A Matter of Honor (Privateer Tales Book 9) Read online

  I looked into the star field and reflected on the moment. It felt like a hundred years ago that I'd lived on Colony-40, my only worry if Big Pete was going to yell at me for scraping up my ore-sled.

  "Contact with Curie's upper atmosphere in ten, nine…" Ada announced over ship wide comm.

  We quickly learned that Mastodon, as elegantly built as she was, didn't have anywhere near the same performance characteristics as Hotspur. The shaking started right as Ada hit zero and the intensity increased as we dove deeper toward Curie.

  "Captain?" Anino's voice came over the comm. "What's happening?"

  "Hold on, Phillippe. Fifty seconds more and we'll be through the worst of it," I said.

  "Are you trying to kill us?" he asked.

  "Sorry for the inconvenience, but we're well within the ship's capabilities," I said. I glanced at Nick for confirmation and he nodded his agreement.

  "Those are just hypotheticals calculated by machines!" Anino complained.

  "Not after this run," I said. Tabby looked over her shoulder and flashed me a quick grin.

  "Jupiter, I hate you," he said and closed the comm channel.

  I watched the status board. A number of the systems fluctuated between green and yellow, but so far nothing critical had flipped to red, although plenty of non-critical systems were buried in crimson. The worst damage was in one of the lower bays where, apparently, a few barrels of liquid foodstuffs had toppled and opened. Just as well, the description on the screen didn't make it particularly appetizing anyway.

  After a few more minutes of shaking we pulled out of the atmosphere and I checked our path. Our course had adjusted as calculated.

  All hands. We're through the rough stuff and will take a few minutes for a complete systems check. Please report critical issues immediately.

  "Ada, would you cut hard burn?"

  "Copy that," she said and we dropped from hard burn.

  A review of the systems showed several that had taken significant damage. The autonomous systems were already at work and gave an estimate of fifteen hours for completion of all repairs.

  "Captain, could we talk?" Anino asked.

  "Not yet. Give me a minute," I said.

  "All stations report flight status," I said. My board lit up with green indicators. "Ada, please resume hard burn."

  "Go ahead, Phillippe," I said.

  "Do you know what your stunt back there just cost me?"

  "No idea," I said. "I understand you're good for it. Look Phillippe, if you want to take a seasoned crew on a mission into hostile territory, you have to prove to them that the equipment is capable."

  "Six hundred thousand credits in broken equipment," he said. "Was it worth it?"

  "It will be when we come back alive," I said.

  "Anyone ever tell you you're annoying?"

  "I take that as praise coming from you."

  I wasn't surprised when he closed the comm channel one more time. Pouty little bugger.

  We were still ten minutes from the derelict yard when Jonathan contacted me via comm, "Requesting permission to enter bridge."

  "Granted," I said.

  A door on the aft of the starboard side of the bridge opened. Jonathan entered, balancing a platter of mugs on one hand. "I've taken the liberty of preparing refreshments," he said. The mugs were open at the top and wisps of vapor escaped from the one he set on a fold-out platform, attached to my chair.

  "Open tops?" I asked.

  Jonathan picked up one of the remaining cups from his platter and turned it upside down. The liquid did not pour out, but stayed at the top. "Small gravity generators hold the liquid until contact is made with the consumer's mouth," he said.

  I picked up my mug and shook it upside down furiously. Not a single drop of coffee escaped. "Where have you been all my life?" I quipped.

  "Careful, Jonny. Next thing you know he'll be proposing to you," Tabby said.

  Jonathan looked at me with concern.

  "Don't listen to her. I just really like my coffee."

  "Very good, Captain. It is nice to know my efforts are appreciated. Would you care for an orange glazed cranberry scone with that?"

  "Yes, please," I said. "So… are you married?"

  This time Jonathan looked with alarm to Marny.

  "Jonathan, don't listen to them. They're just feeling punchy," Marny said.

  "I'm afraid I've not yet learned to identify this group's particular style of humor," he said.

