Buccaneers (Privateer Tales Book 8) Page 20

  A peace filled me.

  Show Tabby's escape pod.

  It would be okay, she was safely headed away from the carnage. I could live with that… well, sort of…

  I felt a tug on my ring and smiled. It was poignant that my last thought would be of Tabby.

  The ship disintegrated around me as the forces of the collision became too much for its structure.

  And then a most wonderful thing occurred. The ship broke free of the barge and we were flung off at an odd angle. I say we, because at that point, my only strong relationship to the tug was the fact that I was tacitly inside of a now, mostly open structure.

  On pure instinct, I dove down into the cluttered passage leading to the galley and sleeping quarters. My objective was to locate my AGBs. I'd made it three of the four meters when blaster fire lanced through the cockpit, obliterating it entirely. Well, I suppose it might not have obliterated it as much as relocated the vast majority of atoms that had originally been coalesced into the form of the cockpit.

  Reduce suit emissions, I'm under attack, I said. My AI was certainly smart enough to make appropriate adjustments.

  I didn't stop moving. Space battles were usually over in seconds. First one to pop the weasel almost always won. And I'd been popped. I couldn't afford to hang around and see what came next. The lack of continued fire led me to believe that my attackers were coming around for another volley. Ada must have stealthed out, as the cruisers wouldn't be taking out their aggression on me if Hotspur was still available.

  More fire lanced through the ship. So much for a break. The gravity generator had long since given up, in fact it appeared that no other power systems were still operating. I used my hands and legs to scrabble through the wrecked structure. The sleeping quarters were open to space, but my boots and one of my gloves were right where I'd left them in a perfect little corner of the room that seemed completely unaffected by the chaos around me. I snapped the glove into place, followed by the boots.

  Firing the boots as hard as I could against the tattered wall, I passed through a wide-open rent in the hull. I shut the jets down, straining my neck to get a good look around. It wouldn't do to escape the ship, only to rip my suit open on a metal shard. That said, I also had no intention of giving away my location to the Oberrhein ships by flashing my arc-jets.

  Almost too late, my HUD identified a long cable whipping back and forth in front of me. It was spewing some sort of gas and sparks arced from a live electrical connection. My mind whirled, as I tried to determine the periodicity of the cable's snaking path. My AI showed a collision, but I was out of time.

  It didn't seem right to use the word 'fortunate' in such a scenario, but it was true; I was fortunate to have been struck by the cable. First, the sheer force of the strike knocked me out. The arcing cable didn't actually end up grounding on me, which should have been obvious. The collision, did, however, put me on a new path; one that the ships that were looking for me couldn't track. It was either that, or the fact that I was floating lifelessly away from them that did the trick. Turns out, I had no idea what actually happened, because I was unconscious for the next two hours.

  I awoke to a low oxygen alarm. To make matters worse, I was floating in space with nothing in sight - no ships, not a thing. I wondered if I was dreaming. It was a common enough dream for any spacer, common enough that we have a name for it; the 'out of O2 dream.' Yeah, I know, not very creatively named, but then neither is the 'I have a test and I'm naked dream.'

  Let's be clear. I love the deep dark of space. I love free floating, except when I have absolutely no idea where I am. When I awoke, I was suffering from concussion. So on top of a splitting headache, all I could remember was that something really crappy had happened. I determined that I wasn't dreaming and needed to deal with the fact that I only had ten minutes of O2 left. Admittedly, at that point, I was completely freaked out.

  O2 was the first problem. I had a choice. I could stay put and conserve oxygen or try to find help. My boots and glove had a small amount of O2 in the reaction matter that might give me an additional twenty minutes. Since I couldn't see any place that I could jet to in my remaining ten minutes, I directed my AI to deplete the O2. So much for going anywhere.

  Slowly my recollection of how I'd gotten into this predicament came back to me.

  Hail Adela Chen.

  I reasoned that with only thirty minutes of O2 left, if Oberrhein was still in the neighborhood they couldn't do me any worse than had already been done.

