by Chris Bunch
It glared down at the pod, hissed a challenge, struck, and screeched its agony as teeth chipped against the alloy steel. It struck once more, then turned, seeing the two beings in the water.
Wolfe’s fingers fumbled for the holster catch, lifting the retaining loop. The sea monster’s head lashed down; its fanged mouth struck the water just short of Taen. The Al’ar slapped the beast on the top of its jaws, a seeming touch.
Wolfe heard bones crunch, and the creature screamed and rolled over, showing a light green belly and four thrashing flippers. It came back up, shrilling, and pulled its head back like a cobra about to lunge.
Wolfe had his pistol out and touched the stud. A wave washed his arm, and the blast slammed past the monster’s neck. He fired once more, and the bolt hit the animal just below its skull. Ichor gouted over the water around them, and the animal thrashed, slamming into the sinking pod again and again.
Wolfe had Taen around the neck and was swimming hard, away from the pooling gore and the sea monster’s death throes.
‘I don’t,’ he managed, ‘want to see what this world imagines sharks to be like.’
‘Do not speak,’ Taen said. ‘Reserve your strength for the task ahead.’
Wolfe obeyed and let his free arm and legs move, move in muscle memory.
He fancied he could see the tree line ahead of him but knew better, for they were still too far out. He refused to allow himself hope, reminded his mind it was a drunken, careening monkey, swam on.
It might have been five strokes, it might have been five thousand, when the sky darkened.
Wolfe rolled on his back and saw the great ship descending toward them.
‘Are we being rescued?’
Wolfe brought his mind back from where he had buried it and studied the starship through salt-burning eyes.
‘No,’ he said. ‘That’s an old Federation cruiser. Ashida class, I’m pretty sure.’
‘Then release me. I shall go down to my death before I go into the hands of the Federation.’
‘You don’t have to worry about that,’ Wolfe said. ‘All of them got mothballed or broken up for scrap after the war. But this one didn’t.’
‘Chitet!’
The static blur against his clavicle was gone, and a voice sounded:
‘Stand by for pickup. If you have weapons, discard them. Any attempts at resistance will only produce your deaths. I say again, stand by for pickup.’
Wolfe had the pistol out, held just below the water.
‘No,’ Taen said. ‘Release the weapon. They will only shoot us in the water. Is it not better to let them pick us up and then meet our deaths when we have a better chance of taking some of them along to amuse us on our journey?’
Wolfe opened his fingers, saw the pistol sink down into green darkness.
The huge ship was only fifty feet above them, moving to one side, when the Grayle broke water, its hatch sliding open, less than ten feet away.
Wolfe was swimming desperately, once more grasping Taen as he felt heat from the Chitet cruiser’s drive sear him. He found a grab rail, pulled himself aboard, and rolled into the lock.
It cycled close behind him.
‘Lift,’ he gasped. ‘Straight off the water, full evasive pattern. ’
‘Understood.’
Gravity twisted and warped; then the ship’s AG took over, and he came to his feet.
‘Screens!’ He saw the bulk of the ship nearly overhead, to one side, the land, the sea below. The Grayle was skimming just above the water, accelerating.
Water spouted high to the right, where the Grayle would have been if it hadn’t jinked a second earlier. On another screen he saw the cruiser’s missile port snap closed and another open.
‘Immelman, straight back at them.’
‘Understood.’
He felt vertigo even through the artificial gravity as the ship climbed and rolled.
He grabbed a railing for support. Taen crouched on the deck nearby.
‘Target . . . starship ahead.’
‘Acquired.’
‘Launch one!’
The cruiser was no more than ten miles distant when one of the Grayle’s tubes spat fire and the air-to-air missile smashed toward it.
Whoever was controlling the ship was very fast, recovering from amazement at receiving fire from what appeared to be no more than a yacht, and the former Federation warship banked away, climbing.
But Wolfe’s missile couldn’t miss at that range. It exploded into the Chitet cruiser near the stern, and the ship twisted in the blast.
‘Offplanet!’
‘Understood.’
