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

  For nearly two hours she stood there, taunting the gathering Ophie to charge her. One after the other they advanced, only to be struck down by the blaster.

  Finally, an Ophie larger than the rest barked commands at the horde and they stopped their suicidal runs.

  Eliora entered the great hall of the Keep and collapsed onto the floor. Only six hundred of the settlements inhabitants could be accounted for, but even so, the quarters were cramped.

  "Shem would like to see you when you've recovered," a boy said, handing her a cup of water and a loaf of bread.

  She looked at the bread and wondered when would be the next time they'd be able to make bread.

  "Lead the way." Eliora stood, her body complaining with stiffness.

  He led her through the Keep to the barracks. When building the Keep, they'd taken advantage of the barracks location, a corner next to the exterior wall. She walked up the stairs and found Nurit standing outside the door to the room where she'd had so many debriefs with Captain Gian and Shem over the last few years.

  "He's expecting you," Nurit said and pushed open the door.

  Eliora considered the older smith for a moment. Neither Nurit nor Amon had received much training with weapons, as their time was much more valuable constructing weapons. Guarding against human intruders, however, seemed a perfect job for the heavily muscled woman.

  Eliora nodded to the mother of her friend and walked through the open door. Both Merrie and Amon looked up from where they sat in front of video screens that showed the carnage of the battle.

  "He's on the roof," Amon said, standing and embracing her.

  She held on to him for a moment, letting a small amount of comfort wash over her.

  Eliora climbed the stairs and went through the open trap door, finding Shem sitting on top of the roof. A gentle breeze cooled her as she sat next to him and offered to share her bread.

  "No, I've already eaten and we could be here a long time," he said pointing out to the west over the settlement.

  Eliora followed his arm's movement and saw what he was looking at. Hundreds of Ophie were in the streets, ducking around corners and dodging their way in and out of the buildings. Every so often, one would enter line of sight with the main gun and meet its fate.

  "How long do you think they'll stay?"

  "No idea, but there's something you should see," he said.

  Shem climbed down through the trap door and waited behind Merrie for Eliora. Amon, not waiting to be asked, closed the trap door and pulled the iron grate back into place, locking it.

  "Merrie, could you show Eliora what you've found?"

  "Certainly," Merrie said.

  Eliora had seen the video images from the quads enough times not to be surprised by the shift in the screen in front of her. She watched as Merrie negotiated the quad, flying it high in the air over to the small river that ran down the mountain only a hundred meters from the settlement. The river was their main source of water. The quad flew up the river for a kilometer before Eliora saw what Shem had been concerned about.

  "They're making a camp?" Eliora asked.

  "Yes. They have to," Shem said. "The warriors probably only brought food they could carry. Merrie saw other Ophie bringing support down from the main camp and they're digging in."

  "How long will our supplies last?" Eliora asked.

  "They haven't discovered our water intake from the river, so we're good on that for now. Councilwoman Peraf has taken over rationing and tells me we have, at most, two tenday," he said.

  "Any estimate on the number of Ophie remaining?"

  "Our best estimate is thirteen hundred, give or take," Merrie said.

  Eliora sat back, defeated. Even with their best preparations, they'd only cut the invading Ophie down by forty-five percent. They were boxed in and bedraggled. Hope seemed to be slipping away.

  "What do we do, Eliora?" Shem asked.

  "We set up a watch schedule and keep the gun manned at all times. We look for an opportunity. They can't stay there forever. Maybe we can outlast them."o

  BURNING BRIDGES

  Executive Suite, Lèger Gros, Tipperary

  When I woke up in the soft bed next to Tabby, my subconscious knew there was an awful issue that my waking self hadn't yet processed. Spending a week in a detention cell with nothing more than thinly padded cots to lie on had taken a toll on my body. I relished the comfort of Tabby's warmth and the luxuriousness of the executive suite's bed. It didn't take long for me to recall that my father was dead - murdered - and that I bore a substantial portion of the blame. It made the comfort I'd felt moments before hollow, vacuous, and undeserved.

