A youngster Marcus couldn’t remember the name of pulled up next to the ingots in obedience to Marcus’ gestures. He said, “I could pop this on top of there if you want to squeeze a few more in.”
Seven minutes left.
“Okay, wait a minute and we’ll do that.” Marcus raised his voice. “All vehicles freeze!”
In a minute they were all stationary. Marcus turned to the others on the ingots. “Head out, grab a new ride.”
They scampered out.
Marcus climbed onto the younger’s flatbed. A crate filled most of the bed. He sat on top of it to check on the evacuation. Everyone was clear. “Go for it, kid.”
The driver grinned and twisted his controls. The flatbed floater whined, lurched, and rose several feet into the air. It scraped over the top layer of ingots then lifted some more. A bit of wiggling slid it onto the stack with only a foot of the tail sticking out.
The faint high whine of the engine faded. A thump said the floater was at rest now. Marcus let go of the tie down holding the crate in place. He stood on the crate and addressed the next open top floater. “Can you fit that on the other side?”
The driver nodded and popped his up with less fuss than the first one.
“Last chance! Squeeze them in!” Marcus waved both arms, palms toward himself, to bring the floaters in.
A couple minutes of thumps, crunches, and curses filled the deck.
“If you’re not on the crew it’s time to get off!” Marcus stepped from vehicle to vehicle, urging drivers ahead of him. He hopped down onto the hatch, lowered into its ramp position.
Drivers were jumping into parked floaters and moving them away, then running back to get another.
Some weren’t being moved far enough. “Move them outside the red circle!” Marcus ordered. He pointed at the painted stripe encircling the landing pad for anyone who didn’t get it.
Wynny blew a kiss as she ran to a liftvan.
Marcus blew one back and hoped she saw it. Every floater was off the ramp. He told Alys to close the hatch.
Climbing over floaters was going to get him hurt sooner or later. But the deck was packed, there were hardly any places where he could reach it. Sometimes he’d moved around the hold on the crane hook. It wasn’t a good time to ask Alys for that favor.
Metal screeched as the hatch crumpled two floaters parked over the hinges. The whole mass of vehicles was pushed closer together.
On the bright side, thought Marcus, they’ll be less likely to shift in turbulence now.
***
On the bridge, the first mate looked up from the comm console. “Supercargo reports hold secure for lift.”
“Good,” said the captain. “Get us clearance. Immediate lift.”
She switched to the spaceport ground frequency. “Control, Azure Tarn requests permission to lift to filed flight plan. Yes, I know it was only filed half an hour ago, I filed it. Standing by.”
After muting her headset the mate turned to the captain. “They hadn’t checked with Orbital Traffic Control to find a window yet.”
Landry chuckled. “Bureaucratic incompetence has done well for us here. I can’t be too angry at them.” He looked at the helmsman. “Bring all systems up for flight. I want to lift the instant we have clearance.”
“Aye-aye,” said Roger. His hands moved over the controls. The ship began to hum as the drives warmed up. Then shrill beeps cut across the noise. Red lights lit up on consoles across the bridge.
The helmsman slapped at switches. The alarms stopped.
Nothing happened for a long moment. Landry wondered if Roger was counting to ten.
Roger turned on his intercom mike. “There’s a live antigrav source in the cargo hold. Please turn that off before we blow out an artificial gravity generator.”
***
Marcus and Alys stared at the ceiling of the cargo hold as Roger’s voice came from the PA speakers. They’d both reached the bottom of the aft stairs. He turned to look over the hold.
The stacks of vehicles in the aft end towered over him. They’d been packed up against the stairs. He could touch them. He did. No vibration.
Marcus looked up at Alys. “Get on the intercom. Ask if he can tell where it is.”
She nodded and ran up the stairs.
He faced the rest of the hold. It must be one of the floaters on the deck. The others had been stacked with the crane. A live antigrav unit would have been noticed as Alys picked it up.
