Smuggler's Dilemma Read online

  The approach from the bottom of the station was busy, but nowhere near as crazy as the traffic on Mars. I’d considered letting the AI bring us in, but the docking bay they’d assigned us was large and would be easy to land in. I considered letting Jake bring us in, but figured he could watch this first time. Although I was sitting up higher on the Hotspur than I was used to with Sterra’s Gift, the controls felt tighter and the process was a breeze.

  Incoming hail from bay service, the ship’s AI informed us.

  "Captain Hoffen. Go ahead," I answered.

  "Greetings, Captain. Sissy Stein here. Will you need any fuel, O2 or waste service? You should have received a price list with the hail." It was the same woman I’d just talked to.

  My AI, overhearing the conversation, showed our fuel, O2 levels and their prices. We were fine for O2, but could use fuel. Prices were better than we were likely to see once we got home. "Hi, Sissy. Could you top us off on fuel? I think we’re in good shape otherwise," I said.

  "Will do," she said and closed the comm.

  Jake sat back in his chair and asked, "How do you contact the receivers?"

  "Let’s talk to Marny. She likes to handle this, especially when we're out here in the wild."

  I pulled myself out of the chair and smiled as I saw that Marny was already dressed in her armored vac-suit. She had draped my suit and one for Jake on the bridge’s meeting table. Since I was wearing a liner, I didn’t bother to look for a private place to change.

  "What’s with the armor?" he asked.

  I just grinned and gestured to Marny, who obliged. "It keeps people from getting funny ideas. You never know who might be skulking around. You should ask the Cap about that though, because there’s a reason I kick his ass every time I get the chance."

  "I’m not sure I see the logic in that, Marny. I think you just said you kick my ass so other people don’t have to," I complained.

  "No. I think you’ve got it," Marny answered me and then said to Jake, "You don’t have to carry a gun, but while that cargo bay is open, I’ll be standing by with a blaster rifle. Just don’t ever open that bay without me around, especially if there’s cargo in it, 'cause you’ll have hell to pay if you do."

  Jake looked at me to see if Marny was serious. I nodded and pushed my Ruger Flechette into the chest holster. "Marny, have you made contact with the stevedore’s union?"

  "Aye, Cap. They’re waiting for us. Jake’s beer is unloading first, followed by the mining equipment."

  "What’s the security status like here?" I asked. "Should we call Nick and Ada in for a break?"

  "I’m uneasy, Cap. I’d like to drop and run if it’s all the same to you. I’ve been reading reports of Houzi activity in the Indian sector. Nothing official, but given we’re headed in that direction and all..."

  I knew that sector, so I asked, "Baru Manush?"

  "Negative. I contacted my old deputy, Barney, and he said there’ve been rumors, but so far everything’s quiet."

  "Then it’s your ex-captain who bothers me." I exchanged a look with Marny, who also knew about Tabby’s cryptic message and the Navy’s heightened alert status.

  "I never could quite figure him out. You ready to go, there, Mr. Berandor?" Marny changed the subject.

  "What kind of gun do I get?" he asked.

  Marny handed him a flechette. It was a smaller model, but it’d do the job against non-armored suits. He looked a little disappointed, but I think he understood.

  I picked up a reading pad and handed it to Jake. "I’ll let you do the check-off for your crates, so you get used to the drill. Also, take this program, you’ll want it for managing freight in the future. It’s not at all complex," I bumped his pad with one that I’d picked up. "We scan the crates as they leave and make sure that everything gets crossed off. Stevedores will do the same thing. Ready?"

  "Sure," he said.

  Marny waited for us to join her on the lift down, blaster rifle in hand. Three of us in armored suits made for a tight squeeze. We waited to cycle the air out of the cargo bay and I made another mental note to get an air lock installed between the living space and the cargo bay.

  When the loading ramp was finally on the ground, I was surprised to see two people waiting for us. In front was the small woman, Sissy Stein, who I’d talked with several times. I held out my hand and she shook it with a friendly smile.

  "We do things a little differently here. We’ve had problems with smuggling, so we scan all cargo that’s delivered," she said.

