by P. K. Lentz
Aprile cast him a dubious look, which quickly lightened. “Now you’re talking like a captain,” she said. She slung her rifle over one shoulder, took a place at the table and dug into her meal. Opposite her, Gareth did likewise.
“You really think there might be Fleet agents aboard?” he asked as they ate.
Aprile paused in devouring her meal just long enough to answer. “If we were the target of a military strike, I think we’d be dead already. But I won’t rule anything out.”
“Who’s on the bridge now?”
“Welch. I told him to alert me of anything out of the ordinary. Anything at all.”
“We could probably put another man on patrol without causing a panic.”
Already halfway through her meal, Aprile nodded agreement. She cleared the rest of her plate within a few minutes. “Thanks,” she said, rising. “I’ll get to work on those locks.”
“You know,” Gareth observed as he finished his own meal. “For someone who didn’t want any part of this, you sure are diving in headfirst.”
“Only because I’d like to have a head when it’s over.”
“Fair enough. But just so we’re clear: on the off chance that Fleet does come asking nicely if we’ve seen their girl, we say ‘no’ and try to avoid bloodshed.”
“I’ll try to control myself,” Aprile said. “I’m not stupid. I know that once we raise a hand against Fleet it’s the end for us. The only question is how much of a fight we put up.”
Gareth scoffed. “That’s encouraging.” As he rose to leave the dining hall, he forgot his weapon and was forced to turn back for it. Ignoring a sly smile from Aprile, he snatched up his own rifle and a second of the same make and departed with the unfamiliar accessories slung on his back.
Some minutes later he conversed privately with the engineer in a control room off Lady’s drive chamber.
“Even if we’re boarded by hostiles,” Gareth told him, “and even if by some miracle we manage to repel them, we still don’t have a chance with a Fleet ship in orbit.”
“Unless maybe we could run away,” Ilias finished knowingly.
Gareth felt uncomfortable even speaking aloud on the subject--one that had gone all but unspoken for long decades.
“I thought this might come up,” the engineer continued. “I’ll begin prep. But I have to ask: once it’s ready, why not just use it?”
“No,” Gareth said, even though the same thought hadn’t been far from his own mind. “Once we do that we’re back to square one. Worse, even. Nowhere in the galaxy will be safe for us.”
“You realize that might be the case soon anyway. Fleet aren’t amateurs.”
“I know. How much time do you need?”
“Three hours, more or less.”
“Do it, but for now it stays a contingency. We try the legit route first. I’m still hoping we can leave here and go on with our lives.”
“Just give the word. Meanwhile, I’ve given some thought to hiding our new passenger. I say we put her right back into that shielded capsule and stash it in an external bulkhead.”
Gareth nodded. “Good. Do what you have to do.” He handed Ilias the extra rifle he’d taken from Aprile. “You know how to use that?”
“I’ll manage. But I tend to think if it comes down to that, we’re already screwed.”
Gareth gave a morbid laugh. “That seems to be the consensus.”
***
CHAPTER SEVEN
Gareth sat harnessed in his station on Lady’s dark bridge, watering grey eyes riveted on glowing displays. He was monitoring ship’s security, of all things. A bank of monitors to his left displayed thermal images of every approach to the hab module medlounge in which Zerouali was housed. One screen showed Zerouali herself, a human-shaped heat source pacing like a caged beast from one corner of the chamber to the other.
Even as Gareth followed her shape absently with his eyes, he continued to hope all these precautions were unnecessary. He told himself that Aprile was right, that if Fleet knew about Zerouali they would have made a visible move by now.
Unless, perhaps, they had quietly inserted a scout or assassin. If that was the case, then patrolling Lady as Aprile suggested might be the wrong approach, one that might only get them killed one by one.
