Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Pursuit (17 page)

"No, Lodoc," began Captain
Two-Swords, "I don't.  I think these two happen to have saved this ship
once already and are giving us a chance to make our own fate."

"So you're just going to go up to
these pirates and clock them in the heads, then, no problem?" Web wasn't
sure if the man was talking to him or Halley.  The guy was persistent, he had
to admit, but this had to end.

"No," Web countered, "I'm
more of a shoot-you-from-across-the-room type.  If I can hit you, that means
you can hit me back, and there's no reason to allow that.  Now, Halley over
there; I've seen her work.  She could use anything in this room to maim or kill
you, including parts of your own body.  So why not let us get along with it,
ok?"  Web said it less as a question and more as a statement, and while
the man stared daggers, he didn't offer any more comments, either.

"So what's our move?" asked FO
Daemon.

"We take the cargo center right
now," said Halley quickly.  "We only have a few minutes before their
tugs arrive for the last of the pods they plan to steal.  We need to jettison
and steer two of the explosive-filled pods they stuck on us right back at their
escort corvettes.  There are three pods onboard with explosives, so we can just
blow the other one right off into space for all it matters to us.  Short
version: send their own bombs back at them and run like hell when things start
exploding.  Most of us will need to get to the cargo decks to identify and
maybe manually release the pods.  We need some people here to set a course and
engage the engines."  She turned to the angry Drisk engineer.  "They
didn't put any sort of interlocks on the engine controls, right?"

"None," he replied quickly but
still with a hint of attitude.

Halley looked at Daemon.  "Any
chance you can have one of your cannons back together in less than ten
minutes?"

Daemon shook her head slowly.  "No;
we even had to disperse and crate up the parts in designated areas that the
Primans inspect on arrival."  She paused, then looked back up at Halley. 
"We could probably get the targeting system up in just a couple minutes,
though."

"What would that do for us?"
asked the captain.

"Create confusion," Halley
replied.  "Whether we can fire on them or not, it will mess with them. 
Imagine you're a smelly, thieving wad of scum sitting there watching your
sensors and, all of a sudden, there are exploding cargo pods filling space and
you're being targeted by weapons turrets.  Oh yes," Halley said with a
grin, "it
will
help.  Now, Captain, who goes to the
cargo decks and who stays here?"

The ragtag crew fast-walked through the
corridors of Solar Venturer, Captain Two-Swords leading them through every access
hatch and maintenance corridor he could think of.  It was a trade-off of
concealment versus time.  Halley had even been reluctantly forced to
temporarily ignore the crew still trapped in the mess hall, for making a detour
to free them would chew up valuable minutes of the clock.

They rounded a corner, Halley and Web in
the lead, and immediately faced off two roaming pirates a half dozen frames
away that were casually walking towards them.  Without waiting, Web and Halley
both drew and fired twice, each taking down one of the enemy.  They immediately
trotted forward to check on the men, both of whom didn't survive.  A second
later, they were back on the march, followed by a crew who were trading nervous
but reassured looks.

Soon enough they were traveling through
the cargo deck, passing the airlock with the trapped Trin leader and ending up
at the main hatch outside the cargo control center.

"If we count the one in the mess
hall," Web began softly, "there can't be more than two or three of
these guys left on the ship."

"I tend to agree," said Halley
as she checked the power cell in her rifle, which she now held with the stock
tucked up against her shoulder.  "But let's not get overconfident." 
She indicated the hatch with her chin.  "You know the layout better than
me.  What's the plan?"

"Tall space," Web said. 
"More like a deck and a half, pretty wide.  Starts out as just a control
area with a lot of consoles.  Then there's a raised platform where all the
primary cargo controls are, arranged in a circle around the platform's
perimeter.  After that, the space goes a full two decks high and heads off way
into the distance.  Terminals every frame mark where cargo pods get attached or
manually controlled."

"I'll go high and far, you go low
and close?" Halley suggested.

"Lead the way."

Captain Two-Swords hit the hatch release
on Halley's cue, then she and Web dodged into the compartment.  They cleared it
quickly and both had their weapons pointed at a lone Qualin pirate seated at
the main control area.  He was concentrating intently on a display which faced
away from them, so he didn't even see their approach.  He heard someone clear
his throat and turned to see Halley and Web with their weapons centered on him.

"Hm," was all he could say,
though he managed to stay composed.

"Stand up slowly and back up three
steps," Halley commanded, and the pirate complied.  Seconds later, he was
restrained by emergency hull-patch tape and stuffed in a corner. 

"Lock the hatch and get your people
started with identifying the exploding pods, and make sure you coordinate with
First Officer Daemon on the bridge," said Halley as she and Web took a
step off the platform to make way.  Web stopped by the edge of a console and
commanded the computer to grant full root access to any user of the station,
then gave the engineer Lodoc a thumbs-up.  "It's all yours," he said,
and he turned with Halley to clear the rest of the compartment.

"Can you find which cargo pods were
swapped with the ones the pirates brought?" asked Two-Swords, hand on
Lodoc's shoulder as he sat down and flexed his fingers.

"I'll have them ready in one
minute," he replied confidently.  "Get three groups of two people
together.  Make sure they know the ship's systems.  When I find the pods, I'll
call them out and you can get the crews to the pods' manual release points. 
I'll try programming a quick maneuvering burn into their auto-mooring systems
and see if we can't get them to fly right towards the pirate ships."

