Battlecruiser Alamo: Not One Step Back (15 page)

 “No drinking on the job, Boris.”

 “This gets worse by the minute. I’m not sure I’m up to this sober.”

 Logan leaned back, swinging on the wall restraints, “The drinks are on me when all of this is over.”

 There was a knock at the door, and all three of them instantly reacted, guns coming out of holsters and into their hands. Boris and Harper were making no secret of their aggressive stance, but Logan placed his in a previously prepared hole in the desk, keeping it out of sight and safe.

 “Come in,” he said. “It’s open.”

 The door slid open, sticking briefly, and a tall, balding man slid in through the door, wearing a standard station jumpsuit with the logo of Cornucopia Mining emblazoned on his shoulder, battered and tatty. He looked around at the surrounding firepower, then down at Logan.

 “Is this how the Triplanetary Fleet operates these days?”

 Logan glanced up at his comrades, who placed their weapons away, but he left his safely in its hidden slot, his hand close enough to the trigger that he could reach it in a second if necessary.

 “That’s a little better. I’m Anton Sokolov, Station Commander and representative of Cornucopia Mining on this station.”

 “Doesn’t that constitute a bit of a conflict of interest? What if the needs of station and corporation don’t coincide?” Logan said.

 “My job is to make sure that they always do.” He gestured to the ceiling, “They will be released to my custody immediately.”

 “No.”
 “I don’t think you quite understand.”

 Logan smiled, “I’ve been told before that I’m a slow learner.”

 “I order you to release them.”

 “Well, that would be a problem. I’m Senior Lieutenant Logan Winter, of the Triplanetary Fleet; that is Petty Officer Boris Petrov…”

 “Petty is appropriate,” Sokolov interrupted.

 “...And Spaceman Kristin Harper. These two men launched an attack on me, an unprovoked attack, while I was simply trying to get a drink. I’m afraid I can’t just release two people who are under arrest for attempted murder. I did come to turn them over to the head of Station Security, but you don’t appear to have one.”

 “That’s my…”

 “So I’ve decided to take the job myself, at least for the moment. After questioning, charges will be filed – I think I can assure you that there will be plenty of them – and then will be shipped home for trial on Alamo.”

 “They can go back on a company ship.”

 “Nice try.”

 Sokolov slid in front of the desk, “Mr. Winter, I have certain friends…”

 “Do you? That’s excellent. Everyone should have friends. I have friends as well. Boris, Kristin, a battlecruiser, lots of friends in the military. Maybe our friends should all get together sometime.”

 “That was what I had in mind. I’m going to contact some people back home, Mr. Winter…”

 “Call me Logan, by all means.”

 “...and they will make my life very unpleasant.”

 “I see.” He paused, then said, “This wouldn’t be an attempt to pressure a serving officer, would it?” 

 “These men are under my orders and are my responsibility?”

 Logan’s eyes widened. “Are they? Under your orders?”

 “Yes.”

 “Well, then, Mr. Sokolov, I’m forced to place you under arrest for compl….”

 Sokolov slammed his hand down on the desk, pushing himself up towards the ceiling; he scrambled for a second, before Boris reached down and dragged him towards a handhold.

 “Don’t be stupid, Winter. That’s not what I meant. Release these men immediately.”

 “No.”

 “I don’t think you understand your situation here.”

 “Oh, I understand completely. You’re going to go back to your office now and talk with your staff about what to do, and perhaps you will come to a very silly solution. I assure you that your friends are here, are safe, and are going to remain under constant guard – and as you know now, my men and I are excellent shots.”

 “You haven’t heard the last of this.” Sokolov turned around and pushed himself out of the office, catching his sleeve slightly on the door as it opened.

 As the door closed, Logan replaced his pistol in its holster, and looked up at the white Boris still hanging by the bodies on the ceiling. Harper turned back to her console, still trying to work with the antiquated system.

 “He meant it, you know,” Boris said. “He’ll come back with reinforcements.”

