Randolph Lalonde - Spinward Fringe Broadcast 08 - Renegades (22 page)

They started walking
towards the fifty-eight metre long ship. “They’re in pretty rough
shape,” Oz said. “I have a medical team on the way.”

“Just one?” Jake
asked.

“We only have one.”
They could see five ramps lowering and a few crewmembers who had the
look of commanders in mid-length green, black, and orange coats
leading a few crewmembers down. Everyone was armed, and they stayed
close to the ship once they debarked, fairly standard behaviour.
Crews didn’t normally mingle before their captains met with
representatives.

The hangar’s
secondary cargo lift arrived behind Jake and Minh-Chu, delivering a
squad of armed Triton soldiers. “How does it look, Sir?” the
sergeant asked over proximity radio.

“I think we’re
good,” Oz replied. “Hang back and stay ready just in case. Be
ready to offer assistance, they could have injured aboard.”

“Aye.”

“Should we wait for
Frost?” Minh-Chu asked.

Jake watched as one
person split from the crowd forming around the ship and started
towards them. She had broad features and dark skin. The battered coat
she wore and scarred form-fit armour told Jake tales of
close-quarters combat and boarding missions. The guns slung below her
hips told the rest of the story. The pistols were heavily modified
for increased power, and they looked well used.

A few burn scars and
pockmarks running along her left jaw didn’t spoil her beauty; they
only made her more interesting. He almost didn’t notice the two
women and one man catching up to her as she approached. “I’m
Captain Moira McFadden, this is Captain Eily Hogan, Captain Mickey
Kane, and Captain Oma Bell. We’ve heard about your fight here, and
are at your service,” she said with conviction. “I know what
you’re thinking,” Captain McFadden continued, her brown eyes
examining him. “Four captains, one ship. Captain Kane here is the
only one who has a ship that’ll thrust or shoot, the rest of us had
ours blasted out from under us by the Order.”

“We put Captain
McFadden in command of my ship on account of her record,” Captain
Kane said. He was a grizzled, stout fellow with cybernetic eyes that
reminded Jake of Alice’s old mechanical implant. “She’s the war
hero.”

“We heard your signal
clear and strong when you put the call out to captains who wanted to
join your fight against the Order,” Captain Bell added. She looked
as grizzled as Kane; her blonde hair was cut down to stubble. “We’re
hoping to fix up the Hell Shrike somewhere and capture a few ships we
can crew so we can help build up your fleet.”

“Aye,” Captain
Moira McFadden said. “If you don’t mind me asking, how is that
fleet coming along?”

Jake had never felt
more put on the spot than he did right then. The sideways glance from
Minh-Chu didn’t help. “We have a fighter squadron and I’m
re-crewing my ship, but as soon as we’re set, the Warlord is
heading back out.”

“Triton is mid-refit,
but he makes a good base,” Oz added.

“I told you it was
nothing but air!” Captain Eily Hogan said, throwing her hands up
and stomping around in a tight circle behind her fellows. “Bugger’s
just a dressed up mouthy braggart.”

Jake hurriedly searched
for some kind of defence for his lack of progress. “You wouldn’t
say that if you saw our last take.”

“So you’re doing
some damage, making a difference with a broken carrier and one
fighting ship?” asked Captain Mickey Cane cautiously.

“We’ve gathered
intelligence, taken two cargos, and captured an important military
leader,” Minh-Chu said without a hint of shame. “We had to make
repairs and we’ve been short on crew. As for people signing up for
this rebellion, you’re the first brave enough to show.” There was
disappointment in how he spoke, and it got their attention. “We’ve
been on the run, taking in refugees, trying to find a base to operate
from. This ship, the Triton, was in good working order when Captain
Valent captured her before the war started. Trying to save people
caught in the middle of this mess cost us, though. Now we’re
regrouping. Now we need you more than ever because we’re ready for
the war, but they need to see they’re not alone.”

The group of captains
were quieted by the statement that the Triton was one of Captain Jake
Valent’s captures, and listened more intently.

Jake picked up right
where Minh-Chu left off. “Ronin here is the Wing Commander of
Samurai Squadron, a fighter group that launches from my ship, the
Warlord. I put the Triton in the hands of Captain McPatrick – we
call him Oz. He’s a trained carrier captain with a long record of
combat experience.”

