Home: Interstellar: Merchant Princess (26 page)

“The kids.”

“How did you know it was pirates that attacked your ship, Meriel?”

“I saw what they did. Real people can’t do things like that.”

“Did you ever see any of the pirates that you say attacked your ship, Meriel?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

Doc Ferrell sighed and leaned back in his chair. “What happened to everyone, Meriel?”

“They’re…gone,” she said, and her vision blacked out again.

“What about the other kids?”

God, I’m so stupid
. “They sent them away.”

The doctor leaned over the desk. “Where are they now, Meriel?”

Meriel wanted to mention Liz and dug the wire in deeper into the muscle of her thumb. She was becoming inured to the pain; the wire was losing its ability to focus her attention. She wiggled it and winced. “Hiding,” she said. “They’re gone, and I can’t see them anymore.” That was true, referring to the court order that she violated every day of her life. “I want to see them again. I want us all to be back together on the
Princess
.” True again.

“I’m sure you do, Meriel,” he said as he played with the sim-chip near the slot in the console. He heard snoring and looked up to see Meriel’s head on her chest.

***

John went to Meriel’s cabin and tried the biolock. He hoped Meriel would forgive him, torqued the handle, and in few jerks, it opened.

He entered Meriel’s little cabin and found it empty of people, but there was a mess of dirty dishes and food containers, which surprised him. Spacers tended to be neat and tidy, if not clean, because the smallest mass might become a projectile when gravity shifted and the deck became the overhead. He checked the wall and ceiling panels for tampering and saw nothing. Meriel’s console stood open, and he saw the draft of an e-mail describing what they had uncovered about the Treaty of Haven and the conspirators. It was addressed to a lawyer on Enterprise, and John wondered if that was the shyster lawyer that Doc had mentioned.

John sat on Meriel’s bunk, sighed, and pulled up his link.

“M, real important that I talk to you,” he said.

The claxon announced five minutes to jump, and John knew he had to leave.

John had not noticed screws turning in one of the deck plates when he entered. A few seconds after he left, Elizabeth emerged from Meriel’s hidey-hole and jammed the door handle with a chair.

***

Meriel awoke to the sound of the claxon. She was still groggy, as if she had jumped without boost. Her nightmare was fresh. She raised her head to orient herself and squinted with a severe headache. A jolt of pain shot up her arm when she moved her hand, and that woke her completely.

She was in Ferrell’s office.
How did I get here
? she wondered and then remembered and sneered. Ferrell’s head lay on his desk next to an empty flask. The sim-chip and key lay with her necklace on his desk, and she leaned over and scooped them up.

“Hey!” Meriel shouted, and Ferrell looked up, still half asleep. She slapped him across the face so hard he almost fell off his chair. “Satisfied?”

The doctor nodded as a red welt rose on his cheek. “I didn’t know.”

“Of course you didn’t know. You think they’re gonna put my story on the net? How about vids, maybe, or a movie? Families would never fly again, and stations would die.” She got up and stood in front of his desk. “OK, weasel; did that information in any way help you assess my performance on this ship?”

“No, but—”

She pounded her good fist on the table. “Then stay the hell outta my head! And stay out until I can put my family back together.”

“I’m sorry, Meriel. You think the kids are still alive?”

Meriel tilted her head. “Of course I do. Didn’t you hear me?”

“Show me, Meriel. I’ll give you a chance. Show me the kids are alive. Give me some proof. Anything.”

“There’s a court order, you slime ball, and I can’t say anything.”

“Then the
Princess
.”

“I have a lawyer on Enterprise who—”

“A two-bit shyster hiding behind attorney-client privilege.”

Meriel looked at him, speechless, and then looked down. She had nothing. The proof she needed was hiding in her cabin, and she could not expose her sister until they jumped away from Etna.
Or is that a delusion too?

“After the jump, Doc. I can show you after the jump,” she said, but her stammer exposed her uncertainty.

The doctor rubbed his cheek and regained his composure. “Sorry, Meriel. If you’re not back on the meds by the end of the shift, I’ll have you restrained.”

