by Kathryn Hoff
Five minutes to go.
Kojo’s voice came over the mic. “Stay mum. Let them think we’re in distress. Archer, ready rockets for course change.”
The dark of the Gloom loomed ahead, safety of sorts in the trackless space that sane pilots avoided.
Another hail. “Cutter Sparrowhawk, heave to. This is your last warning before we start shooting.”
I jerked hard enough to bang my helmet on the turret’s canopy. “Kojo? They called us by name!”
Someone had betrayed us.
“Wait,” Kojo ordered. “Their first shot will be a warning.”
Four minutes to go.
The lead cruiser’s turret flashed, its artillery directed straight at us.
The charge hit Sparrowhawk full amidships with the force of a battering ram, setting the joined ships spinning like a pinwheel.
“That weren’t no damn warning shot!” Hiram yelled.
Kojo shouted, “Change course, seven-three, now! Sparkler!”
I hit the firing control.
The course change shoved me into my seat with a shock that took my breath away. With a blinding flash, the sparkler detonated in our wake, enveloping us in shimmering light. Like a snowstorm of glowing cinders, the sparkler shrouded the joined ships in a phosphorescent cloud that would blizz their scanners for a crucial moment while we disappeared into the Gloom.
Three minutes to safety…
…except that we were no longer headed for the Gloom. In our tumbling, the rockets had spun us back into the heart of the Road, with three militia cruisers closing in.
Kojo gave frantic orders and counterorders punctuated with curses.
Another flash from a cruiser turret, and another concussion slammed into Sparrow’s flank. The Troy forces were trying to dislodge her—or destroy her.
My ship, my home, my brother, my crew, all about to be blown to oblivion.
I fired again, shooting the sparkler directly at the turret of the lead cruiser—it wouldn’t do any harm, except to blind the gunner for a few moments.
But the next shot in my cannon’s magazine was a live round, a concussive. At this range, it could disable the cruiser’s propulsion. If the cruiser had the bad luck to be close enough, it might even breach her hull.
My heart thumped. I had only one chance to get this right, and a mistake would be fatal.
I took careful aim—not at the cruiser rushing past as we spun out of control, but at the grapplers joining Grand Duchess to Sparrowhawk.
I fired.
CHAPTER 22
Surrender
The concussion blast tore through the grapplers with a silent explosion of debris. The force drove our ships apart, Duchess spinning wildly.
“Thrusters, Kojo!” I shouted into my mic. “They only want Duchess.”
The small grav draw from Sparrowhawk’s load of pellets was gone, replaced by an outward pressure from Duchess’s tumbling rotation.
“Damn you, Patch!” Kojo yelled back. But Sparrow’s thrusters brightened.
Within seconds, Sparrowhawk disappeared into the Gloom, a cruiser following in her wake. A second cruiser dashed in our direction, grapplers outstretched, rockets flaring.
Archer’s voice came over the com. “Kojo? Patch? I felt a grav shift. What’s happening? I’m blind down here.”
“We’re on our own,” I said. “Stand by to surrender.”
The dead crew’s hatred seemed to seep into my bones.
The clipped accents of the Troy militia hails battered my ears. “Barony ship, heave to. Prepare to be boarded. Resistance will result in your destruction.”
I switched my helmet mic to the hailing channel. “Who’s resisting? This ship is disabled, can’t you see that?” In case they were watching, I waved both arms as my turret spun past the cruiser’s view.
My vantage point gave me a great view of the Troy cruiser—barely bigger than Lili’s runabout—spiraling around us as she tried to match her approach to Duchess’s dizzying rotation.
“Dampen your rotation, Barony ship.”
“Give us a minute!” I said. “There’s only two of us aboard. I’ll see what we can do.”
What I was not going to do, if I could help it, was end up in a Troy detention center.
I switched to Archer’s channel. “Archer, the ship’s in a bad spin. Give me a two-second burn, aft and port rockets, on my mark.”
“Standing by.”
I calculated angles. “Now.”
The spurt slowed our rotation enough that the cruiser’s grapplers should be able to take hold.