Marcus hopped on to the flatbed next to the stairs. His stomach tightened as he caught his balance before going face-first into a two-seater. He climbed on top of the flatbed’s cab. That let him reach the top of a liftvan sitting next to it.
His heart sank surveying the mass of vehicles. Climbing over all them like this would take hours. He’d still be at it when the Censorials arrived to arrest them all.
“In the middle, toward port side,” yelled Alys. She stood by the intercom panel at the top of the stairs.
The hatch they’d loaded through was on port side. It was probably one of the last ones loaded. Some driver was caught up in the frantic rush and afraid of being trapped in his floater. He’d jumped out without bothering to turn the key off.
Liftvan to passenger taxi to cargo truck to a family model. Marcus paused to catch his breath. He’d be safer doing this on hands and knees but that would slow him down. Better to stay on his feet and take the risk.
His work boots had good traction but the tops of vehicles weren’t designed for people to walk on. The curved roof of a sedan dumped Marcus off. He landed in the bed of a cargo hauler, the low wall smashing into his hip hard enough to make him see stars.
After snarling a string of curses he braced his hand on a crate, staggered to his feet, and jumped to the next one. This one had braces on the back of the cab, making it easy to climb on top. Metal squeaked as it bent under his weight.
Marcus studied the floaters close to the hatch. A family model caught his eye. It sat higher than the others of the same type, canted at an angle between two trucks. He started toward it.
Now he was climbing over the ones crunched by the closing hatch. He tripped on a ridge in the roof of a smushed taxi. He detoured to use three sturdy trucks as a path to his target. They looked safer to walk on than the damaged smaller ones.
Peeking into the windows of his target showed glowing readouts on the dashboard. It was still turned on. Hopefully it was the only one. The tabs showed the doors were unlocked.
Pulling on them proved the floater was wedged too tightly for the doors to open. Marcus braced himself against the truck and pushed with his feet against the floater’s frame. Nothing moved.
He considered going back for a toolkit. His imagination supplied Censorial troops knocking on the hatch. Breaking in with his bare hands wasn’t an option . . . but his boots had metal toes.
Swinging his leg from the hip produced a crack through the middle of the window. A few more kicks created a spiderweb. The metal in the boot kept his toes unharmed. The rest of his foot was aching from the impacts.
A last hard kick shattered the window. A sweet smell escaped, some spray the seller used to cover mildew. His heel stomped on the shards sticking out of the frame. When the hole was big enough for him to fit through Marcus slid through feet first. A sting seared his thigh as a spike he’d missed sliced through pants and skin.
Marcus grabbed the key. Twisted. The dashboard went dark.
He stuck his head through the window and yelled, “Alys, check if we’re good now.”
She didn’t answer. A minute later he felt the solid pull of planetary gravity replaced by the faint shimmy of an artificial gravity generator. Marcus let out a deep sigh. We can lift now.
He rubbed at a tickle on the inside of his knee. He put his head out the window again. “Can you bring the first aid kit?”
***
“All systems ready for lift,” reported Roger.
“Thank you,” said Captain Landry. He turned to the
first mate. “Please ping Control again for our clearance.”
While that conversation went on he looked out the bridge windows. No approaching Censorial troops yet.
“Acknowledged, Control, standing by.” Lane pulled her headset off and cursed.
“No clearance?” asked the captain.
“Clearance denied. Traffic upstairs is too thick for a ship to pass through on this shift. I think they don’t like being pushed for a quick response.”
He thought for a moment. “Betty, warm up the dish.”
“Huh? Oh, aye-aye.” The sensor tech began the sequence for the main radar. Normally she watched through the secondary systems in supervised volumes. Traffic controllers didn’t like strange pings blasting their sensitive receivers.
A few minutes later—no Censorials spotted yet—Betty reported, “Main radar dish ready, sir.”
“Thank you. First mate, inform Control that we’re lifting on our own responsibility to detect and avoid.”
