The Sword and the Plough (27 page)

* * *

“I’m not trying to condone what we did,”
Jeremiah said once the little pirate ship was under way. “Just
trying to explain why we did it.”

The
Stellar Gypsy
slipped through the last
hazardous channel in the junk fields and broke into open orbit. Her
pilot pulled back on the throttle and the little ship increased her
speed.

Jeremiah looked over his shoulder at Lars. “I
guess you know how hard life is on a black rock planet, Lars,” he
said.

The young man nodded. He was sitting on
the cockpit floor behind Caroline and Jeremiah. There was only
seating for two on the pirate ship’s small flight deck. He would
just have to trust the
gravity compensator
. Directly behind him was the access door
to the cargo hold where the pirates had once stowed their
ill-gotten gains.

“
Well, it was harder then, thirty years
ago,” Jeremiah went on. “Back then, the going was tough, life and
death tough. Lumai was one of the frontier planets. Royal rule
barely touched her. Wild she was, and only the meanest and perhaps
the lucky, survived.

“
Seth had lost his folks earlier than he
could remember, and I don’t reckon I ever had any. The two of us
just grew up the best we could. Turning pirate was as natural as
breathing and a lot more profitable. But we were never killers like
some – Peach Jones, Hong, Angel, Rodriguez and others. We just took
what we could find, and if the owner objected we took it anyway.”
Jeremiah gave a shrug. “But those lawless days had to end and the
old king did a thorough job on that…”

“Yes, but that is all past history now,”
Caroline broke in eagerly, “and those days have long since been
forgotten. You and Old Seth do not need to worry. I’m sure the
queen will understand…”

Jeremiah shook his head sadly. “No
pirate’s ever been pardoned,” he replied quietly. “And it ain’t
about to happen now.” He stared out into the star jewelled
darkness. “The young queen’s got her hands full now, miss. And
she’s got to prove her strength. She has no choice. There can be no
pardons – no turning a blind eye. The Commonwealth can only survive
if its ruler is strong. It’s the first law of nature. Only the
toughest survive.”

“
But this is different,” Caroline
protested. “You may have been pirates in the past, but all that has
changed now. By using the
Stellar Gypsy
to take us…”

Jeremiah raised a hand abruptly. “Ah, sorry
to interrupt you, miss, but we need to shut down our engines.”

“Why, what’s wrong?”

“
Megran warships, miss, dead ahead. See
there, on the scanner.”

Caroline stared horrified at the screen.
“There must be a dozen of them,” she breathed.

“More likely closer to fifty, miss. The
scanner’s only picking up those directly in front of it. At this
distance, it won’t pick up those in line behind, unless I focus it
to pinpoint them.”

“What do we do now then?” Lars asked quietly
from behind them.

“Nothin’. Just sit and wait. We’re too small
to be seen on their scanners at this range. Besides, we’ll shortly
have company that’ll provide us cover. Have a look out the
starboard scope, Lars, and tell us what you see.”

Lars leaned over and put his eye to the
scope, which protruded from the cabin side.

“
Nothing but blackness out here,” he said.
“No, wait a minute. I
can
see something.” The young man adjusted the scope
until he could see out across the ring of solar engines at the
stern. What he saw caused him to catch his breath.

“
It’s another planet,” he said in awe. “No,
it must be a moon, one of Megran’s moons. But it’s like a giant
white planet coming right up behind us. It looks like it’s going to
run us down.”

Jeremiah chuckled. “Don’t worry Lars,
there’s little risk of that. Actually, it’s the smallest of
Megran’s moons
Vosta
, and it’ll be an hour or two yet ’fore she’s close enough
to be of any use.”

“How will it help us?” Caroline queried.

“Well miss, those warships are scanning for
any ship trying to move in or out of orbit. And even if they missed
seeing us, their scanners would pick up the waves of our photon
engines when we broke orbit. In other words, they’d hear us. Right
now, if they did pick up anything from our engines before, they
probably assumed we were some sort of sub-orbital craft, like a
shuttlecraft, or even a high flying aircraft, since we’ve stayed
well in orbit.”

