The Iron Maiden (14 page)

“Brinker will command the captured pirate destroyer on a de facto basis,” he told Sergeant Smith.

“Cobble together a competent crew in a hurry.”

“Yes, sir.” He got on it, taking Brinker with him. She maintained a straight face, but radiance was leaking from the edges. She lived to command a ship, and had been long denied. Her loyalty, even against pirates, was certain; she was now in Hope's orbit. She had no use for sex, but would have leaped into bed with Hope if he asked it.

Spirit exchanged a glance with the others. Repro had put the idea of putting Isobel to work this way into Hope's head, and evidently it had taken. They needed this kind of competence for the coming battles, especially considering Isobel's experience with pirate ways.

“We're going to meet the Solomons in battle in deep space in forty-eight hours,” Hope said to the others.

“Make the preparations.”

“But our supply ship arrives in thirty-six hours,” Spirit protested. “That won't give us enough time to organize.”

“We'll locate a vacant planetoid and use it as a temporary supply base,” Emerald said, taking this surprise in stride. They had all learned to roll with the punches of Hope's sometimes sudden decisions. “Our lesser ships will be able to protect that with the pincushion defense.” She turned to Hope. “You agree, sir?”

He looked blank. “I suppose so.”

She was on it in a strategic flash. “You have something more important on your mind, sir?”

“No,” he said, obviously embarrassed.

It was a pleasure watching her zero in. “A woman?”

“Ridiculous!”

“Tell us about her,” Emerald urged mischievously. “You haven't had a really good woman since you had me.”

Juana smiled obliquely at that, but held her peace. She had taken Hope on during a siege of hallucinogenic madness, but officers were not supposed to mix sexually with enlisted, so it was a tacit secret.

He sighed. “It seems a pirate chief is trying to fix me up with his daughter, for political reasons. Covering his bets.”

“A pirate wench?” Spirit asked, intrigued. “Is she clean?”

“This one would be,” he said. Then he reacted against the mere supposition. “It's ludicrous! She has killed two men who wanted her.”

“That fatal appeal,” Emerald said. “I must remember it.”

“Not this marriage!” Mondy objected, and they laughed. The two were getting along well, and their humor showed it.

They returned to the details of strategy, but Hope seemed to be mostly out of it. Obviously the pirate wench had made more than a casual impression.

Sergeant Smith returned with Brinker. “I have set it up, sir. If you will just sign this waiver--”

“Waiver?”

“She's a civilian employee, sir. For her to command a Navy ship--it's irregular.”

“She will not command a Navy ship,” Hope pointed out. “It is a captured pirate vessel; and anyway, this is to be mostly off the record.” Nevertheless, he signed the waiver.

Brinker started to go, but Hope stopped her. “Sit in on the strategy session, Captain. You may have input.”

“Yes, sir,” she said gratefully. Oh, yes; she would have danced naked on the desk, at his whim.

Emerald leaned toward her, her quest not yet done. She retained a serious interest in Hope's social status, as was the case with all his women throughout his life. They never fell out of love with him. “What does she look like?”

Brinker was startled, glancing at Hope. She had been rather suddenly admitted to the inner circle, and was understandably cautious. “My staff has will and mischief of its own, Little Foot,” he said with resignation. Actually he hardly minded; he never fell out of love with any of his women either. “Satisfy their curiosity, so we can get on with business.”

Brinker glanced briefly around the circle. No one indicated objection. She nodded. Then she made a gesture with her two hands, the classic hourglass shape. “Eighteen. Fire-hair. Face would launch a thousand ships. Imperious. Deadly.”

There was appreciative laughter. “No wonder he wants her!”

Mondy exclaimed. “There's nothing like that in this task force!”

Emerald slammed a backhand into his chest because of the presumed slight. It was her way of displaying affection. She was not ashamed to show it, now.

It was a scramble to get ready for the battle with the Solomons. Hope had arranged with Straight to meet at a designated site in space, so that no inhabited asteroids would be menaced. There was a certain chivalric honor to it, but the battle itself would be serious. Emerald planned on her pincushion, but first invoked a remarkable open-space device that completely fooled the pirates and took out over half their deadly drones in a single sweep. Her genius was scoring.

