Blackbeard Superbox, page 8
“Your pilot. Yes, I know.”
“He is an officer in the Royal Navy. We protect our own, Nigel. Doesn’t matter if we’re talking about human or Hroom. You know this. You felt this way yourself at one point, or was I mistaken?”
Rutherford ignored the forced familiarity of Drake using his given name. “He’s not an officer any more, he’s an eater. I don’t care what he was, that’s what he is now, and is anyone surprised? Maybe they’ll all be eaters eventually, maybe it’s inevitable.” He made his tone conciliatory. “Stand down, surrender. We’ll discuss matters when I have you on board Vigilant. If you have a grievance, I’ll hear you out. No need to rush back to Albion. We can put in for repairs at Hot Barsa.”
Drake turned his head slightly to the right, as if listening to someone speaking from off screen. “They’re now saying twenty minutes until Henry Upton breaks apart. That doesn’t leave you much time. Better turn around before it’s too late.”
“Stand down, Drake,” Rutherford said. “You’ll be responsible for all those deaths.”
Drake smiled and then cut the com link. Rutherford cursed at the blank screen. He’d hoped Drake was bluffing, that he wouldn’t keep running.
“Turn around?” Pittsfield asked. “Captain?”
Rutherford didn’t answer. It wasn’t only the slaver that was troubling him, but that Drake had grown so ruthless and desperate. Rutherford had hoped to take him on board after capturing Ajax, speak to him as one captain to another. Drake’s behavior made no sense.
He truly believes he is innocent.
The evidence against Rutherford’s old friend had seemed solid. Records confirmed it. The computers had shown falsified logs. The man had blundered and then attempted to deceive both his crew and the navy. This mutiny was one more mistake in an escalation that would see Drake dead.
But there was a familiar note in his friend’s voice. Confidence, the rightness of purpose for which he was known. Rutherford had forgotten how utterly certain of himself Drake could seem when he thought he was in the right. A niggle of doubt burrowed into Rutherford’s gut. What if he was trying to kill an innocent man?
He’s not innocent of mutiny. That much is clear.
Yes, but there were times when a man could disobey a wicked order. What if Rutherford were ordered to bring the entire fleet into orbit around Albion and bombard it with nuclear weapons? Would he do it? Surely not.
“We need orders, Captain,” Pittsfield said, sounding nervous.
“Continue pursuit. Give that traitor all he can take. We’ll take his ship anyway, and he’ll have the blood of all those people on his hands. His decision, not ours.”
“Yes, sir.”
But no sooner had he spoken, than a message came through from the fleet. When Rutherford had come around Cold Barsa to find Ajax trying to board the merchant ship, he’d sent off a subspace message to fleet headquarters to say that he’d engaged the enemy. It was standard practice, in case there were any vessels in the area who might send help. He’d reported that Ajax had Henry Upton harpooned and intended to board her.
Nearly an hour had passed since he’d sent the message, and an answer had come back from Albion.
Destroy Ajax if you must, but do not risk the merchant ship.
Rutherford sat in stunned disbelief when Pittsfield relayed the message. “Repeat that message, Commander.”
Pittsfield read it again.
“We can sacrifice a Royal Navy cruiser, but we’re to preserve a beat-up old merchant ship?” Rutherford said. “What is Henry Upton worth, a few thousand pounds? Her cargo a few thousand more?”
“That is what it says, sir.”
“I know what it says, Commander.”
Rutherford stared at the viewscreen, at Ajax, her hull pitted by the bombardment of Vigilant’s cannons, which had punctured the shields and were now starting to tear up her underbelly. A few more broadsides, and he’d have her crippled and helpless. There would be no need to destroy Ajax or its crew. Another shot broke through, and fire and debris flared into space.
“Perhaps it is a mistake,” Pittsfield said. “I could request clarification. The order doesn’t make sense. It will take another hour to get an answer. By then—”
“It is no mistake,” Rutherford said bitterly. “Break off pursuit. We will obey orders.”
“But sir.”
“Do what I say!”
