A Matter of Honor (Privateer Tales Book 9) (12 page)

I was surprised at the informality of her communication. She was in a smaller ship, at least by weight, but her guns and armor completely out-classed us.

"I'm not at liberty to say. You mind telling me what this is about?" I asked.

"Heave to, Captain," she commanded. "If you need that to be a directive, it is."

That was good enough for me. I wasn't ready to take the next step. I pulled back on the throttle and allowed us to drift forward. At our current velocity it would take sixteen hours to reach Curie.

My status screen lit up with the words 'DON'T LET HER ON THIS SHIP.' I didn't have to wonder who'd written it. Anino had his reasons and I'd do my best to honor them.

"My partner and I will shuttle over when you get here," I said.

"Understood." She terminated comm.

"Confab?" Nick asked. "Sounds like she's trying to keep this conversation private."

"Anino, your presence is requested on the bridge," I said.

No sooner had I said the words than the doors of the lift opened.

"I can't believe she got here so fast," Anino said. "They must have been waiting for me. You should have taken off like I said. This mission might be screwed now."

I sighed and scowled at him. "Remember when I told you what would happen if you held things back from me?"

"I didn't know she'd be coming," he lied.

"You just admitted it," Nick said.

"Fine," he said. The cocky little rat didn't sound at all chagrined. "I strongly suspected Belirand was waiting for me to launch. They've known for a few weeks that
Mastodon
was nearing completion."

"Well, we're not going to outrun
Fist of Justice
," I said.

"What are you going to say to her?" Anino asked.

"I'll tell her the truth."

"You wouldn't dare."

"You're crazy if you think I'm lying to that woman. She'll eat us alive. That said, I've been known to leave out details," I said. "I assume you don't want her to know you're on this ship?"

"That's right. But they can scan the ship and find my signature," he said.

"We'll see. Nick take Anino down to
Hotspur
and fire up silent running protocols. I'd be surprised if her scanners can penetrate both ships and that armor," I said.

"You want me to come over with you?" Nick asked.

"I was thinking of taking Tabbs. She probably speaks officer better than I do," I said.

Nick laughed mirthlessly. "Be careful, Liam."

"Ada, you have the helm. Marny keep us safe," I said.

"You are relieved," Ada said, adopting the formal words we used in watch changes.

Tabby and I joined Nick and Anino on the lift and took it down to the top docking bay where we separated - Nick and Anino to
Hotspur
and Tabby and me to a shuttle.

"Ada, how close are they?" I asked.

"Ten minutes max," Ada answered.

They were really burning hard to catch us that quickly and it concerned me.

"Cap, I've a location for your meeting. It's within a sweet spot for
Mastodon's
turrets. I'm transmitting now," she said.

"Can't believe we've stepped in the crap this soon," Tabby said as we sat in the shuttle.

"Seems about right to me," I said.

Take us to these coordinates
. I flicked Marny's instructions to a console. I wasn't at all interested in trying to figure out how to fly the shuttle manually. I wondered if that was how Anino felt about
Mastodon
, although that seemed ridiculous.

The shuttle easily disembarked and sailed toward the location as instructed. Both Tabby and I gawked at
Mastodon
as we flew past. It was beautifully constructed and appeared that no expense had been spared. I couldn't fathom the wealth required to manufacture a ship of that size.

"Is there any food aboard?" Tabby asked, pulling open cupboards. "Bleh, all they have are meal-bars. You want blueberry or cherry?" she asked.

I laughed, it was an old joke. Meal bars pretty much tasted the same no matter what their packaging boasted.

"Cherry for me," I said.

"Suit yourself." She tossed me a bar with a pouch of water.

We sat back and watched as the
Fist of Justice
arrived. It was an intimidating ship, bristling with hardware. Even if we'd wanted to make a run for it, we'd never have gotten away from such a decked out ship. And, once it caught us, it'd be bad on an epic scale.

Half an hour later, a shuttle departed
The Fist
and glided over to us.

"Captain Hoffen, would you and your partner care to join me?" Tullas asked over the comm.

