Aces (16 page)

“Can you let the
air out of a compartment?”

“Kill the
pirates?” Manny asked, startled by his sister
’
s sudden
bloodthirstiness. “
I don’
t know how to let the air out.
Kaylee, I hate them too, but if we kill them, how do we get Mom and Dad back?”

Kaylee
’
s eyes flashed anger. “He
’
s lying. He didn
’
t send his shuttle! I
’
ll bet their shuttle
never left. That
’
s why he
’
s chasing
us, because he knows he won
’
t have anything to trade for
the thing.” An inspiration came to her. “Can you fly their shuttle?”

Manny was taken
aback. “Kaylee, I
’
m just a kid. I
’
ve
never flown anything.”

“You fly
spaceships in your sims all the time!”

“Those are
sims
.
This is real. I don
’
t even know what kind of shuttle they
have. And I
’
ve probably never flown that type of shuttle
in a sim. The controls are all different.” He protested.

Kaylee
considered. “If you got into their shuttle, you could call Seth, and he could
tell you what to do.”

“
I
don’
t know.”

“Manny, we have
to try! At least, if you got there, you could, I don
’
t
know, lock the doors, or smash the controls, or something. Make sure the
pirates can
’
t leave this ship, so they
’
ll
still be aboard when the Navy gets here.”

That seemed
doable. “I guess. Yeah, I could do that. Kaylee, we need a plan. Like, what do
we do if the shuttle really did leave, to rescue Mom? And how do we get there?
What if we run into the pirates?”

“If the shuttle
has left, then we don
’
t do anything. You know what we
need? A diversion, something to keep the pirates busy, so we can sneak over to
their shuttle.”

“A diversion?
Yeah.” Manny frowned in disgust, and kicked the robotic cargo pallet that sat
inert on the deck next to him. “I wish we had robots, combat robots, like the
Army has.”

“Could we turn
these robots on, the ship
’
s robots?”

“No, they need
the ship
’
s AI to control them.” Manny said, in a ‘
doesn
’
t everybody know that
’
tone
of voice.  “That would cool, though, huh? We could send the robots chasing
after-“ Manny didn't finish that thought, because another, much better thought
was forming in his head.

“What?” Kaylee
tugged on her little brother
’
s arm. “What are you thinking?”

Manny jumped to
his feet. “
We don’
t need robots. We
’
ve got
Tinos
!”

Kaylee couldn
’
t help rolling her eyes. For an all-to-brief moment, she
’
d hoped her brother had come up with a good idea, an idea to
get them out of this mess. The mess she
’
d helped get them
into. “Manny, that
’
s a stupid idea. The Tinos are all
asleep.”

“Not if we wake
them up!” Manny walked in a circle, gesturing with his arms, as he thought
through his idea. “They
’
re just drugged, to make them
sleep, right? We did that with a mouse in my biology class.”

Kaylee paused.
Her biology class had done the same thing, at Manny
’
s age.
They had kept the mouse in hypersleep over a long weekend, then the teacher
revived the rodent, and it had scampered around as if nothing had happened.
Remove the drugs, increase the temperature, and the animal would wake up.
“Ohhhkaay, so what happens if we wake up the Tinos? Won
’
t
the pirates just shoot them?”

Once again Manny
looked at his sister, disbelieving that anyone could not know this stuff. He
faced her, hands on his hips. “Kaylee,
nobody
brings high-powered
weapons onto a spaceship.” He had seen that fact mentioned on many
Star
Patrol
episodes. “
You can
’
t risk
shooting a hole in the ship, the air would suck you right out into space.” The
pirates had directed-energy weapons, like stunners, or blasters. Probably it
was a blaster that had hit the hatch handle while he
’
d had
hold of the other end, his hand still hurt. While a blaster could be powerful,
the beam was just charged particles. “A blaster bolt would bounce right off a
tino
’
s armor.” He speculated aloud. “Yeah, yeah, this will
work! Kaylee, think about it, the ship is mostly dark, with the emergency
lights on. The pirates are going to come around a corner, and, bam! Right in
front of them, there
’
s a Tino! The pirates will forget all
about us, and we can get to their shuttle.”