  "There are no communication relays within range," the AI informed me.

  I suspected that might be the case, but I'd been hopeful. I just prayed it didn't mean Hotspur had been lost - frak - Tabby. I hoped they'd found Tabby. I'd sent her last known trajectory to Hotspur when I'd released her, but who knows what might have happened.

  I sighed. I'd come so far and I'd die a spacer's death; alone in the dark and out of O2. I twisted so I could look toward the Tipperary star. It was a gorgeous sight. This part of the galaxy had an amazing cluster of nebulas that were visible just over the horizon of the star. I'd first noticed them when we'd been on Léger Nuage.

  The view calmed me and I focused my thoughts on Tabby. I recalled her horrific trauma at Colony 40 and was grateful that, this time, it was me who was in trouble. I was also grateful that I hadn't been torn up like she had. I couldn't imagine surviving that. For me, death would come as I slid off to sleep, probably not the most horrific thing that could happen.

  I smiled as I felt the familiar tug on my ring. Tabby must be thinking of me.

  I wish I didn't have to admit that this act of salvation didn't immediately occur to me. I simply thumbed the ring in response, more to comfort her or to let her know I was thinking of her in my last moments. Yup – maudlin.

  The tugs on my ring became frantic and I responded. It was then that I actually recognized the immeasurable utility of these rings.

  "Cap, come in." Marny's alto voice filled my helmet.

  "I'm here," I said. "Come get me."

  "Cap, can you read me?" She said again.

  "I'm here, Marny!"

  I realized how ridiculous I was being. Of course they couldn't hear me. Hotspur had a much more powerful transmitter than I did. My signal couldn't possibly reach them.

  "Liam. Hit your ring twice if you can hear me," Tabby said.

  I complied.

  "Oh babe, we've been worried sick. I love you," she said. I wished I could respond. "Are you hurt? One ping for no, two for yes."

  I gave her one ping.

  "How is your oxygen? Give me a count of minutes," she said.

  I looked at the HUD. I was down to four and counted them out to her.

  "We're coming for you. Tell us where you are," she said. "Nick. How!" Tabby sounded frantic.

  "Hey buddy," Nick's voice was calm. "You're in a pinch and we don't have a lot of time. I'm going to give some instructions to your AI and then you're going to punch in the numbers it displays. Got it?"

  I pinged back twice.

  "Good," he said and then instructed my AI to display a sequence of celestial coordinates.

  My HUD showed three, three digit numbers. It didn't seem like enough information, but I was down to a hundred twenty seconds.

  "First number, Liam." I punched in a four and heard Tabby relay four.

  "Give me a ping if that's right," Nick said calmly.

  I looked at my display and the air was down to a hundred seconds. We couldn't possibly get through the entire sequence and I could hear Marny yelling at me to stay in the moment. I had no idea if it was real or imagined.

  Start transmitting emergency beacon, I said.

  I watched myself punch in the next number, and the number following that …

  ROGUE

  I watched Hotspur approach. Nick and Tabby jetted through the pressure barrier on the starboard side of the hull. I'd always liked the particular blue hue our pressure barriers emitted. The color reminded me of the vids o
f the oceans on Earth. To be honest, at that point, things had become somewhat fuzzy in my head.

  Someone's arms wrapped around my chest from behind. I breathed in deeply and was rewarded by the faint smell of fruity shampoo. I rolled my head to the side and saw Tabby's braided pony tail resting over my shoulder.

  "You smell nice," I said.

  "You're a bastard," she said. She might have meant it, but she also held me closer.

  "You need to work on your bedside manner," I said.

  My head was clearing and I discovered that I was lying on Tabby's lap on the bridge couch. Marny and Nick were standing over us.

  "How's your head?" Nick asked.

  The mere mention of my head seemed to light it on fire. It felt like my brain was too big for my skull.

  "Not good," I said. Disregarding the pain, I pushed ahead. "But that went well, right?"

  "You should have died," Nick said. "It was a terrible plan."

  "Where's Ada?"

