Randolph Lalonde - Spinward Fringe Broadcast 08 - Renegades (17 page)

She didn’t realize
that Ayan followed her until she heard her call out, “Alice!” and
Alice stopped dead in her tracks, right in the middle of the upper
level concourse. Dozens of people looked at her from walkways above
and below.

Ayan caught up to her
and put a hand on her shoulder. “I know you don’t want to hear
this right now, but Senior Commander Anderson and I are both only
doing what’s best for you. If we didn’t care, we’d use you as a
scapegoat for this whole thing.”

Alice tried to suppress
her tears and stand up straight, to look strong. “I know,” she
managed, even though she still wasn’t sure. She was still furious
and grief-stricken for all that she’d lose. “You must be so-“

“Angry?” Ayan said
as she embraced Alice. “No. I wish you did things differently, I
won’t lie, but I also wish we could keep you here and help you
realize your potential.”

She was sure Ayan was
disappointed in her; Alice was one of the first Rangers. Ayan was not
someone she expected compassion from, especially after the woman
turned away from her father with little explanation, devastating him.
Alice let herself be held. The smell of Tonka bean, a product of the
nearby jungle, was in Ayan’s red hair. The warm fragrance was
calming, crying was easier, and she let it happen for a moment before
trying to recover her composure. “You’re going to join the
Warlord,” Ayan whispered. “And I want you to redo the Phase Two
training in your downtime, but do it for yourself. Maybe you won’t
even want back into the Rangers after you’re done, but you’ll
know you could go if you want to.”

“Why are you being so
nice?” Alice asked before she realized she was saying it aloud.

“You remind me of
myself when I was younger,” Ayan replied.

“But you never
failed,” Alice replied, stepping back to arm’s length and wiping
her tears away.

“I did,” Ayan
replied. “But I knew how to hide it behind bigger successes. I
would have been a better person sooner if I failed publicly once or
twice. Now, don’t let this get to your heart. You served, and we
appreciate it – even if it doesn’t seem like it now – and
you’ve done good things. You just have more learning to do, and
you’re not the only one.”

“Thank you,” Alice
said as she turned away. “Thank you so much.”

“Alice?”

“Yeah?” Alice
asked, half turning.

“You’re going to be
amazing, just take your time,” Ayan said with a warm smile.

Pondering Escalation

The corridors of the
Warlord were filled with activity as post-combat repairs were
underway. Minh-Chu passed by many of the shipwright team members the
British Alliance had contracted out to Jake, and not one of them
looked pleased about the combat situation they’d just survived.
They weren’t told they would be going into combat – in fact it
was in their contract that they wouldn’t be put into a combat
situation. Minh knew Jacob didn’t care much since they would be
leaving the ship as soon as they arrived back in the Rega Gain
System. It was a deeply selfish attitude, and Minh-Chu didn’t agree
with him, but it would mean the Warlord would be in top condition
when they had to find crewmembers to replace the shipwright team.

The Warlord had taken
no casualties, and from Minh-Chu’s perspective, they’d scored a
major win. The combat had been close, and frightening to anyone who
hadn’t been in that kind of situation before. The few regular
members of the Warlord crew were used to going into the fight in
ships that weren’t nearly as well armoured, so they were all
smiles.

The Torano commanders
were smarter than anyone expected. The first thing they did after
taking damage from one of the Warlord’s big munitions launchers was
drop their cargo train and close in. Two thirds of the Warlord’s
munitions were immediately rendered useless. Letting loose with most
of their weaponry at close range meant that the Warlord would share
in whatever punishment it dealt, and Captain Jacob Valent wasn’t
that desperate.

On the other hand, the
beam weaponry on the Torano was many times more effective up close,
and they were a match for the Warlord’s manoeuvrability and speed,
being a high-end hauler herself. She also had an extra layer of
armour that wasn’t made public. With many of the Warlord’s
weapons taken out of the situation, it was almost an even fight. Jake
Valent’s ship was also missing her best pilot.

