Dreadnought (Starship Blackbeard Book 3) (2 page)

He told himself this as he retreated to his quarters to change out of his uniform, but when he was dressed in simple trousers with a gray pullover shirt, he stared in the bathroom mirror, feeling morose. He was about to meet his former enemy, a Hroom general and lord, and he wasn’t even in uniform.

Someone knocked on the door. It was Commander Tolvern. She held clothing.

“This is for you, Captain.”

She gave him a sleeveless vest—tan canvas with leather trim, brass buttons, and leather loops to hook them with. It reminded Drake of one of his father’s riding jackets, but with Old Earth maritime flair.

“Where did you get this?”

“I bought it when we put in for repairs. Grabbed your jacket from the laundry and had this vest tailored to fit.”

“But why?”

She took it back and started putting it on him. “I’ll show you.”

“I really don’t think—”

“James, enough of that. For once, don’t be so stubborn.”

He stopped at her use of his given name, and let her put it on him and button it up. She left the top two buttons unlooped, then led him into the bathroom where he could see himself in the mirror. He wasn’t entirely satisfied—it did not replace his smart, red, military jacket, trimmed with black—but it did make him look more dignified, like a sea captain, perhaps. Prosperous and of good breeding.

Tolvern had lingered behind while he studied himself in the mirror, and now she came into the bathroom holding his captain’s bars, which she pinned to his collar.

“Look at you now. Don’t you feel better?”

“Say it that way, and I sound vain.”

“I wouldn’t say vain. But you’re proud. You know your station in life, and you are determined to maintain it.”

“Such insight into my soul,” he said lightly.

Tolvern raised an eyebrow. “Give me a little bit of credit. You’ve been like this since you were a boy. I grew up on your father’s estate, remember? I watched you riding by with your hounds and your gun. My mother used to comment when you rode past that this was what a young man of good breeding looked like.” She straightened his jacket. “And now, you look a proper gentleman again.”

“How much did this cost? I should reimburse you.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. It’s a gift. Anyway, I was spending some of my hard-won loot and thought I’d buy myself some new clothes. I’ve been waiting for the right moment to take off the uniform.” She shrugged. “I figured I may as well get you something, too. I knew it wouldn’t be easy for you, but a nice captain’s jacket would help.”

“Thank you, Jess,” he said. “That was very thoughtful of you.”

Drake looked her over, noticing now that she was wearing finely cut civilian trousers tucked into knee-high black boots, with a new belt around her slender waist. She had a short jacket over a trim long-sleeved shirt.

“Very nice,” he said. “That’s a becoming look for you.”

Tolvern blushed and looked away. She touched the com link at her ear. “Hey Brockett, are you ready? Yeah? Then get yourself to the pod. The captain will be there in two minutes.” She ended the call and looked back at Drake. “Ready, sir?”

He straightened his jacket, felt the empty spot where his sidearm should be. “As ready as can be. It’s time for me to meet these Hroom and give them the gift that will cement my position as a traitor.”

Chapter Two

Jane’s cool computer voice came into the pod. “Twenty seconds to launch. Prepare for rapid acceleration.” 

The yellow light pulsed above the door, and Drake checked his restraints out of habit. Nyb Pim sat in his oversize chair, an extra belt across his chest, looking through the window and into the void. Brockett waited with his eyes closed, his lips moving as he counted down to himself.

“Ten seconds,” Jane said.

“King’s balls,” Brockett said. “A sloop of war. Wow.”

“Remain calm, this is no time to get agitated,” Drake told him.

“Five seconds.”

Drake closed his eyes. For a moment, he was back in orbit around Albion, ready to be launched toward the prison ship that would take him to the helium-3 mines, where he’d been sentenced to two years of hard labor. False charges, and a joke of a court martial. He now knew that Admiral Malthorne had framed him, and since then the villain had murdered Drake’s sister and imprisoned his parents. As soon as he was finished here, he was on his way back to Albion to free them.

A hiss, a pop, and then pressure on his chest as they catapulted through space. Drake looked through the window, but saw only the stars, thousands of pinpricks of light in a vast curtain across the sky. Then, a pair of glittering green ships came into view, and soon the pod was hurtling toward one of them, which had put out a space hook—a net on the end of a long arm.

