Without Mercy

by Eric Thomson

  “Who paid you the first half?”

  “A guy on Kilia Station who doesn’t want his name spoken aloud.”

  “Who? Or do I start the first round of fatal spacewalks?”

  Piris sighed.

  “Enoc Tarrant. He’s a big man on the frontier. Owns a lot of the action, if you know what I mean.”

  Dunmoore didn’t, but it wasn’t worth the aggravation to ask.

  “Why did he hire you?”

  “Not a fucking clue. But the money was good, the work was easy, and I’m between jobs.”

  And he made a good fall guy, but she didn’t have the heart to tell him there wouldn’t be a second payment. An arrest, perhaps, on suspicion of piracy.

  “Fair enough. Second question. What are Kilia Station’s coordinates?”

  Piris laughed.

  “A privateer who doesn’t know about the most important independent outpost on the frontier? Who are you really, O’Donnell?”

  “I’m the one who’s seconds away from tossing one of your dummies out the door.”

  “Okay, okay. Don’t be so damned hasty. My crew and I, we want to make money. Sometimes we skirt the law a little, but we’re not pirates, so there’s no reason to kill anyone. I’ll give you Kilia Station’s coordinates. Just do me a favor and tell whoever asks that you never met me or my ship, okay? We’ll forget about whatever your monster is called and go look for odd jobs elsewhere.” A pause, then, “I transmitted the navigation instructions to guide you there. Now, do I get my boarding party back?”

  “Once we check those navigation instructions. If you’re trying to con me, it’ll be the last thing you ever do, so sit tight.”

  “We’re good,” Holt said from the bridge.

  Dunmoore made a chopping motion with her hand, instructing the signals petty officer to cut the link.

  “We’re clear, Zeke.”

  “Astrid is checking those coordinates, Skipper. Give her a few minutes. But let me ask you this. Do you trust Piris?”

  “No. But I didn’t give him time to dummy up a plausible fake location, and I don’t see a reason why he’d keep one in his back pocket, ready to toss at gullible privateers. Piris doesn’t strike me as a hardened criminal. A liar, sure, and a slippery customer. But a real pirate keeping a sworn secret would let me wipe out the entire boarding party while he thought of a way to escape. And the rest of his crew wouldn’t say a word. We’ll take a full scan of his emissions signature. If he pulls a fast one, we’ll find him again.”

  “I wish I shared your optimism.”

  “It’s not so much optimism as a realistic appreciation of human nature, Zeke. Piris isn’t a genius. Cunning perhaps, but he’s slow in other ways. Do you think there really is a lawyer on Scandia waiting to pay him the second half of the salvage fee?”

  Holt was silent for a few seconds.

  “If there is, he’s probably from the firm Dewey, Cheetam, and Howe. In other words, no. At best, he’ll face arrest. At worst, a quick death. This is not the sort of scenario where loose ends can be tolerated, and Piris is a very loose end.”

  “Precisely,” Dunmoore said. “He’s a link back to Kilia and Enoc Tarrant, who seems to be a man with plenty of juice. Whoever thought up this scheme will have made sure to eliminate any and all links. Piris doesn’t know it yet, but we’re doing him a favor.”

  “Should I worry that you dreamed up this twisty theory without my finely honed ex-counterintelligence analyst’s instincts?”

  “No, you should be proud of teaching your formerly straight-laced captain how to come up with twisty theories.”

  “Then consider me delighted by my pupil. Ah, Astrid has something for us.”

  The tactical holo in the CIC swirled until it settled into the representation of a star system, copying the bridge’s navigation plot. Drost rattled off a Guide Star Catalog designation that meant nothing to Dunmoore or anyone else.

  “It’s well outside what we consider the Commonwealth sphere and far enough from the Shrehari Empire to be reasonably safe. The Survey Service passed through this system about half a century ago. It found no inhabitable worlds, though it has three outer gas giants, two inner rocky planets, and a large debris disk that might still, one day, coalesce since this is a very young star. Apparently, this Kilia Station is inside a large asteroid at the edge of the debris disk.”

  A new image flashed on the CIC’s main display, that of a somewhat oval rock. But with no immediately visible points of reference, judging its size was impossible.

