Dubious Heroes: a novel Read online

  She didn’t believe any raiders would strike until they were well within the asteroid belt, as that seemed to be their usual modus operandi. I hoped she was right. If they went after Vassily before then, with the Revenge sitting out in the asteroids, awaiting our return, it could well prove embarrassing.

  Not that we’d ever had anything go wrong before.

  Chapter 31

  “Revenge, this is the Defender“, Vostock said, from his position at the helm. “Hold your position, and we’ll close to grapple.” The Revenge floated nearby, barely visible on Vassily’s vidscreen.

  “Um”, I said, “You might want to let Cozi handle the grappling.”

  “Why?” Vostock asked, looking across the Bridge, and arching one of his bushy black eyebrows. I wondered if he practiced that in front of a mirror.

  “A peculiarity of the ship”, I said. “They built it so you can’t grapple it. I don’t understand how it works, but if you ask Kyra, she can explain it.”

  He gave me a look that said we both knew that wasn’t going to happen. On the trip out to Skydome, something had happened between them, and now they were avoiding each other like the plague. I suspected that Vassily had made a move on her; he was reputed to be something of a lady’s man, and rumor was that she’d politely expressed her disinterest. Of course, this was all speculation, except for the black eye Vassily had been sporting for the last couple of days.

  “Disregard, Revenge“, Vassily said. “We’ll hold position, and you grapple with us.”

  “Acknowledged”, Cozi said. With me, Eng, and Kyra offship, he was the acting Captain of the Revenge, although it was Angie actually doing the work. “Stand by, Defender, we’re deploying grapplers.”

  We stood by. The Bridge of the Defender reminded me a lot of the Ming Shu. I suspected both were Mitsubishi products, but I hadn’t asked, and no one had volunteered the information. Minutes passed, and then I felt the gentle bumps, as the magnetic grapplers impacted the ship’s hull. Moments later, we watched on the vidscreen as the cables reeled us in, drawing the two ships together.

  In sheer mass, the Revenge was half again as large as the Defender, which was really just a cargo ship, similar in size and configuration to the Enigma. Shipyards wouldn’t build military-grade ships for commercial clients or governments that were not UP members. So if you wanted one, you either had to buy an old one that had been decommissioned (and gutted, of course), or you could do as we’d done, and steal one. As far as I knew, the latter wasn’t a common occurrence. In fact, as far as I knew, we were the only ones to pull off such a stunt. I wasn’t sure if that meant we were lucky, or crazy, or both.

  “Grappled and holding steady at twenty-two meters”, Cozi said. “Extending our walkway, now.”

  “We copy”, the Defender’s AI, Inga, said. She liked to scoot around the inside of the ship via a little flybot; I found it kind of annoying. For one thing, it was completely unnecessary. An AI was the ship, so she didn’t need to physically be anywhere; she was already everywhere, at once.

  Most AIs were loath to be identified with what was basically an appliance. Usually, they went to some lengths to not be perceived as machines. On the other hand, it was just as uncommon for them to adopt a human visage. Angie had done so for my benefit, but only when we were in IR together, or, when I was alone, she might appear as a hologram. I was well aware, perhaps more so than anyone, that she was not human. Nevertheless, her affectation allowed us to interact in a way that otherwise wouldn’t be possible, at least for me. The only thing anyone else knew of her was a voice over a speaker, which was how most AIs wanted it to be.

  When you thought of Inga, the first thing that came to mind was her as the little flybot, buzzing around like some overgrown gnat. Then again, maybe that was the image she was shooting for.

  “Shall we have our meeting?” Vassily asked. “I would like very much to get this over with.”

  “Yeah, we need to get the Revenge out of here, before someone sees her”, I said. “Cozi, you there?”

  “I’m here”, he said.

  “I’m sending Doctor Smith and the mercs over”, I said. “Once you hand off the conn to the doctor, come on over with Lola.”

  “Gotcha”, he said. “Revenge out.”

