Angeleyes - eARC (18 page)

I was dying to know.

Through the commo I heard, “Inbound, it’s us.”

More mechanical noise came from the outer passenger lock, and I backed through a separator so I had a good field of fire. I had no idea if I could shoot anyone, but I’d try.

Mira came through the lock, armed. She moved so we had good separation, and then others came through. It appeared to be most of the ship’s senior officers.

“This keeps them out of trouble,” she said.

It made sense, but a moment later, some mouthy commander second class started complaining.

“Per Geneva and Mars, we’re supposed to be provided quarters matching our rank. These do not.”

Mira said, “As circumstances permit, which they do not. If you want privacy, you’re welcome to pitch a hammock in the engine room, or outside.”

Someone else grabbed his arm and muttered to him. He shut up.

“How?” I asked. They’d captured a capital ship.

“Later,” Mira said.

The senior officers were followed by Sebastian and Jack. I wasn’t sure who was still on their bridge, of either their crew or ours.

This group were split between the bunk pod and the pressure section of the bay. We threw padding and bungees at them. Mir said, “No, it’s not comfy. It will have to do. You’re alive and will be repatriated in good time. You, Captain Second, what’s your name?”

“Monaghan.”

“You seem to be in charge. I will meet with you twice a day to track the needs of your fellow captives.”

He asked, “Can I get your name and rank?”

“Astrogator Mira. Yes, that is my rating. My actual rank would not make sense to you.”

That matched my guess that she was a Blazer. In public, that’s the only way they’re called. They have a rank and rating structure, but in public, they’re secretive. “Blazer Mira Zelemir” would be her ID.

He looked irritated, and I couldn’t blame him. He’d lost his ship. That probably meant the career end for every officer, and might mean criminal charges. It certainly wouldn’t make any crew confident of their ability.

I figured they were doing something, and it was a matter of a few hours when they started transferring more personnel over. I mean, they stuffed them in, and then pulled us out.

I guess it made sense.
Pieper
had no weapons and limited engines. Put all the prisoners in her, and we’d have them as a shield.

They were going to stuff all the nonessential personnel into a cargo hauler that was mostly empty bay.

When the third transfer came over, there were casualties, stuffed into body bags. I gather none of them were able to be saved, and there wasn’t time for stasis and a trip to a facility of course. You need an Alpha Center for that.

I figured a ship that size had a crew of three hundred. At least half that many came over, including what seemed to be every officer and CPO. They were all sequestered into life space, but without any commo. It took hours.

Toward the end, Mira released their ranking prisoner and brought him forward.

“We will provide rations from your ship. Heating facilities are limited. Toilet facilities are limited. Shower facilities are very limited. We will attempt to find a way to furnish deck pads for sleeping, and additional wash water. Drinking water will be in drums and we can fabricate cups. You will need to save and wash them.”

“Thank you. If that’s the best you can manage,” he managed to say with a condescending sniff.

I remembered a rescue run with half that many passengers stuffed on a similar class of ship. It was better than best.

Mira didn’t faze. She just said, “This is a cargo hauler. It’s what we have. We could have just slagged a breech in your hull. This works better for everyone.”

He nodded and let it drop. I understood him being pissed, though. They’d done the impossible, and he was humiliated, as were all the crew.

He changed subjects. “Ma’am, I formally request permission to hold a memorial service for our casualties.”

“Granted,” she said at once. “We can arrange it in the forward craft bay.”

“Uh . . .” the captain muttered. I think he’d expected to be refused. He continued, “What honors will you allow?”

She wrinkled her brow, and said, “I assume you want a firing party? We’ll do that for you. Please make sure your people understand we’ll have live rounds under the blanks, and no one is to get clever.”

“Absolutely!”

So I wound up in the firing party, while she sat at the controls in a locked bridge, with hard vacuum holding the hatch closed, ready to seal off the entire compartment if someone did get stupid.

