Star Risk - 04 The Dog From Hell (19 page)

They were met with nervous smiles and outstretched, empty hands.

"You're taken," Grok growled.

The man at the center console nodded.

"We'll make no resistance, only, please don't hurt anyone."

"That will depend on your performance," Grok growled, while Riss had to turn away to hide her grin.

The Fowler was theirs.

It was tempting to treat the matter lightly, but there was always the possibility of a counterattack by the crew�not to mention the reminder that they were committing a decidedly capital offense�and so Star Risk kept their guns ready.

Grok rousted the passengers back to their compartments. Most of them went, obediently.

Except of course for the young woman, who had to be bodily lifted to her stateroom.

"Lord suffering," Goodnight said, shaking his head. "First thing, we get rid of them. Especially her."

"In a moment," Riss said.

She found the switch to the ship intercom, keyed it.

"All passengers. Stand by for transshipment. Have no more than one bag per person. Be ready in ten minutes, or face our wrath."

She had the crew set a jump into the system, and came out of the control room to find a small, chubby boy with spit curls waiting in the corridor.

"Please, ma'am, my sister wants to know when you'll be raping her."

"In a few minutes," Riss said. "As soon as we take care of a few things." She caught sight of Goodnight. "And he'll be in charge of that."

Goodnight glowered at her.

"Bitch!"

M'chel smiled back, sweetly.

"Bastard."

The McMahon and the yacht kept close formation on the Fowler as it came out of hyperspace off Mardite, the fourth, sparsely settled world of Alsaoud.

The yacht cross-locked to the Fowler, and the passengers and crew were escorted into it.

The fat young woman caught a glimpse of Goodnight as he ducked into the engine spaces and gave him her most hateful stare, then was gone.

Goodnight stayed hidden until the yacht had unlocked from the Fowler to dump the victims on a deserted section of Mardite before he came out.

He went to the bridge, where Jasmine was setting a new course into the asteroids, the Maron Region.

"You know," he told Riss, who had the watch, "if we were real pirates, we would have made all of the witnesses have their keels hauled, or something fatal so we wouldn't have to worry about having them show up as witnesses."

Riss knew very damned well that Goodnight was only partially joking, and was glad there were a few controls on the sociopath.

"Now, now, Chas," Jasmine said. "The course of true love never runs smooth."

Goodnight gave her a very hard look and didn't answer for a while.

"Sometimes," he said finally, thinking of how poorly he'd personally done of late, "I dunno about this pirate shit."

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THIRTY-FOUR � ^ � Keeping in mind that it's not uncommon for pirates to be pirated, Star Risk entered the Maron Region cautiously. They kept the yacht well forward with its fairly advanced sensors and radar at full alert�Grok manning them, then their prize, and just "behind" and "above" that, the McMahon, while keeping another eye out for anything resembling the Alsaoud authorities, whether naval or police.

But they weren't jumped.

By anyone.

At a certain point, they took an orbit stationary to a certain asteroid, and 'cast a certain signal on a certain frequency, as Grok had been advised.

A dozen small spacecraft swarmed toward them�it seemed from nowhere�and all three ships were boarded.

When Grok had told Goodnight about the procedure he'd been advised on, Goodnight didn't like it at all.

"Suppose their ethics run out?" he objected. "Supposing, come to think, they don't got none in the first place?"

"Then we're screwed," Jasmine said.

Goodnight's mind diverted, he considered King�what she would look like outside her space suit, being screwed�and sighed.

But nothing untoward happened.

Two dozen men and three women boarded the McMahon, facing them with very ready guns.

M'chel didn't know if the People's cause was righteous, but they surely packed enough artillery to make the convincing fairly easy.

Von Baldur said that he wished to conduct business with the Ganmore family.

The gunnies deferred to a middle-aged, mustached thug, who bowed and told Friedrich to suit up and come with him.

Von Baldur obeyed, and fitted himself into one of the small ships.

