Home: Interstellar: Merchant Princess

by Strong, Ray

  ***

  Elizabeth was just outside cargo C tending to Cookie and pulled up her link.

  “Where’s Meriel?” she asked.

  “Meriel’s down,” Nobu said through her link.

  “On my way,” she said and rushed to her sister with Cookie close behind.

  “How bad?” she asked when she reached her.

  “Internal,” Nobu said, which meant there was little they could do on the Tiger without a doctor.

  ***

  Nurendra Khanag, the black-suited attacker with gold bars, was the last of the black-suits on the bridge to wake from the concussion grenade. He tested the cargo ties that bound his hands behind his back and saw his comrades bound as he was.

  His eyes scanned the bridge. In the far corner one of the defenders kneeled over the woman that his men had shot. He recognized her from briefings, an unintended survivor from one of his father’s early missions. But she was down, which meant one of his goals had been accomplished.

  The dark-haired woman he had pistol-whipped was gone, leaving only one of the Tiger crew to hold them at blaster point. He began to sweat and breathe quickly, frantically planning escapes from his only options—death or a lifetime of dishonor and humiliation. He found none and took a deep breath. His men expected him to lead. If they had to die, they would show the infidels they were defenseless against the resolve of believers.

  Nurendra looked to the remaining defender, a skinny, nervous man who held his blaster as he would a wrench.

  “I can help you,” Nurendra said.

  “Just how is that?” Alf Martin said.

  “I can tell the rest of my soldiers to surrender to you and end the bloodshed.”

  “They’ve lost already.”

  “But some are still free to kill more of you and destroy the ship. You could be left out here without rescue.”

  Alf looked down at him with a squint. He tapped his link and held it out in front of Nurendra’s face. “Go ahead, tell them to give up.”

  Nurendra spoke toward the link. “My brothers, hear my words,” he said and listened for his voice on the PA system. “We are lost and have no future in this world. There is only one honorable decision left for us. Join me.”

  “Shut him up!” Elizabeth shouted as she entered the bridge and ran to Alf.

  Alf furled his brow, confused. He moved his thumb to turn off the link, but before he could, Nurendra grinned and spoke again.

  “Follow me to Paradise, my brothers!” he yelled and bit down hard on something with an audible click. White foam drooled from the corner of his mouth, and he began to shake. “Subedei!” he sputtered and fell on his face, convulsing and coughing up bloody foam. Before Alf could stop them, the other black-suited captives followed their leader, and within a minute, all the remaining pirates onboard lay still.

  “Idiot,” Elizabeth said to Alf and went to help Meriel.

  Fox and Hound

  The Tiger’s first jump hid them from General Khanag’s fleet and gave them time to secure the ship and stabilize Molly, Meriel, and the other wounded in the mess hall before they jumped again. But it took another hour for the ventilation system to scrub the air, and during that time the crew worked through the ozone and smoke.

  “Here it is,” Cookie said. He was wearing visualization goggles and lay on his back under the bridge’s command console, looking at an abstract depiction of their ship’s memory.

  “How much is there?” Captain Vingel asked.

  “Just a fragment of the virus that hijacked us is left. It sneaked in during the last beacon synch.”

  “What’s it do?” the captain asked.

  Cookie pushed himself out from under the console and sat upright, a thin line of blood leaked from under the bandage on his head. “This piece just flashes an ID to triangulate our position, but it replicates.”

  “How bad?”

  “Likely anything on the ship that communicates is infected,” Cookie said.

  “And that means everything,” the captain said. “Hell, my shoes communicate.” He tapped the link on his wrist. “Socket, tell everyone to turn in their links.”

  “And we’ll need to check the coffee maker and toothbrushes.”

  “Socket, sweep for anything with a network ping. Everything that was or is live is likely infected.”

  Socket responded through the link, “We can wipe everything, but we don’t have backups for the firmware. They’ll be dead.”

  “Oh well, back to the stone age,” the captain said referring to the 1990s. “Then what about nav?”

  “Khanag’s goons deactivated the nav virus when they took the bridge,” Cookie said. “I flushed everything but the raw code in backup, but I wouldn’t trust our lives on it.”