  "Right here, Liam," she said. My back was to the cockpit where she was seated.

  "Sorry about your tug," I said.

  "That was a very brave and asinine thing you did. Mom would have been proud," she said.

  The mention of her mom, the woman I'd only talked to over the comm and namesake of the Adela Chen, made me flash back to when we'd rescued Ada from an attack on the Chen family tug.

  "You guys keep saying that, but my plan worked perfectly. Just tell me I took out the Stenka," I said.

  "Aye, Cap. The Stenka is no more," Marny said.

  "Anyone hurt?" I asked.

  "Negative," Marny said.

  "Hotspur?" I asked.

  "Armor is compromised in three locations on the port side towards the aft. We probably can't take another hit back there, but it's holding. Barring combat, we should be fine," Nick said.

  My head was pounding and I was outrageously tired, so I closed my eyes and snuggled back into Tabby. We'd done it. We were all alive and that was all that mattered for the moment.

  "We're headed to Nuage Gros," Nick said. "They've a repair facility that will fit us in."

  "Cool," I said. I wasn't really listening. Tabby was warm and with my eyes closed, my head didn't hurt nearly as badly as it did when they were open.

  "I'm taking him back to bed," Tabby said.

  Marny's voice sounded far away. "I'll bring in a medical monitor."

  Nick helped Tabby get me to my feet and for a few steps it seemed to be going all right, but then my legs buckled. The bands of Tabby's muscles tightened as she kept me from slouching. Then she did something that caused me no small amount of confusion. She swept her left arm under my knees and lifted them so she was carrying me in front of her. I decided I'd need to be okay with it, since she wasn't asking. Furthermore, I wasn't in any shape to argue.

  "I'm going to have to take your suit off, Liam. I'm worried you have injuries we're not seeing," she said as she lay me on the bed.

  For whatever reason, this did not cause me the same level of confusion.

  "I'll help," Marny said.

  Yeah, I was pretty sure I'd had this dream before.

  When I awoke again, I was hungry and had to use the head about as bad as I can ever remember. Marny had probably put a hydration med device on me, although upon inspection I couldn't find one. I also discovered I was completely naked. I tested out my limbs and felt pretty good, so I got out of bed.

  Before I made it to the head, Tabby entered the room. She must have set a monitor on me.

  "How are you feeling?" she asked.

  "If you help me take a shower, I'll show you," I said.

  "That sounds promising…"

  ***

  "Tell me you thought about the fact that we could have just given them the Adela Chen by abandoning her," Nick said. We'd always had the ability to talk honestly.

  "I did. There wasn't much time to think. Sitting here now, I wonder if it was the best move. I know how close I came to biting it back there," I said.

  "It's not a fair question," Marny said. I was surprised to see her step between me and Nick this way.

  "How do you figure?" Nick asked. As usual, he wasn't perturbed, he just didn't see an issue with the question.

  "You're asking Liam to judge his actions based on the now known outcomes," she said. "The question implies that abandoning the Adela Chen would have been a better decision."

  "Respectfully, I disagree," Nick said. "I want to know that Liam saw both avenues and made a decision with that information."

  "It feels like second guessing to me," Marny said.

  The stress of our relocation to Tipperary had been building for weeks, especially since the problems with Oberrhein kept getting worse. It was understandable, but hard to see my two friends sniping at each other. I wished Nick had decided to start this discussion in private. Having just survived a near-death experience, I was in a different state of mind than either of them. I couldn't think about anything except how grateful I was that we were all alive.

  "I think you're both right," I said. "Nick has spent the better part of his life second-guessing my crazy maneuvers. Sometimes I find it annoying, but he deserves an explanation. I also agree with Marny. What's done is done. But we'll all trust each other more if we're completely honest.

  I laid my hand on Marny's arm. She started to object, but quieted. I needed to make things right for her too.

  "Ada, why don't you join us for this conversation? I owe it to you all," I said.

  Ada, who was at the helm, could easily hear us from her chair, but came down and joined us on the couch.