There was only a beat of silence before the mate said, “Yes, sir,” and put the headset back on.
The rest of the bridge crew was silent during the brief conversation.
Lane pulled the headset off. “Okay, they’re looking up the made-up regulation number I cited at them.”
The captain said, “Helmsman, up ship!”
Roger slid the thrust levers forward. Through the windows they could see the port and city fall away.
The weather was clear. Winds didn’t bother them. Once a few miles high they could see an approaching hurricane. It would have made lift off more interesting if they’d waited two days.
The first mate’s hands flew over her dials as she eavesdropped on conversations in orbit. “There’s a navigation hazard announcement on us. And several ships panicking over it. Requests for new trajectories and parking orbits.”
“Can’t see why,” said Betty. “There’s plenty of room around our trajectory.”
Her display showed ships and space stations ahead of them. The curve of Azure Tarn’s planned route to interplanetary space did not intercept any of their vectors.
The sky faded from blue to black as they rose out of Corwynt’s atmosphere. Landry felt a sense of relief at escaping the world, even though the rational part of his mind knew they weren’t free yet.
Betty reported, “Someone just evaded into our path.” She linked the display to the repeaters at the other consoles.
“Shifting vector to port,” said Roger. The curve moved to clear the projected position of the other ship.
“And another one,” said Betty. “They’re not even trying to avoid us. This is domino effect. They’re trying to stay clear of others panicking.”
Roger adjusted course again.
The captain had the repeater panel attached to his chair across his lap. He studied it. “Roger, abort the gravity turn. Head straight out on our current vector.”
The helmsman looked back.
The captain met his look firmly.
Roger turned back and adjusted his controls. “Linear ascent, aye. That’s going to take more fuel, sir.”
“It sure will. But look at the radar display.”
Everyone on the bridge turned to their repeaters. All the ships in orbit were moving away from the straight line trajectory.
“Dammit, I filed a lift plan with the gravity turn,” said Lane.
“You did,” agreed Landry. “But it was rejected so they didn’t relay it to anyone.”
“And they thought we were stupid enough to waste fuel on a linear ascent?” said Roger.
“The ones who panicked did.”
***
Bundoran was an easy post for the Censorial Investigative Service. Anti-Censorial incidents were usually solved the same day. Here’s the subject who assaulted a Censorial agent (execute). Here’s the bureaucrat who screwed up enough to enrage him (reprimand). The investigators were home in time for dinner.
Superintendent Ping liked being in charge of the Bundoran CIS. He’d never be promoted but he was close enough to retirement to not care. His wife was already researching which worlds would give them the shortest travel time to their grandchildren.
His comm lit up. There went the day. “Superintendent Ping.”
Commandant Feliz said, “You are ordered to arrest the crew of the merchant ship Azure Tarn by the Will of the Censor. All are to be interrogated thoroughly.”
Ping stiffened. How could there be something meriting Will of the Censor in his city without him knowing? He said only, “I hear and obey, ma’am. They will be arrested at once.”
“Good.” The comm went dark.
It would be lovely to know what the spacers had done. Or what information the interrogators were supposed to find. But Ping knew better than to bother Feliz with questions. He’d talk to her staffers, or ask his friends at Planetary Headquarters. That would wait.
“Schmidt!” he yelled.
The adjutant popped into Ping’s office. “Sir?”
“Get a squad. Then arrest—” Ping relayed the order.
“Yessir. Lethal force?”
“No, no. We want them all answering questions. And now that I think on it I’d wager there’s a secret agent in the crew. How else would HQ know to arrest them?”
That made Schmidt thoughtful. “True. I wouldn’t want to kill one of Secret Observation’s pets. Bad for my career.”
To be safe Schmidt called up two squads, the majority of the enlisted CIS had on day shift in the city. A quick meeting with the Chief Investigators leading each squad produced a plan. Briefing the plan and rules of engagement to the squads only took an hour. Then they loaded up in four armored liftvans and headed for the spaceport.