I looked at Tabby and she shrugged. There really wasn't any getting around it. I depressurized the cabin and we arc-jetted from our shuttle to the larger shuttle. We worked our way through the airlock and were immediately met by a thickset uniformed man holding a heavy blaster rifle.

"You'll need to deposit your weapons here." He indicated a table.

"Probably not," Tabby said.

He stiffened. "Let's not do this the hard way."

"I live for the hard way, pal. Belirand has no jurisdiction here," she said.

"It's okay, Bjarno. There's no threat. Right, Captain Hoffen?" Tullas asked.

"Far as I can tell, the only threat is
Fist of Justice
," I said.

"Quite right. Let them by, please," she said.

"Yes, please do," Tabby said, patting Bjarno on the chest as she brushed past. She had some steel ones, that girl. It made me proud.

"You wanted to talk?" I asked.

Tullas thumbed a small device and dropped it on the table in the middle of the small room. She then crossed behind us and closed the door.

"What are you doing on that ship, Hoffen?" she asked.

"I explained that already. It's a new ship and this is its shakedown cruise."

"Anino has you involved in a conspiracy that we are determined to stop," Tullas said.

"We, as in Belirand? Or, does that include you? What if the cause is righteous? I thought you were an honorable woman," I said.

"Anino is holding out on you, drawing you into his web. There are secrets for which I would destroy your entire crew to keep. Once you allow Anino to spread his lies, you will have crossed a line and we'll become enemies," she said. "And I'm afraid you've misjudged me, Captain Hoffen. There is plenty of blood on my hands. I'm not proud of everything I've done, but I believe I've done more good than harm. I tell you this so that you'll believe me when I say; if you continue on this path, I will hunt you down and I
will
kill you and everyone Anino's poisoned along the way."

"How'd that go, Cap?" Marny asked as Tabby and I walked back onto the bridge.

"Let's say she was right to the point," I said. "Ada, how's flight system status?"

"Still solid, Liam." She looked at me, worry in her eyes.

"All hands, prepare for hard burn. We've people that need saving," I said.

"What are you doing, Liam?" Tabby asked. We hadn't talked much on our shuttle ride back.

"We've committed to shaking this girl down, let's get it done," I said.

"We need to talk about this."

"Not here."

"Right." Tabby leaned in and kissed my cheek. "I'm with you, no matter what," she whispered.

I rubbed my hand on her back as she walked forward to take her seat. I looked at the captain's chair that sat in the middle of the bridge. Never before had I felt so isolated. My friends, who were also my crew, would follow my lead, but the threat to our existence had never felt so real.

"That bad, Cap?" Marny asked. I hadn't realized that Marny, Ada and Tabby were all watching me and couldn't imagine how much my face was giving away.

"It's not good. Let's get out of here," I said.

"Just give me the word," Ada said.

"Engage."

What I hadn't realized until that moment was that Ada had subtly turned
Mastodon
so that the wash of the four heavy engines would just clear the bow of
Fist of Justice
. They'd feel us leaving. While it was technically a legal maneuver, it was very much on the provocative side of the line. I smiled despite my foul mood.

"Marny, keep track of
Fist
, would you?"

"Aye, Cap," she said. "They've turned and are spooling up in our direction. They intend to give chase."

For a moment, I considered ratcheting up our maneuvers next to Curie in an attempt to shake the heavy cruiser. I discarded the thought, Anything
Mastodon
could survive, the cruiser would handle. We were both outgunned and outclassed for speed.

"Well, frak. Of course they are," I said, sitting back into my chair.

I'd been stewing for a few minutes when I heard the lift open behind me. I turned to see Nick.

"That was pretty rough," he said, walking up to me. "You doing alright?"

"You were listening?"

"Yeah," he said, nodding. "Anino owns the patent for the tech she used to mask your conversation. We heard everything. What do you make of it?"

"Honestly? I'm confused. It doesn't make sense that Belirand would go so far out of their way to shut this operation down. I can see them wanting to keep things quiet, but their response feels disproportionate. And Tullas hates Anino. I know he's annoying, but how could you hate someone that young, so much?"

"I asked him about that. He said he's had to flaunt his wealth and connections to build this platform. Tullas has been tracking the technology he's been buying up," Nick said.

