Breach the Hull

by Lawrence M. Schoen

  My cabin was bare, save for the fold-down bunk and a single toilet. I had been locked up for a few days, but it was hard to keep track of time when there was nothing to gauge its passing. There had only been the single ration pack they’d given me to eat and my stomach had been growling ever since.

  The brief wave of nausea that had passed over me told me that the ship had blinked at least once. Where the devil were we going?

  I worried about Sheila. She had seemed genuinely shocked when I told her about the inter-colonial war, but how would she know? Fleet was probably keeping a close control on the news that filtered back to Earth, trying to keep up the illusion that the colonies were backwards worlds struggling to survive. Maybe the people on Earth were too tied up in their internal politics and too used to living off the wealth they got from us.

  I felt my stomach clench and my head throb—another blink. There better be a medic wherever Spratt was going. My burns were really starting to hurt. There were two more blinks and another sleep before the cabin door opened. “About bloody damned time,” I complained.

  The grim-faced crewman at the hatch motioned with a stunner. “This way, capper. Spratt says he needs to chat wit ya.”

  He didn’t look very intelligent. Well, I couldn’t expect Spratt to choose from the best and brightest, could I? Maybe if the man were as dense as he looked there might be a chance to wrest the gun from him. I stepped into the corridor, braced for a chance to spring, but two other crewmen grabbed me from either side. “Lead on,” I said gloomily. As we walked along I noted a change in the air, the smell of a station.

  “Ah, Hart. I trust your accommodations were up to your exacting standards?” Spratt said cheerfully.

  “I’ve seen worse,” I bit back. “As will you, no doubt.”

  Spratt ignored my promise. “I hear the Fleet jails are much nicer than ours, a fact you should keep in mind should you have any ideas of escaping.” “Escape to where? I don’t have a drive up my ass, so where would I go?” That got a laugh. “I always liked your sense of humor, Captain.” “Lieutenant,” I corrected him. “Did you buy your rank, or steal it like you did my ship?”

  Spratt shook his head. “Don’t insult me, Hart. After all, I did rescue you and Sheila. Besides, I’m not doing anything illegal. We’re just honest merchants doing what we can to help the Fleet.”

  I shook my head. “Nobody’s going to believe that line, Spratt.”

  Sheila glared at me from the hatch. “So we should believe a blasted pirate, instead? Pfaugh, as if anyone should believe a word y’say.”

  “I never lied to you,” I said, turning to face her. I noticed that she had on clean clothes and had done something nice with her hair. I guess she had better accommodations than me. Damn, and here I’d been worried about her.

  “No? Have you forgotten that people have records? Captain Spratt showed me his papers from when y’signed him on, Captain.”

  Damn, who would have thought Spratt would keep a freaking memento of the brief time he was my second-in-command. But that was before the war, before a hell of a lot of other things happened between us, and before I was recruited. “That was a long time ago,” I said.

  Pitr never did anything that wouldn’t get him a nice return, so why would he tell her that? I failed to see how he could benefit from promoting me. My answer came when, a moment later, a young Fleet officer and one of his sailors stepped onto the bridge. He wore a shiny gold ensign’s brassard and had a few hairs toward a youthful beard on his chin.

  Spratt smiled broadly and, so help me, rubbed his hands together in glee. “Ensign Wright,” he said as he shook hands. “This is the Captain who stole the Elvira. I found him and Captain Foster near death, floating near a transfer point.”

  Wright scowled at my disheveled clothing and wrinkled his nose. I wasn’t surprised. It had been over a week since I bathed. “Are you sure you just happened upon them?” Smart kid, I thought. You didn’t have to be a genius to guess that Spratt had been tracking the pursuit, waiting for a chance to grab the spoils.

  Spratt spread his palms wide. “I was on my way to another place, Sir, and felt a merchant’s obligation when I spotted them. It was just my good fortune to find them before they expired.”

  “That’s not quite true,” Sheila said. “But Captain Spratt did rescue us, and for that I am very grateful.” It hurt me that Sheila was thankful to Spratt for anything. “I’ll see that you get the bounty,” Wright said as he handed Spratt a chit. “The more of these rebels we put away, the better.”