Kaylee looked
elated for a moment, then her face fell. “Manny, that would only work if the
pirates came into the compartment where the Tinos are. Tinos can
’
t
open doors, the pirates could just lock them into a compartment, and not have
to worry about them.”

Manny
’
s eyes narrowed, and he stared off into space, remembering
something. There was a time when he had been able to see almost the whole
length of a cargo pod, stretching on for what seemed like forever. He could
picture it in his mind
’
s eye, section after section,
stretching into the distance toward the aft of the ship, with the tall bulkhead
doors open. “We can open
all
the doors in this pod, and pod 3, where the
pirate
’
s shuttle is.” He said quietly. “Remember, Kaylee,
when we were with Dad, and Jen and Seth let us watch the cargo loading at
Oceania? Jen said she had all the doors locked open, so they didn
’
t
have to stop at each section when they were moving cargo.”

“Do you know how
to do that?” Kaylee asked skeptically. Her little brother was full of
surprises.

“No.”

“And all I know
how to do is open one door at a time.” Kaylee held up Jen
’
s
access card.

“
I
don’
t know now, but I
’
ll bet I can figure it out,
Kaylee.” Manny walked over to the computer terminal on the wall. “Jen didn
’
t open them one at a time.” He said, trying to remember that
day, when he had been excited about the animals, not boring details of cargo
loading procedures. “She used one of these terminals. I could try it, Kaylee.
It can
’
t be that hard, remember, Seth said the controls on
this ship are made simple, so they are easy to use in an emergency.” He said
hopefully.

“
I
don’
t know.” She was so uncertain. How did adults know what to do?

“We have to.”
Manny pleaded, then folded his arms across his chest.

“If all the doors
are open, what if we run into the pirates again?”

Manny held up Jen
’
s card.
“I can still close and lock
the doors, one at a time, lock the pirates out of anywhere we are. I don
’
t know how the pirates got the doors unlocked, but I
’
ll bet it takes a long time.”

“OK, we try it.”
she agreed without enthusiasm. What else could they do? Wherever they ran, the
pirates somehow found them.

“I
’
ll
figure out the doors, but then we need to find the Tinos first, and start
waking them up. Then we open all the doors.”

“Because, without
the Tinos, having all the doors open just makes it easier for the pirates to
catch us?” It felt odd to Kaylee to be thinking behind her brother.

Manny nodded
vigorously.

“Manny, you
’
re in charge of this.”

“For real?”

“Really.
If
you can get all the doors open. I don
’
t know how to do
it.”

Valjean accessed
Nightengale
’
s computer through his
notepad. The connection was poor, with the signal having to travel through the
walls of the cargo pod.
Tigershark
had called
Atlas Challenger
over and over, asking for status of the rescue mission, demanding an answer.
From the tone of the messages, the frigate was growing impatient and concerned.
From the timecode on the messages, Valjean could tell the frigate was still far
away, searching for the phantom ship
Isaac Newton
. The Navy was no
threat to him, no threat, unless, that is, he wasted too much time finding the
damned alien artifact. Which he certainly
wasn
’
t going to do.

“What
’
s up, Boss?
” Dooley asked, as Valjean put
his datapad back in his pocket.

Valjean shocked
Dooley not with a rebuke, but with an icy smile. “Everything
’
s
going well, Dooley, everything
’
s going well. That frigate
is screaming bloody murder, but they
’
re still wasting
their time looking for our ghost ship. We
’
ll get what we
came for, Jump, and be long gone before the Navy decides to investigate. By the
time the Navy gets all this sorted out, we
’
ll be on a
beach, drinking rum punch and deciding how to spend our money, huh?”

