Privateer Tales 3: Parley (27 page)

“Cuff him, Cap.” I didn’t hesitate and pulled a sturdy tie from my belt.

“On your stomach,” I said. “Hands behind your back.” He complied. I wondered what kind of bad decisions had led up to this point in his life. I pulled the cuffs tight, binding his wrists behind his back. I also cuffed his feet. I helped him roll over and pushed him into a seated position. “You get one chance with us. I see you out of these cuffs and there will be no quarter given. Read me?” He nodded affirmative. I released his helmet and detached it from his suit. He looked up at me in panic. “I’d recommend staying quiet. I doubt your buddies will appreciate you getting captured.”

Marny looked at the young pirate. “How many on the ship?”

“… I … I’m not sure,” he said.

“Tell me,” She was holding her gun menacingly.

“Twenty maybe, twenty-five. I’m nobody - they don’t tell me,” he said. Marny must have believed him.

“Let’s move,” Marny said. I stepped back into position. There weren’t any other rooms to clear, just the maintenance hatch to be opened. It was possible they’d have a nasty surprise in it for us.

“Let Jordy and me take this,” Tali said. Marny stepped out of the way, silent. “Liam, pull the panel and back off quickly.”

Jordy stood directly behind Tali and they both gave me enough room to maneuver around them. I took out the multi-tool Marny insisted I bring along. The bolts were easy to remove and I pulled the panel back as fast as I could and moved out of the way.

Tali tossed an object through the hole and then ducked through very quickly, disappearing up and out of sight. Jordy followed her but instead of disappearing, lay on his back with his weapon pointed up the shaft. He fired twice and rolled back into the hallway. A moment later three bodies fell, one on top of the other.

Marny and I grabbed the bodies and dragged them back to where we’d left the bound pirate. He looked up at us with concern. I rolled each unconscious body onto their stomachs, not sure if they were dead or just stunned, but I wasn’t taking any chances. I cuffed their hands and legs.

“We’re clear,” Tali said. “Probably won’t be for long, though.”

“Up the ladder, Liam. Go! Go!” Marny said.

I ducked into the narrow maintenance shaft. Tali was up about twenty meters, which was two thirds of the height of the shaft. I wasn’t sure how Jordy’d shot around her without hitting her. Perhaps the pirates had entered from below her position.

I slung the blaster rifle over my shoulder and started to climb as fast as I could. My prosthetic leg was a significant hindrance and I felt Marny behind me, willing me to go faster. Tali continued her climb, above me.

“Fire in the hole…” Tali stopped near the top of the shaft.

“Keep going, Cap,” Marny urged.

I wasn’t sure why I was in second position until I heard blaster fire below me. Someone had ducked their head into the shaft. Marny and Jordy fired on them but I had no idea how effective they’d been.

“On my six, Liam.” Tali kicked at the wall of the shaft and light flooded in as the panel fell into whatever was on the other side. She followed the kick by tossing what appeared to be three grenades. I didn’t hear any noise, however. Without hesitation she jumped through the opening.

I was breathing hard from the exertion and had to grab the hand rail above the opening and swing through. My blaster rifle caught on the doorway and it broke off of my back as the strap was designed to do.

“Look out,” I warned. There was nothing else I could do.

I tried to catch my breath and get in behind Tali. We were in a large storage room where crates lay haphazardly. Tali had taken position behind a crate. The entry door to the room blew inward and I was momentarily knocked back into the wall by the impact of the explosion. My vac-suit stiffened to absorb most of the blow.

Tali fired into the breach. A hand reached across the opening from the other side and tossed a grenade into the room. It froze in mid-air, one meter from the entrance and then exploded. Tali responded by throwing a grenade back through the hole.

“How did …” I started to ask.

“Remember what I told you, always be thinking about what you’re doing next,” Tali said. “I set up a stasis web before we jumped into the room. It wasn’t hard to predict they’d blow the door and throw grenades through.”

Marny jumped through the hole and handed me my blaster rifle. I pushed my flechette pistol back into its holster and accepted the rifle. “Sorry,” I said.

“No time for that. Focus, Cap,” I felt like she was always saying that to me - what a newbie. “We’re in. Go,” she said.

Tali rolled from her position and came up in a crouch. She moved fluidly to the doorframe and tossed a small puck-shaped device into the hallway. My HUD immediately updated the view. There was a pirate rolling in pain on the floor, but the hallway was otherwise clear. By my count we’d taken out thirteen crew members.

“Jordy, rig the shaft,” Tali said. “Serpentine formation.”

I finally felt like I had some idea of what we were doing. It was one of the two room-clearing formations we’d drilled on. Tali in the center of the hallway with Marny on her left and me just behind Marny on her right. Jordy would follow us backwards. I stepped forward and pulled my blaster rifle to my shoulder.