That ship zigged between asteroids, and "landed" on a nearly zero-g, dumbbell-shaped world that had four rather enormous hangars anchored to it. Anchoring was accomplished by matching orbits, and one man exiting the ship and clipping a lead from its nose to a ring on the asteroid, much as if the ship were a riding animal.

Von Baldur was escorted into one of the hangars, and to a small chamber atop it, a surprisingly luxurious office.

A man about Friedrich's age, but with still-dark hair, considered him with calm eyes.

"You wish to do business with my family?"

"I do. Now, and in the future."

"You arrived with three ships. Are any of them your proposed offer?"

"The merchantman." von Baldur said. "The others are necessary for continued work."

"Do you have paperwork for the merchantman?"

Von Baldur just looked at the man, who allowed himself a brief smile.

"Do we have to deal with the crewmen, or have you already taken care of that detail?" the man asked.

"They have been dealt with." Von Baldur didn't offer details.

"I admit to mild interest in the ship you offer, even though we have a plethora of spacecraft."

"The ship is of secondary value," von Baldur said. "Its cargo is what I am primarily interested in selling."

"Which is?"

Von Baldur told him, and admired the man as a fellow professional, since his expression didn't change.

"Ah," he said. "May I offer a drink?"

"You may," Friedrich said. "I assume you will share one with me."

A smile came, went.

"We seek no unnecessary advantages in our business dealings," he said. "I shall. And, by the bye, my name is Mai, and I am, of course, a Ganmore. I have been given the title of Advisor."

Von Baldur introduced himself, and the two shared a mildly alcohol-charged beverage that tasted slightly fruity, but of no identifiable variety.

Then the bargaining commenced.

This von Baldur thoroughly enjoyed, especially since Jasmine had earlier done one of her immaculate research jobs, so Friedrich knew exactly how much the micromanipulators sold for on the open, legal market.

Advisor Ganmore was a remarkably honest man�for a thief. He paid sixty percent of the price. In Alliance credits.

"Might I invite you to pass some time with the People?" he offered courteously as they finished.

"Another time," von Baldur said. "We have to return to our other lives."

"I understand," Ganmore said.

"But next time, we shall�in fact, we will probably be interested in renting living and working areas here in the Region, since we shall likely be wearing out our welcome on Khazia," Friedrich said. "As I said, we hope to be bringing you much business in the near future."

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THIRTY-FIVE � ^ � Not only," von Baldur said evenly, without taking his eyes off one of the screens he was staring at, "have I decided to become superstitious, but I shall never, ever again mention the name of someone I do not wish to crop up in the immediacy."

"What?" Riss asked, antenna going up at his deliberate tonelessness.

Without answering, he patched the image at which he was staring to one of her computer screens.

M'chel repressed a "yeep."

One of the first things they'd done�after returning to Khazia and determining that no one was looking for them regarding the disappearance of a certain spaceship named Fowler�was to field the tapes from the various pickups they'd planted around the president's palace, to see if they could spot the late Held's replacement and how many other Cerberus operatives they might be able to pick out.

Von Baldur had found one immediately�the image he showed Riss.

"I shall be dipped," she said, not needing an answer. "That really is our boy the superagent Nowotny, isn't it?"

The other three Star Risk operatives swooped around.

Spada had preferred to stay close to their yacht, parked at the most expensive yard they could find, which had all the mod cons any zillionaire could want around his prized spacecraft.

The McMahon was hidden on one of the system's moonlets.

"It surely is Nowotny," Goodnight said. "Well, what are we going to do, kill him?"

"I'm not sure we could," Riss said.

"Come on, M'chel," Goodnight said. "Anybody can get murdered."

"I know," she said. "I just think assassinating the good Walter might be a little expensive. Especially for the murderer."

"The worst is," Grok said, "that I won't be able to go out at all now. He knows me well�and certainly remembers that I tried to double on him and certainly would like to pull out my dewclaws to see what I know.

"The same goes for you, Jasmine, even if you lack claws."

