Aces (17 page)

Rick, who had
been standing behind the hologram this time, leaped forward, a rock held over
his head tightly with both hands, and smashed it into Mac right where the
helmet met
the man's right shoulder. Mac dropped the rifle and
went down, Rick fell on top of him, joined by Sam. The three rolled around in
the dust, struggling, until they felt the ground shake. Nelson had picked up
the rifle and fired a single shot into the soil next to the pirate
’
s head. Nelson pointed the rifle at Mac's face, who let go of
Rick and held his hands in the air.

“Rick, good job!
Sam, he
’
s got a spare clip of ammo on his belt, get it.
And grab that spool of line, tie his arms behind his back.” Sam did both
quickly, then turned Mac on his back, and stood over him.

Nelson bent over
to look Mac in the eyes. “Are there any more bad guys in the mining camp, or is
it just you?”

Mac, sullen,
glared back at Nelson. He kept his radio off and mouthed a curse.

“Oh, wise guy,
huh? Radio broken? Well, if you can
’
t provide any
information, you
’
re not any use to us. And I
’
m
not wasting my time dragging you back.” Nelson pressed the rifle into Mac
’
s chest and thumbed the safety off. “Stand back, guys, these
are explosive darts. We don't want to get splattered.”

“I can talk! I
can talk!” Mac shouted into the suit radio.

Nelson kept the
rifle jammed into Mac
’
s chest, bearing down so the man on
the ground could feel the barrel poking into the suit. “Then talk. How many
more of you here on the ground?”

“Five. There
’
s five others, two are out hunting you, in another direction.
But I called them, and they
’
re on their way.” Mac said,
taunting. These were freighter crewmen, not tough outlaws like himself. His
best chance was to keep them scared, keep them off balance.

“Five, huh? I
believe you,” Nelson said with a smile, “you are proving to be useful. Tell you
what, though, I
’
ll make you a deal. You be straight with
us, I
’
ll let you live. If I find out you
’
re
lying to me, I
’
ll blow your brains all over this rock.”

“
You?
You guys won
’
t kill me, you haven
’
t
got the guts. You
’
re cargo handlers.
”
Mac spat out with a sneer.

Nelson shrugged,
lifted the rifle, and turned to Rick. “
Your turn, professor.
”

Rick had never
been more angry in his life. He stomped his left foot down on Mac
’
s
neck, hard. “Listen to me, you piece of crap.” He said quietly through clenched
teeth. “My family is up there, and I don
’
t know if they
’
re alive or not. The only witnesses down here are three people
you already tried to kill twice. I am through playing games with you.” Rick
reached into his toolkit bag, pulled out a knife, and quickly sliced through
the fabric of Mac
’
s suit, making a hole just below where
the helmet connected. Air rushed out, and Mac shouted and thrashed around, his
face barely visible in the fogging helmet visor. Rick could barely see Mac
’
s eyes bulging and his skin turning blue, the man's lips
purple.

“Damn, man.” Sam
exclaimed, looking at Rick in surprise, then Sam knelt down and held onto Mac
’
s legs to keep him still. Nelson just looked grim and kept the
rifle pointed at the pirate.

“I
’
ll
tell you-“ Mac coughed and gasped, “I
’
ll telllll...” he
couldn
’
t fill his lungs with enough air to speak.

“More lies? I
’
m not listening.” Rick said loudly.

The pirate gave
one last feeble heave to break himself free, then he flopped down on the dusty
ground, unconscious. Rick took his boot off Mac
’
s neck,
pulled out a patch, and slapped it on the hole he had cut. The patch bubbled
and sealed, just to be sure, Rick slapped a second patch on top of it. Mac
’
s helmet visor began to clear, and his suit ballooned outward
as it refilled with air.

Sam stood up,
wiping his hands on the legs of his suit to remove the red dust. “Professor, man,
remind me not to mess with you, like, ever.”

“He
’
ll
be all right, I wanted to put a good scare into him, that
’
s
all. He
’
ll wake up in a minute.” Rick explained. It scared
him to think of whether he would have really killed the pirate. I
f
Rick
learned his family was dead, would he kill? He didn
’
t
know. The rules of civilization didn
’
t seem to apply
anymore. Not out here, so far from Earth. Not on Ares. Not now.