"But, Tullas is the one who put us together," I said.

"It was a woman in Tullas' office. Apparently, Tullas took that rather badly too."

"There's something else going on. I'm not sure what it is, but this has a stink to it," I said.

"Anino said we can pull out with no repercussions from him."

"And
Cape of Good Hope
? What happens to them?"

"I think he'd try the rescue mission by himself," Nick said.

"It's a lot of weight to carry, Nick. I know if I say go, you all will follow."

"Cap, command is a lonely place, but we're all volunteers here," Marny said. I wasn't surprised she was listening in. In fact, I wasn't surprised to see that everyone was paying attention.

"You ever ask yourself what we might do if you tried to step away?" Ada asked. "This mission is bigger than all of us. There are forty-five souls whose only chance at survival depends on us."

Tabby spoke up. "I'm with Ada. I couldn't give two shites about Anino's tussle with Belirand or Tullas for that matter. You think there's more going on here, fine. We'll deal with it. If you think I'm backing down because some petty tyrant threatens, then you haven't been paying attention."

I looked around at my friends. Their eyes were all on me, waiting for my answer. They were right.

"Ada, how far to that scrap heap?" I asked.

"Forty minutes. I'm planning to reverse our burn after we bend through Curie's atmo to give Marny a longer window," she said.

"Tabbs, Nick, I want you both in gunner's chairs for this pass. If we end up getting into it with Tullas, it'll be Ada and me on the helm and the three of you on turrets," I said.

Send comm to Fist of Justice on an unencrypted broadcast.

Admiral Tullas – we will conduct a weapons shakedown on the coordinates I've attached. Please stand clear. We'll broadcast our combat data streams on a similarly unencrypted channel for the benefit of public research
.

Even with the communication disruption common during a hard burn, I knew
Fist of Justice
would receive the comm, given their position directly behind us.

I looked into the star field and reflected on the moment. It felt like a hundred years ago that I'd lived on Colony-40, my only worry if Big Pete was going to yell at me for scraping up my ore-sled.

"Contact with Curie's upper atmosphere in ten, nine…" Ada announced over ship wide comm.

We quickly learned that
Mastodon
, as elegantly built as she was, didn't have anywhere near the same performance characteristics as
Hotspur
. The shaking started right as Ada hit zero and the intensity increased as we dove deeper toward Curie.

"Captain?" Anino's voice came over the comm. "What's happening?"

"Hold on, Phillippe. Fifty seconds more and we'll be through the worst of it," I said.

"Are you trying to kill us?" he asked.

"Sorry for the inconvenience, but we're well within the ship's capabilities," I said. I glanced at Nick for confirmation and he nodded his agreement.

"Those are just hypotheticals calculated by machines!" Anino complained.

"Not after this run," I said. Tabby looked over her shoulder and flashed me a quick grin.

"Jupiter, I hate you," he said and closed the comm channel.

I watched the status board. A number of the systems fluctuated between green and yellow, but so far nothing critical had flipped to red, although plenty of non-critical systems were buried in crimson. The worst damage was in one of the lower bays where, apparently, a few barrels of liquid foodstuffs had toppled and opened. Just as well, the description on the screen didn't make it particularly appetizing anyway.

After a few more minutes of shaking we pulled out of the atmosphere and I checked our path. Our course had adjusted as calculated.

All hands. We're through the rough stuff and will take a few minutes for a complete systems check. Please report critical issues immediately
.

"Ada, would you cut hard burn?"

"Copy that," she said and we dropped from hard burn.

A review of the systems showed several that had taken significant damage. The autonomous systems were already at work and gave an estimate of fifteen hours for completion of all repairs.

"Captain, could we talk?" Anino asked.

"Not yet. Give me a minute," I said.

"All stations report flight status," I said. My board lit up with green indicators. "Ada, please resume hard burn."

"Go ahead, Phillippe," I said.

"Do you know what your stunt back there just cost me?"

"No idea," I said. "I understand you're good for it. Look Phillippe, if you want to take a seasoned crew on a mission into hostile territory, you have to prove to them that the equipment is capable."