  I pulled away and must have sighed, because it woke Tabby.

  "Don't go," she said, sleepily.

  "I can't sleep," I lied. I could have stayed in bed all day, but not next to Tabby and not in luxury.

  "You're pulling away from me again," she said.

  I just shook my head.

  I heard disappointment in her voice. "I'll give you space."

  That worked for me.

  I pulled on my old suit-liner and headed toward the door.

  "I lied," Tabby said, jumping out of bed and positioned herself between me and the door.

  "Don't," I warned.

  "Clean liner and a shower," she said. "I let you by last night, but it's not happening today."

  "Forget it."

  It got worse from there and we ended up having a pretty good fight. In the end, she gave up and stalked out of the room, pissed.

  I didn't want to follow her, so I took a shower. At least it was my idea.

  When I got out, I heard Mom talking in the other room and wasn't sure how I'd be able to face her. Sure enough, her voice stopped by the door and she knocked. She had to be reading my mind – she did that sometimes.

  "Liam? It's me," Mom said through the door.

  I wasn't sure what to say, so I just sat there, staring at the floor.

  "I'm coming in." She opened the door and slipped into the room, closing it behind her. She'd changed from the Annalise costume to her normal grey vac-suit.

  "What happened to your face?" she asked, running her hands along my cheeks and nose. I felt soreness where her fingers touched. "This has not set up correctly. Did they torture you?"

  "No, I had a fight and lost," I said.

  "Well, Nuage should have provided a surgeon. It's going to be harder to fix this after the fact," she said.

  "I suppose," I said.

  "I know what you're feeling, Liam," she said, sitting next to me on the bed and running her hand down my back. "You should know something, though. Pete saved me on that station. When we saw that the turrets weren't defending us, he abandoned me in the passage that led up to the back side of the asteroid. If he'd just come with me, he'd still be alive."

  "Why'd he do that?"

  "He said he could save Dave," she said, pulling my hand into her own. Her hands were always cold and I wrapped them in mine for warmth.

  "There couldn't have been time to save him," I said.

  "No, but that's the man he was, Liam."

  I shook my head and we sat quietly for a while.

  "Why'd you tell me that?" I asked, finally.

  "He had to know he couldn't get to Dave and he went anyway. I wanted to tell you because frankly, I'm having trouble dealing with it.

  "Not that hard to understand," I said. "He thought he had a chance and with you safe, he didn't feel like he had anything to lose."

  "But I had something to lose," she said.

  I really couldn't tell if she was trying to teach me a lesson or was struggling with what happened.

  "He couldn't have lived with himself if he didn't try," I said.

  "That's right. Your father, the man I loved, wouldn't have been that man if he'd turned his back on Dave," she said. "But you already know that, don't you?"

  "Yes," I said.

  "You're a lot like him."

  "Not hardly," I said.

/>   "Believe it. When the Cape's crew needed you, you went without hesitation. We'll hang Pete's murder on the people who did it. Don't let them succeed, Liam. You've a crew that needs a leader, son. You have to put your mourning aside. People are going to die if you don't pull yourself together."

  I blew out a long, shuddering breath as we hugged. I knew she was right, but I was having trouble finding my way through it.

  "How?"

  "Give you a hint from officer training?"

  "Sure."

  "Fake it until you make it. You've a crew any officer would be jealous of. Set the direction, then lean on them. They won't let you fail," she said.

  "You know, you have to come with us," I said. "No way am I giving Belirand another shot at you."

  She smiled. "I figured you'd say that, but you see the irony, right?"

  I shook my head.

  "I'm pretty sure if I come along with you all, Belirand will get their shot at me sooner rather than later."

  "Yeah, but you'll be on more equal footing this time," I said.

  "I'm counting on it. Now, get your butt up, apologize to Tabby, and let's get this show on the road."

  Clarity of purpose started to replace the fog I'd been feeling. Mom was right about our need to move and I wasn't doing us any good wallowing in self-pity. Dad despised wallowing, self-pity and just about any other emotion that took more than four words to explain.