“Sam, before
sleeping beauty here wakes up, check his suit, see if he
’
s
got any weapons, or anything useful.” Nelson said, as he replaced the nearly
depleted ammo clip with the fresh one.

Sam made a
thorough search of the pirate
’
s suit, finding nothing
useful. By the time he was done, Mac was awake, and breathing in dry, hacking
gasps.

Rick tapped Mac
’
s visor with the blade of his knife. “Hey, wake up! You
listening to me? Good. That was to give you a little taste of what
’
s coming to you, if we decide you
’
re no
longer useful. Next time, I
’
m going to take you out of
that suit, and push you out an airlock. Sam, what do you think, he
’
d suffocate first, as his lungs burst and filled up with
blood?” Rick asked.

Sam waved his
hand scoffingly, playing along. “Nah, man, the atmosphere on this rock is so
thin, that first his eyeballs will freeze and pop like an overripe tomato, then
all the blood vessels under his skin will boil and explode. After that, his
lungs, yeah, they
’
ll freeze and burst. Nasty, man, bad way
to go. Tell you what, though, I wanna watch if you do it.” Sam grinned fiercely
at the pirate.

“You wouldn
’
t... you wouldn
’
t-“ Mac gasped.

Rick knelt down,
pressed his helmet visor against Mac
’
s, and stared at the
other man. “Look at me. Look at me! Look in my eyes. Look in my eyes."
Rick said, very slowly, through clenched teeth. "My wife and my children
are up there. You think I won
’
t kill you right here?”

Mac
’
s
eyes weren
’
t yet focusing properly, but he could see the
man the others called the ‘professor
’
well enough. Mac
knew that look he saw on Rick
’
s face, he had seen it
before. And it terrified him. The professor was desperate. Determined. Out of
control. Not a man to be messed with. Mac realized he was lucky to be
alive.  The professor would not kill in cold blood, he was not like Mac,
but he was more dangerous than a man like Mac. He was unpredictable. Mac knew
he was in extreme danger. “I didn
’
t know your family was
on that ship.” Mac said, with what sounded like genuine regret. "We didn't
know there were any passengers."

“You didn
’
t ask because you didn
’
t care." Rick
continued staring straight into Mac's eyes. "I
’
m
going to ask you one last time; are you alone down here? You lie, you die.”

Mac nodded
vigorously. “Yes, just me. We took over the camp, locked the miners in three of
the buildings, then the others flew back up to the ship. My job here was to
make sure the miners stayed locked up, and to man the radio. That was me on the
distress call. Hey, professor, for what it
’
s worth, last I
heard, your kids are okay, their part of the ship wasn
’
t
damaged. I heard your daughter on the radio.” Mac didn
’
t
add that he had heard Kaylee through a relay from the
Nightengale
,
and that the children were being chased by the other pirates.

Hearing that his
family, his children at least, were alive caused Rick to slump slightly with
relief. He stood up, realized he still had the knife in his hand, and sheathed
it. “Why? Why attack the ship? Why all this?”

Mac shrugged.
“All I know is we
’
re being paid to steal something off the
ship, I don
’
t know what it is, only our boss knows. The
plan was to disable the ship, steal the whatsis, and get out of here before the
Navy figures out we hoodwinked them. Quick, easy, nobody has to get hurt, huh?
That Navy frigate is searching for a ship that doesn
’
t
exist, a long way from here. I wouldn
’
t count on them for
help any time soon.”

“Disable the
ship, and kill anybody who gets in the way?” Nelson said.

Mac shrugged
again. “It
’
s just business.” He said, as if that explained
everything. Now that he could breathe again, he was getting his confidence
back, thinking ahead. Valjean wouldn
’
t want to leave Mac
behind to be captured by the Navy, because Mac would talk, and Valjean would be
a hunted man on any human-occupied planet. Theft was one thing, but messing
with the Navy? The Navy never forgot something like that. Mac
’
s
best hope was that if Valjean had either of the professor
’
s
children, he could use the child as a hostage to get Mac released. After that,
Mac didn
’
t care what Valjean did with the children, the
three men here on the planet with him, or anyone else. Look out for Number One,
was Mac
’
s motto, and Mac himself was always Numero Uno.
“Hey, I gotta know. How
’
d you do that? With the hologram.
You fooled me, and that ain't easy.”