  So that’s why Spratt wanted everyone to think I was still a Captain. Fleet wouldn’t pay bounty for a junior lieutenant, so I had to be promoted. Still, the bounty wasn’t that much. What was Spratt’s real angle?

  “Come along, you,” the young officer said.

  “I’m no Captain, youngster,” I said. “That’s just Spratt’s little joke.”

  “Sorry, but I know differently.” He nodded to his crewman to push me along.

  “Been nice knowing you, Sheila,” I smiled. “Maybe we’ll meet again some day.” Right, as if I was ever going to get out of a Fleet prison before the war was over. That is, if Wright didn’t space me along the way. I’ve heard stories.

  “Better I never see y’blasted arse again, y’damned lying pirate,” Sheila spit. “Maybe honest merchants’ll be safer with y’gone.” She smiled at Spratt as if he were one of them.

  “But I have to bear y’out for a few more days,” she continued. “Much as I hate to do it, they’re taking me to New Caledonia to pay off my debts.” “This way, Sir,” the crewman said politely as he turned me toward the hatch. Wright took Sheila by the arm.

  “One moment, Sir,” Spratt said. “I’m not so sure it would be wise to have just one guard. Hart’s a desperate and violent man. I’ll send a few of my men along to help. Just until he’s secured on your ship, of course.”

  Ensign Wright raised an eyebrow. “I hardly think...” he began.

  “Tut, not another word, Sir. It would be my pleasure. In fact, I’ll even walk along so I can bid a proper goodbye to Captain Foster.” He smiled ingratiatingly. Sheila shot a glance at me, a wary look on her face. Something felt wrong here and she felt it.

  “Oh, very well,” Ensign Wright replied, “but I doubt they’ll give us much trouble. Where could they possibly go?”

  We walked by rows of empty cargo bays. The place look abandoned. I took a good look at my escort. He was quite a bit older than Wright and had that hard-edged look combat gives a man. The name Quince was emblazoned on his pocket.

  “So tell me, sailor,” I asked conversationally. “What’s your job when you aren’t escorting prisoners?”

  “I’m engines,” he replied with a trace of a colonist’s accent. Could he be sympathetic to the cause?

  “Heavy cruiser?” I asked. “Commanded one of those years ago...before, I mean.” “Naw, it’s just a boat,” he replied with an embarrassed grin. “They won’t let us ex-pats on the warships.”

  “Are they afraid somebody’s going to steal them?” I joked. “What about your boat?”

  Quince laughed softly and looked to see if Wright were out of earshot. “Naw, he’s not worried about me. But he says we have to guard it whenever we’re transporting something valuable.” He bit off the last of his sentence as Wright glared at him and then whispered, “Stupid regulations, if you ask me.”

  Quince’s ship turned out to be a Corvette, one that was a fraction the size of my old ship and as heavily armored. Corvettes were half drive, one-quarter cargo, and usually carried a crew of five, which explained why there was only Quince, Tag, and Tiger.

  Corvettes were fast couriers with little crew space so, with Sheila along, there wouldn’t be room for me. I supposed I’d be shoved into the cargo bay. Well, at least I wouldn’t have to wait long to get to wherever we were going. These little boats could eat up the light years quickly.

  Wright waved our entourage to a halt as we neared the Corvette’s hatc
h. Quince pulled me to a stop short of everyone else. “Gotta follow protocol,” he sneered. “En-sign’s a stickler on rules. Says Tiger’s not suppose to open the hatch without him giving the all-clear. Stupid, but the kid’s a real prick about stuff like that.”

  When Wright pulled out his radio and barked something, I suddenly realized what Spratt was about to do. I shouted a warning as the hatch swung open, but it was too late. All hell broke loose.

  Spratt shoved Sheila aside and pushed the muzzle of a blaster into Wright’s ribs. One of the other crewmen snatched the stunner from Quince and threw him to the deck. The rest rushed into the ship with blasters. There were a few brief flashes of light from inside and then one of them poked his head back out. “We got both of them,” he said.