  “I’ll send someone to meet them at the airlock”, Vassily said. He gave the orders, and via intercom, I sent Smith and our troopers back to our ship. That done, we left the Bridge, tailed by the whirring Inga.

  We dropped down to the Habitat Module, and made our way over the galley, which was the only place big enough to seat our combined crews. We entered the galley to find Eng and Kyra waiting, as well as four of the Defender’s officers. They seemed to be a mixture of Britons from New London, and Russians, wherever they came from.

  There was also a military officer present, since Vassily had left New London with a complement of Royal Marines. The soldier was older, but looked to be in excellent shape, in a wiry sort of way. Always in uniform, he practically oozed military bearing. He also wore a bushy mustache, which must have been a British thing, since most of his men had one just like it. When they were all together, it was a weird sight. As usual, he ignored Vassily and I as we sat and chatted quietly, waiting for the others to arrive.

  After a few minutes, Cozi and Lola walked in, followed by Erwin, who was Vassily’s Executive Officer, or XO, for short. We’d all become acquainted on the trip to Skydome and back. It turned out that Erwin was a fairly wicked chess player, whose ability didn’t seem to diminish as he imbibed. It was a skill I sorely wished I could duplicate. I nodded to him and the others, and then looked over at Vassily, deferring to him, since we were aboard his ship.

  “We thought it would be a good idea to do a brief run-through of how all this is supposed to happen”, he said. “Also, if anyone has any questions or concerns, now would be a good time to bring them up.”

  No one said anything, so he continued.

  “As most of you know, we’re carrying four tons of very expensive mining explosives, as well as several cases of some very hard to get pharmaceuticals. We’re supposed to be transporting all of this to Providence, but I don’t believe any of you are naïve enough to think we’ll get there unmolested.

  “Like everyone else who carries this type of cargo, we planted a cover story before we left Skydome, saying we were carrying a load of food and other dry goods. We’re counting on the people we’re after to figure out what we’re really transporting.

  “What they don’t know is that we fully expect to be waylaid, and that once they’ve hijacked our cargo, Captain Doon and the Revenge will be pursuing them, wherever they go. Questions, so far?”

  “What happens”, one of his officers asked, “If the raiders decide to shoot out our engines, or some such thing, while we’re waiting on them to take the bait?”

  “We’ll port any sensitive gear, and kill our engines, as soon as it is obvious we’re being intercepted. That’s the recommended UP procedure, anyway, not that anyone actually follows it. Essentially, we will make it clear to them that they can have the cargo, if they’ll just take it, and leave the ship and us alone.”

  “So”, the marine commander said, “My people just sit on their hands and let these chaps mug us, is that it?”

  “Unless you are ordered otherwise”, Vassily said, “That’s exactly what you’ll do, Commander. Are we clear on this?”

  The two men looked at each other across the room, the Commander scowling. Finally, he responded.

  “Clear, Captain”, he said.

  “As a precaution”, I said, “Everyone aboard will be suited up. If there are problems during the raid, all you have to do is pull back further into the ship, and radio for help. That, and you do have your contingent of Royal Marines. We’ll only be about twenty minutes away in the Revenge. If it seems as though things are getting out of hand, we’ll give them something more to worry about.”

  “I don’t think they’ll mount much of a boarding party, anyway”, Ky
ra said. “As soon as they see us, I expect they’ll grab the goods and take off, assuming they don’t just say fuck it, and leave with nothing.”

  “Whichever they do”, I said, “We’ll be right behind them.”

  No one said anything to that.

  “Anyone else?” Vassily asked. Another of his crew, one of the Russians, held up a hand.

  “Petrov”, the captain said.

  “I am still not understanding what is purpose of all this… ah, charade”, he said.

  Vassily looked over at me for this one, since I was the guy with the plan, such as it was.

  “Aside from our home system”, I said, “Vega has more pirate activity than anywhere. Hell, a lot of the raiders in our system are probably based here. I figure there are multiple organizations running things, even if only loosely. Our goal is to find some of them, follow them back to wherever their base is, and work our way up the proverbial food chain, until we find the people we want.”

