Hegemony (23 page)

"Muir! What in the Suns are you doing here? Why aren't you on
Ice Knife
?"

Nas Killick, captain
of the Brotherhood ship
Whisperknife
, was a man known to be dangerous by other dangerous men. His crew was among the best of the Brotherhoods, the loose family-and-syndicate organization that outsiders called "void-runners." His ship was one of the few "dedicated" warships of the syndicate that funded it, put together by skilled engineers from the parts of four other ships, crafted to be as true to the concept of a swift-ship as possible, and far more dangerous than the usual void-runner ships; mere merchant hulls wired with hot rod drives and overloaded with tacked on weapons. His own lethality in a fight was well known among the Brotherhoods. Few chose to cross him. None did so lightly.

All that, Nas reflected, made scant difference now. Nas Killick was a man who hated helplessness, in himself and in others. The helpless, he had learned, were victims who asked for their own victimization, like a prey animal that trailed blood in front of a predator. The helpless got themselves what they deserved.

Yet, here he was, seated in his place of greatest power, on the bridge of his deadly
Whisperknife
, and he was helpless to aid his crew as they carried out his orders in the face of danger. It galled him, and though he had enough self-control that none of this showed on his face, even so the crewmembers who stayed behind with him could read his posture well enough to leave a bubble of silence about him.

Whisperknife
hung motionless in the vast blackness of space, high in orbit over a gas world of vibrant orange and yellow. Everything that could be powered down and still leave the ship ready to act was powered down. Even the interior lights were dimmed, though that saved so little power as to be meaningless. It reminded the crew of what was going on, though, and that had a solid value to it, Nas thought. It wasn't so much that
Whisperknife
was hiding, rather that she was hiding
what
she was.

Conveniently "below" the ship was a tiny moonlet of the gas giant, giving them a "stationary" orbital position and shielding the
Whisperknife
from some of the eyes that ought not see her. Far "below" hung the city-in-space of the Jyu-Lau Orbital Anchorage. The huge space station looked something like a section of some spiked desert plant, with docking spokes radiating out from the huge central cylinder. The entire enormous structure was alive with lights and activity.
Whisperknife's
passive sensors could see dozens of shuttles darting back and forth between the station and the huge transport ships that orbited with it; big as those mega-transports were, the station dwarfed them. Smaller ships, though still much bigger than his
Whisperknife
, docked with the spokes, transferring cargo directly to freight elevators that screamed up from and back down to the cylindrical hub of the station. Ships not much different in size than his own were served by internal docking bays, allowing them to be loaded and unloaded, repaired and refitted, in pressurized bays. The hub itself was a major city, part under spin gravity, part zero-gee, thriving on the trade and commerce of hundreds of ships, arriving, waiting, departing.

Or being repaired. One ship moored at the end of one of the docking spokes was far larger than most that actually docked with the station. Her size meant that she blocked off the ends of two other spokes besides the one she was docked at; that would triple her docking costs, not a small matter. But then, there was no choice. The huge freight-liner was desperately in need of repairs. Half of her drive radiators were obviously a jury rig. So was the lone cluster of sensor masts. Wide swaths of her hull surface showed evidence of thermal damage, and in places there were ragged gashes patched over with silvery metal, but obviously not fully repaired. All about the ship were small portable work-shacks. Repair pods were crawling over her hull like healing insects. She was the
Ulia's Flower
, his intended target.

For a moment he wished he could simply unleash his
Whisperknife
against the target ship, but that was a foolish notion; the huge station's defenses would be able to intercept any attack his ship could make.

Instead, somewhere aboard that station a dozen of his best crew were moving towards the
Ulia's Flower
. It had taken more than a hundred hours to scout out the Jyu-Lau station. His scouts, two of his best, had arrived on a scheduled commercial liner, unarmed, indistinguishable from the unregulated flow of Hegemony population that passed through the station. They had looked, asked, noted, and then, finding things acceptable, had sent a brief innocuous signal by regularly scheduled courier. Next, the rest of his team had arrived, also aboard a commercial ship, a tramp freighter that had sold the ten of them passage from a nearby system. The little ship had paid no attention to the
Whisperknife
, shadowing her from an adequate distance; the swift-ship was just another small ship on a common flight path. This team brought smuggled weapons (the scouts having determined that it was easier to smuggle them in than to buy them on-station) and tools.

Now his infiltration team was at work, somewhere inside the anchorage, and more than just about anything Nas wished he was with them. He trusted his people, as far as he trusted anyone; too little trust was a dangerous trap, one that killed many powerful men among the Brotherhoods. It was only slightly less dangerous than trusting too much. It was not lack of trust that made Nas wish himself with his team; it was... maybe pride, he mused, maybe just a reasonable concern for the wellbeing of his crew. He had forged this crew, gathering them from cast-offs, from failures, from void-runner scum that lived down to the worst stereotypes. He had made them into something
better
. And it galled him to send them into possible danger, and not be there to make sure things went well.

Not that they needed his help, this time. And without a doubt, unless things went perfectly, the
Whisperknife
needed her captain aboard. This train of thought was pointless, he thought, and with practiced will silenced the internal debate.

His infiltrators would have already gotten dock jobs working near the target ship, maybe even aboard her. The plan would already be in motion. He smiled, suddenly. Maybe the reason he wanted to be there was simply to watch his well honed crew in action.