  "Let me know when you do," Nick said. "I might like some pointers."

  I bit into the scone. It was good - delicious even - especially given how hungry I was, but it wasn't quite as good as what Marny made. Perhaps I could encourage some friendly competition in that arena.

  "Jonathan… or do you prefer Jonny?" I asked.

  "I've never had a nickname before," he said.

  "Would you like to remain on the bridge while we execute the weapon systems tests? It should be quite a show from up here," I said.

  "Thank you, Captain. I would enjoy that," he said as he finished handing out coffee and scones to the rest of the crew.

  "First target on port side in thirty, twenty-nine…" Ada announced.

  I looked at the navigation path displayed between Ada and Tabby's chairs and felt an unexpected pang of jealousy at their shared workspace. I shrugged it off and gestured to superimpose our path onto the holo display of Mastodon to the left of my chair.

  Ada or Tabby had laid out a path with six derelict ships at different orientations to the ship. Our delta-v with the heap was high and each gunner would need to react quickly, but it also wasn't our first rodeo.

  A blurp of turret fire erupted from the port side as Tabby engaged the first target. With so much warning, it had been an easy hit. The second was much the same, except both the starboard and topside guns engaged.

  "Stay frosty, kids," Ada said and put Mastodon into a spin, rotating along the axis of our current vector.

  Again, it caused them no problems. As the targets moved from one gunner's visibility to the next, they were easily picked off.

  On the final three, Ada got craftier, using aft and bow thrusters to twist the ship through a circuitous route. We were far from perfect after that, but I felt like we'd at least made a good go of things.

  "Marny, would you like another pass?" I asked.

  "We should do better than fifty-eight percent," she said.

  "Nick, check something for me," I said.

  "Yup, go ahead."

  "How tight did Fist of Justice follow us through Curie's atmosphere?"

  "Not at all. With their superior speed, they just dog-legged around and caught back up," he said.

  "Anino, you've thirty minutes to get your lab stowed again. We're going to have more turbulence," I said.

  "I thought you said we were done with that," Anino responded. It almost sounded like a whine.

  "My apologies. And I wouldn't be doing it if I didn't find it necessary for mission success."

  "Any way I can convince you otherwise?"

  "Not really."

  "Could you send Jonathan down?" he said, resigned to his fate.

  "Copy that," I said.

  "Nick, what's the shortest fold-space jump we can take?"

  "Not sure. What are you thinking?" he asked.

  "We need to test the fold-space generator. It'd be nice to drop somewhere we could limp back from," I said.

  "Gotcha. Give me your plan for passing Curie. Our minimum jump is a thousand AUs. It'd suck, but we could get back from there," he said.

  "Roger. I'm working on it. Give me a couple."

  We were once again accelerating toward the derelict field. To say there was a lot of activity on the bridge was an understatement.

  I'd just finished handing off the navigation plan to Nick when the shooting started. I looked up and worriedly checked the position of Fist of Justice. They'd settled back to a comfortable distance of five thousand kilometers. Ada pushed the Mastodon around a
gain and I noticed our hits percent had increased significantly.

  Once we were on the other side of the derelict field, I stood up. I was tired of sitting and we were still twenty minutes from Curie. I walked over to Marny's station. "What happened? Looks like our accuracy jumped but our number of shots was down by quite a bit."

  "Nick dropped out," she said.

  "What do you think?" I asked.

  "She's got some teeth, not to mention a really nice feature where we can dial back the intensity of the blaster bolts," she said.

  "Would we stand a chance against Fist of Justice?" I asked.

  "Do you think it'll come to that?" Marny asked.

  "I do. If only we could outrun her. I've never been in a position of being both slower and less powerful."

  "Earthers have a phrase," she said. "It's called being a sitting duck and that's what we'd be if Fist of Justice chose to mix it up with us."

  I sighed. "Good to know."

  "Prepare for hard burn," Ada said.

  We'd shifted in and out of hard burn enough times in the last couple of hours that I was having a hard time keeping track.