  “And then?” Petrov asked.

  “Once we know who’s in charge”, I said, “We will introduce them to their new bosses. Us.”

  The Defender’s crew looked at one another, but none of them said anything.

  I love leaving people speechless.

  We left the Defender of the Crown an hour later, after hashing out a few remaining details. There wasn’t a hell of a lot for Vassily and his crew to do, other than to cruise blithely through the asteroid belt, and wait for someone to show up.

  When they did, the Defender would put up a token amount of resistance, and allow the cargo to be taken. All of this assumed that the raiders wouldn’t wig out when they saw the Revenge, and take off immediately. Either way, we’d be following them, and Angie was confident they wouldn’t get away from us.

  The whole time they were waiting, we’d be shadowing them from a short distance away, hopefully remaining unseen. Given the need for stealth, we’d powered down most of our sensor array, relying on the Defender to let us know when they had company.

  Angela was not in a good mood, and neither was Kyra. Angie was not amused at our having to navigate the asteroid belt sans our collision-avoidance system. She was having to scan ahead visually, occasionally using a tight beam of millimeter-wave radar, which wasn’t very well suited to the task.

  We’d already bumped into a few small rocks, but since we weren’t moving all that fast, and our hull was apparently made of pretty stout stuff, there’s hadn’t been any damage. At least, not yet.

  After listening to her bitch for a while, I pointed out that it could be worse; at least she wasn’t bored. Angie found this so amusing that, aside from ship’s business, she stopped talking to me. Problem solved.

  Early on, Kyra had offered up her own lengthy list of objections, and then had clammed up, as she usually did. She was of the opinion that no raider in their right mind would fall for our little trap. Granted, we probably wouldn’t have fallen for it, but then again, we weren’t nearly as reckless or greedy as some who were out there. Even if nine out of ten of the raiders looked at the setup and took a pass, there would still be someone who’d take a shot at it.

  All of this contributed to what could best be described as a quiet tension on the Bridge. We spent one long day, then two, slowly weaving our way through the maze of asteroids. In a couple more days, we’d be back in clear space, and the chance of an ambush would go way down. I was truly hoping we hadn’t overestimated the greediness of your average buccaneer.

  Just as I was beginning to have serious doubts, someone showed up.

  “Coded message from the Defender “, Angie said.

  “What’s it say?” Eng asked.

  “It says suspect vessel on intercept vector“, Angie said.

  “That’s it?” Kyra asked.

  “Nope”, Angie said. “They’re relaying sensor telemetry as well. Check your screens.”

  “Oh”, Kyra said. “Got it.”

  I looked on my console at the helm, and saw the data the Defender was sending us.

  “Anybody have their ETA?” I asked, watching the blip on the screen as it closed with the Defender.

  “About fourteen minutes”, Angie said.

  “Damn”, I said. “How’d they get so close?”

  “Probably hid behind a rock”, Eng said. “No shortage of em around here.”

  “Sorry”, I said. “Dumb question. Let’s start creeping up on them, if we can. I want to be a lot closer before they see us.”

  “Aye, Captain”, Angie said. “Vectoring to creep up. Stand by for acceleration.”

  An alarm sounded briefly, and I cued the ship intercom to let everyone know what was going on.

  “This is the captain”, I said. “Prep for action. We may have to maneuver quickly, so watch your step. Bridge out.”

  “Proceeding to creep up“, Angie said.

  “Knock it off, Angie”, Eng said.

  In all of my naval reading, I couldn’t recall a single thing on how to deal with an AI in a snit.

  “The Defender has cut her engines”, Eng said.

  This was according to plan, primarily intended to keep them from getting shot up unnecessarily.

  “Incoming broadcast from the Defender“, Kyra said. “Here it is.”

  “This is the independent trading ship Nostradamus“, the message said. It sounded like the XO’s voice. They’d been using that name since we’d gotten to the Vega system. The message continued.

