Privateers

by Ben Bova

  For an instant Lucita thought she saw a flicker of warmth in Malik’s eyes, a hint of honest emotion, a slight momentary dropping of his guard. But it was only for an instant. His eyes glittered hard as diamonds as he asked:

  “If I don’t kill him … if I allow him to face trial in Moscow …”

  “You must let him escape,” she said.

  He almost laughed. “To where? He is a doomed man, Lucita. Even if I could allow him to escape, where could he hide? There is no place on Earth or in space that could harbor him.”

  Lucita knew he was speaking the truth. She herself could not evade this single Russian male. Dan Randolph could never escape the power of the entire Soviet government. He is a doomed man. Vasily is speaking truly now. Dan Randolph will die.

  She drew in a shuddering breath, then said slowly, “If he must die, then let it be done legally, and not by your hand.”

  “And you? …”

  “If you do not kill him yourself,” Lucita heard herself saying, “then I will go through with our wedding. I will become your wife.”

  “And you will stop this talk of suicide?”

  “Yes,” Lucita murmured. “I will live my life with you.” But her mind was racing wildly as she said the words. Perhaps Dan can escape somewhere, somehow. Perhaps my father can intervene and they won’t kill him. Perhaps they’ll exile him, send him to the mines on the Moon. That would be better than killing him.

  “You will be my willing and loving wife?” Malik demanded.

  “Yes,” Lucita replied, so low that she could barely hear her own surrender. “Your loving wife.”

  Chapter THIRTY-FIVE

  Dan heard footsteps. The bare plastic-sheeted floor of the corridor outside his makeshift cell clicked with the sound of several pairs of boots. He scrambled to his feet.

  Malik’s coming! He knew that the Russian was among the men approaching. With a grim smile, he waited.

  A shock jolted his guts when he saw Lucita walking beside the Russian. What’s she doing here? Dressed in jeans, like a woman who was prepared to spend some time in zero gravity. With Malik. She’s come up here with him!

  Malik looked pleased with himself. Smiling handsomely in his tan uniform, the Russian had every reason to be pleased. He had won, Dan knew. He had beaten Dan and now was enjoying the fruits of his victory. Enjoy it all you can, you murdering sonofabitch, Dan growled silently. In a couple of minutes you’re going to be dead.

  Malik saw the expression on Dan Randolph’s face and knew instantly that the American was going to force them to shoot him. Like a wolf caught in a trap, he will snarl and fight until we have no choice but to kill him. Good! thought the Russian. Let the Yankee attack me. Ostrovsky and the lieutenant will riddle his body while I save Lucita from harm. Then she can’t blame me for his death.

  Malik brought their little procession to a halt in front of Randolph’s cage. He already had the look of a trapped beast about him: unshaved, wild-eyed, as tense as a coiled steel spring.

  “Well, Mr. Randolph,” he said in English. “We meet again.”

  Dan looked them over carefully. Damned clever of the bastard to bring Lucita along. If I do anything to start them shooting, she might get hurt.

  “My men,” Dan said to Malik. “The men who were out at the freighter …”

  “The pirate crew you sent to steal our ore shipment?” Malik’s grin bared his teeth. “I’m afraid they were all killed in the battle.”

  “Battle? They didn’t have any weapons! How could there be a battle?”

  Malik shrugged. “They were all killed. Every last one of them.”

  Dan was not surprised at the news. But the molten surge of fury that erupted inside him was a surprise. He fought to control it. Wait until they unlock the door, he told himself. Knock Lucita out of the way and then break that smiling sonofabitch’s neck.

  “You have done us a very great favor, you know,” Malik went on, making no move to take Dan out of the cell. “Within a week the Soviet Union will control every one of the Third World space facilities. We intend to root out all of your pirates, every last one of them.”

  “And shoot them down in cold blood,” Dan said.

  “Oh, no. We will do everything strictly according to international law. There will be trials in Moscow, with television coverage. The whole world will see Soviet justice in action.” Malik motioned for the young lieutenant to unlock the cage door. “I have even arranged for your trial to be delayed until after my wedding, so that Lucita and I can sit in the front row and watch.”