The Grayle climbed at full drive.
In a side and then a rear screen, Joshua watched the Chitet ship flounder like a gaffed fish, smoke pouring from its wound.
The ship grew smaller, smaller still, and then they were in space.
‘Three jumps. At random. No destination.’
‘Understood.’
Joshua looked at Taen as the Al’ar got to his feet. He was suddenly very tired.
He felt Taen’s strength and a chilly, almost robotic companionship.
‘And now it begins,’ the Al’ar said.
‘Now it begins,’ Joshua echoed.
The Grayle vanished into the cold fire of the stars.
BOOK TWO
HUNT THE HEAVENS
For
Dr Michio Kaku Professor of Theoretical Physics
Master Hei Long
Grandmaster Toshitora Yamashiro, The Nine Shadows of the Koga Ninja
ONE
The dead ships were scattered through the night, sometimes sharply illumed in white light, then darkness reclaimed its own as they moved, drifted, the rocky spray of the nearby unborn world occluding the light from the far-distant sun.
The ships were linked by nearly invisible cables that held them in an approximate orbit around a medium-size planetoid. Some of the ships were worn-out and centuries old, others were the energy-devouring military craft of the great war eleven years in the past. Some wore the colors of failed merchant enterprises, others the standards of ones too successful by far. Some appeared intact, others were being systematically cannibalized by their caretaker on the asteroid ‘below.’
Half a light-second distant, space distorted, and there was the slight blink as a ship came out of stardrive. A few moments later, a transmission came:
‘Malabar Control, Malabar Control, this is the Grayle. Request approach and docking instructions.’
The call was made three times before a reply came in:
‘Grayle, this is Malabar. Request your purpose. This is not a public port. Landing permission is granted only with proper authority.’
‘Malabar, this is Grayle. Stand by.’ The synthed female voice was replaced by a man’s:
‘Malabar, this is Grayle. Purpose for visit: resupply.’
‘Grayle, this is Malabar. Permission refused. I say again - this is not a public port.’
‘Malabar, this is Grayle. Message follows for Cormac. I shackle Wilbur Frederick Milton unshackle. Sender: Ghost.’
There was dead air, then:
‘Stand by.’
Nearly an hour passed before:
‘Grayle, this is Malabar Control. Porting request granted. We have auto-approach capability. Please slave your ship controls to this frequency. After docking do not leave your ship until authorized. Cormac advises will meet Ghost personally and strongly recommends it had best be Ghost Actual. Clear.’
The man lounging against the bulkhead wore an expensive cotton shirt faded from many washings, a sleeveless sweater that could have been his grandfather’s, and khaki pants that might have belonged to a uniform once.
He straightened as the inner lock door slid open and eyed Joshua as he came out.
‘Joshua,’ Cormac said. ‘If that’s the name you’re still using, Ghost Actual.’
‘It is. And you’re still flying your own colors,’ Wolfe said.
‘Tim
e must’ve been good to us then.’
Wolfe made no response. Cormac turned to an alcove. ‘He’s who he said he was, friends. You can go on about your business.’
Two men carrying stubby blast rifles came out, nodded politely to Joshua, and went past into the inner reaches of the planetoid.
‘Interesting how you never forget the shackle code, isn’t it?’ Cormac commented. ‘And you’re right. I do owe you. What do you need? A ship? An insert, like the old days? I haven’t done much direct moving lately, but I doubt if I’ve lost any moves. If that’s what you need.’
‘I need a shipyard.’
‘Ah? You don’t appear to have taken any damage, from what the screen showed me.’
‘I didn’t. But the Grayle’s maybe a little too noticeable. Do you still remember how to do a Q-ship setup?’
‘Do I remember?’ Cormac laughed shortly. ‘Commander, that’s one of my most requested tunes these days. There appear to be a lot of men and women floating about who’d rather not have their ships present the same face to the Federation - or to anybody - more than once or twice.
‘Yes. I can handle that little job for you. How thorough a change you want? Snout, fins, configuration, signature . . . I can still do it all.’