  “Kilia either already had enough spin to create something approximating one gee, or they imparted spin with impellers.” A red pointer appeared. “That seems to be an entrance, a big one. There are no visible docking facilities, and the instructions provided by Captain Piris merely discuss rules about orbiting Kilia. And that’s it, Captain.”

  “Thank you, Astrid. What’s your gut feeling about this?”

  “Could the instructions be fake? Sure. But the system they reference exists, and the navigational markers match what the Survey Service reported.”

  Dunmoore sat back in her command chair and studied the unremarkable rock that might hold answers to the Kattegat Maru mystery. “Open a channel with Captain Piris. Audio only again and make sure Lieutenant Commander Cullop is still linked in.”

  This time, Piris answered right away. “So, are you happy?”

  “Provisionally. I will return your boarding party and shuttle in a moment but first I want you to listen carefully, Kotto Piris. If I don’t find Kilia with those navigation instructions, I will find you and kill you. Should you discuss our encounter with anyone, I will find you and kill you. If you want to live and con someone else another day, forget this happened. Tell anyone who asks you didn’t find Kattegat Maru. Perhaps figure a way to return the initial payment on your contract. Then quit this sector and find a new playground. You’re done here. Don’t come back. Understood?”

  “Yeah, yeah. Understood.”

  “You may not realize it yet and perhaps you never will, but meeting me saved your life and the lives of your crew. This Enoc Tarrant wasn’t about to let you live after delivering Kattegat Maru to Scandia. I’ll let you think about that. O’Donnell, out.” When the signals petty officer nodded, she said, “Emma?”

  “Here, Captain.”

  “Tell Sergeant Saari I’m sorry we didn’t use his idea, but it’s something to remember if we’re ever in a similar situation.”

  “He does seem a little sad right now. I gather we should release the boarding party and send it home to mother.”

  “If you would. I’m calling this one no harm, no foul, so be gentle and let them leave with their possessions.”

  “Will do. Could you ask Astrid to send me a copy of those navigation instructions, please? I assume we’ll be sailing there as a mismatched space rat flotilla.”

  “Of course. I can hardly send you to the nearest starbase now that we finally have a lead on Kattegat Maru’s kidnapped crew and passengers.”

  **

  “Captain Piris has recovered his shuttle and is accelerating away,” Holt announced as he entered Dunmoore’s day cabin. “Do you think he’ll take your warning to heart?”

  She made a dismissive hand gesture.

  “I doubt it’ll matter to us one way or the other, but he struck me as the sort to consider discretion the better part of valor. He didn’t seem frightened enough of this Enoc Tarrant to run back and warn him, but wary enough to stay out of his reach now that he didn’t carry out his contract.”

  “Keep in mind Tarrant must be quite wealthy, powerful, or well-connected. Or all three. That his little empire escaped inclusion in the naval database implies folks within the Commonwealth government or even the Navy itself are hiding Kilia’s existence from general knowledge.” Holt filled a coffee mug from the urn and dropped into a chair. “What about HQ? Will you tell them we’re headed into the wild frontier in the hot pursuit of kidnapped Commonwealth citizens?”

&nb
sp; She let a sly smile tug at her lips.

  “Of course. I’ll send my report shortly before we go FTL.”

  The first officer snorted.

  “Let me guess, you’ll phrase it as one of those ‘unless ordered to do otherwise’ missives. Then, by the time HQ decides differently, we’ll be too far from the nearest subspace array and won’t get the reply. Sneaky. Though it’s pretty telling that you feel the need to do this.”

  “Captains dodging admirals whose agendas they don’t trust is a time-honored naval tradition. Except for a brief period between the invention of the radio and the establishment of the first space navy, when captains couldn’t avoid daily if not hourly reports to the flagship or shore HQ.”

  “Thank the Almighty we’ve never discovered a way to make interstellar communications instantaneous.”

  Dunmoore shivered theatrically.

