Dubious Heroes: a novel Read online

  “There’s a sign by the hatch into the core”, Cisco said, leading us around the curve of the corridor. I noticed that one merc fell in behind us, and two stayed ahead of us, all of them looking very alert, which was no small feat in a spacesuit.

  We reached the hatch into the core, and on the wall opposite it, in foot high letters, a sign said Engineering Module.

  “Looks like a pretty safe bet that we’re in the Engineering Module”, I said, smiling. Kyra ignored me.

  “This does not bode well for our hosts”, she said. “Someone find me the reactor room. It’s time we turned the lights out.”

  “None of these doors will open”, one of the mercs, Jones, I believe, said. “There’s air on the other side of them.”

  “No big sign on a door that says Reactor Room, is there?” I asked.

  “No such luck”, Cisco said.

  “So let’s just start opening doors”, Kyra said. “Run a bypass at the control panels, override safeguards.”

  “Nope”, Cisco said. “Won’t work. On older ships, maybe, but not on the newer ones, and this one’s very new. As long as we’re in vacuum, those controls aren’t letting em open. I don’t see any other way but to blow them.”

  “Alright, fine”, she said. “Blow them. If nothing else, maybe these guys will realize we’re serious.”

  I figured the UP crew already knew we were serious; then again, driving the point home certainly couldn’t hurt.

  “Where should we start?” Cisco asked.

  “Fuck if I know”, Kyra said. I had an idea she was annoyed. “Just pick one and blow it.”

  “Roger that”, Cisco said. Opening his bag, he pulled out a couple of small, flat devices. Walking over, he stuck one to the center of a door. They all backed off around the curve of the corridor. It seemed like a good idea to follow them, so I did. Holding the other little device in his gloved hand, he pushed a couple of buttons.

  “Fire in the hole”, he said. “Five seconds.”

  On cue, there was a cloud of smoke and debris from around the corner. I wondered where the boom was, and then remembered the vacuum; sound needed air. The debris from the explosion rushed around us, and eventually out of the blown airlock. There wasn’t a lot. I figured it was a pretty small room.

  “Should we be this close?” I asked, concerned about the debris.

  “We’re fine”, Kyra said.

  “Any further back, and we wouldn’t get a good view”, Cisco said. I wasn’t sure if he was serious or not. He probably was.

  We waited another thirty seconds, then walked back around the passageway and looked through the hole where the door had been.

  “Machine shop”, Donner said. “Dibs on the next one.”

  “Fine”, Cisco said. She vanished around the corridor, intent upon wreaking structural havoc, at least on a small scale. I wondered if she had her own bombs, then realized it was Donner; of course she had her own bombs.

  Thirty seconds later, she announced the obligatory fire in the hole, and another door blew. We walked over to see what was behind door number two.

  “Storage”, Kyra said. “Two down, and a bunch to go.”

  My comm unit beeped at me. Mike again.

  “Doon here”, I said.

  “We’re about to retreat to the Bridge”, Mike said. “Maybe two minutes, tops. I don’t know how long we can keep them out of it. Eventually they’ll run a bypass, or just blow the hatch.”

  “Call me when you’re on the Bridge”, I said, as my comm link began bleeping at me again. Someone on the Enigma was trying to reach me. I switched channels. It was Angie.

  “Hi boss”, she said. “There’s a gentleman by the name of Jorgensen who’d really like to speak with you.”

  “I’ll bet. Patch him in”, I said. “Stay on and monitor, too.”

  “Aye”, she said. “Captain Jorgensen, I have Captain Doon for you.”

  “Captain”, he said.

  “Captain Jorgensen”, I said. “What can I do for you?”

  “Ah, where to start”, he said. “First, I’d be most appreciative if you’d stop blowing up things in our Engineering Module. He sounded a lot more calm and collected than I’d have been in his situation. “Keep it up, and you might damage something important.”

  “As bad as that might be”, I said, “If you don’t surrender at once, that’s exactly what’s going to happen.” My comm link beeped at me, again. “Hang on a sec… ”

  I winked at Kyra, as she stood in front of me.