However, the Solomons were no pushover; they had cut off the Navy supply ship, and that was a serious reversal. Without those supplies, the fleet would soon be hurting.

Then the situation changed: another pirate band, the Fijis, was approaching rapidly. They were not allied to the Solomons; they were coming in to clean up after the two combatants had decimated each other.

This was bad news for both sides, for the Fijis were scum, even as pirates went.

The staff held an emergency meeting without Hope. Repro, the Beautiful Dreamer, had a provocative notion: “We need to ally with Straight,” he said. “He is honest as pirates go, and stands to lose as much as we do.”

“But we're at war with him!” Emerald protested.

“Not entirely. He is playing for an alliance, in case he loses the battle. That's why he proffers his daughter to Worry.” He meant Hope. “He is into gambling, technically illegal, but only technically; throughout human history men have always gambled. We have no inherent quarrel with him.”

“But he won't just surrender,” Emerald said. “Why should he trust us?”

“Because we must surrender to him,” Repro said.

They stared at him. But after a moment Mondy nodded. “I believe it would work. He will trust us if we trust him first. And if his daughter marries Worry, the alliance will be secure.”

“What?” Spirit and Emerald said almost together. Juana, too, looked shaken.

“A woman can be a powerful incentive to join a cause,” Gerald said, and Mondy nodded. “In this case she will bring her band in with her.”

“We don't need any more whoring for personnel!” Emerald snapped.

“Especially not when my brother is the whore,” Spirit agreed.

But as the men argued the case, it came to make more sense, and in the end the women had to agree. It was a weird and risky ploy, but it stood the best chance of success in this adversity.

They put it to Hope, without mentioning the prospect of marriage. “Sir, we have thrashed this out,” Spirit said, speaking with atypical formality. “We have concluded that our best course is to proffer our surrender to the Solomons' fleet.”

He found his gee-couch and sank into it. “Please say again?”

“Straight is a halfway decent man,” Spirit continued, arguing the case Repro had made. “He generally keeps his word, and he's not bloodthirsty. Go to him under flag of truce and present our situation.”

He resisted the notion, understandably. But when he saw his staff unified behind it, he reluctantly yielded.

“You won't explain?” he asked almost plaintively.

“After this crisis passes, sir, we will explain,” Spirit said.

He sighed. “I hope you have not lost your collective wits! All of us will be court-martialed for pusillanimity when we are ransomed back to Jupiter. All of our careers will be finished.”

“But we will suffer no further losses,” Emerald said. “We are thinking not of pride but of the greatest good.”

Once resigned, Hope played the scene with his usual flair. He got Straight on the video and asked to parley under flag of truce. He went alone to negotiate the terms of surrender--and returned in due course with the pirate's surrender to him, and Straight's daughter Roulette with him in the shuttle ship as hostage.

The ploy had worked. Straight had decided to trust Hope and his cadre of officers, after seeing their trust of him. His daughter was his earnest of integrity. And she was indeed mind-bendingly beautiful, exactly as Isobel had said.

“This is Roulette--our hostage for the Solomons' surrender,” Hope said somewhat lamely.

Spirit didn't bother to seem surprised. “I recognized the figure. I'll see her to a cabin.”

“You knew,” he said.

“We thought it likely,” she agreed. “We showed Straight our power, and he responded.”

“The game is not over yet,” Roulette said darkly. This was evidently no choice of hers.

“Arrange for rendezvous with our supply ship and for transfer of food to the Solomons fleet,” Hope said.

“Establish liaison for working out the fine print of the surrender. And quickly; the Fijis--”

“I can help,” Roulette said. “I know the personnel to contact in our fleet, and what they need.”

There was one reason Straight had sent her. Her cooperation would greatly facilitate the process.

Spirit glanced at her appraisingly. “You have practical training?”

“I'm my father's S-3.” S-3 was the Operations section, which was vital.

“At your age?”

Rue smiled. “Pirates aren't subject to Naval regulations. I've been an officer since birth. It's a family corporation.”

“We shall test you.” Spirit conducted the wench to an officer's cabin. “You will be given the freedom of the ship,” she said. “You're not really a hostage.”