  "Sounds reasonable," I said.

  "Brad? Let’s get this rolling?" Her voice changed from friendly greeting to sharp command and the taller figure behind her stepped forward immediately.

  He stuck his hand out nervously and I shook it. "Brad Stein, local stevedore’s union." At least I understood why he’d responded so quickly. Most likely, Sissy was his wife. After we shook, he held out a reading pad.

  "Transfer your bill to Mr. Stein," I said to Jake, who was prepared for my request and bumped Brad’s pad.

  "Ten crates of Pale Ale from Mars," Brad announced.

  An hour later we’d worked through both the beer and the mining equipment without incident.

  "You all going to join the Mrs. and me for a drink?" Brad asked.

  "No can do this time. We’re on a tight schedule," Marny answered. "I think we’re just waiting for a delivery from Magee’s."

  "I’m sure they’ll be here shortly. Shame what happened there," he said.

  "Terrible," Marny agreed. "Thanks for the help. Mr. Stein, Mrs. Stein."

  When we were back in the ship with the cargo bay’s loading ramp closing I finally asked, "What happened? What was terrible?"

  "Magee’s is the restaurant where Celina worked before she got captured by the Red Houzi. The pirate Boyarov tortured the owner, Magee, trying to get Celina’s location. I didn’t think you wanted to get involved in that conversation. You know how rumors go," Marny explained.

  "Roger that. So what kind of food did you order?" I asked as we sat down around the table in the bridge.

  "They have a great selection of fresh baked items, so I got several days’ worth of bread and muffins," she said. "And, speak of the devil, they’re here." Marny got up, jumped on the lift and disappeared.

  "We should settle up," I said to Jake. "You don’t owe docking fees since we were coming here already. You had ninety-six hundred kilograms, which is eighty-six hundred over your allotment. We calculate fuel at the destination price. I’ll give you a break going forward on your remaining crates - you’re still six hundred kilograms over, but we’ll be sailing empty, so let’s call that even." I sent him the calculations that I’d worked out. "Let me know if that works for you and I’ll transfer the money."

  Jake looked at the information for a few minutes. "That looks fair. I hope I can move the last two crates, they represent almost all of my profit."

  "You clear twenty percent?" I asked.

  "If I’d sold everything it would have been twenty one."

  "Not bad. You tied up your money for two weeks for a twenty percent profit. I’d do that anytime I could." It reminded me that I hadn’t done a single speculative load yet. That said, we didn’t have any cash reserves, either. Everything we had went directly back into the corporation.

  "Keeping them could be a mistake. I bet I could have sold the last two crates right here if I discounted them," he said.

  "It sounds like you have your investment back, so it doesn’t sound very risky," I said.

  I smelled Marny’s arrival before I actually heard her walk up behind me. I’d learned what fresh baked bread smelled like and loved it. I swiveled my chair and was delighted to see her holding a small plate with three golden rolls on it.

  "We might need to invest in an oven," she said. "This stuff isn’t that hard to make and it’s amazing. Go ahead, dig in," she said pulling one of the rolls off.

  I stood up and grabbed a roll, it was warm to the touch. She might have warmed it up fo
r us, but I preferred to think it was just that fresh. "Marny, we’ll get underway in a few minutes, anything to report?"

  "No. We’re clear," she answered.

  I punched up our checklist. One by one, I rolled through the systems.

  Hail Adela Chen.

  "Hiyas, Liam," Ada answered. "What’s shaking?"

  "We’re done here and headed your way," I said. "Any updates on navigation?"

  "Transmitting now," she replied.

  "Roger that," I said. "Marny’s got a surprise for you when we get back together."

  TARGET PRACTICE

  We declared the rendezvous near Terrence as our voyage’s mid-point. After we landed the Hotspur on the barge, Nick and Ada joined us in the combined galley / mess of the ship. It had become Marny’s signature to set an elaborate table with the best food and drink she could get her hands on. We all pitched in to set up, but Marny was definitely the one in charge and handed out orders with military efficiency.

