Spitfire Station: Triple-Cross, page 4
Trying to put his worries to the back of his mind, Thorin concentrated on the docking sequence. The thought that this might be his final flight was a niggling worry, but at least he’d ended on a high with one last dogfight. Closing out his career the way it began seemed right. The others would be able to claim their military pensions at last, and he...he’d think of something. The familiar clang of the docking clamps locking into place ended his train of thought, and he pulled himself up through the hatch and into a clean corridor, uniformed figures swarming around.
“Nice flying,” one of them said, holding out his hand. Thorin struggled to remember the Triplanetary fleet insignia; this was a Senior Lieutenant, he thought.
“All part of the day’s work. You the shuttle pilot?”
“Senior Lieutenant Logan Winter, currently commanding this circus. And you are Colonel Thorin Redwood, late of the United Nations Space Force.”
With a half-smile, he replied, “It hasn’t been Colonel for a long time.”
Nodding, Logan said, “That really was some good flying. I’ve ordered my technical crew to fit you up with new fuel and any repairs you need, but I was wondering if you could do me another favor?”
“Lieutenant, I’ve got quite a few problems right now.”
“Who do you owe money to?”
Thorin’s mouth opened; this guy was sharp. “Lilith. Our ships are mortgaged to the hilt.”
“I think I can keep her boys off your backs for a while.”
Rakesh had swum up next to Thorin, and the two of them exchanged glances before he replied, “What is it you want?”
“Ah, Major, welcome home. Well, gentlemen, what I want is a credible defense force for this station. I understand you’re scraping a living scooping diamonds out of Kumar; I was wondering if you’d thought about trying mercenary work?”
“I’ve never heard of a mercenary fighter squadron,” Thorin said, though a voice at the back of his mind was telling him to grab the offer with both hands. “How long is this for?”
“Until that pocket carrier is out of the system or in pieces.”
“And our fee?”
Logan looked to the side, then back at the two pilots, “I haven’t really got much money in the payroll. I’d appeal to your civic duty, but I’ve never been much of a stand-up comic, so how about this. I’ll give you ordinance – and spares – and upgrade your countermeasures software to the latest civilian package we’ve got. You keep what you don’t use.”
Frowning, Rakesh said, “No restrictions on what we do with it?”
“Turn pirate if you want, I don’t care. Or I can provide you with a list of people who might be interested in picking up some surplus military hardware.”
“Or we might find another contract.” Thorin looked at Rakesh, who nodded; he knew damn well what the rest of the squadron would say. “We’re in, Lieutenant.”
Chapter 4
Six sleeping figures rested quietly in their cell, slowing drifting back and forth on their restraints. Logan gave a quick tug to make sure they would be able to free themselves when they woke up, then slid out of the cell, tapping a button to seal the soundproofed blast door. Lance-Corporal Volski snapped a quick salute as he emerged.
“All secure, sir?”
“All set.” He glanced back at the cell, “You and your gang are going to live here in the security office until further notice. If anyone shows any interest, you are to report to me immediately. If they show more than a little interest, arrest them.”
“What for?”
“Use your imagination. I’ll back you if needed.” He paused, then said, “Under no circumstances are you to have any contact with the prisoners. Make sure they get ration packs three times a day, and that is all. We should have them out of here in three days.”
“Three days? How…”
“Never mind that, Corporal. Suffice to say that this arrest was expected, and is proceeding along a timeline. You don’t need to know any more than that.” He gave a thin smile, “When I can tell you more, I will, over a round of drinks. Deal?”
“We obey orders, sir.”
“That’s the spirit.”
Another figure drifted into the office, and the espatiers bristled, only relaxing slightly when they noted the uniform she was working. Logan briefly flashed her a smile, which snapped from his face when he noticed the department patch on her uniform.
“I wondered when you’d show up,” he said.
“What the hell is going on out here?” she replied.
“Technically I think you are supposed to say something like, ‘reporting for duty, sir’, when you first speak to a senior officer.”
“That, Mr. Winter, would be the first time that anything vaguely approaching normal protocols would have been followed out here. I didn’t want to set a precedent.”
It actually took an effort to suppress a smile. “Right now, we’re securing some prisoners.”
“Who are they? Where have you been? Who attacked you?”
Sighing, he replied, “None of your business, Technical Officer. You aren’t cleared that high.”
“I’ve got full security clearance.”
“No, you just think you do.” He kicked out the security office into the corridor, the woman right on his tail.
“I have a need to know.”
“No, you want to know. You don’t need to know.”
“Look, dammit…”
He spun around to face her, “I don’t even know your name.”
“Melissa Chambers. Does that help?”
“Ah, a Senate has-been. Could the fact that you have been exiled out here have something to do with the fact that you crave a seat that was taken by someone a little older, a little more ambitious, and aware of a potential threat to her long-term political survival?”
“What?”