 “I doubt it. Not with a battlecruiser in the system. He’ll need to be a lot more subtle than that, and he knows it, and I don’t for a second think that he’s actually got the guts to contact anyone back home either. This is an embarrassment for him, and he won’t want to risk looking weak – this is his problem. How are you doing, Harper?”

 “I’ve got control of life support in this section slaved to this console, so he can’t try any tricks with it, and all of the emergency pressure doors.”

 “What about the rest of the station?”

 “If you’re going to hack a network you have to have a network to hack. There are huge gaps, physical gaps, and no way to bridge them. Cheap security, but effective.” She looked down at him, “And no, I can’t get into the Cornucopia offices. First place I tried.”

 Logan pushed himself up from his desk, “Well, I’m going to go for a walk. Keep an eye on things.”

 “You’re going out there?” Boris said.

 “Yes.”

 “Alone?” 

 “Yes.” He smiled, “Look, I don’t think I’m in any real danger. You stay here and keep an eye on our two sleeping beauties up there, and help Harper take control of all the local computer systems.”

 “And where are you going?”

 “Intelligence gathering.”

 Logan pushed out of the office, drifting past someone wearing a rather shabby flight suit who was obviously assigned to keep an eye on him; he kicked down on the floor to spin himself around, waving at his would-be stalker, before steadying himself up and resuming his flight down the corridor. He quickly found himself in the main traffic flow, noticing that he was being given a wide berth, a few people glancing to see if they could spot his hidden weapon.

 His destination was once more the far end of the station, down towards the bar, but he was as curious about whether anyone would attempt to stop him as anything else. It was getting late enough in the evening, station time, that most people had settled into wherever they planned to sleep for the night, and sure enough Lilith’s was on the brink of closing, only a few people still lingering over their last drinks as bartenders looked on, eager to close. All of them looked up at him as he drifted through the door.

 “Came to get my card back,” Logan said, to no-one in particular. “I was in a bit of a hurry to leave before.”

 The singer drifted down from a hatch near the ceiling, somehow managing to make sliding through space seem an act of total grace; she had his card clutched in her hand, and span it down to him; he snatched it out of the air.

 “Thank you. You must be Lilith.”

 “I am indeed,” she replied. “I deducted for the damages as well. I hope you don’t mind.”

 “Not in the least; I hope that it isn’t anything that will prove difficult to repair.”

 She slid down to his level as the last of the remaining patrons began to scurry out, the bartenders finally running out of patience. It gave him a brief opportunity to look her up and down again, confirming everything he had seen before.

 Unfurling her arms to make her robe flow, she said, “I take it you approve?”

 “Of all the bars I’ve been in firefights in, this has the best-looking patroness, that I will say.”

 “This happens to you often?”

 “Far too often, and I suspect again in the near future.” He looked around, “Is it usually this lawless out here?”

 “We don’t get that many gunfights in the bar, but this isn’t exactly the safest
place to be
. If you’re about to offer me some sort of protection, I assure you that I am well-capable of defending myself.” 

 “Probably far more capable than I at the moment. I probably ought to be asking you for help.”

 “I take it the Sock paid you a menacing visit?”

 Logan smiled, “I’m afraid he went away disappointed.”

 “Happens to him all too often; this has been a frustrating posting for him. I think he was hoping to extort protection money from the businesses, but there were a few...incidents...that convinced him to stay well clear of everything that goes on, and just concentrate on protecting Cornucopia’s cut.”

 Frowning, he replied, “If he usually just sits back and does nothing…”

 “Then you’ve really stirred up a hornet’s nest. What are you out here to do, anyway?”

 “I’m hunting pirates.”

 “You are in trouble.” She paused again, “Have you any leads?”

 “None at all, but I have a lot of suspicions. Proving them is going to be interesting.”

 She looked him up and down, shaking his head, “And you are now the station’s Chief of Security. That’s not a job with a very long life expectancy.”

 “Are you suggesting that the private businesses won’t like the idea of having one at last.” 

 “That depends on how he does.”

 He smiled, looking around, “Between you and me, I’d be rather happy with the idea of this being a short posting in any case. Just as long as it ends with me buying a ticket home rather than my body being shipped back to my folks.” He waved his arms, gesturing at the bar, “How do you come to own a starship, anyway?”

