bosun Cardle overheard something in a spacer's bar some years ago, and passed it on to the authorities. It led to the arrest and conviction on piracy charges of Johann de Bouff's eldest son, Jan. He and his crew will be breaking rocks on a prison planet for the rest of their lives. De Bouff senior swore he'd find and kill the Bosun for that. When he learns he's aboard Cabot, he's as good as dead meat.

  "The Bosun will be at his emergency station, which is the Damage Control console outside Hold Four. I daren't broadcast a message to him, or use radio, because all internal traffic's recorded. If de Bouff finds out I warned him, he'll kill me too. I want you to run like the Devil was at your heels! Tell the Bosun what I've just told you. He's to hide somewhere - anywhere! I'll do my best to conceal his presence as long as I can, but once they examine our crew roster they'll know he's here, and they'll come looking for him." He pushed Steve hard out the door. "Why are you still here? GO!"

  Steve raced down the passage, heart pounding in his chest as he looked frantically for the stairs leading down to the vestibule of Hold Four. He hurtled down them, and found the Bosun at the desk. Tomkins was with him. They looked up as they heard Steve coming.

  "What are you doing here, Maxwell?" Cardle snapped. "Why aren't you at your station?"

  "Message from the Captain!" Steve hurriedly relayed Volschenk's message as he gasped for breath, and their faces turned pale. "You've got to hide, fast!"

  The Bosun swore violently. "They're sure to find me, dammit! They're spacers too. If they know I'm aboard, they'll rip the ship apart searching for me."

  "Not if they think you're dead!" Steve blurted out. The other two stared at him wide-eyed.

  "What do you mean?"

  "Jettison a lifeboat! They've warned us not to do that. De Bouff said he'll blow out of space any boats that try to escape. Let him do that, then have the Captain tell him you were aboard it. If they think you died when they destroyed it, they won't look for you."

  "He's got it!" Tomkins enthused. "Bosun, hide in a cargo shuttle. Engineering's just brought them online, and fully charged all their systems. They carry a week's emergency rations for a crew of four. They've got spacesuits, independent life support systems, and full toolkits - those might come in real handy."

  "Yes," Steve agreed, "and what's more, I'm coming with you!"

  Cardle snapped, "Don't be a da
mn fool, Maxwell! I'll not have you risk your life along with me! Let them take you prisoner. The Merchant Spacers League will ransom you."

  "Like hell! You might need to get away from the ship, and I can fly a shuttle if I have to. Their piloting systems aren't much different from a cutter's - it's just a much bigger craft. Besides, you always said two heads were better than one!"

  "He's right!" Tomkins agreed. "You need Maxwell. I'll stay here as senior Bosun's Mate to act in your place. We can tell de Bouff that both of you were aboard the lifeboat, so Maxwell won't be missed either. All our lives are at risk, anyway - de Bouff's slaughtered crews before, and you know it. That's what earned his eldest son life on a prison rock, remember? The only reason they didn't execute him was that they couldn't prove he'd personally ordered the murder of prisoners, or killed any himself. I'll tell the skipper what you're doing. Launch Lifeboat Nine, near the stern behind the docking bay. It's only a short run from there to the cargo shuttles. I'll tell the Cap'n to watch through the security systems and lock them from the bridge once you're inside. Find someplace to hide once you're aboard."

  "All right. There's no time to argue anyway!" The Bosun held out his hand to Tomkins. "Look after my spacers."

  Tomkins shook it, then Steve's. "Good luck, both of you. Now let's get moving before their boarding party arrives!"

  They rushed up the stairs to the main passage. Tomkins turned forward towards the bridge, while Steve and the Bosun headed aft towards the docking bay. Steve turned towards the stairwell leading to the lower docking bay where the cargo shuttles were docked, but the Bosun ran past him. "Open a shuttle and wait for me!" he called over his shoulder. "I'm going to release Lifeboat Nine!"

  "I'll grab some of the emergency supplies from Shuttle Two and take them to Shuttle One. I'll meet you there."

  Steve burst through Shuttle Two's airlock and headed for the emergency locker in the bulkhead beyond it. He wrenched it open, hauled out a bulky container of emergency rations and two boxes of one-liter water canisters, and slammed the door closed again. As he did so he felt a deep thump! shake the shuttle. He realized at once that the Bosun had activated the lifeboat's ejection systems from its external control panel. He'd just felt robotic arms thrusting the small craft clear of the side. It would now be drifting away from the ship's stern, broadcasting its location on an emergency frequency, automatically powering up its micro-reactor. The pirates were sure to pick up both its beacon and its gravitic drive emissions.

  He grabbed an emergency toolkit from the rack, then dragged everything back through the airlock and over to the other shuttle. The Bosun was waiting at the airlock.

  "I'm here, Bosun! Tell the captain to lock us in!"

  "Hang on - you've left some drag marks." He helped Steve carry the supplies into Shuttle One. "I'll just clean up quickly."

  He disappeared back through the airlock, and returned within minutes. "There's no sign of us being in here now."

  As he spoke, an amber light illuminated over the airlock and its inner door slid shut. Steve knew Captain Volschenk must have activated the remote locking systems from his command console. The airlock's outer door would be doing the same thing, and the process would be repeated in all the other small craft - the shuttle alongside theirs, the two cutters, and the captain's gig. The light changed from amber to red, showing that the airlock was now sealed.

  Both of them were still breathing heavily from their long run down the passage. The Bosun looked at what Steve had dragged aboard. "That was a good idea, getting those supplies. Looks like there's another week's worth there for the two of us, and we can make what's already aboard stretch for two weeks if we have to. One way or another, this'll be over before we run out of food and water."