  The captain nodded and tapped the link on his wrist again. “Jerri, where are we?”

  “Honestly, Captain, I don’t know, but it’s about a light week from the point of attack, and Khanag will never see our EM even if we were broadcasting. John will jump us again in another few minutes.”

  “Acknowledged,” the captain said. “Anything more we can do here, Sergeant?” Cookie shook his head, and the captain tapped his link again. “All bridge crew report to the forward mess. Disaster recovery.”

  When Cookie and the captain reached the mess hall, they found Socket, Jerri, most of the crew, and many of the passengers already gathered. Elizabeth was there tending to Meriel.

  “Where are we going, Captain?” Jerri asked.

  “Doesn’t matter yet,” the captain said. “Just run. They may be only one jump behind us. Alternatives? Let’s hear ’em.”

  Jerri raised her hand. “We have enough food and fuel to run and hide for a while.”

  The captain frowned. “We’ll need to stop for fuel and food eventually.”

  “And Khanag knows it,” Cookie said. “BioLuna and Khanag combined can have a ship at every station and refueling point. There’s nowhere to go.”

  “We can’t just wander out here,” Jerri said.

  Elizabeth raised her hand. “Meriel needs help, Captain. She can’t wait.”

  The captain turned to Elizabeth. “And who are you?”

  Elizabeth stood and walked to the captain, leaving Meriel with Nobu. “I’m Meriel’s sister, Elizabeth Hope.”

  “You weren’t on the passenger manifest,” he said. “How did you get aboard?”

  “Ah…Meriel rescued me from Etna.”

  “A stowaway? Rescued from what?”

  “There was fight and I…”

  “A fugitive?”

  Elizabeth looked down and nodded.

  “She helped us save the ship,” Lev said.

  “She hid the weapons for us,” Cookie said. “We couldn’t have escaped without her help.”

  The captain looked at Cookie. “Sergeant Cook, she’s your responsibility now.”

  “Aye, sir,” Cookie said and walked over to stand next to Elizabeth. “Meriel needs help soon, or she’ll die, sir. Internal bleeding. Doc was our only medical officer, and he’s dead.”

  Elizabeth remained quiet but bit her lip.

  The captain tapped Lev on the shoulder. “Corporal, see what we got in cargo that can provide some emergency-medical assistance. Buzz me when you have it.” The captain turned to Jerri. “What’s the nearest station?”

  “Etna, sir,” Jerri said, “then Procyon A, Luyten’s star, and DX Cancri.”

  “They’ll find us anywhere we jump,” Alf Martin said, sweating and jumpy.

  “We could send an ePod ahead to signal the beacon and flush them out,” Socket suggested.

  “What’ll we do when they find out it’s a decoy?” Cookie said. “We can’t shoot back.”

  “How about the station troopers?” the captain asked.

  “We’ll need to synch with a beacon to let the troopers know we’re in danger, and before we do, we’re a target,” Cookie said. “They can destroy us and spin any story they want.”

  “That would be kind of h
ard, don’t you think?” Alf Martin said with a smirk and blinked.

  Elizabeth looked at him and furrowed her brow. “Why would that be hard? They hid piracy for a hundred years.”

  “If we make it to a station, Elizabeth will be arrested—”

  “She’s a stowaway, Sergeant,” the captain said.

  “—and Meriel will be arrested as an accessory for evading the police,” Cookie said.

  The captain nodded, rose, and paced the mess. “Other ideas?”

  “We’ve got nowhere to run,” Socket said.

  “It’s that bitch, Meriel,” Alf Martin said. This time the slur in his voice from a recent drink was obvious. “She’s the reason we’re in this fix. Why not negotiate and give her up while we’ve still got some leverage?”

  “Shut up, a-hole,” Elizabeth said. “She’s the one that saved your worthless ass.”

  “Another word, Alf, and I’ll confine you,” the captain said.

  “She—” Alf began, but Elizabeth interrupted him with an elbow to the face and knocked him into the bulkhead after which he dropped to the deck unconscious. Elizabeth returned to the conversation as if she had simply scratched an itch.