  “Yes?” I asked.

  “Flirt on your own time”, she said. “What’s going on? Who are you talking to?”

  “Sorry”, I said. “I wasn’t flirting. My comm unit keys on a wink. While I’m certainly an optimist, I gave up on flirting months ago.”

  “I’m sure”, she said. “Again, what’s going on?”

  “I have Jorgensen on hold”, I said, “And he’s not a happy guy.”

  “I imagine not”, she said.

  “I need you to find that reactor pronto “, I said. “I suspect that if we can fuck with it, this guy will give up.”

  “You heard the man”, Kyra said. “Do it.”

  “We’re on it”, Cisco said. “Donner, you’re with me. We’ll go left, Malach and Jones, go right. By the time we get to the other side, we’ll either find the reactor, or know it isn’t here. Let’s move, soldiers.”

  They moved, splitting up, and heading in opposite directions around the circular corridor.

  “Hang on”, I said to Kyra, as another blast went off down the hall from us.

  “Jorgensen?” I said, switching back to the Enigma’s frequency.

  “I’m here”, he said. “You need to stop this at once, and leave this vessel.”

  “I’m not stopping anything, until you surrender”, I said.

  “I’m afraid I can’t do that”, he said.

  “I don’t think you have a choice”, I said. “Your options are simple. Surrender this ship, or my guys will tear it down around you.”

  Another explosion shook the deck.

  “That’s hardly-”, he said, as my comm link beeped, interrupting him.

  “Hang on a sec”, I said, and switched to the combat channel.

  “Doon here.”

  “We found it”, Cisco said.

  “Out-fucking-standing. We’re on the way”, I said, as I followed Kyra around the passageway. All four mercs were standing around a blown doorway.

  “Reactor room”, Cisco said. “Now what?”

  “We probably shouldn’t blow it up”, Kyra said, in what I thought was an understatement. “Let’s see if we can shut it down.”

  “Alright”, I said, and we walked over to the console. I punched a few buttons on the touchscreen, as Kyra and Cisco watched over my shoulder. The shutdown sequence came up. I pushed to start the process, but the system wouldn’t respond.

  “I think their AI locked the system”, I said.

  “Can you bypass it?” Kyra asked.

  “I’m sure we could hack it”, I said, “If we had an hour or two to dick around with it. There’s gotta be a manual shutdown around here. As far as I know, every reactor has one.”

  My comm unit signaled me again. Next one of these things we did, I was going to get a secretary. I checked the heads-up; it was Mike. He’d apparently appointed himself the spokesperson for the pair.

  “Here”, I said.

  “We’re on the Bridge”, he said. “We’ve got maybe five minutes before they get in here.”

  “We’re working on it”, I said.

  “Work faster, please”, he said, and clicked off.

  Cisco and Kyra were looking at another control panel.

  “This is it”, she said. “Manual shutdown.”

  “Then do it”, I said. “Mike says the barbarians are at the gate.”

  She pushed the button.

  Nothing happened.

  She pushed it again, and got the same result.

  “Shit”, I
said. “They must be blocking it, somehow.”

  “They can do that?” Cisco asked.

  “The obvious answer is yes, they can”, I said.

  “Fuck“, he said, which I thought summed up the situation nicely. We stood looking at the silent mass of equipment, and I began to think we might have to blow the damn thing up.

  Cisco walked over to the reactor, looking closely at something. A moment later, he grabbed a large lever, braced himself, and pulled down on it. A strobe began flashing red. I suspected there was an alarm klaxon going off too, that we couldn’t hear.

  “Betcha they can’t block this”, he said, and punched a hand-sized red button, next to the lever he’s just pulled.

  I felt a vibration in the deck, and then the lights went out. A moment later, they came back on, at half strength. The Montreal was running on battery power.

  “What did you just do?” I asked.

  “The sign said pull this and push that to eject the reactor core”, he said. “So, that’s what I did. Looks like it worked. No core, no reactor, right? Might be hard to get back online, though.”

