The Swarm (33 page)

Khalid let his men do the killing, and they were quick about it. None of them took any pleasure in it. It was one of the reasons why Khalid had selected these men and women for his crew. People who enjoyed death were unstable, dangerous, and mutinous. The best crews were hungry for spoil, not murder.

Khalid then explained his plan. He would take the tin can, fly from the asteroid, and make a distress signal. The IF would come and rescue him, Khalid would kill the crew and then seize the LX-40.

“You can't be serious,” said Ibrahim. “There will be forty soldiers on that ship.”

“Probably,” said Khalid, shrugging, as if the number meant nothing to him.

Ibrahim laughed. “And you will take on all these soldiers yourself? Alone?”

“I am Khalid,” said Khalid, as if this were answer enough.

Ibrahim waited for the joke to end. When it didn't, he said. “I do not think this wise, brother.”

“You wouldn't,” said Khalid. “You and Maja will share the captainship while I'm gone. You will stay on the asteroid, covered with the tarps. I will be adrift only a week away.”

The tarps were massive camouflaged coverings that matched the rock and hid the ship from view.

Khalid could see doubt even in Maja's eyes, but he knew the crew would not abandon him if he put Maja and Ibrahim both in charge. Their fear of each other would keep either one from trying anything. Plus the promise of big game was too much for them to pass up.

Khalid wasted no time. He loaded food into the Brazilian tin can and flew it away from the asteroid. It was not difficult to scuttle the ship in a way that didn't threaten life support. He merely crippled the main thrusters and sent out the distress signal. A month was a long time to wait, but eventually the LX-40 came and docked with the tin can. Armed soldiers of the International Fleet boarded the ship, cautious. Khalid had had plenty of time to explore the Brazilian ship, study its documents and history, and work up his story.

The captain of the LX-40 was an American. He folded his arms and looked leery, but Khalid played the part of the coward, which he knew the captain would believe. Vultures had attacked the ship, Khalid told them. They had killed the other two members of the crew. Khalid had not fought with them. He had hidden with a stash of food in the air ducts. He had wanted to go out and help and save them, but he was weak. He had a family back in Somalia, five children. He had to survive, you see. He had to send them money. If I die, they die.

The American captain frowned, disgusted at such cowardice.

There was nothing on the ship of value, Khalid said. The vultures had taken it all and damaged the ship. When they left, Khalid had crawled out, waited a week, and called for help.

“We'll drop you off at the nearest depot,” said the American captain. “And while you're on my ship, you will work for your food and abide by my rules.”

Khalid bowed and almost cried he was so grateful. “Yes, sir. I will work, sir, yes. Very hard.”

The American captain wrinkled his nose. “Get him cleaned up and in some different clothes. The man hasn't bathed in a month.”

They led Khalid to a shower tube and gave him a blue IF jumpsuit to change into once he was done. A doctor took him to a room and poked and prodded and drew blood and listened to Khalid's heart and checked his bone density. Khalid was lithe and thin like most Somali, but toned and in peak physical condition. They fed him and gave him a bunk in a supply closet. Khalid acted submissive and grateful and apologized to everyone for the inconvenience he had caused.

The ship, he noted, was a thing of wonder. It had not been built all that long ago. The walls and floors were immaculate. The fixtures shined. Everything smelled new and unused. It was no wonder the captain had turned his nose up at Khalid. The American lived in a veritable bed of roses.

Khalid could not believe his luck. They had put him in a supply closet. There was food here. Water. Tools.

That night, during sleep shift, Khalid climbed out of the sleep sack they had given him. He cracked the door and saw that a guard was posted right outside his door. So they do not completely trust me, thought Khalid. They are not complete fools.

But the guard was nothing. A man's neck, when at rest and grabbed from behind, could be twisted and broken easily.

Khalid pulled the man's body into the supply closet and took his ID and weapon. The lights were out. The corridor was empty. Most of the crew was asleep. Khalid filled a sack with water and food and made his way to the helm. The soldier's ID card gave him access. There was only one man on duty at the holotable, his back to the door. Such carelessness, thought Khalid. Such arrogance.