Minh-Chu finally
arrived in his quarters, let his suit verify that the compartment was
intact, then removed his helmet. “Honey, I’m home,” he said
quietly. At the sound of the trigger, a portrait appeared above the
double bed. The three metre wide playback featured Ashley Lamport
lounging on the beach during one of Tamber’s gold and violet
sunsets. She was wearing a holographic bikini that covered her
intimates with lily petals. She had no idea he was there when he
recorded her as she softly hummed a melody he didn’t recognize.
“Selfish of me to make the wish,” he said, “but I wish you were
here. Feels like half my energy is gone when you’re not around.”

The wall animation
moved around the room as he turned around and sat on the bed. Ashley
was still in the Rega Gain System, helping Panloo train new pilots
and bridge staff for the Triton. She’d been at it for months. It
had been over seven weeks since he’d seen her.

He let himself fall
back on the old mattress and closed his eyes. “I just need a
minute,” he sighed, starting to slow his breathing. “One minute
and I’ll have a clear head.” Minh-Chu breathed deeper, began
relaxing his muscles starting with his forehead and worked his way
down. He’d see Ashley soon, within a day or two. He accepted the
notion, and let it go. Memories of the most recent firefight came
back in pieces: Joyboy serving well, Singe taking care of small
details as he worked on the bigger decisions, destroying two shuttles
that people put many, many hours of work into. He thought about the
people on those shuttles, and the quick deaths of one of their crews.
Before the thoughts and memories piled up too high, he thought of
them as separate pieces that informed his state of mind. One by one,
he accepted each occurrence – the good and the bad – and let them
go. Two thoughts were harder than all the rest, and when everything
else cleared, he was left with the reality that Jacob Valent had
jettisoned a man who had signed onto the crew of the Warlord in good
faith. Whether he was to be treated as a hostage, or the fact that he
wouldn’t have made a particularly good crewman, didn’t matter.

He also couldn’t let
go of how close the early fighting was to the space station. The
station’s shields were most likely strong around habitat areas, but
that wasn’t something you could trust on a drift base that was
hacked together using inconsistent technology and materials.

It took some effort,
but he was able to let go of that, knowing that their firefight with
the shuttles hadn’t disrupted sensitive areas of the station, no
innocent lives were lost. He could not let go of the idea of a man
adrift in the most basic of safety gear. Someone would most likely
pick him up, but what then? Would he become a slave? Get dumped on
the station with nothing to his name?

“Fine,” Minh-Chu
said to himself, sitting up. He stood, straightened his new armoured
pilot’s jacket, checked his sidearm holster, and left his quarters
for the bridge.

The corridor leading
there was one of the only quiet places on the ship. The bridge was
well protected, as was the main set of corridors leading down the
length of the vessel. The primary interior of the Warlord had taken
no damage; she was built to face ships three classes above her. The
repair crews were concentrating on the outer sections, closer to the
outer hull, where less critical systems took mostly heat damage.

The heavy bridge hatch
opened at Minh-Chu’s approach and his gaze fell on the empty
command seat at the centre, then found Jake Valent at the pilot
controls. They were accelerating inside a wormhole, and Jake was
checking on the status of the ship from the pilot station while the
autopilot worked its magic. “Good hunting out there,” Captain
Valent said, not looking up from a structural hologram of the
Warlord. Only the first car in the cargo train trailing behind it was
visible in the image. Agameg and two other newer crewmen manned the
bridge.

Minh-Chu sat down in
the command seat and swivelled towards Jake, who spared him an amused
glance, one eyebrow raised. “You have the conn?”

“Just seeing what the
view is like from here,” Minh-Chu said, standing up and sitting
down on the single step leading up to the command chair instead. “So,
interesting compromise with your hostage,” he said.

“He woke up,” Jake
said, “and the Torano wasn’t cooperating.”

“No reason to airlock
him,” Minh-Chu replied.

“He was annoying and
I needed to prove my resolve to the Torano,” Jake replied, giving
Minh-Chu his full attention. “You reviewed the combat log while you
were waiting to land, so you know it worked.”

It was true. The Torano
dropped their cargo train shortly after, and turned to fight the
Warlord. “This is just showing me an escalation, and I’m
wondering if we’re near the end or at the beginning.”

