Drifter's Run (6 page)

Unfortunately the system worked in favor of the rock pirates as well, since it allowed them to prepare an ambush at any of the twenty-seven gates, and do so with a good chance of success.

The miners knew this and countered with occasional Q-ships. Q-ships were heavily armed destroyers disguised to look like freighters. The pirates would attack them, take a terrible beating, and run off to lick their wounds.

But time would pass and the pirates would return. Like right now. The ship called
Junk
was easing through the gate.
Junk
! How like the humans! A ship, any ship, deserves a true name. He would name it
The Wind Which Pushes All Before It,
and give it honor.

When he spoke the Finthian's voice was no more than a whisper. "Hold my children… hold. The ship is almost there…"

Lando squirmed in his seat. The possibility of an ambush was very much on his mind as
Junk
passed through Gate Eighteen and entered the belt.

The trip from Snowball to the asteroid belt had taken three standard days. Simple days during which Lando was free from fear. There were no cargo modules to catch, no bounty hunters to escape, and no police to throw him in jail.

Not until Gate Eighteen that is. Now Lando felt a lead weight riding low in his stomach.

Though not a warship,
Junk
was well armed. Her weapons, and weapons control systems, had been stripped from a pirate cruiser. A
real
pirate cruiser, not one of the flying jokes the rock pirates used.

For reasons unknown the pirates had dropped into the Durna system for a look around, ran smack dab into an Imperial battlewagon, and lost the ensuing battle.

Picking the resulting wreck up for a song, Melissa's mother had salvaged about fifteen percent of the cruiser's weapons, and installed them in
Junk.
Even fifteen percent of a cruiser's total weaponry is a lot for a tug so
Junk
was well armed.

Lando knew this but it did little to reassure him. Weapons are one thing, but competent operators are another, and given
Junk
's
crew they were few and far between.

Okay, assume Cap was sober, a questionable proposition but assume it anyway. He was ensconced in the top weapons turret, and if the pirates attacked, he might give a good account of himself. Fine. That left Melissa and Cy. Melissa was stationed in the port weapons blister, and Cy in the starboard. A little girl and a floating brain. How would they do? Sweat trickled down Lando's back as he watched the scanners.

The One Who Falls Upward hooked taloned thumbs into his harness. It was now or never. "Attack!" As the word left his beak thirty-one fighters launched themselves in
Junk
's direction.

The fighters showed up as thirty-one points of light on Lando's plot. The computer quickly assigned each one a threat value, a target number, and requested permission to fire.

Lando swore, released the ship's automatic weapons systems, and yelled over the intercom. "Thirty plus incoming hostiles. Engage with secondaries. Engage with secondaries."

As
Junk's
primary weapons lashed out they killed seven pirates in two seconds. Lando smiled. It was a turkey shoot so far. Another few seconds and the pirates would be history.

The smile faded as a hundred points of light blossomed within the tac tank. What the hell? Then he realized what they were, some kind of decoys, meant to draw fire from the ship's primary armament while allowing the fighters to close untouched.

And it was working. All along
Junk's
hull energy weapons burped light and auto launchers hurled missiles at bogus targets.

Meanwhile the real pirates were firing and scoring hits that weren't likely to destroy the tug but were doing damage nonetheless.

"Ignore the new targets," Lando shouted over the intercom. "They're fakes! Fire on all targets numbered thirty or lower."

Then Lando ordered the primary weapons systems to do likewise. The ship's fire control computer classified his order as an operator error and continued to fire at the bogus targets.

Deep within his converted ore barge The One Who Falls Upward allowed himself a tiny moment of triumph. The ruse had worked! Eighty-four percent of his custom-made decoys had activated on command. Even now they were destroying themselves, and in the process generating enough heat and electronic activity to resemble a small ship.

Of course skilled use of the ship's secondary armament could still win the battle, but Willer had assured him that the ship was woefully undercrewed, and that would work to his advantage. Without the tug's secondary armament to stop them his fighters would close in and lock themselves to
Junk
's hull. A few minutes with a torch, a quick death for most of the ship's crew, and
The Wind Which Pushes All Before It
would be his.

