Battlecruiser Alamo: Not One Step Back (12 page)

 “Well, you’re there. Now if you don’t mind getting out of here before I’m seen with you two…”

 “Don’t be so hasty, Boris,” Logan replied, “I could use the help of someone like you.”

 “If I hang around with someone like you I’m the one who’ll need the help. Lilith’s is down at the far end of the station.”

 “Are you going there as well?”

 “Probably, but we aren’t going there together, and I won’t recognize you when I get there.”

 Harper was already poking her head out of the airlock, wrinkling her nose at the smell; Logan was forced to admit that she had a point. Every artificial environment had its own distinctive odor, and Spitfire Station smelled like old socks. At least they’d get used to it soon. Drifting after the hacker, he looked up and down the corridor, and couldn’t see anyone at least as far as the next airlock junction. Boris knew his stuff.

 “The bar?” Harper asked.

 “Not so hasty. I don’t want to go into a bar dressed like this, we need to find a way to scruff ourselves up a bit.” He looked at the grimy hacker, and continued, “At least, I do. I don’t want someone putting two and two together and getting Alamo as their answer.” He pushed off down the corridor, looking for a locker; he finally found one that hadn’t already been pushed in, and pulled a keypad out of his pocket, clipping it to the lock.

 “We’re starting with theft?” 

 “Let’s just say I’m hoping this guy is my size. I’ll bring it back when I’m done with it.” The locker popped open, and inside was hanging a battered brown jacket, festooned with all manner of stains. He reached into a pocket and pulled out a ticket stub for a Port Lovell Pitbulls game, and tossed it to Harper.

 “I don’t follow hockey.”

 “If you did you’d know that the Pitbulls moved to Mutch years ago. I don’t think I’m going to need to worry about the owner.” He pulled at the sleeves, and nodded, “Pretty good fit, actually.” There was nothing else in the locker but some tatty slipshoes and a box of old datacrystals, so he closed the locker again and pushed off down the corridor.

 “Now that you’re dressed…” Harper said.

 “We can get on with things. Why are you so eager, anyway?”

 “I’ve been stuck in that cell for days, I want to stretch my legs.”

 The pair passed through the junction into the central corridor, and this was much more crowded; dozens of freighter crewmen and assorted low-lifes floating around, in and out of the modules. Most of them seemed to be residential, though he floated past a dream den and junk bazaar that attracted his interest. The first decent smell for hours hooked him more, though, and he saw a stallholder that was selling some sort of fried kebab.

 His head reached for his UN credicard, and with a quick swipe he found himself the owner of a metal spike precariously holding three spheres of meat, covered in a thick barbecue sauce. He eagerly wolfed one down, taking it in with four careful bits, then waved the stick over at Harper.

 “Want one?”

 “No thanks,” she said, shaking her head. “Do you know what that’s likely to be?”

 “It’s fresh, so probably rat. Gerbil if I’m lucky. Nice and juicy, though, and I haven’t had real meat in ages.” He took the rest down as eagerly as the first, then made a point of wiping his greasy hands on his trousers, leaving long stains down the seams.

 “I can’t take you anywhere,” Harper said, shaking her head. She gestured to a flashing neon sign at the end of the station, flickering ‘Lilith’s’; it was attached to one of the old cargo airlocks, a couple of dozen feet across, and the two of them drifted inside with the crowd.

 Obviously, the main bar was the former cargo bay, and Logan quickly sized it up. A few dozen booths with anchor points at all levels, and a wide bar at the far end with a variety of exotic drinks advertised with flashing holograms, most of them towards the lower-end of the market. The smell of food abounded, and – of greater interest – a lot of games of chance seemed to be taking place up near the ceiling, at least two or three poker games. Harper nodded at a corner, and he smiled to see that Boris had somehow beaten him too it, holding an obviously well-earned drink.

 He was about to head over to one of the poker games, hoping to gather some information the old-fashioned way, when he heard a round of applause coming from the crowd, and saw a tall, elegant woman in a flowing emerald dress, cut for zero-gravity with a perfectly-held tail behind her, drifting towards a microphone in the middle of the room. His attention was rapt as she started to sing, his eyes focused on her as he watched, drinking in her soft voice and full figure.

