Privateer Tales 3: Parley (23 page)

Wincing through the pain, I grabbed a heavy blaster rifle and saw with satisfaction that it interfaced with my HUD immediately. I swung around and re-entered the room where Tali and Ivan had been battling. The room was deathly quiet and I hoped I wasn’t too late.

I was thrilled to see Ivan lying on the floor, not moving. Tali had taken a knee, apparently to catch her breath.

“Let’s move,” She said. “We should be able to catch Qiu.”

“Your comm is in the cabinet,” I said. I’d seen hers sitting on the same shelf where mine had been.

“Don’t forget your flechette,” she reminded me. “I doubt Marny wants to replace those all the time.”

She made a good point, although, I suspected she was messing with me. I grabbed the flechette and holstered it. I wasn’t going to give up the heavy blaster rifle at this point and if Tali thought that I should, she kept it to herself.

Hail
Sterra's Gift. Stream visual
.

“Liam, status,” Marny said.

“We’re both up. Flark’s got Qiu and is trying to get off the station. We’re going after them.”

Tali had re-established the nanite trace program and we had an easy green line that gave us the path to follow.

“Be careful. A big old frigate just rolled into the system,” Nick warned.

“They’re taking the co-op,” I said.

“What? Why would they attack the co-op? It’s just ore,” Marny asked.

“No. According to Flark, they’ve got a giant hauler and are taking the entire asteroid.”

“Holy shite,” Marny said.

“Chat later. Let’s go,” Tali prompted. “Stay on my six.”

I knew from training with Marny at the warehouse on Coolidge that my job was to make sure we weren’t overtaken from behind. I followed her down the hallway to the catwalk that joined us back to Tower A. Fortunately, an elevator was waiting. Unfortunately, we could see this was the car that had carried Qui. They were quite a ways ahead of us.

“Move,” Tali urged, as the door opened on the main concourse. The green trail of nanites led to the airlock of the docking bay concourse. We moved through as quickly as possible - the nanite trackers indicating we were now less than four minutes behind.

We sprinted down the concourse past the turn to
Sterra's Gift
. At the end was another airlock. The nanite trackers were all over it. Qiu had been breathing hard and spewing them vociferously.

I peered through the glass and saw the catwalk automatically being reeled back in. The frigate was pulling away and Harry Flark’s face was in the airlock on the other side. For the second time that day I realized, too late, that people’s instinct when being stared at was to look back.

Flark looked right at me and started shouting. I couldn’t hear what he was saying, but I was pretty sure I knew what it was.

“We’ve got to get out of here!”

Tali must have figured out what was happening because she spun with me and we both raced back down the fifty meters to the airlock that led us to
Sterra's Gift
.

“Nick. We’ve got incoming!”

The airlock seemed to take its sweet time cycling. The first salvo from the frigate hit the end of the concourse at the same time we entered the airlock that was now a vacuum, equalized with space. We pulled the door closed just in time to see all of the debris of the concourse rush down the hallway and get sucked out into space.

We weren’t in the clear yet, though. The bay-side door opened easily and we ran for the ramp. Fortunately, Marny had been thoughtful enough to have the space side of
Sterra's Gift’s
airlock already open and we piled in, pulling the door closed behind us.

I mashed my palm onto the panel that would cause the lock to cycle and waited with frustration while it filled with atmo.

“
Liam! We’ve got trouble
!” Nick’s voice was as excited as I’d ever heard it. I rushed down the hallway to the bridge and saw through the armored glass that the frigate, fully five hundred tonnes of muscle, sat broadside to the docking bay.

I jumped into my empty pilot’s chair, pulled the combat harness over my body and clipped it in, then pulled the flight control stick back from the forward bulkhead.

“I'll be in engineering,” Nick said, heading for the door of the bridge.

“Not yet. Just hold on to something. Marny, do you have weapons online?”

“Roger that, Cap.”

“Fire both missile tubes now. Everybody hold on.”

Engage combat thrust controls
.

I pushed the thrust control hard and we rocketed forward, just as the frigate started firing a broadside salvo at the station’s docking bay, at which we were dead center. I doubted that initially they knew exactly which bay we were coming out, but I also knew they out-gunned us by an outrageous margin. We were the proverbial duck in a barrel once they figured out which bay we were in. The rounds weren't specifically aimed at us yet, but we were taking hits, nonetheless.

The frigate was so close to the station that the missiles couldn't be dodged. Unfortunately, the ship also had a countermeasures package that deployed flawlessly. Both our missiles hit scraps and exploded fifty meters before making contact with the ship.

It was devastating that the missiles hadn’t done any damage, but at least the explosions had temporarily disrupted the bombardment lane between the frigate and the station. We desperately needed the extra few seconds.
Sterra's Gift’s
inertial system was absorbing and redistributing as much g-force as possible. I couldn’t push her any harder. We had to get clear. We wouldn’t last ten seconds once the frigate locked on our position.