Rick almost didn
’
t answer, not caring what the criminal at his feet thought of
him. “I had the holoprojector attached to my belt. We figured after shooting at
holograms for a while, you
’
d be looking for a hologram, so
that
’
s what we gave you. Only this time, I was hiding
behind the hologram, and you were stupid enough to fall for it.” Rick couldn
’
t resist gloating. “Tell me, what
’
s your
boss going to think, you get captured by a group of unarmed guys? He won
’
t be real happy with you.”

Mac silently
glared at Rick, then looked away.

“All right,”
Nelson said, standing back and keeping the rifle pointed at Mac. “Sam, help
dumb-ass here to his feet. You, you
’
re going to help us
get the miners free, then we
’
re going to talk to your boss
upstairs. And you better pray nobody up there got hurt. Like you said, the Navy
won
’
t be here for a while. A lot of things can happen to
you before the Navy shows up.”
Nelson
’
s
eyes narrowed, and he looked from Mac to the rifle and back. “Bad things.”

Opening all the
doors in a cargo section turned out to be easy, once Manny found the command listed
on a menu, available from all of the door control panels. It was Jen
’
s card and access code that made it possible. Once he figured
out how to open multiple doors, Manny had opened certain doors, all the way to
the compartment where the Tinos were stored, allowing brother and sister to run
the whole way there without stopping. While Kaylee was studying the hypersleep
boxes, trying to figure out how to wake the tinos, Manny commanded all the
doors behind them to slide close and lock again. It was, he decided, a neat
trick.

“Got it.” Dooley
said, as his notepad got the door unlocked. It was still taking the same amount
of time for his notepad to override each door
’
s locking
code, but he was getting faster at running through each compartment, plugging
his notepad into the control panel, and getting the code-cracking software
running. Also, since they were no longer much worried about being ambushed by
people with weapons, they now ducked through the doors as soon as they opened,
rather than waiting to make sure the compartment ahead was clear. Dooley knew
where the box was located, it hadn
’
t moved for ten
minutes.

As the door slid
open, Dooley was the first through, and he almost dropped his notepad in
surprise. The opposite door was open! “Boss!”

“I see it, move!”
The three pirates, and their robot, hurried down the compartment, guns drawn.
They were only halfway through the cargo hold, when the door at the far end
began to slide closed. Valjean, unencumbered by the gear Dooley and Taney were
carrying, put on a frantic burst of speed, and shot through the closing door
sideways, tearing buttons off his shirt on the way. As he fell to the deck, he
saw the door on the opposite end was also, sliding closed. His effort was all
for nothing.

Valjean was
alone. He could faintly hear pounding on the door behind him. Dooley would be
working to open the door behind him, there was nothing for Valjean to do but
wait. It did not improve his mood.

“This one
’
s waking up!” Kaylee warned excitedly. She had activated the
process for waking up the tinos, the instructions, helpfully, had been printed
right on the outside of the hypersleep box. She and Manny had gotten the covers
open, when the tinos woke up, all the creatures would need to do is step out
onto the deck. The instructions said it would take fifteen minutes for the
animal to become fully awake, and the process had been running for five minutes
now. “We better get out of here now.”

“Huh? Oh, great.”
Manny said, distracted. He was sitting on the deck, where he had pulled the
alien thing out of the box to look at it. Only now, he was looking at the box
itself. “Kaylee, I think I know how the pirates found us.”

“The intercom?”

“No, not the
intercom,” he said, relieved that he hadn
’
t been the cause
of their current predicament. “This box has a radio ID tag.” He pointed to a
small, shiny plate on the bottom of the box. “That
’
s how
the crew knows where everything is, and I think it
’
s how
the robots know where to store the cargo.”

“So?” She was
concentrating on the tino. It was smacking its lips, and its feet were
twitching, like it was dreaming. Dreams were impossible in hypersleep, this
animal was waking up.

