Star Risk, LTD.: Book One of the Star Risk Series

by Chris Bunch

  He went to a com, touched a sensor.

  A man’s face appeared.

  “Good day, Mr. von Baldur.”

  “Good afternoon, Mikael,” von Baldur said. “May I speak to Reg?”

  “Afraid not, sir,” the secretary said. “Mr. Goodnight left yesterday on an extended inspection of our holdings.”

  “Did he say where he would be going, specifically?”

  “He didn’t, sir. He told me he wanted to surprise and shake up some of the people out there.”

  “What escort did he take?”

  “None, sir. Said he didn’t need it.”

  Von Baldur’s smile was very fixed.

  “If he happens to check in, please ask him to contact me. It is quite important.”

  He blanked the screen.

  “What a convenient trip,” he said.

  “If it’s not genuine,” Grok said, “we must wonder what triggered the alarm.”

  “Who knows?” King said. “Maybe some of those duddy old clerks weren’t as stupid as I thought. Maybe one of them was on the payroll. Or maybe someone reported me digging around here, looking for recent claims.

  “I think we’d best assume the worst, and that Goodnight has been alerted,” Grok said. “As for why he engaged in this conspiracy, Goodnight might well have decided to sell out Transkootenay. A very good reason might be to league himself with Murgatroyd and those politicians.

  “I’m sure they’d pay a great deal more for the painless delivery of an entire asteroid belt full of minerals, a great many already pinpointed by the already-filed claims, than whatever Transkootenay is paying him now.

  “In any event, we must move swiftly, if we wish to end this matter. Murgatroyd may well decide to go for broke, as you people have it, and mount some sort of offensive.

  “Also, Goodnight and Murgatroyd may be able to force motion on Glace, and somehow cancel the Transkootenay and therefore our contracts, which would leave us with a hatful of knowledge, and a pocketful of nothing.”

  “I must also bring up another unpleasant possibility,” Grok said. “Is there any possibility that our Chas has become partners in deceit with his brother?”

  Baldur thought, made a face. “I am not sure.”

  “I am,” King said. “I thought about that, ran probabilities on Chas being a double, and willingly put himself in the danger he has put himself into, and that we have witnesses as to its reality.

  “There can be too many wheels within wheels.”

  Baldur relaxed.

  “I am delighted to be able to take our brilliant analyst’s word for things.”

  • • •

  “It has to be Reg,” Chas Goodnight said grimly. He paced back and forth across the wardroom of the Boop.

  “He told me he was getting fed up with the way Transkootenay ran things, that you weren’t allowed any mistakes at all before your head would be on the block. Maybe he wasn’t quite the company darling I thought he was.

  “And he did say he was getting burnt out.”

  Goodnight grinned twistedly. “Or maybe he’s just got the same streak of crookedness I do.

  “But I don’t think I’m sleazy enough to put my brother’s head in a noose, the way he’s done me, more than once now.”

  He went to a porthole of the Boop, looked out at the yard beyond.

  “I think I want to take care of that recon out on Moon Five, and I agree we’ve got to move very, very fast,” he said.

  “Well, you would be a natural,” von Baldur said cautiously. “But you must be somewhat shocked, and — ”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Goodnight said. “I need some work to get my mind off … off things.”

  “You’ll need a teammate,” Riss said. “I can do it by myself.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous.”

  “And I would hardly encumber a ship, and need some exercise,” Grok said. Goodnight hesitated, then nodded. “All right, then. Let’s go stir up the ants nest.”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  Moon Five was a desolate chunk of rock, spinning slowly about 200,000 kilometers from its parent. It was irregular, pocked with craters, and lined with jagged canyons.

  The transponder Spada had planted on the assassin’s speedster had narrowed the raiders’ base to a square, ten kilometers on a side, before the snitch’s power pak evidently died.

  Unfortunately, it seemed those ten klicks were the ruggedest part of the moon.

  “About the best that could be said about having to live on one of these boulders,” Spada said, looking up through the ship’s greenhouse at the overhanging bulk of Ice Four, “is you’d get some great sunsets.”

