Counterweight (22 page)

It was monstrous. Oh, sure, Graadt had killed planetary
officials before but to be accused of it when he was
innocent
? He took a
moment to regroup his thoughts.

“When the day of your death comes, Chief Mouse, remember who
tried to warn you.” He spat on the floor. “Then you can have the answer to your
idiotic question.”

He spun on his heel and stalked back across the narrow
bridge to the pedway where Kaans and Nid waited.

Kaans nodded to where the chairman was entering the
restaurant, ready to convene the weekly meeting. “Your talk went well, I see…”

“Motherless clone needs to pull his head out before he loses
it,” Graadt fumed. “Had the nerve to accuse us of killing his people!”

“Why that son of a…” Kaans frowned. “Wait, we didn’t –
right?”

“Not this time,” Nid offered mildly, “though I’m sorely
tempted right now.” He looked to Graadt. “So now what?”

“You can’t fix stupid,” Graadt retorted. “We’ll just have to
work around him.”

“That’s a tall order,” Nid mused. “An idiot who runs a
planet can put a lot of road-blocks in our way.”

“We might end up killing a few magisters after all,” Kaans
added hopefully.

“Not unless…” Graadt stopped at a muffled
crump
from
overhead, crouching reflexively as his brain registered the sound of an
explosive charge.

Before they could even turn their heads up to look for the
source, six more detonations followed in sequence, surrounding the glazed pod
of the restaurant in a haze of debris and gasses.

As they watched, the structure dropped out of the cloud like
a ship leaving an atmosphere. Tendrils of smoke and dust trailed behind it as
it accelerated toward the bottom of the atrium, taking the company leadership
with it.

“He does neat work, that Human,” Nid mused as he watched the
restaurant disappear into the mists of the lower levels. “Not sure I could have
dropped that thing without smashing half the pedways on the way down.” He
shrugged. “Well, that’s our roadblock out of the way, at least.”

“Not really,” Graadt said quietly. “They’ll blame this on
us
.”

“You just tried to warn him…” Kaans exclaimed.

Graadt stared back at him as a crash from below heralded the
end of the restaurant’s unexpected journey. He tilted his head toward the
railing. “The only three people who heard my warning were in
that
. So I
don’t think we can rely on them to confirm our alibi, especially not when they
were killed while we were standing twenty meters away, like a pack of
gods-damned veldt-cats.” 

He shook his head in disgust. “Motherless clone’s probably
looking at us right now. That couldn’t have been a coincidence.”

Substitute
Heads

Tsekoh, Capital of Chaco Benthic

C
allum
watched the Stoners from three levels down and a hundred meters to the south.
The Stoners had a decent grasp of how he operated. In most cases that would be
an advantage but he was using their knowledge against them.

The last time he’d come up against the Stoners, they’d tried
to warn the administration. When things began to heat up, they’d known from
previous experience that Cal would attempt to decapitate the enemy leadership.

Striking the head off the snake was one of the best ways to
maximise the chaos and there was no juicier target, here in Tsekoh, than the
weekly profit-and-loss meeting. It was almost a guarantee the Stoners would
show up and try to convince the company to reschedule and relocate.

It was just as certain the company would refuse to listen to
sensible advice, especially if it came from the Stoners. Their loyalty was in
question, after all.

It had worked out perfectly. The Stoner had been seen in an
argument with the chairman who ruled the planet and then the chairman and his
senior staff had died minutes after the Stoner left.

Cal had placed those charges more than two weeks ago.

The Stoners were very useful to Cal, as enemies go. Their
position outside of official Republic society made them objects of suspicion to
begin with, and recent events had served to amplify official mistrust.

That would draw attention away from him and from the
movement. It would also make it all but impossible for the Stoners to get
assistance from the magisters and, more importantly, it would prevent them from
trying to fill the recently created power vacuum.

With the death of the executive board, the planet was
effectively leaderless. The next most senior official was the chief magister
but he was a security officer and knew nothing about running the city or its
commercial operations. He’d never abdicate his position, especially not to a
pack of Stoners, and he’d never support their taking over the administrative
side.