Two-Swords watched with pride as his
people rose to the occasion, working on the computers, keeping an eye on the
tied-up pirate, and running to the pod manual release stations as Lodoc
identified them.  He heard a clank, then a muffled thud down the long corridor,
the sounds lost in the obstructions and shadows.

A minute later, Web and Halley came
trotting towards them, Web holding an extra blaster in his hand.

"Compartment's secure,
Captain," Halley reported.  "We have one more pirate tied up back
there if you'd like to send somebody to go sit on him.  We blocked the exit
hatch into the engine section so nobody's getting in that way."

"Are you going somewhere?" he
asked cautiously.

"I'm going to go put the beat down
on the pirate in the mess hall," Halley said enthusiastically. 
"There can't be more than him and maybe one more left, but I for sure need
to clear the mess hall so we can get everyone on the crew back in business. 
We'll use the internal scanners and search parties later, but this will do for
now."  She nodded and took off at a comfortable jog as she headed forward
out of the compartment.

"And you're staying here?"
asked Lodoc, finished with his work and having just watched the exchange with
interest.

"I lost the draw," Web said and
flashed an exaggerated frown.  "So Halley said I should stay behind.  I
have no reason to believe she will have anything other than a fun time taking
down that last pirate, so I'll keep an eye out here just in case we really did
miss one."

"That there's a special lady,"
said Lodoc softly.  "She seems to have taken a liking to you.  That's not
the sort of woman you let get away if you can help it."

"I'm working on that," Web
replied with a grin.

Onboard the corvette
Interceptor
, the being in charge of the whole
operation grimaced at the wall chrono yet again.  They were running behind
schedule. 

The woman's name was Iscara, though her
employees called her Scar for the puckered white line that ran across her
forehead.  She was a middle aged human formerly of the Talaran Collection,
having left decades ago after becoming disenchanted with the strict way her
people had of governing their daily lives.  She'd started out as a private
cargo hauler and run all across the galaxy for a decade before coming to the
realization that the margins on legitimate cargo were just too shallow to
justify the sweat and tears that came with owning her own ship. 

Soon after, she'd gone privateer and in
addition to cargo performed the occasional bounty, skip trace, or 'private
intervention', a slick term for what was really just rich people paying her to
obtain or recover things from less-rich people.  It wasn't a very long stretch
before she reached outright piracy, and while she maintained a semi-legitimate
front with some of her business, much of her real profit came from the other
side of the law.

She contracted with others to haul or
steal what they needed and occasionally developed her own intel towards finding
work that was just for her.  It was a big galaxy, and with all the major
players tied up with this war, both ends of her business- legitimate and
otherwise- were doing better than they ever had.

She'd recently even accepted a few
contracts from people working both sides of the conflict.  Mostly it was for
personal gain on their part, but this run was part of a handful that were
different.  She'd been commissioned to interdict this particular cargo ship and
replace three very specific cargo pods with identical units ferried over from
her own vessel.  Though the pods had been delivered to her sealed and with
caveats to not investigate their contents, she knew what the payload was:
explosives.  Her own scanners found out quickly enough, but she wasn't being
paid by the customer to comment on that part of it.  Besides, their contents
wouldn't affect her in any way; the poor saps on the Solar Venturer and
Callidor would be on the receiving end of some stiff retribution, though.

She was given leeway to steal up to
twelve more from a list that showed destinations of Callidor or the next stop
on the cargo ship's route.  The plan was obvious to her- she makes off with
some pods which are regretfully reported to the end customers, and the
remaining ones are delivered, including the ones with the surprises inside. 
Then they explode.  The compensation was worthwhile, though; a hefty fee for
the service as well as the contents of the pods she looted.  She was obviously
tempted to just take the whole lot, but looking at the manifests of the
majority of the cargo pods was disappointing, and the thought occurred to her
that there may be more work from this customer in the future.

So she watched from one of her armed
escorts instead of her usual place onboard the cargo ship itself.  She didn't
trust her crew all that far, and maintaining her presence in the main cargo
center showed them that she was watching both them and her cargo.  However,
considering the nature of her activities, on the off chance that somebody
unexpectedly showed up on the scene she needed to be sure she could fight her
way out if need be.

Unfortunately, she was beginning to think
she should have gone over herself with the boarding party.  The Trin she'd put
in charge loved shoving people around and puffing up his chest, which was a
plus since he'd be the one people remembered and not her.  The negative was
that he wasn't the most intellectually gifted person she had on her crew, and
the decision to let him be in charge had taken much consideration.  Now she was
left to wonder if he was either trying to find a way to skim something off the
bounty or if he'd somehow humped-up the operation.

"Are the last two pods even released
yet?" she asked acidly of the crewman at the station she was hovering
over.  The crew over there was on the middle of her list; not the best, not the
worst.  They were going to be knocked down a peg or two after this, though. 
Maybe she'd switch them to running HAZMAT to unregistered dump sites and give
another crew a chance.

"Looks like they just unlocked,
Captain," said a surprisingly straight-laced Qualin.  Scar didn't quite
know what the man was doing working for her, but he seemed to enjoy the work,
even if he was a bit clean cut for her liking.  Still, potential management
material.  She'd be keeping an eye on him and hoping for the best.

"Took them long enough," she
replied as she stood up and arched her back.  Leaning over his console and
willing her crew into action was cramping her muscles.

"Whoa, wait a minute..." she
heard the Qualin mutter.

"Problem?" she replied quickly.

"Yeah," he stated simply. 
"They unlocked the last two pods, and they look like they're following the
thruster instructions we programmed in to send them here.  Problem is that two
more pods unlocked and are headed this way, too."