Meriel stormed out and slammed the door.

***

Doc Ferrell took another drink and put his head in his hands. “What the hell have I gotten myself into?” After a long sigh, he stored the recording of Meriel’s interrogation in case he needed to defend himself to Molly and the board of medical review, and then he began to dictate into Meriel’s psych file.

“Hope, Meriel. Off medication and intractable. Interviewed under 15 ccs scapo. Questioned patient about traumatic experiences on
Princess
. Unlikely that her role was anything other than innocent victim and sole survivor. However, continuing severe psychosis with delusions of getting her family and ship back from the station lawyers. Holds onto delusions even under scapo. Fantasy maintenance seems to provide a structure for self-control. Without it, stability is in doubt. Will enforce medication or restraint. However, she continues to hide something.”

Ferrell stared at his link and then began a text to an encrypted GRL and attached the interrogation with Meriel.

To Kadvi:

Message: Assignment complete. Hope has no additional info re: LSM x2:88 or crew.

…which referred to Meriel’s ship, the
Princess
.

***

Just a few feet down the passageway and around a corner, Meriel stopped and leaned against the wall, cringing with pain. She took her bloody hand out of her pocket. The wire had pierced a full inch into the muscle of her palm. She pulled it out slowly, causing fresh tears to fall, and staggered to the showers to wash the wound. After squeezing the wound to flush it with fresh blood, she wrapped it with a towel. She still needed to report to Cookie, and time was running out. And she still had to tell the XO about Ferrell and file a complaint.

The claxon sounded again, three minutes to jump.
Oh, crap! I must have slept in Ferrell’s office.
There’s no time to see Cookie now. I gotta find Liz
, she thought. She ran for her cabin and immediately bumped into John.

“Meriel, I still need to talk to you.”

Meriel glared at him. “You told him, didn’t you?”

“Who?”

“You told Ferrell about Liz, didn’t you?”

“I only said she was in trouble, that you went on station to get her.”

Meriel hit him in the chest. “Dammit! You promised.”

John reached for her shoulders to calm her, “Meriel, what happened? I was trying to help.”

Meriel knocked his arms away and pushed him across the corridor into the bulkhead. “I don’t need any more goddamned help!” she said with fresh tears in her eyes and ran to her cabin.

Meriel ran past Cookie’s quarters and the galley but did not see him.
He’s preparing
,
she thought,
but preparing without me
.

Meriel opened her cabin door to find the same mess she had left hours ago, but Elizabeth was absent. She checked her messages and found one from the XO, who wanted to see her, and another from Cookie, telling her to link auxiliary security teams on Channel 3, but nothing from Liz. She checked the hidey-hole, but it was empty as well, the warm-suit and a stunner gone. Just before running out the door, she paused.
Is Ferrell right?
she thought.
What’s really behind that black cloud in my memory? Am I making this up?
I’ve lost the party favor from Harry’s birthday and have no vids. Teddy and Nick are off the grid, ghosts as far as anyone knows. Liz is gone. I’ve got nothing, no proof at all
.

Am I having daydreams again? Oh God, what if I really am alone?

She leaned up against the bulkhead and tried to cry, but there were no tears left. She slid down the wall until she was sitting on the deck, still holding the handle, staring straight ahead while her doubts crushed her and looked forward to the disorientation of the jump without tranq.

***

On the bridge, the crew made final preparations for the jump, waiting only for the communications beacon to complete synchronization. Captain Richard was at the helm, and Molly sat watching from her chair in her ready room.

“Cookie,” Molly said on her link. “Did you find anything in the malware scan?”

“No, XO,” Cookie said. “Something could be sleeping, but I found nothing to wake it.”

“Hey, XO, here’s something for you,” Socket said and displayed the message.

From: J. Conklin, Cpt., LSM Jolly Roger

Subject: Whereabouts of Doc Griffin

Hi Molly. Regarding your ex-doc, immigrated to Moon-D. Now has an address there in a luxury arcology. Plans a vacation to Europa. I think you overpaid him. By a lot.