Then again, a static defense mounted in the medlounge or anywhere else on Lady might only get them killed all at once. At one point Gareth had toyed with the idea of gathering the whole crew in the hab module and evacuating atmosphere from the rest of the ship. But, he quickly realized, any intruders aboard would have entered from space and so were likely to be equipped for vacuum. Purging the atmosphere for any length of time would only give their hypothetical enemies free rein over ninety-five percent of Lady.
So maybe they were doomed no matter what they did.
Gareth refused to accept that just yet. As long as hope remained that Fleet could be fooled, he would maintain a cool head and refrain from precipitous action.
Whether or not there were hostile forces aboard, nothing remotely connected to Zerouali could be safely transmitted over comms; the potential for eavesdropping was just too great. Against this threat they had devised that simple code that Aprile was now using to issue reports from the patrol she’d just begun. A single chime meant all clear. Two, possible trouble. Three, deep shit.
Thus far Gareth had received only the all-clear, sent once every ten minutes. Since starting patrols, the crew had managed to cover less than fifteen percent of the ship, leaving Gareth to doubt whether anything would come of their effort. Lady simply had too many places to hide and no effective internal security. But what else could they do? An excess of caution couldn’t kill them. Laziness could.
Eventually Gareth found himself fighting to stay awake, wishing he’d brought a dose of stim to the bridge, or even coffee. He was hesitant to leave the monitors vacant even for a moment, if for no other reason than the sharp rebuke it would earn him from Aprile. Maybe he’d call Thorien and have him bring something up...
Within half an hour Gareth sat in a state of half-sleep, penetrated every ten minutes by the single chime of Aprile’s all-clear. At some point he was dragged forcibly back to consciousness by something out of place.
Instead of the single, lonesome ping to which he’d become accustomed, there was a rapid succession of three. Then, forgetting or deliberately abandoning the decision to avoid comms, Aprile’s voice shouted over the comms:
“Cargo Three! Now!”
Gareth wakened instantly. Even as he released the chair harness he opened a comm channel to the crew. “Someone to the bridge to relieve me,” he said. “I don’t care who.” He wasn’t about to wait around for his replacement. Security would be unmonitored for a few minutes at most.
Slung rifle trailing behind him, he sailed out the hatch and accelerated through Lady’s corridors. Minutes later he burst into Hold Three with weapon ready in sweating palms. Aprile hung twenty yards down the hold’s central shaft with her own rifle in hand. She waited there for Gareth to sail closer then gestured at him to follow her into the maze of numbered cargo containers.
A distant, erratic pounding filled the air, growing louder as they moved. It sounded like someone beating frantically on a bulkhead. Gareth tightened an already viselike grip on his gun and followed Aprile, closing in on the source.
The source was a sealed cargo container, at which Aprile arrested her forward motion. Gareth halted alongside her. Each hollow thump from the container caused his pulse to rise.
The conclusion was obvious and unavoidable. Lady had been infiltrated. Again. He waited, staring fixedly at the box with weapon leveled. Belatedly he noticed that Aprile had been silently trying to get his attention. When he finally looked over she jerked her head at the container, raised her weapon to one shoulder and sighted down its blunt barrel at the box.
Taking her meaning Gareth edged forward, reluctantly, to a position at one side of the container. He poised his free hand over the switch that would o
pen it.
After a silent count of three Gareth punched the panel and readied his weapon. The container’s articulated metal gate began to retract. The pounding ceased.
From his position, Gareth could not yet see past the opening gate into the module--but Aprile began shouting at someone or something inside.
“Stay right where you are!” she barked. “Don’t move or you’re fried!”
Still unable to see the object of her ire, Gareth maintained one clammy hand over the switch, ready to reseal the gate. When in the next few seconds Aprile issued no such request he finally shoved carefully away from the container and sailed quietly past Aprile’s feet. By the time he arrested his motion on the neighboring cargo container he was treated to an unobstructed view of Lady’s latest unticketed passenger.
The injured woman held one hand straight out from her body with palm open in half of the universal gesture for surrender. It was only half the gesture, one could not help but notice, because her left arm had been severed at the shoulder. Scorch marks and severe burns covered her face and neck on that same side.
