StarShip Down

by Darrell Bain

  “Yeah. I don't like ‘em either,” Morehill said. “Sit down.” He pointed to the flat rock he was propped on.

  “I'll stand. What do you want, Crag?”

  “Sit, I said.”

  She shrugged and sat down, keeping a careful distance between them.

  “You think I'm gonna bite?”

  She considered for a moment but said nothing. She had noticed Morehill eyeing her at odd times but never when Sarah was watching. Thinking of it, she began to get a germ of an idea and what he said next caused it to burst into full flower.

  “Look, Esmeralda, I ain't all that bad. I know I ain't that good-looking but I got what it takes to run this place. If everything works out like I've planned, we're gonna grow. You can grow with me if you like.”

  “What about Sarah?”

  He flicked a rough calloused hand as if she meant nothing to him. “Let me take care of that.”

  “Do what you want. You will anyway.”

  He rubbed his chin and eyed her in an appraising manner she hadn't seen before.

  “How would you like to do a little flying?”

  “Me? What's wrong with Jimmy?”

  “I don't trust him. Don't tell him I said so, ‘cause I don't want no trouble. You act like you've accepted what's happening, though. I heard you're a pilot. Is that right?”

  “Yeah, I can fly the tender if that's what you're asking.”

  “I am. I still feel the need of a co-pilot when I go up. The spot's yours if you want it.”

  “And I take it that while you're finishing your practice runs, you want to do a little more than fly, huh?”

  “You got it, babe.”

  “Hmm.” This might be the opportunity she'd been looking for. Of course it might not, but she knew what she'd have to do to get the chance. Best not to appear too eager, though. “Let me think about it, okay?”

  “One day, that's all you get. We're gonna be rocking and rolling before long, so make up your mind, babe.”

  “I'll let you know tomorrow.” She got up and walked slowly away while trying to appear as if she had to think his offer over. She figured Jimmy hadn't had the opportunity to use the concealed pistols in the pilot's cabin but she'd be in a better position than him, wouldn't she? And Morehill was no worse than the others. Hell, it might not even be as bad. Sarah thought he was hot shit, anyway. Wouldn't he get a surprise if she found a chance to kill him, though? She smiled grimly. He had it coming and then some. And even if she couldn't kill him, maybe she could keep him from doing all he thought he was going to.

  * * * *

  “At last,” Sandy said to Maria. “We're finally going to do it!” She had become fast friends with the sergeant since they had both been assigned to the rescue mission. Both of them had lovers missing, hopefully only captured by the convicts and not dead.

  Maria nodded and gave her the merest twitch of lips that might have indicated a smile but could just as well have meant she was ready to kill anyone who got in the way of rescuing Jimmy or the twins and the rest of her army team mates.

  They entered the conference room and took seats next to each other. This was the meeting of key players in the proposed expedition, not the whole group. There was herself and Maria, Brandon Masters, who would lead the team, Borg Johannsen, Timothy Effers, Lieutenant Brett Freeman, James Terrell and First Sergeant Gomez. Captain Callahan and Major Grindstaff would be present even though they wouldn't be going on the rescue. Eventually the team would include almost a dozen key personnel and practically the whole remaining army platoon less the half dozen lost to the convicts. Altogether there would be more than fifty trained people armed and ready to kill in order to free their friends, lovers and comrades. She watched happily as the captain entered the room and began the meeting.

  “Good morning, folks,” Callahan said as his gaze swept around the table. “Thank you for coming. I know you're anxious to get on with the rescue but we want to make certain we do it right, so let's not leave out any necessary steps. You go first, Tim.”

  “Yes, sir. I don't have much to say except that I've been observing their tender and their camp every time I get a chance with the satellite. They've been flying it off every afternoon and bringing it back in time to have it ready in the mornings for the same uses we do, like running equipment and other chores. I have no idea what the afternoon flights are for, other than perhaps forcing either Sergeant Wong or Mister Hollister to teach some of the convicts to fly.” He nodded his head to indicate he was done.