  “We are a peaceful vessel operating within United Planets conventions. We will report any attempt to interfere with us to the proper authorities.”

  “Somehow I don’t think that’s’ going to scare them too much”, Kyra said. “Probably amuse them, though.”

  “The Defender has initiated their distress signal”, Angie said. “They’ve ported their sensors, too.”

  “Any response from the raider?” I asked.

  “Not a peep”, Angie said. “They’re coming in hard and fast, as expected.”

  “Can we tell anything about them yet?” I asked.

  “Not without revealing our position”, Kyra said. “We might not show up on their radar, but as soon as we scan them, they’ll know we’re out here.”

  “I’m seeing them intercept in ten minutes”, Eng said.

  “Incoming message from the Defender“, Angie said. “Captain’s eyes only.”

  This was new. Kyra looked at her console, then over at me, a puzzled expression on her face.

  “I’ll take it in the ready-room”, I said, feeling self-conscious as I unstrapped and rose from my seat at the command console. I quickly made my way into the conference room, the door hissing closed behind me.

  “What’s the message?”

  “There isn’t one”, Angie said. “I just found out something you should know, privately.”

  “Okay”, I said. “What?”

  “The drive signature of the raider vessel is the same as the ship which looted Cooper’s Dream, and nearly destroyed us afterwards.”

  “Holy shit”, I said. “You’re sure about this?”

  “Positive”, she said. “A drive signature is as unique to a ship as human genetics. I didn’t want to say anything in front of the others, since it occurred to me that, at least regarding that particular ship, Kyra might have something of a short fuse.”

  “Ha”, I said, smiling. “More like no fuse. Thanks for being discrete. I don’t need her on the warpath, at least, not right now. I do hope these guys don’t try to take out Vassily’s crew.”

  “The Defender does have Royal Marines aboard”, she said. “Unlike the Cooper. If the raiders try it, I suspect they’ll be in for a bit of a surprise.”

  “True”, I said. “Still, these guys didn’t dick around, last time. Their first move was to try to destroy us. That worries me.”

  “Me too”, she said.

  “Hey…”

  “Yes?”

  “Sorry about that stuff earlier”, I said.

  “I am, too”, she sai
d. “We can talk about it later. There are more pressing matters at hand.”

  “Too true”, I said. “I’d better get back out there.”

  “Don’t worry so much”, she said. “I can take care of us, and the Defender, if I need to.”

  I hoped she was right.

  I left the ready-room, and returned to the helm. One of the things I’d learned from all my reading was that a commanding officer wasn’t obligated to burden their subordinates with any knowledge they didn’t need to do their jobs. I decided it would be wise to use that prerogative, and keep my mouth shut.

  I strapped in, while Eng and Kyra did their best job of nonchalantly ignoring me. If I wasn’t going to tell them, then they weren’t going to ask.

  “I’m estimating they’ll reach the Defender in about five minutes”, Eng said, after a bit of awkward silence.

  “I still don’t want to reveal ourselves until we have to”, I said.

  “We got that already”, Kyra said, giving me a look I could have done without.

  “Any response at all from the friendly neighborhood pirates?” I asked.

  “Nothing so far”, Kyra said. “I am showing they have lasers and gamma ray powered up, though.”

  “That’s about what we expected”, I said. ˜Still, there’s no reason for them to shoot. Aside from protesting loudly, Vostock is basically surrendering.”

  Of course, I knew very well that this was the same set of assholes who’d shot up the Enigma, for no other reason than that they could. It was not a comforting thought.

  We sat and watched our respective screens, Angie still relaying data from the Defender, I imagined that Vassily was not a happy guy, at the moment.

  “They’ve matched speed and trajectory”, Eng said. “They’re closing in to grapple.”

  “What’s our ETA?” I asked.

  “Eighteen minutes, thirty-four seconds”, Angie said.

  “Looks like they’re grappling”, Eng said.