Spacer Page 12

  “I’d thought to rush it when the watch changed,” Avrel said. “There’ll be new men for the consoles and he’ll have to open for them.”

  Kaycie grunted. “Dicey.”

  “A bit.” Avrel nodded. “But now you’re with us, and there’s a possibility he did no more than lock your cabin. Your tablet might still open the quarterdeck hatch.”

  “So, do we wait for the watch change or rush it now?” Sween asked.

  “Wait, I think —” Avrel broke off as the hatch a deck below them sounded and footsteps came up the companionway.

  All four of them turned to look as a spacer came into view.

  “Blakesley,” Sween said, nodding to the man.

  “Sween,” the man said, nodding to each of Avrel’s group in turn. “Dansby, Presgraves …” He frowned. “Miss Overfield? I thought you were —”

  Kaycie smiled. “A misunderstanding — all cleared up. Are you going on watch?”

  “Signals,” Blakesley said. “Not much for it, with just the one ship along with us, but the station’s got to be manned, don’t it?”

  “It does,” Kaycie agreed. “Well, I have the next watch, as well, shall I walk with you?”

  “Not but a few meters, but —”

  “Fine, then.” Kaycie slid the hatch open and gestured for Blakesley to precede her. As he passed, she plucked the stunner Avrel’d taken from the guards in the hold from where he held it behind his back out of Blakesley’s sight. “You’re from Thatchlow, are you not, Blakesley?”

  “Aye, miss.”

  “My family’s firm did some trading there, at times. It’s known for its fishing, yes?”

  Blakesley nodded, not noticing that Avrel and Sween were following along behind him, as well.

  “Sport fishing, aye, miss. There’s a beastie as shouldn’t be missed, if such is your passion — horrible eating, but fights like a bugger … begging your pardon, miss.”

  Whether to the presence of Blakesley’s tablet or Kaycie’s, Avrel couldn’t tell, but the quarterdeck hatch slid open.

  NO SOONER HAD the hatch slid open enough to fit her, did Kaycie shove Blakesley to the side and leap through.

  Avrel followed immediately behind her, not entirely sure when or how she’d taken up the lead — not that she’d done it wrong, mind you, only that he’d been saying who was to do what since their meeting in the hold and now Kaycie was all but waggling her fingers for him to follow along.

  Plucking that stunner from me, like she did and —

  Through the hatch and onto the quarterdeck left him no more time to think.

  Both Morell and Turkington were there, along with four spacers at the consoles — Turkington closest to the hatch and Morell on the far side of the circular navigation plot that filled the center of the compartment. All of them looked startled at Kaycie’s appearance, then again as Avrel followed, and more so as Sween and Presgraves rushed in.

  Kaycie raised the stunner and fired at Morell without a word, but the captain reacted before she could pull the trigger. Her shot went over his head, brushing the spacer at a console behind him and sending that poor sot to the deck in a crumpled heap.

  “Boarders!” Turkington yelled.

  It wasn’t, strictly speaking, correct, as they’d been aboard the whole time, but it was what spacers were trained to react to. The quarterdeck crew was no different and, if they took a brief moment to determine it was Avrel’s group Turkington was yelling about, they did figure it out.

  Turkington grabbed Kaycie’s arm and Jessup, the man Blakesley had been about to replace on the signals console, tackled Avrel at the knees.

  “Get Morell!” Avrel yelled as he went down, slamming his fists into Jessup’s back and kicking to try and break his grip.

  Sween went around the navigation plot, but he was taken down by one of the quarterdeck crew and the two rolled about on the deck.

  Presgraves took the clearer route to Captain Morell. She leapt onto the navigation plot, slid across the smooth surface, and off the far edge to land on the captain, who let out a grunt of pain audible even over the shouts and scuffles that filled the quarterdeck’s space.

  Avrel struggled to his feet, kicking at Jessup, who still clung to one of his legs. He grasped the edge of the navigation plot and pulled himself up, then ran his fingers over the surface. The menus were all much the same from ship to ship, and the Marchants could be trusted to keep their equipment updated, so there were no worries about it being antiquated. Neither Morell nor Turkington had the time to lock it for their entry, so there were no barriers to what Avrel planned.

