Take The Star Road (The Maxwell Saga) (27 page)

"I'm here, Bosun! Tell the captain to lock us in!"

"Hang on - you've left some drag marks." He helped Steve carry the supplies into Shuttle One. "I'll just clean up quickly."

He disappeared back through the airlock, and returned within minutes. "There's no sign of us being in here now."

As he spoke, an amber light illuminated over the airlock and its inner door slid shut. Steve knew Captain Volschenk must have activated the remote locking systems from his command console. The airlock's outer door would be doing the same thing, and the process would be repeated in all the other small craft - the shuttle alongside theirs, the two cutters, and the captain's gig. The light changed from amber to red, showing that the airlock was now sealed.

Both of them were still breathing heavily from their long run down the passage. The Bosun looked at what Steve had dragged aboard. "That was a good idea, getting those supplies. Looks like there's another week's worth there for the two of us, and we can make what's already aboard stretch for two weeks if we have to. One way or another, this'll be over before we run out of food and water."

"The lifeboat?"

"It's gone. By now they've probably blown it to bits. Let's hope they don't try to salvage anything, and discover there was no-one inside. That would be awkward, to say the least!"

"Hey, pirates don't have the reputation of being the sharpest knives in the drawer. If I was de Bouff, I'd be too busy crowing about having got you at last, and calling you a coward for trying to run from him."

"Let him! If he thinks we're dead, he won't look for us any more. That suits me just fine! With just a little bit of luck, we'll find a way out of this mess. While there's life, there's hope, as the old saying goes. Now, let's figure out where we're going to hide in case they search in here."

"Then what?"

"No need to make up our minds in a hurry. I can access the ship's systems through the pilot console here, if you'll set up that circuit for me. We can listen and watch, and find out what they're going to do next. Once we know that, we can make plans."

They observed through the ship's security cameras as forty armed pirates came aboard from their two cutters, fanning out through the ship, rounding up the entire crew and confining them in one of the utility rooms. The Bosun was able to maintain his link to the ship's systems without the pirates evincing any concern about it.

"They think I'm dead," he pointed out, "so even if they notice an active user account in my name, they'll assume it's because I didn't log out before I took to the lifeboat. The same applies to you. Since everyone in the crew is accounted for as far as they're concerned, why should they worry?"

"Won't they try to shut down our accounts?"

"I wouldn't, in their shoes. In the first place, it's unnecessary - we're dead, remember? Secondly, they don't know our systems very well. If you start mucking about with one user account, you can contaminate others before you know it. Remember, they've got to take this ship somewhere to dispose of her, or they don't make any money out of her. They won't do anything that might mess up her systems before they've done that."

Once the crew had been locked up and the pirates assigned to their posts, the leader of the boarding party, whom they'd heard the others address as 'Styles', radioed his boss. Steve and the Bosun listened intently through their connection to the ship's systems from the cargo shuttle.

"We're all set," Styles reported to de Bouff. "No trouble at all, apart from those two idiots who tried to run."

"Yeah. Damn that Cardle! I wanted to watch him die slow and screaming, not have him get off quick and easy like that!"

"Sorry, Boss - we didn't know he was aboard. You said to blast any lifeboat that tried to get away, so we did."

"Not your fault. At least the bugger's dead! How soon will you be ready to jump?"

"We need another hour for the drive to cool down from the last jump. The capacitor ring won't be fully charged, but we can go five or six light years in any direction to throw off pursuit, then recharge it in peace and quiet. Any sign of interference from the System Patrol?"

"There's a patrol boat headed this way from the planet, but it's still more than half a day away. We'll be long gone before it gets within range. We'll meet you at the rendezvous two days from now. Constandt will be joining us there, too."

"I'll see you there, Boss. This looks like a real nice ship, and she's fresh out of an overhaul and refueling. Did you get the cargo manifest I sent across?"

"Yeah. Nothing we can sell in a hurry, but I'm not too worried about that. We may keep her for ourselves if she's as good as you say. I'll decide once I've checked her out. Look after her in the meantime! The other freighter's got some cargo that'll sell quickly, so we can make a fast buck out of her. At the rendezvous, we'll transfer all our prisoners to you. Take 'em back to base while Constandt and I head for our buyers with our other prizes. We'll hand 'em over, collect our money and the prize crews, then meet you back at base to sort out the prisoners' ransoms."

"Whatever you say, Boss."

Steve looked at the Bosun. "Who's this 'Constandt'?"

"That's his younger son. After Jan got locked up, de Bouff started grooming Constandt to take his brother's place. The whole family are a nasty bunch. They're said to have been involved in crime on various planets for several generations. De Bouff senior branched out into piracy when he was still a young man, and he's built up quite a little empire. He runs two ships, one under his command and the other under Constandt, with a couple of experienced spacers to guide the youngster while he gains experience."

"He talked about his 'base'. Any idea where it is?"

"None. He may have bribed a minor planet to turn a blind eye to him operating out of its system. That'd be the most convenient for him. If not that, he may have an old spaceship fixed up as a base, with maintenance and accommodation facilities. They'll either orbit an uninhabitable planet in a deserted system, or park it in deep space. That's not as good for them, because when they want liberty planetside they've got to find someplace they're not known; but on the other hand, it's great for security. It's position is just a set of galactic coordinates - probably encrypted - in their navigation computers. That makes it almost impossible to find, even if one of their ships is captured; and if that happens, they just move somewhere else."

"I get it. If they're going to put their prisoners aboard
Cabot
, then go off with their other prizes, d'you think we might be able to free enough of them to take back this ship?"