Their service is similar, since ours came from Earth anyway. They didn’t do any religious stuff other than a chaplain reading from three books—the Bible, Quran and Book of Life. They carried the sealed bags of dead into a vacuum cell so they’d stay preserved for the duration home. Once they stepped back with one flag, we fired three volleys of blanks, “we” being me, Mo, Jack, Teresa and Roger. Mira was up front. Juan, Shannon and Bast had control of
Scrommelfenk
.

I hadn’t done firing party before, but we’d rehearsed.

“Half right, face. Load. Aim. Fire. Aim. Fire. Aim. Fire. Half left, face. Present, ARMS!”

The blanks were fucking loud in that space. Then we stood at present arms while they played Taps, the flag was folded and presented to the captain. They didn’t play “Amazing Grace.” I guess that’s something we do.

When he received the blue flag, the captain pivoted, and ordered, “Firing Party, Dismissed!”

As we marched out, Roger turned and backed into the hatchway. I followed his lead, as did the others, so we always had the prisoners in view. It felt like that.

But it did feel good to give them some closure and proper respect. It seemed to calm them down a lot.

Jack and Mira stayed aboard with me. The rest remained or went back aboard
Scrommelfenk
.

The captain and the engagement officer gave us no trouble. Whenever they were out, Roger followed them around, armed with a knife and a baton. They never argued with him once.

The crew, though, were determined to take their ship back. Roger and Mo had to reroute controls, and hard-cut several conduits. Then, they kept everywhere we weren’t using in vacuum.

I got to suit through, alone, placing optical motion sensors in discreet places, and disabling lighting, even emergency glow. It was scary. Ships are never dark unless you have a private berth and choose it. But I turned parts of it into an airless coffin. Even the hatches were disabled.

The crew actually managed to cut between their powered sections and team up. We tried to keep track, as a lieutenant commander kept them busy with sanitation, cooking, exercise. That was good and effective.

But it didn’t take all of them to do that, and they had a lot of down time. Some played games, but Teresa pointed out that a lot of them weren’t accounted for.

“I think they may be planning to cut into one of the shorter passages and try to reach life-support from there,” she said.

“They all die if they do,” Mira said.

“Should we stop them?” I asked. I wasn’t sure.

“We have an obligation to make sure they don’t kill themselves through error. But, they know this is possible and they’re taking the risk. I expect if they make a small hole and start getting a pressure drop, they’ll seal it.”

They were surrounded on six sides by hard vacuum. We only pressurized the main passage when we needed to. Three times a day I rolled a dolly of rations down and left it in the passage for them. They returned it for the next meal.

Sure enough, they started cutting into hard vacuum and slapped a patch over it. It wasn’t a very good patch, but we left it like that to keep them nervous and afraid of trying again.

I guess they hoped to complicate things if they got through, but really, where would they go? They’d have a cargo ship is all. Unless they figured to ransom us to the others in exchange for a warship? Hell, it would be a fair trade to treat the four of us as collateral and slag the lot of them, and keep the warship. I knew Juan would see it that way.

I worried about something else. There had to be an intercept en route. There was no way we’d be left alone with a ship, and why hadn’t it had some escort boats?

When it was all over, I got to see the after action review. At the time, I was just confused.

There were escort boats, but what could they shoot at? We’d effectively captured a squadron. Or, they had and I watched. Actually, I didn’t even watch, I was just in the area. I wish the story was better.

The escorts hung out a few light minutes away, but when Juan explained that he could slag them, and NovRos wouldn’t do much to interfere, there was some high level discussion and they pulled back a distance. I guess they were waiting for backup and threat.

I wasn’t sure they’d actually destroy the ship, though. Money, people, politics. They’d argue and send letters and try to rile up the public. Or, they might hide it entirely from shame. But it was trillions of marks, they had hundreds of people’s lives at stake, there was no way they’d just blast it. Juan was going to roast anything that tried to close. So I didn’t see a way out.

Their ships are different from ours, but not much. She was a bit older than
Mad Jack
, but both were older than our new ones that have phase drive.