  The lieutenant fished a plastic card from his tunic pocket and came up to the door. Dan tensed, waiting to spring at Malik the instant the lock clicked.

  “We will be married the first Sunday in December,” Malik said, sliding his arm around Lucita’s slim shoulders. “Isn’t that right, my darling?”

  The lieutenant slid the card into the electronic lock’s slot. Nothing happened. He withdrew it, squinted at it, then turned it around and tried again.

  Lucita looked from Malik’s gloating face to Dan’s. Her lovely face looked as lost and forlorn as a waif’s. Dan heard the lock click open, but something in Lucita’s eyes held him riveted where he stood. She was trying to tell him something, trying to warn him.

  “We will be married,” she replied to Malik in Spanish, while still fixing her gaze on Dan, “only if my beloved Yanqui has not been murdered by you or your soldiers.”

  Dan reached out and pushed the wire mesh door open. It swung easily. The lieutenant backed out of its way. The major was standing several paces to the left. Both were armed with pistols, holstered at their hips. As was Malik.

  Dan took a step out of the cage, every nerve hyperalert, every muscle tensed for action, like a jaguar released after hours in captivity. Lucita moved slightly, barely a step, but she placed herself between the smiling, tormenting, baiting Russian and Dan himself.

  He finally understood. Malik wants me to attack him. He’s trying his damnedest to make me go for his throat. Then his aides can shoot me down and make an end of it. Lucita’s trying to keep me out of the trap.

  “Why are you here?” he asked her in Spanish.

  She knew that Malik understood the language, but the other two officers probably did not. “I came to save your life.”

  Dan shook his head. “It’s too late for that.”

  “Far too late,” Malik broke in. Looking disappointed, he gestured down the passageway from which they had come.

  “A shuttle is waiting to take you to Moscow. We have no time to lose.”

  Dan shrugged, let his muscles relax, even allowed his head to droop slightly. He walked between Lucita and Malik, with the two other Russians behind.

  “I’ll be a worldwide television star, eh?” He tried to make himself laugh. “Will I get a chance to tell my side of the story, or will I be so buzzed out on drugs that I’ll say whatever the prosecutors want me to say?”

  Tight-lipped, Malik replied, “You will get a fair trial.”

  “Fair? I want a great trial!”

  “It will be difficult to keep world opinion from demanding your immediate execution,” Malik said, “once the asteroid strikes.”

  “The aster-” Dan felt his breath catch in his throat. He stopped in his tracks and whirled on Malik. “What the hell have you done?”

  Out of the corner of his eye, Dan could see the two officers reaching for their pistols. Lucita was behind him, Malik’s smugly grinning face only a few inches away.

  “Your asteroid, Mr. Randolph. It is about to undergo a change in course.”

  “That can’t happen… .”

  “But it will happen,” Malik said. “I guarantee it. Your asteroid is going to strike somewhere in the state of Nebraska. Between the cities of Omaha and Lincoln, I am told.”

  Dan’s fists clenched.

  “The asteroid will strike just a day or so before your trial begins,” Malik added. “The explosion will destroy everything for at least a hundred mil
es around the impact site, and leave a crater like the one in Arizona. It will also destroy any shred of sympathy the Americans or anyone else might have for you.”

  Dan could feel Lucita’s hand on his sleeve, but he yanked free of her. Malik took an involuntary half step backward, away from him.

  “Attention!” crackled a voice from the intercom loudspeakers, set up in the ceiling of the passageway, alongside the fluorescent light tubes. “Attention! Mr. Dan Randolph, your attention, please!”

  It wasn’t until he saw the puzzled expression on Malik’s face that Dan realized the voice was speaking in Japanese.

  “This is Nobo, Mr. Randolph. We have taken control of the entire area between the visitors lounge and the communications center, including the Russian shuttle that is docked to the visitors lounge emergency hatch.”

  Malik pulled the pistol from his holster. “Who is that? What is he saying?”

  “Stay put!” Dan shouted in Japanese. “Hold tight until further orders.”