“We didn’t fund all that. Where’d he get the money?” the captain asked.

Molly nodded. “That must have been some inheritance. I guess that explains why he left in such a hurry,” she said while thinking
, And forced us to take Ferrell on short notice.

“Beacon synch complete,” Socket said.

“Begin jump count. Ten seconds,” the captain said.

Molly saw a quick flicker of her screen, and the bridge lights and the monitors blinked and returned.

“Whoa!” Jerri said. “Did you see that?”

Molly remembered Meriel’s warning, and her mouth dropped. “Abort!” she yelled. Jerri slammed her hand down on the big red button to halt the jump, but the jump program had already locked her out.

They jumped.

Molly knew the
Tiger
had jumped short: the disorientation was brief, and she did not feel stiff. The scope in front of her flashed white noise, and when she switched to visual, it remained black without the nearby star of Etna.

“Where are we?” the captain yelled. He hit the alarm claxon and switched the comm to broadcast. “All hands. Red alert! Prepare to repel borders.” He looked over to Jerri on nav. “Jump as soon as it is safe.”

“Where to?” Jerri asked in frustration, yelling over the loud pinging that made the entire hull rang like a bell.

“Anywhere we can find our way back from,” the captain said. “And I mean
anywhere
. Just get us out of here.”

Jerri raised her hands in the air. “Sorry, Captain, I’m locked out of nav. It’s dead.”

Socket interrupted from the communications station. “Incoming EM, sir, and recent.”

Recent meant close.

Molly unsecured herself from her chair and went to a cabinet where she kept the small arms. “Meriel and Cookie to the bridge, stat,” she said into her link.

Behind her, the bridge exploded and threw her headfirst into the cabinet, knocking her down. Ears ringing and seeing double, she looked back to see black-suited men enter from a big smoking hole that was just a few seconds old. One of the black-suits threw Jerri to the deck and stuck a sim-chip into the nav computer, which came back to life, and the pinging stopped. Molly reached the desk, hit the button to close the door, and staggered out the side door to the adjoining corridor.

Molly’s feet left the ground with the brief loss of gravity. When gravity returned, it slammed her back on the deck, leaving her head spinning. With a hand on the wall for support, she headed for the security assembly area only to see the black-suited men there as well. She retreated using a different passageway heading for the weapons locker.

A tickle brought her hand to her cheek, which came away red with blood. When she looked up again, the corridor tilted, and she fell to the deck again.
This is my head, not gravity
,
she thought.

No thugs are gonna take the
Tiger
while I’m XO, but I need a weapon
. Finding the weapons locker empty, she staggered to the alternate assembly area, hoping to find survivors, but the world spun again, and Molly fell against the wall and then onto her face.

That’s where Meriel and Lev found her.

***

Meriel knew they were in trouble when she heard the pinging. But the pinging also removed all of her doubts. It was real now—not a nightmare, not a delusion.
Survive
, she thought,
don’t fold
. She wasn’t frightened; she’d been preparing for this for ten years.

One stunner remained in her hidey-hole, and she retrieved it. If this wasn’t a delusion, then Elizabeth must have taken the other stunner and the warm-suit.
Good girl
, she thought as she grabbed the knife and ran to the forward mess, the assembly area where Cookie should be waiting.
Thank God Cookie’s here to lead the defense.

The red alert sounded, and Meriel heard the XO call her name on the comm, but before she could respond, she heard the wham and whistle of an air leak.
That’s them
, she thought.

The ship rocked and lost gravity for a second, and she lost her footing. She crouched in midair, poised for its return, and when it did, she landed on her feet. They still had one-g, power, and pressure.
That means they want us to live, at least for a while
.

Before reaching the mess, Meriel heard a seductive voice on the intercom system.

