Starfist: A World of Hurt (19 page)

"Thank you, Captain," he replied more calmly than he felt. He was concerned that Captain Main's growl expressed displeasure at a higher ranking officer coming aboard her tug unannounced--he noticed she didn't stick out a hand for him to shake. In an attempt to placate her, he made a self-deprecating gesture and said, "The admiral said he wanted someone he could trust to verify your message. You
did
say you saw the
Broken Missouri
make planetfall on Maugham's Station?"

"Aye, I did," she growled. "Got 'er clear on visual and radiation sig'natur. C'mover here, I'll show ya."

Happiness didn't have to come over anywhere to see what Captain Main wanted to show him since the
Annie's
bridge was small enough that he could see everything from where he stood.

"Show 'im," she growled at the petty officer third seated at an array of sensor displays and monitors. The array was impressive for how many were jammed into such a small space--yet more impressive was how easy they all were to view or read.

"Aye, ma'am." The PO3 was long and lean, and so was his dour face; the name tag on his shirt read KETTLE . He seemed to move slowly, but his fingers danced over the controls.

"Watch the big one on the top left, sir," he added to Happiness.

The indicated monitor blinked from its visual of Maugham's Station, then showed an unmarked freighter that was clearly the
Broken Missouri,
and he said so. PO3 Kettle touched his controls again and another image blinked onto the monitor, the eerie ghost image of a starship's radiation.

"Compare it to this," Happiness said, and drew a crystal from his jacket pocket.

Kettle took the crystal and popped it into a receptacle on his console, then his fingers did their incongruous dance again. So did the ghost image on the monitor. When the dancing stopped, he said, "Ninety-nine point seven six percent match, sir," then popped the crystal out and returned it. His fingers danced briefly, and the view of Maugham's Station returned.

Happiness nodded. "That's her. Good work, Captain."

"Ah, ain't nothing any tugboat driver and crew cain't do, Commander," Main growled. "We gotta be able t'spot and identify starships, part o' the daily grind." Happiness blinked. Had she actually blushed at the mild compliment? "What we're lookin' at here," she said quickly,

"is Maugham's Station and its inner satellites. Its moon's orbit's highly elliptical, right now it's out'n our view."

The monitor showed the planet with two dots of light on opposite sides. The
Annie
was located well below the plane of the elliptic, so anything near an equatorial orbit would show.

"T'one on the sunside limb is their geosync," Main growled. Happiness decided a growl was her normal voice. "T'one on the nightside limb is the starship." She nodded approvingly.

"Planet's only got one satellite, geosync above the populated area.
Broken Missouri
stationed herself in t'opposite geosync, where she's out of sight from the geosync or anyone planetside."

"What's she done since you've been on station?"

"She's been sending shuttles planetside." She shook her head and looked perplexed.

"You ever see Confederation Marines make planetfall, Commander?" she asked. He shook his head. "I did oncet. They do it strangelike, what they call a 'combat assault planetfall.'

'Stead of orbiting to the surface like civilized folk, they go straight down under power." She looked at him, her brow furrowed in bewilderment. "The
Broken Missouri's
shuttles go straight down."

Happiness didn't let his surprise show. "Captain, are you suggesting--"

Her head shake cut him off. "Commander, I ain't suggestin' nothin'. Alls I'm doin' is reportin' what this old star-dog seen."

Shuttles going straight down, just like a Confederation Marine combat assault planetfall.

What could that mean? This was a problem he was going to be glad to dump on the admiral.

"Contact, Cap'n," Kettle broke in.

"Show me," she growled, leaning forward to peer intently at the upper left monitor. A dot of light appeared in the middle of the otherwise blank screen; Kettle had blanked out all known stars so only the alien contact would show. "Max mag," she ordered.

"Max mag. Aye, ma'am." A starship jumped to fill half the display.

"Get an ident," Main ordered the petty officer on comm. Most of the volume of the
Annie,
as well as her mass, was devoted to the massive power works she needed to grapple and move disabled starships, so all ships' functions except engineering, berthing, and galley were crammed into the bridge.

Happiness couldn't tell, nothing showed on the monitor, but for some reason he suspected the new starship hadn't come in on the same vector his longboat had.

"Captain, may I see the contact's course relative to our picket line?" he asked.

"Do it," Main growled.

Kettle had already entered the commands to display the intruder's position and course relative to the We're Here! picket line, and only had to touch one button for the display to change.

The schematic that popped up showed the approximate location of the fleet's starships, centered on the
Goin'on.
Maugham's Station was clearly marked; the contact was indicated by an arrow showing her vector. The arrow ran at an oblique angle to the picket line, pointed away from its base.

"Can you show me what's along that axis?"

"How far out?"

"Can you show a hundred lights?"

She nodded. "Do it."

Kettle had already started keying in the appropriate commands. A new schematic appeared. Human occupied worlds in the schematic were labeled. None of them were directly on the contact's vector, though that didn't necessarily mean anything. More significant, Happiness thought, was the fact that no planet with a Confederation Navy base was anywhere near the vector.

"I have her, ma'am," said the comm petty officer. Main just looked at her. She cleared her throat and said, "I don't see any markings, so I had to check
Jane's Commercial Starfleets
of the Confederation.
She's the
Heavenly Mary.
" Her voice cracked on the name.

"The
Heavenly Mary!
Are you sure?"

"Yes ma'am." She leaned aside so Main could see the
Jane's
entry herself.

Captain Main didn't bother to check for herself, she knew the history of the
Broken
Missouri.
If it was true for the freighter, then why not for this legendary passenger starship?