"It'll be tricky. They may send more guards aboard with them. We aren't armed, and we don't know how many of them there'll be. Let's wait until everyone's aboard and we know what we're dealing with, then we'll put our heads together. Between the two of us, we may just be able to screw over de Bouff one more time.
That
would be
very
satisfying!"

Chapter 18: May 19th, 2838 GSC

The Bosun made a final adjustment to the template, then pressed the 'Activate' key. The tool in his hands hummed and rustled as it sucked up smart nanoparticles from the bin in the maintenance locker, and began to form them into the shape he'd programmed. Steve watched, fascinated, as a shaft extended from the tool's computerized handle, growing in length before his eyes as lower nanoparticles locked themselves into place and others crawled over them to do the same higher up. In less than a minute, a short stabbing spear came into being, its leaf-shaped blade still rustling and clicking as the nanoparticles formed the sharpest edge and point they could.

"That's amazing!" Steve breathed. "I knew nanotools could form themselves into wrenches and sockets, but I'd never heard of them being used to form weapons!"

"Military services have stuff like that, but I've never heard of civilian tools being used that way before," Cardle admitted. "I suspect the manufacturers wouldn't approve! I programmed this template on the fly, basing it on a picture of an ancient weapon I remember seeing one time. We need something to help us tackle those armed guards. In the absence of bead carbines of our own, this is the best we can do. They'll extend our reach, so we can take out guards up to a meter or two away from us. Stabbing spears won't help much if they see us coming, but if we can sneak up on them, this should take care of business - and get us carbines of our own while we're about it!" The older man looked at him quizzically. "D'you think you can kill someone in cold blood?"

Steve shrugged. "I'm pretty sure I killed at least one of those Dragon Tong bladesmen back at Old Home Earth, although that was in the heat of a fight. If I'm likely to die unless I kill again, I reckon I can do what I have to do to stay alive."

"That's the right way to look at it. Your primary purpose is to keep yourself alive. The fact that you can't do that without killing some of them is
their
fault, not yours, and therefore the blame belongs on their shoulders. Now, I'm going to copy this template to the other two large-size nanotools. How many smaller nanotools do we have?"

Steve counted rapidly. "Including the toolbox I brought from the other shuttle, there are eight of different sizes."

"Good! I'm going to set up knife templates for them. The smaller ones will be belt-knife size, the bigger ones machete-type blades. None of them will be super-sharp - nor will these spears, for that matter - but the edges and points will penetrate flesh and clothing if you put enough force behind them."

"Why make eight knives, Bosun? There's only two of us."

"Only two so far. If they bring other prisoners aboard, we may be able to free a few of them and get them to help us. If we do, they'll need weapons of some sort until we can obtain more from the pirates. I'm planning to have knives ready in case we need them."

"I get it. You think of everything, don't you?"

"Oh, hell, no! There've been plenty of times I wished I'd thought of something earlier - but those memories help at times like this. You know what they say. Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment!" They chuckled together.

Steve glanced at the console clock. "One hour till the final hyper-jump to the rendezvous. I guess we'd better eat and drink something, to be ready for whatever happens."

The Bosun grimaced. "Yeah. I loathe the taste of those emergency ration blocks. I know they provide all the nutrients you need, but they taste like moldy cardboard! If someone ever invents a better-tasting emergency ration, he'll make a fortune!"

"I looked at the expiry date on the packages. They're supposed to be good for ten years, but these are already nine years old. Maybe they taste better when they're fresh?"

"Maybe. If we get out of this in one piece, for sure I'm going to get the Captain to replace them with something better!"

"We found that coffee-maker in the pilot's locker, remember? I reckon Tomkins must have left it there. I can brew us some coffee to go with the ration packs."

"I could kill for some coffee right now, but you'd better not. If anyone decides to search this shuttle, we don't want them smelling fresh coffee and wondering who's been brewing it."

"Good point. They might come looking for whoever's responsible!"

###

They were listening over the ship's systems as the pirates rendezvoused with their boss. Immediately it became clear that something was wrong.

"Constandt played hell!" de Bouff told Styles over the radio circuit. "He took a nice fat freighter just after it arrived at the system boundary, no trouble at all - then a Lancastrian communications frigate came out of hyper-jump less than half a million clicks from him! I don't know what the hell it was doing there - it wasn't a Commonwealth planet, so you wouldn't expect to find a Fleet ship there at all.

"Trouble is, instead of playing dumb and letting 'em go about their business, Constandt fired on 'em! Blew the frigate to hell, but a bunch of her crew escaped in lifeboats. Would you believe the damn fool
picked 'em up?
He's got thirty-seven Fleet spacers on board his ship right now, including three officers!"

"Aw,
shit!
How could he have been such a dumbass? Sorry, Boss, I know he's your son, but... "

"Just this once, I won't argue with you! It was the stupidest thing he could possibly have done - well, the second stupidest thing, I guess. The most stupid was tackling a Fleet ship in the first place! I've never operated in Lancastrian Commonwealth space because their Fleet's hell on pirates, and I didn't want them to have an excuse to come after me. Now they've got all the excuse they need!"

"Maybe not, Boss."

"Huh? What do you mean?"

"If they don't know that you - or, rather, Constandt - blew their frigate out of space, they won't know who to look for, will they?"

"You mean... "

"If we kill those Fleet prisoners, plus the crew of that freighter Constandt took, plus any other prisoners who might have heard about it, there won't be any witnesses to tie him to the frigate. We'll lose the merchant spacers' ransoms, but what's more important here - money, or our survival?"