Dooley shot a
look at Valjean
’
s back as the pirate leader strode away
down the cargo bay. Valjean was never friendly, he would never be sitting on a
beach with any of them. Which meant he was up to something. Something Dooley
wouldn
’
t like.

When Mac first
saw the three shuttle survivors, they were walking down the hard-packed red
dirt road like he expected, walking in the tracks the crawlers had made. It was
not, he saw immediately, a great place for an ambush. The whole area around the
mining camp was flat, with only a few craters here and there. Off to the north
there was a boulder field, too far away for Mac to get a good shot with his
rifle. He needed to be closer to the road. Where? He could try to hide in a
crater by the roadside, let the three targets get close, then pop up and let
them have it before they could scatter. No, a crater wouldn
’
t
work. Without sticking his head up, he couldn
’
t see how
close they were, and in an environment suit, he sure couldn
’
t
hear them. The craters by the road were shallow anyway, the men may see his
legs before he could see them.

There. To the
south of the road, there was a structure, kind of a tall, skinny hut. Mac didn
’
t know what it was, he didn
’
t care. It was
a bit far for a certain good shot; Mac fancied himself as an excellent marksman
and looked at it as a challenge. He crawled backwards into a crater, ducked
down, and ran toward the hut.

Sam was in the
lead by a few meters, not by plan, he simply tended to walk faster. He was the
first to see the top of the domes which made up the mining camp. The camp
itself sat on a plateau. “Hey guys, I see the camp, we
’
re
almost there.”

“All right.”
Nelson said, and added “Let
’
s be careful.” They hadn
’
t yet decided what do to once they reached the camp. Ahead of
them to the south there was a hut, a tall skinny structure, the purpose of
which Nelson couldn
’
t guess. Equipment storage, probably,
certainly the hut didn
’
t look airtight.
“Sam,
Rick, hold up here. I don
’
t think we should stay on this
road.”

“I agree.” Rick
said. This close to the camp, the ‘road
’
they were on was
now one of many, for the whole area, except for a boulder field to the north,
was crisscrossed with crawler tracks. All the tracks seemed to converge up
ahead, leading toward a large structure with two big doors, Rick assumed that
was the garage for the crawlers. There weren
’
t any
crawlers out today, none in sight, and no dust plumes in the area. There was a
light breeze blowing, the sunrise had warmed the thin air, and occasionally
they saw a weak, short-lived dust devil whirling close to the ground. Rick
thought he
’
d seen a dust cloud near the tall, skinny hut,
stirring up the surface dust. “There are no crawler tracks in that boulder
field, and those boulders come right up close to the outer buildings,” Rick
suggested, “we
’
d have cover until we were almost there.”

“I like your
thinking, Rick.”
Sam said.

Nelson looked at
the boulder field and nodded approval. The mining camp hadn't been set up for
security, a military camp would have cleared the boulders to provide a field of
fire. The mining company only cared that the boulders didn't interfere with
crawlers. “Yeah, let
’
s get off this road. I got a feeling
like we
’
re being watched. The camp must have some sort of
surveillance cameras around here.” Nelson said, and led the way off the road,
looking for poles with cameras on top. In fact, there were no active cameras in
their direction, only amongst the buildings ahead.

What the hell
were the three men
doing
, Mac ground his teeth in anger?!
The three men had walked off the road, and were now headed toward the damned
boulder field. If they reached the boulders, Mac knew he was in trouble, he
would have a hell of a time finding them in around the boulders, and the
boulders came within a hundred meters of the outermost camp buildings. He
couldn
’
t get much closer now, one of the men kept glancing
behind them, and between Mac and the boulder field the ground was totally open.
If the men saw him coming, they would scatter and run. Damn. He needed to take
a shot from here, if he hit one of the men, then one or both of the others
would hesitate, try to help the wounded man, giving Mac a chance to take out at
least one more. Yeah, that was a good idea. He
’
d seen that
in an old war video. He lifted the gun to his shoulder and selected single shot
mode. Lightly squeezing the trigger activated the laser rangefinder, and the
display in the scope showed distance to the target, and the wind velocity. Mac
smiled, adjusted the scope to compensate, centered the crosshairs on the back
of the nearest man, and squeezed the trigger until the gun bucked slightly.