That meant repair parts would run out, machines would grind
to a halt, pay would stop flowing and workers would have a lot of free time and
anger on their hands. The city was about to descend into chaos and the small
complement of magisters would be hard-pressed to contain it.

And that assumed they weren’t misdirecting their efforts
against Stoners in the mistaken belief they were behind the whole thing.

Cal grinned as he blended in with the flow of pedestrians.
He truly did wish the boys from Oudtstone long and healthy lives. They were his
three best recruits, whether they knew it or not.

Stocking
Up

The
Brisbane

“…a
nd
so then the guy looks at her and says
Madame, I was talking to the parrot!”
Thorstein waited for the laughter but the other crewmen just shrugged and went
back to their roasted meat.

“
I was talking to the parrot
…,” he tried again.

“Hmmm…” The engineer looked over the ship’s brazier to where
Rick was looking back with mild amusement. “It’s a Human joke. Maybe it’s
funnier if…”

He trailed off as Rick suddenly slid from his low-slung
hammock, dropping his piece of bifleet roast in his haste to reach the cockpit.

“Stop!” the Human shouted as he burst into the small
chamber. “Full stop – now!”

It was fortunate that he’d been billeted as an engineer. A
mere passenger would likely have been ignored but Rick was one of the wizards
who kept the ship from destroying itself. If an engineer demanded a full stop,
he got it.

“Full stop,” Erik announced, turning a troubled look at the
young crewmember.

“What’s going on?” Freya demanded.

Rick punched the combat shielding button. “Distortion
coming.”

“Where?”

“Everywhere.”

The instant the word was out of his mouth, the windows went
red. A large vessel had dropped out of distortion just in front of them and the
Brisbane
was on the fringes of the plasma wash. If they’d held their
original course…

“We would’ve been vaporized,” Erik whispered, watching
through the automatically darkened screen as more plasma flares announced the
arrival of three more ships, the accumulated debris from the bow-wave of
distorted space suddenly released with incredible energy. “If we hadn’t stopped
when you said…” He looked at Rick and trailed off.

It was no secret, by now, that Thorstein believed him to be
a seiderman. If anyone had doubted it, this would definitely make them reconsider.
Still, they were reluctant to talk about it, partly out of fear and partly out
of respect for their captain, who didn’t care for the topic.

“They picked a poor time to show up here.” Freya declared
quietly. “We just located our fuel dump. Another hour and we’d be on our way
home.”

“So do we run or fight?” Rick whispered, aware that it
served no useful purpose to do so, but he was compelled to be quiet
nonetheless.

“No,” she answered calmly, looking up at her second
engineer. “It might have escaped your notice but our ship is based on an
original Republic design. The only difference – the only one that counts – is
that she has a distortion drive.” She nodded out the bridge screens.

“We fit right in with this lot.” She opened a holo menu and
made a few selections. A rumbling sound echoed through the small vessel for a
few seconds. “With our emergency atmo port opened, the runes on our hull will
be obscured and nobody really looks at a small ship like this anyway. The
Dactari will assume we’re just shuttling from one cruiser to another.”

“And nobody’s really operating a uniform fleet, after all
these decades,” Erik added quietly. “We’ve been taking their ships from the
start and they’ve got a few Earth-built ships as well.”

“Anybody else notice something missing?” Erik asked the
screen in front of his face.

Freya frowned for a moment and then… “No fleet transponders!
These are mercenaries!”

“Or pirates,” the weapons officer offered. “Should we try to
look busy, Captain?”

Freya nodded. “I’ll try to make it look like I’m flying and
smoking lagweed at the same time. The concentration is building around that big
troopship, probably the best place to go if we want to avoid getting killed by
late-comers.”

“Why’ve you gotta say
if
?” Erik asked, his grin reflecting
off the screens in front of him.

Thorstein stepped into the already-crowded chamber. “What in
Niflheim is going on? What was…” he stared out at the growing fleet.
“Nastrond,” he breathed. “This is interesting.”