  Any ship traveling the Dark needed some means of controlling an unruly crew and Minorca was no different. Avrel flicked through the menus — Morell or Turkington would have known exactly where the setting was, but Avrel had to check all the possibilities, as well as kick and strike at Jessup to keep his footing.

  He glanced up. On the other side of the navigation plot, both Morell and Presgraves had gained their feet, Presgraves between Morell and the plot.

  “Step back from the plot, Dansby,” Morell said, ignoring Presgraves. “Don’t make this worse than —”

  “Now, captain,” Presgraves said, hands out to her sides as though to placate him. “Ain’t none of us wants to —”

  Morell’s palm connected with Presgraves cheek in a loud crack that split the air of the quarterdeck. It stilled the ongoing struggles for a moment, as though it had been a gunshot. Even Jessup stopped struggling to pull Avrel down.

  Presgraves straightened from where she’d been knocked aside by the blow, eyes narrow.

  She stared at Morell for a moment, still and silent, then leapt for him, lips pulled back and fingers extended like claws.

  “You buggering bollocks washer!”

  Avrel’s fingers found the setting he wanted and activated it. Throughout Minorca, hatches closed and locked themselves — he could only hope that Detheridge’s group had made their way into the engineering spaces in time.

  WITH THE SHIP sealed and none of the crew able to move from whatever compartment they were in, Avrel turned his attention to Jessup and the rest of the fights on the quarterdeck.

  Most of which had ceased as the participants stared in awe or horror at Presgraves, who was on top of Morell and swinging blood covered fists at the captain’s still form. She punctuated each blow with a shouted word and a grimace.

  “Don’t! No! Man! Never!”

  Kaycie took the opportunity of Turkington’s distraction to jab her stunner into his gut and pull the trigger. Turkington went down in a heap, and that — along with no little fear of Presgraves, Avrel was certain — took the fight out of the rest of the quarterdeck crew as well.

  “Here, now,” Sween called, easing toward Presgraves and Morell. He dodged a spatter of blood from one of her backswings and moved closer. “I think yer done there, girl.”

  Presgraves paused in her pummeling. She stared at Morell for a moment, as though evaluating her work, then nodded.

  “Aye, he’s killed.”

  Avrel couldn’t see for certain, but took her word for it. He sighed. That would make things more complicated, and he wished it’d been avoided, but there was nothing for it now. They still had Turkington alive and he’d know of the slavery plans just as much as Morell, he was sure.

  Sween offered Presgraves a hand up and she stood.

  “Not certain you needed to kill him so bloody much,” Sween muttered.

  “Not needed? Did you see what he done?”

  “Well, he shouldn’t’ve hit you, sure, but —”

  “Hit me?” Presgraves swung to face Sween, face twisted in fury. “That weren’t no hit! The bugger slapped me, like I was some kind o’ prissy tart!” She backed Sween up against the navigation plot, face close and one finger raised between them. “You mark me, Culloden Sween, and well. If ever you hit me, well, we’ll have a proper go and then a pint and maybe a poke after, if you’re still up to it — but, by the Dark, if ever you slap
s me like I ain’t worth your fist then …” She stepped back and spat on Morell’s body. “You hear me, Culloden Sween?”

  “Aye. Aye, I do.”

  DETHERIDGE HAD TAKEN the fusion plant with nary a man lost on either side.

  Of course, she didn’t have Presgraves with her, so that was easier, Avrel thought.

  With that, the quarterdeck, and the ship locked down, Minorca was theirs — now they simply needed to figure what they’d do with her.

  Turkington, they locked in his cabin, after Avrel and Kaycie figured how to properly strip him of access to Minorca’s systems. They’d not make the same mistake Morell had of thinking a locked hatch was enough and taking the rest for granted.

  Kaycie stayed on the quarterdeck with Sween and Presgraves while Avrel went aft with the stunners. He, along with Detheridge and a few others, then went through the ship, releasing those of the crew they could rely on and herding any they couldn’t below.