  Malik pointed the gun into Dan’s face. “What did you say? Tell me or-”

  Without even thinking about it, Dan grabbed the Russian’s wrist, twisted the gun out of his hand and swung Malik around to shield him from the guns of the other two men.

  “Get behind me!” he commanded Lucita. Holding Malik’s pistol to the Russian’s temple as he twisted Malik’s arm in a hard hammerlock, he shouted to the other two in English, “Put your guns down and your hands on top of your heads or I’ll blow his damned brains out!”

  They stood frozen, uncertain, guns held tightly in their outstretched hands.

  Dan cocked the pistol and rammed its muzzle against Malik’s ear. “Drop them! Now!”

  Ostrovsky and the lieutenant let the guns slip from their fingers. They clunked against the floor.

  Dan backed toward the hatch that he knew was only a few dozen feet away. Every passageway and corridor in the station was studded with airtight hatches which would close automatically in case of a drop in air pressure in one section of the station.

  “You can’t get away,” Malik muttered, grunting as Dan dragged him by his twisted arm. “My men control the entire station and more are on their way.”

  Dan snapped, “Save your breath. It might be your last.”

  With Lucita slightly behind him and the two disarmed Russians standing immobile, hands atop their heads, Dan pulled Malik across the metal strip that marked the hatchway.

  “Lucita, see the panel on the wall to your left? Press the red button.”

  She did, and immediately a hooting horn began to wail. Dan pushed Malik away from him as the heavy metal hatch slid swiftly shut, clanging into place between him and the staggering Russian.

  He reached for Lucita’s wrist with his free hand. “Come on! We don’t have a second to lose!”

  Ostrovsky and the lieutenant scooped up their pistols and rushed to Malik’s side.

  “He’s taken the bait after all,” Malik said with a smile. To Ostrovsky, the smile looked somewhat forced.

  They heard Randolph’s voice gabbling over the station intercom in Japanese.

  “What is he saying?” Ostrovsky wondered aloud.

  Malik seemed fully in command of himself. “It doesn’t matter. We control the station and there is no place he can hide-for long. Get this blasted hatch open, quickly.”

  Ostrovsky bent over the control panel built into the wall beside the hatch. He began tapping on the various buttons.

  To the lieutenant, Malik said, “You will persuade one of the station’s personnel to translate this Japanese talk for us.”

  “Yessir!”

  The hatch slid back, revealing an empty passageway.

  “Major Ostrovsky, you will assemble a search party of ten men and go hunting for Randolph.”

  “He is armed,” the major said, “and will undoubtedly use your fiancée as a hostage.”

  “Undoubtedly,” Malik agreed. “But hostage or not, I want him found and taken. Dead or alive.”

  “We have taken a total of eight soldiers,” Nobuhiko said. In the small display screen of the telephone, he looked both pleased and anxious. “They must have at least fifty more in the station.”

  Dan Randolph nodded grimly at him. “And from what Malik said, reinforcements are on the way.”

  “What should we do?”

  Dan was standing in the equipment bay of the station’s lunar section. When Nueva Venezuela had first been built, this wheel was designed to rotate at a speed that exactly duplicated the gentle tug of the Moon’s gravity, so that personnel could adapt themselves to walking, lifting, pouring liquids, working and living at one-sixth the weight they experienced on Earth. But even before the station’s construction was finished, the Soviets had established their exclusive domination of the Moon, and the lunar wheel became just another area in which to store equipment. Dan thought of it as a large garage or attic, dimly lit, stuffed with dusty old relics and long-forgotten crates of junk.

  It was a good place to hide in, and now he and Lucita were there in the shadowy netherworld where an experienced man could jump twenty feet high and turn half a dozen somersaults before touching his feet lightly to the floor again.

  Thinking out loud while Nobo watched, Dan said, “We’ve got several hundred Astro employees and visitors aboard the station, but they’re noncombatants. They’d just get themselves hurt if they tried to help us.”

  “They have been ordered by the Russians to stay in their quarters.”