Captain Bell was the
first to offer Minh-Chu her hand. He smiled and shook it. She shook
Oz’s hand as well. The other captains followed in turn, except for
Captain McFadden. “I see,” she said. “So how close are you to
getting a real offensive going, Captain? The British have barely
fired a shot in this war. In fact, they’ve signed a truce.”

“The Warlord will be
ready to go in three days,” Jake replied. “And we have all the
intelligence we need.”

“Samurai Squadon just
needs a good night’s sleep,” Minh-Chu added.

“Can you find us a
place to repair my ship?” asked Captain Kane. “The Hell Shrike
has a few holes in her.”

“I don’t have
anyone to spare,” Oz said. “But the Triton has a storage hangar
you can use and some extra gear that’ll speed things up for your
crew.”

“Thank you, Sir,”
Captain Kane said. “You wouldn’t know where we can go scavenging
for materials?”

“There’s more than
you need down on Tamber for free if you can’t afford to pay per ton
from Carthan orbital collections,” Minh-Chu replied. “Just stick
to the empty wrecks.”

“You’re not what we
expected,” Captain McFadden said, her expression softening a
little. “But you’ll have to do.” Frost emerged from the lift
doors and she walked towards him without a word.

His smile was visible
from where Jake was standing over fifty metres away. He shouted,
“That’s not my wee Moira, is it?”

The three captains in
front of Jake and the crew behind were silent. Heads were lowered,
eyes uneasily glancing towards Captain McFadden and Shamus Frost.
Stephanie followed several steps behind Shamus. Jake could see that
she recognized the mood coming from Moira and her captains.

Minh-Chu couldn’t let
the moment unfold without inquiring. “They know each other?” he
said to Captain Bell, who nodded sadly.

“Moira’s his
cousin. Big family, McFaddens and Coys, hundreds, but those two are
all that’s left now.” Captain Bell continued in a whisper, “The
Order hit the Irish Union worlds hard, guess they didn’t like how
we got through their virus without much harm. We fought until we only
had a few scattered ships left, most looking like our Hell Shrike
here. The Order’s ruling our land now, they made examples of the
families who had a lot of fighters standing in the way. Our Moira’s
a war hero, and Shamus McFadden there is wanted in nine sectors by
the Order.”

“Ten,” Jake said as
a reflex and immediately felt like he’d said the most inappropriate
thing in the universe. He watched as Frost embraced Moira McFadden.
She spoke to him for a moment. He shook his head in response to the
news. Moira took his stubbly cheeks in her hands and nodded. Jake’s
heart broke for Shamus as he sunk to his knees, his whole torso
wracked by sobs. Moira held him in her arms, weeping. Stephanie knelt
down and stroked Frost’s back.

“Good,” Captain
Kane said. “Moira’s finally cryin’.”

As Minh-Chu and Jake
were about to turn their attention back to the captains standing with
them, Frost stood up straight and strode for the nearest exit, a
narrow side passage for emergency shuttles. Stephanie turned in time
to catch his arm but, to Minh-Chu’s surprise, Frost brushed her
off.

Then he caught sight of
Frost’s expression. A dangerous, determined scowl contorted Frost’s
broad features. “Jake,” Minh-Chu said.

“Catch him!” Jake
shouted.

Frost was through the
emergency escape hatch and it was closed behind him before anyone
could get near him. Minh-Chu, Jake, Stephanie, and Moira were the
first to react. “Frost! What are you doing!” shouted Stephanie as
she reached the outer hatch of the emergency launch corridor. Two of
the heavy hinges were glowing red, and Jake could barely budge the
emergency door with an attempt that bent the thick metal handle.

A loud pop signalled
the launch of the six-man Triton emergency shuttle, and Minh-Chu
glanced through the transparent hangar doors just in time to see it
accelerating towards Tamber. “The launch bay will have something
ready to go,” Oz said, starting for the nearest lift.

“This is bad,”
Minh-Chu said under his breath.

“You have no idea,”
Stephanie said. “I know where he’s going.”

Eavesdropping

Alice leaned against
the wall of Haven Shore’s main port building. It was a temporary
setup – eventually the main port would be a massive tower, and the
one she was standing in would be an outbuilding – but she liked it.
Still licking her wounds from her dismissal from the Rangers,
procrastinating on meeting the Warlord crew and her father, she
watched dozens of people coming and going. It was one of her
favourite guilty pleasures: leaving her cloaking systems on for an
afternoon, going to the busiest place in Haven Shore, picking someone
and following them for a while. She’d already chosen her target for
the day: Ayan.

