Her Majesty's Western Service (10 page)

He turned. As did Swarovski and Martindale, and the others on the bridge.

A woman in brown, with a complex rig, was standing at the entrance, a pistol in each hand. Brown hair tied in a ponytail, a face that was a little too square to be beautiful, green eyes with a pair of lifted goggles above them. Behind her stood a yellow-haired man with an eyepatch and a submachinegun.

“
What the
hell
?”

“
Vice-Commodore, I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you and your bridge officers to abandon ship. Klefton, clear out that fore gun.”

“
You're pirates?” Perry asked. Complete, absurd, disbelief. A pirate was pointing a gun at him
here
, on the bridge of 4-106? Was this a–

“
Tell Ricks that this is not an appropriate joke to pull in the middle of a battle. Ma’am, please find an unoccupied cabin; I don't think you realize how serious this is.”

“
No, Vice-Commodore. I'm afraid
you
don't realize how serious this is,” the woman said. “This is not one of your friends’ pranks, and these guns are both loaded. I want all of you to put your hands in the air and go to the starboard side. Including you, Vice-Commodore.”

“
You're hijacking my ship.”
My ship!

The yellow-haired man
– Klefton – had opened the bridge access hatch to the fore pressure-guns, was shouting something down. He twitched his gun to the side and fired a shot.

That broke the unreality. A gunshot.
Here. On my bridge
.

One of the female pirate's guns was pointed squarely at Perry's chest. The other, a revolver in her left hand, was sweeping across the bridge crew, covering them.

Slowly, Martindale, Kent and the others were moving to the starboard side.

“
I trust that you are all wearing standard Imperial parachutes,” said the woman. “You may take backups from their locker, if you see fit.” The tone of her voice lowered. “But please
don't
attempt to reach for weapons. I would be very upset if I had to shoot somebody.”

“
You're
taking my ship?
”

“
All three of those gunners jumped, Cap,” said the man called Klefton.

“
You're
taking my ship
?” Perry repeated.

“
That's rather the point of this operation, Vice-Commodore. Now, if you'd please put your hands up and move to starboard?”

They're taking my ship and nobody has even fired a shot and I cannot believe this is happening
–

Suddenly Perry's right hand went for his sidearm, an automatic pistol in its holster at his hip. It was covered by a flap, and the double-barrelled
pressure gun in the female pirate's right hand went
blurp
, once, twice, and Perry's hand was stuck.

White goo,
sticky
white goo, all over the top of the holster and Perry's right hand. Sticky and hardening, and Perry found himself looking down the muzzle of the pirate's other gun, the long revolver.

Klefton muttered something, covering the rest of the crew with his submachinegun.

“Vice-Commodore, I do
not
appreciate that,” the woman said. “Those are gel rounds. That gun is now empty. I will have to use more harmful ammunition if that should happen again. Now, please, put on a parachute and jump.”

“
You can't do this.” Perry glared at the woman. Confident, almost smirky, not even bothering to shoot him with
real
bullets. Not even bothering to disarm him, or the others! Just walking onto the bridge and telling them to jump.

He looked again at his pistol. The whole top flap was covered with the gel; for that matter, it was hardening on his own right hand, becoming a solid crust. The gun wasn't accessible, but
she can't just take my ship!

“
It's getting dark,” the pirate said. “I imagine it will be easier for your crew to rendezvous on the ground while there's still light. In any case, I'm going to request that you and your people kindly vacate what is now my bridge.”

Some of them
– Kent, Vidkowski, Singh – had strapped on parachutes. Others were doing so. Service uniforms did have small backup parachutes sewn into the backs of them, and riggers of course wore proper ones, but nobody really wanted to trust the in-shirt ones if there was an alternative.

“
Very well,” Perry said. He glared at the woman. “You'll hang for this, you know. You might take my ship, but you won't live to keep it.”

“
I don't expect to live forever, Vice-Commodore.”

“
What the
hell
do you want with a line-class warship? Nobody’s going to buy it!”
Except the Russians. Or the Franco-Spaniards. Or the Sonorans. Or… but I won't suggest that.

The pirate's gun tracked him as he put on a parachute.

“That's my own business,” she replied. “If it helps, I can give you my word that I will not be selling it to the Russians or the Romantics.”

“
The word of a thieving pirate. I can take
that
to the bank. You'll hang, bitch. We will pursue you, and we will find you, and we will try you. And we will
hang
you.”

She smiled
–
she's laughing at me, the bitch!

“
You'll have to succeed in the first of those two before I swing, Vice-Commodore. Now, my apologies, but you really
must
be going. Specialist Second, open the starboard-side door and depart.
Now
, please.”

“You two,”
came a hard voice.

Rafferty
turned to see a large, begoggled man with an automatic rifle, standing in the entrance of his missile bay.

“
Who the hell are you?” he demanded, although it was obvious:
pirates have boarded us.

The rifle was pointed at himself and
Gilford.

“
None of your business who we fuckin’ are. Get away from that tube, open a hatch and jump out.
Now
.”

“
You're pirates?” Gilford asked. “You're pirates attacking
4-106
?”