  In the end, they’d replaced the captives in the hold with some half of Minorca’s crew, and replaced the crew with a combination of captive spacers and those who’d never sailed before.

  “Did you consider the sailing of the ship before you started this?” Kaycie asked Avrel when he returned to the quarterdeck.

  “Not as such, no.” He paused. “Did you consider anything past getting out of your cabin when you ripped the desk from the wall and beat me with it?”

  Kaycie flushed. “Not as such.”

  “There you are, then.”

  Avrel thought they weren’t really so bad off, nearly half of Minorca’s crew was still free. He was a bit concerned about some of them, but they were not so many as could retake the ship — not now that the whole of the crew was aware and on the lookout for such a thing. Many of the released captives were quite experienced spacers, if they were to be believed, and he had no reason not to.

  “We should be all right,” he said. “Not all of the spacers in the hold were New Londoners, though, so there’s a bit of a language problem below.”

  Merchantmen, and even some navies, had eclectic crews to begin with, picking up hands in whatever port and from whatever system they were available. What they had now, though, was quite a bit different than a few hands who’d signed on in some past port. They had Hanoverese, French, Hso-hsi, and hands from even farther away than that. There was even one lad who claimed he was from some system off on the far side of Earth itself, and how he’d got clear around the massive globe of explored space only to be captured by some pirate in the Barbary, Avrel couldn’t fathom.

  “Detheridge feels we’ll get by well enough, though,” Avrel said.

  “So, what do we do now?”

  Avrel paused — he’d truly not thought too very much beyond taking Minorca than Kaycie had getting out of her compartment. He’d thought only to put a stop to the ship getting any closer to offloading their human cargo.

  “Well, we’re a fine pair of mutineers, aren’t we?”

  Avrel winced. Kaycie’s words struck home and he’d not cared to think of himself as that, even since they’d taken Minorca.

  He took a deep breath. They’d not be branded as that, not when the whole story was told, at least.

  “Next is we need a way to lose our friend there,” he said, nodding to the navigation plot. Their escort was still in place, sailing placidly along aft and a few points off Minorca’s stern. “Do you have any thoughts?”

  Kaycie shook her head. “My family’s policy was always to flee, then surrender in the face of a fight. The best chance of survival with pirates is always not to anger them — being left off in a ship’s boat or on some remote world’s always preferable to what they’ll do if one of them’s killed.”

  Avrel nodded. It was his own family’s policy as well, and what was taught at Lesser Sibward. One might flee and have a chance of escape, but if it came to shooting a pirate’s ship would usually outgun and certainly outman a merchant. If one couldn’t get away clean it was better to give in — the pirates wanted the cargoes, after all, and not the crews. Sometimes not the ships themselves, even.

  “I doubt that will work here.”

  “No,” Kaycie agreed. “But it doesn’t change that we’re outgunned and outmanned. We’ll need something cleverer.” She grinned at him. “So, what’s the plan, Jon?”

  “DOUSE THE SAILS AND HULL,” Avrel ordered.

  “Aye,” Grubbs said.

  Grubbs was at the quarterdeck’s signals console. He and Privitt, a man from Rosson’s mess, at the tactical console, were the only ones manning the quarterdeck other than Avrel. Everyone else, those who could be trusted, at least, were either on the few guns Minorca carried or ready at the boarding tubes. They all had their vacsuits on, as did the rest of the crew, and those of the captives not huddled away in the hold for protection.

  At Avrel’s order, Minorca’s sails went dark, no longer charged by the powerful particle projectors that let them harness the darkspace winds. Her hull, as well, went dark, and the ship began to slow, no longer propelled against the resistance of the dark matter that permeated the space around her. To an external observer, she’d appear dead and lifeless.

  “Detheridge’s ready,” Grubbs said.

  Avrel nodded, eyes on the navigation plot.

  How long should it take? Time enough to run through diagnostics, he supposed. He ran fingers over the plot, plying the menus.

  “A call to the engineer to find out what’s the trouble,” he muttered. “No, a runner — and we’d have no diagnostics on the quarterdeck. These consoles would be dark, wouldn’t they?”