Grisly wounds aside, the newcomer had the appearance of a typical Meradi groundsider, with fair skin and long blonde hair. Nothing about her seemed threatening--except, of course, for her very presence. And this was a point Aprile wasn’t about to ignore.
“What are you doing in there?” Aprile asked, five decibels too loudly, with weapon squarely on the intruder. “How did you come aboard?”
The injured woman’s eyes darted back and forth between her two captors--or rescuers, or whatever she might take them for. “Sevrat...sevrat alni alsa’amin. Feyaral!” she spat, in no tongue that Gareth could currently comprehend.
Evidently it was gibberish to Aprile as well. “Talk sense or you’re slagged,” she threatened in Meradi.
The stranger shifted her gaze to Gareth, perhaps seeking a more receptive audience. “Sevrat,” she repeated urgently. Her desperation was clear, even if her meaning was not. “Araj la dajeina keranin...Teralla!”
Though the incomprehensible plea was aimed squarely at Gareth, Aprile replied bluntly on his behalf. “Forty seconds!”
Gareth met the intruder’s hopeful glances with stone-faced silence. He probably would not have chosen himself to take so hard a line, but given the extraordinary circumstances he yielded to Aprile’s more practical approach.
The woman shut her eyes and loosed a volley of tears.
“Time’s almost up, friend,” Aprile said coolly. “Unless you have something better to say, this conversation’s finished and so are you.”
Only now did it dawn on Gareth that Aprile might not be bluffing, that she might really incinerate the woman without knowing who or what she was. Though the idea gave him chills, Gareth held his tongue and merely watched. Such was the grim new reality he’d entered at the moment he agreed to defy humanity’s self-appointed overlords. Aprile’s measures were harsh, but necessarily so, for Lady’s crew could not afford to let more risks compound the ones already taken.
Was this how Aprile would have elected to deal with Zerouali? Had she been in command, would the greatest threat facing them right now be the boredom of waiting out a Fleet quarantine?
“Turn around!” Aprile ordered her captive.
Tears glistening on her horribly scarred cheek, the intruder obeyed. Presumably she responded not to Aprile’s verbal command, spoken in Meradi, but to the corresponding gesture with the muzzle of her firearm. Aprile began a loud countdown from five while simultaneously maneuvering closer to the cargo module.
“P-please,” the condemned prisoner whispered, suddenly adopting a heavily-accented Meradi. “Please...”
This, the woman’s first recognizable word, made Gareth cringe. If it was all an act, it certainly was a good one. Still he refused to intervene, sufficing instead to hope Aprile knew what she was doing.
To his relief, she did. Upon reaching ‘two’ she tapped the cargo container controls. The doors slammed shut, and her countdown went unfinished. Aprile exhaled, deflating.
“What do you make of her?” Gareth asked immediately.
“Not here,” Aprile chided.
They reconvened around a corner several containers down the line. Even there Aprile insisted they whisper.
“She’s full of shit, of course,” she said factually.
“How do you figure?”
The query drew Gareth a sharp glance from Aprile. “How I figure,” she said, “is that she’s selling a story only an idiot would buy. Number one, we can’t afford to believe in coincidence right now. With all this other shit going down, she has to be involved somehow. Number two, I don’t think she got those wounds picking flowers.”
“They’re bombarding Merada.” Gareth didn’t mean this to defend the intruder; rather he was just thinking aloud.
“Unless she’s from some backward province where they only speak Dumbass, she’s not Meradi.”
“I’m not saying I buy the act,” Gareth said. “I don’t. But any guesses what might be her real purpose here?”
“If I knew, I probably would have pulled the trigger. She’s alive on the slight--slight--chance that she might be harmless. What scares me is the fact that she wanted to be found.” With a rueful sidelong glance at the container, Aprile finished ominously, “Whatever her purpose might be, my guess is she has us right where she wants us.”