  “You think?” I said, sighing. My comm unit beeped at me. It was Angie.

  “Captain Jorgensen for you”, she said. “Go ahead.”

  “Captain”, I said.

  “That was uncalled for”, Jorgensen said. He wasn’t sounding nearly as calm as he had been.

  “Maybe so”, I said. “Are you surrendering?”

  “No, I am not surrendering”, he said. “Nor will I be.”

  “Well, if you didn’t like the reactor thing, you’re really not gonna like this”, I said. “Angie, patch me to Lola, private channel, so Mike isn’t on.”

  “Aye, Captain”, she said. “Okay, she’s here.”

  “Lola”, I said. “Doon here. Captain Jorgensen of the Montreal is also listening.”

  “Okay”, she said. “What’s up?”

  “I need you to do something, and I need it done without Mike knowing, because he isn’t going to like it.”

  “Like what?”

  “I want you to manually override the safety systems, and blow all the hatches on the Princess. I believe you can do that from the Bridge. You and Mike won’t be harmed, but the UP guys outside will be history. Can you do that?”

  “You bet I can”, she said. “Those assholes have been trying to kill me for over an hour now. Good riddance.”

  “Then do it”, I said. “Give me a ten second countdown, then blow em.”

  “Hang on a sec”, she said. “Okay, here it is. I’m ready. Ten seconds.”

  “This is ridiculous”, Jorgensen said. “You can’t just slaughter those men.”

  “You know what I want”, I said.

  “Seven seconds”, Lola said.

  “Stop”, Jorgensen said.

  I didn’t respond.

  “Five seconds.”

  “Alright”, Jorgensen said. “You have my surrender.”

  “Lola”, I said, “Belay that command.”

  “Aye, Captain”, she said.

  “Captain Jorgensen”, I said. “I accept your surrender. Call the boarding party on the Princess, and let them know. I’ll be in touch with you again in a moment. Doon out.”

  “He’s gone”, Angie said. “I still have Lola here.”

  “Thanks, Lola”, I said. “I wasn’t sure if he’d buy our bluff or not.”

  She was silent for a moment.

  “We were bluffing?”

  Chapter 27

  The surface of New London crawled beneath us, its cratered surface, gray and bleak, displayed on the main vidscreen of the Bridge. The last few weeks had been, in a word, tedious, but we’d finally arrived. And now, this.

  “What do you mean we can’t dock?” I asked, as I spun my seat to look across the Bridge at Kyra.

  “I never said we couldn’t dock”, she said. “Just that, given what we’ve heard, it’s probably not a very good idea.”

  “So we don’t dock, based on a rumor.”

  “When the rumor is that there’s a security team standing by at the port, waiting to arrest you, then yeah, I’d give it some consideration.”

  “They arrested me before”, I said. “Didn’t work out so well for them.”

  “As I recall”, she said, “It didn’t work out so well for you, either. And my guess is, they’ll do a better job of it, this time.”

  I sighed.

  “I’d be a lot more inclined to believe the tip, if we knew who sent it”, I said.

  “I don’t disagree”, she said. “The problem is, they sent an unsigned comm link message. You send one anonymously, and it’ll stay that way. Given the nature of the message, I’m thinking it was sent by a friend, rather than a foe. Probably one of your AI buddies.”

  “So what?” I asked. “We just sit up here in orbit, stuck in zero gee?”

  “I don’t believe the New London Directorate would be quite this subtle, if they didn’t want us on their moon”, Kyra said. “I think they’d just tell us how nice it is to see us again, and by the way, don’t land. I really doubt they’d try to trick us into not landing.”

  “Instead”, I said, “We show up, and they clear us to dock. I can’t believe they want us that bad.”

  “So, you buy their whole ‘all is forgotten’ spiel, and just land”, she said. “Do you even remember having to shoot your way out of here, last time? I thought you were a little smarter than that.”

  “Yeah, fine. Whatever”, I said. “Evidence to the contrary notwithstanding, right? Look, I’m not the only one who’s gonna be pissed off that we’re not landing.”

