Guardsmen of Tomorrow (37 page)

“My shipmates and I are ready to surrender,” Jeremy Langthorp said. “Ready and willing if you’ll promise us safe delivery to Gilbert.”

“Where, doubtless, they have some crooked lawyer ready to get them off,” I grumbled to Spike. Then I asked Lang-thorp directly, “How many of you are left?”

“Four,” Langthorp replied promptly, “not counting the fanatics in the chemistry lab.”

Spike gave me one of his lopsided grins. “I guess it’s time for me to take over, Captain Ah Lee. You’ve done your part.”

Standing, Spike crowded the
Mercury’s
tiny cabin, but he managed to get his blaster-a showy metallic blue model with a chromed grip and holographic insets along the barrel-out of his coverall pocket.

“Coming with me, Captain?” he asked, holding the blaster at a jaunty angle.

I sighed. “Let me see who else can go over to
Deep Pockets
with you. I don’t quite trust the pirates. We only have their word that there are just four left.”

“I trust Langthorp,” Spike said. “There was real fear in that man’s voice, but I suppose I could use a few extra hands to help defeat the fanatics.”

Rolling my eyes at his supreme overconfidence, I beamed a request to the other ships.

Remembering various conversations over poker in spaceport bars, I figured that while many of the smugglers might be apolitical regarding the Batherite question, there was enough resentment over how the pirates had used the refugees as cover for their own operations to attract a posse-especially now that we had taken
Deep
Pockets
and the promise of loot was sweet and near.

With very little persuasion on my part, a volunteer from every ship agreed to go aboard
Deep Pockets
-as long as I went, too. Poor Spike’s feelings were hurt, but I reassured him as I suited up.

“It isn’t you, Spike. They trust you-remember, they came on your promise of payment. It’s just that I got them into this and they’re going to make sure I’m in as deep as they are.”

“Code of the underworld?” Spike asked, checking his own suit’s seals.

“Something like that,” I muttered.

Jeremy Langthorp, a short, fairly heavyset man with curly hair the color of sunlit sand and washed-out blue eyes, met us at the entry port. He looked more like a well-fed cook than the popular action vid depiction of a pirate and I could tell that Spike was disappointed.

“Where are the fanatics holing up?” Spike asked as soon as routine introductions had been made and four members of our posse had peeled off to discretely cover the pirates.

“Chem lab,” Langthorp said. He tapped up a schematic on a view screen. “When we took this job, we adapted part of the factory deck to a lab. It’s the only thing down there except for our cargo.”

“So we can’t,” I said quickly, just in case Spike was about to suggest it, “blow out that deck without damaging the cargo.”

“That’s about it,” Langthorp agreed, his round face rueful. Clearly, the pirates had considered the idea and had decided that whatever punishment their own higher up doled out for losing a cargo were worse than being doped by the fanatics.

“The bulkheads?” asked Beatty, one of the prospectors.

“Armor grade,” Langthorp said. “Goes back to when
Deep Pockets
was an ore carrier.”

Beatty nodded sharply. “Then we can’t hope to cut through with any speed. Can we just shut off life support to that deck?”

Langthorp didn’t hesitate at this brutal suggestion, but I saw Spike wince.

“Could,” Langthorp agreed, “but they have suits and the chem lab has both scrubbers and extra air. The Absolute ordered them ‘cause he said he preferred to mix his potions on a big scale and didn’t want to risk soaking up the stuff through his skin.”

“Whether or not that’s the case,” I said, forestalling a debate as to the Absolute’s real motives, “we can’t get them that way, not before the black ships get here.”

“ And if we want to get paid quickly,” Beatty said, “we don’t wait.”

“Right.” I frowned and studied the diagram. “If I had time, I could try and override the bulkhead locks, but we don’t have time for that. I only see one solution that’s both fast and has a chance to work. The ducts.”

Spike nodded. “I didn’t want to suggest it, Allie. It’s above and beyond the call of duty.”

I shrugged. “But I’m the only one small enough to crawl through while wearing a suit. Spike, you still have those gas pellets?”

The insurance investigator produced them rather reluctantly.

“They won’t work if the fanatics are suited,” he warned.

“I know,” I said, “but I’m betting that they won’t all be sealed tight. A sealed suit gets pretty claustrophobic if you’re not used to it, and those poor slobs I watched back in the Bathtub weren’t spacers.”

