“We got all the families settling in, but it’s a bit crowded in places.”
“We need to start getting them sorted out and jobs to do. Cooking for a start and figure out a mess routine.”
“Ten-four to that, what else?”
“Weapons training. I’ll need some of them to load the torpedoes and fire the main guns if need be.”
“Wow! That’s a tall order. None of them know a damn thing about that.”
“Hopefully the engineering crew can teach them before we run into something we can’t run away from.” It was a bleak thought
“You know anything about firing those weapons you’re talking about?” Ellis smiled slightly and nodded absently.
“Yeah, a little.”
“Remind me not to get on your bad side, Major.” Gwen grinned and gave Ellis a sort of salute before she left the bridge.
“I have the local star charts.. or I think I do.”
Ellis walked over and looked at the three dimensional holo-screen, seeing the local sun, a dim, blue-white star, guessing it was on the small side as stars go. Other than a couple of rocky, lifeless planets and an asteroid belt, the system didn’t have much going for it. The only reason for the old station to be here was the fact that once upon a time this system had been at the very edge of the Tellurian Empire—the edge now being many parsecs away. Now, this was just some forgotten backwater with little of interest to anyone in the Empire, other than IMPSEC as a monitoring station. Ellis was betting the local IMPSEC commander was making sure the Empire and himself were getting rich from all the business going on here. Just then the short-range comm systems came to life.
“Imperial ship Capron! This is station control. In the name of the Mother, what’s going on out there?” That answered the question about whether this was an IMPSEC ship or not. Ellis tapped the console.
“Oh, nothing much control. We have a firefight going on in the docking bay to repel boarders.”
“What… what boarders! Station security is responding to reports of weapons fire in the docking bay,” the man spluttered.
“Really. That’s news to us. As a precaution I’m standing off and preparing to leave the system.”
‘I’m ordering you to stand your men down and surrender the ship.”
“I can’t do that. I don’t have the authority.”
“I’m ordering you to stand down… who is this?” They’d finally got round to asking the one question Ellis wasn’t about to answer.
“Sound to me as if this is another attempt to seize this ship!”
“If you try to leave, I’ll open fire on you.”
“Oh, I wouldn’t do that if I were you. Right now, there is a twenty-megaton warhead attached to the hull of your station. It’s also rigged with an anti-tamper device and a dead man switch… or in this case a dead woman switch. You fire on this ship and it will take out a major portion of your station, same if this ship is destroyed.” Silence greeted her statement. “I take it you’ll want to check while we are exiting the system, but remember, any tampering will detonate the warhead.” This was the ultimate game of ‘chicken’.
“Back us away slowly.” Ellis ordered the helmsman.
The distance between the ship and the station slowly widened and as more of the hull came into view, she could see the station weapons swiveling around to point at her. The pucker factor increased and she could feel her butt gripping the seat cover even tighter. A drone came sailing around the curve of the hull and after a few moments searching around it locked onto the warhead. It hovered there and Ellis could imagine what the station commander was thinking. Was she bluffing or was the threat real. A twenty megaton warhead could take out a good section of the station if it went off, not to mention the massive decompression that would ensue. Even sealing the internal bulkheads and pressure doors wouldn’t stop the runaway loss of air. With luck, he might be able to save five percent of the station’s occupants, not that he cared about a bunch of low life slavers, pirates and assorted scum, but it was his own life he’d be thinking of. Ellis was betting he wouldn’t take the chance. She was right. As they drifted further away, none of the weapons fired.
“I’ll be leaving now. Once I reach the jump point I’ll deactivate the warhead, but not before.” By that time they’d be so far out that no missiles would be able to reach her before she jumped. The tension slowly diminished the further away they got, until she felt reasonably safe.
“We’ll be able to jump in one hour, Ma’am, but where do you want to jump to?” The navigator asked. Ellis turned her attention back to the holographic star chart, slowly stepping out until she had a better view of the surrounding star systems.
“Calculate a jump to here,” he asked, pointing to a star cluster some ten parsecs away.
“Y…yes Ma’am, if I can download data from the Nav Buoy.”
“Do it. That will be our first stop.