“
But then, how
do
we break out of orbit?” asked Lars. “Even
if we do use the moon as a blind they’ll hear our engines as soon
as we move.”

Jeremiah gave a low chuckle. “Good
thinking, Lars, you’d have made a good pirate. But there’s another
trick yet, one Seth and I used once to take a fat freighter by
surprise. Only this time we’ll use it in reverse to sneak away.” He
grinned happily at his memories. “When the moon comes up, we’ll
simply drop into secondary orbit around it – and then, when we’ve
got the moon between us and the Megran fleet, we’ll fire our
engines. We won’t need so much power to break Vosta orbit, and the
fleet won’t hear us anyway, ’cause we’ll have the moon between them
and us.” He grinned at his two passengers. “Meanwhile, we just sit
and wait. Know any good word games?”

* * *

“Oh Johnny, your moustache tickles.”

Cheryl York took a step backwards into the
doorway of the women’s barracks. She was still in her uniform. The
solar lamp above the entrance came on automatically and cast a
circle of pale yellow around the couple. It was late and most of
the barracks lights were off save for the security lights along the
wire fence that secured the compound, and the guard box at the
gate.

The night was cool and leaden clouds obscured
the moon.

Captain Johan De Vries grinned. “They say
once you’ve kissed a man with a moustache you can’t kiss a man
without one.”

The captain was clad in his best civilian
clothes. The brown trousers were smartly creased, his white shirt
perfectly ironed, and his black leather jacket the most expensive
his pay could afford.

The young woman leaned forward suddenly and
kissed him on the nose.

“
There, that will have to do, or if I know
you, you’ll be wanting more than a kiss.”

Johnny gave an exaggerated sigh. “Oh well,
you can’t blame a guy for trying,” he responded. “Especially when
he’s with the woman he loves, the most beautiful woman under the
eight suns of the Commonwealth.

Cheryl York smiled. “Oh Johnny, you’re very
sweet.” She sighed. “But I haven’t been very nice to you lately,
have I?”

The captain shook his head. “You’ve had
things to worry about girl. I understand. From what you’ve said, I
gather your family life growing up wasn’t that great.”

He took her hands in his. His face was pale
and indistinct in the dim light as he spoke, but his words said it
all.

“
Cheryl, I’d like to offer myself as your
new family, today and forever, ’til death do us part. That’s if
you’ll have me.”

The young woman looked hard at him for a
moment, exploring the shadowy face, and then a joyous smile
animated her being.

“Come here you gorgeous man, you,” she
murmured.

In that instant, the Earth moon came out from
behind its dark mantel and the grey night turned silver.

The blast of the light-bolt shook
the
Stellar Gypsy
from stem to stern. It had not hit the little ship, but
passed close by her bow. Inside the cockpit, the occupants were
momentarily blinded by the flash, as if they had looked directly
into a sun.

They had been caught completely unawares.
Having already travelled some distance without incident, they had
imagined themselves safe.

The second bolt was closer than the first,
tumbling the
Stellar Gypsy
like a leaf in a storm. Jeremiah shut down the
engines that now threatened to shake her to pieces.

Caroline struggled to sit up. The violent
motion of the vessel had almost dragged her out of her seat
harness.

“What on Earth was that?” she muttered in an
awed voice. She glanced over at her companion and her eyes widened
in alarm. Jeremiah’s mouth was bloody. “Jeremiah, are you
hurt?”

The old man wiped the blood away with the
back of his hand, and felt inside his mouth with his tongue. He had
struck his face on the instrument fascia when the blast hit.

He worked up a smile. “Yeah, I seem
okay.”

“You all right too, Lars?” Caroline asked.
There was no answer. She twisted her head round. Jeremiah saw her
hand shoot to her mouth and the colour drain from her face.

“
Lars!
”

The young man was floating weightless above
them, suspended as it were from the cockpit ceiling. The ship’s
artificial gravity system had failed after the second light-bolt,
and Lars, who had no safety harness to hold him, had been thrown
bodily round the cockpit when the ship plunged out of control. Now
he was floating face down, eyes shut, his arms hanging limp, his
breathing laboured.

