A Brother's Debt (10 page)

“I’m not, mixed up with them that is,” Jay told him. “I’m out here for the same reason I joined the navy. I was looking for some excitement. Turns out, even on a battle-cruiser in the middle of a battle an engineer doesn’t see much action.

“Since I wasn’t getting the excitement I was after with the Mullies I left when my five year hitch was up and came out here. I figured this sector was the place to be if I wanted to find adventure and fun and I’ve had some; I can’t deny that, it’s how come I know so much about Carboni, Dollier, and Zaz.

“There are plenty of people out here willing to hire someone like me. I can fix almost anything, or at least keep it going long enough to get it fixed properly, I’m not afraid of getting into a scrap, and I can hold my own when I do. Unfortunately the jobs generally fall into one of two groups.

“Either they’re long term contracts with a legit company, steady pay but not a hint of excitement. Or they’re small operations that hover on the fringe and scrape a living any way they can.

“Taking a contract with one of the legit companies would have put me back where I was with the navy. Worse, the only chance of excitement on a freighter is if pirates attack, and since most freighters have no weapons, not even handguns, they’re pretty much sitting ducks. No thanks.

“Since I wasn’t interested in working on a freighter I’ve taken what work I can, where I can get it. Some of the crews I’ve worked with have taken jobs with Carboni, or one of the other two; the jobs pay better than simple cargo runs but there’s a lot of extra risk there. That’s how I know about them.” Lifting his glass Jay downed the remains of his beer, he then whistled to attract the attention of the waitress and waved the glass at her, signalling that he wanted two more. “Now we both know the other’s story, the parts we’re prepared to tell anyway, let’s see if we can come up with some way to get you back on board your ship. Preferably without Dollier’s men knowing you’re there until you take off.”

“It isn’t necessary, I’ll think of something, you’ve helped me enough as it is, and you might have brought trouble on yourself by doing so. I don’t know much about Dollier, but I get the impression he isn’t the sort to take not getting what he wants very well.

“If I get away from him and he finds out it was because you helped me he’ll have his men after you as well as me.”

“I’d better come with you then, at least as far as your next destination; we can trade passage for my help.” Jay grinned. “I think you could do with it, and I don’t just mean getting back on your ship without getting caught. If your description of the ship you’ve inherited is anywhere close to accurate, you need someone like me to keep it running long enough to get you to wherever it is you’re going next.”

Step didn’t have to spend much time thinking about Jay’s offer; he hadn’t known him for long but he instinctively liked the engineer. “Fair enough, but I need to organise a few things before we can go. If you’re coming along I don’t have enough supplies to last the journey, and I need some kind of cargo. Carboni’s fee is all well and good, but I need to do everything I can to make money if I’m going to keep the ship operating long enough to work my way out of debt.”

“What’s our destination?”

“Onegal 3,” Step answered, mentally calculating how much food, and other supplies, he would need to get to keep the two of them going. The journey was supposed to be roughly fourteen days, at Gambler’s Luck’s top speed, which, based on his trip to Barth, the ship wasn’t actually capable of just then.

Jay nodded. “Your best bet for a cargo to Onegal is grain; any foodstuffs will earn you a profit there but you can probably get fifty percent, or more, on grain. It’s a mining planet for the most part; not on the level of Kargan, but it does well enough, and it doesn’t do a great job of feeding itself so it has to ship food in.

“Taking a few luxuries, if you can spare the credits to buy them, won’t hurt you either. There’s normally someone in the markets willing to buy a crate or two of assorted luxury goods. The profit percentage might not be as high but the extra credits will pay your fuel and docking.” Jay gave another grin, something he did frequently as far as Step could tell. “I told you you need my help. Ah! Thanks Trace.” He accepted the drinks the waitress brought over and handed her some money. “You might as well take this back as well,” he passed her the first aid kit he had borrowed from the barman when they first entered, “we’re all done with it now.”

Jay took a long swallow of his fresh drink before he spoke again. “You’re the boss obviously, since it’s your ship, but I think we should finish up these drinks, then go and see a few people about supplies and a cargo. After that we can go take a look at the port and find out if your ship is being watched. There’s no point making plans to sneak on board till we know it’s actually necessary.”

Since he didn’t have any alternatives to offer, and he couldn’t see anything wrong with Jay’s suggestion, Step agreed. Together they finished off their beers and left the bar, merrily indifferent to the injuries they had received not so long before. They had cleaned and patched themselves up, with the aid of the bartender, whom Jay knew well, and then given no more thought to the fight with Dollier’s men.

Chapter Nineteen

Grange Dollier looked up as the door to his office slid open. “Well?” he prompted impatiently when his subordinate had been standing just inside the door without speaking for more than a minute. The expression on his face gave a strong hint of the news he had.

“They got away.” Dollier’s man swallowed nervously as he spoke.

“Who got away?” the ruthless businessman wanted to know, confused by the use of the plural.

“Velkin and his friend, they managed to slip past us and get on board his ship. They were taking off before we knew they were there.”

“What friend? I was under the impression Velkin was travelling alone. Never mind, it doesn’t matter who his friend is. How did they get past you, Perce?” There was an ominous edge to his voice as he asked the question.

“I don’t know, Mr Dollier. One minute his ship was being loaded with cargo, the next the loaders were gone and the ship was taking off,” Perce, the thug, said.

“And you didn’t think it strange that someone was loading Velkin’s ship without him being there? Did you just assume he gave the loaders the access code to his ship and trusted them to load his cargo hold? Are you an idiot?” Dollier stared at his man until Perce dropped his eyes to look at his feet. “The moment those guys turned up to start loading his ship you should have moved in, dammit!”

