The Pirates of Sufiro (Book 1) (Old Star New Earth) (20 page)

Swan slept fitfully. He rolled and tossed in the cot. When he did manage to drop off to sleep, his dreams were filled with images of the miners. He dreamt of Sam Stone coming toward him with a disciplinarian. The marshal sat up in bed and let out an involuntary yelp. His knuckles were white as he gripped the sweat-soaked sheets.

Swan dressed quickly and followed Raton outside. The sheriff had two hepler pistols. He wore two crossed bandoleers with reserve energy packs. Slung on his back was an old-fashioned rifle. Swan had seen them in museums. They were supposed to fire lead-cased cartridges.

"Where is everyone?" Swan looked around, expecting to see more than Raton.
"Everyone?" Raton cocked his head.
"To help fend off the Tejan attack."
"I never said anything about being a lot of us. We're not talking about a war or anything. They'd be crazy to launch a full-scale attack over this. You're more of an embarrassment to them than anything else." Raton sighted along his rifle toward the hills.
"An embarrassment?" asked Swan, his mouth hanging open.
"If you talk, it could be bad for Tejo. They'll either take you back or kill you—they want you silent." Raton lowered the gun to ground. "Besides, Juan will be here soon. He lives all the way down in Succor, and we're up here in Nuevo Santa Fe." He shrugged then walked over to a block wall, sat down and began cleaning the rifle.
"What about all the people I brought out of the mines?"
"I'm sure a few of them will be here. They really are grateful, you know." Raton looked around the barren horizon. All that could be seen outside the perimeter of the low wall around the adobe house was scrub brush and rock. "None of them lives within ten miles of this house, though."
Swan's shoulders dropped. He walked back toward the house and leaned against the cool, hard adobe. His stomach growled, making him wish for breakfast. The ex-Tejan marshal hoped the New Granadans would arrive before the Tejans "How many will the Tejans send?"
"No more than thirty, I think." Raton calmly examined his rifle.
"Think we can handle them 'till the others arrive?" Swan asked sheepishly.
"Won't be easy, but we'll try." Manuel Raton grinned reassuringly.
Swan felt a vibration that turned into a low hum. On the southeastern horizon, a dust cloud billowed up. Swan and Raton moved to the southeastern wall. Both of them strained their eyes to see in the distance. Swan's computer eye could just discern five hovers in the midst of the dust cloud. The hovers broke off to surround the house. Each one landed in a cloud of dust. As the dust settled, the hover doors opened and four Tejan police officers stepped out of each.
Raton shrugged his shoulders. "So, they only sent twenty. We'll whip their..."
As Raton began to speak, another hover appeared on the horizon. It landed in a billowing of dust. Out stepped one man. Sam Stone looked across the distance from the hover. Stone reached out a hand. An officer put something in his palm. Stone pinned the device to his lapel. His voice boomed across the distance. "Give it up, Raton! All we want is Swan! Turn him over and we'll leave you in peace!"
"Peace?" Manuel Raton called back. "There was once a time when we had peace and friendship. What happened to it?"
Swan looked across the field. He could see Stone shake his head. "Friendship," said Stone, his voice cracking. "Friendship is for children. I had a business to run. You could have been part of the Tejan dream. I tried to convince you. You just had to work at it."
"Then I would have been equally guilty of abducting my other friends and my family." Raton sneered.
Stone shrugged. "You could have convinced the New Granadans to come of their own accord. We wouldn't have had to persuade them like we did. As I see it, you have to share some of the blame for the situation we find ourselves in today."
Raton inclined his head, pursing his lips. "You would have used me that way?" The sheriff gripped the barrel of his rifle tightly. "Tell me, old friend, why did Espedie Raton have to die?"
Stone sighed. "He was an old man, too curious for his own good." The governor put out his hand. "Besides, that's in the past. Give us Swan and we'll be on our way."
"You had your chance to leave us in peace," Raton growled. "This one's for Espedie Raton!" He raised the rifle to his shoulder. Swan went deaf for a moment and shook his head. Looking up, he saw that Stone had fallen backwards against the hover. "This one's for Carmen Raton!" Raton fired again. Stone lay on the ground in a pool of blood. The Tejan police started moving toward the house. They moved slowly and stayed low. Swan gathered his wits and aimed his hepler pistol. He fired. An officer fell backwards onto the ground with a little poof of dust.
Something scorched the top of Swan's shoulder blade. The marshal yelped and turned. He fired then ducked below the level of the low wall. Raton got off two more shots and ducked down. Swan looked over the wall. The Tejans were charging the house. They realized that there were only two people. A chunk of wall flew up next to Swan's head. He dove below the wall again. Raton rose and fired two shots. The red pulses of light cut into two more officers. A beam of highly concentrated light caught Raton in the arm and spun him around and sent him to the ground. Little wisps of smoke curled up from Raton's shirt. Swan helped the sheriff into a sitting position. "We're finished, aren't we?"
A loud yell pierced Swan's thoughts. The pulse beams firing around them stopped. Swan and Raton peered over the wall. A group of twelve New Granadans ran in from all sides. Raton leapt over the wall. Swan looked around in stunned silence. Sounds of firing and yelling finally penetrated his hearing. Almost as soon as Swan heard the firing, there was silence. He stood up and looked around. Only New Granadans were standing.
Swan rushed over to Raton. "Are you okay?" he asked, looking at the sheriff's burned sleeve.
Raton looked at his arm. "Hurts like hell, but I'll live."
Juan Raton and the other eleven New Granadans who had come to the rescue walked up to the sheriff and the marshal. "Thanks for coming. Thanks for risking everything," said Swan.
Juan Raton smiled. "Ever since the day you stood up to the Tejans for our sake, you became part of our family and family is very important to us."
The New Granadans gathered around and cheered. That night there was a fiesta in honor of Edmund Ray Swan. Swan and the New Granadans knew a war had begun. However, they knew they could win it together.
HOMECOMING
Nantucket, the Gray Lady, has always been a symbol of the ocean and sailors at sea. Even in the thirtieth century, the houses were covered in gray, wooden shingles. Aside from the occasional hover moving along the cobblestone street, no one would be able to tell from an evening stroll in the Villages of Nantucket or Siasconset that the island had ever left the eighteenth century.
