Home: Interstellar: Merchant Princess

by Strong, Ray

  “Jeez, he must be ten light years from a horse,” John said.

  “Huh? Let me see that,” Meriel said.

  Lev showed her the image on the link. On their bridge stood the last man on Earth that Meriel wanted to see. “It’s General Khanag.”

  “Holy crap,” Lev said. “This is bad.”

  One of the black-suits saw the image of the bridge on a screen and mentioned it. The general saw it, barked a command, and the soldier hit a button. The image went dark.

  The seductive voice came on again. “To those of you who have not come forward, we are disappointed. We will take no action if your crewmate named Meriel Hope comes to the bridge. Again, we wish no one to come to harm and will let you go on your way with your fuel restored. However, our patience is running thin.”

  “Give me the link,” Ferrell said while reaching for it.

  Meriel sneered at Ferrell. “Lev is senior security now, Ferrell. He should have this.”

  Ferrell squinted and raised his chin. “With the bridge crew down, I’m the ranking officer,” he said. Lev frowned but nodded and gave the link to Ferrell.

  Ferrell took a deep breath and raised the link. “This is Dr. Patrick Ferrell,” he said. “I am the ranking officer on the ship. What is your intent?”

  “We hope you are well, Doctor, and any crew and passengers that you may have with you. If you would, please, help us locate this Meriel Hope so that we can let you all go on your way. We wish no further damage to the ship.” A view of the bridge and crew appeared on the link again. “See? We have nothing to hide. They are all in good health.” Everyone was still unharmed, but one of the black-suits was down and blood dripped from a fresh cut on Socket’s forehead.

  “Let me talk to the captain,” Ferrell said.

  “As you wish,” the seductive voice said.

  “We’re OK, Doc,” the captain said. “Restrained but OK.”

  “Captain, did you transfer the command codes?” Ferrell asked. Meriel and Lev cringed and shook their heads.

  The camera shut off immediately, and the seductive voice returned. “Now, now, Doctor,” he said, “we’re not stupid. You are ranking officer, no? Be reasonable. We only want to interview your crew members, and then we’ll be on our way.”

  Meriel and Lev looked at each other and nodded. The man said crew members.

  The seductive voice continued. “Please, surrender before our patience runs any thinner. We offer you amnesty and safe passage to Ross. That is next on your circuit, no? There’s no need for any bloodshed. We have complete control of your ship, and there is really nothing you can do. We are humanitarians and respect all life. We don’t want you to suffer. Please be assured that you will be safe.”

  Meriel looked around. Except for John and Lev, they all looked afraid and passive. Meriel was shocked. She didn’t think they’d give up so easily.

  “This is Dr. Ferrell again,” he said. “We have injuries due to your rude introduction and are caring for them. Please give us a few minutes to treat them, and we will comply. Until then, we request a cease-fire.”

  “If you tell us where you are, we would be glad to assist your ministrations.”

  “That is generous, but you can understand why we must decline,” Ferrell said. “A few minutes, please.”

  ***

  Khanag walked to the hull breach. “I tire of this game. Tell them ten minutes,” he said to a black-suit with two gold bars on his lapel, “but give them eight. Then lock nav and drive them into the gas giant at four g. We’ll find what we need elsewhere.”

  “Yes, Father,” Captain Nurendra Khanag said as the General and his escorts left the Tiger.

  ***

  “Your request is granted. Do not exceed ten minutes,” the seductive voice said.

  “What are you doing?” Lev said, looking at Ferrell.

  “We’re going to surrender,” Ferrell said.

  “You can’t do that!” Meriel shouted.

  “It’s over, Meriel,” Ferrell said. “We’re outgunned, and they’ve got the ship and cargo.”

  “They’re lying,” Meriel said. “If they had complete control, they wouldn’t need our cooperation. Can’t you see? We have a chance.” The passengers and crew who had gathered around them grumbled with disbelief.

  “Our one chance is to surrender,” said Alf Martin. “They’re offering us amnesty and safe pass—.”

  Ferrell interrupted. “Meriel, they just want to ask you a few questions, maybe if you—”

  “Are you kidding me?” Meriel said. “Sure, they want me, but they will not let you escape. That’s General Khanag. He’s the muscle for the archtrope’s drug ring.”