The decoys made the tac tank hard to read. Lando's fingers tapped out a quick rhythm and dozens of lights disappeared leaving only those with numbers thirty or lower. There were eighteen left. The pirates could have destroyed
Junk
by now but they wanted the ship intact.

Lando saw one, then another light wink out, as Cap and Cy scored solid hits. Melissa was firing but hadn't hit anything. That meant the port side of the ship was virtually undefended.

Lando had responsibility for the belly. A blip lit up his targeting screen. Almost without thinking he squeezed the control grip and watched the blip disappear.

"I got one!" It was Melissa's voice, but the hit came way too late. By now the pirates had identified the ship's weak side and were swarming to attack it.

Lando was desperate. He considered a random hyperspace jump and rejected it. It might work, but what if it didn't? What if it dumped them in the middle of Durna's sun? No, he needed something with a better chance of success.

Lando checked the nav screens. The huge irregular shapes of asteroids hemmed him in on every side. Damn, if only there was room to run. By now it was obvious the pirates had little more than scooters.
Junk
could outrun them on quarter power.

Wait a minute, what was that? It looked like a huge doughnut with an off-center hole. It was crazy and probably impossible but…

A klaxon went off and Cap's voice came over the intercom. "That was me. I burned one just as he touched down on our hull. Run for the speedster, Mel… I'll…"

Lando didn't wait for more. As his fist slammed down on the emergency power button, his body was pushed back into the seat, his vision began to fade. Fighting to see, Lando watched the doughnut grow bigger and bigger until its edges disappeared off-screen.

The three-dimensional tunnel loomed ahead. Lando fought for control. One little mistake, one touch of the ship's hull to the tunnel's rocky walls, and the ship would tumble out of control. Lando ignored the vids in favor of the nav screen. The computerized graphics were easier to use.

Seconds turned into minutes and minutes into hours. And then, with one final flick of his wrist, they were out and into one of the holes or "lakes" that dotted the belt.

Lando reduced power and checked the tac tank. Nothing. The surviving pirates were back on the other side of the doughnut, unable, or unwilling, to give pursuit.

Lando let out a huge sigh of relief, dumped all systems to standby, and asked the ship for a damage report. A long list had just started to flood Lando's screens when Cap dropped into the co-pilot's seat. The older man looked gray and shaken. There was a forced steadiness to his voice.

"Well done, lad. Next time, however, a little warning would be appreciated."

"Sorry," Lando replied shakily. "There wasn't time."

Cap nodded understandingly. "It was the best piece of piloting I've ever seen. How did you know the hole was big enough?"

"The truth is," Lando answered, "I
didn't
know."

The older man took a moment to absorb this, checked to see if Lando was serious, and laughed. Lando joined him, and by the time Melissa and Cy reached the bridge, both men were laughing hysterically.

Thirty-six hours later
Junk
eased in next to an asteroid named Keeber's Knob. The "knob" was a bulbous rock formation that stuck up from the planetoid's surface, and Keeber was the famous Maxine Keeber, one of the few roid miners to actually strike it rich.

The "Knob," as her fellow miners called the asteroid, contained a high concentration of chalcocite, an excellent source of copper, and therefore quite valuable. Even though copper was one of the most ancient metals used by man it was also one of the most useful.

Rather than mine the chalcocite herself, Maxine had the good sense to sell the asteroid to Perez Mining, the small but growing company that now owned it.

As Lando scanned the vid screens he saw a good-sized roid, maybe two hundred miles in diameter, half in the sun and half out. The company had just enough spin on rock to generate some internal gravity and keep things comfortable. Lando watched the surface rotate from light to dark. As it did the pilot saw enough weapons emplacements to repel anything short of a massed assault by Imperial marines.

As if to reinforce this impression the voice that came over the com link was lazy and self-assured. "Hello, ship. Perez Mining here. You have five seconds to say something we approve of. After that you're free metal."

Cap stepped up to the control panel and touched a switch. "Cut the crap, Tobias. You know who we are. How many ships look like
Junk
?"