Many of the old houses still had widow walks. Wives of sailors used to go to the widow walks on the tops of the houses and watch the harbor for their husbands to return from the sea. Many of Jerome Ellis' ancestors walked the wooden planks on the top of his house. He insisted the antique structure be maintained in usable condition. Suki Firebrandt Ellis went along with her husband's whim. Normally she avoided the widow walk, only going up to apply a new coat of paint or replace a rotting piece of wood. This night seemed oddly different. A dark foreboding filled her thoughts. Something somewhere was desperately wrong, but she didn't know what. Suki Firebrandt Ellis paced the ancient structure. Instead of watching the harbor, she looked up and watched a rare, clear summer sky.
She felt a little guilty. The Maria Mitchell astronomy students would be hosting an open house for those tourists who wanted to look through an old-fashioned telescope. As association director, she should be there. Even so, the observatory director would be there and there would be plenty more open houses. Whatever compelled her to stay home and come to the widow's walk was stronger than her need to be at work.
She sighed, thinking of her husband and son among the stars. She looked in the direction she imagined Sufiro to be. The star was not visible with the naked eye. In fact, it was on the other side of the galaxy. Fire thought about her father trapped on a world caught in conflict. All of the men in her life were in some degree of danger. She pulled the heavy woolen sweater tight around her. With a shudder, she realized how terribly lonely she was. Turning her eyes back to the harbor, she saw the warm lights of the town and decided to take a walk.
Fire descended the ladder into the attic. Ancient hinges creaked as she latched the old hatchway to the roof. She made her way downstairs and closed the heavy wooden front door behind her. She walked down the sidewalk to Main Street and strolled down the cobblestone way. The night was young and tourists crowded the streets. Fire stopped to watch a street musician play the violin. His lyrical melodies only served to remind her how much she missed the fields of Sufiro. She continued down to the harbor and looked out at the ships. The waves lapped lazily at the coast. The ships stood in silent majesty. Walking along the harbor always gave her comfort. The sea air and the soft, rhythmical sounds of boats swaying at anchor always seemed to rejuvenate her.
After an hour, Fire decided to return home. She stopped at the old drug store for some strawberry ice cream and chatted with the young fellow behind the counter. He was just on the island for the summer. She talked with him about history and was amazed at how much he knew of the Ellis family. He talked about the family's tie to the ancient whaling industry. "I don't know of any family on the planet that's had so many ship captains as the Ellis family," he said.
"It's pretty amazing, isn't it?" asked Fire, mindlessly licking the ice cream cone. Nantucket was one of the few places on the planet one could still get old-fashioned ice cream made from real milk. It reminded her of the ice cream Roberts had made using milk from the first cow she had ever seen. She remembered the first dairy farmers unloading animals from the old rattletrap space ship they had arrived on.
"I understand your son is in the new Confederation Space Fleet, Mrs. Ellis," said the freckle-faced boy, trying to make small talk.
"He is," said Fire with a smile of pride. "I don't think he'll be happy until he's posted commander of his own ship." She stared at the ice cream for a moment. "Who would have thought it, though. John Mark seemed so different as a boy. It seemed like he would always carry a book of some kind or another. If I were sad or lonely, he would always be able to find a passage that would cheer me up." She sighed. "I wish he was here now."
"If he always carried a book around, didn't he get picked on by the other kids?" The freckle-faced boy mindlessly wiped the counter.
Fire smiled. "Seems like he got into a lot of fights, but he always seemed to win." She looked over to a case on the wall. In it were boxes upon boxes of cigars. The boxes were a myriad of colors, yellow, red, and green. Sailing ships and men in meeting halls adorned the lids. "Isn't tobacco illegal on Earth?"
The boy grinned, embarrassed. Everyone knew that the laws were relaxed on Nantucket due to the heavy tourist trade. She shook her head. "I remember Jerome bringing John Mark down here for his first cigar. I tried to talk him out of that foolishness. Jerome would hear nothing of it." Fire finished her ice cream. She handed the boy a business card. "If you're off during the next open house at the observatory, come up."
"I'll do that," said the boy, enthusiastically.
Fire strolled home, feeling not quite so lonely. She'd also done her bit for the association, talking about the open houses. Stepping in the door, she locked it behind her. She walked around the house turning off the lights. Finally, she stepped into the bedroom and undressed slowly in front of the mirror.
She unbraided her long black hair and let it fall over her breasts and examined herself in the mirror. She imagined Jerome's hands caressing her body and missed him terribly. Again she felt lonely. She crawled between the blankets of the bed. It creaked in comfortingly familiar ways. She was just about to reach over and turn out the light when a buzzing sounded from the living room. "Damn," she whispered.
Fire got out of bed, retrieved her quilted bathrobe and padded into the living room where the teleholo was. "Who the hell is calling at this time of night," she muttered to herself as she sat down in the console chair and activated the touch pad on the wall next to her.
The hologram of a man she did not recognize appeared in front of her. He wore one of the uniforms of the new Confederation Space Fleet. His jacket was pressed a little too well. The insignia sparkled just a little too much. He was obviously a local, stationed either on Earth or Titan. "Mrs. Ellis?" he asked, too somber.
She nodded, instinctively frightened of what he had to say.
"I regret to be the one to inform you ... The
Nantucket
has been lost with all hands." The man looked forward, not meeting her eyes.
Suki Firebrandt Ellis sat, her hands in her lap. "How?"
"The ship was destroyed. From the nature of the wreckage we found, we have to assume it was a Cluster ship."
Fire closed her eyes, feeling numb. "Why?"
"As with all encounters with the Cluster ... we're really not sure why." The man cleared his throat and shifted a little uncomfortably. "From what we can ascertain, the
Nantucket
did nothing to provoke an attack."
Fire looked back at the hologram. "Leave."
The hologram image winked out. Fire put her face in her hands, letting the cleansing tears flow.
* * * *