  “This is piracy, Doc,” Lev said, “and piracy doesn’t exist, remember? They’ll kill us for our silence.”

  “Then why didn’t they just blast us?” Alf Martin asked.

  “Too much debris. It’s evidence,” Meriel said. “They’ll just point us at a big mass at one-g, and we’ll disappear.”

  John interrupted. “They want to know what she knows first. What we know. And what we’ve told others.”

  Meriel immediately got the “we” and looked at John, nodding.

  “People, we need to act,” Lev said.

  The seductive voice returned. “Just come see us. We mean you no harm. A human life is so valuable; we would hate to see anyone harmed by accident.”

  “They’ll kill us all, Doc,” Lev said. “No witnesses.”

  A warm-suit with helmet walked up to them weighed down by a mesh sack full of weapons.

  “Ah, there you are…” Lev said and stopped. He looked confused, turning his head back and forth between the newcomer and Meriel. He watched John take a blaster from the bag and run through the safety drill like a trained soldier and then grabbed a pulse rifle and a laser pistol for himself.

  Meriel smiled at the newcomer but blinked repeatedly to convince herself that this was not a fantasy. Now what would Cookie do? She turned back to Lev. “We can do this. We’ve got the weapons now. Tell them we can do this, Lev. It’s not over. If we take the alt-bridge, we can jump away from the big ships and have the numbers on our side. Tell them!”

  Lev turned to the assembled crew and passengers. “She’s right,” he said. “We have the weapons now. Only the boarding party is engaged until we’re pacified. They won’t bring the technicians aboard until then, and they’ll keep the big ships away. My squad can get there first if someone can distract the black-suits.”

  Meriel raised her hand to volunteer.

  “This is madness,” Ferrell said. “If we fight, we will die.”

  Meriel put a finger to Ferrell’s chest. “Listen, Doc. I don’t know whose side you’re on, but you don’t get it yet,” she said. “You are already dead meat as far as they’re concerned.”

  Ferrell looked at Meriel with wide eyes.

  “They’re human beings; they can’t do that,” a passenger said.

  “It’s only you they want!” another passenger shouted.

  Meriel shook her head. “You still don’t get it. Pirates don’t set prisoners free.”

  “You’re irrational, Meriel. Just calm down,” Ferrell said.

  “I’m the closest thing to rational you’ve got,” Meriel snapped.

  “You’re delusional if you think three marines can take a ship back from pirates.”

  “No, Doc. We’ve got four: Lev, Nobu, me, and my sister.”

  Ferrell shook his head but appeared sympathetic and lowered his voice. “Meriel, please, stop this fantasy. She’s dead. Your sister and the kids died on the Princess.”

  A few of the passengers gasped, and one whispered, “She’s the one!”

  Ferrell’s words silenced Meriel. What if he’s right? she thought. What if I am crazy, and all this is just another delusion? But if they follow Ferrell, we all die. “No,” she said with a weak voice and then a stronger, “No!”

  Ferrell raised the link to speak, but the warm-suit walked up to him, trapped his
hand in a wristlock, drove him to his knees, and took the link from him. The visor popped up from the helmet, and a frowning Elizabeth appeared.

  “Who you calling dead?” Elizabeth said, emphasizing each word with a poke to his forehead with her gloved finger. “Hey, Sis, who’s the stiff?”

  Meriel smiled. “He’s the acting captain, Liz” she said.

  “Then frag him, and let’s do this,” Elizabeth said and gave the link back to Lev. “Jeez, come on, girls, we’re running out of time.” Ferrell looked up at her and squinted as if she could not exist.

  Ferrell turned his head to Meriel. “Meriel, you can’t—” he began, but Elizabeth adjusted her fingers slightly on the wristlock, and he winced and became quiet.

  “Open your mouth again, and I’ll break it,” Elizabeth said quietly.

  “We have eight minutes,” Lev said, not knowing that the pirates had a much shorter deadline. “We can reach alt-bridge in one.” He leaned over to Meriel and whispered, “Not enough. There are three exits from the bridge, two from cargo C.”