  “You can’t do this,” Wright protested as one of the crew pushed him toward us. “That ship is Fleet property.”

  “Shut him up,” Spratt ordered and glanced around. “Where in hell’s the girl?” I’d been so intent on the action I had lost sight of Sheila as well. Some more crewmen showed up with a transporter. “You two, find the woman,” Spratt yelled. “The rest of you get the cases unloaded so we can get out of here.” “What’s so important about your cargo,” I asked as we were herded together and out of the way. A Corvette can’t carry much.

  “Twenty billion in credit bonds destined for New Caledonia,” Wright said through gritted teeth. “Bearer bonds for Fleet operations.”

  That would be the money Fleet used to pay for fuel, repairs, and supplies from the friendly colonies. It didn’t make a great deal of sense to travel all the way back to Earth whenever you needed toilet paper so they lived off the local economies when they could. Twenty billion was a huge haul for Spratt. It would finance the Consortium for years if he took it back, and that was a big if.

  “I’m really going to get in trouble for this,” Wright groused. “There goes my ca-reer,” as if that was his only concern. He’d be lucky to get out of this alive. Two of Spratt’s crew were holding their guns on us while the others began trans-ferring the boxes containing the twenty billion. What was the value of each bond—one, two, or ten million? I tried to get my head around how many boxes it would take to hold so much wealth. Twenty billion was such an enormous number that I couldn’t do the math.

  One of the crewmen Spratt had sent after Sheila came out of a corridor. I had just noticed how ill-fitting his clothing was when...

  “Charlie, where’s...” one of our guards started to say when the newcomer shot him. Two more bolts quickly followed to drive the others into the hatch. It was Sheila with a blaster in each hand.

  “Grab their guns, y’blasted fools,” she yelled as she sent a couple more bolts of compressed energy toward the hatch. “Let’s go!”

  I didn’t need much encouragement and neither did the others. We scooped up the weapons and ran after her.

  “Did you get both blasters?” she asked once we’d gone a ways down the corridor. I looked back. I could hear them yelling, but no one had come into sight as yet. “There was only a blaster and a stunner.”

  “Damn.” She led us through an open hatchway. “We don’t have much time. I expect they’ve alerted their shipmates already. Any ideas?”

  “We need more firepower,” I said. “Three blasters and a stunner aren’t enough to overcome the few back there, let alone Spratt’s shipmates.” I pointed at Wright and Quince. “Do you both have experience with blasters?”

  “Everyone in Fleet does, Sir,” Quince said at once.

  “Just a minute, sailor,” Wright protested. “Why are you listening to him?”

  “Because a pirate’s the best man for the job, y’daft fool,” Sheila said.

  Staying alive and out of Spratt’s hands was certainly my first priority. “Listen, they could take both ships and abandon us,” I said. ”We need to take the battle to them before that happens.”

  Quince was keeping one eye on the corridor while we talked. “They’re not following us.”

  “Good,” Wright said. “Cowards.”

  “No, bad,” I replied. “It means Spratt isn’t worried about us. Sheila, how did you manage to knock out the two crewmen who came after you?” “When they found me I just told them I was frightened and ran away,” she said. “Then I kicked one in the balls, grabbed his blaster. and shot the other one.” She paused. “I shot the second one after I took his clothes.”

  Wright looked shocked. “You shot an unarmed man?”

  Sheila looked him straight in the eye. “Damn right, and I might do it again if you don’t shut y’fucking blowhole.”

  “We need to get back to the Corvette.” I said. “Spratt’s going to be concentrating on moving the bonds, so he might not leave a guard there.”

  “We’ve got to get those bonds back,” Wright said. “I can’t allow some damn colonist to steal...” His voice cut off quickly when Sheila twitched the tip of her blaster in his direction.

  “Can we catch them in a cross-fire?” I asked.

  “There’s another corridor,” Quince said. “That’s the way we came earlier.”

  “All right. You two go that way. We’ll backtrack from here.” I felt around. “Here,” I tossed the second blaster to the Ensign and kept the stunner for myself. “Good luck.”