Beatty had been studying the diagram, his finger tracing the blue lines of the ductwork for the benefit of the rest.

“It’s gonna get snug, Allie,” he warned.

“When you’ve only got one ace,” I said, glad that my deadpan expression didn’t betray my pounding heart, “you’ve got to bet it or fold.”

Crawling through those conduits is something I don’t really want to remember, so I won’t share the nightmare here. If it hadn’t been for Spike keeping me on course through my suit radio, I’d have probably gotten disoriented, but eventually, I made it to the chem lab.

Through the filter grille, I looked down on the Absolute and his fanatics-twenty in all.

Only a third-including the Absolute, I was sorry to see-were sealed in their suits.

After sending this information to Spike and the others- who were waiting outside both of the entries to the chem lab-I started dropping gas pellets.

With his sense for the dramatic, Spike had chosen pellets that sent up theatrical swirls of dark purple smoke. This brand did work faster than any other type on the market, so within a few moments the fanatics in the unsealed suits were puffing and wheezing. A few fumbled for faceplates and seals. Most of the rest just dropped, taken off into deep purple dreams.

“Gas!” shouted the Absolute. “Cover the entry ports!”

He was smaller than I’d guessed from news coverage, but his voice made him seem a giant. I wondered if he had some sort of hypnotics implant because I found myself relieved to realize I was already heading that way-though from behind the wall.

I radioed my guess to the others, suggesting they switch off any external sound reception.

A fanatic now covered the duct through which I’d dropped the pellets, but I was sliding toward an opening closer to the floor. It was a squeeze, but I made it, ending up flat on my stomach, but with my arms free and in front of me. From here I had a clear view of two sets of closed and locked doors. With another wriggle, I managed to get a slim, high-powered energy pistol out of my sleeve holster.

Without bothering to remove the duct cover, I squeezed off a beam targeting the lock mechanism. Beatty-confirming my guess that he did a little piracy in his spare time-had assured me that a direct hit would cause the door to unlock.

When I fired, the fanatics jumped back from the explosion of heat and light, spinning to see where the shot had come from. They didn’t have time to come after me. My buddies were forcing the door open and giving them lots to think about.

As much as I wanted to watch, I shifted my attention to the second door and fired again. When that door was opened, I started kicking. With my cover blown, I was like a cork in a bottle and I didn’t want to be stuck there if someone got a moment to give the cork a pull.

By the time I had struggled free, the fight was over. It hadn’t been easy for all its speed. We’d lost two and several more were wounded-including Spike who had a nasty burn along one arm-but we had won.

Spike stood over the collapsed Absolute, blaster in hand, his triumphant pose balanced by an expression of wide-eyed shock as he looked at the carnage. Several of the fanatics had gone killer-crazy and now their internal organs were splattered on the bulkheads. The rest had been taken prisoner and were being herded to a makeshift brig.

My leg muscles still cramped, I staggered over to Spike.

“Get to, man. See a medic,” I said, taking the blaster from him. “We’ve still got work to do.”

“Gotcha, Allie,” he said. When he managed one of those funny grins, I knew he’d be all right.

While rapid repairs were made to those of our ships that had taken damage during that first barrage, the
Deep Pockets
was stripped to the very dust in her hold. Spike, recovered somewhat now, stood by the exit port, taking pictures of the goods for later identification and research into the pirates’ activities.

Spike claimed the
Deep Pockets
as AASU’s cut and no one was complaining, not with the rich haul from her hold as compensation. Spike had declared that the booty-which if insured by AASU now legally belonged to the company- was being awarded as payment for services rendered.

Jeremy Langthorp and his surviving shipmates were offered the choice of waiting in the brig or parole to work the ship. Wisely, they offered their parole. They knew their chances of escape were nil. Already, several of the black ships were approaching and some out-system traffic was drifting in our direction. Cooperation would help their case.

Despite Spike’s assurances that they were safe from arrest, the various members of our outlaw fleet chose to depart before the black ships arrived. I itched to join them, not liking the Silent Watch a bit, but I kept telling myself I had nothing to fear from them. This time I was an official insurance investigator.

Then I remembered. Spike had his own ship now. My job was done. My own ship’s tiny hold was full of perfectly legal goods that I could sell elsewhere for a tidy profit.

Why should I wait around?

I grinned, gunned the
Mercury’s
engines, and surged off into interstellar space, Endpoint’s sun glowing over my shoulder.

THE END