  Meriel looked at the remaining crew and passengers—the young men, women, and parents. She frowned and looked to the exits from the room.

  Lev whispered, “Cookie’s not comin’, Meriel.”

  Meriel found Elliot Goodwin among the passengers. Apparently, he had taken the captain’s advice and stayed on board when the Tiger disembarked from Etna. He smiled at her and nodded.

  “We can do this,” she said to them. “We can take the ship back and save all our lives. But we need your help. Who will join us?” No one moved.

  “I know that you didn’t sign up for this,” Meriel said. “You are not trained to fight, but I don’t believe you want to die. If we resist, we can win our freedom. If not, they will gut you in front of your children.”

  “Human beings wouldn’t do that!” Alf Martin said.

  “Yes, they would,” Meriel said. “Khanag runs the organ-smuggling trade.”

  The arrogance dropped from Alf Martin’s face. Meriel picked up a blaster and clicked the safety off.

  Lev tapped his wrist. “We only have a few seconds,” he said. “Will you die without a fight?”

  No one moved to help.

  “We don’t have to fight! We just have to surrender!” said another. The mood of the crowd became ugly.

  Wrong approach, Meriel thought and raised her hands for quiet. She walked over to a mother with a small boy and softened her voice. “I understand your fear. If I had the power, I would arrange your passage on another ship, and you would be safe.” She stood. “But that is not to be. If we do nothing, we will die and be forgotten like all the other ships that have disappeared in the black.”

  Elliot Goodwin made his way to Elizabeth. She gave him a weapon and a few instructions.

  Meriel raised her voice. “If you will not defend yourselves, you will die. If your children live, they will be slaves, and no one will know to free them from their torment.” A few of the parents stood and made their way to Elizabeth, but Lev shook his head—still not enough.

  “This is suici—” Ferrell began, but Elizabeth tweaked his wristlock again. “You, shut up,” she said and then mumbled, “Dead, huh?”

  “But if we resist, we can win our freedom,” Meriel said. “Your children will be safe, and you will rejoice the rest of your days with your children by your side.”

  More of the parents joined, and Meriel spoke to the young adults. “Imagine what they will say about us few who escaped an entire fleet of vicious slavers and did so knowing how overwhelmed we were. Those who hear your story will wish they had been here with you to expose a hundred years of murder.” Meriel looked over the remaining passengers. “Choose now. Join us and live.”

  “But we are only a few,” a passenger said.

  “I survived the Princess with less,” Meriel said. “We can survive this.”

  The remainder of the young adults stood and went to Elizabeth for weapons. Lev shook his head, indicating they still did not have enough fighters. Meriel looked at the grim but committed faces of those who had volunteered and smiled. “We go with what we have.”

  She turned and slammed the passageway wall. “Corporal Tyler is in command,” she said.

  Lev barked orders. “Firepower to the alt-bridge—that’s John, me, and…

  “Liz,” Elizabeth said.

  “OK,” Lev said. “My team defends John until we jump. Alf, you can shoot; come with me. Nobu, Meriel, the rest of you are the diversion going for the main bridge. The minute John engages the nav comp, they’ll know and start killing people. So, John will not spin up nav until we hear fighting from the bridge. Five seconds after John’s signal—”

  “What signal?”

  “Three beeps on the comm,” John said.

  Lev nodded. “Five seconds after the beeps we jump. When you hear it, hang on to whatever is close. Clear?” he said, and they nodded.

  “Short jump. No tranq,” Meriel said.

  “Jump where?” John asked as he switched off the safety on the pistol and pulled back the slider to charge it.

  “Anywhere!” Meriel said and then caught herself. “Lev? You OK with that?”

  “Oorah!” Lev said and led his team to the alt-bridge.

  ***

  Meriel prepared to leave with her small team when a mother of a young boy tugged on her sleeve.

  Meriel turned to Nobu. “Go. I’ll catch up, but don’t start without me,” she said and turned to the mother.

  “Please, I cannot leave my children to join you,” the mother said. “They’re offering us amnesty and safe passage.”

  “They’re lying,” Meriel said and handed her a stunner.