Mutters and dark looks swept over the bridge as Pittsfield relayed the captain’s orders. Under normal circumstances, Rutherford would not have tolerated such dissent, but they only mirrored his own anger at being called away.
The enemy vanished from sight as Vigilant swung around to return to Cold Barsa. Henry Upton was still turning end over end, her distress calls ever more frantic. Rutherford reversed the engines when they got within a few tens of thousands of miles, slowing rapidly to match the merchant vessel’s course and speed. He fired a harpoon to grab hold so he could stabilize her enough to bring in.
But the harpoon came loose when they started to bring her in. It had attached itself to a damaged part of the hull that now broke free. Drake ordered another harpoon launched. This one took hold. But when the merchant ship was still a hundred miles out, a tremendous fissure opened midway down her hull. She broke in two, spewing debris into space.
By the time Vigilant finished picking through flotsam, she’d rescued fewer than twenty survivors, these protected in undamaged, airlocked sections of the ship. Because the ship had split right down the central hold, the only Hroom among the survivors were crew. The cargo had all vented into space. These few Hroom survivors were still raving eaters, demanding their sugar rations the instant they came on board.
And of course, Ajax had vanished. Cloaked, fleeing toward some distant jump point. The Barsa system was full of them.
Vigilant made a course for Hot Barsa with the two largest bits of wreckage in tow. Long before she arrived, the first of many recriminating messages had begun to arrive from the Admiralty.
Chapter Eight
After Tolvern had brought Captain Drake back from the slaver and broken free, she’d turned over the bridge with a flood of relief. Drake would save them. She didn’t know how, but he would.
But for the next hour, things had seemed excessively grim. Vigilant had kept pace beneath them only a few hundred miles away. She’d rolled onto her side to present a broadside to Ajax’s belly. They’d already taken several shots underneath, but the truth was that nowhere on the shields could take a sustained bombardment. Tolvern was itching to return fire, but that would mean lowering their own shields. The instant that happened, Rutherford would tear them apart.
“Come on, Nigel,” Drake muttered after he’d spoken to Rutherford about Henry Upton’s desperate situation. “Do the right thing.” His face was pale and his jaw rigid. Blood seeped out from beneath the bandage Tolvern had sprayed on his forehead.
The terrifying thing was that Drake had told Tolvern if Rutherford did not, in fact, give up the pursuit, then he’d surrender. He wouldn’t sacrifice all those humans and Hroom left on Henry Upton. She didn’t relish the thought of being responsible for the death of all souls on the slaver, but if it were up to her, she would keep running. Any number of things might happen to give them a chance to reach the jump point.
Jane’s cool voice came over the com system. “Thirty-seven hours to jump point at current trajectory and acceleration.”
Capp was sitting in the pilot’s chair. She had her eyes closed, her nav chip in communication with the nav computer. But she opened her eyes at Jane’s voice. “We know that, you stupid cow.”
Drake let out his breath. Tolvern looked up to see Vigilant peeling away, cannons retracting. She scarcely dared hope.
A feint? Would more naval vessels come tearing in from their flanks? When none appeared, she finally stopped holding her breath.
Drake slumped in his chair, and Tolvern hurried over to catch him in case he fell. He looked up with a dazed expression. He should be in sick bay for a concussion. Nyb Pim had apparently struck him on the temple with a closed fist before they’d subdued the alien and dragged him through the breach to Ajax. The Hroom was currently locked in an isolation cell.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “This is my fault.”
“Rubbish. You executed perfectly.”
She used her sleeve to mop at the blood now trickling down his temple. “You should go to the sick bay, sir.”
Drake grimaced and glanced back at the screen. “Yes, perhaps you’re right. Keep us on course. If Rutherford turns around and gives pursuit, hail me at once.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Otherwise, see to our pilot.” A quick glance at Capp, who looked like she was half dozing in the pilot’s chair. “We need Nyb Pim here as soon as possible.”
Tolvern watched Drake rise to his feet and go for the door. He was moving like an old man, his arms wrapped around himself as though he’d cracked a rib. She wanted to go to him, urge him to lean his weight into her, but was afraid that gesture would be misinterpreted.