How easy it would be for General Mose Dryz to retract the hook, to move it slightly and let the pod fly past? Destroy
Blackbeard
while Drake sailed away toward nothing. The oxygen would run out in a few hours, and then the pod would be a floating coffin, flying forever through the endless void.

The net caught them, and the arm brought them in. A few minutes later, in the cargo bay, the airlock popped open and let them out. The light was dim and red, and the air hot and jungle-thick. It had to be ninety degrees. By the time he’d taken two breaths, the sweat was beading on his forehead and trickling down his ribs. Brockett panted as he lugged out a cooler containing the vials of antidote. He unzipped his jacket. Nyb Pim seemed comfortable enough. He took a deep breath through his narrow nostrils and let it out through his mouth.

Three tall Hroom stood about ten paces away, next to a stack of what looked like live torpedoes, near a wall of crates stamped with the stylized Y of the York Company—what could only be sugar. There must be twenty tons of the stuff in the cargo bay. An empire warship, carrying the poison that had brought Hroom civilization to its knees. And to complete the irony, the torpedoes were unguarded, but two red-skinned Hroom with long, buzzing shock spears guarded the sugar.

Drake ignored the guards and studied the three Hroom standing side by side. Two wore mottled green cloaks over their tunics that matched the exterior color of their warship. The third wore a white toga with a sunburst on the chest and an iron ring around his forehead. The general. With the toga and his proud, regal bearing, he seemed to Drake like a Hroom caesar. Yet of all the Hroom in the cargo bay, he was the only one with the pale skin of an eater. More curious, still.

Drake approached cautiously, keeping his hands clasped as Nyb Pim had instructed. It was a Hroom sign of peaceful intent.

“Captain James Drake?” Mose Dryz said. “Is that you? I am not very good at telling human faces apart. Let me hear your voice.”

“Yes, it’s me, General. I meant what I said. I have a gift for you, and perhaps some information to share, as well.”

Mose Dryz didn’t say anything. He and Drake stood eyeing each other until Brockett began to clear his throat and shift about nervously.

“Where did you learn English?” Drake asked, to cut the silence.

“I would rather not answer that.”

“It is a friendly question. I’m just curious.”

“Captain James Drake, we are enemies, and I do not wish to establish a . . .” He said something to Nyb Pim.

“Rapport,” Nyb Pim told the general.

“Yes, rapport,” Mose Dryz said, again to Drake. “We are enemies, and we should both remember that.”

“I am not your foe,” Drake said. “My navy fought a war against your navy. We were both soldiers, following orders. That doesn’t make us enemies now.”

“Did your orders include the atomic bombardment of Hroom cities on San Pablo?”

“That wasn’t me. By the time that happened, I’d been declared a traitor and was fleeing for my life with my ship and crew. My last naval engagement was the battle at Ypis III, well before the current round of hostilities commenced.”

“I see. Then you are merely responsible for the death of thousands, not
hundreds
of thousands, of my people. And the enslavement of millions. I see what you mean—how could we possibly be enemies?”

The general might not understand lying and deception very well, but he had mastered sarcasm.

“It’s the enslavement of your people that brings me here. I propose to free them. A gesture of peace from my people to yours.”

“And how would you do that? Outlaw slavery in Albion territory? Are you king now, that you could do such a thing? And has your parliament been abolished?” Mose Dryz made a humming sound when Drake tried to interrupt. “Even if such a thing were possible, you understand that the problem is not slavery, yes? Some of our own worlds allow people to be sold into bondage, depending on local custom and religion.”

“I’m not talking about the laws,” Drake said. “Ladino and New Dutch colonies have slaves too, some of them human. I don’t know if you could ever stamp it out entirely. But it isn’t human law that has left millions of Hroom in bondage.”

Mose Dryz glanced at the stacked crates with the York Company logo on them. To the sugar. His long tongue darted out and ran over his lips. It was such a human gesture that Drake could almost read his mind. He felt sorry for the Hroom. Even now, when he had the most reason to be angry, the general had looked to the crates of sugar, grown, harvested, and refined by slaves on vast estates like Lord Malthorne’s on Hot Barsa, the poisonous substance literally grown over the top of an ancient Hroom civilization. Here was the general, supreme military leader of the Hroom Empire, yet he was thinking about how long until he could eat sugar again.