  "The lifeboat?"

  "It's gone. By now they've probably blown it to bits. Let's hope they don't try to salvage anything, and discover there was no-one inside. That would be awkward, to say the least!"

  "Hey, pirates don't have the reputation of being the sharpest knives in the drawer. If I was de Bouff, I'd be too busy crowing about having got you at last, and calling you a coward for trying to run from him."

  "Let him! If he thinks we're dead, he won't look for us any more. That suits me just fine! With just a little bit of luck, we'll find a way out of this mess. While there's life, there's hope, as the old saying goes. Now, let's figure out where we're going to hide in case they search in here."

  "Then what?"

  "No need to make up our minds in a hurry. I can access the ship's systems through the pilot console here, if you'll set up that circuit for me. We can listen and watch, and find out what they're going to do next. Once we know that, we can make plans."

  They observed through the ship's security cameras as forty armed pirates came aboard from their two cutters, fanning out through the ship, rounding up the entire crew and confining them in one of the utility rooms. The Bosun was able to maintain his link to the ship's systems without the pirates evincing any concern about it.

  "They think I'm dead," he pointed out, "so even if they notice an active user account in my name, they'll assume it's because I didn't log out before I took to the lifeboat. The same applies to you. Since everyone in the crew is accounted for as far as they're concerned, why should they worry?"

  "Won't they try to shut down our accounts?"

  "I wouldn't, in their shoes. In the first place, it's unnecessary - we're dead, remember? Secondly, they don't know our systems very well. If you start mucking about with one user account, you can contaminate others before you know it. Remember, they've got to take this ship somewhere to dispose of her, or they don't make any money out of her. They won't do anything that might mess up her systems before they've done that."

  Once the crew had been locked up and the pirates assigned to their posts, the leader of the boarding party, whom they'd heard the others address as 'Styles', radioed his boss. Steve and the Bosun listened intently through their connection to the ship's systems from the cargo shuttle.

  "We're all set," Styles reported to de Bouff. "No trouble at all, apart from those two idiots who tried to run."

  "Yeah. Damn that Cardle! I wanted to watch him die slow and screaming, not have him get off quick and easy like that!"

  "Sorry, Boss - we didn't know he was aboard. You said to blast any lifeboat that tried to get away, so we did."

  "Not your fault. At least the bugger's dead! How soon will you be ready to jump?"

  "We need another hour for the drive to cool down from the last jump. The capacitor ring won't be fully charged, but we can go five or six light years in any direction to throw off pursuit, then recharge it in peace and quiet. Any sign of interference from the System Patrol?"

  "There's a patrol boat headed this way from the planet, but it's still more than half a day away. We'll be long gone before it gets within range. We'll meet you at the rendezvous two days from now. Constandt will be joining us there, too."

  "I'll see you there, Boss. This looks like a real nice ship, and she's fresh out of an overhaul and refueling. Did you get the cargo manifest I sent across?"

  "Yeah. Nothing we can sell in a hurry, but I'm not too worried about that. We may keep her for ourselves if she's as good as you say. I'll decide once I've checked her out. Look after her in the meantime! The other freighter's got some cargo that'll sell quickly, so we can make a fast buck out of her. At the rendezvous, we'll transfer all our prisoners to you. Take 'em back to base while Constandt and I head for our buyers with our other prizes. We'll hand 'em over, collect our money and the prize crews, then meet you back at base to sort out the prisoners' ransoms."

  "Whatever you say, Boss."

  Steve looked at the Bosun. "Who's this 'Constandt'?"

  "That's his younger son. After Jan got locked up, de Bouff started grooming Constandt to take his brother's place. The whole family are a nasty bunch. They're said to have been involved in crime on various planets for several generations. De Bouff senior branched out into pira
cy when he was still a young man, and he's built up quite a little empire. He runs two ships, one under his command and the other under Constandt, with a couple of experienced spacers to guide the youngster while he gains experience."

  "He talked about his 'base'. Any idea where it is?"

  "None. He may have bribed a minor planet to turn a blind eye to him operating out of its system. That'd be the most convenient for him. If not that, he may have an old spaceship fixed up as a base, with maintenance and accommodation facilities. They'll either orbit an uninhabitable planet in a deserted system, or park it in deep space. That's not as good for them, because when they want liberty planetside they've got to find someplace they're not known; but on the other hand, it's great for security. It's position is just a set of galactic coordinates - probably encrypted - in their navigation computers. That makes it almost impossible to find, even if one of their ships is captured; and if that happens, they just move somewhere else."

  "I get it. If they're going to put their prisoners aboard Cabot, then go off with their other prizes, d'you think we might be able to free enough of them to take back this ship?"

  "It'll be tricky. They may send more guards aboard with them. We aren't armed, and we don't know how many of them there'll be. Let's wait until everyone's aboard and we know what we're dealing with, then we'll put our heads together. Between the two of us, we may just be able to screw over de Bouff one more time. That would be very satisfying!"

  Chapter 18: May 19th, 2838 GSC

  The Bosun made a final adjustment to the template, then pressed the 'Activate' key. The tool in his hands hummed and rustled as it sucked up smart nanoparticles from the bin in the maintenance locker, and began to form them into the shape he'd programmed. Steve watched, fascinated, as a shaft extended from the tool's computerized handle, growing in length before his eyes as lower nanoparticles locked themselves into place and others crawled over them to do the same higher up. In less than a minute, a short stabbing spear came into being, its leaf-shaped blade still rustling and clicking as the nanoparticles formed the sharpest edge and point they could.