  Toward the end of the feast, I raised my clear cup, which was half full of sparkling wine. "I’d like to toast our good fortune. Never have we travelled so far without a single incident involving pirates. To a safe journey," I said with flourish and took a big drink.

  Marny took a drink and then chastised, "Cap, I think you’d best be careful tempting fate like that."

  "I can feel it, Marny. Lady Fortuna is on our side in this journey," I said.

  "So what’s the basic plan? I know we’re headed for that outpost you all took over, but what are we doing once we get there?" Jake asked.

  "We’re going to pack it all up and bring it with us," Nick said. "Since the Red Houzi know its location, it isn't useful to us. It’s only a matter of time before they either destroy it or figure out a way to subvert it. We’ve leased a construction bot and a cargo bot. I think we can be in and out in under a week, maybe sooner."

  "Fair enough," Jake replied.

  "I’ve posted the new rotation and we only have ten days on this leg," I said. "Jake and I are next up, so unless we have anything else, I say we get going."

  For the next nine days we sailed in the comfortable routine we’d established. Marny’s crazy workouts seemed less intimidating and I was starting to feel more confident in my boxing. I understood that I hadn’t scratched the surface of the sport, but every once in a while, a combo would go my way and it was exhilarating. Boxing seemed to be as much about defense as offense. If you want to get your bell rung, all you needed to do was drop your mitts for half a second. I wasn’t in either Jake’s or Marny’s league, but the skills were definitely something I felt could be useful in the future.

  Our last day of the journey came and I’d arranged the rotation so Ada and Jake ended up on the Adela Chen.

  Open comm, Ada Chen.

  "Hiyas, Liam," she answered.

  "I’ve uploaded a nav-plan for your approach. I’m giving the Hotspur a few hours at the outpost before you arrive just in case there’s any funny business. Copy?"

  "Copy that," Ada said.

  "If you could cut your engines, we’ll separate."

  "Safe travels, Liam," she replied and then seconds later spooled down the tug’s engines.

  "Roger that. You too, Ada. We’ll see you on the other side. Hoffen out."

  All sections report status, I requested.

  "All green," I heard from Marny and then from Nick.

  I lifted the Hotspur from the deck of the barge. It was good to be sailing under our own power, as opposed to riding along like so much freight.

  Nick slid into the pilot’s chair next to me. "You ready for this?" he asked.

  "Sure am. It seems awful quiet out here, though," I said.

  "Don’t spook yourself. Red Houzi picked this spot because it’s out of the way. You’d expect it to be quiet," Nick said.

  "Well still, I’ll feel better when we’re burning our way outta here."

  Nick nodded at the console. "I’m uploading a plan that will have us orbit the cluster of asteroids around the outpost. It’ll give us a good look before we commit to landing,"

  "Might as well get your armored vac-suit on now, Cap. You probably won’t want to take the time once we get closer," Marny was sitting at the top of the short flight of stairs that led down to the bridge from the cockpit. It would take the Adela Chen sixteen hours to arrive at the outpost, but we’d be there in less than five. "And I’ve placed blaster rifles for you and Nick next to the airlock. I don’t want either of you more than a meter away from your rifle at any time once we’re on the ground."

  I knew better than to argue with Marny. Her approach was to plan for the worst and expect things to degrade from there. "Take the helm for a few, Nick?" I asked.

  "Yup."

  My first stop was the galley for a fresh cup of coffee and then I went for my armored vac-suit. It was bulkier than I liked if I had to take the Hotspur into combat maneuvers, but it would absorb not only quite a bit of shock, but any shrapnel that my normal suit couldn’t. I figured it was a reasonable trade off.

  "Have you done any live fire testing, Marny?" I asked, sliding into the pilot’s chair.

  "You’re reading my mind, Cap. Maybe you could give me a few minutes of combat simulations when we get into the asteroids and Nick can light up some targets for us," she said.

  "Happy to oblige."

  "Your turn, Nicholas. Your suit’s in our room on the bed," Marny said.

  "So how’d we end up with all the extra arms and suits?" I asked. "I thought we were supposed to return those to the Navy."