Now he looked to the cooler Brockett had brought over. It sat at the science officer’s feet. The general said something in Hroom.

Nyb Pim stiffened. “Captain,” he warned.

The guards with the shock spears rushed in. Drake reached for his sidearm, but of course, he wasn’t carrying it. One of the guards jabbed Nyb Pim and Brockett with the two-pronged spear, and they collapsed to the ground, groaning. Drake ducked away from the second Hroom, grabbed the spear by its shaft, and tried to wrench it free. His opponent kept his grip and swung his fist for Drake’s head, enjoying his longer reach. The blow caught Drake across the head, and he fell back.

He was ducking another spear thrust when something jabbed him in the back. The other Hroom guard. A jolt of electricity stabbed through him. His legs collapsed, and he lay there twitching and unable to feel his body. When he’d recovered, he climbed shakily to his feet and helped up his two companions. More Hroom had materialized from the opposite side of the cargo bay, until there were six guards in all. They held snub-nosed hand cannons, joining the original two with their buzzing spears.

“What are you doing?” Drake demanded. His skin tingled and burned, and his legs wobbled like they were made of jelly. Sweat poured down his temples from the heat and humidity.

“What is in the box?” Mose Dryz demanded. He and his two adjutants in the green cloaks had not moved from their position.

“A sugar antidote. Why did you attack us?”

“What is that? What does that mean? I do not know this word. ‘Antidote.’ Tell me at once.”

Nyb Pim translated. The general and his adjutants jabbered together in their high, hooting language. They seemed to grow more agitated by the moment.

“It is a . . .
cure
?” Mose Dryz’s voice was higher, strained. “How do you mean? Tell me, tell me now.”

“Not a cure. An
antidote
. Brockett, tell him how it works.”

Brockett cleared his throat and sputtered, seemingly unable to get the words out. His face was slack, terrified, and his eyes darted to the guards with their shock spears, which were buzzing ominously.

“Quit mumbling, Brockett,” Drake said. “Spit it out.”

The science officer found his voice. “It alters your brain chemistry—in the Hroom brain, I mean—so that it releases molecules that bond with sugar and renders it inert. I mean, that is, sugar can’t interact with the pleasure center of your brain anymore. There’s a vestigial organ the Hroom have that—”

“Be quiet,” the general said. “I have heard enough.”

“But if you’ll let me explain—”

“Brockett,” Drake warned. “That is enough.”

The science officer fell silent.

Drake touched a finger to his ear to turn on his com link, but all he heard was a beep indicating a failure to connect. The Hroom must be jamming the signal.

“Why did you attack us?” Drake asked the general.

“What is in the box?”

“I told you already—”

“You are lying. Something is in the box, something treacherous. It is not an antidote to the sugar addiction. Do you think our scientists have not already attempted such a thing? That if it were possible, we would have discovered it already?”

“I give you my word, I am not lying.”

The Hroom said something to the guards, who approached with the shock spears. They were buzzing louder now, apparently turned to a higher power level. When they motioned for him to move, Drake had no choice but to comply. As he walked with his two companions across the cargo bay floor, he glanced back to see General Mose Dryz standing over Brockett’s cooler, staring down at it.

#

The Hroom guards pushed them into a holding cell lit with dim red lights. One of the guards hit a button, and three chairs shaped like wide, flat saucers rose from the floor. The guards shut the door as they retreated to the corridor, leaving Drake and his two companions inside.

To Drake’s surprise, it was significantly cooler inside and not so humid, and he wiped the sweat away with his sleeve and took a deep breath. He touched his com link again. A beep, followed by static.

Nyb Pim climbed onto one of the seats and crossed his long, slender legs. He looked resigned.

“At least I can breathe again,” Brockett said glumly. “Although I suspect that we’ll soon be shivering. It has to be about sixty degrees in here, wouldn’t you think?”

“The temperature is meant to sedate us,” Nyb Pim said.

Drake remembered the slave galleon from which he’d rescued Nyb Pim. The slavers had kept the Hroom in a single berth, cooled to keep their cargo placid between sugar feedings.