  “Thank you. Mister Johannsen?”

  “Yes, sir. We have the laser cannon ready to be placed in the tender and hooked to its enhanced power source whenever you give the word. That's basically mine and Sandy Johnson's job and we'll be standing by until it happens, ready to go to work at a moment's notice.”

  “Thank you, Borg. Sandy?”

  Her face lit up. “Yes, sir! Sir, I'm glad to be here and I can tell you for certain, give me a pilot who can get anywhere close to their tender and I'll take it out. Not only that, I'll do my damnedest to kill its flight capability in a manner that leaves it repairable for future use.” She met the captain's querulous gaze without flinching.

  “You can do that, Sandy?”

  “Yes, sir. Mister Effers and I worked up some software that simulates the attack angles and positions perfectly. I've been practicing hard. I can do it, sir.”

  “Believe her, sir,” Johannsen said. “I spent a hitch in the service as a weapons officer and she's as good or better than any weapons tech I've ever seen.”

  Sandy blushed at the compliment but it pleased her nevertheless. She was just as confident as Johannsen implied and if it came to saving the twins’ lives, she would do even better. She swore it to herself as the captain continued.

  “Major Grindstaff, since your people have the experience, they will be in charge of the ground assault. Would you mind outlining exactly how you'll work it?”

  “Not at all, sir,” he said. “If Sandy takes out the tender on the way in, then I can pretty well assure you that we'll succeed. What I can't tell you is how many casualties we'll take or whether any of our people held captive will still be alive. From looking at the satellite photos we're hopeful, but not certain. At any rate, the pilot will swing around after their tender has been lasered and we'll land here, right in the middle of their fields.” He pointed to the big conference room screen with a marker that showed where the convicts had begun farming. “From there, we'll assault out of each bay of the tender. Anyone who doesn't surrender immediately will be gunned down. I already have my people memorizing photos of every one of our own people who we think are there as well as your pilot and the security guard who went along.” He paused and looked down at his board then back over to Callahan.

  “Here's a funny thing, sir. It's just been brought to my attention. The security guard, Sarah Justman, spent some time in conversation with one particular convict while we had them in cells. She also was ... shall we say insistent that she go on the mission to transport the convicts. I'm not saying there is a connection with her and the fact that the convicts somehow overcame the guards but we are going to be watching out for her and are going to be very careful with her. I really hope there's nothing to this, but it won't hurt to be careful.”

  “I agree, Major. Something certainly happened that we're not aware of. Okay, let's move on.”

  * * * *

  Sandy sat through the whole meeting even though there was little else for her to do or say. Her whole assignment would be condensed down into a few seconds when she was handling the laser cannon. Naturally she would be a backup for the troops but by the time she got unstrapped from her seat and outside, it should all be over. She intended to have her weapon handy, though. Anyone who'd mistreated the twins had better not get in her way or they would be dead.

  * * * *

  Esmeralda thought she might have career prospects as a thespian if a call for them ever developed on New Earth. She had played Morehill li
ke a con artist leading his victim along and finally let him have what he wanted. By then she was pretty sure she had him convinced of her sympathy. She felt nothing other than disgust and a welling sense of mastery over both him and her own emotions for having held still for the act. But now the hard part was here. She had to convince him to change the attack perimeters without getting Jimmy killed.

  “Crag, I really shouldn't tell you this...” she said hesitantly and let her voice trail off as his rough hand kneaded her breast. They were lying naked in the shadow of the tender on a cargo blanket while the other two cons were inside. He still didn't trust her quite enough to make love inside, not without someone else with a gun being present in the cabin. And he still flew with the cabin door open. She had thought she might get a chance to steal the boat from him but it hadn't come. The next best option was to spoil the coming attack on the ship's crew.

  “What shouldn't you tell me, babe?”

