The Bright Black Sea by C. Litka

  Chapter 66 The Salvage of the Azurete

  01

  Captain Linnor stopped in the doorway of my office, a day out of Carivon, decelerating to make orbit.

  'Can we talk?'

  'Yes, of course.' We'd not discussed plans and I expected we'd want to reach an understanding before we arrived.

  She stepped in and slid the door closed.

  Settling into one of the chairs, she sighed and said, 'We've several things to talk about, one of which I've rather put off. Can I ask that what I'm about to say be kept confidential? I may be speaking out of turn, but I feel that, as a ship's captain myself, I should give you a bit of warning. Though I hope none is needed.'

  I leaned back and gave her a searching look, 'Yes of course. Though you're scaring me.'

  'You scare easily,' she said with faint smile.

  'Five years in the drifts will do that.'

  'I don't think you need be too scared. I'm the one who's scared. But enough of this fencing. I've tales to tell that aren't all mine to tell, but I feel compelled to do so, so I'd best just proceed...'

  I nodded. 'Please.'

  'Bry and Kylan plan to announce that they are dissolving their partnership,' she said, and hurried on, 'Bry assures me that it's a cordial and mutual agreement, and they both plan to continue serving aboard. I believe this is largely my fault. Bry says they've been growing apart for some time – they're both very young – and have been growing up. But the fact is that your first mate and I have struck up a friendship. Well, more than a friendship...' she paused, blushing, watching me. 'A friendship with sparks.'

  I sighed and closing my eyes, ran my fingers through my hair. When I looked up, she was smiling slightly. 'What?'

  'She said you'd do that.'

  'What?'

  'Sigh and run your fingers through your hair. She says you do it all the time.'

  'When dealing with M'Ley, I do,' I admitted. 'You're old enough to know better, Captain.'

  'Are we ever old enough, Wil? Still, guilty as charged. Your first mate is a very determined woman,' she paused. 'As you well know. But as you also know, our position as captains can be a lonely one. We haven't the latitude other crew members have in affairs like this. I've been a ship's captain for 27 years, a first mate for seven before that and a spaceer for over forty. I've not had free time for a romantic relationship. Nor have I met the right person, until now. Perhaps I'm vulnerable – I could be facing life on the beach. And then comes Bry. Bright, cheerful, competent, attractive, and attracted to me. And I fell for her. It's just as simple as that...'

  'Hardly simple...'

  'No, I guess it isn't. But whatever happens, I assure you, Captain, I won't let her leave the ship for me. I'd not do that to a fellow captain. And if I was certain that we'd part on reaching Carivon, I'd not bring it up at all. But...'

  'But?'

  'I'm sure that you've considered the possibility that your ship might well be the first and best choice to salvage the cargo of the Azurete. You're on hand, free, and with any luck at all, we could have the cargo in your holds before word reaches deep enough into the drifts to attract dangerous competition. Of course, that decision will be made by my owners, and I'm not certain what, if any, say I'll have in the matter. However, if they make your owner an offer with acceptable terms, I and some of my crew will no doubt be ordered to return with you to oversee the operation. Which means I'll be on board for the next half of a year or more. And that means...' she left that hanging.

  'You'd be M'Ley's new partner.'

  'Yes, I believe so.'

  I ran my fingers through my hair again, and gave her a look when she smiled again.

  'What's between Bry and me is our own affair,' she continued. 'We've not committed any breach of shipboard etiquette, and I don't think being a partner of your first mate would raise too many eyebrows since my status would be little more than a supercargo. However, since it may have an impact in your owner's consideration, I wanted to make this possibility clear before any decision was made.'

  'I appreciate that.'

  'Are you angry?'

  'No, of course not,' I assured her. 'I know M'Ley too well. She gets what she wants. I realized that years ago, which is why she's my first mate. It gives her something constructive to do with all her energy and drive. So I know that if she's decided she wants you – and you want her – there is nothing I can do, even if I cared to. But I don't fight battles I can't win. So what of the future? Am I going to have to find a new first mate after any salvage operation?'

  'We have talked about that, and we both feel that though I'm some years older than she is, we can afford to wait. We both have careers that neither of us cares to abandon at the moment. And it might be better if we're both captains to keep the relationship on an even keel...' she gave me a look, realizing what she'd said.

  'In a few years. I'm not a lifer. When she gets restless, she can have the Starry Shore. I've no intention of standing in her way. But that's just between you and me.'

  She nodded. 'Of course. But what I was saying was that, beyond a possible voyage to the Azurete, we both have ambitions that preclude remaining partners for some time to come. A ship can't have two captains. If things work out that we can be partners for the duration of the salvage operation, it will be, I believe, wonderful. But after that, we understand that our relationship will have to be put in a sleeper-pod for a decade or two while we accomplish what we want in our first careers... But who knows what is written?'

  'Aye.'

  'With that understanding, do you think your owner would be interested in the salvage of the Azurete's cargo? If not, I won't mention it as a possibility when I contact my owners.'

  That was not a question I was looking forward to answering, not that I had any illusion that it could be avoided.

  'Being a very Unity Standard fellow, with a wide streak of caution in my makeup, I can say with absolute conviction that I wouldn't touch the prospect with a cargo crane,' I said, adding with a sigh, 'However, I'm only the ship's captain, not its owner, so my opinion, as captain, doesn't lift. However, the owner of the White Bird Line is presently somewhere in the drifts and unreachable and so I have the operational authority to make decisions as the owner. Which means that I must at least consider any offer as my owner would, which means I must consider the possibility that the whole charter would simply consist of sailing to the edge of the Kryver Reef to spend several days transferring 196 quarter boxes to my ship, and then sailing to Tradonia, with a fortune in fees and salvage claims.'

  'It should be that easy, Captain, but I can't guarantee it will be.'

  'I've been very lucky, but you never know when that'll change. Dare I lean on my luck that hard? And if it isn't that easy, it could get really dangerous, very fast...'

  'And more dangerous the longer the process takes,' she added.

  'Aye, a cargo like that will have every drifteer with a ship and no scruples on their way to the Kryver as soon as they take on their fuel. A drifter gold rush. Everyone for themselves'.

  'If you're lucky. If they choose to band together, it could get really nasty. Which is why we need to act swiftly, and why your ship is so ideal. With any luck, we should be on our way home before the first drift hawk arrives.'

  'It just sounds too easy...' I muttered.

  'Still, you'll take the charter? How can you refuse?'

  'I'll consider it,' I replied cautiously. 'As I must. Reluctantly.'

  'By all means be reluctant. Be very reluctant. I'm quite sure they'll make an offer you won't be able to refuse. Your ship is just too ideally placed for the job. Any expedition launched from Tradonia would arrive four or five months after the Starry Shore, and by then, the word would've reached the darkest corners of the drifts and who knows how many armed ships would be needed to hold the drift hawks at bay,' she said and shook her head. 'No Wil, you won't be able to refuse their offer. And it'll be the easiest credits you'll ever make.'

  'I think, Capt
ain, you're tempting the Dark Neb,' I said, and with a sinking feeling, I was sure I was going to find that out.

  02

  Molaye and Kie came to see me after we'd settled into Carivon orbit and told me they were ending their partnership. I ran my fingers through my hair and sighed. I really wasn't acting... 'Are you sure?'

  'Yes,' said Molaye. 'We've grown up and grown apart, Captain,' said Molaye. 'We're too young to be life partners. We're still growing. I'm very fond of Kie, always will be. But we're too different to be partners...'

  'Kie?'

  'Aye...' said Kie. 'I feel the same way. We were right once. We're not now.'

  'Can you still serve together?'

  They both nodded.

  'We've talked about it, and we don't see any problem with that,' said Molaye. 'We're still very fond of each other.'

  I didn't push it further. It was probably true. Linnor just accelerated the process. Molaye said nothing about her, but with the Azurete salvage not settled, it wasn't an issue. Yet.

  Later, I had a private word with Kie.

  'Are you really going to be comfortable with Molaye, and possibly Linnor, aboard?' I asked.

  He shrugged. 'I can't say I'm happy, or completely comfortable. But I can deal with it. Molaye always gets her way, so what I think is neither dust nor gas. However, I do recognize that we're no longer right for each other, so I'm not angry. I'll get over it. I'll get over her...'

  'Even as a shipmate? I really want you aboard, Kie, but I want you to be happy on board as well...'