“Cuff him, Jordy,” Marny instructed as we passed the pirate on the floor. “There’s a stairway at the end of this hallway. Clear on the way.”

There were several doorways between us and the stairwell. We’d cleared two of them when a man rabbited from a doorway at the end of the hall. Tali pivoted quickly and brought him down.

We’d just come even with the elevator. It presented a risk. If we left it open, our opponents could come from behind us. Even now, it made me nervous. The door could open at any time, allowing armed men to pour out into the hallway.

“They’re watching us,” Marny said. “We’ve probably reduced their number by more than fifty percent. The rest will hunker down.”

“Can we hold up a minute?” I asked.

“What do you have in mind?”

“Let me talk to Flark,” I said. "He has to know this isn’t going well for him."

“Tali, pull back. Let’s give the Cap a run at this.”

Tali
said nothing, but started backing her way down the hall. We all moved backward together until we reached one of the rooms we’d cleared.

“Liam, duck inside. We’ll hold the hallway,” Tali said.

Establish comm with bridge of frigate, request parley
.

“What do you want?” It was a male voice, not Flark’s.

“With whom am I speaking?”

“Captain Vilstrup. I repeat, what do you want?”

“I want the female hostage Qiu Loo, and Harry Flark.”

“They’re not here,” he replied.

“Not possible. I just talked to him forty minutes ago.”

“A small ship picked him up no more than ten minutes ago.”

“We’ve blown your engines and the Navy is on the way. What’s your exit strategy?” I asked.

“Currently, we’re trying to repel boarders. I haven’t worked things out much past that.”

“Look, Captain, I’ve got no taste for blood. I’m after Lieutenant Loo and Flark. We’ve got no beef with you. That said, in my opinion, this is Flark’s ship and I’m taking it. If you want to stand between me and this ship, then we can end this parley now.”

“What’s my other option?” he asked.

“You turn the ship over to me and I’ll provide you and one other crew member transport to within two kilometers of that hauler.”

“How do I know I can trust you?”

“You don’t, but I’d bet at least one of your crew’s heard of me. I’ve made the same deal twice in the last two months with you guys. Ask ‘em.”

Marny looked at me in bewilderment. “Are you crazy? We can’t let them go.”

“Do the math, Marny. If they put their guns down right now, we’ve got a chance at getting Qiu. Not only that, I also reduce the chance of one of us getting hit. I’m not the frakking Navy. I don’t like these guys, but I don’t need to see ‘em dead either.”

“We’ve got ‘em dead to rights, Cap.” Her face was flush with anger.

“Trust me, just this one last time. Please.”

She sighed audibly, “I sure hope you know what you’re doing. It burns me bad to see these guys escape.”

“Me and two others and you’ve got a deal,” Captain Vilstrup finally returned.

I still had a knot in my stomach. We’d taken out the frigate and captured eight pirates. I’d also released three of their top brass to the big hauler crew. Tali, Jordy and Marny swept the ship and found two more pirates hiding, for a total of ten. As a group, they were fairly pathetic. I was a little surprised at how drastically my perception of them changed now that they weren’t pointing weapons at me.

Ada pulled alongside the frigate and Nick joined us to help with the prisoners.

“Nick, Jordy, would you hold down the ship until the Navy gets here?”

Jordy looked at me like I’d grown a second head. “You suck, but yes, we’ll hold ‘em. Can’t guarantee they’ll all be here when you get back.” He said the last loud enough for the prisoners to hear.

“Navy is less than eight hours out.
We’ll be back well before.

Nick nodded. I appreciated that he trusted me enough to let me do this.

“Ada, Tali, Marny I need you guys. I’ll explain on the way.”

“What’s all the mystery?” Marny asked. I was leading them to the airlock where the
Adela Chen
was docked.

“We need to head back to the station. I’ve got a hunch,” I said.

“Ada. Can you see if you can raise your buddy, Eldevurp?”

“Elvard.”

I jumped into the pilot’s chair next to Ada. “I’ve got the helm, see if you can get him.”

She finally got him to answer his comm. “I’ve got him, what do you want to ask him.”

“Put him on comm, please.”

Marny and Tali had grabbed water pouches and meal bars and joined us in the cockpit. There wasn’t really room for either on the bridge, but they improvised by dangling their legs down the hole where the ladder descended to the living quarters.

“Hey, E.V., here. We’re in the middle of an emergency, what do you need?”

“E.V., any of you boys got ships?”

“Just little stuff, why?”

“Surely you’ve got some ore haulers around,” I said.

“Well, duh, sure we do.”

