Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Pursuit Page 15

  The ragtag crew fast-walked through the corridors of Solar Venturer, Captain Two-Swords leading them through every access hatch and maintenance corridor he could think of. It was a trade-off of concealment versus time. Halley had even been reluctantly forced to temporarily ignore the crew still trapped in the mess hall, for making a detour to free them would chew up valuable minutes of the clock.

  They rounded a corner, Halley and Web in the lead, and immediately faced off two roaming pirates a half dozen frames away that were casually walking towards them. Without waiting, Web and Halley both drew and fired twice, each taking down one of the enemy. They immediately trotted forward to check on the men, both of whom didn't survive. A second later, they were back on the march, followed by a crew who were trading nervous but reassured looks.

  Soon enough they were traveling through the cargo deck, passing the airlock with the trapped Trin leader and ending up at the main hatch outside the cargo control center.

  "If we count the one in the mess hall," Web began softly, "there can't be more than two or three of these guys left on the ship."

  "I tend to agree," said Halley as she checked the power cell in her rifle, which she now held with the stock tucked up against her shoulder. "But let's not get overconfident." She indicated the hatch with her chin. "You know the layout better than me. What's the plan?"

  "Tall space," Web said. "More like a deck and a half, pretty wide. Starts out as just a control area with a lot of consoles. Then there's a raised platform where all the primary cargo controls are, arranged in a circle around the platform's perimeter. After that, the space goes a full two decks high and heads off way into the distance. Terminals every frame mark where cargo pods get attached or manually controlled."

  "I'll go high and far, you go low and close?" Halley suggested.

  "Lead the way."

  Captain Two-Swords hit the hatch release on Halley's cue, then she and Web dodged into the compartment. They cleared it quickly and both had their weapons pointed at a lone Qualin pirate seated at the main control area. He was concentrating intently on a display which faced away from them, so he didn't even see their approach. He heard someone clear his throat and turned to see Halley and Web with their weapons centered on him.

  "Hm," was all he could say, though he managed to stay composed.

  "Stand up slowly and back up three steps," Halley commanded, and the pirate complied. Seconds later, he was restrained by emergency hull-patch tape and stuffed in a corner.

  "Lock the hatch and get your people started with identifying the exploding pods, and make sure you coordinate with First Officer Daemon on the bridge," said Halley as she and Web took a step off the platform to make way. Web stopped by the edge of a console and commanded the computer to grant full root access to any user of the station, then gave the engineer Lodoc a thumbs-up. "It's all yours," he said, and he turned with Halley to clear the rest of the compartment.

  "Can you find which cargo pods were swapped with the ones the pirates brought?" asked Two-Swords, hand on Lodoc's shoulder as he sat down and flexed his fingers.

  "I'll have them ready in one minute," he replied confidently. "Get three groups of two people together. Make sure they know the ship's systems. When I find the pods, I'll call them out and you can get the crews to the pods' manual release points. I'll try programming a quick maneuvering burn into their auto-mooring systems and see if we can't get them to fly right towards the pirate ships."

  Two-Swords watched with pride as his people rose to the occasion, working on the computers, keeping an eye on the tied-up pirate, and running to the pod manual release stations as Lodoc identified them. He heard a clank, then a muffled thud down the long corridor, the sounds lost in the obstructions and shadows.

  A minute later, Web and Halley came trotting towards them, Web holding an extra blaster in his hand.

  "Compartment's secure, Captain," Halley reported. "We have one more pirate tied up back there if you'd like to send somebody to go sit on him. We blocked the exit hatch into the engine section so nobody's getting in that way."

  "Are you going somewhere?" he asked cautiously.

  "I'm going to go put the beat down on the pirate in the mess hall," Halley said enthusiastically. "There can't be more than him and maybe one more left, but I for sure need to clear the mess hall so we can get everyone on the crew back in business. We'll use the internal scanners and search parties later, but this will do for now." She nodded and took off at a comfortable jog as she headed forward out of the compartment.

  "And you're staying here?" asked Lodoc, finished with his work and having just watched the exchange with interest.

  "I lost the draw," Web said and flashed an exaggerated frown. "So Halley said I should stay behind. I have no reason to believe she will have anything other than a fun time taking down that last pirate, so I'll keep an eye out here just in case we really did miss one."

  "That there's a special lady," said Lodoc softly. "She seems to have taken a liking to you. That's not the sort of woman you let get away if you can help it."

  "I'm working on that," Web replied with a grin.

  Onboard the corvette Interceptor, the being in charge of the whole operation grimaced at the wall chrono yet again. They were running behind schedule.

  The woman's name was Iscara, though her employees called her Scar for the puckered white line that ran across her forehead. She was a middle aged human formerly of the Talaran Collection, having left decades ago after becoming disenchanted with the strict way her people had of governing their daily lives. She'd started out as a private cargo hauler and run all across the galaxy for a decade before coming to the realization that the margins on legitimate cargo were just too shallow to justify the sweat and tears that came with owning her own ship.