  I spun the ring on my finger and thumbed the quantum crystal, knowing it would pulse on Tabby's finger. It was as close to an apology as I had in me. The response from Tabby was immediate and I knew we were okay.

  I stood up from the bed and made my way to the main room. For a moment, I looked at my friends as they talked animatedly. One by one, they recognized my presence and quieted, looking back at me. I felt Mom as she approached from behind.

  "Jonathan, two questions," I said. "First, what will it take to put a fold-space drive on Cape of Good Hope?"

  Jonathan turned to face me directly. How anyone might guess he was anything but human was beyond me.

  "Fold-space drives require an extremely rare, manufactured element called aninonium. Anino Enterprise never exposed the formula and had the only manufacturing facility in the known universe. Last night, that facility was destroyed and with it the only known way to create aninonium," Jonathan said.

  "Belirand blew up the factory?"

  "No. We did."

  "So you're saying there's no way to add a fold-space drive to the Cape?"

  "Not at all. We simply wanted you to be aware of this fact as it changes the balance of our conflict," he said. "Anino Enterprises has a substantial stock-pile of the material. We believe it is critical that the remaining aninonium be loaded onto the Hotspur before Belirand discovers its whereabouts and takes it by legal or other means.

  "To answer your original question, it will take roughly four days to upgrade Cape of Good Hope with a fold-space drive."

  "Mom. You've the most knowledge of big ships. Can a heavy cruiser, like the one that attacked the Co-Op, make atmospheric entry on a system with .9g?"

  "Yes. They'd be slow and burn an exorbitant amount of fuel, but it could be done," she said.

  "Those cruisers that chased us out of Grünholz didn't seem to have much of a problem," Tabby said.

  "Those Oberrhein cruisers are babies compared to Belirand's Justice-class," Mom replied.

  "Nick, any word back from Jake on missiles?"

  "Yes. You're going to hate it. He accepted your deal and has six. They're being loaded right now," he said.

  "What's to hate about that?"

  "They're the ones we sold him."

  "I could have gone the rest of my life not knowing that," I said with a wry grin. "So, something's been bugging me. When Hammer of Justice attacked the Co-Op, why didn't the defensive guns fire?" I looked at Mom.

  She started to answer when Jonathan cut in, "My apologies, Mrs. Hoffen, but I believe I have an answer for this."

  "Please, call me Silver," she said.

  "Thank you, Silver. The reason your guns didn't work is because a few members of Belirand's security forces have access to NaGEK's disarming codes. Those weapons were manufactured by the North Americans, who encode what amounts to a virus in the systems allowing them to be disarmed under the right circumstances," he said.

  "Can the virus be defeated?" I asked.

  "Yes. We could remove the code that performs those functions," Jonathan said.

  "Good. Nick, tell Berandor we'll forgive three hundred thousand if he'll move those guns for us."

  "What for?" Nick asked.

  "Nuage's own Admiral Marsh was ready to hand me to Belirand over a bar fight. It's going to get harder and harder for us to find a place where we can find refuge. We'll need those guns," I said.

  He nodded. "I'll negotiate with him. I don't think it'll take all three hundred. Where do you want them moved to?"

  "I'll show you. But before that, I was wondering if Jonathan could tell us if he had an estimate on how big their fold-space-capable fleet is?"

  "Belirand has eleven ships capable of generating an independent fold-space wave," Jonathan answered.

  "Are they all Justice-class cruisers?" I asked.

  "No. They have two corvettes, six heavy cruisers, two fast frigates, and a Goliath-class freighter," he said.

  Ada whistled at the mention of the freighter.

  "Okay, final question. What's the status of the Ophir settlement?"

  "It's not good," Jonathan said. "From what we've been able to discern, the settlement has come under a massive attack from the indigenous population. The Yishuv settlement is under siege and trapped in what they're referring to as the Keep."

  "Well, that makes things easy then," I said. "We fold-space to Curie, pick up the aninonium, then jump to Ophir. When can we leave?" I asked looking around the room.