“I can always count on you to put a finger on the moment,”
Freya whispered, not bothering to look at the engineer. She couldn’t tear her
eyes from the enemy ships. “What have we got in our bag of tricks?”

The engineer scratched the back of his head. “We have a few
small demolition charges but I doubt we’ll find a use here. All of ‘em together
wouldn’t knock out a cruiser, much less the troop ship, unless we put it in
their distortion drive and…”

An evil, wolfish light came into his eyes. “We do have one
thing that might work, if we use it right.” He looked at the captain. “We have
a stock of knockouts.” He saw the look on Rick’s face so he indulged his
colleague. “They’re micro-singularity generators. Not much against stationary
targets – they might be roughly equal to our conventional explosives but they
play seven kinds of hell on an active distortion drive.”

“If we find ourselves on the wrong end of a scout-hunting
party, we drop out of distortion, eject a knockout with a short delay and then
hop out again. It goes off after we’ve passed out of the effect horizon and the
pursuing fleet gets tumbled when they pass it.”

“And since they’re all warm to catch us,” Erik whispered
over his shoulder, “there’s a good chance they’ve forgotten all about their
intervals. Each captain wants to be the one to paint another silhouette on
their hull, so they’re climbing over each other to get into distortion and
counting on a bit of maneuver to organize themselves.”

“And if they don’t get organized before our knockout enters
their bow-wave…” Thorstein whispered with glee, “boom! Half of them are wiped
out by drop wash!” He looked back out the window. “Should work just fine if we
attach them to the enemy’s hull.”

“You sure?” Freya finally tore her eyes from the enemy,
turning her head to face Thorstein.

A shrug. “Nothing is sure – even our places in Valhol – but
I’m pretty certain we can at least knock individual ships out of distortion.
Given the fact that a knockout can tumble a medium-sized fleet from the
bow-wave, I’d think it can do at least as well from the middle of the pack.”

“Alright.” Freya nodded at the engineer. “We have five,
right?” At Thorstein’s nod, she continued. “Plant one each on two cruisers and
one on the troopship. Hook up a tether harness and we’ll pass close enough to
our targets for you to limpet them on with a mag grappler.”

“Don’t get me wrong, Captain,” Thorstein began, shooting an
apologetic glance at Rick, “but it’s going to be tricky getting a good grapple
unless we sit right under our targets.”

“What’re you getting at, Thor?”

“Well, I think Rick, here, is the man for the job. I’d like
to be the one to do it,” he added hastily, “but this is a job for younger
hands… and Rick… well… he has advantages I don’t.”

Her haunted look was back. “Alright.” She nodded at Rick.
“Thor’ll show you how to attach your harness line to the exterior rails.”

Thorstein led Rick back to the engineering space and pulled
a harness assembly off a rack on the port side. ‘Harness’ was a bit of a
misnomer because it was nothing but a tether reel that clamped onto the front
of an EVA suit.

 He grabbed the carabiner on the front and pulled out a
few feet of line. “Hold this in your right hand,” he explained to Rick, “and
hold the grab bar in the escape trunk with your left. Once the hatch opens,
keep a grip on the bar while you look outside for the clip rail. Hook on with
the carabiner and you’re ready to get to work.”

Rick nodded. He was jumping with nerves but he was excited
to be taking on such a crucial role. He climbed down into the escape trunk and
took hold of the grab bar. Thorstein handed down the bag with the three
knockout assemblies and gave him a friendly grin.

“Good luck, Seiderman,” he said cheerfully. “I doubt you’ll
need it, though.”

With that, he hit the hatch control and the door began to
slide shut.

Oddly enough, Rick’s nerves began to calm once he was alone
in the trunk. He was still unaccustomed to the idea of being one of the group.
He’d spent his entire life as one of the lowest members of society. A few, like
Barry or the stranded Midgaard, treated him well but he still felt different
around them.

Now that the small crew of the
Brisbane
were treating
him as one of their own, he was acutely conscious of their confidence in his
abilities. The last thing he wanted to do was let them down. Being alone, even
if it meant being
outside
the ship, gave him some small measure of
insulation from their expectations.