  'Don't worry. I'll be fine. We're shipmates. We'll always be shipmates.'

  03

  Captain Linnor wasted no time contacting her owners upon our arrival in Carivon orbit. Their reply took two days and included an offer to charter us with various premiums, which I quickly declined. I'd read up on salvage operations and knew I'd be offered a share of the recovered cargo. I secretly hoped they'd baulk at offering the usual share, since even the customary 1/12th share could, depending, on how many boxes we were able to get off the Azurete, be a fabulous fortune.

  They came back within hours with a second offer that met my criteria – premium charter fees and 1/12th share of the recovered cargo – to no great surprise, but to my dismay. I couldn't just trust my luck and yet, how could I refuse? As a Guild certified offer, it would be on the ship's records whether I accepted it or not, so given the premium fee charter and the estimated value of our share of the total cargo, which might amount to half a century's profit, how could I turn it down? Especially since I knew Min would've jumped at the chance. I valued my life, the lives of my shipmates and my ship, higher than half a century's profits, and yet how could I pass on something that could be as simple as transferring cargo ship to ship, especially in the face of three very determined individuals?

  I'd already taken the measure of Captain Linnor. She was going to salvage her cargo, black dragons and a swarm of drift hawks notwithstanding. She'd lost her ship and while she'd done everything possible to minimize her ill fortune, the salvage operation was more about salvaging her reputation and self-esteem than about the gold. If she could bring off the salvage, she'd likely come out with more credit than she had going in.

  And there was Molaye. We'd established a very comfortable working relationship. She runs the ship like a good first mate, and I let her. All I expect is that, on the rare occasion, when I need to give an order, she obeys it without getting all tall and narrow eyed, should she not care for it. Dealing with Molaye is like dealing with a lorelion that you've raised from a kitten – there's always a remote possibility that things might not go as you expect them to go. And given her new and passionate affection for Captain Linnor, I was rather leery of pushing my tame lorelion too hard. Molaye is not afraid, well, of just about anything, so leaving the ship to follow Linnor would not be out of the question. And I really didn't want her going off with Linnor – I wanted to give her command of the Starry Shore in a few years...

  Finally, there's Min. As I said, I've not heard from her since Despar and going off into the drifts undercover means I'm not likely to be hearing from her anytime soon. So in one sense, I was free to do as I pleased. However, since the Asterdronia's charter was a certified offer, it will be on the ship's record when Min eventually reviews my performance. I'd have to explain why I passed on a fortune to sail, hollow to Baidora to collect the crumbs of cargoes that did little more than pay the bills. I wasn't looking forward to that.

  The bottom line, however, was that my name was listed as Captain and the decision and its consequences were mine, and mine alone. So I consulted Botts.

  'What do you advise?' I asked it, after inviting it to my office to go over the situation. 'What are our chances of getting the gold off the Azurete and home to Tradonia?'

  'I'm flattered you're consulting with me, sir. But I've not been programmed to make that type of evaluation. It is outside of my operating parameters.'

  'Right,' I said, giving it a look. 'So why don't you tell me what Viletre Viseor would've done instead.'

  'Oh, he'd have taken the charter in a heartbeat,' Botts, replied, eyes bright, 'The only question would've been where he'd have gone with it after he had it on board. He was a keen businessman, sir.'

  It is hard for the featureless face of Botts to leer sarcastically, but it did so anyway.

  'Which is exactly why I'm asking you for your advice. You spent several centuries serving that keen businessman and have all that experience filed away in your memory. So tell me how he would've calculated the odds?'

  'Well, first I would imagine that he would count on having a two-week lead over any other contenders, which should be enough to get the job done if all goes as planned. Secondly, he would've noted that the section of the drifts outward from Amdia is relatively poor and thinly populated, so that the initial response from the drifts would likely be weak – small ships and few of them at that – at least for the first weeks, if not months. So even if things did not work out as planned, he could have easily fought his way through any lurking drift hawks, if necessary.'

  'Using your fire control skills to do so?'

  'Aye. And the Viseor Entrada's extensive anti-meteor armory.'

  'Right. Would those fire control skills of yours still be at my service, should I take this charter?'

  'Of course, sir.'

  'And what is your opinion of our anti-meteor armory, given your appreciation of our probable opposition?' Which was the heart of the matter. I'd seen Botts fight our ship –but if things didn't go as planned, we'd likely have to do more than hold off a ship or two for an hour or two. However, we did carry a full and varied array of missiles in our missile magazine – I didn't sail the drifts without the best these days.

  'The Viseor Entrada had a larger and more extensive anti-meteor armory, since it sailed the deep drifts on a regular basis. It did not, however have a skip fighter. So, given our likely scale opposition, should the operation be kept under three or four months in duration, I'd say our anti-meteor protection, with the skip fighter, would be adequate to deal with anything we might encounter on the Kryver coast.'

  'And if it took longer?'

  'When faced with overwhelming force, "Villain" Viseor always found it best to slip quietly away. With the vast Kryver Reef close at hand, I would think a backdoor could be found to slip quietly away...'

  I sighed. 'Do you have any use for gold, Botts?'

  'Why, no?'

  'So your advice is free of any selfish motives on your part?'

  'As a class 8 machine, I have no selfish motives whatsoever, Sir. I am designed to serve my owner, or in this case, my captain. And to answer your question, my answers have been based solely on my past experience and my appreciation for the situation at hand.'

  'You do have a self-preservation program, Botts?'

  'Yes sir. With limits, of course. The welfare of my employers is always my priority.'

  'Does the prospect of salvaging the Azurete's gold set off
any little alarms in your self-preservation program?'

  'No sir.' Botts replied, adding with its little twitch of a shrug, 'I'm sorry, Sir.'

  I sighed again. There was no avoiding the Kryver Reef now.

  Soon after Botts left, Molaye swung into my office and perched herself on the chair before my desk. 'I think we should take the charter, Captain,' she said. 'It would mean a lot to Captain Linnor.'

  'Right,' I said, and leaning forward, called the charter to the desk top. 'Should we ask for a share or two more of the salvage? Can you think of any other modifications we should hold out for?'

  She gave me her squinty-eyed look and said, 'I don't think so...'

  'Have you read it over?'

  'Not all of it...' she said, watching me closely.

  'No? Oh well, what the Neb, why not?' I said, and placed my palm on the document's authorizing box. 'There. We're going. Happy?'

  Her eyes wide with surprise. 'Just like that?'

  'Aye. Just like that. Of course, I read the whole contract,' I added, giving her a hard look.

  She ignored the hard look. 'Why, Captain, what's gotten into you? What happened to my ol'Captain Crofter? What happened to good old cautious... Captain Litang? (The last in a conspiratorial whisper.) I assured Fey that I'd bring you around, but what will I say now? I didn't have to do a thing,' she said, rattling on, adding. 'The drifts have changed you.'

  'No they haven't,' I replied. 'I simply didn't have a choice. I couldn't face our owner after passing up half a century's profit to return hollow to Baidora and our marginal trade – as much as I'd like to.'

  Molaye shook her head. 'No, that's not it. You could be growing cha by the time Min looks over the books. No, you've changed.'

  'Well, I hope so. I've been wearing a star badge for more than half a decade now.'

  'It's more than that. It's the drifteer in you coming out.'

  'Drifteer or not, it's the Captain in me that's telling you that the next time you care to advise me on a charter, read the Neb-blasted thing before you do.'

  She gave me a wide smile. 'I'll add that to my notes, Captain. Thanks!' and with a sketchy salute, hopped off her perch and was out the door to break the news to Captain Linnor. Fey.

  Captain Linnor, Pax and Ivay accompanied us back to oversee the Azurete's side of the operation while the rest of the crew was sent on to Tradonia. Linnor leased two orbital lighters to take off the cargo in case we couldn't reach the Azurete's position and purchased two small cargo-handling robots to facilitate shuttling the boxes between the ships in the likely event that her ship's cargo cranes were inoperable. We stowed lighters in the main hold and the cargo robots in the no. 4 hold and sailed for the Kryver Reef.

  Without any official duties, the Azurete crew spent a great deal of their time rebuilding the robots and designing and building extended fuel tanks for the lighters.