  Soon after, she'd gone privateer and in addition to cargo performed the occasional bounty, skip trace, or 'private intervention', a slick term for what was really just rich people paying her to obtain or recover things from less-rich people. It wasn't a very long stretch before she reached outright piracy, and while she maintained a semi-legitimate front with some of her business, much of her real profit came from the other side of the law.

  She contracted with others to haul or steal what they needed and occasionally developed her own intel towards finding work that was just for her. It was a big galaxy, and with all the major players tied up with this war, both ends of her business- legitimate and otherwise- were doing better than they ever had.

  She'd recently even accepted a few contracts from people working both sides of the conflict. Mostly it was for personal gain on their part, but this run was part of a handful that were different. She'd been commissioned to interdict this particular cargo ship and replace three very specific cargo pods with identical units ferried over from her own vessel. Though the pods had been delivered to her sealed and with caveats to not investigate their contents, she knew what the payload was: explosives. Her own scanners found out quickly enough, but she wasn't being paid by the customer to comment on that part of it. Besides, their contents wouldn't affect her in any way; the poor saps on the Solar Venturer and Callidor would be on the receiving end of some stiff retribution, though.

  She was given leeway to steal up to twelve more from a list that showed destinations of Callidor or the next stop on the cargo ship's route. The plan was obvious to her- she makes off with some pods which are regretfully reported to the end customers, and the remaining ones are delivered, including the ones with the surprises inside. Then they explode. The compensation was worthwhile, though; a hefty fee for the service as well as the contents of the pods she looted. She was obviously tempted to just take the whole lot, but looking at the manifests of the majority of the cargo pods was disappointing, and the thought occurred to her that there may be more work from this customer in the future.

  So she watched from one of her armed escorts instead of her usual place onboard the cargo ship itself. She didn't trust her crew all that far, and mainta
ining her presence in the main cargo center showed them that she was watching both them and her cargo. However, considering the nature of her activities, on the off chance that somebody unexpectedly showed up on the scene she needed to be sure she could fight her way out if need be.

  Unfortunately, she was beginning to think she should have gone over herself with the boarding party. The Trin she'd put in charge loved shoving people around and puffing up his chest, which was a plus since he'd be the one people remembered and not her. The negative was that he wasn't the most intellectually gifted person she had on her crew, and the decision to let him be in charge had taken much consideration. Now she was left to wonder if he was either trying to find a way to skim something off the bounty or if he'd somehow humped-up the operation.

  "Are the last two pods even released yet?" she asked acidly of the crewman at the station she was hovering over. The crew over there was on the middle of her list; not the best, not the worst. They were going to be knocked down a peg or two after this, though. Maybe she'd switch them to running HAZMAT to unregistered dump sites and give another crew a chance.

  "Looks like they just unlocked, Captain," said a surprisingly straight-laced Qualin. Scar didn't quite know what the man was doing working for her, but he seemed to enjoy the work, even if he was a bit clean cut for her liking. Still, potential management material. She'd be keeping an eye on him and hoping for the best.

  "Took them long enough," she replied as she stood up and arched her back. Leaning over his console and willing her crew into action was cramping her muscles.

  "Whoa, wait a minute..." she heard the Qualin mutter.

  "Problem?" she replied quickly.

  "Yeah," he stated simply. "They unlocked the last two pods, and they look like they're following the thruster instructions we programmed in to send them here. Problem is that two more pods unlocked and are headed this way, too."

  "Did those idiots forget to lock down something we already took, or are they showing too much initiative?"

  Scar watched the pods hit their maneuvering thrusters hard, small units designed to let the pods fly themselves in limited fashion around the bustling cargo ports. All four were rapidly closing the gap between the Solar Venturer and her ships. Actually, it seemed like the second pair of pods were headed towards her corvettes and not her cargo vessel; one for each of Captain Scar's fighting ships...

  "Where are those pods headed?" she asked, voice starting to rise.

  The reply only took a second. "They're on collision courses with the Interceptor and Eclipse, captain!"

  Scar lunged across the small, cramped bridge space to see the sensor feeds. Was it a malfunction of the maneuvering thrusters? Had her crew lost control of the captured cargo ship? It didn't matter at this instant. "Full power to the engines! Get us out of their path!"

  The helmsman nodded rapidly as he bent over his console, mashing buttons and tapping commands. The engines started to hum, deckplates vibrating as the ship started to surge forward.

  "Tell Eclipse and the cargo ship to move, too!" Scar yelled. The cargo ship was stolen from a breaker's yard and would be abandoned once the pods were unloaded; they hadn't even deemed it worthy of a name.

  At that point, the pod headed for her ship exploded in a bright white nova of energy. It was close enough that the released radiation superheated the hull, fragments from the pods tearing through the thin, weakened bulkheads and holing the pirate ship. Hull breaches caused oxygen to vent, and Scar slammed the emergency switch to seal compartments and isolate the various power and air sources. Her ship was hurting, engines damaged and leaking fuel and exhaust; the ship started to tumble as the drive thrusters malfunctioned.