“So the Red Houzi’s making off with all your ore and your asteroid. We’ve taken out their escort and their darts. About the only thing they’ll have left will be stationary heavy blasters. Tell me your boys can’t outfly that?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean, what if you were to load up some containers, maybe take full ones even, and fly ‘em at that hauler. If you let them go at the right time, I’d bet you could put it out of commission or at the very least get ‘em to change their mind about things.”

“Frak me. You say that frigate’s down?” E.V. was starting to understand my plan.

“That’s what I’m saying. And … the hauler is out of darts.”

“Let me round up my boys.”

“Go get ‘em, E.V.,” Ada said.

End comm
.

“They’re gonna beat the ever-living shite out of that hauler,” I said.

“How long you been planning that?” Marny asked.

“Forgiven?” I asked.

“Tell me you didn’t just think of that,” Marny said.

“I won’t tell you anything of the sort.”

“Ada, I want you to stay in the freighter. We need someone to stay mobile. I don’t like Nick and Jordy being tied to a ship that isn’t movable without some sort of backup. Okay?”

“Yes, can do. You know you’ve got a lot of blood on your face?”

I hadn’t thought about it for a while, but my face and ear had taken a beating from Red and his buddy.

“It’ll have to wait,” I said.

“What are you thinking, Cap?” Marny asked.

“I’m taking a chance, but I think it’s a good one. Flark still has crew on the station, I think that’s where he’d go. He wants distance between him and that hauler.”

“Wouldn’t they just take him to where he was going?”

“If his destination is a base, I doubt whoever picked him up had the range. Flark’s a rat jumping off the sinking ship. I bet anything he’s holding onto Qiu as a bargaining chip.”

Arriving back on station, we saw that the damage was significant. Between our missiles tearing apart the control station and the frigate’s broadside, Jeratorn had seen better days. I hoped there wouldn’t be any legal fallout for us.

“There’s a short-term pier over on Tower B,” Ada said.

“Want to take us in?” I asked.

Ada took the controls and expertly guided us in to what was nothing more than a ledge on the side of the tower. For our purposes, however, it would work just fine.

I hadn’t brought my blaster rifle along, but still had my flechette pistol. Marny had her rifle and Tali was wearing a pair of pistols in holsters at her waist. I knew they both had more weapons. I was pretty sure I was down to the steel knife and my pistol. I’d removed my belt of grenades because I felt I was a lot more likely to do harm to myself than to someone else.

Inside the tower, the few people we saw in the open were running to their destinations. A soft red light pulsed at the top of the hallway but the warning klaxons had, fortunately, been turned off. I wanted to tell these people that most of the danger had passed and they should get back to business. But, I couldn’t really guarantee that yet.

“Tali, how about we turn that nanite sniffer back on?” I said.

“I hope this works,” Marny said.

“Agreed,” I said.

I was disappointed to find that all of the nanite traces we found in this area looked to be secondarily planted - brought along on other people’s clothing or shoes.

“I think we should work our way over to Tower A,” Tali said.

We followed her to the airlock connecting the two towers. Surprisingly, the lock was once again functioning. During the attack, the first thing that should have happened was shutting down all of the connecting passages.

We were on the back side of Tower A and finally starting to pick up older nanites that were actual first-hand traces of Qiu. I was still disappointed that we couldn't see any current trace of her.

“Up or down?” Tali asked.

“Think they’d take her back to the brig?” I asked.

“No chance,” Marny said. “Not with the Navy on the way. They’d need to hide her good.”

“I’ve got an idea,” I said. “Let’s go check out The Welded Tongue.”

“You want a drink?” Marny asked.

“Yeah, I’m feeling real thirsty right now.” I punched the button to call the elevator car. We only had to go a few levels down to find the Welded Tongue. Once again, there was no new trace of Qiu anywhere.

“I’m hoping someone in the bar will have had contact with her,” I said, giving away my big plan.

“It’s more than I’ve got,” Marny said.

The Welded Tongue was an amazing place. Two hours after being attacked by pirates, the restaurant/bar was at least thirty percent full.

“Maybe we should talk to Beth Anne, see if she knows anything,” I said.

“I wouldn’t trust her any further than I could throw her,” Tali said.

I caught the arm of a server. He was a young kid, probably no older than twelve. “Could you ask Beth Anne if she has a moment? Tell her Liam Hoffen’s asking.”

“Okay.” His voice was shaky.

I’d expected some attitude, but … then I looked at my companions, decked out in armored vac-suits. I also considered my face, which was probably a bloody mess. We had to look like hell.

Beth Anne, dressed in another of her tight fitting dresses that displayed her feminine attributes to their best advantage, sauntered out from the doorway where the kid had disappeared.