“So you say,” the girl said. But then she mellowed slightly. “Did you really castrate the man who raped your sister?”

“He told you of that?”

“Did you do it?”

“Yes. And I would do it again.”

“Then you understand pirate ways.”

“Oh, yes. I was a captive of pirates for four years. Now the captain of that pirate ship works for us.”

“I would like to meet him.”

“Her. Isobel Brinker.”

She pondered, but evidently drew a blank. “What was her ship?”

“The Hidden Flower.”

“Oh, of the Juclip! I thought a man commanded that one.”

Spirit was surprised. “You know every ship by name?”

“The significant ones. That one was a feelie porn conduit.”

“The Empty Hand.”

“That was one of the better lines.”

“That was mine.”

Roulette looked at her, surprised. “I think you and I will get along.”

Spirit found herself liking this young woman. “But you know, we just took out the Carolines.”

“Too bad, if you like porn.”

“Its pirates we don't like. No offense.”

“We don't like the Jupiter Navy either. No offense.”

Spirit changed the subject. “I will ask Captain Brinker to meet with you at her convenience.”

Then Roulette did a doubletake. “Brinker--age about fifty, red-brown hair, gray eyes, lightning draw?”

“You have met?”

"She bodyguarded Captain Hubris at the tavern. I didn't make the connection when I heard the name.

She looked so feminine."

“So she did. It is how she masks her past. I didn't realize you two had interacted.”

“She's a captain again?”

“She commands a ship for us.”

“We will get along,” Roulette repeated.

They got her set up in her cabin, then returned together to the communications center. “You're S-3?”

Spirit asked, giving her a chance to back down.

“Try me.”

Spirit did. She put her on the video contact. “Integrate our fleets.”

When the first Solomons ship came on, the young woman evinced no uncertainty. “This is Roulette, hostage aboard the Navy flagship,” she said to the screen. "The Navy has food for us, and time is short.

Get me Cap'n Snake-eyes on the double." It went from there. There was no question of her competence.

Spirit turned her head to look at Hope behind Roulette's head, nodding affirmatively. But then Roulette herself turned to send him a glare of hate. She really did not like him, no matter how well she might get along with others. Rather, Spirit realized, she did not like the idea of having to marry him. But she would inevitably be captured by his subtle charm, as all women were. She fought, but would lose.

And Hope, astonishingly, averted his gaze. She had stared him down. Oh, yes, he was already smitten.

Meanwhile the Fiji fleet, seeing that they had broken off the battle with the Solomons, pounced instead on the planetoid where they had set up their pincushion defense, before abruptly evacuating. They had had to leave supplies behind, annoyingly. The pirates were scavenging, and the Navy couldn't stop it.

Spirit was unconcerned, knowing what Emerald had cooked up. “Call them, sir,” she told him. “Give the Fijis an ultimatum of immediate surrender--or destruction.”

“But that would be foolish! We have no--”

“Or delegate someone to do it.”

“But--”

“Roulette, maybe. She'll enjoy this.”

He spread his hands. “You delegate it.”

She smiled knowingly. “Rue, would you like to deliver the Navy's ultimatum to the Fijis?”

Roulette came over to the screen. “I hate the Fijis almost as bad as I hate the Navy. But a bluff's no good. They're smugglers, and lying is their pride. Bloodstone would laugh in my face.”

“Is there any redeeming quality about the Fiji?” Spirit inquired.

“No. They captured one of our parties once, and sent us back their hands, one finger at a time, each one flayed. Our biolab said the skin had been pulled off while the fingers were still attached and alive.”

Spirit stiffened, then slowly raised her left hand, showing her missing finger. “We have met that kind,” she said. “The Horse didn't flay my flesh, though.”

“I noticed. But you settled the score.” Roulette settled herself before the screen. “Is this a bluff?”

“No.”

“Then I'll do it.” She went to work, and in a moment she was in touch with the Fiji operator. “Get me Bloodstone,” she snapped imperiously.

“Who the hell wants Bloodstone?” the man demanded.

“Roulette.”

Another face came on: grizzled, grim, with earrings in the classic pirate style. “What you want, you luscious tart?”

“Surrender this instant, or be destroyed.”