“Marny, put as much fire on that frigate as you can.” My voice strained with exertion.

“Aye Cap, blasters are firing full and three seconds to missile ready.”

“I’m rabbiting.”

The design of a frigate is much different than that of a cutter like
Sterra's Gift
or even a much larger corvette like the
Kuznetsov
. Cutter and corvette tactics are primarily hit and run, but a frigate is designed to stand and deliver. The worst possible place to be is at a frigate's broadside. If I wanted us to survive this round, I had to change the geometry.

The disruption from our missiles and the frigate’s general lack of knowledge of our location were working in our favor. The problem was, that only bought us enough time to launch
Sterra's Gift
out of the docking bay. The frigate would resolve both issues well before I could get out of its deadly reach.

I pulled hard left on the flight stick and twisted the handle, turning us broadside to the frigate. By itself that was a suicidal maneuver, but the twist on the handle was just enough to roll the belly of the ship up toward the frigate. I sure hoped the new armor we’d added at Coolidge was worth the hefty price we’d paid. I only needed a couple of seconds of grace. We were pointed in the opposite direction of our foe and the engines were running at near peak.

“Cap, I can’t get any weapons on ‘em upside down,” Marny reminded me.

“Roger that.” I didn't have time to explain what I was doing. I just hoped she'd figure it out.

Sterra's Gift
was being buffeted by the increasingly focused fire of the frigate, but we were alive and surviving so far.

“Nick, armor status?”

“Can’t take much more, but it's holding.”

My HUD displayed the orientation of the frigate and I watched it rotate slowly to try to keep its guns tracking on us. We were quickly accelerating away from its effective range.

“Marny, do they have any missiles?”

“Don’t know yet.”

Our ship lurched to the left. With its inertial system, it would take a considerable contact to rock us like that. That hit hadn't come from the frigate.

“Station defensive guns are firing on us,” Nick said.

“Frak! Roger that.” I recognized Flark’s signature from his attack on Colony 40. Take over the station’s defenses, then roll in the pirates.

“Get close to the station. The guns are made to repel invaders, not shoot close in at the station,” Nick said.

I really didn’t want to do that, since that could endanger the population, but then again they had a frigate broadsiding them at the moment.

We’d already cleared the station so I pulled back on the stick to angle back toward it. I twisted again to reorient our armored belly to the frigate. I hadn’t let up on the thrust since I’d jumped into the seat. The shift in direction caught the frigate off guard and interrupted their salvos, which we’d almost escaped. I felt sick having to head back toward the heavily gunned and armored ship.

The ship lurched again and a loud explosion rocked us. My vac-suit’s helmet automatically deployed which meant we’d lost pressure somewhere on the ship. As soon as we’d taken off, the bridge door had closed, so my best guess, based on the sound, was one of the cargo bays. Frak, we had a full load.

“Can’t take another one of those,” Nick said. “Station gun penetrated the hull and we just lost the septic system and a portion of BR-2.”

“Shite! Did we reseal?”

“Yup.”

I’d aligned us to sail up close to the station. It was a desperate gambit. I decelerated hard once we came up next to it. I’d positioned the station between us and the frigate and I’d also snuggled in as closely as I could. I waited for impact from the station’s guns. It never came.

I watched the course of the frigate. Unless it was willing to shoot the station apart, there was no chance for it to line up on us again.

“Marny, can you scan for other ships? I’ve got the frigate.”

“Aye, Cap. I’ll also keep an eye out for station inhabitants with attitude problems.”

We were in the unenviable position of being the rodent in a high stakes game of cat and mouse. For the moment, the conflict had reached equilibrium, but I knew from experience that wouldn’t last long. With the station perimeter defense guns online and tracking us as an enemy, we could neither run nor could we engage the frigate.

“We’ve got to get those guns offline,” I said.

“Agreed,” Tali answered.

“Nick, can you find where they’re controlling those guns from?”

“Working on it. It’s not on their public info.”

“Tali, do you think your friend Bit Coffman could help?”

“Good chance.”

“Nick, take over the helm.”

“No need, I’ve bridged the Navy’s equipment. I suspect Belcose won’t like it, but the secure Navy comm is now available on bridge.”

He didn’t need to tell me twice.

Establish comm with Bit Coffman
.

“Heya, Bitches. What’s shaking?” Bit’s voice came over the comm.

“Bit, thanks for answering. We’re in a pinch here.”

“Give it to me,” she said.

“We’re pinned down by Jeratorn’s perimeter guns and we need to shut 'em down. Can you help us locate the control room?”

“That’s hard. I’d probably have to eliminate all the residential spaces, cross that with all the power and sewer, take away the businesses, find the new construction and add-ons …”

“How long?” Tali cut her off in mid-sentence.