  On the bridge, sparks and smoke from an electrical fire obscured the forward part of the compartment. About half the displays were dead and the other half weren't being fed any data by the ship's mangled computer network. What she could see was sobering. Her other corvette, Eclipse, had been worse off. She seemed to have split in half amidst a cloud of debris. Scar couldn't see the cargo ship, but the handful of remaining sensors started wailing in warning.

  "What now?" she yelled over the screaming horns.

  "We're being targeted by a weapons guidance system!" she heard someone yell.

  "How in the hell can they have weapons?" she demanded of nobody in particular. Their weapons were disassembled; she'd received confirmation from her boarding party. However, if her own people had been out of commission long enough, there was the outside chance the Solar Venturer crew had reassembled at least one of their defensive guns, and her damaged ship would be no match for even the underpowered mounts that local law allowed the cargo ship to have.

  A half dozen options raced through her mind, but only one stuck. She tried to think of something else to do, but time was against her. Once more she willed herself to think of something, and once again only a single idea came to the fore.

  "Get us out of here," she commanded to her helmsman softly. She turned to the Qualin who had been monitoring local space. "Tell our cargo ship to get out of here and rendezvous at our rally point." That in itself was risky; there was always the chance the crew would just take what they could and scatter, leaving a stripped-bare cargo ship floating in deep space. Loyalty didn't run all that deep among the sort of people she employed, and she had to admit that she was already running with a 'B' crew. All she could do was hope for the best and try to instill a little fear in them.

  "And tell them, very specifically," she continued, "that we already have a manifest from the Solar Venturer and I'll expect everything to be sorted by the time we dock with them."

  The Qualin smirked knowingly and obliged.

  Scar turned back to her helmsman and caught him looking at her. "Why are we still here?"

  He nervously finished setting up the course and then engaged the nav system. The Interceptor stopped her wobble and shot into hyperspace, barely making it past the barrier before her hyperdrive engines malfunctioned and dropped the ship back out in realspace in a wild tumble. It was going to be a long trip home for Captain Scar.

  Solar Venturer was back in hyperspace. Halley had subdued the pirate guarding the mess hall; Solar Venturer's decon chambers were bursting at the seams with the pirates who'd been captured alive in the ship's recent ordeal, the Trin among them. They complained loudly about abuse and inhumane conditions, but always quieted right down when Halley came to check on them.

  The crew was even holding a celebration of sorts in the mess hall. They'd decorated it with what they had, which included imaginatively repurposed packing materials and a few clothing articles; items taken from the pirates were displayed as well, hanging festively from the ceiling.

  Web and Halley had circulated for a while, enduring toasts from the captain and assorted crew. It made them nervous because their goal of remaining unremarkable was a hopeless sham now; the best they could do was help these people move on and start thinking about other topics as quickly as possible. To that end, they'd constantly redirected conversations to the topics of what the crew would do next, asking for ideas about security and opinions on the war in general.

  Even Lodoc the abrasive engineer had taken a shine to Halley, and seemed intent on helping her escape the other crew when they seemed prepared to overwhelm her with their questions.

  Lodoc turned to Halley as he saw Web approaching from across the mess. "That one seems to be quite interested in your attention," he said conspiratorially, to which Halley could only smile.

  "He doesn't seem so bad," she said neutrally.

  "I don't buy the line about him being a retired, harmless Fixer, though," Lodoc continued. "Something about him is not quite above board, you know what I mean?" Halley simply nodded. "All I'm saying is, watch out for yourself. He could be trouble."

  "How do you know I'm not trouble?" Halley asked with a big smile as Web arrived to join the conversation.

  "Nice girl like you? I don't see it." Lodoc nodded politely to Web, inclined his
drink towards Halley, and wandered off to mingle.

  "So do we have to come up with a way of erasing everyone's minds here?" asked Web in muted tones.

  "I don't think so," she said after a moment of thought. "They're in good spirits. They think you and I are pretty nice folks, and probably just want to get on with their lives as soon as possible. I'll bet it will take a day or two for them to even notice we didn't come back from our run to the surface."

  "But now they're thinking about us," Web cautioned. "We were supposed to just disappear and doctor the ship's records so it looked like we clocked back in with the drop-crew. They'll wonder where we've gone and why we both left together."

  Halley gave him a look that he found incredibly attractive, and whether she meant anything by it or not, Web's mind was spinning. "Lodoc already thinks there's about to be something going on between us," Web said slowly, sly grin on his face. "I'm thinking there's a way to work your obvious attraction to me into a good cover for why we leave on Callidor."

  Halley laughed, and Web's heart raced at her smile. It fueled him somehow; her happiness and positive energy kept him going. "So," Halley said, theatrically pursing her lips and staring at the deckplates as her mind worked, "you're saying, maybe in the heat of this traumatic, emotional experience, we both discovered we were adrenaline junkies and decided to run off together to see what we might accomplish?"

  "That sounds like a great plan, actually."

  Halley looked up and down the corridor. "I think that could work as well. It would explain why we left together, which otherwise might seem suspicious. But if we left together because you couldn't keep your hands off me, well, everyone would understand that, right?"