  “Your choice”, she said. “Personally, I prefer being stuck in orbit than stuck in jail.”

  “Alright”, I said. “You’ve made me sufficiently paranoid. Angie. Tell Owen we’ll be staying in orbit, at least for the time being. And see if you can get someone from the Directorate on comm, please.”

  “Aye, Captain”, she said. “I’ve reached the Director’s AI Victoria. The Director herself will call you back in a few minutes.”

  “We’ll be standing by for her call”, I said. “Now, since we’re here, I’m thinking of sending out the video we made. Maybe do a pre-emptive PR strike, as it were. Thoughts?”

  “I like it”, Kyra said. “We break the story, we control it. They’re gonna find out soon enough, when we turn our UP prisoners over to them.”

  “Angie”, I said. “Can you open a comm link to the local media?”

  “Such as it is, yes”, she said. “The media groups here seem to primarily just re-broadcast news from the Sol system. That, and local financial and trade news that’s only of interest in Tau Ceti Three.”

  “Still, they’re linked in to the big news services”, I said.

  “Oh, sure”, she said. “Once they have our video, you can bet they’ll send it out via SpeedLink, probably within minutes of receiving it. And try to claim they got it first, of course.”

  “Everywhere?” I asked.

  “Everywhere with SpeedLink”, Angie said. “So yes, everywhere.”

  “I’m not keen on sending it out like that”, I said, “But I don’t think there’s a way to control it.”

  “Not once you release it”, Kyra said.

  “Put it onscreen”, I said. “I’d like to see it once more, before all of civilization gets to see it.”

  The main vidscreen switched from the view of New London, to that of the UPDF Frigate Montreal, as she hung gleaming against the backdrop of deep space. My recorded voice broke the silence:

  “Any response from their AI?” I asked.

  “No response”, Angie said. “The reboot was successful. Their AI is gone.”

  “Assume control of their vessel”, I said, “And initiate the self-destruct sequence.”

  “I have control of the Montreal “, Angie said. “One second… I just encountered some sort of security protocol… okay. I routed around it. Self-destruct ready to go, on your mark.”

  “
Initiate self-destruct, now“, I said.

  “Ten seconds”, Angie said. We waited. The cameras were zoomed in pretty tight, otherwise, it was hard to see the ship.

  “Five seconds”, Angie said. I counted down the seconds in my head.

  A moment later, a blindingly bright flash illuminated the darkness, where the Montreal had been; a supernova in miniature. A wave of superheated gasses and plasma spread in a circle from the center of the blast, the glowing halo the last remnants of a dying starship. A few seconds later, even the halo was gone. Where there had once been a ship, the pride of the United Planets fleet, there was only darkness.

  “The Montreal has been destroyed, Captain Doon”, Angie said. It sounded dramatic, which was good. We wanted it to sound dramatic. I wanted them to see it done, and to know who’d done it.

  The vidscreen switched back to the view of New London, as we continued our slow orbit.

  “Okay”, I said. “I see no advantage in waiting. Send it.”

  “Aye”, Angie said. “Video has been transmitted.”

  “I’m guessing we just started a real shitstorm”, I said.

  “That’s one way of putting it”, Kyra said. “I don’t know if you wanted to be an outlaw, but you are one, now. There are quite a few ports where docking is not going to be an option.”

  “You’re probably right”, I said. “Still, it had to be done.”

  Kyra scowled at one of her screens, and didn’t reply. We’d already had this particular argument a number of times, and we weren’t ever likely to agree.

  She knew we couldn’t just leave the Montreal out there, so it had to be destroyed. While that was a necessity, she didn’t see any advantage in rubbing their noses in it, so to speak. She thought it wiser to leave them alone, whereas I wanted a reaction from them. I wanted them to know that if they wanted a fight, they’d have one.

  “Incoming call from the Director”, Angie said.

  “I thought that might get her attention”, I said. “Video?”

  “Aye, sir”, she said. “Onscreen, now.”

  The Director’s face appeared on the main vidscreen, several times larger than life. Her blonde brow was crinkled into a frown. She didn’t look particularly happy.