  04

  Sixty-one days later Linnor, Molaye and I were standing on the bridge studying the composite sensor image of the Kryver Reef coast on a forward view-panel. For the last several weeks, it had been a slowly growing fist of blackness against the cold light of the glowing, gaseous nebula. Now, laying a quarter of an astronomical unit off its coast, its dense reefs blacked out half the glowing sky, its edge sharply etched against the cold glow of the nebula. The holographic composite image, however, showed much more.

  'Blast,' said Linnor, staring at that display.

  'Indeed,' I said, though I wasn't quite as dismayed as Linnor. As I may've mentioned, I'm no more superstitious than any other spaceer, but I'd have felt very nervous if all we had to do was run down to the Azurete and take off its boxes. You have to pay for luck, and I felt I had a lot on my tab already for the luck I've enjoyed to date, so I'd have been very leery of the bill if it had been that easy. Not that I was happy with what I was looking at, but I clearly wasn't going to have to worry about paying for a golden asteroid with luck. At least, not yet.

  What we were looking at was not a total surprise. The long range sensors had foreshadowed the phenomena, but the full sensor array created an impressively daunting display of the Kryver coast where the Azurete was wrecked. It showed that the black dragons had been far from idle during the five months since the Azurete was wrecked. They had carved several new, long, deep gashes in the edge of the thick reef, sending a thick plume of asteroids and meteors flying outwards from the reef. The larger of these rocks showed up on the display in a rainbow of colors that indicated their varying vectors and velocities – tens of thousands of them, hinting of the millions of smaller ones still undetected. The coast of the reef where the Azurete's 200 km sized moon had been, was no longer recognizable – and the moon, if it wasn't smashed to pieces, lay somewhere lost in the heart of the dense plum of debris.

  'We're going to need to get a lot closer in order to make contact with the automatic beacons on my ship,' remarked Linnor, since the colliding rocks and dust were generating a great deal of electromagnetic static.

  'I'll send the drones in,' I said.

  'We've the field to ourselves at the moment, but that won't last. I understand your caution, but you're being well compensated for taking some risks. I suggest we push deeper into the plume without delay. The sooner we get the cargo off, the less risks you'll run with the drift hawks,' replied Linnor, without glancing at me.

  Molaye did, however. She knew me too well.

  'True. But we're essential to your success, and the ship not specially built for this type of work, so we need to minimize our risks. I'll certainly bring her in closer, but only after the drones survey the plume and locate your ship to give us an idea of the threat level from the small meteors we're not seeing,' I replied.

  'You can't avoid taking some risk in this sort of venture.'

  'Reasonable ones,' I replied, and added to keep the peace, 'However we won't know what reasonable is until we locate your ship and chart a course to it. So let's get started – we haven't time to waste,' I replied, with forced cheerfulness – and optimism. I'd no intention of risking my ship on a desperate plan. Assuming we could locate the Azurete, I'd rather have the cargo brought out in either the Azurete itself, if it could be lifted, or by the lighters we'd brought with us for that purpose. Both would take time – months – so that we'd likely be facing drift hawks before we had all the gold in our holds. I was inclined to face the drift hawks rather than the dangers of the black dragons and meteors in part because the drift hawks were, at the moment, just a theoretical threat. And I had Botts, and hopefully a skip fighter as well.

  05

  The drones raised the Azurete's auto-beacons on the third day, very close to its charted position on the former coast of the reef – deep within the plume. We had strung the drones into a line ahead just to maintain radio contact with the lead one.

  'The lead drone should reach your ship in two days and we can see what condition it's in,' I said to Linnor, who was studying the chart in my office. 'We'll survey the local conditions and see what the prospects are for taking the ship in.'

  'I think, Captain, in the name of expediency, I'll take our longboat in. It'll save a lot of time since I'll need to inspect the interior condition of my ship in any event. If everything is as I left it, I'd like to get the ship lifted and on its way out, since I doubt you'd consider a rendezvous where it lies now,' she said watching me closely.

  'I understand your eagerness, but with the limited data we have at present, you'd be running significant risks. And, well, there's no point speculating how we'll need to tackle the project until we have the data in hand.'

  She shook her head. 'The sooner we recover my cargo, the less chance we'll have of losing it – and our lives – to the drift hawks. Every day counts.'

  I wasn't going to change her mind. 'Right. So to expedite matters, would you mind if I tagged along. I'd like a firsthand look myself,' I said, adding, 'I'm certain we can quickly agree on a plan, once we both have full knowledge of the situation.'

  She hesitated a
second. 'Of course, Captain. You'd be welcome to come along, but it might be an extended visit. I'll certainly try to lift my ship off the rock and get it on its way out. And if that's the case, we'll stay on board to pilot and defend it, which means you'll need to have a boat sent in to fetch you.'

  'We'll cross that rift when we come to it. I want to avoid any misunderstandings.'

  'That sounds like you don't trust me,' she said, only half joking.

  'Let's say I'm very familiar with your type,' I replied.

  'Type?'

  'Let's call it dashing and daring,' I replied with a grim laugh. 'M'Ley can handle everything on this end, so I'm comfortable remaining aboard until a boat can be sent in.'

  'Right,' she nodded, 'Then let's get this rocket launched.'

  After Linnor left to gather her crew, I stepped around to the bridge.

  'You have the ship, First,' I said, 'I'm going with Captain Linnor to survey the wreck. I may be gone a week. Have engineering cycle up the Azurete's longboat.'

  She stiffened ever so slightly and her eyes narrowed, but nodded and said, 'Aye sir', just like a good first mate.

  06

  Linnor took the longboat in faster than any drone would've made the passage. We were 25 hours into the inward voyage and were now decelerating to match velocity with Azurete's moon, some three hours down course. Linnor and Pax Sol had the watch. Ivay and I were seated on two auxiliary acceleration chairs in its small control compartment. As a precaution against a minor holing incident, we were wearing light survival spacesuits with a soft, hood-like helmet we could pull over if needed. It had been a weary, but thankfully uneventful passage, and with at least half a dozen more days of living in the long boat ahead of me, I was already regretting inviting myself along – the price of responsibility, I guess.

  I was, however, allowing myself to grow optimistic. Meteor density appeared to be associated with specific black dragon active periods, and as such, it was arrayed in waves. As those waves expanded outwards, their density decreased, so the three waves we'd run through seemed safe enough to navigate through with a slowly traveling ship, especially with Botts' eye on the radar and finger on the trigger. I was beginning to think I could bring the Starry Shore in alongside the Azurete and quickly transfer the cargo. The only issue was that the waves showed no clear pattern, so that we'd run the risk of being caught in a new outbreak, very close to the source, where the meteors outbreak would be very dense. But even then, we could take cover behind the moon. After a day in the longboat, I was ready to take that bit of luck without a qualm. I never learn.

  'Hang on,' snapped Linnor, breaking into my pleasant daydream.

  I cursed softly, 'What's up?'

  'A new black dragon eruption. I'm seeing rocks at hyper-speeds on the long range radar,' she replied, as she flung us about to reverse the boat and push us deep into our seats as she began to accelerate inwards, for the moon.

  I could see, over Pax's shoulder, the sensor display lighting up in an explosion of vivid colored lines and dots, marking a sudden outburst of hyper-accelerating rocks along the former edge of the Kryver Reef. The red colored plots were coming at us, and there was an awful lot of red on that screen. The sensor display estimated the eruption happening only five million kilometers beyond the Azurete's moon. There was no way we could avoid being caught in it.

  'We're going to have to make for the moon hot and fast. We'll shelter behind it or in the Azurete until this disruption passes. It'll be close, but we should make it before the peak of the wave reaches us,' said Linnor, opening the main rocket flat out.

  She'd no choice. It would've taken too long to stop and run. Racing to the moon was not just the best option, it was the only one.

  Molaye radioed a warning and I ordered her to pull the drones back. Without the drones we'd be out of radio contact for a few days, but radio contact wasn't essential. There was nothing they could do to help. We were on our own.

  Linnor drove the longboat full blast, with the occasional twitch as she dodged meteors. As much as I like riding a rocket flat out, I didn't enjoy it as a passenger. Not that I didn't trust Linnor's handling of the boat – it's just that if I was at the controls, the minutes would've flown by. As a passenger, they crept by.