  “Heavens forfend. It would have caused even greater disasters than those which befell the Fleet in the war’s early years. Can you imagine our intellectually sclerotic, utterly unimaginative, but politically safe flag officers on Earth trying to micromanage some of those engagements? The mind boggles. No. I’ll gladly take the inconvenience of not having instantaneous communications over the even greater inconvenience of reporting to HQ every time I feel the need for a bowel movement.”

  Holt cocked an amused eyebrow at her.

  “Surely it’s not that bad.”

  She made a face.

  “I exaggerate, true. But not by much. There are seniors officers in SOCOM — I won’t name anyone — who make micromanagers look like mission command devotees. Pray that none of them ever gets a command running special ops in deep space.”

  A playful glint appeared in Holt’s single eye.

  “Apparently, something similar is said about you, Skipper. But for very different reasons.” Before she could think of a biting reply, he drained the mug and sprang to his feet. “I’ll make sure we’re ready to leave, so you can send that report.”

  — Eleven —

  “Kattegat Maru kept almost perfect station,” Chief Yens reported once human nausea and machine disorientation evaporated, allowing her systems to reach out. “She’s doing a good job at running silent. Kudos to Commander Cullop and Lieutenant Zhukov. I see her only because I know where she is. Anyone who doesn’t, won’t.”

  Five minutes later, Yens declared no threat within range and Dunmoore ordered the ship to stand down from battle stations, confident Cullop was doing the same without prompting. Their brief conversation between FTL jumps gave Siobhan confidence Iolanthe’s second officer had Katie well in hand, to the point of continuing Carrie Fennon’s education and training to prepare her for the Guild examination boards. Perhaps with even more intensity than her mother might prefer.

  “Commander Cullop is calling, sir.”

  “Put her on.”

  “Good evening, Captain. Or at least my universal timekeeper says it’s just past six bells in the dog watch. Iolanthe made a good passage, I trust?”

  “Perfectly adequate, Emma, and your timekeeper is correct. How does Kattegat Maru fare?”

  “Also adequate, though Sergeant Saari’s soldiers are getting a little stir crazy. As I mentioned when we last spoke, he set up a parkour course through the ship to keep them in fighting trim and is using the hangar deck for simulations. But it’s not Iolanthe, and there’s precious little for them to do here. If it weren’t for the fact we’re deep inside the badlands and Kattegat Maru’s no warship, I might suggest we dispense with a Marine detail, but as it is... Perhaps we could switch 1st Platoon out for another one and give Saari’s lot a break.”

  Dunmoore glanced over her shoulder at Salminen, who nodded and said, “I figured we’d switch platoons around at some point. Aase Jensen’s people can be ready whenever you want, sir.”

  “Before our jump inward, so sometime in the next few hours, while we make sure this is the right system and no one with bad intent is lurking nearby.”

  “Roger that,” Cullop said. “I’ll have Saari and a shuttle readied. We can do it before the end of the evening watch. On a related note, since Kattegat Maru is to loiter at the hyperlimit, running silent while you visit Kilia Station, Carrie asked whether she could shift to Iolanthe and come along.” Cullop must have sensed Dunmoore was about to object because she added, “It’s not a bad idea, sir. She’s been here before, she knows people, and she might be able to identify the pirate ships. Yes, Carrie’s young, but her life has not been without risk, and on her current career path, it will stay that way. I can send her over with Karlo’s platoon.”

  Dunmoore swallowed her intended reply, conscious that Cullop would not make such a suggestion without giving it a lot of thought. She’d been in Carrie Fennon’s boots twenty years ago and knew how quickly starship children grew up.

  “Agreed.”

  “Thank you, sir. Carrie will be thrilled. And just so you know, I explained Iolanthe sometimes pretends to be a privateer so she can carry out hush-hush missions for the Fleet. I pretty much had to after she heard your exchange with Kotto Piris.”

  Dunmoore mentally shrugged. Fennon was bound to find out Iolanthe wasn’t really a supply ship.

  “Thanks for the warning, Emma, and it’s just as well. That means we won’t need to go through endless contortions in the name of keeping our true identity a secret.”

  “That’s what I figured. Chances are good the Furious Faerie will eventually show her full strength while Carrie is looking.”

