Mutiny in Space (20 page)

So I got my own bed in the infirmary after all.

I can vaguely recall the medical drones rolling back and forth between the beds. They shot me up with a lot of drugs designed to stimulate bone growth, and deal with cranial trauma, and some really excellent painkillers. I think I slept for a couple of days, and when I finally woke up, I still felt terrible, but my head was mostly clear.

Given that I wasn’t dead, that was a good thing.

Arthur visited me once I woke up.

“You actually killed them with
Gunno-Tatakai
?” he said, sounding awed.

“Never seen a computer system that game can’t slow down,” I said, sipping at my water.

We traded news. The
Rusalka
was in hyperspace again, with the damaged
Vanguard
safely clamped to the hull. The surviving commandos were secured in one of the cargo bays; Corbin planned to drop them off at the first habitable planet, then send Coalition intelligence to pick them up. He and the other techs had been working around the clock to repair the damage to the
Rusalka
, but there wasn’t much left that we could do without a shipyard. The ship had come through the hijacking and the mutiny more or less intact, even though the computer would have to be wiped and the operating system reinstalled to unlock all the subsystems.

Arthur laughed. “I wish I could have seen the expression on the captain’s face.”

“It was like this.” I opened my eyes and mouth as wide as I could. “Only more scared.”

He laughed. For me, though, the helpless fury in Ducarti’s eyes would be something I would take to my grave. Something satisfying.

We talked a bit more, and he left me some of his game collection, which was nice because I didn’t have anything to do.

My uncle visited me later that day.

“How are you feeling?” he said.

“Everything hurts,” I said, “but I’m not dead or crippled, so I shouldn’t complain.”

“That was absolutely insane! What were you thinking?” Corbin was still angry with me, but then he relented. “It could have been much, much worse. We all made mistakes.”

“You couldn’t have known the captain would have sided with Ducarti,” I said.

“No,” said Corbin. “But I should have. We should all have realized some things sooner. Ducarti made mistakes, too.” He shook his head. “He probably should have shot you right away.”

“I expect he wished he had,” I said. “Just before he went the way of all atoms. Where are we going next?”

“Our next stop is a Coalition naval station,” said Corbin. “We’ll also have to file a complete mutiny, hijacking, and piracy report, which will be a lot of work. I expect the legal tangle will take a month or two to clear up.”

“Well,” I said, “I’m just glad I’m alive to see it. Considering the alternative, I’ll take a few weeks of legal entanglements.”

“Oh, don’t worry,” said my uncle. “I think you’ll get more than that.”

As it turned out, the legal mess took three months, not two.

Once we delivered New Sibersk’s cargo of grain to the port on New Celadon, I was interviewed by what felt like every anti-piracy and intelligence officer in the Coalition navy. I had to describe the events over and over and over again, which was more than a little annoying, but then, it was on company time, so I got paid for it. I wasn’t about to complain. I had been half-afraid there would be some sort of murder or manslaughter charges against me or the other crew members for killing the Socials, but the investigating authorities decided that it was a clear-cut case of self-defense, so we were all clear on that front.

As it turned out, there had been numerous bounties upon Ducarti’s head, so many that the total came to a fairly large sum of money. I didn’t really want it, since it felt like blood money, but fortunately the corporate policy of Starways required that the money be divided equally among the crew, so that was all right. The dead crew members got their share too, which was good since some of them left widows and orphans behind.

For a few weeks I was a minor celebrity. It turned out that a lot of people all over the Thousand Worlds had hated Ducarti almost as much as I did. Some small colony on the spiral side of the Thousand Worlds even gave me an official vote of thanks, since Ducarti had apparently set off some kind of virulent bioweapon on their world. For nearly a month, a gaggle of reporters followed me everywhere, but I always pushed them off on Hawkins, who had been promoted to captain of the
Rusalka
.

There was one thing, however, that I could not get rid of so easily.

“The
Vanguard
?” I said.

“It’s yours,” said Corbin.

We sat in a little coffee shop across the street from Starways Hauling Company’s local office, following yet another lengthy meeting with the company’s legal counsel. Almost everything had been dealt with—all the papers signed, all the testimony given, all the insurance paid and collected, and all the billion other little paperwork problems our misadventure with Ducarti had generated were approved, stamped, filed, sealed, and otherwise completed to the approval of the relevant bureaucracy.

“The Coalition’s position is clear,” said Corbin, “as are all the legal traditions of the major worlds. You captured a pirate ship. What’s more, you did it single-handed.”

“Is it still a capture when no one’s aboard?” I said.

“Close enough,” said Corbin, holding up one last bundle of papers. “Point is, the
Vanguard
legally qualified as a prize vessel, and it is now your ship.”

I sat back, flabbergasted. My own ship! How amazing would that be? For a moment I had a wild fantasy of flitting around the Thousand Worlds as an independently wealthy trader and epic playboy.

Reality abruptly dashed my vision.

“I’ll have to sell it,” I said. “She’s pretty banged up and I can’t afford the repairs. How much do you think we could get for her.”

“Actually,” said Corbin, “I might know someone who would be willing to foot the bill to set her straight.”

“You do?” I said. “Who?”

“Coalition Intelligence,” said Corbin.

I didn’t say anything for a while.

“We would have others buy shares in the ship, of course,” said Corbin. “We’d make it affordable for Murdock and Nelson and a few of the others. Arthur Rodriguez too. They’d serve as a front corporation. Most of the funding would come from the agency.”

“So what would we do with the ship, then?” I said. “It’s kind of big to spy with.”

“Make money, of course,” said Corbin. “There is a lot of demand for ships of that class to move small cargoes. And as we travel around the Thousand Worlds, we can do little favors for Coalition intelligence and to upset the Social Party. It’s a good fight, Nikolai. You know better than most the kind of harm the Social Party can do.” He shrugged. “I won’t pressure you either way. If you want to stay with Starways, God knows you’ll rise high with all the recommendations from the Rusalka’s crew. But I think this would be the best course.”

I sat in silence for a moment. I had left New Chicago to get away from the destruction the Socials had wrought there, but it had followed me onto the
Rusalka
anyway. Ducarti had met his deserved fate, and I wondered how many more men like him were out there.

And if we happened to get rich in the process, well, I couldn’t object to that. Besides, if the vids could be trusted, girls always liked spies and secret agents. So perhaps my vision might come true after all.

“We’re going to need a new name for her,” I said. “We’re not Socials. What do you think of
Retief
?”

My uncle grinned, drew a line through the word
Vanguard
, and pushed the contract over to me.

THE END

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