  “Not for me,” Goodnight said. “I’d keep thinking that big goddamned planet up there was gonna fall on me. Sunset-schmundset.”

  Riss realized with a bit of a start that was the closest thing to a joke Chas had made since they left Mfir.

  Spada’s P-boat, and one other, were parked on another of Ice Four’s moons that they’d used to mask their approach to Five.

  The other patrol boats had slipped away from Mfir one or two at a time, so Murgatroyd’s assumed spies wouldn’t think Star Risk had either gone into panic mode or, worse yet, had anything resembling a plan, and were patrolling the belt and waiting for orders.

  Spada had dropped a communications satellite half a million miles distant from the planet, and coms went, via tight beam, to and from that. There was little likelihood of Murgatroyd being aware of the sparse, coded messages that flashed back and forth between the Boop-Boop-A-Doop and Spada.

  Grok had brought more than his looming presence — there was about a kiloton of various electronics packed in and around the three crewmen, three Star Risk operatives sardine-packed on the patrol boat.

  Goodnight and Riss waited while Grok, growling happily, started running checks. It took about an E-day.

  “Murgatroyd isn’t an utter fool,” Grok said.

  “No one ever assumed that,” Riss said.

  “He does have some perimeter warning,” Grok said. “Fortunately … for us … it’s a pair of orbital satellites, which they’re flying no more than ten kilometers above the surface, almost within gravitational pull.”

  “Why fortunate?” Goodnight asked.

  “I’ve been very gently querying them, on several frequencies,” Grok said. “They’re not very good guardians, I’m afraid. I’ll tentatively identify them as HRNY slash Seven or Eight, ex-Alliance, of course.

  “The Alliance obsoleted them because they’re very easy to spoof.”

  “Or else,” Riss said, amused, “because of the unfortunate acronym.”

  “What?” Grok asked.

  “Never mind,” Riss said. “So you can fry them?”

  “I’d never do something like that,” Grok said. “An absence of signal would be almost as bad as if they twigged … I do like that word … us.

  “No. What I’ve done is blanket their signal so that no matter what we do, the receiving station will get nothing but a nothing … nothing … nothing signal.

  “So we can proceed with the next stage of the operation,” Grok said. “Narrowing down the location of their base so we won’t have to hike up hill and down dale.

  “What a puzzling phrase that is. As far as I know, Dale is an archaic name. Why would anyone want …?”

  Grok trailed off, and went back to his bread-boarding.

  Two hours later, a message came in from Mfir. Riss fed it through the decoder.

  P-BOATS REPORT FOUR RAIDERS IN BELT. NO ATTACKS MOUNTED. WE ARE TRACKING. IT APPEARS RAIDER SHIPS ARE RECONNING EXTANT TRANSKOOT PROCESSING PLANTS, BUT TAKING NO ACTION. WHETHER CONCERTED ATTACK PLANNED OR SOMETHING ELSE UNKNOWN. DO NOT LIKE DEVELOPMENTS. TAKING APPROPRIATE MEASURES. VON BALDUR.

  “And what the hell are appropriate measures?” Goodnight wondered.

  “Damfino,” Riss said. “Guess Freddie’ll tell us when it suits him.”

  Later that “day,” Grok launched his toy, a modified, w
arhead-less missile.

  Spada’s new weapons officer, a woman named Nkrumah, flew the bird to Five at low drive, made a high pass for an aerial projection of the square to be searched, then brought it in close to the moon’s surface on the far side of the square.

  The control room of the P-boat was very quiet, and no one spoke except in whispers, as if Murgatroyd could somehow hear them.

  Nkrumah shook her head as the missile made one pass, then banked, came back across the square, its sensors covering about two hundred meters on each sweep.

  Then, on the third, she grinned.

  “I have a nice little infrared indicator here, and here. Does that give you anything?”

  “I’ll put a map onscreen,” Grok said. “Helpful indeed. An IR leak here and here, right where the map indicates a canyon, suddenly no canyon, then another canyon beginning.