‘How long for the full boat?’
‘Pun intended?’
Again, Wolfe didn’t answer.
Cormac considered. ‘Normally three months. But I assume these aren’t normal times.’
‘You assume right,’ Wolfe said.
‘Month and a half, then.’ Cormac hesitated. ‘That’s a big call-in, I must say.’
‘I’ll cover your costs, plus ten percent,’ Wolfe said. ‘I’m not broke. But I’d appreciate a quick turnaround.’
Cormac swept a grandiose bow. ‘So let it be written . . . so let it be done!’
Wolfe grinned. ‘Where were we the last time I heard you say that?’
‘I had that wonderful hollowed-out moonlet,’ Cormac said wistfully. ‘Not ten light-minutes from that Al’ar base, and they never twigged to me at all.’
‘What happened to it?’
‘I don’t know,’ Cormac said. ‘I tried to track it down when the Federation started mothballing everything.’ He shrugged. ‘I suppose someone beat me to it.
‘Now wouldn’t that make a great smuggler’s haven?’
‘From what I’ve heard about this sector,’ Wolfe said, ‘you don’t appear to need one.’
‘True, true, too damned true. Come on. I’ll show you around and start my crews to work.’
‘Not quite yet,’ Wolfe said. ‘I’ve got a passenger who nobody gets to see. I mean nobody, Cormac. How do we arrange that?’
‘We’ll set up quarters next to mine. No bugs, no probes, no nothing. Not even mine. You could put the Queen of Sheba there and no one would ever know.’
‘Good. I’ll need some kind of vehicle to make the transfer.’
‘No problem with that, either. Now come on. Let me buy you a drink. You still drink . . . Armagnac, it was, yes?’
‘You remember well.’
The two men started down the long metallic corridor.
‘Sometimes,’ Cormac said a little wistfully, ‘it’s about the only excitement I have. I swear I sometimes think I miss the war. You ever feel that way?’
‘Not yet.’
‘You are blessed.’
Cormac’s quarters were hand-worked wood, silver, dark-red leather, lavish as a port admiral’s. Wolfe lounged back against his couch, tasted his drink.
‘It’s only Janneau,’ Cormac apologized. ‘If I’d known you were coming I could have had one of the freetraders come up with better.’
‘It’s fine.’ Wolfe looked about. ‘You have done well by yourself.’
‘It wasn’t hard,’ Cormac said. ‘When peace broke out all anyone wanted was to either get out or find some nice, comfortable sinecure. Those of us who had, well, an eye for the main chance could pretty much pick and choose. And I wanted to stay out here in the Outlaw Worlds.
‘I heard they needed someone to take care of all the ships that were going to be decommissioned. Given my modest talents, and a few coms to some friends who remembered what services I’d been able to render, and I had a new career, or anyway the powerbase for one.’
‘Doesn’t the Federation ever come looking to see what’s happening to those hulks?’
‘Hell no. There’s fifty-eight boneyards around the galaxy. Some of them don’t even have caretakers, and I wonder if the ships’re even still there. At least I’m disappearing mine little by little. By the way, I could make you one hell of a deal on a battlewagon if you’re interested. One thing the Federation still has too much of, Joshua, and that’s warships.’ Cormac picked up his glass of beer, looked at it, set it back down. ‘Them . . . and the people who used to pilot them.’
‘You do miss the war,’ Wolfe said gently.
‘And why not? I was only twenty-two then. How many people my age had their own spaceport and responsibility for getting people into - and sometimes out of - places no sane person could imagine?’
‘Why didn’t you stay in? Federation Intelligence must’ve wanted to keep you.’
‘I don’t have much use for some of the people they did keep,’ Cormac said. ‘I did a couple of . . . small jobs for them after the war. And was sorry I did.’
‘Cisco being one of them?’
‘That shit-for-brains!’
‘He’s still with them.’
‘Why am I not surprised?’ Cormac said. ‘Bastards like him have to have a big daddy to hide behind. I can remember . . . no. Leave it.’