  Suddenly the main engine was quiet as the steering engines swung us 180 degrees before Linnor engaged it again, just as frantically, to kill our velocity so we'd not overrun the Azurete's moon. The closer we got to the moon, the more frequently Linnor dodged the first and fastest onrushing meteors from the eruption. Tiny grains of sand zinged across the hull and pea sized ones dinged with unnerving frequency. Luckily, the longboat was specially built for drift work with an extra thick hull. But it had its limits, as we found out with a hard lurch, followed by a resounding Bang! that set the alarms screaming. As one, we reached back to flip our helmets on, slapping them into position and turning on the life support systems of our survival space suits.

  'Just a wingtip!' exclaimed Linnor over the com link. 'We're still in one piece. Five more minutes and we'll be in the moon's shadow.'

  The longboat's wings were little more than a mere wide vane – just enough to stabilize the boat when going through an atmosphere, so it'd been that close. Still, since we were in one piece, I guess just a wingtip could be counted as a very near miss.

  We kept the suit's hoods on as Linnor had the long boat twitching constantly in those last five minutes. And then without warning, the ship was suddenly still, with the pale, nebula-lit, cratered surface of the moon visible on the console view-panel, close at hand.

  'The moon seems to be tumbling. Neb-blast it! Must have taken a big hit, ' she muttered, 'I've got a radar read on the Azurete. It's presently on the sheltered side of the moon. Barely. I think we'll be safe within the ship's hangar. I'll take us in.'

  It took fifteen minutes of creeping over and around the battered black ridges, grey peaks and dusty white craters – many of which appeared to be quite new – to reach the large, low walled, crater where Linnor had grounded her ship. In the pale nebula light, the ship was a black shadow on the lower slope of the crater wall.

  'Not quite where I left it. Looks to have taken another hit as well,' muttered Linnor.

  As we crept closer she added, 'Good thing I vented most of the fuel or we'd have had only a second crater to look at now.

  The bow of the ship had been smashed in, but the cargo holds looked to be – more or less –intact. And well, gold is not fragile. Ivay remarked that the engine section seemed to have taken no further hits. I gathered the one working engine was on the bottom, sheltered by the rest of the ship, so none of them seemed too discouraged, although I'd seen many a ship on flats of & Kin's in better shape than the Azurete. I kept that opinion to myself.

  'Let's get aboard,' Linnor said, firing the boat's steering rockets to take us skimming across the crater floor to the ship as the control console's view-panel showed meteors flashing overhead, just clearing the crater wall and often striking the far side of the crater in a flash of light and dust. I could only hope the moon's wobble was taking us away from the reef side.

  The Azurete's hangar deck is an interior one, corresponding to our no. 4 hold. The starboard hangar door, on the ship's lower side, had been half left open. It was, however, with the shifting of the ship, now half buried in dust and rocks. Linnor deftly edged the longboat under the door, blasting enough of the dust and debris out of the way with its landing jets to squeeze under the shelter of the overhanging door.

  'This will have to do for now,' she said. 'Let's see where we stand...'

  We donned the full spacesuits and, cracking the hatch, climbed out onto the gravel that had ended up in the hangar when the ship slipped sideways. Lit by the longboat's landing lights and the light flowing from the open hatch, we made a quick visual inspection of the other two boats – both the gig, partially buried in the dust and rocks, and the skip fighter appeared to be undamaged.

  Then, with Linnor in the lead, we made
our way down through the ship by pulling ourselves awkwardly along the spiral staircase that lined its main access well. The moon provided just enough gravity to give a sense of orientation, making the Azurete, with its decks askew, feel like the wreck is was. There were piles of debris in the darkness of the downside companionways. The bulkheads above were twisted and torn by the meteor strikes, the largest of which had breached both hulls and made a shambles of the three decks above the engine room. While the bridge had survived fairly intact, the engine room was a grotesque tangle of twisted catwalks, scattered pipes and loose wires in our darting helmet lights and torches. But then, engine rooms are large and complicated by their nature, so the disorder wasn't as striking as the decks above – to a non-engineer – anyway. The massive main engine looked intact, until you noted the black, half meter hole in its main combustion chamber.

  Standing in the dead engine room, I couldn't help but feel, well, a sense of foreboding or fear. If this could happen to a captain as competent as Linnor, how close was I sailing to disaster? And what would I feel like if I was taking a party though the blackened remains of my ship? I'd been lucky so far, but luck not only lifts, it lands as well. I couldn't see myself bringing the Starry Shore in this close, with the black dragons still active, even if that meant we'd have to deal with the drift hawks before this was over. There was always that back door Botts had talked about.

  After brooding silently, with the nightmarish shadows dancing in the beams of our headlamps, Linnor said, 'Right. Let's get some light and power.'

  That pushed Ivay out of her melancholy contemplation and sent her scrambling to find an intact emergency reactor/generator to get online – the work of a minute. As the scattered working lights blinked to life, Ivay exclaimed bravely, surveying her shattered domain, 'It doesn't appear to have been further damaged. Can we be so lucky?'

  With the lights on, the engine room looked even more of a disaster as the full extent of the damage became apparent – platforms and ladders where twisted and hanging askew with piles of debris and large machines settled at the downward side of the engine room. Nevertheless, Ivay remained optimistic, even after she discovered that another meteor hit – a small one – had ruptured the fuel line to the remaining balancing engine. The balancing engine was still connected to the engine room control panel and the diagnostic data suggested it remained operable.

  'How long will it take to repair the fuel line?' asked Linnor.

  'A couple of hours. We've plenty of spare parts laying about,' Ivay replied ruefully. 'But I'd like to go over the engine again to make sure everything is in order before we fire it up again. I can have it up and running within two watches.'

  Linnor considered that for several seconds and turned to me, 'I think that as long as we're here, we might as well get the ship off this rock and on its way. I rather doubt you'd care to bring your ship in this far in.'

  'With the black dragon still active, getting caught in passage like we were, would be a potential disaster. So no,' I admitted, glad she'd said it first.

  'Right. The sooner we lift the Azurete, the farther out we'll be when the next dragon strikes. No point lifting the ship until this eruption passes, so I think we can afford to take a watch off to rest. Might as well start fresh. I've a feeling getting the engine up and running will be the least of our problems. Getting it off this rock the way it now lies is going to be tricky.'

  07

  We had just returned to the longboat and were climbing out of our spacesuits when the longboat shifted under us – and its hull rattled and pinged with debris. Linnor raced for the control panel, as the rest of us quickly sealed our suits again.

  'All systems are green,' she called out. 'But I think a meteor must have struck the ship – the port hatch looks askew...' And added, 'Damn, the skip fighter has been knocked about as well.'

  Damn indeed. I'd been counting on that skip fighter...

  'A ricochet hit, or are we now on the reef facing side of the moonlet?' I asked.

  'I can't get a reading from above due to the hangar door, but from the side, I think I'm seeing micro meteors striking the crater floor, so I suspect we've just edged on to the reef side. Stay here, or make a run for the far side?'

  'I'm just a passenger,' I replied. 'Your call.'

  'Pax, Ivay?' she asked, poking her head out of the short companionway from the control compartment.

  Pax shrugged.

  'The hangar door should protect us from everything but a big one. A micro meteor might hole us when we’re running for it. I say, let's stay,' said Ivay. Chief engineers have no problem expressing their opinion to captains.

  Linnor nodded. 'We'll stay. I think we're at the tail end of the wave in any event.

  There were no more alarms, so we ate, napped and went to work. The gig was undamaged but the skip fighter's port engine had been severely damaged by the meteor or debris from it. Nothing to be done about it, so Ivay and Pax went about repairing the fuel line and going over the engine while Linnor and I set up a remote control station for the Azurete in the longboat's small control compartment. That way, the ship – what was left of it – could be controlled remotely from the longboat. Accelerating on one steering engine could take it eight to ten weeks for it to reach a point where the Starry Shore could come alongside to take off her cargo. The longboat would likely be the only non-space suit environment and standing watch in a spacesuit is no fun.

  Lifting the ship and its cargo, even with only a .02 gee gravity, was doable, but given the ship's position, looked to be iffy. Linnor showed me her calculations, but she had to estimate the resistance of the crater's surface to the movement of the ship and that was before the ship had been knocked askew. Any hidden rocks in the dust of the crater wall could impede this upward movement as well. Still, it was our best prospect, so I adopted Linnor's confident outlook. If it could be done, she'd do it. No point being too gloomy.

  We finished our tasks – including test firing the engine briefly – by the end of the third watch.