Thank you, Archer. The burst also propelled Grand Duchess toward the edge of the Ribbon Road and the Gloom, along the course Sparrowhawk had taken.
“Good. You can relax for a bit. Surrender might take a while.”
“Uh, who exactly are we surrendering to?” Archer didn’t sound relaxed.
“A Troy cruiser. Three of them were there when we tried to cross the Road. You might take a look at the portside airlock and see how much damage there is.”
Three cruisers waiting at the crossing point was too much of a coincidence for me. And they’d hailed Sparrowhawk by name while Sparrow was dark, her transponder off.
It smelled of ambush.
It smelled of Davo.
The burzing traitor. If I ever saw him again, I’d rip his lungs out.
As Duchess cartwheeled slowly toward the edge of the Ribbon Road and the Gloom beyond, the cruiser’s hails crackled with demands that we change course.
I switched com channels to respond. “Oh, sorry, Troy militia. I was talking to my engineer. We don’t have much to work with here—but you want us to change course? All right, we’ll try.”
As we neared the turbulent edge of the Road, two of the militia vessels fell back. The lead cruiser on our tail, however, didn’t give up. Even after her companion cruisers had turned back to the safety of the Road, she clung doggedly to Duchess, heading into the Gloom.
As I watched, the lead cruiser’s grapplers snagged Duchess at the forward hatch. The cruiser’s propulsion burned, trying to turn Duchess’s great mass back toward the Road. It was like a man clinging to a boulder and trying to steer while tumbling down a hill.
Archer came back on the helmet mic. “Forget the airlock. Whatever air there was in this ship is gone now. The bastards must have hit us with a concussive—it went right through the double hull, made a hole big enough for an elephant.”
“Uh, it wasn’t them. It was me.”
That silenced him for a moment. “You shot your own ship? With a concussive?”
“I had to. The militia was pounding Sparrowhawk to bits. At least now Kojo has a chance to get Sparrow away.”
“And what about us?”
Already, we were nearing the swirls of dense ether at the Road’s perimeter.
“Get back to engineering. Once we enter the Gloom, we’ll follow Lili’s course, seven-three by oh-four, and pick up that current she talked about.”
Archer hesitated. “Are you sure? Captain Lili hasn’t exactly been a reliable partner. Maybe we’d better take our chances with the Troy militia.”
“Nemesis will find us. Lili needs Duchess.”
“Even if we have a Troy militia cruiser linked to our side?”
The cruiser’s propulsion was barely making a dent in Duchess’s progress toward the Gloom. “Maybe the militia will give up.”
“Ha. You wouldn’t.” He sighed. “Never mind, you did the right thing, Captain Patch. I wonder what Troy does with prisoners of war?”
Captain Patch. My first command: a ship of the dead, waiting to surrender.
Once we’d crossed the turbulent fringe of the Road and the Gloom had closed in around us, Archer executed the course change. “Seven-three by oh-four,” he confirmed. “And that’s all the juice in those mods. We’re coasting with the current now until the Troy cruiser can get Duchess under control.”
“Good. The cruiser’s linking at the forward hatch. We m
ight as well go meet them.”
Abandoning the turret, I avoided looking into the command deck. I didn’t want to see the captain’s accusing eyes as we were about to surrender his ship to his enemy.
On the way to the forward hatch, I detoured to see where the concussive charge had rent the portside hull. I’d never seen an elephant, but the jagged tear was certainly bigger than a man. I’d deliberately aimed for Duchess’s flank—another thing for the dead captain to hold against me—and with all my heart I hoped that Sparrow had not been so badly wounded.
I floated closer to the opening to examine the hole. There had been sealant between the inner and outer hull, ready to repair the tiny injuries done by space dust and minor collisions. It hadn’t been enough to seal a major rent, and the sealant had spewed all over the broken plating.
The strange thing was that within the usual double hull was a third wall, a false bulkhead that had enclosed a hidden space.
Papa had built a similar one into Sparrow’s cargo hold, a handy place to hide cargo we didn’t want nosy inspectors to see.
So what could Duchess have been hiding?