The
Heavenly Mary
was a luxury liner. She had been ferrying passengers in a great arc through Human Space three years previous and vanished between worlds. Because of the identity of some of the passengers--politicians from half a dozen powerful worlds, a number of superwealthy playboys and -girls, and several major industrialists--an exhaustive, two-year search had been launched to find her. The search failed to turn up anything. Neither did any of the observation buoys stationed along her route detect anything during that time or since.

Happiness thought about that. First the
Broken Missouri,
and now the
Heavenly Mary.

Yes, that fit pirates better than the Confederacy. And if Maugham's Station was a relay station...They wouldn't want to be seen making planetfall, and Maugham's Station's entire population was conveniently located in a limited area of the otherwise largely unpopulated planet, which would explain the Marine-style landings.

He looked back at the schematic still displayed on the large monitor. "Mark the Rock," he said.

Kettle tapped a couple of times and the Rock appeared. He gauged the distance from the Rock to Maugham's Station, then looked the same distance in the direction of the
Heavenly
Mary's
vector.

There were two human worlds within a radius of two and a half light-years of the point. But the
Broken Missouri
made a sharp vector change between the Rock and Maugham's Station. Who was to say the
Heavenly Mary
hadn't also changed vector at a mid-course jump point? Happiness wondered. And why should the pirates put their transfer station almost exactly between their illegal mining operation and their home base?

"Commander?" Main growled, and Happiness realized she and Kettle had been conversing while he was thinking, and she'd asked him a question.

"I'm sorry, Captain, I was trying to figure something out."

"I asked how long you plan to be here."

He'd momentarily forgotten he was supposed simply to verify the
Annie's
message and return to report to Admiral Orange. He looked back at the display, at the arrow and the dot that indicated the
Annie
and the
Heavenly Mary.
It would be a good five days or more before the
Heavenly Mary
reached Maugham's Station, and he had to get back to the
Goin'on
long before then. Could his skiff make a jump without being noticed by her? He had to take the chance.

"I'm going to leave as soon as my skiff is ready," he answered. "Watch that starship and report what she does when she reaches orbit. Send a copy of the report to me in the same drone."

"Aye aye, Commander." She grinned broadly and winked at him. If he had to guess, Happiness would have said she didn't have a tremendously high opinion of the CNO.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Something less than a full day standard after heading out in his skiff to verify the
Annie's
report, Commander Happiness was back aboard the
Goin'on,
reporting his findings to Admiral Orange.

"Splendid, Captain. Absolutely splendid work." He rattled Happiness's speculations back at him as though they were his own ideas, including a thought Happiness had on the trip back to the
Goin'on;
that instead of rendezvousing with the
Broken Missouri
to exchange cargo, the
Heavenly Mary
might be bringing back plunder from yet another planet, and the entire operation was being run sub rosa from Maugham's Station, either hidden from the planetary government or, covertly, by the government.

"I will leave the
Annie
on station for now," Admiral Orange announced. "Send a message to the rest of the fleet to assemble here for a meeting of starship captains!"

"Aye aye, sir," Happiness said. "The text of the order?"

"You know what I want to say. Say it--but don't tell them why." His expression reminded Happiness of the ancient story in which a cat gradually disappeared until only its smile was left. As he remembered the story, that cat couldn't always be trusted.

Happiness kept his expression blank. "By your leave, sir."

The admiral nodded, quite pleased with his newly favorite officer.

The
Goin'on's
captain headed for the bridge, quietly fuming about the admiral's order--and having to compose it himself.

Don't tell them why,
he'd said. Then what was he supposed to say?
The admiral
requests the pleasure of your company for high tea?
There was no need to assemble the fleet for the captains to meet with the admiral, he could easily communicate with them via drone, but Happiness knew in his gut that Admiral Orange wasn't about to ask for advice or opinions from the captains. As short as the picket line was, half of the captains could simply come on their skiffs, the same way he had gone to the
Annie.
Worse, if there was anything the slightest bit wrong with the written order, or the slightest misunderstanding--or if Admiral Orange changed his mind--the blame would belong to him, not the admiral; he could be scapegoated.

Half of the fleet was spread out along a line less than a half light-year long. In less than one day standard, the last of those starships were closing on the
Goin'on.
The others, stationed beyond the end of the previous picket line, took several days to receive the message and assemble. When the last starship arrived, the captains transferred to the
Goin'on.

The
Goin'on's
wardroom was packed. Even with the table collapsed and stowed away, there wasn't room enough for anyone to sit, and Admiral Orange had to stand in the wardroom's entrance, facing the twenty assembled captains. He was mildly annoyed that there wasn't enough space in the wardroom to accommodate his senior staff; but then, he wasn't very happy with them just then anyway. Why hadn't
they
come up with any of the advice or intelligence like this ship driver Happiness had? His staff jostled each other for favored position in the passageway behind him. If the captains hadn't assembled by height, shortest in the front, most of them wouldn't have been able to see their commander, nor he most of them.

Admiral Orange's gaze lingered as he looked from captain to captain, not quite making eye contact with each of them. The officers shuffled no more than necessary to ease muscles cramping from standing so long in such tight quarters, except for one, who liked the press of another captain's front against her back. She shifted backward to increase the pressure; she could tell that he liked it too, and decided to turn around to see who he was when they were dismissed.

"I have located the pirate base and most of their fleet!" Admiral Orange suddenly declared. "I will lead our gator ships to home port and embark a landing force to take that base."

"What's a 'gator' ship?" a captain in the back whispered to the men next to him.

"Amphibious shipping," his fellow captain whispered back.

"Thank you." Why hadn't the admiral said that? And what did the word "gator" mean?

"The remainder of the fleet," Admiral Orange continued, oblivious to the brief exchange,

"will take positions to blockade the pirate fleet when the gator task force returns. My staff will give you your orders before you return to your ships. That is all."