We all transferred to
Scrommelfenk
, leaving
Pieper
under control of the prisoners. We sent more of the crew over there, until it was stuffed. They were advised to follow directions or be considered to have escaped and be combatant. We had the warship. The crew left with us were sequestered aft, too, vacwalled from us.

I got to see the damage, and I took a guess at what happened.

The reactor warble and pod jettison made them think we had an emergency. They’d sent a boat to meet the pod, but it was already inbound for them, acting like a rescue pod homing in. They came out of that tug and swarmed the boat crew. Mira must have had them back aboard fast.

Once they’d docked, it looked like the guys had blown the mount and lock, then blown a hole in the compartment. Then they’d blown a hole into the outer passage.

I figured that set off every pressure alarm in the ship, slammed all the hatches and got everyone racing for vac or rescue gear, and for secure space.

They’d blown the next hatch, then through a bulkhead and compartment. One was a bunkroom, and that’s where the casualties had been. Back into passage, and forward. I could trace the holes.

It must have completely confused every system, because it wasn’t structural failure and it wasn’t a missile, so what the hell was it? And as they moved, the entire crew was panicking into vac gear and not responding.

Then they’d reached the C-deck, locked in, shot someone—there was still a blood stain on the deck—and demanded surrender.

The ship was a mess, but it was all superficial, not structural. Emergency repairs would take a few minutes with a spark welder. In fact, Mo fixed the lock nearest the C-deck exactly that way.

I was impressed.

To Juan, I said, “Of course, once the word gets out, no one can ever pull that off again.”

“No, we’ll do something different.” He shrugged like it was no big deal.

“Like what? Do you have a list?”

“That’s restricted,” he said.

“What you’ll do next is? Or the existence of a list?”

“Yes. Both. Neither.” He grinned.

“Okay,” I said. It wasn’t my business.

“Of course, we did have some luck,” he said. “That was our last charge.” He pointed at the lock, or I guessed, the hole behind it.

It was all luck as far as I could tell. How could you move that fast through a ship?

Juan directed
Pieper
to make for the Jump Point, and sent a message to NovRos Space Control that we intended to jump.

They cleared us at once. I don’t think they had an idea of anything else to do.

We were already boosting for NovRos JP3. At max G, no one was going to intercept us easily. Trying to stop us on an “approaching vector” would mean fifty-fifty odds of hitting us before we hit them, and way better than fifty that we’d both be shredded or dead. Once we had control, there wasn’t much they could do.

It was really weird to have an entire ship to the nine of us. You can run one like that if you need to. My job was to keep them fed and watch gauges for anyone who needed a break. We ran two shifts of five and I covered half of second shift, too. I slept when I could. It was almost two days to loop around and realign. NovRos didn’t want to be a belligerent, so they weren’t going to lock the point. They were neutral, so any UN craft could follow, but not actively pursue or shoot. They wanted us out so it wouldn’t be their problem.

And they’d already filed a huge protest with the UN and the Colonial Alliance over the UN chasing us, since we were not acting as combatants in their space. Of course, they’d also complained about us being suspected of transferring war materiel in their space, but it wasn’t proven.

I didn’t think it would be. This team was a group of devious fucking geniuses.

NovRos didn’t complain about our response and capture. It had been legitimate self-defense. I also think it terrified the hell out of them.

Mira sent a signal to
Pieper
ordering them to queue, and with data for jump. They were told to await orders on the far side.

Since we had the warship, knew they’d be there, would only be thirty minutes behind, and had active search that could roast them inside the shell, I figured they’d comply.

Thirty minutes later, we got our light, and were within three minutes of the point. Mira could astrogate even better than she could shoot.

Then we were through.

CHAPTER 23

I wasn’t sure why we chose Govannon, other than it being close. We could have gone back home, and perhaps had a crew waiting so we’d have more firepower in our system. But I guess stealing it and going away kept them busy and wondering.