"I suppose so," King said. "Oh well. We set out to pull the lion's tail, and we've surely succeeded.

"Not that I regret killing that horrid Held for one instant.

"But does this alter any part of the equation's progress as we'd planned it from here?"

"Maybe," Grok said. "I certainly think that all areas should be open to rethinking from this point forward."

"I do think," M'chel said, "that it means the tightrope just got a little thinner."

It became immediately apparent what game Cerberus was running in the Alsaoud System, although not why, nor for whom.

President Flyver�which meant Cerberus�announced Alsaoud would no longer allow blatant lawlessness to overwhelm his worlds�he clearly wasn't a master orator�and would immediately form an antipiracy task force that would both analyze the enemy and use any and all tactics to end the "plague of terror."

Star Risk also decided it was time to escalate, and, determined to no longer mess around with minor depredations.

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THIRTY-SIX � ^ � One of the things that got escalated was Star Risk's expenses.

For their next strike against Cerberus, they needed some heavier guns, and they didn't have the right ones handy.

Redon Spada did. He found a pair of patrol boat owner-skippers�old acquaintances who were proud of taking any job that wasn't suicidal, charging an arm and a leg, doing the work perfectly, and not talking about it later, which was most important in the still-undeclared war against Cerberus.

It took two days for Spada to track down the p-boats, another day for them to hire a transport that would jump the short-range combat ships to the vicinity of the Alsaoud System.

Spada, with the yacht, met the two patrol ships, escorted them to the moonlet, linked them to the larger McMahon, and ordered them to wait.

The mercenary pilots shrugged.

They were getting paid, quite lavishly, and so they didn't mind a little leisure. As long as it didn't last too long.

It didn't.

Less than five ship-days later, Star Risk went into motion.

Target: the Alliance liner Normandie.

They'd debated hard whether this was either one of the more intelligent or one of the dumber changes they'd thought of, and tentatively decided it was good.

But if things went wrong, and they killed a shipload of innocents�or, worse yet from their point of view, were hit by either the Normandie's own weaponry or that damned escort ship from the Alsaoud System�

M'chel decided she didn't want to contemplate what would happen if things went that badly wrong, which would inevitably mean the Alliance would show up to Rectify the Matter, which would mean those hanging judges and the rest.

At least the Normandie, being under Alliance registry, followed a fairly precise schedule, so at least their pirating could begin on some kind of a plan.

Star Risk would mount its attack inside the Alsaoud System, just where the liner would make its first jump from the common navpoint�and where the escort ship should meet it.

The escort was waiting where it was supposed to be, so von Baldur left a small spy satellite, and held his ships not far distant, on the edges of the Maron Region.

Then they waited some more.

M'chel had never been a good waiter, she realized. But there was a difference between being in a nice safe dirt bunker, or even in a nicely armored track vehicle, and sitting in a goddamned spaceship floating in the midst of nowhere.

She pushed away the memory of how she used to go mildly berserk in a troopship, waiting for a landing force to assemble, making life most difficult for her underlings.

Now, there was no one to drive mad, and so she stewed gently until the satellite beeped softly.

All ships jumped to the coordinates of their satellite.

The two p-boats, having gotten an exact description of the Alsaoud escort and having everything short of the blueprints from Janes, were first into action.

One small missile blew its drive mechanism apart, a second was command-steered to the ship's nose, and destroyed its C&C systems.

The escort ship whirled in emptiness, gently whining for help on the only coms left to it.

That had taken about thirty seconds, and had only cost one casualty, an electronics tech who'd been worrying over a hiccuping part of the ship's command and control network.

Star Risk then went after the Normandie.

They knew exactly where the twin missile launchers on the liner were, and the p-boats and the McMahon drifted missiles in. One blew near the stern, and the Normandie's star drive went down, leaving it helpless to escape into n-space.

The yacht was broadcasting on all freqs that the Normandie should not, must not, fight back or call for help, or else be prepared for total destruction.