  Sheila and I waited for them to get to the other corridor before we started back. “All we have to do is take over a guarded ship with four people, a stunner, and three blasters,” I said, feeling considerably less confident than I hoped I sounded.

  “Surely that’s no problem for a real pirate,” she replied. After seeing her in action, I wondered who the real pirate was.

  There were three men guarding the Corvette. Two were armed with projectile weapons—nasty things that threw metal slugs instead of stuns or bolts. “Spratt means business,” I whispered.

  “Oh, y’be afraid of a slug thrower?” she shot back.

  “Being hit by one of them is just not something I might enjoy.”

  “Argh, yer a blasted coward, I think. Is that why y’chose the damned stunner? For myself, I think I fancy one of theirs.” She pointed toward the guards. “Y’shoot the one on the left and I’ll do the right. Then we both shoot the middle one.” Sounded like a sound strategy to me. “On my count,” she continued.

  I let off my first shot before she finished saying “Three.” My first went wide but the next was dead on target, as was Sheila’s. Both men fell to the deck just as the third’s shot hit the drum beside me with a nasty ringing sound.

  “Down,” Sheila yelled as she sent a few more bolts at the guard. I shot twice as I dropped to the deck. No further projectiles came our way.

  “I’ll take a look,” I whispered over my shoulder and peeked around the drum, only to see Sheila kneeling to retrieve one of the rifles. Just then, two crewmen came through the hatch.

  “Watch it!” I yelled, stood, and shot wildly. I must have winged one, for he yelped and dropped his blaster. The other swung his toward me, ignoring the kneeling Sheila, who swung her rifle and cracked the guy across the knees. He let out a scream of pain as his shot went wild. She reversed the rifle and pointed it. “Get their weapons,” she shouted.

  I retrieved the other rifle and both blasters. “What do we do with them?” I pointed at the two guards.

  “Don’t be daft. Didn’t they teach anything pirate school? Shoot them... or I will.”

  I didn’t doubt for a moment that she’d do it. I stunned the two conscious ones, figuring that knocking them out was the better alternative. That would keep them out of action for a couple of hours.

  Some of Spratt’s men remained on the Corvette. “They can pick us off if we try the hatch,” I warned.

  “Argh, no time to be shy,” she said and made for the hatch with her rifle at the ready. A shot hit the deck by her left foot.

  I pulled her back out of the line of fire. “Don’t be a damn fool.”

  This was bad. With armed men on board there was no way we could overcome
the odds when the rest of Spratt’s crew showed up. But, seeing her beside me with a slug thrower in one hand and a blaster in the other gave me confidence that we might stand a chance.

  We heard a ruckus behind us. Wright ran out of an adjacent corridor with Quince behind. Both were firing bolts over their shoulders. There was some return fire. “Crap, looks like Spratt’s men have arrived,” I said.

  Sheila pulled one of the drums around and rested the rifles on top. “Pull the others around us to make a fort,” she shouted as Quince and the Ensign joined us. “We shot at the transporter crew,” Quince said breathlessly. “I got two of them before they started shooting back. Eight men left.”

  “Why aren’t you inside the Corvette?” Wright asked.

  “Shooter inside,” Sheila barked. “But go ahead and try if you want.” She sent a slug ricocheting down the corridor. “That should make them a bit more cautious.”

  It was only a matter of time before Spratt overwhelmed the four of us. Not only did he have more firepower and men, but he could wait us out. “Do we rush the ship?” Quince asked. “With enough firepower we might get lucky.”

  “Sure, and they’ll get some of us in the process,” I answered. “Is there another way into the ship?” I asked Wright.

  Only he was nowhere to be seen. “Oh shit,” Sheila said and pointed at the hatch. Wright was kneeling unprotected to one side at an access panel. A second later, the hatch slammed shut.

  “Jesus, he’s cut off our escape route,” Sheila said and swung the rifle around. I was afraid she was going to shoot and knocked the barrel aside. “What’s he doing,” I asked Quince as a white frost began to appear around the seal where the Corvette snuggled to the station.

  “He’s accessed the maintenance override!” Quince said admiringly and explained. “He’s venting the air.”