Govannon was also neutral, but sort of friendly. We bought a lot of material for our Halo, and even sold them some volatiles and quite a bit of organics and lithics.

Govannon was ideally neutral, though. The UN couldn’t do much to them without being cut off from all that lovely metal. The equipment they use is highly specialized, and the technicians wouldn’t be open to taking orders from bureaucrats.

When we entered Govannon’s system, there was a ship waiting. The
Mad Jack
. Along with her was a mass transport.

Their Jump Point control told us we had ample time for our mission, which was repatriating all the prisoners we had into the transport, where they were even more crowded.

The nine of us had added a capital ship to our nation’s forces. Well, okay, the eight of them had. I’d sat and looked confused.

For now I stayed solidly out of sight, with a hat low over my head in case anyone recognized me. Between my lips, eyes and figure, someone might, but I’m pretty good at evading notice. It would have been nice to say hi to the ones I’d gotten to like, though. Or to find out how they were doing. We weren’t told, so we didn’t have any information if captured.

The first thing was to set up a docking tube, and move all the POWs into the transport. Sorry, that was second. First we brought over enough security to ensure they wouldn’t try a fight.

At once, the technicians started converting her over. All the software, some of the hardware, and any codes were changed. Panel markings and such needed adjusted. One of the good things about the UN is they require
everything
to be marked with safety tags and identifiers. Heck, even the wrenches warn, “DANGER: THE METAL PARTS OF THIS TOOL ARE ELECTRICALLY CONDUCTIVE. CAUTION: THIS TOOL IS HEAVY AND CAN CAUSE PERSONAL INJURY IF USED INCORRECTLY.”

Actually, that second bit is one of the great things about wrenches, when you on purpose use them incorrectly.

A couple of spacers definitely recognized me, and they made eye contact, nodded wisely, and smiled faintly. Obviously, they thought I was some sort of technoninja like the others. I didn’t speak, just gave slow nods back, and hoped that even that little leakage wouldn’t come back to hurt me. I got more paranoid every day.

Once we had the UN crew off, a security team conducted a stern to bow inspection, of every rivet and space. They looked for recording and transmission devices, bombs, other sabotage, abandoned goods. Quite a few items were discovered, including several sensor suites or simple electromechanical personal toys, as they were referenced. There were random clothes, unmarked, and small amounts of cash and valuables. The actual valuables and identifiable possessions were sent to the UN transport. The rest was imaged and either kept or disposed of.

At that point we were released back to
Pieper
, which had had the same type of security sweep.

She hadn’t been damaged badly, but they had tried to escape, and there was normal wear and tear times tens. She’d been crowded.

I wanted to sterilize my bunk before I took it back, just in case, and the airlocks would need to be fixed.

One spacer came aboard, about twenty G-years old, as fit as the rest, with brown hair and an olive tone. His ears stuck out, but just enough for grip, not enough to be ugly.

“Juan, is it now?” he said.

“Yes, and who are you now?”

“Glenn Malcolm, as always. Sorry to hear about Jensen.”

Juan nodded. “Yeah. Any outcome?”

Malcolm shrugged. “Unless someone did a really good substitution, he was born on Grainne, one of us. Just went for the social statist mentality in a big way.”

Juan looked disgusted. “Hell, he could have left. Earth would have been happy to have him.”

“Yeah, but some people want to change the world, and that’s the kind we get. He did some damage, but not a lot. We’re in a decent position.”

“Glad to hear it.”

“Where do you need me? And who is our crewwoman?” he indicated me.

“Glenn, Angie LeBlanc. She’s loader, but trained as medic and cook as well. I need you in maintenance and second on engines and drive.”

“Pleased to meet you, Angie,” he said. I offered hands and we shook.

“Likewise,” I said. I assumed he was another Blazer or whatever they were. Some sort of very elite element I’d never be in.

“I’ll log into my cabin and be in engines when you need me.
Bounder Dog
is a good ship.”

“Are we changing names?”

He said, “On file, yes. Company investment, and the records on
Pieper
were scrambled. Of course, they may have images of all of you.”