The captain was a tall man with a strong, handsome jaw. He had dark hair and piercing hazel eyes with flecks of gold in them. When she’d first been assigned to Ajax, nearly five years earlier, she’d been in awe of him, so much so that a fellow ensign had joked that she was in love with the young captain. That had left Tolvern so flushed and angry that she’d challenged the accuser to a duel, which had been laughingly declined, at which point she calmed.
She wasn’t in love with him. That was rubbish, and anyway, it would have been pointless. Drake was of noble blood, and she was a commoner. Even if she had been so inclined (and she was not, she insisted to herself), she may as well fall in love with the crown prince, for all the good it would do.
Drake had never treated her like a commoner, but with exacting correctness according to their comparative naval ranks. He consulted, but never deferred. And since he had always put his weight in favor of her various promotions, he must hold her in some esteem. If only she were as confident in herself.
Tolvern stayed on the bridge for another hour to be sure that Rutherford had let them escape. No word from Drake; she figured he was sleeping off a concussion. She told Capp to maintain their current course except on override from herself or the captain, then went down to the sick bay. She resisted the urge to check in with Dr. Lee to see about the captain’s concussion, and instead went to the isolation cells. It was here they kept people quarantined who’d been exposed to a xeno-virus or who were receiving treatment for severe radiation exposure. There were only five cells, enough for a contaminated away team, but not enough to contain a major outbreak. Right now, only one cell had a green light above the door.
Two men stood in front of the cell block. Tolvern’s thoughts were elsewhere as she arrived, and she supposed they’d been posted as guards. Only when they looked up, their low voices abruptly ceasing, did she fully take in the scene.
One of them was Carvalho, the Ladino she and the captain had spotted in the mess cozied up to Corporal Capp, and the other was one of the older criminals freed at the same time Tolvern had rescued Drake. He had an ugly scar across his right cheek, but it was almost obscured by gray and black whiskers, since the man hadn’t shaved in what, ten days now? Tolvern couldn’t remember his name at the moment. The men were standing too close to each other, as if they’d been sharing a secret or swapping something between them.
She swore she caught a guilty look on the bearded fellow’s face, and he shoved his hands so quickly into his pockets that she figured he was hiding something. Carvalho, however, leaned back against the wall with such a cool look on his face that she questioned her growing suspicion.
“What are you doing here?” Her hand wanted to go to her side arm, even though she told herself that was ridiculous.
“Nothing,” Carvalho said. “Quiet place to shoot the breeze, that’s all.”
“Is one of you on guard duty?”
“Huh?”
“The guard,” she said. “Who is it?”
The second, older man looked at her as if this were the most ridiculous thing he’d ever heard. “Ain’t no guard. Can’t hardly spare one, now can we?”
“You two seem idle enough. Don’t you have somewhere better to go? Engineering could put you to work. Assisting the boatswain or some such. We’ve got all sorts of trouble and no use for idleness.”
“Not our shift,” Carvalho said sullenly. “We’re off until twenty-two hundred.”
“I’m pretty sure this is all hands on deck, so unless you’re asleep or eating, I suggest you find something useful to do.”
They slouched off from the isolation cells, and she stared hard at their backs until they’d disappeared. She turned her gaze back to the empty corridor. What the hell were those men doing here, anyway?
Tolvern stepped up to the window of the cell with the green light above the door. Captain had said Nyb Pim was in a bad way; she didn’t want to open the door and find him crouched, ready to fling himself at her.
The cell was about eight feet by four feet, with a bunk along the wall and a stainless steel toilet. Some shelves for personal belongings. A tight-weave carpet covered floors, walls, and ceiling. The cell had an entertainment screen, but no keyboard or other computer equipment.
The pilot wasn’t lying on the bunk, and he wasn’t watching or doing something on the screen. Instead, he’d squeezed himself into the far corner and drawn his bony knees against his chest. His high, bald head was tucked between his knees. He was still dressed in the rags Drake had found him in, when he’d been squeezed into the hold of the slaver with hundreds of other Hroom. A uniform lay in one corner, tossed in apparently, then ignored.