Teklar of Titan called a meeting with Admiral Marlou Strauss of Earth. Strauss was not the senior-most admiral, but she was influential and influenceable. The admiral's holographic form appeared in her chambers. "Sufiro has stopped producing Erdonium. We are not building enough ships," said the Titan.

Admiral Strauss sighed. "There's some kind of internal problem on Sufiro. There have been reports of growing unrest on the continent of New Granada."

"Tejo supplies the Erdonium," said Teklar. "What is the problem?"
"The workers come from New Granada," explained Strauss.
"A conflict," said Teklar, simply. "You must send someone to resolve it."
"It's a very emotional conflict," said Strauss. Teklar barred her razor-sharp teeth in contemplation of the statement. Strauss continued, "The problem is more diplomatic in nature. I can't spare a captain for something like this."
"Promote Ellis," said Teklar. The Titan saw the admiral check a computer display outside the holographic projection's view.
"I have twenty-three lieutenants named Ellis," said the admiral. "There are a virtual plethora of A-coms and B-coms named Ellis. Who do you propose that I promote?"
"John Mark Ellis," said Teklar, consulting virtual memory.
"Ellis is a good, but not remarkable officer," said Strauss, consulting her computer. "He's got all the makings of a solid career lieutenant. I can't justify making him a captain."
"The qualities of captaincy sometimes lie just below the surface." The Titan chose her words carefully. "He has demonstrated understandings that elude other humans."
The admiral's brow furrowed. "I don't understand and that explanation won't fly with other admirals."
"It doesn't have to fly with other admirals," said Teklar. "Just give him the command."
Strauss rubbed the bridge of her nose. How could she deny the leader of the known galaxy? "I can promote him to commander and give him a destroyer."
"That will be sufficient," said Teklar. The Titan turned off the holographic display and thought about the admiral's claim of strife at Sufiro. Strong emotion was just the thing to attract the Intelligence.
* * * *