“Attention. All passengers and crew of the
Tiger
. Please do not be alarmed, we are simply a regional security team and concerned for your safety and protection. Your ship is known to carry cargo and passengers that might endanger you. Please cooperate, and no harm will come to you. Remain calm and assemble in the forward mess hall for interviews. Any resistance will produce discomfort. Please, we wish no harm to come to you, and your cooperation will be greatly appreciated.”

The forward mess hall was the security assembly point.
They know our protocols
. She had to take a chance that someone from the security team might go to the alternate rally point at cargo C.

She turned her link to the security channel, Channel 3. The seductive voice came on. “And please do not attempt a security intervention or resist in any way. Again, we wish you no harm, but we are firm in our request for cooperation. Please report to the forward mess hall.”

So security is compromised, as well,
she thought.
We have a mole or spy on board
.

Another boom followed by the pops of small arms and the hiss of laser fire.

Meriel ran to cargo C, but instead of the security team, she found two black-suited men and some of the passengers on their knees with their hands on top of their heads.
Damn
. There was Cookie, sprawled out on the deck, bleeding from a head wound, and she could not tell if he was alive or dead. She spotted one of the auxiliary marines, Lev, from her cargo crew in the doorway across the room preparing to do something suicidal, so she used hand signals to call him off. Together, they went from room to room to collect the remaining passengers and crew while Meriel watched for security cameras at each turn and wondered what Cookie would do.

“They know our security protocols,” she said.

He nodded. “Could be anyone. Lots of passengers this leg,” he said, but Meriel only thought of Ferrell.

Lev pointed his link to a camera. “Internal surveillance is off. Cookie secured the main bulkhead doors to slow down the boarding party.”

“What about computer and alt-nav?”

“Captain gave Cookie the command codes and—” Lev stopped. “Say, you were at the security briefing; you should know this. Why’d you take the suit off? And where are the weapons?”

Meriel had no idea what he was talking about and just shrugged.

Lev grabbed her shoulder and stopped her. “They’re important, Meriel. Where’re the weapons?”

“What do you mean?” she asked.

He squinted at her. “When we rallied to Cookie, you had your warm-suit, and Cookie asked you to get the weapons. Did you forget?”

Meriel shook her head. “Really, Lev, I don’t know,” she said. They continued to search the cabins. Altogether, they rounded up only eight crewmen, and she could not tell how many passengers remained hidden. Her relief surprised her when she saw John but not the contempt she felt when she saw Ferrell.

On the way to the weapons locker, they found Molly on the deck, bleeding from a head wound and struggling to get up. They stopped to help her.

“Molly, are you all right?”

“Dizzy. Need to keep my eyes closed,” Molly said, “but I can think.”

“What happened?” Meriel asked.

“I couldn’t stop the jump,” Molly said. “It was just like you said. We jumped to their coordinates. They froze nav and breached the hull at the bridge. Crew is captive or…dead.”

“Captive, I expect, until they find what they are looking for,” Meriel said.

“And what are they looking for?” Ferrell asked.

“Me. What I know,” Meriel said. “Was the captain on the bridge?”

“Yes,” Molly said. “How did they get here so fast?”

“Short jump. Maybe just outside the Etna system,” John said. “They were waiting for us: small sphere and easy to find.”

“I don’t hear Sergeant Cook. Is he here?” Molly asked.

“Cookie’s down, XO. Sorry,” Lev replied. “Seems like he was their first target after the bridge.”

“Molly, where is the backup nav?” Meriel asked.

“Alt-bridge behind cargo C,” Molly said.

“Damn,” Lev said, shaking his head. “They have armed men there.”

Molly held out her link. “Meriel, see if you can view the bridge.” Meriel pulled up a camera to the bridge to find the crew members all on their knees, hands on their heads.

“Molly, the bridge crew is alive,” Meriel said. She gave the link to Lev. Molly smiled and passed out. Lev restrained her in case they lost gravity again.

John and Ferrell watched the picture on the link. In the corner of the bridge stood a tall, dark man without a weapon who slapped a riding crop on his leg impatiently.

“Jeez, he must be ten light years from a horse,” John said.

“Huh? Let me see that,” Meriel said.