This time Logan didn’t suppress his smile, “You aren’t the only one with friends back home. I presume this new program has two functions – to keep us military types on our toes and stop us from starting any impromptu wars, and to get certain people out of the way.”
She turned, red-faced, “You don’t know what you are talking about.”
“Look me in the face and say that.”
The two of them had drifted down to the command module, and Logan swung into it, aiming with precision for his open office door. Boris waved at him as he passed, and Ryder cordially ignored him, her attention focused on a computer screen. Melissa followed him inside, closing the door behind her.
“If I’m going to do my job, then I need to be fully informed of everything that goes on out here.”
Logan shook his head, “I don’t want you to do your job.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m giving you a get out of jail card. Go home. I don’t want you here, and I’m not accepting your transfer. Book the next flight home.”
“You can’t do this.”
He smiled, replying, “Yes I can. Hell, what do you care? You don’t want to be out here anyway. Go home and report me, I’m sure you can put together a report that will get me fired. I’ll be cheering you on all the way – I don’t want this damn job.”
She paused at that, then said, “Why don’t you resign?”
“I can’t do that. Not permitted. I can be fired, however, and then I can get back to my real life. Look, this way I get my freedom back and you get a nice big scalp. Worth a lot of points back home.”
“I’m sorry, do you actually think that you are doing me a favor here?”
He shrugged, “Be honest. Is this what you actually want to do? Besides, I owe you a favor; Boris told me that calling in those fighters was your idea.”
Melissa was silent for a long moment, then replied, “I know that the idea of a Political Officer hanging over your shoulder will make you uncomfortable…”
“You’re wrong again. I’m used to having people watching my every move, and knowing the identity of at least one of them is something of a refreshing change.”
“Then what’s your problem? I don’t know you, and as far as I know, you don’t know me.”
“My problem is that I’m in the middle of a complicated operation, and I don’t need any additional distractions. I’ve already had to go off-script enough.”
“That’s all you think I can do? Distract you?”
“I’ve seen your file. No doubt you are dynamite in the byzantine world of the Senate, and I’m sure you can shuffle paperwork around with the best, but I need an operator, and you just aren’t it.”
Her mouth opened, and she shook her head, “Dammit, I’m here to help you, not hinder you. And I’ve looked at your laughable excuse of a crew – all you have are a collection of drinking buddies, teenage delinquents, and insubordinate engineers. Is that what you actually want?”
“What I want is to be several light-years from here. We don’t always get what we want.”
“Dammit, let me help!”
“Why? Why do you want to get involved in this? Stubborn pride, or is there something else buried in there?”
Pulling out a datapad, she called up Logan’s file, waving it under his nose, “This is a full-blown intelligence operation, right from the start. Right from your assignment out here, you’ve been playing the situation.”
“Intelligence operations aren’t that intelligent, as a rule.”
“You’ve got no damn file, Winter.”
“I’m actually impressed you got far enough along to work out that I don’t have a file. That must have taken some work.”
“Oh, it did. You still haven’t answered my question.”
“I’ve never failed in my life, Winter. Top of my class at Goddard Tech., eight years doing good work in the Senate. I never took a bribe, and neither did my boss.”
“That you know of.”
“I knew about his two affairs and his secret daughter. I even knew the nickname of his favorite prostitute – and no, I wasn’t the one arranging it. I think I’d have known if he was doing anything financially problematic.”
Shaking his head, Logan said, “Remind me to put some extra security on my personal files.”
“I don’t want this to be the first time I fail. I don’t want to be here, but here I am, and here I stay, until I finish this tour of duty.”
“And if you can make a few friends in Intelligence, that won’t necessarily hurt you when you seek election – and nor will having a bit of time in uniform.”
“Maybe.”
“Fine. You stay here, and I’ll make use of you.” He tossed her a datapad. “Ever since I got here the paperwork’s been mounting up. Feel free to borrow my office while you get started.”
“What?”
Before she could respond further, he pushed out of his office, drifting into the operations room. Ryder turned as he walked in, brandishing a requisition order as if it was a dagger, swinging towards him.
“Sir, I just got a request for thirty-six missiles from a civilian shuttle pilot.”
“Fighter pilot. It’s quite legitimate; I was just about to brief you.”
Boris shook his head, “Should we be giving ordinance to civilians?”
“We should when they’re working for us. I decided that we needed some extra protection. Lets face it, if that carrier out there should decide to launch a strike at us, about all we could throw back at them would be harsh language.”
Melissa, hanging in the door of the office, said, “Hiring private military contractors for anything other than specialist requirements is way out of line with government policy. We’re trying to discourage the mercenaries, not stimulate the market.”
Turning, he said, “Perhaps this will ‘stimulate’ the brass back home to send us some actual defense. This is just a temporary measure, and it isn’t going to cost us anything.”
“What the hell,” Boris said, “I can run these off in a couple of hours.”