  “It might suggest that a base was put in that canyon, and masked, probably for insulating practicalities.

  “I would think this is an area worthy of our investigations.”

  He turned to Spada.

  “You may insert us any time. I’d suggest a nice, low approach from the other side, the same as the missile made, then, keeping below any radar horizon if they’ve got secondary warnings set, and set down here, behind this mountain.”

  “Thank you for your valued insights, Dr. Grookonomonslf,” Spada said sarcastically. “I, of course, am at your beck and call.”

  • • •

  The patrol boat touched down gently, pumice swirling behind its drive, then settled.

  The port opened, and Riss, Goodnight, and Grok waddled out. The ET was even more grotesque than normal in the huge space suit he’d been sausage-stuffed into.

  Goodnight waved back at the ship, then led off, through the rubbled nightmare.

  Goodnight and Riss, used to space-suited trundling, still were tired, needing a breather inside of an hour. Grok was in marginally better shape, due only to his size.

  They found a niche, and Riss ran leads from her suit to connectors on the other two. She waited until the panting in her headphones died, then keyed a chin mike.

  “We keep pushing until we’re on the canyon.” It wasn’t quite an order.

  “Right,” Goodnight said.

  “Then what?” Riss asked.

  “Then we figure out if they’ve sealed that base off and pressurized it. Easier for me to look innocent if everybody’s wearing a suit until they get into a compartment.”

  “Go back one. What’s this ‘me’?” Riss asked suspiciously.

  “Me,” Goodnight said confidently. “Just me. I want you on the outside, ready to come in if I holler, and Grok as a standby.”

  “That’s a little close in for a recon,” Riss said.

  “Just what they’ll be thinking. Which’ll keep there from being any nasty surprises,” Chas said. “I hope.”

  Riss considered, decided not to say anything at the moment.

  “Let’s hike,” Goodnight said. “We want to hit them when they’re still in this holding pattern it looks like they’re in, trying to figure out what to do next.”

  They drank water from their hydration systems, went on.

  They were about two kilometers from the canyon when Goodnight, still on point, felt vibration under his feet. He motioned to the others and they found cover behind boulders.

  In the perpetual twilight from the overhead loom of Ice Four, they saw three of the N’yar ships used by the raiders spurt up into the sky, and vanish.

  Goodnight held out perplexed arms to the other two, and they continued.

  They spotted proof of the base inside of a kilometer. Heavy stand plates had been anchored in the moon’s surface. Alloy girders stretched out over the canyon, and a dome was formed with layers of plas. At one end, the dome’s girders were mounted on rails, and hydraulics opened the “hatch” to allow ships to enter and leave.

  Riss nodded in appreciation of the builders’ cleverness.

  Grok spotted a nearby crater, pointed to it.

  They crouched inside, plugged in their connectors.

  “Over there looked like an inspection hatch,” Goodnight pointed. “I’ll go in it, and get a look around.”

  “What happens if you get in trouble?” Grok asked.

  “I’ll start hollering on the watch frequency,” Goodnight said. “Then I’ll go bester, and get my ass out, sprinkling grenades as I go.

  “I’d appreciate it if you’d be just beyond that hatchway, and devastate anyone who comes after me.”

  “That’s about as thin a plan as I’ve ever heard,” Riss said.

  “Yeah, well, you got anything better?” Goodnight asked.

  Riss shook her head. “Other than going on back to the patrol ship, call for Freddie, and bring in the clowns with bombs, hoping the cruiser’s inside.

  “Inside, and not lurking on the outside, ready for a counterambush,” she added.

  “I’ll only be an hour or so,” he said, unplugged, and went toward the hatch. Even in a bulky suit he still moved gracefully, Riss thought.

  She waited until Goodnight knelt by the hatch, found a way to open it, went into the dome.

  “I think our Chas is playing games.”

  “This is certainly as slapdash an operation as I’ve ever known,” Grok agreed.

  “I think all he’s got on his mind is finding his brother and getting revenge.”

  “Not good.”

  “No,” Riss agreed. “I’m going down after him. You want to follow me just inside and shoot the shit out of anyone who thinks hostile thoughts about either one of us?”