  'Shall we have a go now, or take a break?' she asked as we stood around the control panel on the engine room platform.

  'Let's go for it,' was the universal response.

  'Right,' she turned to me, 'Could I ask you to take the longboat out and monitor our progress. I don't have much in the way of working sensors and I'll need to know what's happening to the ship once we fire the engine in earnest.'

  'Right,' I replied, though I suspected she was just getting me out of the way in case things went unexpectedly bad, so I added, 'But since you can run the whole show from the longboat, why not give that a test as well?'

  She glanced at Ivay, and said, 'I think we need to be on hand to handle any unexpected anomalies. We can test the remote controls once we've lifted. Pax will get you a radio link that you can plant in the hangar so we can maintain in communication.'

  I'd not do it any differently, so I said, 'Right,' and after Pax had handed me a relay, I made my way up through the ship. I set up the link and carefully slipped the longboat out into the broad, aurora lit crater and up to the crater rim with a clear view of the Azurete. We linked its sensors to the Azurete's engine room controls. And with that, we were ready to lift the battered Azurete.

  With the working balancing engine on the underside of the ship, it sent a big plume of dust streaming outwards, and lit the dust and the crater walls around the ship, in a bright, golden light. After a long pause, the ship slowly began moving, meter by meter, mostly sideways, gradually skewing itself away from the top of the crater wall despite the firing of several steering rockets. Clearly, that wasn't going to work. Linnor called it quits.

  'Stay where you are,' she radioed. 'We'll be out shortly.'

  'What's the plan?'

  'Plan B,' was all she said.

  I waited the better part of an hour before the gig had blasted enough of the dust and debris clear to get out of the hangar door. It was followed a few minutes later by the limping skip fighter, pil
oted by Linnor, who maneuvered it with brief blasts from its undamaged engine.

  Once the two boats had settled on the rim of the crater next to the longboat, Linnor radioed, 'I'm certain it's the surface drag which is preventing us from lifting. Ivay and Pax will transfer to the longboat so they can control the balancing engine and the steering engines from the remote station on the longboat. You can move over to the gig so that we'll have some flexibility. When you're ready, I'll send a missile or two into the crater wall under the ship's bow – the blast should lift the ship's bow and hopefully free enough of the ship's hull from the surface to get it off. If need be, I'll put more missiles under it to blow it free, since I don't have to worry – too much – about damaging the hull, all I need to do is just keep it intact. Any questions or suggestions?'

  'Don't miss,' I said. It might work, if the explosions were big enough to lift the ship – but not destroy it...

  'Right...' she replied. 'Not that it'll matter much...'

  I swapped boats with Pax and Ivay, and on Linnor's signal, Ivay remotely fired the Azurete's engine at full bore, raising more dust as Linnor sent the first of the skip fighter's missiles into the crater wall, just under its bow. The bright blast skewed and slowly lifted the bow of the ship, as expected, and she followed it immediately with a second missile, further down. The ship reared up out of the cloud of dust and hung poised pointing towards the sky, half free of the crater wall, but still showing no sign of upwards movement. As it very slowly began to settle back down, Linnor fired a third missile again at the point where the ship came in contact with the ground, followed by a fourth, even further aft that blew the whole ship almost entirely clear of the crater wall – any further aft and she'd risk disabling the engine. Still, it hung there, poised to launch, barely visible in the great cloud of dust, its balancing rocket and remaining steering rockets bright specks of flame seen through the haze, poised unsupported and seemingly unmoving for what seemed like minutes.

  'Lift, baby, go!' Pax muttered over the com link.

  'Perhaps I can use the gig to give it a little push...' I mused out loud. There seemed enough of a gap between the ship and surface, and the single rocket left plenty of room for the boat to find a surface to push against...

  'I think it's lifting!' exclaimed Linnor.

  It took the sensor screen to show it, but it did appear to be rising, slow enough, at first, that I could've walked alongside of it, but lifting. Slowly it gained speed and within five minutes, cleared the crater wall. An hour later we were all back on board and laboriously setting a course for the Starry Shore, with its few working steering motors.

  Three days later, with the Azurete slowly accelerating outbound, Molaye and Elena, along with Kie, Dici, and Sol, plus the cargo bots, set out in our longboat to help get the Azurete's cargo in shape for transfer. Elena and I took the longboat back. I'd my fill of wrecks and longboats.

  08

  I'd been back aboard the Starry Shore for only a day when Rafe alerted me that the first ship had appeared on our long range sensors. I stepped around to the bridge and watched its approach as Rafe worked to pull it into focus.

  'Looks like deep space tug,' said Rafe, as the image on the screen began to take on a bird-like shape. It had multiple engine pods set on wide, wing-like struts allowing it to tow another ship behind the central hull.

  'A vulture, not a hawk.'

  'Perhaps,' said Rafe, and added, with a laugh, 'Exactly, in fact. We're getting a signal from the ship claiming to be the Vulture owned by Cho Salvage out of Carivon. You must be psychic Shall I respond?'

  'Aye, standard reply. If they want a conversation, I'll be in my office,' I said, heading that way. I heard Rafe talking and as I swung into my office, the con link signal light blinked on my desk.

  'Tern Cho, captain and owner of the Vulture, out of Carivon,' said Cho as I opened the com connection. 'Greetings, Captain Wilcrofter.'

  'Greetings, Captain Cho,' I replied. Cho looked to be a burly, rumpled and squared off man with an easy smile, but shrewd eyes. There was a large yellow cat on his desk that was watching me as well. It looked a lot less rumpled and every bit as shrewd. But then, all cats appear to be shrewd.

  'This is Skipper,' he said. 'He thinks he runs this boat.'

  Skipper meowed.

  'He says enough small talk,' Cho laughed. 'So on to business. We're sorry to have missed you on Carivon, Captain,' he said. 'You sailed before we'd a chance to talk. Not that I blame you, every hour counts in a venture like this. But in your haste, you left some business undone.'

  'Oh? What was that?'

  'Engaging my services. It would've only taken an hour.'

  'I don't recall that on my schedule. Must be confusing us with some other party. I don't think we've any use for a salvage tug,' I replied thoughtfully – play acting and not even fooling the cat – while I called up his references on a second screen.

  Skipper meowed and Cho smiled. 'Ol'Skipper here is not buying that, Captain. You're here to salvage the Azurete's cargo – a treasure ship by any reckoning – one that's sure to attract a lot of interest in the darker reefs. Skipper and I run a respectable salvage business and have a great deal of experience – we should've been consulted. But no matter. Here we are. We can talk now.'

  I had his data up now, so there was no point stringing this out any longer, so I said, 'We've got everything in hand. I don't think we've anything to talk about.'

  'We're not one to waste time, which is why I'm here first. However, I won't be the last. You're here to salvage the Azurete's cargo of gold and precious metals. I'm here to salvage the Azurete. There's no rivalry between us, so working together will benefit both of us. You can be sure the treasure seekers are on their way. I've extensive lines of informants all the way to Amdia so I may've gotten the word several days, perhaps a week, before everyone else, but the others will be arriving shortly. The Azurete's cargo will see to that.'

  'So?'

  'So, you need my help. The gold is neither dust nor gas to me. I'm here for the hull. And I'll get it, or a share of it, whether you object or not. But it doesn't have to be like that. If the Azurete is in that disruption ahead, and I'm sure it is, I'm willing to go in and tow it to a position where you can offload the cargo and be on your way before most of the other scavengers arrive, which makes my offer very valuable, I assure you.'

  'You've come all this way to offer this service with no guarantee that we'd either need or accept it? A rather speculative proposition, Captain.'

  'Not at all, Captain. The Cho Salvage Yards is a long established and reputable firm with extensive experience in recovery, towing, and salvage – as you now know, if you've looked us up in your Murvey's Ship Master's Guide. We're far more experienced and better equipped to get the job done expeditiously than you are. Perhaps the need for speed and secrecy trumped our expertise back on Carivon, but here it's a different story. I'm here now, and still offering my services at my standard fees on a per day basis. However, the longer you wait to agree, the higher the price will go.'

  'Why? Why offer it at all, if you're only here for the hull?'

  'Because we salvage operators have an informal agreement – if I don't have the hull in hand when the others arrive, I'll have to divide the profit with those on hand – we're businessmen, not pirates. But since I'm here first, I want it all, so the towing fee will be just something to make it all Guild legal. I'll make my profit from the hull.'