“
Taking it over, kid," said the man. “Bridge, engine room, you lot. Now, out with you. Cap Ahle said not to kill anyone, but you sons of bitches just give me an excuse and I will. You bastard Imperials been busy
right now
killing my friends.”

Rafferty
looked at the assault rifle, which was primarily pointed at him and not Gilford. He was standing in the door, fifteen feet away; too far to rush easily. And the only things in immediate reach of Rafferty were missile-setting tools, which wouldn't throw well.

“
OK. Gilford, go to the locker and take out two parachutes. He's got a gun pointed at us; do not make sudden moves and do not give him an excuse to shoot us.”

The Airshipman Second nodded hard, reached down into the
locker.

Rafferty
hit the missile trigger and threw himself to the left.

The missi
le exploded out, in a direction Rafferty really didn't know or care about. The flaming backblast went over Gilford's head, past Rafferty and into the pirate, who turned
just
fast enough to avoid taking the brunt of it in the face.

Then
Rafferty was on him, shouldering aside the gun, wrestling the pirate into the ground.

The man had b
een in his own share of brawls, moved quickly himself. Rafferty reached for a knife in his boot, but the man saw the movement and an iron-strong wrist closed around Rafferty's forearm.

As good as me, and
half again my weight
, Rafferty thought, and blew a chewing-gum bubble into the man's face, onto his goggles. It popped and the pirate cursed, orange residue blocking his sight. Rafferty head-butted him in the mouth,
hard
, then kneed him in the crotch. Pounded his head into the deck several times, punched him in the stomach, and banged his head into the deck a couple more times for good measure.

“
Gilford, go over the son of a bitch and find the pistol he’ll have somewhere,” Rafferty ordered, reaching for the man's assault rifle.

Click
.

A
one-eyed, yellow-haired man with a submachinegun was pointing that gun at Rafferty, a booted foot on the rifle.

“
You're lucky I don’t like Cooper very much,” he said to Rafferty.

“
A thug, a boor and he stank,” Rafferty agreed.

“
Dumb, too. I'm not. Get the hell hands in the air and jump. Junior man, throw senior man one of the parachutes and then the two of you get out
now
.”

“
Bastards hit me,” groaned the other pirate.

“
You deserved it. Now, two of you, get the hell out. Chutes on and jump,
now
. From the catwalk.”

Rafferty
caught the parachute that Gilford threw to him. Shook his head slightly in response to Gilford's ‘do we do anything now?’ look.

“
OK, OK. We're leaving,” Rafferty said.

“
Their personal property,” Ahle said to Klefton. “In the cabins; gather it up and throw it out with a parachute.”

“
Their
personal
shit?” Klefton asked. “Why the hell do we care about that? Some of those guys are gonna have good stuff there. Always a few bucks you can get for spare uniforms and shit.”

“
We're pirates, not thieves. And that was an order.”

“
Harvey says we've got the engine room,” said a woman named Guildford, coming in. “Thing's firmly under our control. No trouble except the missileers who beat up Cooper.”

“
Like I said, ass had it coming,” said Klefton. He took another swig of the rum and tossed the bottle to Ahle, who took a long drag. “Teach him some humility.”

“
Guildford, Klefton, gather up the crew’s property and throw it out. We're going to need every hand to get this thing to the rendezvous.” And – she took another swig of the rum;
traditional and I could use a stiff one
– “good job, everyone. We've taken us a hell of a warship here!”

Perry seethed,
hard
, as he swung from the parachute in the growing darkness.
Furious
.

That smirking bitch. That fucking goddamned smirking
bitch
. Taking his ship.

“
Oh, I'm going to kill you. You'll hang, or I'll shoot you personally,” he muttered. “Give me an excuse. I. Will. Shoot. You. Personally. You
bitch
.”

The ground loomed; it was almos
t completely dark. Around him, the other bridge crew were landing. They, and the civilian crews, would have to find their own way back; the rest of the squadron, and the rest of the convoy, would go on to Chicago. He'd meet them there, or at Hugoton or Denver.

Practical considerations had to take priority.

The ground hit him, hard, and he rolled instinctively, began to disengage from the `chute. Flat grass; a cattle herd had been through here not long ago, from how it was cropped. Nearby, Martindale was cutting his parachute loose. Someone – Kent, it turned out – helped Perry up.

“4-106 to us!” somebody shouted. “4-106!”

Not far away – maybe half a mile – a group of pirates were shoving hydrogen into a downed ship, a makeshift airbag.

If we can go after them, get that ship back, re-board 4-106 and take it back...

No. The pirates there would have rifles, and they did have a completely clean field of fire. It would be suicide, even with darkness to cover most of their approach.

As he watched, the captured ship lifted anyhow, discarding boxes
of cargo to get off the ground.

“4-106? Captain, that you?”
came a man. Four missileers; in the darkness, Perry recognized Rafferty as one of them. “4-106!”

“That's us, Specialist Third.”

“4-106 to us!”

A freighter, a huge one, came over their heads, fifty or sixty feet up. The same that had lifted
half a mile away. Someone threw a couple more boxes down; a hissing sound was coming from it, more hydrogen inflation.

Martindale went to one of the boxes, opened it up. Slabs of beef, packed in
somewhat-melted ice.