“Look, if I just do it, then you all think it’s easy.”

“Bit,” Tali’s voice was firm.

“Already working on it, probably take five minutes.”

“Nick, can you take the helm?”

“Yup.”

“What are you thinking, Cap?” Marny asked.

“I need my armored vac-suit and AGBs.”

“Aye. That’s what I was thinking, too.”

I jumped up and pushed my way through the bridge door, thankful to discover that the hallway was still holding atmo. The bridge door closed behind me and sealed shut. Apparently the ship’s AI wasn’t taking any chances. I took this to heart and pulled the door to my quarters closed, I’d be in trouble if we depressurized while I was between suits.

Once changed, I pushed the large flechette pistol into the chest holster that I preferred for combat situations. Marny had shown me the value of being able to un-holster my weapon by reaching across my chest instead of trying to pull it off my leg or from my waist.

“Cap, Bit’s got it, info’s loading into our tactical displays.” Marny’s voice came through my earwig.

“Which tower? We need an entrance. What’s the frigate doing?”

“Bit, any chance you can hack those guns?”

“Not in the amount of time you have available. I can, however, tell you they’re trying to override the safety protocols on them so they can shoot you.”

“Think they’ll be successful?”

“Not sure, but I wouldn’t bet against it.”

“Look here,” Nick said.

The rear holo projector displayed the three towers with the frigate and
Sterra's Gift
shown in their relative positions. Toward the top of one of the three towers a red box highlighted the position of the control station.

“Frak!” I said. Now I understood why the frigate was sitting in the location that it was. It wasn’t just holding us in place, it was also guarding the control station.

“Buckle up kids, this is going to get bumpy,” I said and pulled the combat harness back over my shoulders.

As if in direct response to my statement, we felt the whump of contact on the rear quarter of the ship.

“Damage to starboard engine,” Nick warned.

I jammed the accelerator forward. The ship lurched with the sudden change in acceleration. I was relieved we hadn’t lost much power. I ran directly between the three towers. There were random wires and cables that I couldn’t dodge and the ship jostled as we ripped through. The noise on the bridge was horrendous. I was probably peeling off sensor strips and other less armored
, but no less expensive, components. If we weren’t running for our lives I might have been concerned about what I was doing to the ship.

Just as
we were about to come free of the towers and provide the frigate with a clean shot, I swooped back hard, staying within the safety of the towers. I needed the longest, safest run I could manage before clearing the towers. There wouldn’t be much time once I was in the open.

Another round from the station’s defensive guns tore through the middle of the towers and ripped into the structure of Tower A. Whoever was manning the guns had absolutely no issues with killing civilians. I had to get out of here and not compound their danger.

We squirted out from between the towers and headed toward the aft section of the frigate. It was the one part of the giant beast that wasn’t heavily armored and didn’t have a plethora of guns they could utilize.

“Hang on,” I said, as we ran out and accelerated away from the frigate. I’d exited the towers at a shallow angle and was directly in line with its rear engines. “Marny, get ready to drop two in his pipes.”

“Aye, Cap.”

I snapped the flight stick back and lined up on the frigate's engines. We were in the open – prime target for the station’s guns. I hoped we could take another hit.

“Missiles away!” Marny exclaimed.

The frigate automatically launched its countermeasures, but one of the missiles made it through and exploded. I wanted to cheer, we’d finally hit the damn thing. Unfortunately, it still had two more operational engines.

Predictably, the frigate started to turn so it could line its weapons up on us. I decelerated so that I stayed aft, keeping in its blind spot at the rear.

Sterra's Gift
lurched again.

“We’ve lost atmo in the main section of the ship. Those guns are tearing us apart,” Nick said. It was as excited as he ever got.

“Marny, target that control room, I’m going to rabbit.”

She’d been pouring blaster fire into the rear end of the frigate, but its armor was more than sufficient to fend us off. Sure. Give us a couple of hours and she’d break something, but we weren’t going to last minutes, much less hours.

“Aye, Cap. I’m ready.”

I punched the thruster forward and flew over the top spine of the narrow ship
, our heavily armored belly once again between us and the beast.

“Bird's away,” Marny exclaimed. I said a silent prayer for any innocents that might be close to that control station. The schematic showed the entire top side of the tower was for industrial use, but you never knew for sure on a station.

The bridge was quiet as we accelerated past the nose of the frigate. I could imagine Harry Flark watching us through the armored glass below.

“Status?” It was all I could manage, if I didn’t get us out of the way of this frigate we’d be ripped to shreds.

“It was a hit. Those guns should be down, Cap.”

I banked hard, using the towers as a shield from the frigate.
Sterra's Gift
was limping away, but at least we were going to survive this round. We’d taken away the frigate's ability to chase us and I’d like to say we’d handed out as much as we’d taken, but that simply wasn’t the case.