“Sorry, Sir.” Perce shuffled his feet, his eyes still down. “What do you want me to do now?”

“What do I want you to do?! I want you to do what I told you to do, get the package from Velkin. Take a ship and get after him. We know where he’s headed, and how long it will take him to get there. Intercept him and retrieve that package. If you fail me again...”

Perce didn’t need his employer to finish what he was saying, he knew what to expect. On a number of occasions he had been the one dealing with those who failed Dollier. “Yes, Sir, I’ll get some men together and secure your package.” When he was certain his boss had no more instructions for him, and he wasn’t going to receive immediate punishment, he left the office to organise the pursuit of Step Velkin.

Leaning back in his chair Dollier looked on as the door slid closed behind Perce. He hadn’t previously had cause to worry about the capabilities of his number two, but the afternoon’s events had him wondering if it wasn’t time to employ fresh blood.

The information he had gathered on Stepanovich Velkin since being informed he was delivering Carboni’s package, and was detouring to Barth, indicated he was an intelligent, skilled, and resourceful person. The Mulnoy Navy was none too happy to be losing him and he could understand why after hearing how Velkin managed to so easily evade the men set to watch for him at the spaceport.

Reaching out a hand Dollier woke his computer screen with a stroke of a finger and in just a few taps he brought up the file his contacts had put together for him. He then began re-reading the life story of Stepanovich Velkin; though the man was young there was plenty to read and it took him some time.

When he got to the end of the file he was tempted to contact his second and issue additional instructions. He chose not to however, deciding to make the assignment he had given Perce a test. He smiled at that thought, closed the file, and got on with the work interrupted by the arrival of his number two.

Chapter Twenty

“SHIT!” Step swore as Gambler’s Luck was rocked by a laser blast in close proximity. “Useless piece of crap!” He banged the heel of his palm on the screen that had failed to show the ship’s approach. Given the strength of the blast he was certain the ship that had fired was within range of the short range sensor installed on Gambler’s Luck, which he had thought was working, yet the screen showed nothing.

“What’s going on?” Jay’s voice came over internal coms from down in the engine room, where he had been since they left Barth. One quick look at the engine room prior to taking off from the planet and he had declared it would take him most of the flight to Onegal 3 just to decide what could be fixed, and what would have to be replaced. It would take longer still to decide on an order of priority for repairs and replacement. “That sounded a lot like a laser blast from down here.”

“That’s because it was a laser blast,” Step answered, “someone just fired at us. Hold on, we’re being hailed.”

“Gambler’s Luck! Gambler’s Luck, reduce speed and match velocities, prepare to be boarded.” The voice was distorted, but Step realised it was deliberate, and not the result of the poorly maintained equipment on his ship. He guessed the distortion was so a recording couldn’t be used to identify the pilot of the attacking ship, should they be lucky enough to get away. “You have thirty seconds to comply. If you do not comply we will disable your ship; the first shot was your only warning.”

The broadcast didn’t last long, but it was long enough for Step to see that his short range scanner had finally decided to notice there was a ship behind them. While his mind raced he looked over the information supplied by his scanner, it wasn’t much, but it did tell him the ship threatening Gambler’s Luck was smaller than the cargo ship; it was only a little larger than the scout ship he had flown for the Mulnoy Navy.

The sound of thudding feet from behind him made Step turn away from the screen. “What the hell’s going on?” Jay asked, hurrying onto the bridge. “Who’s firing at us? It can’t be pirates, not this close to a settled system, they’re not this incautious. They wouldn’t risk a fight with system security over a ship like this.”

“I’m guessing it’s Dollier’s men, and he’s showing us just how eager he is to get his hands on Carboni’s package,” Step said. “We’ve been ordered to reduce speed and match velocities, they intend boarding us.”

“What are we going to do?”

“What we’ve been told to.” Step had already eased off on his speed and was beginning the tricky process of matching velocities with the smaller ship. “There isn’t much else we can do,” he remarked, tapping the screen to show his new friend what the sensor had picked up. “Whoever it is out there is faster and more manoeuvrable, not only that they have a weapon that can actually do us damage. The best I could do with the meteor blaster this heap of junk is packing is singe his hull, and that’s assuming I could get close enough for a shot.”

“So you’re just going to let them board and take the package? You would have been better off taking Dollier’s deal, at least then you’d have a bit of money.”

“Assuming it is Dollier’s men on that ship, not that I think it likely it is anyone else, you’re right, I would have been better off taking the deal. It’s too late for that now though. And I’m not planning on just letting them take the package.” Jay looked at him questioningly. “Based on these specs I would say there are at most four people on board that ship.

“One of those guys will most likely stay on board in case we do anything unexpected, like try and make a break for it. That leaves no more than three guys coming across to get the package.”

“You’re thinking we can make a fight of it.”

Step gave a smile. “You made the deal to come with me, and you did say you were after some excitement.

“Depending on how good the guy on the stick is over there it will take at least half an hour for them to dock, and I reckon I can make it take a little longer without them getting suspicious. So we’ve got that long to come up with a plan for dealing with the guys that board us, non-fatally preferably.”

“It won’t be enough for us to just deal with the boarding party,” Jay pointed out. “We’ll have to deal with the pilot as well. If we don’t he’ll just cripple us and then put a hole in our hull the moment we separate. At that point he just has to wait for the ship to depressurize, which will take almost no time at all, then he can come over in a suit and do whatever he wants.

“I’m surprised they haven’t done that already actually. It would be a lot simpler for them, and I’m pretty certain they plan on destroying the ship anyway, they won’t want to leave any witnesses.”

“Let’s hope that idea doesn’t occur to them. But since I agree with you that they are likely to kill us whether we co-operate or not, I see no reason for us not to plan a surprise or two for them.”