  “Never been aboard a ship with the plant shutdown before,” Grubbs said.

  Most spacers hadn’t, Avrel knew. It was a possibility, but rare. If the plant detected a problem, it would shut down, for the alternative would be far worse. The ship would be without power for any but emergency systems — until the plant was ensured safe and could be restarted.

  “Yes, a runner to the plant,” Avrel said aloud, “then time for him to return with a message. A few minutes at least, and Captain Morell would be far more concerned with the workings of his ship than our escort there.”

  He drummed his fingers on the plot, waiting. The other ship had noted Minorca’s plight now, and there was a flurry of activity on her hull. Sails trimmed and their charge lessened to slow her, and she was coming up into the wind herself to slow further. She’d already sailed past Minorca as the darkened, apparently powerless, ship slowed to a stop.

  “All sorts of signals,” Grubbs said.

  Avrel could see that on the plot, the image of the other ship brought inboard by passive optics and displayed there. Her masts and hull were flashing brightly, demanding a response from Minorca.

  “Detheridge —”

  “Keep her inboard,” Avrel said. “We’re scurrying about with our own troubles right now. We’re a Marchant ship, as well — we’ll get around to answering in our own bloody time, won’t we?” He stared at the other ship’s image, wondering what that captain was thinking. “Time enough for an answer from the engineer, and a bit of a whinge about why is this happening to me, I suppose.” He took a deep breath. “Time to realize we’re in a fix and more time to accept that a bit of help won’t go amiss.”

  A fusion plant restart could be done alone, but it would tax the ship’s batteries to their limits — wear that had a cost, and they’d need replacing sooner. An expense like that, coming off a voyage’s profits — well, what captain wouldn’t want to avoid that?

  Better to string a cable from another ship if one was lucky enough to have another nearby.

  “Send her out.”

  “Aye.”

  The sail locker’s hatch in Minorca’s bow cycled slowly and a single, vacsuited figure emerged.

  Detheridge made her way a bit to the starboard side, where the other ship now lay off Minorca’s bow, having sailed past, then come up into the wind to stop.

  Detheridge raised her arms and lit the long lig
hted sticks she held, beginning the long, laborious process of spelling out their message.

  Fusion SCRAM. No Power. Assist - interrogative.

  Detheridge was playing the part of Minorca’s quartermaster, arranging things while the ship’s officers dealt with what was certainly a mess inside the hull. She finally arranged things to everyone’s liking and the other ship took up moving again — it was on them to make the docking, with Minorca ostensibly unable to move.

  The other ship charged her sails, pulled them around to fall off the wind and sail away downwind, then circled back to come at Minorca from behind. It would be an awkward docking as Minorca had been on the port tack when her sails went dark, leaving her in the same attitude toward the winds, rather than coming up into them to heave-to as was typically done. The other ship would have to come alongside while on the port tack as well, a more difficult maneuver.

  They managed it, though, and came to rest a few dozen meters from Minorca’s starboard side.

  The boarding tube extended, touching Minorca’s side with a crew of vacsuited figures carrying a thick cable already inside it. They’d left the outer hatch to their own lock open and Avrel hoped Kaycie, on the berthing deck with their few guns, had the sense to target both those in the tube and that lighter, inner hatch. He swallowed heavily at the thought, but if they could expose the other ship’s interior to vacuum quickly — well, the crew likely wasn’t suited, there being no reason to expect Minorca to attack, after all.

  Avrel clenched his jaw.

  “Fire.”

  THE ACTION WAS short and brutal.

  The other crew, all unsuspecting, was indeed unsuited. Avrel would never know how many died when Minorca’s first broadside opened her main deck to vacuum.

  The other captain and his crew weren’t fools, though, and Minorca’s guns weren’t nearly enough to settle the matter in one go.

  It was barely two minutes, not long enough for any but one of Minorca’s guns to reload, before the enemy’s gunports opened. They’d not bothered to rig their own gallenium nets to keep the darkspace radiations out for a time, simply flung the ports open and stuck the crystalline tubes of their guns through to fire into Minorca.