Battlecruiser Alamo: Not One Step Back (11 page)

 A faint crackle replied, “We have many wounded, serious damage. We protest your attack upon our vessel and demand reparations.”

 “Demand and be damned, sir. Surrender.”

 There was a long pause, and Bryant called out, “They just launched an escape pod, sir, but…”

 “But?”

 “It’s just falling into the gas giant.”

 Cunningham finally spoke, “I presume they are disposing of their sensitive material before giving in. Clever.”

 “I’ll try to track them,” Bryant said, but immediately shook her head, “No chance, sir. They just fired off about a dozen decoys. I’m already having trouble tracking them, and as soon as they hit atmosphere I’m going to lose them.”

 “Do what you can, Spaceman,” Marshall said.

 The intercom crackled again, “We yield, Alamo.” The voice was different, and this one was dejected, defeated.

 Marshall pushed himself up from his chair, a grin on his face, “Good work everyone. We can get the spin back on now, and let’s get the Espatier shuttles into the air. Mr. Cunningham, you have the conn.”

 “Where are you going?”

 “Over to the enemy ship,” he replied. “I want to see it for myself.”

 “I protest, sir,” Zebrova said, “That ship has not been secured.”

 “Let him go, Lieutenant,” Cunningham said, “We’re not going to win this one.”

 “I’ll have a platoon of espatiers for company,” Marshall replied, and glancing at Orlova, “and I think the security department should be in on this as well. Orlova, you’re with me.”

 With a smile, Orlova called Caine up to the bridge to take her station, and yielded it to Cunningham to hold it for a moment while she pushed off, racing after Marshall; he was already on his way, presumably before anyone else could object.

Chapter 10

 A loud rattle shook the shuttle as it locked onto the hopper. Harper was ready at her console in case the pilot of the other ship was planning to try anything silly at this point, but with a series of bangs, the airlock slowly opened, a grinding noise from the mechanism that made Logan smile; this ship was maintained about as well as the ones he usually rode.

 Peering from above, a tall, portly man looked down out of the gloom of the hopper into the shuttle. A pistol was jammed into a holster at his belt, but his hand was well clear of it. Food wrappers and bits of debris were drifting down, pulled around by the air ventilators, and the smell was beginning to come with them. Harper wrinkled her nose as she brushed a piece of wet tissue away, shaking her head.

 “Who the hell are you bastards?” the pilot said in a thick accent.

 “Call me Logan. This is Harper. Who are you?”

 “Boris Petrov. This is my ship you have boarded. What gives you the right?”

 “Well, technically you were conducting an unauthorized salvage operation, but really I just wanted to talk to you. Can I come in?”

 “If you want,” he grunted. pushing himself back with practiced grace. The pilot grabbed a handhold as Logan followed, quickly getting his first impressions of the hopper. They confirmed all of his suspicions – a battered, old in-system shuttlecraft with a single cabin, cramped cockpit at the front packed with obsolete equipment, most of it held together with hope and chewing gum. Cables reached across the compartment, the hallmark of a lazy engineer, but not a careless one; every critical system looked in good order, just the luxuries being ignored.

 A single spacesuit hung to the right, well-patched with a series of repairs – and it was obvious that the helmet was not the original, and that it had been cracked at one point. No-one with any money would have dared take the risk of going up in a craft such as this, and just keeping it flying would have been a full-time job. He noted the Triplanetary and Republic components scattered everywhere, scavenged bits and pieces doing jobs they were never designed to do.

 “This a safety inspection?” Boris asked, wiping his nose across a sleeve already covered with numerous stains.

 “No, not a safety inspection,” Logan replied, twisting to speak to the pilot. “Look, Boris – can I call you Boris?”

 “You can call me whatever you like.”

 Harper was drifting in at the rear, and Logan continued, “Boris, I’ve seen enough here to arrest you on about five charges of illegal salvage, not to mention have your shuttle impounded as a menace to navigation.”

 “My little shuttle in this big universe?”

 “I presume you plan on going to different places on occasion.”

 The pilot looked around his little world, “What’s it going to take?”

 “Take?”