 “After the war, I had quite a bit of money saved up, and I was looking to invest. I figured that if things didn’t work out here, I could just move my bar somewhere else, but it always seems to need one more repair. She hasn’t flown in twenty years, anyway. I got her cheap as war surplus.”

 “Still impressive. It usually takes a multi-millionaire to own their own ship.”

 With a tinkling laugh, she replied, “What makes you think I’m not one?”

 “Most multi-millionaire’s I’ve met would choose rather better places to dock their yachts.”

 She nodded, then looked at him again, from battered jacket to grease-stained trousers, “You don’t look like most military officers I’ve met, either.”

 “This is really a part-time arrangement for me. I won my rank in a poker game, back during the war.”

 A bartender floated across with a tray bearing two drinks; Lilith took one and past the other to Logan, who took an experimental sniff – it didn’t smell particularly alcoholic, and he took a quick sip and confirmed it; a cloying, pleasant drink.

 “You’re joking,” she said.

 He shook his head, “Totally serious. I worked in intelligence, and there were four of us up for a promotion, but it didn’t make any difference to what we were actually doing, just a few credits more a month and a slightly better pension.” He took a larger drink. “So we sat in a back-room dive on Phobos and played cards for it. At the time, I thought I’d won.”

 “And now you’re back in the service.”

 “Only temporarily, I assure you. The sooner I can get out of this uniform the better. It doesn’t seem to fit me very well these days. I never did like following orders that much.”

 “Then what are you doing here?”

 “I owe a large favor to an old friend, and he’s rather shameless in exploiting that.” He finished the drink. “I’d better get out of here before Boris starts to panic again.”

 She grabbed him by the sleeve before he left, “There’s a sound basis to his fear, Logan.”

 “I know that, I just don’t intend to let it worry me.” He kicked off from the deck, drifting back through the corridor, a small smile on his face, his eyes still marking the two people who were making a poor attempt at hiding their attempt to follow him. They weren’t the ones that worried him – it was the ones he couldn’t see that had him concerned.

Chapter 14

 The prisoners were flanked by a full squad of espatiers on the hangar bay; Zebrova had opted to take no chances, and Marshall certainly couldn’t fault her for that decision. The prisoners wore expressions ranging from terror to defiance, and Latham looked the most nervous at all. He could easily sympathize with that; she was responsible for their fate, and he walked over to her.

 “What’s going to happen to us?” she said, sneering slightly at his approach.

 “My recommendations are all in my report; certainly there is evidence enough to convict you all of a wide series of charges. Naturally it will all come down to a judge and jury, but you will be tried in a Triplanetary court.”

 “You aren’t turning us over to the UN?”

 “Not given where you committed your crimes, no. I suspect that they’ll try and get you extradited, but I doubt any Triplanetary judge will pay very much attention to that. My suspicion is that – if you plead guilty – you’ll end up with sentences of around three or four years each, with good behavior.”

 She sighed, “Then we end up back with the indents again. They’ll be waiting when we’re released.”

 Frowning, Marshall asked, “What will they do to you?”

 “The usual practice for a contract violation is to add four years for every year you missed. That’ll probably give me about twenty, thirty more years.”

 Shaking his head, he replied, “Apply for political asylum. I’ll sign my name to it when the time comes. Besides, a lot can happen in three years.”

 The technicians had finished servicing the transfer shuttle, and the espatiers gestured at the prisoners to step on board; each of them grabbed the single holdall that they had been permitted to take with them – after a thorough search, naturally – and filed slowly through the airlock, all of them lingering in the hangar bay. Latham paused at the airlock, taking a last look around, and Marshall waved at her as she stepped inside, then stepped away as the shuttle dropped down into the elevator airlock.

 He stepped into the deck officer’s office – thinking for about the hundredth time that he probably should get one of those at some point – and contacted the Demeter, waiting for a moment for the duty communications technician to make the connection. The face of Captain Jennings appeared on the screen, smiling.