In Earth's Service (Mapped Space Book 2) (21 page)

“So do you want the cargo?” I asked. “Or are we
going to stand here all day arguing about who has the biggest pistol?”

“We want it,” Anya said, “but there’s been a
change of plan.”

“What change?”

“You’re coming with us to pick up the return
shipment,” Trask said.

“Why didn’t you bring it with you?”

“It was too large for the Cyclops,” Anya said.

“I don’t have orders to go anywhere with you,” I replied,
taking a risk that no such order had been issued to Nazari.

“You do now,” Trask snapped.

“Go where?” Jase demanded, asserting his authority
as the Consortium representative.

“That’s not your concern,” Trask replied.

“I’ll be programming your autonav,” Anya said.
“You’ll never see the coordinates.”

“You expect me to let a bunch of Drakes take
control of a Consortium ship?” I asked.

“The Consortium and the Brotherhood are both being
well paid to follow orders,” Trask said. “If you have a problem with that, we’ll
terminate your involvement now and take the ship.”

His tone was a thinly veiled threat to terminate
more than my contract, but it was his other words that shocked me. Neither the
Consortium or the Brotherhood were calling the shots! They were both working
for an unknown third party, someone with the resources to recruit both the
largest organized crime syndicate in Mapped Space and the notoriously
treacherous pirate collective.

“I’m just doing what I’m paid to do,” I said, “looking
after the Consortium’s interests.”

“And I’m looking after the Brotherhood’s
interests,” Anya said, “which is why we’ll be loading a bomb aboard your ship.
It will detonate if you try to access the autonav or look at your destination’s
coordinates.”

I’d wanted to destroy the
Merak Star
, but
not with us aboard!

“How am I supposed to fly the ship?”

“You’ll have thrusters and maneuvering engines,”
she said, “but no control over your bubble. It will activate automatically once
you reach the jump off point.”

Jase and I exchanged wary looks. We were about to
become prisoners aboard a Drake controlled flying bomb, heading to coordinates
unknown, to collect a cargo whose purpose remained a mystery while masquerading
as Consortium agents.

At least we’d be rid of Hardfall’s onerous gravity.

* * * *

“Two people aren’t enough to operate this
ship,” Anya said suspiciously as her engineer knelt at the back of the bridge’s
central console. He slid a spherical device inscribed with Chinese hanzi
graphemes into the console and attached it to the
Merak Star’s
autonav.
My threading had identified it as an orbital diver warhead, a weapon designed
to destroy ground targets from space and more than capable of vaporizing the
Merak
Star
.

“There wasn’t time to recruit a full crew after
Nazari’s death,” I replied.

“What was wrong with the old crew?”

“They wouldn’t serve on the same ship as him,” I
nodded toward Jase who was watching the engineer, hoping to find a way to undo
his work. “We’ve got enough maintenance bots to keep her going until I sign more
crew.”

The engineer looked up at Anya. “Ready.”

She approached one of the control consoles, then
motioned Jase and I to the far side of the bridge. Once we moved to where we
couldn’t see the console’s interface, she entered our destination’s coordinates
into the autonav.

“Are you ready to launch?” she asked.

“Why?”

“I’m activating the autonav timer. When it runs
out you bubble, ready or not.”

If the ship’s superluminal bubble tried to form while
we were still in space steeply curved by the planet’s gravity, it would be a
very short trip. “I was planning to strip the port engine –”

“There’s no time for that,” she said. “How long do
you need to clear the planet’s gravity well?”

“Two hours,” I said playing for time.

“You’ve got thirty minutes.”

“Nazari was a stimhead, not a maintenance
engineer! That’s why we’ve only got one good engine. With the load we’re
carrying, even if we burn thrusters all the way, we won’t make it. Either give
us more time or detonate your bomb right now!”

She gave me a long, dubious look, then relented. “You
have one hour.” She entered commands into the console then closed the interface.
“Don’t be late.”

The Drake engineer leaned in to the open console,
made a final connection, then replaced the rear panel. “It’s armed,” he said as
he stood, turning to me. “If you touch the autonav or try to disconnect the
bomb,” he smirked, “– boom!”