  "Nick, can you give me an idea how long we'll be in fold-space?"

  "Yes. It's not exactly linear for distance traveled, but generally shorter distances require fewer folds and therefore less time in the fold-space bubble. We're looking at a total of ninety-two minutes," he said.

  "And how long to get back if everything goes to crap?"

  "Almost a year," he said.

  "A year? I thought we were making a short jump," I said.

  "Short as I can come up with," he said. "We're limited by available fuel. We'd sail back nine months with Mastodon, then another three months with Hotspur. Most efficient way I could come up with."

  "Let's hope we don't need that," I said. "Can you program two more jumps?" I asked.

  "What do you have in mind?"

  "We're going to wait wherever we drop and see if Fist of Justice shows up. If they don't show up, we'll know we've lost them."

  "And if they do?"

  "We'll get a good reading on how closely they can jump in on us and how much time it takes," I said. "If things get dicey, we're going to want that information."

  "I'll get right on it. That's good thinking," Nick said.

  I beamed. It felt good to have Nick's approval. It always felt like I was leaning on him to do the heavy mental lifting.

  I sat back and drank the coffee Jonathan had provided. It was delicious. Given the source, it was no doubt the real thing. "Ada, I'd like to take her through the atmosphere, we're going to enter fold-space just as soon as we're on the other side."

  "Roger that, Captain," she said. "All systems are nominal and repairs are continuing."

  "I relieve you," I said.

  "I stand relieved," she answered.

  I enjoyed watching Curie grow as we approached. Tullas probably had an idea something was up as we hadn't slowed on our approach. She'd have to swing wider if she wanted to miss the atmosphere since she was going just as fast as we were.

  All hands, prepare for turbulence and be warned we'll be jumping to fold-space in thirty... twenty-nine…

  With the extra speed, the ship actually seemed to shake less violently, although not by much. I watched the sensors and was pleased to see that Fist of Justice was swinging even wider than I thought necessary.

  "Liam, fold-space on your command," Nick said.

  Cue Allman Bros, Midnight Rider through all ship's speakers.

  I heard groans throughout the bridge, but secretly I knew they loved it.

  Well, I've got to run to keep from hidin',

  Not gonna let 'em catch the Midnight Rider.

  "Engage!" I said. It was probably a little louder than necessary, but the excitement of the moment took me.

  The shaking of the ship settled out immediately as all visible light smeared in a more or less horizontal direction, like a child with a fist full of markers on a drawing board. The first time I'd experienced this visual distortion, I'd been unprepared for it, but this was my fourth jump and I guess I'd become jaded.

  Once the smearing stopped, I quickly gathered my bearings. My HUD showed the fold-space bubble around us and I looked frantically for the line I needed to keep so as to not be knocked back into normal space.

  "Nick. I'm not seeing the edges here," I said.

  "You won't. We're not sailing between TransLoc gates so there's no risk of falling off," he said.

  "Frak. You could have told me."

  "Sorry, I guess I thought it was obvious," he said.

  Good, I thought sarcastically, at least I didn't need to worry about getting a big head about things.

  "Potty break?" Tabby asked. "You got this, Luv? I think us girls are going to find the head. You coming, Marny?"

  "I could use a break," Marny replied.

  "Just be back in an hour," I said. I watched them leave and then said, "You know, something's been bugging me."

  "What's that?" Nick asked.

  "Tullas didn't even question if we'd be making the jump. She just wanted us to know that she'd be there to wipe the floor with us if we did. Something in the way she said it made me believe she not only could jump, but could follow us into fold or maybe even track us."

  "Chilling thought," Nick said.

  "No doubt."

  One of the things I appreciated about Nick was his ability to sit quietly and not fill the room with idle chatter. If he had something to talk about, he spoke up, but he was just as happy to leave me to my thoughts. I desperately needed time to think, too. Just because everyone agreed to this mission didn't mean I was off the hook. We needed some sort of advantage when facing off with Fist of Justice. I couldn't see one.