  Then she turned to Doc and held out a stunner for him. “And they lied to you about me.”

  Ferrell grimaced as though he’d been struck. “You trust me?”

  “No. I trust only that you don’t want to die without a fight.” Ferrell took the stunner. “Protect them,” she said and turned to go.

  Ferrell watched Meriel’s back as she walked away and raised his weapon slowly. The mother next to him saw observed him with an open mouth, shocked at what he might be thinking, and aimed her stunner at him. But Ferrell lowered his weapon and watched Meriel turn the corner to join her team.

  En Passant

  Lev’s squad stopped near the cargo-C assembly area, where others were being held, and waited for word from Meriel. When they heard the blasters from her team, Lev’s team attacked the black-suits nearest them and went for the alt-bridge. Once inside the alt-bridge, it would take John only a few seconds to input jump coordinates into nav and send the beeps for jump.

  ***

  At the other end of the ship, Meriel’s team fired into the bridge from behind the decompression doors with no expectation of winning a firefight. Their goal was only to distract Khanag’s men so that John could jump the Tiger.

  Nobu sprayed fire into the bridge and looked around. “They’re reprogramming nav,” he said and fired again to afford Meriel a look.

  “They’re leaving. They’re gonna kill us,” she said. “They can’t leave anyone behind who can restore nav.” She took another quick peek. The black-suit with gold bars on his lapel checked his watch and stood behind Tim Brown, the engineer, with a pistol to his head. “Crap,” she said, knowing he would kill everyone in turn.

  “Hey!” Meriel shouted. She stood up and waved her arms wildly to draw his fire. But he ignored her, killed the engineer, and moved to stand behind Jerri at nav. Meriel jumped into the bridge and kicked the pistol from the black-suit’s hand. The black-suit fought back, but the other pirates did not shoot at her, because she was so close to their officer.

  “Shit, Meriel’s a friggin’ mad dog,” Elliot said, aiming for the pirates who were leaving the hull breach and those firing at Meriel.

  “Yeah, but she’s our friggin’ mad dog,” Nobu said, jumping onto the bridge to help her.

  The black-suit punched Meriel and pushed her away
to give his men a clear shot at her. A direct hit by a pulse rifle threw Meriel back into the bulkhead, near Nobu, and she fell unconscious. When the beeps announced that jump was imminent, Nobu restrained her, armed a stun grenade, and prepared to throw it.

  The Tiger jumped.

  Chapter 11 Escape

  Mop-up

  General Khanag scanned his fleet of ships from the bridge of his flagship. He paced impatiently while waiting for his son to dispose of the Tiger crew and return. As he watched, a hole appeared and took the Tiger and big chunks from the three ships that had penned her in. Men and debris from those ships spilled into space from the gashes in their hulls, and Khanag knew his son would never return.

  ***

  John jumped the Tiger only a few AU away, capturing pieces of Khanag’s ships in their jump field and dragging those pieces with them to the new jump point. The few seconds of disorientation during the jump gave Nobu enough time to throw the stun grenade onto the bridge. The grenade exploded and knocked the pirates and the bridge crew unconscious bleeding from their ears and noses. This gave the defenders time to tie up the pirates on the bridge, but the fighting was not over.

  Khanag’s men searched the Tiger for leverage, knowing there would be no reinforcements. Two of them found Doc Ferrell and the noncombatants hiding in a cabin near the gym.

  “Please. I’m Dr. Patrick Ferrell. BioLuna will vouch for me and the passengers. General Khanag knows this.”

  The black-suit laughed. “BioLuna is not here.”

  Ferrell’s face was visible to the passengers, and his expression of pain frightened them. “It was all a lie,” he mumbled.

  “What?” the black-suit asked with contempt. Ferrell raised his stunner, but the black-suit was faster. “Imbecile,” the black-suit muttered and shot Ferrell point-blank in the face.

  After killing Ferrell, the black-suit scanned the cowering passengers in the room to assess how much leverage they might provide him when a child hit him in the face with a toy. The black-suit scowled and raised his blaster to target the child, but the mother raised her stunner and shot the first pirate before he could kill her child and then the second pirate before he could kill her.