  "Just as soon as they request it," Marny said. Considering the equipment had come from a Navy ship that had been destroyed, I suspected the request would never come.

  On course for the outpost, we chatted some, but mostly sat for long spells in amicable silence, lost in our own thoughts. We had finally reached the edge of Mars Protectorate territory and were moving into Indian controlled space. Perhaps we were all a bit apprehensive. On our last trip through the area, we’d seen firsthand how neither Mars Protectorate nor the Indian government had any interest in getting involved in issues this far out. If we got into trouble, we were less than a day from Baru Manush. Colony 40 would be safer, but it would take us a week to get there on hard burn, longer if we had to accompany the tug.

  "I’ve got a full linkup with the outpost," Nick said at thirty minutes out when we cut the hard burn and flipped back over.

  "How good are the sensors, do they see us yet?" I asked.

  Show sensor net from outpost on forward holo, Nick requested.

  The magnified display in front of us showed three long-range, asteroid mounted cannons, along with the actual outpost sitting on its asteroid in the center of the three weapons. A short, dark green line, cut into the blue oval sensor net.

  "That’s us, dropping into their range while still under hard-burn. You can see our progress since hard burn just on the end." Nick explained as he pointed to the dark green line that pierced the edge of the slightly pancaked sphere. I hadn’t initially seen it, but there was a smaller light green stub growing out of the end of the dark green line.

  "Why doesn’t it show our ship?" I asked.

  "This ship’s registration isn’t in the outpost’s database. One sec," Nick said. He typed on a virtual keyboard that I couldn’t see. A moment later, a tiny image of the Hotspur popped up on the holo field.

  "So, green is good?" I asked.

  "Yup. Red would be real bad. Yellow would give you a few minutes of warning, unless you got too close," Nick explained.

  "What’s the firing range of those cannons?"

  Show outpost cannon effective range, Nick said.

  Three translucent orange spheres popped onto the display and centered on the cannon emplacements. The intensity of the color changed in bands as you got closer to each gun. It also showed where the physical asteroid got in the way of the cannon's ability to effectively fire. Each of the guns, however, had been placed in such a way that they overlapped and cov
ered each other’s blind spots.

  "We’re going to be at our most vulnerable when we start dismantling the cannons," Nick said. "We’ll want to have everything else packed and ready to go before we start on that. My best guess is we’ll be open for six hours - the time it takes to dismantle the command portion of the outpost and take down the last gun."

  "So, we’ll want to have the Hotspur on patrol at that point, I’d guess," I said.

  "Yup."

  "Marny, you ready to break some rocks?" I asked.

  "Aye, aye, Cap."

  "Alright, get strapped in. Nick, you want to give us a few targets?" I pulled my combat harness over my shoulders.

  "Targets are programmed in and should be popping up shortly," he said.

  Engage combat controls, I said.

  Attacking asteroids wasn’t a fair fight for a couple of reasons. First, they didn’t move. Second, they didn’t fire back. Even so, it would allow Marny and me to work on our coordination. The first asteroid showed blue and I pushed the stick over instinctively to give Marny a better shot with the top mounted turrets.

  Marny waited for us to get closer and then sprayed the asteroid from one turret before locking on with the second. I watched as the battery levels dipped and charged back up. She wasn’t the sort to lay it on thick, but rather used a pulsing style of fire. Marny easily hit the target, although I’d have been surprised if she hadn’t.

  The next two targets were ahead of us and I sailed over the top of them so Marny would be forced to use the bottom turret. As expected, she had no problems with it.

  "You’re going to need to make this harder, Cap," she taunted.

  "Roger that." There were three targets coming up and I had an idea. "I’m going to twist through these, try to use a different turret for each target."

  "Aye," she replied.

  Game on, I thought. I pushed the flight stick forward and flipped the ship end-for-end, then pulled back on the throttle. Like Sterra’s Gift, we had a limited amount of forward thrusters available and I accelerated, sailing backwards through Nick’s course. I’d lined up the center-most target with the ship and sailed at high-speed directly at it.