The temporary port
building was a circular structure put together with transparent
panels from leftover emergency shelter assemblies that made a
building a little over seventy metres across. Three gangways led out
of one side to the horseshoe shaped landing platform. It took them a
couple of days to put the port building together, but that platform
outside, large enough for five to seven mid-sized ships, and the
cleared land on the reinforced cliff top around it took six weeks to
complete. The landing platform proper had the most expensive landing
spots on that hemisphere of Tamber, and they were always full.

The ground surrounding
it, with enough room to support twenty or more vessels in the
thirty-metre sloop or planet hopper category, was less expensive, but
the port was making money. That much was evident.

The other side of the
port building was always busy too, with two main exits leading to
hover vehicle paths that took people to the Everin Building and
beyond.

Alice leisurely watched
a few covered gangways that were meant to lead to other structures,
but most were capped off at various lengths with temporary exit
hatches or small portable outbuildings. She’d seen countless
tearful hellos and farewells from a distance in those quieter
corners, but on that day there seemed to be more arguments than
anything. There was tension in the air. Alice heard more than a few
people talk about the reformation of the Haven Shore government and
the arrival of the Warlord. There were already rumours that the dark
ship had captured incredible treasures, and that Haven Shore wouldn’t
benefit because of Ayan’s sovereignty deal with the Carthans.

She started walking
towards the hallway she was most familiar with. It led down to the
west cliff, the side of the island covered in centuries-old jungle.
The shockwave that devastated the eastern side, flattening hundreds
of kilometres of growth, didn’t affect the other portion of the
island nearly as much thanks to the craggy mountain chain running
down the middle of the land mass. Alice felt drawn back to the
jungle; it was unlike anything she’d ever seen, a real alien place.
She almost envied the people who ventured out to harvest fruit every
day, even though they complained about big cats and yapping, thieving
monkeys, of which there were many breeds. The pickers were well
protected in vacsuits, but avoided disturbing wildlife whenever they
could. It was also worth mentioning that it was difficult to pick
fruit when you’re getting chewed on, an experience Alice still
recalled vividly.

Every time she came
back from long ranger patrols across the vast forests and wastes of
Tamber, there was something new taking shape in Haven Shore. She
couldn’t help but notice that they were out of prefabricated walls
and domes, and it made her wonder what the next step in building was,
and how much things would slow down. They had no large fabrication
shops set up, though she heard two were being built, but it would be
slow going unless the Rangers could lead salvage teams to good
unclaimed wrecks. Her time as a Ranger was over, it was something she
still caught herself forgetting. Alice couldn’t help but think it
might be for the best, regardless of how much it stung.

When she started with
the Rangers, she could still keep her eye on her father, but when he
told her the Warlord would be going out of the system to gather
information, she couldn’t help but remember Jason Everin’s
message to her. Sometimes it was difficult to believe that he’d
come to her in a manufactured memory and told her that she could
improve the futures of her father and herself if she stayed close to
him. She felt she might be his connection to humanity somehow, but
her father told her to stay with the Rangers, that she’d see more,
learn more there while the Warlord was away.

Alice stopped and
leaned against a post, wondering what things would have been like if
she just followed her first instinct and gone with the Warlord crew.
They must have seen some interesting things while visiting strange
ports.

She looked to the upper
level of the port building and immediately noticed Ayan descending
down the ramp curving into the circular main desk in the middle of
the port building. Ayan was back in a dress shaped from vacsuit
material. The light pastel blue suited her, contrasting with her
curly red hair. Ayan might not have been more than a few centimetres
taller than Alice, and she did want to be taller when she grew out of
her teens, but if she didn’t grow much more, Alice hoped to look
like Ayan more than anyone else. Before Ayan tried to reassure her
after being ejected from the Rangers, Alice only saw her as her
father’s former flame. The short reassurance Ayan gave her when she
was in tears changed that. Alice took some kind of solace in seeing
how intelligent, talented, and busy Ayan was. She was also beautiful
by Alice’s standards, so much more than she was. Ayan had curves,
whereas Alice felt boyish: short and muscly. Alice couldn’t imagine
being as busy or stressed as Ayan, and didn’t understand how the
woman could handle herself so calmly as she addressed one situation
after another. She was a builder, a designer, a military officer, and
a politician. Alice could understand why Ayan’s love life exploded
in her face from time to time, considering.