  “That was my crewman, Miss Hope,” the captain said. “Sergeant Cook, restrain the stowaway.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Cooke said and took Elizabeth’s arm.

  “But I—” Elizabeth began to say, but Cookie squeezed her arm.

  “Time to close your mouth, lassie,” Cookie said.

  “They might let us go if we’re near a station and witnesses,” a passenger said.

  “It’s too late now,” the captain said. “We all know their secret, and we’re all a threat to their security.”

  Elizabeth shuffled her feet. “We can go to Home,” she said.

  “Where is that?” the captain asked, and Elizabeth gave them the coordinates to TTL-5B3. The bridge crew groaned, and the captain shook his head patiently.

  “We all know those coordinates,” Jerri said as if speaking to a child. “They’re frauds. TTL-5B is a rock with a refueling station.”

  “No, no,” Elizabeth said. “Transpose to the DX Cancri ecliptic. We’re looking for TTL-5B3, not TTL-5B.”

  The captain frowned. “B3 makes it a moon, Ms. Hope.”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “Jerri, try it,” the captain said.

  Jerri tapped on her link, and a few seconds later, she raised her eyebrows. “Eleven light from Dexter? Behind a dust cloud?” she said.

  Elizabeth nodded. “That’s it.”

  “Well, you can see it from Dexter Station. They call it Jira-1, but there’s no survey for it.”

  “Yes, there is,” Elizabeth said. “It’s the survey for TTL-5B. It’s just that the designation and offset were misunderstood.”

  “That’s a long way on a guess from a fugitive,” the captain said. “Jerri, do we know anyone who’s been there?”

  “I’ve been there,” John said as he walked in. “That’s LeHavre Station.” He looked at Elizabeth. “Meriel figured it out?”

  Elizabeth nodded.

  “What are you two talking about?” the captain asked.

  “That’s the location for LeHavre and Haven,” John said. “It’s BioLuna’s best-kept secret, and your cargo chief figured it out.”

  “Wait a minute. How can you hide an entire star system?” Cookie asked.

  “We’re not hidden,” John said. “Everyone has the data sheets on the star and planet and Haven. They’re on every website in the galaxy. They made fantasy movies about us, not very accurate, by the way. The only thing unknown was the orientation from DXC. BioLuna’s been aggressively scrubbing sites because people were getting too close to the truth.”

  “Is this real, John?” the captain said.

  “My kids are there.”

  “Why didn’t you tell us this before?” the captain asked.

  “I did. You weren’t listening.”

  “If Khanag and BioLuna can be at every station, why not LeHavre?” the captain asked.

  “They know better,” John said.

  “And just why is that?” the captain asked.

  “Because Haven is already expecting an attack from BioLuna,” John said, “and will not let unidentified ships mill about. We have ships in orbit and guard the jump points with laser cannons. Where else can we go?”

  “Captain, John got us this far and is familiar with the destination,” Jerri said.

  The captain smiled. “Funny thing, John, but I’ll bet we’re already headed in that direction.”

  John rubbed his chin. “Yeah, kinda,” he said.

  “We’re dead if we drop back into known space,” Cookie said.

  John gave him a patient smile. “Haven is known space,” he said. “It’s just that you don’t know it.” He turned to the captain. “They can repair the ship and nav at LeHavre, sir.”

  “Do they have troopers there?” Cookie asked. “We need them to start forensics before repairs begin.”

  John shook his head. “No, only the Haven Marines, but we have lots of them. And legal offices for LGen Inc. that have standing on Lander.”

  “Pilot, what will it take?” the captain asked.

  Jerri tapped her link. “It’s about six light from our current sphere. That’s most of our fuel if we make it in one long jump.”

  “One long jump will be hard on Meriel,” Cookie said.

  The captain nodded. “And too risky. We need to get back to a known station, just in case.”

  Jerri tapped on her link again. “Five jumps there, and we can still make Lander.”

  “Meriel may not make five jumps,” Cookie said.

  The captain’s link squawked. “Lev, here. We’ve got a med-tech prototype packed up. Don’t know anything about it.”