  'I rather doubt we can just give you the hull,' I said.

  'Oh, you don't have to. Let me worry about that. You'll have plenty of other things to worry about. The Azurete's cargo is so wildly valuable that it'll draw scavengers from all over this sector of the drifts. And since it is so large, it can be profitably shared by ad-hoc combines, if necessary. If you don't hurry, you won't stand a chance of keeping the gold. Or getting out alive, which is why I've no interest in the cargo...'

  'None?'

  'None whatsoever. It isn't worth my life, an
d that'd be its price. No. I just want the Azurete or what's left of her. That's my line of work. And, well, let’s not be shy about this, the hull is of no consequence to you or the owners.'

  'As I said, that's not for me to say...'

  'Don't be coy. The hull is worthless to its owners here on the Kryver Coast and the cost of towing it to Carivon, much less Tradonia would be prohibitive. Trust me, I know the rates. I set' em. But there are credits to be made on it, and I intend to make them, and there's nothing you can do about that. If the owners want the hull, they can pay me my towage fees. Otherwise, I'll just pay the insurance company a nominal fee, which they'll be glad to get, and it’s mine.'

  'You've seen the sensor data. Do you really want to go into that mess?'

  'Pulling wrecks out of reefs is routine for me. That's where you find 'em. The ol'Vulture's built for the work. I'll save you precious days no matter where the Azurete lies, which translates into a better chance of getting out of this affair alive. And trust me, you're going to need every chance you get that comes your way. I'd think that's worth a small fee... Don't you?' he asked and settled back in his chair, as Skipper, somehow, managed to look down on me from the screen, and dared me to disagree with a superior sounding 'meow'.

  I had indeed called up Murvey's on the second screen and his credentials checked out. Plus, he called on a straight vid feed that allowed my com link AI to analyze his speech for truthfulness, which he easily cleared. His stake in the business was clear as well, so I felt I could take Cho at his word. And being more than three weeks away from rendezvous, any time saved would be well worth any reasonable charge. I knew Captain Cho wasn't exaggerating the siren call of this wreck.

  'Fair enough, Captain,' I said. 'However, it's not my decision to make. I'll have to pass it along to my charter party and get back to you as soon as possible. But I'll just add, so we understand each other – I've been sailing the drifts for some years now, and I knew what this wreck would draw when I agreed to the charter. If I wasn't confident we could deal with whatever showed up, I wouldn't be here. That goes for everyone...'

  His smile widened. 'Point taken. However, I believe my interests in this affair are clear-cut and convincing. As long as I stay clear of the cargo, I'll be safe. You, however, will need to look after yourself, and the longer you're here, the more likely you'll have to do it with missiles.'

  'Right. I'll get back to you soon.'

  'Good, and if you don't mind, I'll start in while you decide. Time is of the essence.'

  'Start in. I don't see how we can refuse, but I need to confirm that,' I said.

  I wasted no time signaling Linnor on the Azurete. I reached Kie, on watch in the long boat, and he transferred me to Linnor working in the hold. I briefed her on Captain Cho's proposal.

  'Can we trust him?'

  'The lie detecting AI cleared him and his interests are just as clear. So yes. And you do have the crippled skip fighter so you're not defenseless if he proves to be other than what he advertises to be.' Even crippled, the skip fighter could probably handle the Vulture.

  'The problem is that I'm not authorized to hire additional help, nor am I in a position to just hand over my ship to this Cho fellow. It's up to the company to decide its disposition...'

  'But you could turn a blind eye in the name of expediency.'

  'I suppose, though you didn't hear me say that.'

  'Good. I'm sure everyone on Tradonia knows the eventual fate of the Azurete. It's just that now we can put a name to it and they can deal with him when the time comes. As for the fee to haul you out, I'll pay it out of my charter fee – it'll be worth it to me, assuming it's reasonable, so you'd need not concern yourself with that either.'

  'Right. With the understanding that you're paying his fee – and that he can indeed get the ship out significantly faster than what we can on our own, send him in,' she said.

  9

  Negotiations with Cho took two minutes. Once he had the Azurete's current position, he gave me a solid delivery time – nine days, saving us at least nineteen – to tow it into a position where I'd be comfortable coming alongside and transferring cargo, and at a fee that I could easily justify with my charter fee alone, not counting our share of the salvage. That he planned to keep the hull and tow it all the way to Carivon was not on the record. With the agreement signed, the Vulture fired its powerful rockets and was plunging into the plume using data from our chain of drones.

  Three days later a second ship arrived on the scene, a drift trader turned hawk by the looks of it on the sensor. It remained silent and hung out of missile range, content to hang off, watch, and wait for the golden cargo to be delivered. I didn't lose – too much – sleep over a single drift hawk. The crippled skip fighter would be fairly useless in a fight, but with Botts aboard, I was certain we could handle any pirate or two that turned up. Botts would only defend us from their attacks, but I could handle them more roughly if the need arose. My years in the drifts seems to have sanded off a bit of my Unity Standard scruples.

  A second hawk arrived the following day, and then a third and fourth, which pushed me to edge the Starry Shore deeper into the plume to rendezvous with the Azurete and Vulture a day earlier than planned. I felt the slightly elevated danger of meteors was justified by the accumulating drift hawks in the offing. They drifted closer as well, keeping us in sensor range but out of missile range. Two days later we rendezvoused with the Azurete and Vulture.

  The fact that the Azurete had been under tow had made handling the dense boxes much more awkward so they were not as prepared for the transfer as I'd have liked – but any planet in a quantum storm – we'd deal with it. The Vulture ceased its acceleration once I was in position, hatch to hatch, above the Azurete with a clear path to fire missiles from either side.

  Using our ship's cranes and the cargo 'bots, we began transferring the small, but dense, quarter boxes of gold out of the Azurete battered holds. Six of the boxes had been breached, but the salvage crew had managed to collect most of the loose gold ingots and secured them in cargo nets. Nearly sixty of the 196 quarter boxes had been torn from their docks, damaging their docking connectors. These we transferred first, stacking them against the after bulkhead of no. 3 hold and lock them in with a solid stack of properly secured boxes. Working around the clock, we completed the transfer in just under five days. Those five days, however, saw the appearance of six more ships on the fringe of the meteor plume, patiently awaiting either the completion of our work or the arrival of confederates.

  'What do you make of them, Tern?' I asked the salvage tug skipper, who, with his first mate, and cat, I'd invited on board for a final confab over dinner.

  'Well, Willy, they don't advertise who they are. The two tugs I know, of course. They don't count. They're just hanging around now to see if they can get what's left of your hull after the hawks have picked it over. The other eight are here for the gold. Of those, the two small drifteers, don't count either. They're hyenas hoping for a small cut by helping out, or if things get nasty while picking over the corpse of your ship, grabbing a box or two in the fray. Three of the tramps look to be independent operators. There's plenty of gold to go around, so the big hawks may decide to form an ad hock fleet to insure success and they're hoping to be invited to join that fleet. That said, the ones who you're going to have to deal with are these three 60 box drift tramps, here, here and here,' he said, pointing them out on the view-panel. 'They're too similar and too carefully positioned to be anything but from one outfit. Since any drift hawk who gets this prize will have to keep it as well, the prudent ones will've come in force. Those 60 boxers are pretty big ships for your standard issue, freelance drift hawk, which suggests that they're from a big outfit – deep drift traders who dabble in piracy when the chance offers itself. If I was a betting man, I'd say you're looking at Falcon Rock Transport and Mining ships.'

  'Pretty formidable, I suppose.'

  'Aye, they've a reputation for ruthlessness. What's more, th
ey'll likely have more in their forward holds than cargo boxes on this voyage. I suspect they likely have missile modules installed, so you're going to be facing three small warships, and good luck with that. Hope you came as prepared as you suggested you were.

  'We've a full and varied magazine and an A-level targeting system, armed droids, and a skip fighter.'

  'Which is crippled.'

  'I've got the engineers working on replacing the damaged engine now. It won't be as good as new, but it'll be serviceable if and when we need it. It alone seemed to have kept the drift hawks at bay all these years.'

  'Well, the Azurete was never the sitting duck like you are. And you can bet that they're aware of it as well, since they sent three ships. And as businessmen, they're not going to risk getting a ship knocked up on a fifty-fifty proposition, which is why I'm thinking they sent three virtual warships ships to make it cut and dry. Truthfully, Willy, I'm glad I'm not in your orbit.'