As I neared the jagged tear, the opening to space made me nervous, as if the Gloom could somehow reach into the ship and snatch me away. The blast had twisted the metal edges of the false bulkhead into sharp blades waiting to tear into my enviro suit.
But I went closer—drawn by a shape that looked familiar.
And found myself looking at the operational core of a microbial synthreactor.
What in Zub’s name had Grand Duchess been up to, hiding a synthreactor in her bulkheads?
“Where are you?” Archer called. “The cruiser’s linked her airlock onto the forward hatch.”
“I’ll be right there.” No time to puzzle it out. I pulled the synthreactor core from its hiding place—it looked damaged by the blast—and stashed it among the food stores.
By the time the hatch opened to the cruiser’s airlock, Archer and I, the only living crew of Grand Duchess, were there to greet the Troy militia.
Three armed, enviro-suited squaddies drifted aboard. “Drop weapons! Hands in view!”
“Weapons?” Archer said, waggling his hands. “Do we look armed to you?”
Two of the squaddies launched themselves into Duchess to check for stowaways while the third pulled us into the airlock.
Once the compression cycle had run, he had us strip off the suits—very awkward with the three of us in the close confines of the airlock—before putting restraints on our wrists. Even then, he patted us down as if we could be hiding stunners in our underwear.
That made three times that I’d found myself under arrest in a matter of days: once by the Settlement Authority, once by the Kriti garda, and now by the Troy militia. It was a habit I’d have preferred to avoid.
Once the squaddie deemed us safe, he sat Archer and me on the deck behind the pilot in the cruiser’s cockpit. Irritated crew members had to step over our outstretched legs as they carried out their duties.
Uncomfortable as it was sitting on the floor in my leggings and vest, it was a relief to have the helmet off and be able to scratch my nose again.
The Troy squad leader, a woman called Bell, scowled impressively. “Why didn’t your cutter respond to our hails?”
I shrugged. “You’ll have to ask the captain. Maybe some incompatibility in the com frequencies? Grand Duchess was without power except for the bit in the engine room. All me and Archer had were helmet coms.” Archer bobbed his head in agreement.
“The hailers seemed to have worked well enough when you bypassed the checkpoint, impersonating a Corridor Patrol officer.”
I tried to look astonished, glad that I’d left the sergeant’s jacket aboard Sparrowhawk. “Corridor Patrol? I haven’t seen a Patrol ship anywhere in the sector. Why did you attack us?”
Squad Leader Bell ran a hand through her hair, making it stand on end. “That is a Barony ship. Any Barony ship in Troy territory is assumed to be hostile.”
“A derelict, as anybody can see. Power drained and full of dead folk. Hardly a threat.”
“You fired on us.”
“I fired a distress flare, twice, after you fired a concussive. Why did you fire on us? What kind of militia are you? Can’t you see a ship in distress when it practically runs into you?”
Bell’s second, a gray-haired, pock-marked tough, growled, “Burzing liars. We know how to deal with spies and saboteurs like you.”
Archer snapped, “Watch your mouth, buddy. That’s my wife you’re talking to.”
I smiled at him, genuinely touched—and surprised—by his effort. “As for being spies or saboteurs, we haven’t been anywhere near Troy or any of its settlements. We’re just passing by, trying to salvage a derelict.”
The officer snarled. “You deliberately destroyed the link between your ship and the derelict so your companions could get away.”
“Of course I did. You were shooting at us! I thought it was damn nice of me not to shoot you.”
“And I suppose this isn’t a Barony coin in your possession?” He held up the hundred-sov coin inscribed Do not leave the sector.
This time, my confusion was genuine. “A Barony coin? That’s the Selkid emperor’s seal on its face.” I’d forgotten about the coin in my vest pocket.
“Barony has adopted some of the Selkid customs, like using coinage to issue an official warning. Are you on their watch list, too?”
I shrugged. “I got that coin from a Kriti casino. I thought it was somebody’s idea of a joke.”
Bell slashed a hand down, silencing her second’s retort. “Unfortunately, you may have doomed yourselves as well as my squad by driving us into the Gloom.”