Ellis split her attention between the start chart and the station, wondering how long it would take before the commander figured out she was bluffing. She tried to calculate the delta vee and how long it would take a missile to reach them before they reached the jump point. Sensors showed multiple ships bugging out of the station as word got round about what was going on, which, from Ellis’ point of view, was a good thing. It would disrupt the pirate’s activities and maybe save a few poor souls from enslavement or death. Just then, the screen darkened as an eye-searing white light lit the darkness for a brief moment.
“Oh my lord! The warhead detonated.” The navigator breathed.
Ellis stood there in shock for a moment, then shrugged. That would put an even bigger crimp in the pirate’s operations, she mused philosophically with a shrug. She wasn’t about to shed a tear for a bunch of low life scum that inhabited the old station, or the IMPSEC personnel either. To her mind they were the same or worse.
“I guess we don’t have to worry about them firing a missile at us now.” The navigator looked at her and shivered. That was one cold-hearted bitch.
“No, Ma’am, guess not.”
Chapter Seventeen
Move and Counter Move
Penn cycled the hatch open and eyed the surly looking human on the other side. Unshaven, shaggy haired and bulging eyes, he looked like an angry warthog. Behind him stood a very large Gort for intimidation and muscle, not that Penn was impressed. He’d run into this species before, they’d dance and the Gort lost. Penn looked up at the big fellow, frowning slightly seeing the look of surprise on the Gort’s rubbery face. The look on the other humans face spoke volumes. He was pissed.
“Who the fuck are you,” He demanded, “and where the hell is Captain Drago?” The man stepped forward, fists clenched.
“Was that his name?” Penn murmured. “I never asked his name before I slit his throat.” The man stopped and took a step back.
“You did what?”
“Just told you, I offed the low life scum sucker, now who the fuck are you?”
“I’m Drago’s partner, Marlow, and this is my ship.”
“Not anymore.” In answer, Marlow mouth pulled into a nasty grin and he motioned with his hand. “Kill him.” He snarled.
Anticipating an acrimonious meeting, Penn had already tensed his stomach muscles in preparation, but he didn’t anticipate what happened next. The huge humanoid reached out, grabbed Marlow by the back of his neck, and lifted him off the ground.
“Not me you stupid idiot!” He screamed, face screwed up in pain.
“What you want me to do with him, Penn?” The Gort asked, grinning from ear to ear.
“Class! What the fuck are you doing here? I sent you home.” The Gort walked over, still holding the human in the air by one hand and gently squeezed Penn’s shoulder. Gorts looked so much alike it was almost impossible for a non-Gort to tell them apart.
“Came looking for you, friend Penn and Major Ellis.”
“Put me down!” Marlow panted in pain from the strain on his neck, obvious by the expression on his face.
“Put him down, but if he gives you any more shit, squeeze his head a little.”
“No, no… I won’t.”
“Shut the fuck up.” Marlow fell silent, looking between Penn and Class rubbing his neck as he edged backward.
“Get lost Marlow. If I see you again I’ll kill you.” Marlow scuttled backward towards the airlock.
“You haven’t heard the last of this, asshole,” he yelled as he rushed out the lock.
“Major Ellis here?” Class asked an expectant look on his rubbery face.
“Sorry, Class. No. She got kidnapped and I’m looking for her.” Class’ face fell and for a moment he dropped his head, looking sad.
“We look together.”
“Class. Why aren’t you home going through your… well whatever you call it.”
“Did that, but didn’t want to change.”
“I thought you didn’t have a choice.”
“Not so. Common misconception about my people. We change or not change until later in our life cycle. Trouble is, it’s much more difficult to find a mate later.” As they spoke, Penn closed and sealed the airlock and took Class up to the bridge.
“So why didn’t you change?” Class looked embarrassed, if Penn was reading his facial expression right.
“Couldn’t make up my mind if I wanted to be male or female, as you humans define it.” Michael had also pointed out that Class was having difficulty choosing. Oddly he was in love with both Penn and Ellis at the same time, wanting to be a mate to one or the other. Penn smiled at the thought of climbing in bed with someone the size of Class, but he supposed it was all a matter of perception.