“An escalation of
what?” Jake asked.

“An escalation in
brutality,” Minh-Chu replied. “I also couldn’t help noticing a
few things you and Frost picked up on Urris that have me wondering.”
No one else on the bridge so much as looked at either of them, but
they listened closely.

“All right, here’s
the rest of the story behind our privateering contract. The clause
they didn’t write in was simple: scare the hell out of the enemy.
Take whatever we want, break the laws of engagement, make a lot of
noise, but above all else: shake the enemy up so hard that people
start thinking twice about signing up. You know how big the Order has
been getting since they dropped the cash requirement last month. We
play this light-handed, and the British Alliance might start
reconsidering some of the luxuries they’ve been giving us.”

“I’m guessing
they’d rather you keep those details to yourself?” Minh-Chu
asked.

“Maybe, but they
never said it. That’s why I’m talking all about it in front of a
few crewmembers who will probably share the details when they leave
us in a couple of days.” Agameg’s neck straightened and his eyes
snapped to a perfectly round shape as he regarded Jake and Minh-Chu.
Jake smiled at him and shook his head slightly. “I mean the British
members of the crew. They’re at the end of their term here.”
Agameg looked to the British Alliance crewmen and relaxed. “I’m
relieved. My work on the Warlord is highly rewarding, and I have to
admit to being amused when we were ordered to jettison our hostage. I
do share some of Ronin’s concerns, in retrospect,” Agameg
replied.

The British Alliance
crewmembers were continuing their duties as though the conversation
wasn’t happening, their stiff upper lips in full evidence. They
were ship builders and experienced repair crew, not privateers, and
the people on the bridge didn’t have to say a word about their
disapproval of the last engagement.

“I don’t know how
far I’ll have to go,” Jake said. “But we need to build a
reputation big enough so the British Alliance sees some fear coming
from the enemy. I’ll make sure people know that whatever
brutalities I’m blamed for are part of our privateering deal
though, call it an insurance policy.”

“Be careful, Jake,”
Minh-Chu said. “I’m not worried about the British pulling our
license, but I don’t want this crew to slide too far down on the
humanitarian scale.”

“You mean you don’t
want me to slide down,” Jake replied.

“Same thing.”

“I get it. You know
I’m listening.”

“I know,” Minh-Chu
said. “As long as this fear campaign is good for the war, and it
doesn’t come to attacking bystanders, I’m good. That’s my line.
I don’t want to see innocent blood, and I think it would break this
crew if we did.” He realized it was the truth as he said it. Their
hostage was nearly an innocent if he was as foolish as everyone
seemed to think he was, and that was why Minh-Chu had a problem with
how he departed the ship.

“I know. Our scanners
did confirm that a rescue shuttle from the station was on its way to
pick him up, though. He can probably work off the bill in about two
days if he’s low on credit.”

“Good to know. So,
I’m sure I’m not the only one wondering, but how did we do?”

“Well, that shielded
compartment that read heavy on the biological chart is definitely not
carrying slaves. Not unless they’re three inches long and there are
a few million. We can’t check it during transit, but all the seals
are good. Other than that, the shielding is so heavy, I can’t get
an image.”

“Could it be some
kind of bug farm?” Agameg asked. “I’ve seen many production
systems that depend on insects.”

“I’m guessing, but
we’ll have to wait until we come out of the wormhole near the Rega
Gain System,” Jake replied. “As for the rest, we got really lucky
here. There’s heavy machinery made for high gravity environments,
twelve hundred various sized materializers and replacement parts for
them, and a few containers of small, heavy duty construction bots.”

“Construction bots?”
Agameg asked.

“Yup, too heavy duty
for materializers to produce and still in the package. There’s also
a vault car, just like our intelligence said. Can’t scan inside
that either, but from the mass, we’ve intercepted a major cash
collection, probably meant to fulfil some kind of payday or major
purchase for the Order. Seeing their cargo, I understand why they had
a hauler like the Torano take the job. She had good security, was
armed to the teeth, and her command crew knew how to take us.”