“Run as many as you can,” Logan replied. “We’re going to need more.”
“More? How many more?”
“How many can you build? It’s getting increasingly obvious that having an unarmed space station in this system is like doing a naked dance in a cactus patch. Neither’s going to end well.”
“What’s a cactus?” Ryder asked. “Seriously, I’ve never heard of them.”
“You really need to visit Earth some day.”
“I suppose I should point out that under the current fleet regulations, Triplanetary personnel are not permitted to visit Earth, but what’s the use,” Melissa said. “This station does desperately need some teeth.”
“Boris, what can you do?”
Rubbing his hand across his chin, the engineer said, “I don’t want to just stick missiles at key points around the station, that’s asking for trouble.”
“Why?”
“At a guess,” Melissa said, “because they’d be stolen in hours.”
“Minutes, but you’re on the right lines. Once we’ve got the primary power feeds fixed, I think the best bet is to cobble together some missile racks, and put them at places we can actually be sure of. It’s going to cost us on coverage, lots of blind spots, but if we’ve got some fighters available, that might not be a problem.”
“How long?”
“Two, three days. It’s not hard, but with just one busted fabricator it’s going to take time.” He shrugged, “I’ll go find the Chief and have an argument with him about ways and means. I’ll let you know the outcome.” He turned to leave, then paused, “Logan?”
“Yeah?”
“You still want me running the engineering here? I’m really just a glorified Tech Sergeant.”
Logan nodded, “Damn right I do. Go tell that Chief what to do.”
“That’s going to be fun,” Boris said as he left.
“Anything else we can do, Ryder?” Logan said.
“I want to get some probes out behind the gas giant. Alamo left a partial network when it left, and I think I can patch the holes pretty quickly. At least then we can see what the pirates are doing, even if there’s nothing we can do about it.”
“Get on it.”
“Who’s going to run the station?” she asked.
“Spitfire Station’s run itself for a long time, Lieutenant. I think it can carry on without us for a few more days, especially as there aren’t enough of us to make a difference.” He turned back to Melissa, “Why the hell didn’t we get a full complement? Even a few midshipmen to do the grunt work would have helped.”
“I believe there is still some debate about whether we’re keeping the station, selling it on, or returning it to whatever is left of Cornucopia Mining after all the trials finish. The idea was to keep it maintained so that its commercial value would be retained.”
“Great.”
“Question for a question,” she asked, gesturing towards the departed Boris. “Why did you keep him on as Systems Officer? The Chief probably is better qualified.”
Remembering a gunfight a few weeks ago, Logan replied, “I trust him. He had my back when it really mattered; I’d have to wait to find that out about someone else.” He glanced up at the clock, “Now I have an appointment I need to keep; if you need me, I’ll be at Lilith’s.”
Sighing, Ryder said, “You’re going to a bar?”
“Official business. Be back in a bit. Call me if anything happens.”
Chapter 5
Melissa swore under her breath in six languages as she attempted to untangle the bureaucratic logjam that Logan had created in the three weeks he had been in charge. He had managed to do the absolute minimum, just enough to keep things ticking over; she rather suspected that an autosec had done that little for him. If she needed evidence that he wasn’t planning on staying for long, this was it; she paused for a second to draft a request for an administrative officer to be assigned to the station in the near future, placing it prominently at the top of his input queue. Fixing this mess was going to take serious work.
Glancing up at the clock, she realized that five hours had passed since she had taken over Logan’s office, and she didn’t seem to be catching up on the backlog at all. What made matters worse was that most of the documentation on station operations was locked, restricted data while the ongoing legal battles with Cornucopia continued, the few remaining executives fighting their last stands in the courtroom. Her stomach was rumbling, and she idly wondered if Yuri would deliver, then shook her head, dropping the datapads to the desk.
Pushing her way out of her office, she saw Ryder on her own, as usual, sitting in front of the sensor controls. The young officer waved as she came out, and Melissa drifted over to her, looking down at the panel. None of it made much sense to her, but the general gist seemed clear – the pirate freighter was still station-keeping out of sight.
“Having fun in there?” Ryder said.
“We have very different definitions of the word ‘fun’. Where’s our glorious leader?”
“Last I heard he had left the bar and was on walkabout.”
“Walkabout?”
“My guess is that he’s checking in with some of his friends on the underdecks.” She sighed, “I’d rather he was up here doing his job, but that’s not for me to say.”
“How did you get stuck here, anyway?”
“I asked him for a transfer, stupidly enough.” Raising a hand, she said, “It’s a long, and very depressing story. I got a promotion out of it, but this isn’t exactly the posting I dreamed about.”
“Are things that bad here?”
“This station is the dictionary definition of a backwater.” She gave a half-smile, then said, “And I can’t believe that the only person I can talk to about any of this is a damned political officer.”
Looking around the near-deserted control room, Melissa replied, “You do need some more help around here.”