Lev showed her the image on the link. On their bridge stood the last man on Earth that Meriel wanted to see. “It’s General Khanag.”

“Holy crap,” Lev said. “This is bad.”

One of the black-suits saw the image of the bridge on a screen and mentioned it. The general saw it, barked a command, and the soldier hit a button. The image went dark.

The seductive voice came on again. “To those of you who have not come forward, we are disappointed. We will take no action if your crewmate named Meriel Hope comes to the bridge. Again, we wish no one to come to harm and will let you go on your way with your fuel restored. However, our patience is running thin.”

“Give me the link,” Ferrell said while reaching for it.

Meriel sneered at Ferrell. “Lev is senior security now, Ferrell. He should have this.”

Ferrell squinted and raised his chin. “With the bridge crew down, I’m the ranking officer,” he said. Lev frowned but nodded and gave the link to Ferrell.

Ferrell took a deep breath and raised the link. “This is Dr. Patrick Ferrell,” he said. “I am the ranking officer on the ship. What is your intent?”

“We hope you are well, Doctor, and any crew and passengers that you may have with you. If you would, please, help us locate this Meriel Hope so that we can let you all go on your way. We wish no further damage to the ship.” A view of the bridge and crew appeared on the link again. “See? We have nothing to hide. They are all in good health.” Everyone was still unharmed, but one of the black-suits was down and blood dripped from a fresh cut on Socket’s forehead.

“Let me talk to the captain,” Ferrell said.

“As you wish,” the seductive voice said.

“We’re OK, Doc,” the captain said. “Restrained but OK.”

“Captain, did you transfer the command codes?” Ferrell asked. Meriel and Lev cringed and shook their heads.

The camera shut off immediately, and the seductive voice returned. “Now, now, Doctor,” he said, “we’re not stupid. You are ranking officer, no? Be reasonable. We only want to interview your crew members, and then we’ll be on our way.”

Meriel and Lev looked at each other and nodded. The man said crew
members
.

The seductive voice continued. “Please, surrender before our patience runs any thinner. We offer you amnesty and safe passage to Ross. That is next on your circuit, no? There’s no need for any bloodshed. We have complete control of your ship, and there is really nothing you can do. We are humanitarians and respect all life. We don’t want you to suffer. Please be assured that you will be safe.”

Meriel looked around. Except for John and Lev, they all looked afraid and passive. Meriel was shocked. She didn’t think they’d give up so easily.

“This is Dr. Ferrell again,” he said. “We have injuries due to your rude introduction and are caring for them. Please give us a few minutes to treat them, and we will comply. Until then, we request a cease-fire.”

“If you tell us where you are, we would be glad to assist your ministrations.”

“That is generous, but you can understand why we must decline,” Ferrell said. “A few minutes, please.”

***

Khanag walked to the hull breach. “I tire of this game. Tell them ten minutes,” he said to a black-suit with two gold bars on his lapel, “but give them eight. Then lock nav and drive them into the gas giant at four g. We’ll find what we need elsewhere.”

“Yes, Father,” Captain Nurendra Khanag said as the General and his escorts left the
Tiger
.

***

“Your request is granted. Do not exceed ten minutes,” the seductive voice said.

“What are you doing?” Lev said, looking at Ferrell.

“We’re going to surrender,” Ferrell said.

“You can’t do that!” Meriel shouted.

“It’s over, Meriel,” Ferrell said. “We’re outgunned, and they’ve got the ship and cargo.”

“They’re lying,” Meriel said. “If they had complete control, they wouldn’t need our cooperation. Can’t you see? We have a chance.” The passengers and crew who had gathered around them grumbled with disbelief.

“Our one chance is to surrender,” said Alf Martin. “They’re offering us amnesty and safe pass—.”

Ferrell interrupted. “Meriel, they just want to ask you a few questions, maybe if you—”

“Are you kidding me?” Meriel said. “Sure, they want me, but they will not let you escape. That’s General Khanag. He’s the muscle for the archtrope’s drug ring.”