  “I ... well, I think Jimmy was going to commit suicide by crashing the tender. I think he was ashamed of teaching you to fly once he found out you were going to use it to raid the ship.”

  He leaned up onto an elbow and loosened his hold on her breast.

  “How come you say that?”

  “I ... I think he fixed the dive parameters so you'd crash when you made your pass at the other tender.”

  “What!? How the hell could anyone do that?”

  Esmeralda knew she had to be very careful now. Morehill had learned to fly, yes, but it was by rote. He didn't really understand the math behind lift velocity, thrust, wingspan and a dozen other factors that went into understanding how to be an aviator. This was especially true with a tender, a craft meant for both space and atmospheric flight.

  “Let's get dressed and I'll show you.”

  “Just a minute, babe. I'm no goddamn dummy. You may like me well enough but why should you tell me that?”

  “I ... I was scared you might take me along on the raid.”

  He guffawed. “Aw hell, babe, no chance of that! The boys wouldn't let me even if I wanted to. But goddamn. You say he was going to kill me? I'll show that young jerk what happens to people who try that.”

  “No, Crag, please don't. I can see his side of it. Can't you?”

  He looked down at her naked body. She knew it was a very good body, probably as fine as he'd ever hoped for.

  “Ah, hell, I guess so.”

  “Then let's go and I'll show you what he did.”

  “Just a minute.” He licked his lips. “One more time then you can show me.”

  “All right, Crag.” Hooked, by God!

  A while later they were in the cabin. She had the boat's specs and design limits pulled up from the computer. Her fingers flew over the touches and keys.

  “See here how he changed this parameter? And this one? Either of them would have taken about forty kilometers an hour off the speed when in a dive. But see? Now it's back to where it belongs. No, almost. There! Now it's fixed.” She knew he had no appreciation of the numbers she'd flashed at him.

  “Hey, I told you I'm no dummy. How do I know you ain't fixed them so we crash, just like that little bastard did?”

  “First, because I don't want to die. You ought to know that by now. We're flying back to camp, remember?” She smiled at him. “And second, if you don't believe me, take me up with you a couple more times and try a dive.”

  “I'll just do that, smarty.”

  “Can I go on the raid then, after you see it's okay?”

  “Sorry, babe. No can do. I doubt the boys would let me. They trust you less than they do Jimmy.”

  She had figured he wasn't going to relent but asked anyway just to keep in character. And now the tender's constraints had been changed. She certainly didn't want to die so all she'd done was alter the interface between the bow gun and the speed of the ship. The man firing it at the ship's tender would be off by a certain amount. She couldn't tell exactly how much because she didn't know enough about his gunner's talents but she hoped it was enough.

  * * * *

  “Okay, people, we're getting down to it now. Only two days to go so let's run over our plan again,” Morehill said to the dozen people gathered around him. Only Sarah and Esmeralda were from the original group of guards. “Here's the layout of the area around the ship and ain't we glad they did a survey of the area around their settlement while bringing us here?!” He guffawed enough to draw some laughs then continued, using a long stick as a pointer for the recording seen on the screen in the tender's control room. “This here's the main fields. These here are the vegetable gardens and over here is where they're building some shit. Sarah don't know what it was for but she thinks it's just storage and eventual living quarters for when they start tearing down the ship. How about you, Esmeralda? Is there any likelihood of there being armed men in there when we hit ... when we arrive?”

  “So far as I know, there's not,” she said honestly since she couldn't see where it would make much difference on the first run.

  “Okay, now here's the plan. We land upriver two days beforehand and drop off the boats with the raiding party and hang out there to give them time to get downriver. They'll be in position by the time the tender sweeps in from this direction and that'll be their signal to hit and grab. We want females only, so be careful.” He grinned. “Sometimes it's hard to tell the way folks dress. Anyway, we ain't interested in killing nobody if we can help it. All that'd do would be to slow us down. The idea is to grab, get back to the boats and paddle downriver fast as you can. We'll be flying past their tender one time and putting it out of action with our bow gun so they can't come after us in it and they don't live by a lake like we do, so they won't have boats to follow. Also, the river bends into the jungle for about ten miles right past the ship settlement so they'll play hell following our boats from the bank. Ten miles downstream there's a clear spot where the tender can land and pick up the boat party, then we fly everybody home and we're all happy.” He looked over his troops. “Questions?”