  “It’s BioLuna,” John said. “It can do minor surgery and life support. It’s one of their good products.”

  “Can it fix her?” Elizabeth asked.

  John shook his head. “No. But it can keep her stable.” He lowered his voice and added, “It can keep her alive.”

  “Haul it up here, Lev,” the captain said.

  Lev’s voice came from the link. “If we open it, we own it.”

  “They can bill me,” Elizabeth said.

  “Jerri, confirm John’s jump points. John, if you have a clue how to operate this med-tech device, then meet Lev in the infirmary.”

  With a plan in place, the crew left for their stations, and the captain turned to Cookie and Elizabeth.

  “Her showing up here just before an attack may be a coincidence, but she’s not to roam free. Understood?” the captain said, and Cookie nodded. “Miss Hope, your sister warned the XO that an attack was coming. Do you know anything about this?”

  “Only what she told me, sir,” Elizabeth said.

  “How did Meriel know they would come for her after all these years?”

  Elizabeth sighed. “She didn’t know. She’s just been afraid all the time.”

  Running for Home

  Status lights on the med-tech beeped in the dim light of the infirmary where Meriel was being held in biosuspension by the med-tech. The lights were dimmed as on most of the Tiger to help the crew and passengers rest during the breaks between repeated jumps. A few minutes later, Meriel blinked and looked around to see Cookie sitting in the chair next to her.

  “Well, good morning, lass. How are you feeling?” Cookie said. He had just stopped in from his security rounds to watch over Meriel. Elizabeth slept in a nearby chair, her wrist handcuffed to the machine.

  Meriel smiled broadly. “Hey, I thought I wouldn’t see you again.”

  “My head’s my best weapon. How are you feeling?”

  “I can’t feel anything, really,” Meriel said. “Where am I?”

  “John calls it a med-tech. He says it kinda locks down your system so you can’t hurt yourself more. I guess your head works, though. What else can you move?”

  Meriel squinted, her brow
furrowed, and her neck muscles twitched, but nothing else moved. Then her right hand and arm moved. “I guess that’s it,” she said. “Is this permanent?”

  Cookie shrugged. “Until we get to some real doctors.”

  “Did Ferrell leave with Khanag?”

  Cookie squinted and frowned. “No. Ferrell’s dead. Captain says we’re heading for Haven, and they have the docs you need.”

  Meriel tried to nod but cringed with a headache. She looked at Cookie and then back to the med-tech.

  “Sorry I couldn’t be there in the fight with you” he said.

  Meriel looked back at him with a smile. “I thought of you, of what you would do,” she said and looked away again. “I wanted you to save us.”

  “Us?” he said with a gentle voice.

  Meriel closed her eyes. “Me.”

  “Sorry, lass. I should have been the one taking the fire.”

  “You outthought them, Cookie. We survived because you gave the weapons to someone they didn’t know was aboard.”

  Cookie shook his head. “I thought it was you.”

  “So did Lev.”

  He kissed her on the forehead. “You did just fine without me. I’m proud to serve with you.”

  Meriel looked back up at Cookie with a smile, but status lights on the med-tech blinked, indicating a new cycle of sedatives was starting. Meriel could feel them kick in. “Wait, I have…” she started to say but drifted back to sleep.

  A few minutes later John entered. “Damn, did I miss her?” he asked.

  Cookie nodded. “Get some sleep, John. You look exhausted. Go on, I’ll spell you.”

  John shook his head. “Everybody’s exhausted. I’ll stay.”

  Cookie nodded and left, and John took a chair opposite Elizabeth. “Molly is up and around, M,” he said to the sleeping Meriel. “Oh, and Liz said that little Eddie came by earlier to see you. He said he threw his toy at the black-suit before his mom shot him.”

  Elizabeth woke to the sound of John’s voice and watched him lean over to look at Meriel’s face inside the med-tech. He put his hand on the outside of the cowl near Meriel’s hand.

  “Meriel, you’ll like Haven,” he said. “You can run all day in the fields without stopping. It’s a yellow sun, like Sol, and you can feel the heat on your skin. When we first left Earth orbit, we said, ‘We’re going home.’”