 “To stop me. I know you military types, and if you were actually planning on doing anything, you’d have done it by now. It isn’t money, I haven’t got any. Or I’d be sitting in a penthouse whoring on High Vegas right now.”

 “Are you suggesting a military officer would take bribes?”

 “Yes.”

 “Well, Mr. Petrov, I think you have a very bad impression of us, and I see it as part of my job to engage in some improvements to community relations.”

 “What’s that mean?”

 “It means that I’m not going to press any charges, and that I’m not even going to ask for a bribe.”

 “Great,” Boris said, frowning.

 “In fact, I’m going to go one better.”

 “Better?”

 “I’m going to offer you some help so that you can get back to Spitfire Station – you are going back to Spitfire Station, I presume?” He waited for a grunt from Boris, “So you can get back as soon as possible.”

 “What do you mean? Give me a tug or something?”

 “No, I mean that your crew just expanded by two.”

 Boris’ eyes opened. “Wait a minute…”

 Holding up his hand, Logan continued, “A man like you keeps alive by scurrying in all the quiet little places of the station. I’m sure that you could arrange to dock somewhere quiet and out of the way, and to allow the two of us to get on board without anyone noticing.”

 “I couldn’t add you to my crew roster,” he replied. “I’m not that good a hacker.”
 “I am,” Harper piped up, immediately moving over to the cockpit. Boris made to stop her, but was blocked by an extended arm from Logan.

 “Now, let’s allow your newest crew-member to work in peace, shall we.”

 “That’s a lot more peace than you’re going to get when we arrive at Spitfire. I can get you onto the station without any trouble, sure, but that’s not going to be enough for you.”

 “Whatever do you mean?” Logan replied, raising an eyebrow.

 “You’ve got some sort of mission, a secret mission.”

 “Now, Boris, you’ve been reading far too many bad novels. There’s nothing secret about our mission, we’re simply out to take down this group of pirates.”

 The blood drained from Boris’ face, an impressive effect in zero-gravity. “As soon as you pop your head up, someone will try and shoot it off.”

 “How bad is it over there?”

 “That depends if you are willing to quietly get on with your own business and ignore everyone else, or whether you’re the sort of person who asks questions.”

 “And if you are?”

 Boris looked up, locking on with beady eyes, “They don’t tend to last long enough to get any answers. We went through half a dozen Security Chiefs before they gave up looking for a new one.”

 Harper turned from her work, an evil grin on her face, “You mean that no-one runs security out there?”

 “Oh, if you were to try and do something that might sabotage the station, you’d be stopped, but otherwise, no. We don’t really need any. Not as long as no-one asks any questions.”

 “Wonderful,” she replied. “Logan, I’ve got everything ready with the computer.”

 “Good.” Logan took off his uniform jacket and slung it down into the shuttle hatch, figuring that he would get by with the shirt and trousers. Harper did the same, and looked up from the hatch.

 “Want me to send it back to Alamo?”

 “Near as you can, anyway. They can bring it in when it gets close.”

 “Right.”

 Logan swung himself into the cockpit couch, Boris nervously looking over his shoulder as he programmed a course back to Spitfire Station. It took him four tries to weave a path around all the orbital debris with any sort of speed, and finally the nervous Boris started poking buttons over his shoulder, helping to guide him through the difficult spots.

 “All ready!” Harper yelled, pulling herself up into the hatch.

 “So are we.” With the tap of a control, Logan closed the airlock and detached the ship, leaving the shuttle to make its own way home, then was pushed gently back as the hopper’s thrusters began to fire, sending it on a slowly spiral course gently towards the high orbit of the station.

 “Want me to put some music on?” Boris asked, but when met with no response drifted back to the rear of the cabin, hovering near a terminal. Logan gestured to Harper who peered over his shoulder before returning to the cockpit, peering through the grimy viewport.

 “Do you have any sort of a plan for when we get on board?”

 He looked up, grinning, “Not in the slightest. I figure the best plan is to scope out the situation, try and get a feel for who the players, movers and shakers are before we actually do anything.”
 “What does that mean?”

 “It means we’re going to find a bar.”

 “This sounds like my sort of mission.”

 Logan shouted back to Boris, “I take it Spitfire has a bar?”