  “What if there's too much resistance to grab any women?”

  “Then we back the hell up and we go to plan B. That's where we use the tender to harass them so damn much, they have to negotiate.”

  “That can work two ways,” Bukha said.

  “If they knew where we were, don't you think they would've come after us by now?”

  Esmeralda punched Sillers in the ribs when it looked as if she were about to say something.

  “All right, so they don't know where we are. So why don't we do that to begin with?” a man asked.

  Fondez took the question. “There's two reasons, Earl. First we might wind up killing too many of them for there ever to be a reconciliation. Second, there's always the chance they could take out our tender with small arms fire or the bow gun of their tender like we're planning on doing to them. They might also be able to rig one of those missile tubes to fire in our direction but it's doubtful. They're made for space. Anyway, as our plan goes, we'll be coming in away from them so they can't get a lock on us quick enough to matter.”

  “How about the lasers?”

  “That's not a consideration. They have to be pumped up before they can fire and we'll never make more than one run at a time. Anyhow, we doubt they'll be manned. They might be later, though, if they wanted to expend the energy to keep them ready. If we came in at the wrong angle, they could kill us so we want to do it right the first time.”

  “Well, couldn't they dismount them and use them like a big gun?”

  “Esmeralda says it's not possible. They're tied in to the ship and we'll be coming in from an angle so they can't hit us from it.”

  “Okay,” Morehill said, taking over again. “Now it's going to be me piloting, and we'll have Brad and Manson in the cabin to be sure that no matter what else happens, the tender is always secure. Brad has had experience with some stuff like our bow gun so he'll handle it.” He smirked at Esmeralda but didn't notice the way Sarah was watching from a
short distance away.

  “The boat parties will have three men each. I know that's not many but it's all we have weapons for and we have to leave room in them for the women we take. Seven or eight persons is about all those boats we made can handle anyway.” He didn't mention that he would have to leave a minimal force behind to make sure the remaining former army troops didn't revolt in their absence.

  “Let's do this right and we'll be in a position of power,” Fondez added. “I know that's what we all want.”

  “Right,” Morehill said. “Okay, if no questions, we'll go over it one more time tomorrow, then the day after that it's party time.” His scarred rugged face split in a grin that was more of a snarl.

  Esmeralda cringed inside. She still had no idea if what she'd done would make a difference.

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  * * *

  Chapter Thirteen

  “I saw how you were looking at her, Crag. Goddamn it, I didn't do what I did to share you. I put up with taking on the other men but I'm not going to have you running after that woman. You hear me?”

  “Be cool, babe.” He avoided her gaze.

  Her mouth dropped open for a moment then closed in a tight line.

  “What's wrong, babe?”

  “You've been fucking her on those so-called training flights, haven't you?”

  “How could I? I have two men with me at all times when we're flying. Besides, would I do something like that, babe?”

  “I don't know. Would you?”

  “No, never,” he said as sincerely as he could.

  She took a deep breath. “Do you really love me, Crag?”

  “Of course I do, babe. You know that.”

  “Do I?” she said bleakly and walked away.

  I have to do something about her, Morehill thought. Damn it, I shoulda kept my dick in my pants even if I did make sure Esmeralda couldn't pull something. And I suspect she wanted to, but I made sure we fucked outside the tender. Sarah knows, though. Ah well, let the raid go good and I can tell her to go piss in the wind. What can she do, anyway? Me and Fondez run this gang and once it's settled down good, he's dead meat. He's too goddamned ambitious to keep around. And I'll have Esmeralda. Damn, what a fine-looking woman she is.