  “I can manage that,” Grok said.

  They went to the hatch, which was big enough for a lifter.

  The two went through.

  Below them spread the raiders’ base, a huge cavern, lit in the dimness by glaring floods along the girders.

  In the center of the cave was the cruiser, N’yar raiding ships, and other spacecraft.

  The walls of the cavern had been cut out into caves, sealed, and made into compartments. Large double-plas windows faced out.

  On the floor of the cave, and on walkways, suited figures moved about.

  One of them was Goodnight.

  He melded well into the bustle. Some of the suits were Alliance issue, more civilian or even alien in manufacture.

  No one took notice of Goodnight, nor the heavy pack he wore carrying various munitions.

  He was not the only armed man, with his holstered blaster and slung, heavy blaster.

  Goodnight found a nook, scanned the floor below, spotted the small ship his brother used for his transport.

  He wasn’t aware of it, but his face drew back into a humorless, skull-like grin.

  He went down spidery iron stairs toward the floor.

  M’chel tapped Grok’s helmet, put hers against his.

  “There he is. I’m going on down.”

  “I do not think this is wise,” Grok said. “We were only supposed to recon the area.”

  “No one said anything about wisdom.”

  “True,” Grok said. “And it would be refreshing to see a few bodies bounce, would it not?”

  Goodnight reached the floor, went to the transport. It was empty, lock yawning.

  He thought a minute, saw a man pushing what looked to be a generator cart toward him. Goodnight went to the mechanic, stalking as imperiously as a man wearing a suit that doubled his size in all directions could stalk.

  He held out his com plug. The mechanic looked up at the dome roof tiredly, almost certainly thinking here’s one more goddamned boss with weird ideas, plugged it in.

  “What’s your grief?”

  “Who belongs to that ship?” Goodnight asked.

  “Some muckety, came in a few days ago.”

  “Well, we’ve got to move it all the way to the back, clear the way for some incomings.”

  “How come nobody told me?” the man complained. “All I was told was to plug into th
e damned thing, and figure out why it’s got a hiccup in the antigravs.”

  “I don’t care about that,” Goodnight said. “Where can I find the pilot? I’m sure not going to maneuver some bucket around, ‘specially if its antigravs don’t work.”

  “Hell, if I know,” the man said. “Go ask the muckety.” He snickered. “If you’ve got the balls to bother him. All of the clout is upstairs, yoinking around with meetings and that. I guess we’re getting pretty close to ending this whole thing, which is fine with me.

  “Next contract, I find one that’ll let me scratch my balls when I want and not spend so much time in this stinking tin can.”

  “Where do I find your muckety?”

  “Prob’ly up there. Somewhere on the command floor.” The man pointed vaguely.

  “You got a name?”

  “Nope,” the man said, pulling his com plug out and turning away.

  Goodnight didn’t think it was wise to ask further — a raider should be expected to be somewhat familiar with his base. He nodded, unplugged, and started back toward the stairs. Halfway there, he saw a lifter, went to it.

  Another suited figure came up beside him, handed him a com plug. Irritated, he took it. “What?”

  “You look like you need company,” Riss said. Goodnight jumped a little. “Goddamnit, I told you — ”

  “Nobody tolds nobody nothin’ around here, Chas. Remember? Come to think about it, I outrank you anyway.”

  “You can get killed doing something dumb like this.”

  “And you can’t?”

  Goodnight felt his icy mood defrost a little, and smiled.

  “Anybody ever told you you’re a damned fool?”

  “Frequently. Anybody ever told you you’re worse?”

  They went into the lifter. As it took them up to the top, Goodnight told her what the mechanic had said.

  “So what’s your plan?”

  “I’m going after Reg.”

  “About what I thought,” Riss said.

  The lift door opened, and they walked out, toward a lock. There were portholes into the compartments inside, a huge suite of offices.

  Goodnight saw expensively dressed men and women, carpeting, desks that could have been made out of real wood.

  There were two armed men outside the lock, sitting behind a table.