“Hats, masks and makeup,” Juan said. “I hope the Aardvarks are being strip searched on the way out, too.”

“In a Faraday compartment, a few at a time, with no notice. Just as they’d do.”

He nodded at his correct assessment. “Best we can manage, then. On with the war.”

I got most of that. So the UN spacers, “Aardvarks,” even if not all of them were from Earth, were being searched, as was their data, to minimize anything except verbal reports.

Malcolm took over second on engines and maintenance, and on life support. I never knew his real name, either.

Hell, even my name on file wasn’t real.

A short time later we had a debrief. Juan called us all to the C-deck.

“Here’s the summary. Our hosts are graciously extending credit to us, and providing overhaul and upgrade, since this is a noncombatant ship as far as they officially know.”

I guess technically it was. We had no mounted weapons and hauled civilian contract cargo.

“We’re going to refresh on everything. Reactor maintenance and fuel, environmental filters, food, upgrades and updates on astro, proper blended patches on those holes, and even cleaning supplies.”

Ships did that all the time. Few private vessels did it all at once.

I said, “Daammn. That’s a lot of credit.”

“Officially, it’s on account to be paid later.”

So really, it was a gift from the Prescots.

“Nice,” I said.

“No. Doing it for us is ‘nice.’ Doing it for
Mad Jack
as well is bordering on alliance. But they’re covering it up as ‘necessary spaceworthy repairs.’ And I don’t think the UN wants to fight with them.”

“I guess they have money, but that won’t help if the UN sends a military force and brings its own engineers to run things.”

He said, “And I’d guess the company that mined the entire crust of a planet using nuclear charges, and has enough energy to melt planetoids, might have some means of deploying them in system at least. And they control jump point entry. It wouldn’t surprise me if they’ve had charges sitting in place for decades.”

“Huh,” I said. I hadn’t thought about it. I guess they could. They had ships, they had energy shields of all kinds, and they used fusion explosions almost like fireworks. In fact, they did occasionally have big blasts that tourists could watch. I hadn’t caught that from orbit, but I wish I had.

Apparently, our prize crew from
Mad Jack
managed to irritate our hosts right after that.

They moved
Scrommelfenk
to the far side of the system to the Earth Jump Point, because that’s where the gear for heavy ship repair was. Once on station,
Scrommelfenk
did a hard boost without clearing it with control. They ran silent and fast, jumped into Earth space, slagged the first warship they saw, lobbed several loiter missiles at the military terminal, jacked off over the entire approach to the Point on their way around and back, and jumped back into Govannon.

Technically they hadn’t violated any neutral terms, but it didn’t help relations with Govannon or Prescot.

We were sitting in what was now called
Bounder Dog
, listing repairs and upgrades and documenting modules, since most were nonstandard. We needed an accurate load to show our hosts, who were supposed to be sending technical help. We were heading down to their “capital,” which is pretty much all habitat at the primary planet’s L2 point and in stationary orbit closer in.

I figured at that point they were going to tell us to leave and take the war with us.

It had literally been a four-day max burn. We weren’t close to where we needed to be.

Juan called us in for our evening brief.

“So, there was some excitement, and we’re smoothing things over.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Mira said. “Though I am impressed. Earth didn’t even have time to post action review before we hit them.”

“Everyone is impressed, and quite a few are pissed. We toasted one of their picket destroyers and a hundred crew.”

Roger said, “That didn’t win any friends down there. That’s why the regulars need to leave the clandestine warfare to the regiment.”

Juan nodded. “Well, it’s done now, but we’re dealing with it. We’re scheduled to arrive in a couple of days and they have a labor crew ready to help us.”

“Still? Despite all that?”

“Yes, it’s been defused and we’re not to blame.”

“Good.”

“Also, we sold them
Scrommelfenk
.”

“Uh?” I said it the same time as Teresa.

“Two billion credits, on account with them here.”

I whistled. “That was nice of them.”