The weather was clear. Schmidt enjoyed the sea breeze. Fresh air was a rare thing when working in an arcology.
The only traffic moving on the spaceport was a mismatched line of floaters going past them into the city. Only half of them were loaded with cargo. No ships were moving. There were only a half dozen parked on the spaceport today. None looked like the image of the Azure Tarn found in the spaceport reports.
As planned the liftvans stopped in a circle around Landing Pad 26. The troops leapt out and formed lines between each pair of liftvans. It went perfectly despite not having time for a rehearsal.
The only problem was that Landing Pad 26 was empty.
Schmidt found the radio frequency for the spaceport control center. “Control, where’s the Azure Tarn? Your report said it was on twenty-six.”
“Um, yessir,” came the reply. “Sir, Azure Tarn lifted twelve minutes ago.”
“Thank you,” said Schmidt. He cursed. Now the promotion for catching them would go to some damn Space Traffic Control officer.
***
Soon went back to plotting courses. Her carefully calculated trajectory to the jump point went into the dumpster when the ship changed course. The captain clearly didn’t care about saving fuel. The tanks were topped off. The display showed hardly any traffic over ten thousand clicks altitude. She set the course change there and projected a straight line flight to the jump point.
“Out of atmosphere, increasing acceleration,” said Roger. A ripple went through the artificial gravity as it adjusted, quick enough the crew wondered if it was their imagination.
“Bundoran Spaceport Control has given up on us,” said the first mate. “All the complaints are coming from Orbital Traffic Control now. We’re ordered to maneuver to a parking orbit.”
“Acknowledged,” said the captain.
Betty cursed. “New bogey moving toward our path. Not a collision course. Extrapolating the curve . . . will be paralleling us at a hundred clicks.”
“Transponder code?” asked the captain.
“Checking.” Betty tapped on her console. “OTC cutter five.”
That made some of the crew flinch. Betty wasn’t bothered. She seemed pleased that her doomsaying would finally come to pass.
“We expected official attention,” sai
d Landry. “Let’s hope they don’t have permission to do anything yet.”
After a moment’s thought he activated the intercom. “Marcus, go to my cabin and get some jewelry out of the safe. Nothing sentimental. The big fancy pieces.”
***
Alys tagged along. Marcus didn’t object. It wasn’t like there was any work she could do. He didn’t let her follow him into his parent’s cabin.
When he emerged she whistled low and long. “Pretty. What’s it for?”
“Captain didn’t say. I’m guessing we may try to bribe an inspector.”
“Wow. Um—all that?”
Marcus shrugged. “I don’t know. Mr. Goch had stories of bribing Censorials to get cargos through. But traffic violations are different.”
***
“Crap.” Lane put the radio on speaker.
“Control Cutter to merchant Azure Tarn. You are in violation of orbit traffic control regulations. Cut thrust and prepare to be boarded.”
“Cut me in,” said Landry.
She flipped a few switches and flashed a thumbs up.
“Cutter, this is Captain Landry of the Azure Tarn. I apologize for violating regulations. We have a customer needing an urgent delivery. I accept paying the appropriate fine.” He put a note of humor in his voice. “The fine will be charged to our customer for demanding rapid delivery.”
“Azure Tarn, cut thrust and prepare to be boarded. If you continue to flee you will be fired upon.”
“Cutter, this doesn’t have to become violent. I’m perfectly willing to have a hearing over radio, or report in person after delivering our cargo.”
“Azure Tarn, cut thrust. We will target your propulsion system but cannot guarantee there will be no injury to crew.”
The bridge crew tensed and exchanged looks.
“Cutter, I will need written documentation of your demand to show to my customer.”
“Azure Tarn, there will be plenty of paperwork.” Was the Censorial officer smiling as he said that? No way to be sure. “Cut thrust and prepare to be boarded.”
Storm Between the Stars: Book 1 in the Fall of the Censor Page 15