“So, the tag is
still active. Kaylee, this is how they
’
ve been tracking
us!”

“Oh, no!” Kaylee
put her hands to her mouth in horror. If she
’
d only taken
the thing out of the box, and left the box behind- “
Wait, can’
t
we just throw away the box now? The tag is on the box, not on the alien thing,
right?”

Manny didn
’
t look horrified. In fact, he had a sly look on his face. “We
could leave the box here,” he paused as one of the awakening tinos gave a low,
rumbling growl, “but we don
’
t want to. If the pirates want
to track this box, I say we should let them.”

There was a
metallic clicking sound as the locking pins retracted, then the door began to
slide open. When Dooley came through, he couldn
’
t decide
whether he was relieved or disappointed, to find Valjean leaning casually
against a crate, waiting for him.  “They weren
’
t in here?
” Dooley asked, surprised.

“No,” Valjean
explained, “the other door closed at the same time this door closed.”

That puzzled
Dooley. “Huh. So, they
’
re operating the doors remotely. I
mean, I checked the radio tag five minutes ago, the box is still five
compartments in front of us, so they weren
’
t here when the
doors closed. I wonder if I can do that?”

Based on the
expression on Valjean
’
s face, that last question wasn
’
t something Dooley should have said out loud. “You moron!”
Valjean smacked Dooley on the side of his head. “You could have opened all
these doors, instead of one at a time?”

“
I
don’
t know, boss! I don
’
t think so. They have an
access card, they can do anything they want.” Dooley looked back at the door
control panel, hoping for answers. “I
’
m not interfacing
with the computer, I
’
m just overriding the locking
mechanism on one particular door. Sorry, boss.”

“Try it!” Valjean
insisted. In the back of Valjean
’
s mind was the thought
that, if all the doors were open, he wouldn
’
t need Dooley
much longer.

That thought
occurred to Dooley also. Not having a real choice, he plugged his notepad in,
and started working. And thinking. Thinking of a way to survive.

Kaylee ran
through one darkened compartment after another, headed toward the back of the
ship. It was a long way, on legs that were already tired. Manny was supposed to
give her a five minute head start, he had opened all of the doors from where
the tinos were, to the very aft end of the cargo section. The box with its
radio tag was in her backpack, bouncing as she ran. If the pirates wanted to
chase the box, let them, had been Manny's idea, and it was a good idea.

She skidded to a
stop, startled. There was a noise behind her. It didn
’
t
sound mechanical. The noise repeated, a low grumble. It made her hair stand up.
Were the tinos walking around already? She leaped forward and ran furiously,
pumping her arms and legs faster, running into the darkness.

The first tino
had rolled over, and flopped out of its hypersleep box onto the deck. The tinos
had awakened much faster than expected, as they had not been in hypersleep as
long as they were supposed to have been. The first tino was groggy, though less
so than its handlers probably expected. Tinos were tough, not only on the
outside. It shook its head, rapidly awakening, and sniffed the air. Its sensitive
nose detected three other tinos, and it spun around with a snarl. The other
three were also stirring, and tinos were territorial, they usually killed other
tinos on sight. Now, however, the first tino had a more important priority: it
was hungry. Hungry like it had never been before. The hypersleep box had kept
the tino
’
s body alive by dripping nutrients into its
bloodstream, but its belly was empty, completely empty. Hunger was all it could
think about. Hunger was everything.

It smelled food,
close by. The tino, keeping a wary eye on its three awakening companions,
snuffled its way across the deck, to where Manny had discarded a candy bar
wrapper. The scent of the candy was driving the tino insane with hunger, a fact
that also would have surprised its handlers back on Oceania, as candy bars were
not known to be a food favorite of tinos in the wild. Unable to see close up,
the tino snuffled, trying to find the wrapper, and only succeeded in pushing it
under a pallet. It roared in frustration, and clawed at the pallet, to no
avail.

Then it stood up,
and sniffed the air. The scent of candy was strong. With a leap, it was off,
bounding out of the compartment, and after the candy.