The slender man got up, walked to a bookcase, and picked up a model of a starship.
‘I wasn’t surprised to hear from you,’ he said without turning around. ‘Not that surprised, anyway.’
‘Oh?’ Wolfe’s tone remained casual, but one hand moved toward his waistband.
‘Ghost Actual,’ Cormac said, ‘you are in a ton of trouble. Two tons.’
‘That’s why I need the ship-change.’
‘You might need more than that.’
Cormac went to a desk, opened it, and touched a pore-pattern lock. ‘This came across about an E-week ago. I pulled a copy, then iced the file. Nobody else on Malabar has seen it.’
He took out a rolled cylinder of paper and handed it to Wolfe, who opened it. There was a pic on it of Wolfe that was four years old, and: WANTED
Joshua Wolfe
Murder, Conspiracy,
Treason,
and
Other Crimes
Against the Federation
500,000 CREDITS REWARD
Must Be Taken Alive
‘Alive, eh?’ Wolfe read the rest of the sheet. ‘But I’m considered armed, deadly, guaranteed to resist arrest, and so forth. That ought to slow them down for a little.’
‘Should I ask?’
‘Better not, Cormac. It gets real involved. Although I wonder how the hell they figure I’ve committed treason since I haven’t been inside the Federation much since the war.’
‘It doesn’t matter a tinker’s fart to me,’ Cormac said. ‘Who was it who said if he had a choice between betraying his country or a friend, he hoped he’d have the balls to sell his country out?’
‘Don’t remember. But I don’t think he said it quite like that.’
‘Actually,’ Cormac said, ‘I thought when I got the call you’d be wanting . . . other changes made. Ones involving a doctor.’
Wolfe smiled, moved his hand away from his waist, picked up his drink, and sipped. ‘I don’t think I’m that desperate yet.’ He set the snifter down. ‘Cisco’s the one who originated that warrant.’
‘Son of a bitch,’ Cormac said. ‘I should have slotted him way back when. Remember when he tried to tell me how to run a snatch-and-grab and there were about a trillion Al’ar looming down on us?’
‘I do. I think that’s the only time I’ve ever seen you raise your voice.’
/> ‘I was feeling hostile,’ Cormac admitted. ‘That man doesn’t bring out the best in me. Never mind. And forget about paying for the ship mods.’
He pushed through the beginnings of Wolfe’s protests. ‘That wasn’t a question, goddammit. You might need the geetus later. Hell, if you’ve got an open warrant, I know you will. Sooner or later that frigging Cisco’ll change the terms and it’ll be dead or alive, no questions as long as the body bag’s full. Just you wait.
‘And then you’ll really be sailing close to the wind. Cisco may be a stumblebum, but he’s dangerous. Especially when he’s got the whole goddamned Federation for backup.’
Wolfe felt the walls themselves might be pulsating to the music. The circular bar was filled, and the slide-tempo band in the center ring was sweating hard.
Cormac leaned close. ‘Well?’ he said, half shouting to be heard.
‘Well what?’ Wolfe said.
‘Well, it’s been two weeks. You feel any more relaxed than when you checked in?’
Wolfe shrugged. ‘I’ll relax when the Grayle’s ready to go. Lately I get twitchy when I don’t have a back door.’
‘I’m pushing the crews as hard as I can right now. Most of the material’s in-shipped. Oh, yeah - I stole a nifty piece of signature-masking electronics out of a P-boat that got dumped on me last year. Put that in today myself.’
A voice said hello, and Wolfe turned. The woman was in her early twenties, had red hair in a pixie bob, and wore a designer’s idea of a shipsuit, made of black velvet with see-through panels. He returned the greeting. The woman held her smile, lifted a finger, and ran it slowly over her lips, then melted into the crowd.
‘You been making conquests while I’m slaving in the guts of your ship?’ Cormac asked wryly.
‘Hardly. Never seen her before. You know her?’
‘No. I think I’ve seen her once. Don’t even know if she’s pro or just looking for action.’ Cormac shrugged. ‘You want dinner?’