He missed! In the
thin atmosphere of Ares, he hadn
’
t needed to compensate
for the wind at all! The shot, a magnetically propelled explosive-tipped dart,
passed between Nelson
’
s torso and his right arm, and
impacted a boulder ahead of the shuttle pilot, exploding and flinging chips of
rock into the air. Seeing that, the three men turned as one, to see a figure in
an environment suit rise up from next to the hut, holding a rifle, looking
agitated. The figure put the rifle to his shoulder, and the three shuttle
survivors didn
’
t need to see any more. “Run!” Nelson
shouted.

Running in an
environment suit, on a planet with almost Earth-normal gravity, was not easy.
The additional experience Sam and Nelson had in suits did not matter, like
Rick, they clumsily tripped over small rocks, stumbled across shallow
depressions in the soil, and waved their arms to keep their balance, keep
upright, keep moving. Running awkwardly saved their lives. Behind them, Mac,
instead of staying prone to steady his aim, tried to shoot on the run at the
weaving, stumbling targets, and missed every time. In front of the men,
boulders exploded as the darts hit, showering the men with rock chips, which
bounced off their helmets with a clanging sound. Then they were in the boulder
field, and ran to the left and the right, until they couldn
’
t
see anything but boulders all around them. They stopped, breathing heavily.
Nelson gestured the three to put their helmets together, in direct contact.
Through the helmet, Rick heard Nelson
’
s muffled,
hollow-sounding voice, say  “They may have equipment to track radio
signals, we need to stay off the radio.”

“I only saw one
guy.” Rick shouted, not sure how loud he had to talk to be heard thru the
helmet.

“Me too, just one
guy. I think there is only one guy out here.” Sam said, thinking back to his
days in the Marines. “If there was more than one, they would have had a second
guy here in the boulder field, to cut us off. That
’
s what
I would do.”

“He doesn
’
t need to track us by radio, look at our footprints.” Rick
pointed to the ground. In the area where they stood, they were the first
humans, the first creatures of any kind, to ever trod that soil. The miners
apparently had avoided the boulder field. Their footprints coming into the
boulder field were sharply outlined, impossible to miss. “All he has to do is
follow our footprints.”

“You
’
re right, man.” Sam agreed. “What do we do?”

“You
’
re the Marine, Sam, you tell us.” Nelson protested.

“Hey, I was in
the Corps for only four years, and that was a long time ago, amigo! Give me a
weapon and I
’
ll think of something. Right now, all we can
do is try to hit him with a rock. I don
’
t like those odds,
man. Can
’
t throw a rock as far as he can shoot.”

Rick thought of
the toolkit bag still slung over his shoulder. “I think I know a way to even
those odds.”

Mac hesitated at
the edge of the boulder field. Some of the boulders were less than waist-high,
not useful for cover, but most of the boulders were big, taller than he was,
and some were bigger than a crawler. It was, he had to admit, a great place for
the three shuttle survivors to even the odds. Damn. He couldn
’
t
go back now, he couldn
’
t call Valjean and tell the Boss he
’
d let the three get away because he was afraid to pursue
unarmed men into the boulder field. He notched the rifle
’
s
selector from single shot to semi-auto, so it would fire three-round bursts.
Lay down enough explosive darts, he figured, and he wouldn
’
t
need careful aim. Pray and spray.