  "You've all probably done your own research on this, but since I made the call, you should hear what I knew or believed. The Adela Chen was forfeit the moment those three ships came into sensor range. There was no outrunning them. The only question was would we survive. In my opinion, that encounter could very well have killed us all. The only way any of us could survive was if Hotspur ran. I don't believe for a minute that any of you would have abandoned Tabby or me.

  "Of course not," Ada said, momentarily caught up in the drama.

  I smiled and continued, "To Nick's question, there was no way I was going to hand that tug over to Oberrhein if I had any other choice. We were under hard burn and moving between ships wasn't feasible. Once we'd dropped out, there might have been enough time, so I briefly considered abandoning the Adela Chen. The plan I ended up going with allowed us to take out a cruiser while leaving Hotspur intact."

  "I feel like you didn't value your own life enough," Nick said. "I don't know what we'd do without you."

  I hadn't ever seen Nick cry, but his eyes were red and glossy.

  I sighed. "You'd keep going. There are families in the Descartes asteroid belt that need us to deal with these Oberrhein bastards. Mom, Dad, Ulran, Merley and even frakking Muir. It's bigger than us now," I said.

  "Don't forget Cape of Good Hope," Nick said.

  I cocked my head to the side. I wasn't sure why he was bringing that back into it. "What do you mean?"

  "How could Oberrhein know where we'd be exactly?" Nick asked.

  "Frak me, you're right," Tabby said. "Only Belirand would have sensors that would pin us down that accurately. That's proof that Belirand is in on it."

  "Or at least the Emre brothers," Nick said.

  "What motive?" Ada asked.

  "Maybe we're looking at this wrong. We've been thinking about this as a territorial power struggle between us and Oberrhein. There's a big problem with that; they've been coming at us from the beginning, before we even knew who they were. Why all the hostility right out of the box?" I asked.

  "We've also assumed that Petar Kiirilov represents Oberrhein," Nick said. "Just because he says it, doesn't make it so. I'm not sure how we could contact Oberrhein directly, but we might want to try."

  "I've an outstanding offer for drinks with one Captain Luc Gray on Nuage Gros," I said. "Maybe he could shed some light on Oberrhein. Or, maybe he can help us with a co
ntact."

  "Who's that?" Ada asked.

  "He's the squad leader who accompanied us the first time we visited Léger Nuage," I said.

  "Oh, I loved those little ships they had. The Nuagians certainly have a flair for color," she said.

  "I don't think you should refer to his ship as little. He might get offended," Tabby said.

  "Oh, you're naughty, Tabby," she said. It felt good to laugh and release some of the weight we'd been carrying.

  "Any chance we'll be going by Léger on the way to Gros?" I asked. Ordinarily, I'd have been the one setting the navigation plans, but that had changed since I'd been indisposed.

  "Why?" Ada asked.

  "I know that Jake had been sitting on a pile of beer. We might be able to line up a delivery for him," I said.

  "If we're going to do that, we should take out a bond that is respected in-system," Nick said.

  He was right, if we wanted to haul cargo in Tipperary, we needed to be bonded.

  "I hate to ask, but after paying for repairs, how will we look for credits?"

  "A hundred fifty thousand after repairs," Nick said. "I was thinking of a seventy-five thousand credit bond."

  "So, if you count the Adela Chen, the barge, fuel, repairs and missiles, what did that encounter cost us?" I asked.

  "Seven hundred thousand, give or take," Nick said. "Revenue from ore was about two hundred fifty thousand credits, so the loss was half a million."

  Marny sighed. I could tell she didn't like the idea of attributing a specific cost to our defense. I needed to bail Nick out.

  "What'd it cost Oberrhein?"

  "Those small cruisers are probably worth one-point five million each," Nick said. He looked relieved to have received the question.

  "That's got to seriously piss someone off. They sailed Karelia in from Mars. I'm guessing that's because small cruisers aren't available in-system. I wonder if they'll be so cavalier with the remaining two," I said.

  "I don't care if they hide," Tabby said. "We're not even."