Manny paused and
checked his watch. Almost five minutes had gone by. Like his sister, he was out
of breath, but his path had been across the cargo pod, rather than towards the
rear. He was almost at his destination, an elevator which connected the pods.
It would be much easier to ride the elevator, than to climb down, and then up,
an access tube.

He stopped at a
door, and plugged Jen
’
s card into the control panel,
quickly pulling up a menu that showed him all the doors in that cargo pod. He
frowned. Many doors he had not opened, were open. The pirates had opened those
doors? It had to be. If that was true, then he knew where they were, at the end
of the trail of open doors. They were getting close to the tinos, he saw with a
wmile.

Manny selected a
command to open, and lock open, most of the doors in the cargo pod, then
blocked off the area behind the pirates, and selected a command to close and
lock those doors. This, he decided, was cool. He checked his watch. Four
minutes, forty seconds. Close enough. He pressed the button, and was rewarded
by the sight of multiple doors sliding open.

There was one
last thing to do; he selected a series of specific doors, and commanded them to
close and lock. Then, he pulled the access card out of the slot, tucked it in
his pocket, and ran for the elevator.

Dooley was
stalling for time. Sure, there had to be a command menu, somewhere, that would
open multiple doors. Without an access card, and the proper password, he couldn
’
t get to the menu. So, he was randomly pressing buttons,
waiting for Valjean to get disgusted and tell Dooley to stop.

There was a
click, then a familiar whirring sound, as doors began to open in front of them.
Dooley looked up in surprise, to see an approving Valjean actually smiling, and
patting him on the shoulder. “I knew you could do-“

“Hey!” Taney
called out, “The doors behind us are closing.”

Valjean
’
s eyes narrowed. Dooley thought up a lie fast. “I, uh, figured
we wouldn
’
t want them getting behind us, right, boss?” He
said nervously.

“Good thinking.”
Valjean said, surprised at both Dooley
’
s brain power, and
his own reaction. Was he getting soft? Then there was a faint roaring sound,
echoing in the darkness, and the three pirates spun around. “What was that?”

Taney took a
couple steps forward, trying to peer into the gloom. The sound repeated,
louder. It was echoing. “Sounds far away, whatever it is.”

“Forget about
it.”
Valjean ordered.
“Where
’
s the
box now?”

Locating the box
was something Dooley knew how to do. “It
’
s moving, boss,
toward the back of the ship. Straight ahead of us, the doors are open all the
way.”

Valjean nodded.
Now that all the doors were open, the children must have realized they had no
advantage over the pirates, no advantage other than a head start, no choice but
to run as fast as their young legs could carry them.

“No more screwing
around. Dooley, you and your tin man go to the right, Taney and I will take the
left. We
’
ll head straight for the back of the ship,
Dooley, you hang back a bit, keep checking where that box is, we
’
ll
catch them between us. I want that damned box, and I
’
m
tired of being played with by those brats. Does everyone understand?”

Taney indicated
his agreement by flicking his pistol
’
s safety off, and
spitting on the deck. Dooley simply nodded.

“
Move
out!
”

The plan, which
sister and brother had hurriedly cooked up, called for Kaylee to bring the box
to the aft end of the ship, luring the pirates far away from their shuttle,
while Manny went to find out if their shuttle was still docked to the ship. The
plan was working, up until the point when Kaylee realized the tinos were awake
already, and they were coming after
her!
She wasn
’
t
sure at first, there were roaring sounds behind her, but the sound echoed so
much in the cargo pod that she couldn
’
t tell if the sound
was getting louder or not. Until suddenly she was sure. She
’
d
paused to catch her breath, and saw something in the distance, just a glimpse,
a darker shadow in the shadows. Something moving. Coming toward her. Fast.

She experienced a
moment of shear panic. How fast could a tino move? There was the shadow again,
closer. Too close!

Their plan was
for Kaylee to dump the box, then crawl through a particular access tube, a tube
for which Manny had remotely unlocked the hatch. That tube led into a series of
compartments that Manny had blocked off from the pirates, a series of
compartments where Kaylee could safely circle back past the pirates, and make
her way to another tube, where she would have to climb down, then up, into the
other pod.