  “Yeah, I know. But pretty soon now Malik’s going to hit on the idea of dragging them out and using them as hostages. If we don’t surrender, he’ll start shooting them, either one at a time or in bunches.”

  “He wouldn’t dare!”

  “Wouldn’t he?”

  “Those people are citizens of many different countries,” Nobo said, “Venezuela, the United States, Japan …”

  “How many fighters do you actually have?” Dan asked.

  “Eleven, including myself.”

  “And I make it an even dozen. Against at least fifty armed Russian soldiers.”

  “What about the security personnel aboard the station? Surely they-”

  Dan waved him to silence. “They’re guards, not soldiers. They’d be cut down in minutes.”

  “Then I don’t see what we can do.”

  “I do,” Dan said. “First, get word to your father. Tell him to alert all the other space leaders that the Russians intend to seize their stations within the next few days. Second, tell him that there’s a Russian spacecraft on its way to our asteroid. They intend to alter its course and have it strike the United States.”

  Nobo flinched with shock. “Madness!” he blurted.

  “That spacecraft’s got to be stopped,” Dan said. “1 don’t know how, but it’s got to be stopped.”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “Third, get yourself and everybody there with you, including your Russian prisoners, into that shuttle and fly it back to Caracas… .”

  “And leave you here?”

  Dan scratched at his stubbly jaw. “You’re not going to be able to do battle with fifty trained soldiers. Get the hell out while the getting’s good. Alert the others. Tell them what’s going on here. Get the word out! We’ll hold on here as long as we can.”

  Chapter THIRTY-SIX

  “But what will you do?” Nobo asked. Glancing at Lucita, standing beside him utterly calm, her fate entirely in his hands, Dan asked in reply, “Have they taken the factory yet?”

  “No, I don’t believe they have even tried.” “Good. We’ll go there. It’s more easily defended.” “The Soviets could destroy it with their antimissile lasers.” “Not while I’ve got Malik’s fiancee with me.” Nodding, Nobo said, “Then I will go there, too.” “Get yourself home. That’s an order.” Before Nobuhiko could reply, Dan clicked off the phone connection and turned to Lucita. “Ever used a jetpack before?” She shook her head.

  With a grin, he said, “You’re in for a
thrill.” He led her down to one of the emergency airlocks and helped her climb into a Day-Glo orange pressure suit. It hung on a wall rack next to a row of equipment lockers like a headless empty suit of armor, the bulky jetpack and life support tanks already fastened to its back. Lucita virtually disappeared inside the suit; it swallowed her right up to the chin. Dan laughed at the sight of her peering out of it like a child wearing a grownup’s outfit.

  “Are your hands inside the gloves?” he asked. “Can you move your fingers?”

  He saw that the fingers of the gloves wriggled.

  “Good.”

  “But my feet are not inside the boots, I think,” Lucita said.

  “That’s not important.”

  He fitted the helmet over her head as she watched, silent and wide-eyed. Then he checked out all the suit’s seals and connections. The maintenance label on its left leg said it had gone through a complete inspection only a week earlier. Still, Dan took the time to check everything thoroughly.

  There are bold astronauts and old astronauts, he repeated to himself as he worked, trying to forget that the Russians were ransacking the station to find them. No sense doing them the favor of killing ourselves.

  He was less thorough with his own suit, satisfied to rely on the inspection tag. From the equipment lockers he took a tether and clipped it from a ring on the waist of his suit to a similar ring on Lucita’s.

  “Whither I goest, so goest thou,” he said, his voice sounding muffled inside the helmet.

  He saw her nod and heard in his earphones, “Won’t they shoot at us, once we are outside the station?”

  “If they see us, they might. But they won’t know which one of us is me, and which is you.”

  “Vasily would take that risk.”

  Dan looked at her. She was serious, but not afraid.

  “Would you rather go back to him? …”

  “Never! I want to be with you.”

  “Even though we might both be killed?”

  “I would rather die with you, my Yanqui, than live with him.”

  Dan felt a wave of blazing, brilliant warmth surge through him. His knees felt suddenly weak. His spine tingled.