  "Warmup?" Ada asked when they got back.

  I looked up at her, startled from my reverie. She was holding a coffee pot. "Uh, yup, that'd be great. You find the head all right?"

  "There's one right at the back of the bridge," she said. "We just needed an excuse to explore the ship. You should see it, this whole deck is gorgeously designed. Tabby picked out a nice room with a king-sized bed complete with a standing jetted tub."

  "I don't even know what that is," I said.

  "You'll see… and I'll be getting a full-report from Tabby."

  My cheeks flushed. "She wouldn't."

  Ada punched my shoulder with her free hand, "Too easy, Hoffen."

  We were only a few minutes from dropping out of fold-space when Tabby and Marny returned, talking excitedly. My best guess was they'd found some sort of exercise equipment. Oh, joy.

  "All hands, normal space in four minutes," I said. "If Fist of Justice shows up we'll be jumping right away, otherwise we're going to burn for an hour."

  "Captain?" Anino's voice came over my private comm.

  "What's on your mind, Phillippe?"

  "By my calculation, we should have forty-six minutes before Tullas arrives."

  "Thank you. Do you believe she's tracking us or following?"

  "Not sure what you mean."

  "Is there something about the ship that gives away our destination or location or is she just following us line of sight?"

  "Every time a ship drops out of fold-space it's registered on a central device controlled by Belirand. She's definitely able to track us. Worse yet, speed in fold-space is completely proportional to mass. She's just twice as fast because we're so big."

  Forward conversation to Nick. I instructed the AI.

  "Thanks, Phillippe, that's helpful," I said.

  "Welcome," he said and terminated the comm.

  "You get that, Nick?"

  "Yup. We'll be down for thirty seconds to let the engines cycle, but we'll jump right back in," he said.

  "How long?" I asked.

  "Sixty-two hours," he said.

  "Copy that."

  I'd been concerned that we wouldn't be able to jump to fold-space twice, but my fears were unfounded. A minute after dropping out, we reo
riented and jumped right back in.

  "Okay, kids. We're taking four-hour shifts. That's the good news. The bad news is I want two crew on the bridge at all times. I'll post the schedule, but first up will be Marny and me," I said. "Make sure to get some rest. Who knows what we're getting into once we drop out in the deep dark."

  It was the nature of space flight. Moments of high activity followed by hours of quiet. Some referred to it as boredom, but not me. I had plenty of things to keep me busy, one of which would be to learn as much about Mastodon as I possibly could. I had a feeling our very survival depended on it.

  ***

  As it turns out, a standing jetted tub is quite interesting. The user steps in to a small compartment roughly the size of a small head. The interesting part is that the doors and walls, which can be either transparent or completely opaque, seal fully. Warm water fills the compartment to about chest depth and jetted water massages you. Let's just say for a young couple, still excited to explore each other, it's about one of the coolest inventions I've experienced.

  ***

  "Cap, we're thirty minutes out." Marny's voice woke me from a deep sleep.

  I'd asked for the wakeup call and quickly dressed, then stopped by the main galley toward the aft of the deck and grabbed a fresh mug of coffee and a meal bar. I wasn't used to such a long ship and excitement caused me to break into a jog.

  I palmed my way onto the bridge.

  "Captain on the bridge," Marny announced.

  "Welcome back, Luv," Tabby said. She'd been in the captain's chair and started to get up.

  "Your watch, your chair." I sat next to Ada in a pilot's seat.

  "Normal space in five… four…"

  The dancing stars that were the hallmark of fold-space solidified into a single picture.

  "All stations report," I said.

  I checked my holographic display. Everything checked out green.

  "Marny, keep an eye out for Fist of Justice, please."

  "Aye, Cap," she said.

  "Nick, any reading on Cape of Good Hope?"

  "Yup. Got her," he said.

  "Frakking aye!" I said.

  "There's a problem," Nick said. My heart sank, of course there was. "Fist of Justice is already here."