“It still doesn’t explain why you are here of all places.”
“Got home. Didn’t like it and took the next ship out heading for Earth. Got as far as here thinking to take one of the slave ships the rest of the way and found no one knew where your planet was anymore.” Penn scratched himself behind the ear looking a little embarrassed with himself now.
“That was my fault. I got into the Imperial navigational database and erased the location, plus a couple of other things.”
“That explains it.” Class didn’t need a lot of explanation about things and took it on faith that Penn had done exactly what he said he’d done.
“So what do we do to find the Major?”
“She got ‘napped’ by a bunch of slavers, but I have no idea where they took her. Got myself captured by another bunch in the hope they’d take me to the same place, or at least to a place where I could start looking for her.” Class nodded, filling in the blanks himself. He smiled slightly thinking about anyone ‘capturing’ Penn. Impossible unless he wanted to be captured.
“She’s not on the station. I would have um…” He tapped his nose. “Detected her, here.”
“Her scent. Yeah, I know what you mean. One sniff on the station and I’d know as well. That means we’ll have to go to another station, or base.”
“We may have to go to all of them, and then on to wherever they shipped her.” Penn shook his head.
“I get the feeling she’s already escaped from the slavers and is heading somewhere.” Class looked at him. “Don’t ask me how I know, I just do.” Class nodded.
“Then we need to bust a few heads to find the location of another station or base.”
“Got you. What are we dealing with here?”
“Not much. About five hundred people. This is more of a way station where they sort the slaves out before shipping them off to some hellhole or another.” Penn couldn’t read the Gort’s facial expressions that well, and couldn’t tell if Class disapproved of what was going on or not. With their size, few Gorts were ever taken as slaves.
“You have any problems with taking this place down?”
“Who me! Har! I don’t care what other races do to each other, as long as they leave my people and humans alone.”
“Yeah. Slavery has been around a long time, even on my planet.”
“Friend Penn. No matter how hard you try, you are not going to put all the slavers out of business.”
“No, but I can put a dent in their ranks and scare the shit out of a lot more.”
“We will do what we can.” Class smiled, and that was a scary thing to see.
“So, if, as you say she isn’t here. How do we go about finding out where the other bases, or way stations are?” Class wiped his three-fingered hand over the top of his smooth, hairless head.
“The so-called station boss should know of a few others. We could squeeze him.” Class said expectantly, opening and closing his massive hands. For such a peaceful species, Class could be downright bloodthirsty at times. As they walked onto the bridge, everyone froze in shock. Penn doubted any of the humans aboard had ever seen anyone like Class before.
“Oh my lord!” Clive Danton breathed, backing away as Class ducked his head to get onto the bridge.
“Take it easy, Clive. He’s friendly… well mostly.” Penn smiled.
“If you say so.”
“Meet Trooper Class. An old friend of mind.”
“With friends like him, I bet you don’t have too many enemies… alive that is.”
“Class? He’s a pussycat as long as you don’t get into an argument with him. He never loses.”
“Not true. I lost to you.” Class let out a rumbling laugh.
“True, but I had an advantage.”
“We have an armed party heading this way, Penn,” Sanchez, another free slave called out.
“By the way. What’s your name?” He asked the young woman watching the monitor.
“It’s Mirellia Sanchez, Mr. Penn.”
“It’s just Penn. Thanks Mirellia.” Now washed and dressed she didn’t look half bad.
“So, what do you want to do, friend Penn?” Class asked. Penn sighed.
“Time for me to get bloody again.”
“You want us to go with you?” Clive asked, looking nervous.
“No, you stay here. I’ll be back shortly.”
“Who the hell is that guy?” someone whispered as Penn exited the bridge.
“That is a man you don’t want to piss off. That’s who he is.” Class rumbled.
“You know him from where?” Clive asked.
“He and Major Ellis, the female human he’s looking for are probably the deadliest killers this side of Tellurian Prime.”
“Shit! He thinks he can take on all those assholes by himself?”
“He can and will. He used to be an assassin for a bigger asshole called Markoff, and you can thank him sometime for saving your sorry asses.”