“What happens at the other end?” I asked.

“We’ll be waiting for you,” Anya said. “If you
don’t show up, we’ll assume you did something stupid.” She followed her
engineer to the bridge’s pressure door. “In case you’re thinking of jumping
ship, the Cyclops will stay grounded until you launch. We’ve also disabled your
lifeboat.”

“You’ve thought of everything.”

“You better get started,” she said, then headed for
the corridor outside.

When they’d taken the elevator down to the cargo
deck, Jase removed the panel concealing the bomb. “There must be a way to
disarm this thing.”

“If there is, we don’t have the time or the skills
to do it.” Even if we did, I wanted to see where we were going and what cargo
Trask had waiting for us. “Start preflight,” I said as Anya and her engineer
appeared on one of our bridge screens hurrying back to the
Cyclops
.

“We’re going?” Jase asked surprised.

“You heard the lady, we’ve got one hour,” I said,
sliding onto the pilot’s acceleration couch and ordering the cargo door sealed.
“Struts-up in two minutes.”

“What about Izin?”

“That depends on him.”

Jase slid into the copilot’s station and began
checking systems while I familiarized myself with the
Merak Star’s
flight controls. She was four times the mass of the
Silver Lining
with
much greater internal volume, and by the look of her propulsion systems, she
was underpowered. Flying on one engine would be tricky, but I had to make the
Drakes believe I’d been telling the truth.

“Ready,” Jase announced at last.

We launched with the port engine feathering at
twenty percent, climbing into the sky like a feeble elephant. Once we cleared
the landing ground, the
Cyclops
blasted off. The old assault carrier was
big and heavy, but she went barreling past us like we were standing still, eager
to escape the vulnerabilities of being planet bound. She quickly reduced in
size to a point of brilliant white light, shooting out of the upper atmosphere
before we’d even cleared the stratosphere. While we limped skywards, feigning
engine trouble, the
Cyclops
hurtled toward flat space, showing no
interest in nursemaiding us away from Hardfall.

“We can land after they bubble,” Jase said, “jump
a cable car and let her blow.”

“No we can’t.” When Jase gave me a puzzled look, I
explained. “They waited for us to launch. Now that we’re committed, they’re
leaving us behind because they know we can’t go back. The bomb must be rigged
to explode if we land.”

“Why didn’t Anya warn us?”

“Because she’s testing us. If we go back now, we fail
and the Consortium will be looking for a new ship.”

Realization spread across his face. “What a
bitch!”

“Let’s see what’s happening below?”

Jase oriented the sensors toward Hardfall Colony. All
eight surface batteries were tracking us, but none made any attempt to stop us,
or even offer a parting hail. Over at Hiport, the
Silver Lining
sat on
the ground showing no sign of life.

“Switch on the transponder,” I said.

Jase looked puzzled. “Those grunts know who we
are. They’re not going to fire.”

“It’s not them I’m signaling.”

Jase started broadcasting our identity while I kept
our climb rate to a steady crawl, hoping the
Cyclops
wouldn’t get suspicious
and Izin was paying attention. The
Silver Lining
remained asleep at
Hiport while, to my relief, all eight surface batteries continued to track us. Better
they were locked onto us than the
Lining
.

“That stupid tamph’s got his head stuck in the processing
core again!” Jase said.

“He’s waiting.” Far out beyond the edge of
Hardfall’s gravity well, the
Cyclops
vanished from our screens as it
bubbled away. “For that.”

The
Silver Lining’s
maneuvering engines immediately
glowed to life. She lifted off, but instead of climbing, she power dived over
the cliff toward the ground, leveling off at the last moment and heading north west,
away from the colony. Her engines went to full power, sending her streaking fast
and low over the plains. She was halfway to the horizon before Hardfall’s
surface batteries began target locking her. The north side domes rotated
slowly, bringing their guns to bear, but they were anti-orbital weapons not designed
to track fast, ground skimming targets at close range. Agonizing seconds passed
before the Hiport battery fired, sending a blast of energy flashing above the
Silver
Lining
. Citadel’s northern batteries followed suit seconds later, but it
was all too slow, too late. The
Lining
followed the planet’s curvature,
putting ground between her and the big guns. When she was safely beyond the horizon,
she stayed low for another five hundred clicks then began climbing, never
letting Hardfall’s batteries see her.