  **

  Dunmoore watched Saari’s soldiers march off the shuttle and form in three ranks beside Command Sergeant Jennsen’s 4th Platoon from her usual place in the control room alongside Petty Officer First Class Harkon. Since it was pressurized, the atmosphere kept in by a force field blanketing the open space doors, helmet visors were up, and both platoon leaders could exchange words without using E Company’s radio net. And that meant Dunmoore couldn’t hear what they were saying. But judging by the raucous laughter, it was amusing.

  A solitary figure in a civilian pressure suit, carrying a spacer’s duffel bag, exited the shuttle and stood awkwardly beside 1st Platoon, as if unsure of her welcome. Carrie Fennon.

  Dunmoore gave Harkon a friendly nod and left the control room for the hangar deck’s main inner door. As soon as she appeared, Saari stopped speaking with Jennsen and wandered over to Carrie. He pointed at Dunmoore, gave the young woman a comradely thump on the shoulder, and propelled her toward Iolanthe’s captain.

  Not wanting to interfere in the handover between platoons, Siobhan put on a welcoming smile and waited for Carrie to join her rather than walk out onto the deck. To her surprise, the young woman came to an almost perfect halt as soon as she was three paces away and saluted.

  “Apprentice Officer Carrie Fennon, Merchant Vessel Kattegat Maru, reporting to Captain Dunmoore as ordered. Permission to come aboard, sir?”

  Dunmoore returned the compliment.

  “Permission granted. At ease, Apprentice Officer, and welcome aboard. I’m glad to finally meet you in person.”

  Clearly, someone, she suspected it was Command Sergeant Saari, coached Fennon on proper etiquette if for no other reason than to boost her confidence.

  “Likewise, sir.” She sounded shy, tentative, but her eyes rarely rested on the same spot for more than a second or two.

  “If you’ll follow me, I’ll take you to your quarters where you can dump the tin suit and settle in. There’s also enough time for a quick tour before going FTL on our last jump to Kilia’s hyperlimit.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Carrie fell into step beside Dunmoore as she led her to the crew quarters.

  “I understand Emma told you we’re not an ordinary replenishment ship and sometimes work undercover.”

  “She did.” Carrie hesitated, but then her next words came out in a rush. “That explains everything, sir, and now I’m delighted you found me instead of a frigate stuck on a patrol route.”

  Dunmoo
re smiled at her.

  “Chasing pirates is what we do for a living. We do it extremely well, and none live to tell the tale, so no one knows the privateer Persephone is a Navy ship called Iolanthe.”

  “The Furious Faerie.”

  “That’s right. The original Iolanthe was a faerie from a nineteenth-century operetta, but she wasn’t furious. Our ship’s crest, however, shows an armored faerie brandishing a flaming sword, so the nickname came naturally, especially since we can turn from harmless transport into a something with a serious bite at a moment’s notice.”

  “Sounds fun.”

  Dunmoore chuckled.

  “For us, it can be. For enemies of the Commonwealth, not so much. We’re more often than not the last thing they see before joining their ancestors.”

  “Yet you let this Piris guy and his crew go.”

  “He’s a small-time smuggler, a grifter, and no threat to shipping, let alone the Commonwealth. Since he chose to cooperate rather than fight, it was the right thing to do.”

  “But he wanted to steal my ship.” Fennon’s indignant tone brought another smile to Dunmoore’s face.

  “He believed Kattegat Maru was abandoned and therefore legitimate salvage. Under the law, it doesn’t matter if a ship is abandoned because its crew was kidnapped. The fact someone paid him to retrieve her and gave him the precise coordinates doesn’t mean he deserves a pirate’s fate.”

  Dunmoore stopped at a door, one of many piercing both sides of the quiet corridor not far from her own suite.

  “This section has the officer’s quarters. My cabin is the one by the airtight bulkhead over there, and this one, reserved for guests, will be yours while you’re with us.” At her touch, the door panel slid aside with a soft sigh.

  Carrie stepped across the threshold and froze as her eyes took in the compartment’s size and amenities.

  “Wow. Even my mother’s quarters in Kattegat Maru aren’t this nice, and because I’m the most junior crewmember, I get what we call the broom closet. Space only for a bunk, a locker, and a chair. No private heads either.”