Khalid shot him with the first soldier's slaser. A quick and silent kill. Then he disengaged the man's magnetic boots and pushed the corpse aside. The holotable was everything Khalid had hoped it would be, with all of its windows of data and charts and arcs and ship movements, all projected in the air above it. A treasure trove of information.

It took him a moment to find the commands he needed. He sent a laserline transmission to the station that was their destination detailing a system failure on board that the ship's mechanics were now investigating. Then he severed the laserline connection and disengaged life support. The hum of machines in the walls whined down to silence. Then alarms wailed. Lights flashed. Khalid sealed the helm doors and watched the screens on the holotable that showed him various angles of the ship's corridors. Disoriented men and women stumbled out of the barracks, roused from sleep. Most had their issued oxygen masks they had been trained to retrieve in the event of an emergency such as this one. But others were bare-faced and ill-prepared. It was easy after that. Khalid simply opened the airlocks remotely and watched as the men and women were sucked out into the blackness of space.

It was over in less than a minute. Some had fought gallantly, clinging, struggling, fighting the inevitable. But space shows no gentle hand, and soon the corridor was a vacuum.

He hadn't killed everyone, however. There were emergency doors that had engaged and sealed off areas. Other soldiers had not left the barracks and were thus stuck inside, unable to leave. He ignored the latter group. They would asphyxiate soon enough. It was the soldiers saved by the emergency doors that gave him concern. Already they were organizing and choosing a leader among them. Three of them were armed. Soldiers indeed.

Khalid watched them, wondering if any of them would be worth keeping.

But no, how could he trust them? How could he be certain they wouldn't strangle him in the night? They were blue bloods. Their hearts could not be turned. Or even if they could, it wasn't worth the risk of being wrong.

He checked his slaser, dug through his sack for the knife he had recovered from the storage room, then he left the helm and began the dirty business of finishing the job. It took him over an hour, and he did not relish the work. It was loud and messy and got his blood up. The American captain was the last one. It was only by chance that he should be the final survivor. The man wept and begged, and it was only in that death that Khalid felt any sense of satisfaction, for such a man did not deserve to wear a uniform of any sort.

He returned to the helm and settled in, opening a can of peaches from his food sack, with syrup so sweet it nearly gave him a headache. He then reengaged the laserline and sent a transmission to the IF explaining that the ship needed parts not found on board and that he, the captain, was redirecting her to another port for repairs. Then he changed course and retreated back the way they had come, back toward the asteroid.

He rendezvoused with his crew two days later. The two ships docked, and Ibrahim greeted him at the docking tube, grabbing Khalid's forearm as was the custom. “Wearing blue now, brother?”

“And a bit of red as well, I see,” said Maja. She appeared beside Ibrahim and traced a finger down the line of splattered blood across Khalid's chest, now a dried rusty brown.

“You have not damaged my ship, I hope,” he said to Ibrahim.

Ibrahim removed the earpiece and handed it to his captain, smiling. “No more than she already was.”

Ibrahim floated down the docking tube and took in the interior of the IF ship, whistling at what he saw. “A regular pleasure cruiser, this one, brother. Fresh off the shipyard, I'd say.” He inhaled deep. “Even has that new-ship smell.” He knocked on a bulkhead and produced a heavy metallic clang. “Built for war. She can take a beating and then some. And faster than the sun, they say.”

“Not even close to lightspeed,” said Khalid, “but faster than most ships out here, yes. And shielded.”

Ibrahim clapped his hands twice in celebration, laughing. “I told you you were crazy, brother. They'll send you straight to the grave, I said. No judge, no jury, just a needle in the arm and the kill juice. No way would they let you wear the blue. They can smell a vulture a million klicks away. And look at you, all gussied up like the Polemarch himself.” He clapped again and looked down the corridor, rubbing his hands together like a child eager to open gifts. “Which is my room? The one nearest the kitchen, I hope. Or maybe I'll just put my hammock in there. Captain of a ship like this keeps chocolate, I bet.”

“We're not taking the ship,” said Khalid.