"Six hundred thousand credits in broken equipment," he said. "Was it worth it?"

"It will be when we come back alive," I said.

"Anyone ever tell you you're annoying?"

"I take that as praise coming from you."

I wasn't surprised when he closed the comm channel one more time. Pouty little bugger.

We were still ten minutes from the derelict yard when Jonathan contacted me via comm, "Requesting permission to enter bridge."

"Granted," I said.

A door on the aft of the starboard side of the bridge opened. Jonathan entered, balancing a platter of mugs on one hand. "I've taken the liberty of preparing refreshments," he said. The mugs were open at the top and wisps of vapor escaped from the one he set on a fold-out platform, attached to my chair.

"Open tops?" I asked.

Jonathan picked up one of the remaining cups from his platter and turned it upside down. The liquid did not pour out, but stayed at the top. "Small gravity generators hold the liquid until contact is made with the consumer's mouth," he said.

I picked up my mug and shook it upside down furiously. Not a single drop of coffee escaped. "Where have you been all my life?" I quipped.

"Careful, Jonny. Next thing you know he'll be proposing to you," Tabby said.

Jonathan looked at me with concern.

"Don't listen to her. I just really like my coffee."

"Very good, Captain. It is nice to know my efforts are appreciated. Would you care for an orange glazed cranberry scone with that?"

"Yes, please," I said. "So…
are
you married?"

This time Jonathan looked with alarm to Marny.

"Jonathan, don't listen to them. They're just feeling punchy," Marny said.

"I'm afraid I've not yet learned to identify this group's particular style of humor," he said.

"Let me know when you do," Nick said. "I might like some pointers."

I bit into the scone. It was good - delicious even - especially given how hungry I was, but it wasn't quite as good as what Marny made. Perhaps I could encourage some friendly competition in that arena.

"Jonathan… or do you prefer Jonny?" I asked.

"I've never had a nickname before," he said.

"Would you like to remain on the bridge while we execute the weapon systems tests? It should be quite a show from up here," I said.

"Thank you, Captain. I would enjoy that," he said as he finished handing out coffee and scones to the rest of the crew.

"First target on port side in thirty, twenty-nine…" Ada announced.

I looked at the navigation path displayed between Ada and Tabby's chairs and felt an unexpected pang of jealousy at their shared workspace. I shrugged it off and gestured to superimpose our path onto the holo display of
Mastodon
to the left of my chair.

Ada or Tabby had laid out a path with six derelict ships at different orientations to the ship. Our delta-v with the heap was high and each gunner would need to react quickly, but it also wasn't our first rodeo.

A blurp of turret fire erupted from the port side as Tabby engaged the first target. With so much warning, it had been an easy hit. The second was much the same, except both the starboard and topside guns engaged.

"Stay frosty, kids," Ada said and put
Mastodon
into a spin, rotating along the axis of our current vector.

Again, it caused them no problems. As the targets moved from one gunner's visibility to the next, they were easily picked off.

On the final three, Ada got craftier, using aft and bow thrusters to twist the ship through a circuitous route. We were far from perfect after that, but I felt like we'd at least made a good go of things.

"Marny, would you like another pass?" I asked.

"We should do better than fifty-eight percent," she said.

"Nick, check something for me," I said.

"Yup, go ahead."

"How tight did
Fist of Justice
follow us through Curie's atmosphere?"

"Not at all. With their superior speed, they just dog-legged around and caught back up," he said.

"Anino, you've thirty minutes to get your lab stowed again. We're going to have more turbulence," I said.

"I thought you said we were done with that," Anino responded. It almost sounded like a whine.

"My apologies. And I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't find it necessary for mission success."

"Any way I can convince you otherwise?"

"Not really."

"Could you send Jonathan down?" he said, resigned to his fate.

"Copy that," I said.

"Nick, what's the shortest fold-space jump we can take?"

"Not sure. What are you thinking?" he asked.

"We need to test the fold-space generator. It'd be nice to drop somewhere we could limp back from," I said.

"Gotcha. Give me your plan for passing Curie. Our minimum jump is a thousand AUs. It'd suck, but we could get back from there," he said.