  "Good to have you back, Cap," Marny said.

  "We're ready," Nick said. "You know we can't fold-space directly to Curie, right. We'll have to jump out at least a thousand AUs."

  "Sounds like a detail to me," I said.

  "Belirand won't like us popping over to Curie that fast. They'll feel like we're giving away their secret," Nick said.

  "Yeah, let's not talk about how much I don't care what Belirand thinks. Honestly, the only reason I can come up with for not blowing the lid off their little secret is because it's possible there are big bad scary aliens out there."

  "Figured you'd see it that way," Nick said. "We should get moving in that case."

  "Armored vac-suits and heavy blasters," Marny said. "And we're going to be exposed so we don't stop for anyone."

  Twenty minutes later, we exited the executive suite and entered the elevator. I felt sorry for the older gentleman who happened to be in the car. The seven of us, dressed in black armored vac-suits with heavy blasters within reach, stood in stark contrast to his brightly colored clothes. I didn't blame him when he remembered an appointment and requested an exit at the next level. I was relieved when we exited the elevator directly onto Meerkat's main level where Hotspur sat nestled against the bay doors.

  "Captain Hoffen. I guess the reports of your incarceration were exaggerated." Bing approached our group, holding out his hand.

  "Load up," I said, shaking his hand.

  "Cap, she's locked up," Marny said.

  I placed my hand on my blaster's grip. "What's going on, Bing?"

  "Nuage just called down, they've requested I stall you," he said.

  "I believe our arrangement was anonymity," Jonathan said.

  "Small city, people talk," Bing said. "Look, you've been good to me, but I can't go against Nuage Security Services."

  "Nick. Get us on that ship," I said.

  "Working on it," Nick said.

  "Marny, shut down that elevator," I said.

  "Aye, Cap," she said, jogging over to it.

  "Tabby, Mom, defensive positions around the ship. Jonathan, see if you can help Ni
ck," I said.

  "Copy," Tabby said as they peeled away.

  "Captain, perhaps I can help negotiate," Jonathan said.

  "Help Nick first. I'm done with carrot, it's time for stick," I said.

  "Bing. I need to explain something to you. Admiral Marsh is about to hand my crew over to Belirand and they intend to do us harm," I said as calmly as I could manage. "I'm telling you this because I've always liked you and don't want to see you hurt. Believe me when I tell you that if you don't give me access to my ship, I'll tear this place down."

  "I can't," he said.

  "You can and you will. If it'd be helpful, I could shoot you," I said.

  "Shoot me? How would that help?" he asked his voice raising an octave.

  "Duress. Stop stalling. You have five seconds and then I'm going to start shooting. After that I'll be dropping charges from those bags we're carrying," I said. I hoped Bing wasn't a card player, as I didn't think our clothing would explode as dramatically as I was suggesting.

  "It's open," Nick said. "He's still got control."

  I fired the blaster into his lower leg and he crumpled to the floor.

  "Three seconds, you frak. I'm serious! Your life for my crew's." I held the gun to his head.

  "Liam, no!" Mom yelled.

  "It's yours," he said raising his arms above his head, shielding himself. I almost felt bad.

  "Nick?"

  "We've got it."

  I pulled the earwig from Bing's ear, leaving a small bloody line along his cheek.

  "Open the frakking bay door or the second missile I fire will open it for you," I said.

  "What about the… okay! Please, just leave," he said.

  I ran across the deck, up the stairs and pulled the exterior hatch closed behind me.

  "Charge up the blasters. We might have to shoot our way out of here," I said as I sprinted through the hallway and turned toward the berth deck. Someone had been moving doors around on the ship, but I didn't have time to process it now.

  "We're ready," Ada said jumping out of the pilot's seat as I ran through the renovated bridge. Bing did a nice job, I sure was going to miss working with him.

  I slid into the seat, pulled back on the flight stick and moved Hotspur toward the opening bay door.

  "Incoming hail, Nuage Air Defense," the AI announced.