“Captain Hoffen, you do look a fright. Oh, and we don’t allow weapons in the bar. I’ll have to ask you to take those outside.”

“Just a quick question and we’ll be on our way,” I said.

“Nothing’s free, Captain. What do you need to know, and how badly do you need to know it?” Her voice was sweet, but I wasn’t at all fooled by it this time.

“Harry Flark has come back to the station and I need to know where he is,” I said.

“Hmm, wish I knew that one. I’d be able to sell that info all day long. Afraid I can’t help you. Maybe I could interest you in a cold drink?”

“No, we just need to find Flark. Anyone you can ask? Poke around for us?” I asked.

“Sure, I’ll poke around.” She stretched out the word ‘poke’ suggestively.

I sighed, “It’d be worth a lot to me.”

“Well then, I’ll pay it special attention. Anything else?”

“No. Thank you.”

Beth Anne walked away. Hope drained out of me.

“You see that?” Tali asked.

“What?”

“Look at the carpet.”

I looked at the carpet. There were bright-green, perfect-looking little shoe prints that led up to our table and back again to the bar. It’d been the path Beth Anne had walked.

“Why didn’t she have any on her?”

“She’s been wearing a vac-suit. Wherever she changed, she walked through a bunch of ‘em,” Tali said.

“Let’s go,” I said.

We started walking toward the bar, catching the attention of three large men who’d, up to this point, been hanging out, and ignoring us. They all had their hands on the butts of blaster pistols. They clearly didn’t want to draw them, but were letting us know they had lethal power.

“You need to leave,” the biggest one said to me.

Marny didn’t even hesitate. She pulled her Bo Staff off her belt and snapped it to full length. The fastest of the three almost got his gun drawn before she thwacked his wrist, causing him to drop it. The other two were nursing the sides of their heads where Marny’s staff had struck them.

“Two ways this can go boys,” Marny said. “You can leave now, or I can finish it.”

“She’s getting away,” I said.

One of the men started to bend down to pick up his weapon. I suspected he simply wanted to retrieve it to take with him, but Marny read the situation differently. She smashed the back of his head violently with her staff. He dropped on the ground hard, completely limp. The other two decided they didn’t want to stick around to see what was going to happen next and made a run for the door.

Tali, pistols drawn, peeked into the back room. “Let’s go,” she said.

Marny stowed her staff and pulled the heavy blaster over her shoulder. “Take number two spot, Liam. I’ve got the rear. Just be careful of civilians.”

The green tell-tales of Beth Anne’s shoe prints led straight out of the back of the bar’s storage area. Her strides had lengthened significantly. The woman was running in high heels.

We followed her trail right up to an airlock plastered with green nanites, way more than if they’d just come from the bottom of Beth Anne’s shoes.

“Frak, we’re right on her,” I said.

We cycled through the airlock. It was a tight squeeze for the three of us in armor but time was not on our side if they escaped to a ship …

Establish comm with Ada
.

“Hiyas, Liam. Need me so soon?”

“Yes, we’re chasing Flark down and I think they’re going for a ship. Lower side of Tower A. Can you intercept?”

“On it,” Ada said.

We made it through the airlock onto a private docking bay with a pressure barrier. There was enough room for three small runabout-class vehicles. An eight-meter boat was dropping through the pressure field.

“It’s coming out now,” I said.

“I see ‘em.”

I heard Ada talking to the AI.
Hail runabout
.

“Small craft, pull back into the dock or I’ll be forced to fire.”

The small ship ducked back up through the pressure field and into the docking bay. Marny aimed at the craft’s forward view screen. She sidestepped around the bay, keeping aim on the pilot. Flark’s enraged face shone through the glass.

Hail runabout
, I instructed.

“Flark, give it up. You’re not getting out of here.”

“I’ve got Lieutenant Loo.”

“Let’s make a deal,” I said.

“You can’t do that,” Marny said, a vein popping out on her forehead.

“My command, my rules, Bertrand. If you don’t like it, then get another job.”

“What the frak?”

“You let me pass, I’ll give you Loo,” Flark offered.

“I frakking quit,” Marny said.

“I accept both offers,” I said.

Tali looked from me to Marny and back. For the first time since I’d met her, she had a stumped look on her face.

“Cover me,” I said to Tali. She nodded, holding her pistols on the door of the runabout.

Flark pushed the door open and green nanite trackers spilled out of the doorway and on to the docking bay floor. He didn’t even have her in a vac-suit.

“Come out with your hands up. There’re some itchy triggers out here,” I said.

“I’m coming out. She’s on the bench.”

Flark’s chubby frame exited the craft. He had green trackers all over him. Tali switched off the view, apparently it was bugging her as well. He stepped around me and looked over to Marny and Tali.