“Not bad flying for a tamph,” Jase admitted grudgingly.

“I’ll tell him you said that.”

“If you do, I’ll mutiny!”

While we lumbered away, the
Silver Lining
cleared
Hardfall’s atmosphere above the planet’s north pole and headed for deep space,
keeping the planet’s bulk between her and the colony’s heavy weapons. Only once
she was outside their effective range, did she begin a long curving trajectory toward
us.

Jase nodded to himself. “That’s why you were
playing for time! So Izin could catch us outside Hardfall’s range.”

“I couldn’t leave my favorite tamph behind!”

“So we’re transferring over?” he said relieved.

“Nope.”

We were halfway to the bubble point when the
Silver
Lining
became visible to Hardfall’s space guns again, already further from
the planet than we were. The surface batteries began firing as soon as they saw
her, but their blasts dissipated with distance, flashing harmlessly against her
battle shield. Soon the
Silver Lining
rolled bow over stern and began
decelerating toward a point ahead of the
Merak Star
.

We weren’t yet out of range of Hardfall’s guns and
I didn’t want to make Izin’s job harder by taking evasive action, so I began
transmitting on all channels. “Mayday, mayday, this is the Merak Star. We are
being pursued by a hostile ship. Request assistance.”

Jase gave me an incredulous look. “Skipper, what
are you doing?”

“Confusing the grunts. In their eyes, we’re the
good guys. I don’t want them shooting at us.” We only needed to keep them
scratching their heads for a few minutes, then we too would be out of their
reach.

Izin was listening and knew immediately what I was
doing. His synthesized voice come back on all channels. “Heave too Merak Star
and prepare to be boarded. We will open fire if you do not obey.”

Jase shook his head slowly. “A pirate tamph! Now
I’ve seen it all!”

I smiled. “He does seem to be enjoying this.”

“Merak Star, you are moving out of our firing
envelope,” the same female controller who’d given us instructions on our
arrival said. “Reverse course immediately. Enter orbit above Hardfall Colony’s
meridian.”

“Say again Hardfall! They’re jamming our
communications,” I yelled, then switched off the communicator.

I cut our engines, giving Izin an easy matching
maneuver as we drifted out of range of Hardfall’s heavies. Izin immediately fine
tuned his course, coming alongside a few minutes later. Hardfall stopped firing
at the
Lining
for fear of hitting us, then I pumped the pressure in the
stern cargo hold to ten atmospheres, released the magnetic deck locks holding
the cargo in place then opened the hull doors on both sides. The hold explosively
decompressed, hurling hundreds of containers full of Drake munitions into space.

“Park her in hold four,” I said on a tight beam to
Izin once the containers had floated clear of the
Merak Star
.

He didn’t acknowledge my instruction, but came in above
us, then glided down to the open cargo hold. The
Silver Lining
was
crescent shaped, with a large maneuvering engine at each ‘wingtip’, giving her
a beam four times her bow to stern length. When her starboard engine was
alongside, she thrusted gently sideways into the aft hold. Once inside, Izin killed
her lateral drift and nudged her down onto the deck where magnetic locks caught
her landing struts. When she was secure, I sealed the cargo doors and
repressurized the hold.

“Welcome aboard, Silver Lining,” I said over
ship-to-ship. “Shut her down cold, Izin. We don’t want the Drakes knowing
you’re there.”

“Right away, Captain.”

I started up the
Merak Star’s
engines
again, this time at full power, and headed for Anya’s bubble point, rolling and
decelerating only at the last possible moment. We came to a dead stop with
barely a minute to spare.

“We could use the Silver Lining to abandon ship,”
Jase suggested as we waited for the autonav to take over.

“We could,” I agreed, “but I still have a score to
settle,” and an aleph-null code to unravel!

Jase nodded understandingly. “Now that I’ve met
them, I don’t like the look of them either. They give all Ories a bad name.”