 The crowd was fixed on her every movement, and she began to slowly glide around the room, obviously on a carefully calculated course that took her from table to table, and she swung past him almost close enough to touch. It took Harper tugging on his sleeve to bring him back to some sort of reality.

 “Don’t we have work to do?” she whispered.

 “Come on, she’s an artist. Fifty credits says that’s Lilith.”

 She concluded her performance on a flourish, and the crowd erupted in cheers, Logan unashamedly joining them, Harper just shaking her head.

 “Thank you all,” she said. “The next ten drinks are on the house!”

 Logan was right – that evidently was the owner, and that was pretty smart business as well; he managed to dive for the bar first, attempting to blend into the crowd, while Harper stayed at the rear, watching the room.

 “Sirian Sunrise, please,” he said to the nearest barman, who nodded and quickly mixed up the white-and-orange drink for him. At some point he’d have to work out what was in it, though he did know that it didn’t have much of an effect on him. “And a Vitazade as well.”

 “We usually serve real drinks in here, friend.”

 “It’s not for me.”

 With a shrug, the barman passed over the drinks. “That’s three-fifty. You’re the twelfth customer.”

 He’d counted his predecessors at the bar, and by his reckoning he was seventh or eighth, but it didn’t seem important; he used his UN card again rather than risk Triplanetary scrip, and made a mental note to stick to Terran currency while he was here. Grabbing the two containers, he pulled the straws out and drifted back over to Harper.

 “What the hell is this?”

 “You need to keep your mind on the job.”

 “I’ll remind you of that next time the singer comes out. What now?”

 “Now I join one of those games up there while you drift around a bit and see what you can pick up. See if you can find anyone who works for the station. I’ll hit the criminal groups.” He was peering around for a high-stakes game, and thought he’d found one; a lot of magnetic chips were resting on the table closest to the ceiling.

 Just as he was putting himself into the persona of an enthusiastic amateur, he saw a man who was nursing a wound in his shoulder, and for a second, they locked eyes. A second too long. He recognized the gunman from the poker game at Neptune, and worst of all, the gunman had recognized him.

 “Crap!” he yelled, hoping that Harper would melt into the crowd, diving for the door as the gunman pushed off after him. He knew this dance, and now as definitely not the time to have to play it. He saw the shrug of a sleeve, and managed to hook a flailing leg around a booth to catapult him just out of the path of the bullet. Within a second, his gun was out and the trigger pulled, and for the second time in two weeks the gunman was crying in pain, tumbling end-over-end as blood spilled from a wound. He held the gun, swinging around.

 “I’m a Triplanetary officer,” he said, improvising. “Everyone stay where they are!”

 There were two more shots, one from below and one above, and he turned to see another of the poker players sprawled against the ceiling, gasping in pain. He looked down to see Boris holding a gun, a look of disbelief on his face.

 “Thanks for the help,” Logan said.

 “I’m as surprised as you are,” Boris replied.

 “Well, let’s get these two people to the medical bay and then put them in detention.”

 “You’ll hear about this!” a voice yelled out from the crowd as Harper snatched the gun away from the still-tumbling gunman. The singer came drifting out from the back room again, her face flushed red as she looked at the site of the battle.

 “What the hell is going on?” she said. 

 Mustering a smile, Logan replied, “Just taking out some trash, ma’am, complements of the Triplanetary Fleet.” He tossed his UN card to her. “The drinks are on me for the next fifteen minutes.”

 Using the pandemonium, he, Harper, and Boris managed to flee the scene, the two would-be assassins in tow behind them, unconscious.

 “That’s your idea of a covert operation?” Harper said as they passed through the airlock. 

 “No, Harper, that’s my idea of a botched operation.” He sighed, and said, “Let’s see if at least these two know anything at all. At least one of them is an old friend…”

Chapter 11

 Marshall sat contentedly in the pilot’s seat of the transfer shuttle, glancing left and right to visually confirm that the others were still with him – though he would have been alerted long before if they had deviated from their course. Spread across the three shuttles were two squads of espatiers and a medical/engineering rescue team, hastily put together to provide aggressive emergency relief to the scoutship that Alamo had spent considerable effort to damage a few moments before.