I let my face go slack. “You mean…you mean you don’t know how to get out of this, either?”
The navigator turned in his seat, his face pinched. “Sorry, Squad Leader. We’re caught in a current. My best guess is that we’re heading beyond territorial borders.”
“Can we turn around?” If Bell kept pulling her hair like that, she would go bald.
“Fight the current? The power drain would be tremendous, and I’ve got no idea if it would put us in a better position or a worse one. Where’s that damn informant when we need him?”
Davo. I bit my lip to keep from cursing.
I cleared my throat. “Um, our navigator thought this current would circle back to the Ribbon Road, if that’s any use to you. She used to, um, carry goods informally in these parts and seemed to know what she was talking about.”
“A smuggler,” Bell said, voice like ice. I shrugged.
A com came in from the crewmen she’d sent to secure Duchess. “Squad Leader, the derelict’s secure, but it’s damn weird. We found the crew in their cabins, all tidied up and tucked away, except that the captain and first mate are in enviro suits and at their command posts. My theory is that pirates blew out the hatches and they all froze quickly.”
Squad leader glared at me. “What about the engines?”
“A disaster. It looks like a plasma storm blew through. The propulsion coils have been destroyed, half the consoles are burned out, and someone’s been monkeying with whatever’s left. The burzing pirates had no idea how to power a ship.”
Archer’s eyes widened. Before he could open his mouth to protest, I jumped in with, “That’s the way we found her. We thought it was weird, too.”
The crewman didn’t pause. “Squad Leader, I’m sorry, but this is a lot worse than drained power mods. There’s no way I can make the engines operational. This ship is nothing but a giant lump of metal—we’d have to drag her back to port the whole way, and the cruiser just doesn’t have the power to control a big vessel like this. We’d be better off cutting her loose.”
Squad Leader Bell drummed her fingers on the console, no doubt weighing the glory of bringing a Barony ship back to Troy against the possibility of the ghost ship dragging her and her crew into a death spiral around some uncharted Gloom planet.
“I want to hang onto the ship if I can,” she said, “but in case we have to let her go, download the logs.”
Archer cleared his throat. “With all due respect, if it’s any help, I was able to get some of the maneuvering rockets to work. Monkeying around, that is.”
I smiled encouragement at him. If Kojo was able to come to our rescue, it would be useful for Archer to be already aboard Duchess. And if Kojo didn’t, Archer’s cooperation might help mitigate Troy’s charges against him.
Squad Leader Bell narrowed her eyes at him. “As far as I’m concerned, you’re part of the pirates who murdered the crew.”
Zub’s beard, what had Davo told her?
“We’re salvors, not pirates,” I said. “Check the ship’s records. They’ll prove the ship’s been dead a long time. We’re just trying to collect the salvage fee.”
“Don’t worry, we’ll check.” Bell peered at me more closely. “What are you, anyway? And what happened to you?”
“Trader,” I said brightly, although I knew what she meant. My hair-containing hat had come off with my helmet, exposing my braids and the Neanderthal slope of my forehead, my heavy brow ridge, and receding chin. Not to mention my bruised eyes and forehead stitches. “Had a little problem with the grav.”
The squad leader grunted, too concerned with her own problems to pursue the matter. “How soon before this current loops back to the Road?”
“About a day, or so our nav said. I’ve never been this way, myself.”
The navigator shook his head. “We could be well into Barony territory by then.”
Squad Leader Bell’s response to stress included pacing—made more difficult with my legs and Archer’s stretched across the cockpit’s deck. Archer considerately bunched up, folding his thin body into an unobtrusive pretzel. I didn’t bother.
The navigator continued to scan for anything familiar in the Gloom, his frustration and concern growing more apparent.
At least I had a little time to think.
What had Grand Duchess been doing with a microbial synthreactor? If it had been properly cleared by the Settlement Authority, it would have been carried openly among the cargo, not squirreled away in a smuggler’s cache. Duchess must have been on her way to an illegal terraforming site when she’d been blasted off the Road. If that was true, Barony’s colonists would have been frantic at Duchess—and the synthreactor—going missing.