Ibrahim's smile vanished in an instant. “But—”

“The ship has a signature. They'd track us.”

“Let them! Bring on the whole Fleet. We'll outrun them.”

“They have ships as fast as this one,” said Khalid. “And if we take her, they'll know what to look for. We wouldn't get six months out before they'd snag us. No, we strip her now, clean her to the bone and leave her to drift. Then we disappear back into the Black, and they won't have a scent to follow. We'll hole up somewhere and mount the drive and shield generator onto the Shimbir.”

“But—” Ibrahim spread his arms wide, gesturing at the walls around him. “Look at this, brother. This is a palace, a palace built on heavy taxes that squeeze our country like a vice. You want to forgive this? You want to toss this aside?”

Khalid removed his IF uniform, for Maja had emerged from the docking tube with one of his own jumpsuits. He allowed her to help him into it as he spoke to Ibrahim. “You are like the little monkey who reaches through a narrow hole in the side of a box to grab a walnut. With the nut clenched in his fist, the monkey's hand is now too wide to extract it from the box. He screams and kicks and panics because he can hear the monkey hunters coming through the brush with their heavy clubs. If he would just drop the nut, he could pull his hand free and escape with ease. But the foolish monkey clings to his prize, and the monkey hunters arrive and bash his brains in. I like my brain, Ibrahim. I might even like yours if you used it every once in a while.”

“Then what did we do this for?” asked Ibrahim. “You said we were taking this ship, brother.”

“We're taking what's of value. The drive system, the holotable, life support, and last of all, the shield generators. We'll mount it all on the Shimbir.”

“But the Shimbir is junk compared to this.”

Khalid struck him with the back of his hand. It was not as hard of a blow as it could have been, but since Ibrahim wasn't anchored, he spun away from the blow and into the far wall, bouncing off it and catching himself clumsily on a handhold. Ibrahim touched the side of his mouth, and his fingertips came back red.

“The Shimbir is your home,” said Khalid. “You will give it respect. Now gather the men and empty the Shimbir's cargo bay. Dump anything we can. Make room. Then organize the men and get back in here to start stripping what we can. But carefully. Damage nothing. This haul isn't for the pawners and the scrap collectors. It's for us. Is that asking too much, little brother?”

Ibrahim wiped at his mouth again and scowled. “Of course not, brother. Anything for the wise and powerful Khalid.” He launched toward the docking tube and climbed inside it, disappearing from view.

When he was gone, Maja said, “You are too hard on him. I think that unwise.”

“Oh? And why is that?”

“I would much rather follow you, than him. Even little brothers have their breaking points.”

Khalid buttoned up his jumpsuit, saying nothing.

Maja drew close. Her finger traced the line of his jaw. “A month is a long time to be away, Khalid. Were you lonely and cold in that tin can? Did your body hunger for warmth?”

Desire began to well up inside Khalid, but he knew better than to heed it. “It was quiet,” he said, gently pushing her hand away. “I had forgotten what a rare gift silence can be.”

Maja frowned at him, disappointed. Then she turned away and joined the crew in emptying the cargo bay. Khalid smiled to himself. There was power in him now, he realized. Respect. Even Maja, cold as she was, could sense it. It had filled her with desire, and Khalid had turned her away. He had actually turned a willing woman away. He almost laughed aloud at the idea. The old Khalid would have surrendered in an instant. But the new Khalid—no, the
true
Khalid—was stronger than the desperate cries of the flesh. No, nothing could weaken his will now.

Four days later, the IF ship was stripped bare of all its essentials and left adrift.

Khalid and Ibrahim retired to Khalid's quarters, where the IF holotable had been installed. Starcharts and data readouts hovered in the air above the table. A wealth of information. The entire International Fleet at Khalid's fingertips.

Ibrahim was almost giddy. “Look at this, brother. This is the mother lode. With this data, we can avoid their gunships. We can hit their supply lines at their most vulnerable points. It will be easy now.”

Khalid patted his brother's cheek, as if speaking to a child. “Of course it will be easy, brother. I am Khalid.”

 

CHAPTER 16