 “It’s got two. Lilith’s is the only one you’ll get into without serious money.”

 Shrugging his shoulders, he replied, “Then I guess we’re going to Lilith’s.” He looked up at Harper. “You armed?”

 “With a gun?”

 “You make it sound like the last thing you’d think of. Fine, try not to get into trou…”, he paused, aware of what he was saying, “not to get into any trouble where I’m not there to back you up.”

 A series of flashes, proximity alarms, registered on the detectors, but none of them were red; the hopper was flying past some scattered pieces of wreckage close enough that he could see them glinting from the dim sun, and it was then that the retro-thrusters kicked in, sending him hanging briefly on his seat restraints as the ship trimmed its course.

 “That’s Spitfire?” Harper said with disbelief, and Logan could quite understand why. It didn’t look particularly impressive to the casual observer, and for that matter, it didn’t look like much after a second glance either. A fairly traditional design, about two dozen inflatable modules slung around a double-keel central core, all hooked together by girders and walkways, but it looked old. Some of those components were obviously not on their first use when they were hauled out here.

 A trio of freighters were moored up close by, and though there was ample docking space for them, none of them had chosen to use them. Another shuttle was lazily drifting towards the station from the farthest freighter, and he could see a few spacesuited figures flying across, the occasional pinprick of light from control jets speeding their way. There were plenty of shuttles docked around the central core of the station, though some of them looked as if they hadn’t been moved for years, and at the far end, what appeared to be an old frigate was hooked in.

 “That’s Lilith’s,” Boris said, pointing.

 “The frigate?” Logan replied, frowning. “What the hell is a frigate doing out there anyway?”

 “That’s not a frigate, that’s one of the old Clarke-class cruisers.”

 “Smallest darn cruiser I’ve ever seen,” he said, looking at it again. Three decks, some control surfaces for a hendecaspace drive, a few empty spots where missile – or even railgun – turrets had been at some point in the distant past. Smaller even than the scoutship he’d rattled back from Neptune on.

 “UN stationed it here as a guardship back in the twenties, and it became a permanent fixture. Lilith picked it up cheap at auction, so I heard.”

 “Does it work?”

 “Hasn’t moved in twenty years.”

 Harper looked at the two of them, “Shouldn’t we be thinking about docking with the station at some point soon?”

 “I knew I’d bought you along for a reason. Boris?” He gestured the pilot to the controls, and he slid in with surprising grace to activate a series of manual thrusters, rocking the ship back and forth as he forced it onto a new trajectory.

 “Er, what’s your name, kid?”

 “Harper.”

 “Harper,” Boris said, “hack me into Trafficom, will you? It isn’t passworded.”

 “Not much of a hack,” she sniffed, heading over to the inventory terminal.

 Logan tapped the pilot on the shoulder, “Traffic Control is open?” 

 “Makes sense,” Boris shrugged. “That way the computer warns you if you’re doing something that’s going to end up being stupid, but everyone gets to keep some privacy. Like I said, Spitfire isn’t a healthy place for people who ask questions, but that doesn’t mean we’re dumb.”

 “How long have you been out here?”

 Looking up, squinting, he replied, “That thing about questions applies to me as well, you know.”

 “Yes, but we’re old friends, now, aren’t we?”

 “Since the war,” Boris barked, “I was demobbed here. When the UN pulled out in ‘54 they left a few of us behind, and I just never ended up moving on.”

 Looking the pilot over, Logan said, “You seem fit enough for someone who’s spent a decade and change in zero-gravity.”

 “Exercise machine in the rear compartment. Just because I’ve been stuck out here for the last ten years doesn’t mean I want to stay out here forever.” He looked around. “You couldn’t see your way to organizing my passage home, could you?”

 “Not today, Boris, but there is always a tomorrow.”

 “That’s what my first ex-wife said on our honeymoon.”

 The side of the station was looming larger and larger; Boris had aimed them for a port directly in between a pair of the once-white modules, and the faded text indicating that they were approaching an emergency access port could just be seen through the grime. The hopper touched the station, and bounced back again. With a series of Russian oaths, Boris stabbed down a pair of buttons and pushed them back, and on the second try the docking clamps engaged with a series of unnerving rattles.