  'I'm not jumping for joy either. Can we deal with them?'

  'They might offer you a deal, but I'd advise against taking it. You're unlikely to get out with your lives no matter what they promise. The dead tell no tales. Either take to the reef and hope to evade three ships, or run fast and hard and hope that your anti-missile missiles don't run out before their missiles do.

  'The one thing you've got going for you, is that they want your cargo intact, so they'll have to be mighty careful not to blow your ship to atoms. No market for gold vapor. They'll be sending inert missiles into your engine and crew sections. (Missiles with dense D-matter heads that punch holes in ships, but have no exploding warhead.) You, on the other hand, should try your Neb-blasted damnedest to destroy them – meaning they'll have to approach you cautiously and with overwhelming force when they do. With a lot of luck, you might be able to lead them on a long, long chase. But I'll tell you this, Wil, if they're Falcon Rock ships, they'll have oversized engines in 'em and good luck trying to outrun them,' he shook his head sadly. 'Good luck is about all you can count on, Willy.'

  'Do you think they'd settle for a few boxes pushed out the hatch to save themselves the trouble and the risk of either blowing up the gold or getting blown up? Even a quarter box of gold would pay their expenses,' I asked, thinking of ploys.

  'It wouldn't hurt to try – as a last resort... Though they might just leave it for the small fry with a full cargo of them for the taking.' he said. 'If you've any empty boxes aboard you’d want to get rid of them in the chase. Make'em think. Bring any along any?'

  'No, I should've thought of that. Oh, well, we'll just have to deal with them. I went into this with my eyes open,' I admitted.

  He gave me a look and shook his head. 'You should be more worried, Willy.'

  I should've been, because on the face of it, there was no apparent reason for my confidence. I was worried, but then it was my job to worry. But the rest of my crew were too Neb-blasted carefree, largely on account of the fact that Botts was so Neb-blasted carefree. Just like it'd been when it claimed driving through the Despar Reef was as safe as a run to the moon and back. (And look how that turned out.) Most of them had either witnessed Botts in action, or heard not only the yarns about that incident, but all the yarns Botts spun of its days as the captain of Viletre "Villain" Viseor's yacht which seemed to have been used for some very non-yachty ventures. For a vastly rich First World businessperson, Viseor had a lot of strange dealings deep in the drifts. In any event, we weren't as concerned as a Unity Standard Guild tramp crew should've been in the face of half a dozen armed drift hawks hungry for gold. And that showed.

  I shrugged. 'Trust me, I didn't take this charter without figuring we'd have to fight our way out. We've the smartest missiles and most up to date control and guidance system available. Plus, the skip fighter and the armed drones. I hope they're good businessmen, who, when we make it clear that it'll cost them dearly, and that we'd blow the cargo to atoms ourselves rather than let them have it, they will decide to settle for a box or two, and their lives... We can afford that.'

  Tern sighed, shook his head and sipped his drink. 'A hundred thousand tons of gold will make men do some very foolish things, I think.' And gave me a meaningful look.

  I had to smile and say, 'Yah, I guess so.'

  Once the boxes were aboard and secured, we said good-bye to Tern Cho and the Vulture, who was in a hurry to get clear with the battered Azurete in tow. I don't blame him. We were still working on installing the replacement engine for the skip fighter, but I decided not to wait on that. Fixing it was mostly for show – I was trusting Botts, and so I didn't care to stick around for more drift hawks to arrive. Once clear of the wreck, I set our course for Amdia after deciding that running into the Kryver would only delay action. And once clear of the meteor plume, I gave Molaye orders to bring the ship up to mark 7. All ten of our shadows began to accelerate along the line of our course a well. The three suspected Falcon Rock ships converged, the five smaller drift hawks hung back, but not too far back, and the two tugs followed behind, optimistic they'd find business sooner or later, if we weren't blown to atoms.

  10

  'You realize, Captain, that despite my attachment to you and my shipmates, I can do no more than defend this ship,' said Botts as I looked in on it in the tech office to plan our response to the drift hawks.

  I had the real Botts locked in the tech systems office where it could be directly connected to the ship and fire control. Keeping critical offices like the tech and environmental secured when guests were about was considered standard procedure, and needed no explanation. We'd gotten Botts II out of storage to keep Botts at large in the ship for our guest's sake while he was standing guard.

  I'm certain, however, that our guests, having been aboard for nearly half a year, had questions about Botts. Secrets are hard to keep aboard a ship, and both Botts and the crew did only the minimum to keep its secret. Since Botts could monitor the ship's systems, it always knew where our guests were at any time, and would tone down its banter when they were present. Slightly. I rather doubt Linnor or her crew totally bought into the story that Botts was a legal gentleman's bot, since it turned up all over the ship in places where it made no sense for it to be – like brewing a mug of cha for me in my office when Linnor looked in, or helping Riv in the engineering workshop when Ivay happened by. Nor did Botts' tone down its very outgoing personality profile, so that it displayed an awful lot of leeway for a legal class 2 AI machine in its interactions with humans. Even its explanation – that it had spent many decades serving owners in the drifts, where its interface program had picked up its free and easy ways – seemed pretty thin. As did its explanation for all the yarns it spun in our guests' company – 'I was stocked with an extensive library of space adventure fiction of the most improbable kind to please my former drift owners.' All of which, was, of course, a lie – which it shouldn't be able to do as a non-sentient machine – mind you. Still, what could I do? I'm pretty sure they suspect it wasn't a legal machine, in the end, if they wanted it tested, Botts II would be proven legal, so any doubts anyone may've had, would remain just that – unfounded doubts.

  'Aye,' I said. 'I'll see to the offensive end of things should that prove necessary. We can share the targeting system, can't we?'

  'Oh yes. That will pose no problem. Just fire as you normally would – I can work around your actions.'

  'Good. Here's how I see things. There's no doubt what these ships want and what we can expect from them. I've no intention of negotiating with anything other than missiles. Their hands are tied since they need the cargo undamaged. Tern tells me that we can expect additional missile batteries hidden in their cargo holds of those three large tramps. Those should be unmanned, so I'd appreciate it if you can see your way clear to destroying them as well as their regular missile launch tubes. I can then take what action is necessary after we've de-fanged them.'

  'I can deal with both missile batteries. As you say, any missile battery in the hold will be automatic and I wil
l destroy them with live missiles. I'll use inert ones to batter the standard missile launch tubes and engine rooms, where any causalities could be considered accidental. I've some dealing with pirates back in my day, and there's little is to be gained by negotiations with anything other than missiles. My programing prioritizes defending my owners, and while I can't blow the pirates to atoms, I can neutralize their threat even if doing so theoretically puts humans at risk.'

  'Excellent. Do you think we need to deploy the skip fighter?'

  'It'll only get in my way.'

  'Right. That's what I was thinking. We'll save it if things don't go as planned.'

  'Everything is in order. I don't anticipate things not going as planned...'

  'Better safe than sorry, though,' I said, but thought best not mention the Despar Reef...

  It ignored me. '...I'll use the drones' sensors to fine tune my responses and their missiles to attack from multiple angles, so I anticipate any action to be short and as decisive as you care to make it. And if I might be so bold, Captain, it would be best if you fired first to make it decisive. I can't, my programing limits that, but my programing doesn't limit me to seeing the need for it to be done, sir.'

  I nodded, grimly. 'I appreciate that Botts. I'm Unity Standard enough not to want to do it, but I've seen too much of the drifts not to know what's best to do. Your orders are to eliminate their missile batteries as quickly as possible, I'll take it from there. I'll initiate the broadside as soon as they commit themselves to action, and you can reply to their response. Good shooting, Botts.'

  They took their time – the three most dangerous ships anyway. They remained silent and carefully positioned themselves to bracket us from three sides. The rest of the drift hawks hung back, content to watch the show. We were deep in the drifts, near nowhere at all, so they had plenty of time to make their move and had apparently decided to use some of it to unnerve and wear us down and put the rest of the hawks astern. Botts didn't wear down, and while I worried, I also knew that the gold would have to be paid for sooner or later, so I didn't let the delay bother me – too much. We kept accelerating at mark 7.5 and by day five, we'd only the three Falcon Rock ships to contend with. It seemed that the Falcon Rock hawks weren't going to share the gold, so they held off any action until they had the field to themselves.