***
With Lady’s captain en route to the holds, Erick Fyat slipped unnoticed into the vessel’s habitation module. As he traveled he scattered behind him more of the spymotes which already offered him near omniscience aboard the freighter. Jogging right past several hastily-rigged thermal imagers, he progressed swiftly to the medlounge, which according to his subtle probing of Lady’s systems contained a prize of great value.
It took him twelve seconds to override the lock on the medlounge door. It slid open. The dark-haired woman lying on a cot within had barely enough time to look up in surprise before her body convulsed with an electrical charge from the half-dozen microdarts Fyat pumped into her flesh.
Strange, Fyat thought. All of Lady’s crew was accounted for. No one should have been here.
A quick thermal scan as Fyat sealed the door behind him confirmed the chamber to be empty apart from the woman whose limbs still twitched atop her bed.
Fyat moved deeper into the room. The unconscious woman happened to pass once more into his field of vision. An urgent warning flashed across his visor.
<
Were he inclined toward humor, Fyat might have laughed. Apparently he wasn’t the only outlaw to have sought refuge aboard Lady.
Despite other pressing matters he decided to spare the few seconds necessary to verify the woman’s identity. Leaning in close to her face, he pried one eye open with thumb and forefinger and stared at it for the full second it took to complete the scan.
The result was displayed immediately. Positive. A new instruction flashed in bold red letters: <
Without bothering to dwell on the irony of having stumbled upon his former quarry now that he’d deserted Social Engineering, Fyat cleared the insistent message. Zerouali’s presence on Lady could yet change things dramatically, but for the moment he would proceed as planned.
He was here in the medlounge for one reason. The security protocol on the room’s access panel had been relaxed enough to grant him just the level of access he needed for the easy subversion of Lady’s systems.
***
CHAPTER EIGHT
Several hours before his next scheduled briefing, Daniel Sallat found himself unexpectedly reporting once more to Whisper of Death’s captain. The hastily arranged meeting took place in a small office on the forward decks where Bohringer was supervising Whisper’s groundside ops. The ship’s artificial grav was weaker here, at the farthest point from the Drive that generated it. Sallat was by now well accustomed to walking in the shifting gravity fields of
the cone-shaped Fleet voidships, although his own first tour, like that of any crewman, had been an endless succession of bruises.
“Proceed, Commander,” Bohringer said. The words were almost a sigh.
“There’s been an interesting development, sir,” Sallat began. “On reviewing some recent sensor logs, the team responsible for observing Lady of Chaos came upon something they’d missed earlier, a signal that was mistaken for debris during the EM interference.”
“Out with it,” Bohringer prompted needlessly.
“Shortly after the outbreak of hostilities, an unknown individual boarded the freighter. Identity could not be confirmed, but Intelligence suspects it to be one of our missing Social Engineers.”
“Then we have an asset near Zerouali,” Bohringer said, suddenly perking up. “Can we make contact?”
“SES is working on it, hindered by the need to avoid exposing our agent. But they assure me they’ll come up with something.”
Bohringer’s interest faded. “Very well,” he said, already making for the door. “Keep me posted. I want to see that bitch liquidated at first opportunity. Him, too. In fact I’d just have that ship destroyed if I weren’t sure Command would have my head for it.”
Sallat nodded in feigned sympathy. At least Bohringer had the restraint not to act on such a wild impulse. This situation was a delicate one, best handled with a cool head.
Yes, great caution was required where Lady’s captain was concerned.
***
“Any chance she can get out of there?” Gareth asked Aprile of the cargo container that currently held Lady’s newest stowaway.
“I won’t put anything past her.” Leveling her weapon at the container Aprile let off a small blast that left the controls a fused mess.
They had already agreed that the safest course was to leave their guest right where they’d found her for now. With the container secured to Aprile’s satisfaction they began retracing their path to the hold’s exit.