 The architect of that damage was sitting next to him, occasionally glancing with frustration at the pilot’s seat, but there was no way that Marshall was going to pass up a chance to fly for himself; they were coming too seldom for his taste as it was. Behind, Alamo loomed overhead. It might be out of weapons range, but it could still provide some support if necessary, and there was no way that the scout could break away from its grasp. He just hoped that the crew of the pirate ship knew it.

 The dominant presence underneath was the gas giant, all swirling purple and orange clouds, its gravity a constant pull on their course, especially this close in. He peered down into the clouds, shaking his head; this was a lot closer than he usually cared to get in an orbital shuttle, and he kept a constant eye on the navicomputer.

 “Shuttle One to Shuttle Flight,” he said. “One minute to contact, all good?”

 “Shuttle Two,” Zabek replied, “All good here.”

 “Shuttle Three here,” echoed the uncertain voice of Makarova, “All fine here, ready to dock.”

 “Ensign Zabek’s espatiers will take the lead. Form a defensive perimeter as a first priority, then the medical and engineering teams can move in. I want a full survey within ten minutes of touchdown.”

 “We’re ready, sir,” Zabek said.

 Orlova turned to him and nodded, “We’ll get it done, Captain.”

 He’d spent the first few minutes of the flight glancing over the specifications of the shuttle, and was aiming for the high-side docking ports on the starboard side; three of them were clustered closely together, ironically intended for emergency evacuation. Now came the difficult part.

 “Shuttle One to Scout, we are approaching for dock. Request you turn your lights on.”

 “Scout to Shuttle One. Please stand by for five minutes.”

 Marshall looked at Orlova, “Scout, we’re coming in now. If we have to cut through the hull it’s just going to make more of a mess. Turn lights on and stand by for docking.”

 Without any further contact, the lights went on down the side of the ship, and Marshall braced himself for the impact. The computers were handling this one for split-second precision, and were taking no chances, spending fuel with abandon to make them as safe as possible from a last-minute attempt to betray the surrender. He breathed a sigh of relief as the lock clamps engaged, then began to unstrap himself, reaching for a pistol and holster from the overhead locker.

 Orlova was already putting hers on, preceding him through the airlock; already a squad of espatiers had secured the corridor, Sergeant Forrest predictably taking the point. He glanced back at his commander and nodded, and Marshall stepped out onto the deck. Aside from the espatiers, there was no-one in sight; it seemed the crew had decided to keep well clear of their visitors.

 “Is this normal?” Orlova asked, looking down the corridor.

 “I’d have hoped that there would have been someone waiting here to meet us.” He grabbed his communicator, “Zabek, report.”

 “No contacts yet, sir,” she replied from the deck below. “I’ve got Midshipman Makarova in Elevator Control, but it was abandoned.”

 “Very good. Secure Life Support and Gunnery.” He turned to Orlova, “You take a firing team and start looking at the cargo. Full report as soon as you can.”

 “On it.” She looked around, shaking her head. “Jackson, you and your boys are with me.” She began to walk down the corridor, and with a quick action Marshall locked down the shuttle, the airlock door slamming shut. “We’re heading for the bridge, Sergeant.”

 “Shouldn’t we leave someone to watch the shuttle, sir?”

 “No need. I don’t think they’re going anywhere.” He looked around. “I don’t think there are that many people left here to steal them.”

 He stepped into the elevator with the firing team, cramped in the confined space, and waited a few seconds for the doors to close. Maintenance didn’t seem to be the top priority of the crew. There was a feel to this ship that he just didn’t like, a strange crawling sensation. Perhaps it was the surrender; he’d been on ships that had lost a battle before, and that was bad enough, but he’d never been on a ship that had given up. Not that he’d given the pirates much choice, but it still seemed wrong.

 The doors slid open, and his initial assessments of the state of the ship were confirmed. Three crewmen sat at work stations, keeping ship functions going, but they looked as if they had seen better days, all patchwork repairs and temporary rush jobs. The command chair was empty, and though the crew turned to him, none of them seemed ready to make the first move.