“Lars!” Caroline cried out again in near
panic.

Lars responded with a moan. His eyes opened.
A look of horror crossed his face and his legs and arms began to
flail helplessly.

“Hold still, Lars,” Jeremiah shouted. “You’re
only making things worse.”

The old man tested the switches on the panel
in front of him. The solar battery indicators glowed green briefly
then one by one flickered out. He tried the reserve circuit. The
panel came suddenly to life, all circuits green, returning the
artificial gravity to the ship’s cockpit and Lars to the ribbed
steel deck with a painful thump.

“You okay, Lars?” Jeremiah asked as the young
man sat up.

“
Just barely,” he groaned. “Jeremiah, could
you warn me before the next lot of aerobatics so I can get out and
walk?” He rubbed his head ruefully. “I thought I’d had it that
time. I feel like the whole Megran army just marched over me
–
again!”
He
straightened his shoulders and stretched out his arms. “Ouch! I
ache all over.”

“Sorry Lars, but that wasn’t me,” Jeremiah
said. “We were shot at.”

Caroline’s brows arched. “Shot at?” Her
startled stare flicked round the cockpit. “Is that scanner still
working?”

“Aye miss,” Jeremiah answered. “But we don’t
need the scanner. Look out there.”

Caroline followed the line of his eyes.
Ahead of them, standing motionless in their path, was a darker
shape in the darkness; the long cigar shape of a large warship, a
cruiser.

And she’s not alone,” their pilot added.

Lars peered over Jeremiah’s shoulder. “I can
only see one,” he said frowning.

The old man smiled grimly. “It takes practice
to see,” he said in a low voice. “But there’s more than one out
there, believe me. I can almost smell ’em.”

“Then what are we waiting for?” Caroline
cried. “You said this ship was fast. Get us out of here.”

Their pilot shook his head. “No miss, they’d
shoot us to pieces in seconds.” He looked out into the dark. “No,
we must wait. Those were warning shots. They shorted a few
circuits, but I don’t think they’ve done us any real harm.”

“Warning shots?” Caroline exploded. “Warning
shots? They could have killed us.”

“No miss, I don’t think so. They weren’t
aiming to kill. Whoever they are, they know their business. Those
were well placed shots. First class gunnery, I’d say.”

Caroline stared out at the warship, her brow
creased in anger.

“Well, what are they doing now?”

Jeremiah shrugged. “I guess they’re waiting
for their sensors to finish sniffing us out.”

“Well, I for one don’t intend to sit here and
wait for them to make up their minds,” Caroline expostulated.
“There must be something we can do?”

Jeremiah nodded. “You may be right, miss.
Attack the best means of defence, eh?” He glanced from one to the
other. “Okay, keep your fingers crossed. Here we go.”

He flicked the switch on the ship’s
communicator.

“
This is
Stellar
Gypsy
,” he huffed into the
mouthpiece. “What ship are you? And what authority gives you the
right to fire upon a peaceful vessel?” He switched off. “That
should do something,” he muttered with a nervous grin, “one way or
the other.”

Lars studied the long black shadow in front
of them. The predatory shape was a cruel stain on an otherwise
diamond-speckled universe. The three of them had come so far.
Success had been so close…

“
Calling
Stellar Gypsy.
Calling
Stellar
Gypsy
.
”
The communicator crackled into
life, its tone cold and imperious. “This is Her Majesty’s
warship
Defiant.
You are travelling in Earth’s territorial space without
authorization. Please consider yourselves under arrest. Prepare to
be boarded.”

“It’s a royal patrol,” Jeremiah shouted
excitedly over the last part of the message. He clasped his hands
together above his head like a triumphant pugilist. “We made it!”
he cried. “We made it!”

Caroline reached over abruptly grabbing the
communicator microphone and pulling it to her.

“This is Lady Caroline Tudor, first cousin to
the queen,” she declared sharply. “And this vessel is on important
royal business. Voice-print me immediately and stand-by for further
instructions on my voice-print confirmation.”