“It would have been, if they gave us a choice. Prescot really wasn’t thrilled with the excursion to Earth. They bought her to prevent us using her, too.”

Yes, the Prescot family could afford that. That was impressive. It was also cheap for a warship. They secured the ship and got it cheap, while extending us enough account to honestly say any nonmilitary repairs were on contract. Everyone came out ahead except the UN.

It meant Earth could feel more secure, too. Prescot had taken the ship from us.

“They couldn’t fight an actual war,” he said. “But the cost to Earth of stopping them would be prohibitive. So they’re loading us up on nonmilitary gear and calling it humanitarian. They’re doing the same for a UN System Frigate. They’re paying up front. We’re on our account. But of course, the UN have stations and support boats they can use for R three.”

I must have looked at him funny.

“Reload, refuel, rearm.”

“Ah,” I said. “And yeah, they have several positions in several systems. Even neutral ones.”

Roger asked, “How are the locals justifying owning a warship?”

“Apparently, they claim they’ll use the fusion warheads and beams for mining and slagging. They’re commissioning it the
Cullan
.”

Mira said, “So, they’ve upgraded force beams that can cut planetoids, fusers that can melt them and a-matter that can vaporize them with puny G-beams and missiles?”

“Using one of Earth’s major warships, yes.”

She asked, “Can we buy it back later?”

“I doubt we can do so with the weapons intact. But after the war, we might.”

It was amusing, but at the same time, scary Earth had a major ship for each system, which could lock a gate or bombard a planet. If you barricade the gates from the far side, a system would lose all its outer system industry, then its in-system. We needed to take out enough ships so they couldn’t barricade us, and hope other systems would back us up against them.

At least that’s what it looked like to me.

The money involved scared me, too. I had been able to help a bit with my cubbies and friends. They had other resources like this. It was amazing what you could do with almost no money if you were creative. I realized I was a small boat in this race. I could get or swipe enough to keep me going. They were getting enough to keep a ship going in a war. A small ship, but the operating cost per div was more than I’d ever earn, unless I did get paid for this at the end. But even that wouldn’t cover more than a few days running.

Late that cycle, we docked at a skeleton frame far out from the Jump Point proper, and “behind” it for transfer purposes. It had obviously been built here to protect it from anything coming through. That was done some places, and it was always blamed on “safety” against runaway, out of control ships, which I don’t think had ever happened.

As soon as we secured and connected to their power, we had movement. The outer lock was set on OWSO. Open With Safety Override. It would be open for passage unless there was a pressure drop on one side or the other.

It wasn’t long at all before chimes and lights announced visitors. I heard Roger’s voice ask, “
Bounder Dog
, what is your business?”

“Ship maintenance, sir, request permission to come aboard.” The man’s voice was like honey.

“Permission granted, welcome and thank you.”

I ducked my head around, and he had the face to go with it. He looked like some sort of aristocrat, very polished, clean, trimmed hair with a bit of wave. All he needed was a uniform with a high collar and epaulets instead of a shipsuit.

Behind him were a platoon of mostly men with a few women, who waited in the shaft and lock and fidgeted while he spent two segs consulting with Juan and Roger.

Eventually he turned and said, “Alright, people, fall to.”

I stayed out of the way but watched. I’d never seen a crew work so fast. I would swear they were all raceboat maintenance crews for the Lagrange Rampage.

I shoved aside as five of them entered the galley and took a quick inventory. Then they ran scanners over all the equipment, and started pulling.

Ten segs later, we had three new cooking modules. They also cleaned the bay. I mean really cleaned it. I did my best, but there are limits on the chemicals you can use in flight, and only so much shift time. With the elements and ovens out, they were able to scrape off a couple of decades of hardened crud. A couple of Freehold decades, I think.

I don’t know what went on in control or engineering, but when I looked, everything was brand new, compact, with new touchscreens and plugs for remote mods.

They brought lunch with them, but I made up some grilled cheese with jalapeños and ham. I started with the hot-looking guy in charge.