Dock Supervisor Andru Sarno sighed and sank back into the soft hotel bed; nicer than his own bed, he mused, and so much better company. The girl was lying next to him, her breathing still coming fast. Such a girl! He had never had a Modified lover before. Girls that were into massive body alteration were usually not into guys like him. This girl, though! She was seriously body-altered; hard core. Her entire body was covered in sleek soft fur and the lines of her face had been carefully altered to hint at a feline. Cat eyes and cat ears, too. The changes were beyond just exotic, but the effect was not at all grotesque; the girl was beautiful and exciting. He was still not sure why she had chosen to dance with him, but her movements in the zero-gee dance tank had been as intoxicating as her looks. Syndra, she said her name was, in a voice with the slightest hint of purring.

Syndra had been... amazing. Just amazing. He had never before had such an exciting lover. He felt totally drained, he thought, smiling softly at the implied joke. His hand reached out to stroke her side, running along soft fur to cup her breast. She purred, actually purred, and rolled towards him. But fatigue was too much, just now. Her tongue traced across his lips, but all he could do was smile... and sleep.

Asleep. The boy was asleep, thought "Syndra." About time. She had selected him quite carefully; she always did. Mixing business and pleasure was a specialty for her. Her real name was Ylayn Dajo, but that name was in a lot of data systems with a hefty capture bounty tagged to it. But to her knowledge, none of those data systems had her genetic code, and the descriptions and pictures that existed were all out of date by at least one cosmetic re-sculpt. And after this job, she'd need another cosmetic re-sculpt. No fur this time; maybe an exotic skin color... yes.

She silently rose from the bed and stretched. Not her best lover by far, but not bad. For a choice, she preferred warming the captain's bed; he was... exciting. But this young man had not been a hardship. Good looking, not too bright, and with an adequate security clearance on the work site. More or less perfect.

And here was his data terminal; the poor fool had actually showed it off to her, going on and on about its make and capabilities when she had briefly asked about it. If it had been a honest seduction, he likely would have lost her company right there. Actually, the data unit
was
a nice piece of gear. She reached for it and sat down facing away from the bed so that her temporary lover, if he woke, would take a moment to see what she was doing.  Her night-adapted eyes looked over to where her bag lay, among the scatter of her scant clothes. Her weapons were there; maybe the stunner, in case he woke... but no. She had a certain professional pride in her work; the boy would not wake anytime soon. She powered up the data unit and inserted the interface cable into the implant socket at the base of her skull.

The system was protected of course, a standard commercial security routine, but that wasn't even hard enough to be fun. Now, let's see. Personnel, yes. A few jobs to fill. There was even a slot for a food delivery caterer; perfect, a big food cart would allow both weapons and tools aboard. It was a matter of minutes to sign her teammates into jobs that would let them aboard the damaged target ship. There, done and well done. Her team would see the results of her night's work on data terminals at the hostels that served as their bases and safe-houses, and the next step of the plan would swing into action. The portable terminal's power light died as she unplugged and shut it down, placing it exactly back on in its little spot on the table... just so. Her discarded undergarments went back over it, just as they had been, and her belt had been... there. Perfect. The table looked untouched.

Normally she would have gathered her few bits of clothing and left, but the poor boy had offered to get her a job too, tomorrow. She smiled a happy smile, and ran her tongue across the sharp points of her modified teeth as she carefully climbed back into bed and pressed herself against her lover. Sleep came easily.

They came in through the main service access way, two hours before the start of the main shift. A few repair crew and station staff, up early or working late, noticed them come in: eleven men and women wearing catering uniforms, drifting with two big zero-gee carts covered with ads for assorted foods and beverages. A big catering job, it looked like. A few eyes followed them with some curiosity. Then the catering staff turned down the access way to the
Ulia's Flower
, the carts' thrusters puffing bursts of inert gas to make the turn, and curiosity was satisfied. The repair of the big freight-liner occupied about fifty people, and that was just working inside the ship, not counting as many again running extra-vehicular repair pods and rigs. The caterers were early today; a different crew than on all the previous days, but that was someone else's business.

At the security lock that separated the station from the ship, they were met by a woman in a baggy security uniform jumpsuit and hood. A data display visor covered her face. No one noticed that the few bits of her skin left exposed were furry. The caterers came to a stop, using the carts' thrusters and holding tight to the handles. Then they waited while the woman scanned their identity chips and entered them into the gate's data terminal. Totally routine.

The security system at the ship's entrance hatch held them up for thirty-five seconds. Then they were in.  The passages of the ship were strewn with the refuse of the repair crews. Used food packets and empty drinking bulbs were stuck to the corridor with self-adhesive tabs where the workers had left them. Other empty packets floated slowly where they had been dropped, along with snips of plastic sheeting and bits of fastening tape.

Large sheets of structural plastic covered wide patches of the corridor, sealing off hatches here and there. In some places, the repair crews had already replaced damaged sections with shiny new alloy plating, unpainted and standing out in bright patches from the rest of the interior. The ship had taken a terrible pounding, Ylayn could see. From the outside the freight-liner looked even worse.

The ship's actual crew had been laid off long ago; they might be re-hired once the ship was capable of flight, if they stayed on the station and did not find other berths in the meantime. The shipping outfit that owned the ship saw no need to pay the crew while the
Ulia's Flower
was under repairs. The damaged ship was already taking up extensive berthing space and costing considerable money for the foreseeable future.

In a way, Ylayn mused, they were doing the owners a favor. Insurance would have to cover this loss. That would probably put some suspicion on the owners, and who knew, that might be what Ylayn and her team were being paid to do. Or maybe the owners had hired them. She could think of a lot of angles, if she tried. In a way, she liked to play that game, silently, in her head. Talking about it, even with other members of her own crew, was a no-no, though.