"True enough, Cap," the other man replied cheerfully, "but ships change hands sometimes, so it pays to check. I'd ask how you're doing… except it's obvious. You're obnoxious as hell."

"I'm obnoxious?" Cap demanded with feigned outrage. "How can a man with the personality of a Zerk Monkey's rear end call
me
obnoxious?"

The banter went on for some time but Lando tuned it out. He had things to do. First he programmed
Junk
's
NAVCOMP to keep the ship on the same relative course as the asteroid.

Then Lando went below to prepare the tender for use as a shuttle. Unlike the zero-G-to-zero-G transfer off Snowball, this situation would involve some light gravity as the cargo neared the asteroid's surface, enough to spread the cargo all over the landscape unless they used the tender to ease the landing. Lando was in the process of unhooking a fuel hose from a receptacle in the tender's belly when Melissa appeared.

"Hello, Pik."

"Hello, Melissa. Watch out for the hose."

Melissa jumped out of the way and trudged along behind as Lando pulled it over against a bulkhead. "Are you mad at me?"

Lando dropped the hose and looked down at her. He saw a tremble in her lower lip and eyes that were shiny with barely controlled tears. "Of course not. Why would I be mad at you?"

"Because I screwed up. I tried, I really did, but I couldn't hit them. Except for one, and that was luck."

Lando sat down on a crate of spare parts. He winked. "A hit's a hit. When you win, always take credit for it, and when you lose, blame it on bad luck."

Melissa gave a wan smile. "You're trying to make me feel better. Mom said I should take responsibility for my actions." Melissa looked down at her feet. "And I screwed up. If it weren't for you… we'd be dead."

Lando wanted to hug her but held himself back. Hugs were her father's job whether he did it or not. He cleared his throat.

"Tell me something, Melissa. Let's say Cy wasn't here… and the ship's drives were out of alignment. I try to fix them and fail. Is that my fault?"

Melissa looked thoughtful. "No, since you aren't an engineer, it's not your fault. You did the best you could."

Lando nodded. "Right. So ask yourself the following questions. Are you an adult? Are you a trained gunner? And did you do the best you could?"

Melissa thought about it for a moment, wiped her face with a sleeve, and smiled. "Thanks, Pik. Daddy says you're one helluva pilot… but you're something more too. You're my best friend." And with that Melissa kissed Lando's cheek, laughed, and skipped away.

It took three standard days to transfer the cargo from
Junk
to the planetoid below. Over and over they loaded cargo aboard the tender, ferried it down to Knob's surface, and dragged it onto the crawlers that carried it away. The miners provided some of the muscle but it was still hard work, and by the time it was over, Lando was ready for two or three days of rest. Unfortunately he didn't get them.

Once the final load of cargo was down the miners threw a party in their underground complex. It was a cheerful affair, complete with games for the children and an open bar for the adults.

Melissa had a wonderful time, whooping and screaming as the children chased each other up and down the duracrete corridors, and whining when it was time to leave.

Cy won twenty credits in a game of Rockets and Stars, Cap drank until he passed out, and Lando hit on a pretty brunette named Cee.

She had quick intelligent eyes, a stiff mohawk, and a very nice figure. As usual Lando tried some of his father's favorite smuggling stories first, got a good reaction, and went for the close. "How 'bout you and I slip away and talk?"

It didn't work. Cee patted his hand as she spoke. "Thanks, Pik, but there's three things I never do: I never play with loaded guns, I never go outside without a suit, and I never go to bed with pilots. Call me conservative… but that's how I am."

So as they pulled away from Knob, Lando was more than a little hung over, still horny, and looking forward to some rest. All he had to do was find a gate, pass through it, and punch in Snowball's coordinates. Then, barring rock pirates and other unforeseen problems, they could coast all the way home.

Lando was just setting up a course for Gate Twelve when Cap staggered onto the bridge. His hair was uncombed, his eyes were red, and he moved as if his body were made of glass. Coming up behind Lando he examined the vid screens, checked
Junk
's
course, and offered the pilot a data cube.

"Looks fine… but run this course instead. Call me if you see anything unusual." So saying, the older man turned and walked away.