It didn
’
t work out quite the way Mac figured. He followed the trail of
footprints, hugging close to boulders, then sprinting ahead. He fancied himself
a warrior on a battlefield. Really, he was a punk, hunting unarmed prey. He
came around a rock, and there, in front of him, was one of the men he was
hunting, running away from him. Mac took the extra split second to stand still
and aim, then he fired a burst into the man
’
s back. And
missed. The darts went right through, exploding against boulders. A hologram.
They had a holoprojector! As he stood, open-mouthed in surprise, a rock clanged
off the back of his helmet, almost knocking him down, almost making his drop
the rifle. He staggered, knocking his shoulder on a rock, spun around and fired
wildly. Nobody there. He spun back around, and running toward him was a man,
rock held above his head in one fist. Mac fired a burst.

Damn! Hologram
again! The image flickered and blinked out. He ground his teeth in anger. They
had to be close in order to project the image. With a roar of frustration, he
charged ahead, but found only tracks leading in three directions.

For ten wild
minutes, the three men led Mac on a confusing chase, going back over their own
tracks, holograms popping up here and there. Inevitably, Mac would fire a burst
into what turned out to be a hologram, and then it would vanish, and he would
often get smashed in the back, or in the helmet, by a rock thrown from behind
him. There were now so many tracks covering the area, his and theirs, that he
couldn
’
t use the tracks to follow them with any degree of
certainty. Also, he was lost, he had no idea where the mining camp was. His
head hurt from the helmet getting bashed by rocks, and he was breathing so hard
that his hands were shaking. He needed to slow down, calm his breathing, calm
his racing pulse, and think.

Mac walked ahead,
slowly, warily, stalking his prey, his labored breathing loud inside the
helmet. His throat was dry, the helmet
’
s drinking water
tanks was empty, he hadn
’
t thought he would need water for
what he had expected would be a short time outside. He had the rifle on his
side, they had the numbers on their side, he didn
’
t know
who had the advantage. Whoever they were, they were smart, doubling back over
their tracks so he couldn
’
t trust their footprints to
track them. With that hologram they had, he couldn
’
t
completely trust his eyes, either. Then he smiled slyly. One thing he had
learned was to recognize the hologram, there was a red stripe on the helmet of
that one. Next time, as soon as he saw the hologram, he would spin around and
blast whatever smart guy thought he was going to hit Mac with a rock from
behind. Mac was no dummy. That
’
s what Mac always said. And
Mac was always right, according to Mac.

The trail led
between two large boulders. A likely place for an ambush, Mac knew to avoid it.
If he could have gone around, he would have. That would mean climbing over and
around a pile of smaller boulders on each side, which would mean slinging his
rifle over his shoulder. Not happening. He would go straight through and let
his gun clear the way. He waited just before the twin boulders, looking for
telltale dust clouds from footsteps. Nothing. This was all taking way too
damned long. He should have been back inside the mining camp, quenching his
thirst with the miners
’
surprisingly large supply of
liquor, not out on the surface of this dust-filled rock. With a shout no one
else could hear, Mac leaped through the opening between the twin boulders,
firing shots to the left and right. Rock chips and dust obscured his vision
momentarily, then he stood still, breathing heavily. Nothing. No one was there,
no one had been there. Damn. He
’
d just wasted ammo. He
glanced down at the readout on top of the rifle, seven rounds left out of
thirty. There was a spare clip on his belt-

Mac experienced a
moment of panic. Was the spare ammo clip on his belt
inside
the suit? He dropped his left hand from the rifle and groped the environment
suit
’
s toolbelt. Ah, there it was, right where he now
remembered putting it on the toolbelt. Should he switch the clip now? It would
leave him with only one shot for a brief time, he-

A man stepped out
from behind a boulder in front of him, holding a large rock over his head in
one hand. Mac raised the rifle, finger ready on the trigger, seeing the red
stripe on the helmet, and the man...
flickered
.
Their hologram must be running out of power, it couldn
’
t
hold the image! Mac half-smiled and spun around, trigger pulled halfway.