Tolvern checked her side arm. It was loaded, but she wished she’d swapped it at the armory for a stun gun. If Nyb Pim tried anything funny, she didn’t want to kill him protecting herself. She put her hand against the reader.
“Commander Jess Tolvern,” she told it. “Open the door.”
The door slid open. The Hroom didn’t look up.
“It’s me. Tolvern. How are you doing, mate?”
Nyb Pim lifted his head slowly, like a turtle emerging from its shell. He looked at her through large, watering eyes. “Did you bring my ration?”
Tolvern took a deep breath. She was still in the hallway and could shut the doors without moving backward, in case he decided to come after her. Nyb Pim had always been such a calm, measured sort that it felt like pure fancy to be expecting such a reaction. And yet.
He struck the captain. Don’t forget that.
“I have to tell you something. It’s going to be hard to hear. I need you to stay calm.”
“I want my ration. It is late.”
“We need to detox you. I’m afraid there aren’t going to be any rations.”
Nyb Pim had scarcely moved except to lift his head, but now he unfolded himself like a giant insect and sprang for the door. He loomed above her, nearly seven and a half feet tall to her five feet seven, and his arms were so long that his fingers were practically at her throat before she could so much as take a step backward.
She was so startled she didn’t have a chance to speak, but slammed her hand on the pad. The doors zipped shut, and not with the cautious glide of the doors on the lift, but with all the urgency of a breached airlock sealing itself. Nyb Pim slammed against the other side with an incoherent scream. He shoved his face against the tiny, three-inch-thick window.
“GIVE ME MY SUGAR!”
Nyb Pim beat and thrashed against the door as Tolvern backed away. She came out of the cell block and called down to engineering. Barker came on.
“Hey, Barker. It’s Tolvern. I’m short-handed—got anyone you can spare?” Her calm words belied her pounding heart and dry mouth.
“What do you think?” he grumbled. The gunner sounded exhausted and ready to bite her head off.
“I really need someone. Nothing difficult, guard duty.”
“Oh, you do, huh? You got any idea what we’re dealing with down here? The engines are status yellow, and that’s the best of what I’ve got. Shields damaged, and we’re still leaking air. You don’t even want to know what the waste system is like at the moment. Let’s just say I wouldn’t drink the water until further notice.”
“I’m not messing around,” she said. “You must have someone. I need a guard, and it’s urgent.”
“Hah. Okay, then, fine. I’ve got a couple of freed prisoners down here. More trouble than they’re worth. How about I give you one of them?”
She thought about the two men she’d caught in the cell block when she’d arrived. “No good. I need someone I can trust. Captain is in the sick bay with a concussion, and I need to stay on the bridge until he comes back. I can’t be trusting smugglers and pirates.” When he was silent on the other end, she said. “I’m in command, Barker, and I’m telling you what I need. Do I need to make it an order?”
He sighed. “Fine, but you’ve got to give me more than that.”
She told him how Nyb Pim had nearly attacked her. “Doesn’t seem to be anyone here keeping an eye on him. I need someone with a gun and some discipline. Someone who isn’t so dumb as to open the door or to stand outside pouring sugar into his coffee, know what I mean?”
“All right. I’ve got someone. Wouldn’t say he’s the brightest fellow I’ve got, but he obeys orders. You know Harrison?”
“Yeah, he’ll do. Send him up.”
Tolvern cut the link and made her way back up to the bridge. She passed Harrison in the hallway, and then she shared the lift with Carvalho. No sign of the second man. She stared straight ahead, but the big Ladino’s eyes ranged up and down her body. Blasted criminal types—she couldn’t wait until they could all be dumped in some backwater, and Drake could get a real crew. She endured his visual groping until he got off, then continued up to the bridge.
No sign of the captain yet. Capp was lounging in the pilot’s chair, smoking a cigar as if it were the crew lounge. Tolvern ordered her to put it out. Capp grunted, took a final puff, and ground it out in an ash tray. A trail of smoke drifted into the air, as lazy and sullen as the corporal herself.