  It was late in that fifth day when they decided to make their play. Our advanced sensors on the drones alerted us to subtle changes in our shadows as they began to close in. I was napping in my quarters when word reached me. Rafe relayed the detailed sensor data from the drones showing that the ships had slightly altered their appearance – they were now showing a bump in their forward cargo holds, no doubt a weapons turret, and they were now out-accelerating us to close.

  'I have the targets locked in, Captain,' said Botts via the com link speaker in my ear as I stared at the screen on the bulkhead. 'With our first volley I'll target the weapon turrets with our main batteries and use the drones to try and disable their standard missile batteries. I'll follow up as needed to eliminate any remaining launch tubes. After that you can deal with them as you want.'

  'If we can disable their armaments, I'll give them time to take to their boats, but I intend to destroy the ships no matter what.'

  'I will alert you if things don't go as planned on my part,' said Botts.

  'And how likely is that?' I asked suddenly wearily.

  'A mere reflection that we live in a quantum universe, Captain, where the unexpected can happen. I anticipate no such quantum event.'

  'Right. Launch as soon as I fire my initial volley, and don't cease until you've eliminated their offensive capabilities. I'll stay out of your way until you do.'

  'Will do, sir,' it replied.

  I walked on to the bridge. 'Action stations, space suits everyone. Evacuate and seal the engine room when everyone is clear. Get the hounds and cats into their boxes. We'll be in action within 30 minutes.'

  'Should Pax take out the skip fighter?' Linnor asked.

  'Let's hold off on that for now,' I replied. A substitute engine had been installed – it was only half as powerful, making the fighter less than half as effective. 'I believe we can deal with the situation.'

  She gave me a questioning look, but said nothing more. It was my ship.

  'Steady as she goes, Dici,' I said as I looked over the plot. 'We'll rely on our missiles rather than maneuvers for defense.'

  'Steady as she goes,' he repeated, with a tense grin – he'd heard our tales of the Boscone Reef, but not seen Botts in action.

  Rafe was calmly manning the lookout station and Lilm at the bridge's engineer's station. Neither of them looked the least alarmed.

  'Rafe, will you take the weapons station? M'Ley will fill in for you at lookout,' I said. Old Rafe was going to play the part of my ace weapons officer. I'm pretty sure he could actually play the part, though this time he'd be playacting.

  A very serious Captain Linnor was dividing her attention between the view-panels and the crew who were slowly assembling on the bridge. I don't think she could quite understand the casualness of the crew. She gave me a look.

  'We've been here before, Captain,' I said. 'Rafe's a missile-wizard.'

  She nodded, and looked back at the view-panel.

  I took my place at the auxiliary com station next to Rafe who was playing with the missile launch controls while we waited for the drift hawks to get in range.

  And we waited. They were still playing the pressure game.

  'They're in range now, Captain,' said Botts in my com link ear speaker.

  'Take action on my order to launch,' I said quietly to Rafe, and Botts softly via my com link.

  'Understood, Captain,' it replied.

  'Aye, Willy,' Rafe said, with a wink.

  My com screen came to life with an incoming signal. I activated it and watched a face appear on the screen before me. A lean man smiled from the captain's chair on the bridge of one of the three ships.

  'Greetings Captain Wilcrofter,' he began. 'I trust that by now you realize your position is hopeless. We have overwhelming force. Now, we can do this the easy way or we can do this the hard...'

  'Launch,' I said, Rafe struck his launch keys sending out only three missiles to draw their first response. As soon as their response launched, Botts launched missiles from the two armed drones to drawing their second wave of anti-missile missiles away from his main attack. The ship shuttered as Botts launched three full salvoes from both sides of the ship as fast as the missiles loaded, and then three more as the targeting sensors latched back on to their targets through the turmoil of exploding missiles in the space around us. We'd caught them off guard – in both timing and the massiveness of our attack – so their only response was an automatic defensive, which our rapid and full salvos quickly overpowered, giving them no opportunity to launch an offensive strike of their own, while they still had the ability.

  As I watched the com screen, the hard smiling face on my screen gasped in surprise and disappeared in static as the missiles – ours and theirs automatically fired anti-missile missiles met in a series of brilliant explosions that disrupted radio contact. Their anti-missiles, however, failed to completely counter our massive launch from three sources and within seconds, all three of the drift hawks' forward weapons turrets were blown apart in shearing flashes of flame and debris. Botts fired two more salvoes of inert missiles aimed at smashing the drift hawks' main missile tubes and engine rooms. These launches were met with only sporadic and ineffective anti-missile fire, so most of our missiles reached their target. As our visual sensors stabilized with the fading explosions, I could see all the banks of the drift hawks' missile launch tubes where battered and their engine room hulls smashed in and holed.

  'Well done,' I said quietly.

  'Thank you, sir,' it replied.

  Rafe grinned and exclaimed. 'Why it was nothing at all, Skipper. I could've done it my sleep.'

  I took a deep breath and felt my gu
t untwisting – a little. There was, however, still work to be done.

  With the end of the action, the disrupted radio connection came back on line and I could hear the smiling pirate brawling angry orders amongst shouts, screaming alarms and the groaning of his battered ship. He wasn't seen, no doubt knocked about when our missiles tore into his ship. I watched shadows and crew moving about, silencing the alarms as pieces of the ship floated about. After several minutes, the captain, showing some wear and tear, climbed back into his chair and looked around angrily.

  'You've twenty minutes to abandon your ship before I send in the big ones. That goes for all the other ships as well,' I said – startling him – he'd forgotten the link was still live. 'I'm Unity Standard enough to give you time to take to your boats, but I've been in the drifts long enough to know how affairs like this are settled. I'm going to destroy your ships, abandoned or not, in twenty minutes.'

  The Falcon Rock captain cursed, raged, and threatened fluently for half a minute before cutting the connection. I'd sent regular and laser broadcasts of my warning to all of the ships, and updated the broadcast every minute, counting down the minutes. I'd destroy the ships – the drifts would be a better place without them, and well, dead men can extract no revenge. And likely the drifts would be a better place without them, too.

  At the thirteen minutes’ count, two boats left one of the ships and a minute later, the second ship followed suit. The screen came alive again and I was facing the pirate chief once more, standing on his bridge.

  'I've no intention of abandoning my ship. And I have a hostage, Lady Villa, taken off the Chartered Trading Company ship Zephyr not two months ago. She'll die if I must,' he growled and pulled a pretty woman roughly into view.

  'Please Captain, spare me!' she pleaded, wildly.

  'Better death than dishonor, milady,' I said gravely, adding. 'You've got seven minutes to get Lady Villa, your crew and yourself to your boats before I launch my final volley. You haven't time to waste on theatrics.' I cut the connection.

  'Captain?' said Linnor, giving me a somewhat startled look.

  'It's just an act. No doubt one of the crew. No CTC ship would be captured by a drift hawk like him.'

  'You can't be sure,' she replied.

  'Sure enough for the drifts,' I replied and turned to my screen. I was sure, sure enough not to give it a second thought. I was not anxious to kill even the pirates, but I would, and Lady Villa with them, if necessary.

  As soon as the boats of the first abandoned ship were far enough off to be safe, I had Rafe target it, and I launched a big anti-meteor missile at it. It disappeared in a blinding flash. I waited another minute, for effect, and repeated the performance against the other ship. At the twenty-minute mark the third ship still had not taken to their boats. I sighed, told Rafe to cue up two inert missiles and launched them at the pirate chief's ship. The ship managed to launch several anti-missiles from its far-side missile battery, destroying one of mine, but the other hit home, punching another hole in the engine room.

  I opened the com channel again. 'Final warning. The next one will be big and alive. I'll give you three more minutes to abandon ship before I fire, but that's my limit. I don't have a choice now. I've destroyed the other ships and it wouldn't be fair to spare yours. Plus, I can't afford to look like I was just bluffing. I don't want anyone getting the idea that they can get out with their lives and their ship.'

  He didn't reply, but his boats left a minute later, and I blew the ship to atoms as soon as they were far enough away. There'd be little more than debris clouds for the trailing drift hawks and tugs to salvage, unless they wanted to salvage the half a dozen ships' boats we left behind. I'd imagine there was some credits in that.

  It had been all very businesslike. I've become a drifteer, or as close to one as someone raised in the Unity could become.