Birdie Down Read online

  Part One

  I’m Losing You

  1

  Above G-eo

  The Venture Raider jumped into G-eo space a few hours too late. Tremont’s Lynthax Tower was a smoking ruin and the V4 was long gone. The neuralnet, companynet, publicnet and Tremont’s Housenet communications were all down, but the radio frequencies were bursting with traffic.

  ‘Damn,’ the Raider’s commander, Abel, exclaimed. ‘They’re quick off the mark. Ashmore will be next, I suspect.’

  From his observer's chair at the back of the cabin, Lynthax’s head of security, Jack Petroff, continued listening to the frequencies dedicated to Tremont’s emergency services. They appeared to be coping, but only just. He held a quick conference call, or rather an awkward three-way radio conversation, with Lynthax’s local head of security and Tremont’s police commissioner. They laid out the extent of the damage and passed on the content of the rebel’s public broadcast.

  Ironically, G-eo’s public now knew more about the rebellion than they did on Trevon, where it all started, but there was no point dwelling on that. Petroff could sense a pattern was emerging, or at least believed he could confirm the goal of each attack. The G-eo attack was a carbon copy of the one on Trevon. The rebel leader, Scatkiewicz, was going for quick and repeatable successes, intent on causing damage to Lynthax, specifically its data and comms. He was not yet going after production, or after Earth.

  Petroff glanced over at the star map which showed this quarter of the Outer-Rim, then realised he needed a 3D version. He interrupted Abel who was talking quietly to his second-in-command.

  ‘Abel, throw up a hologram of the Outer-Rim. Highlight everything that’s ours.’

  The Venture Raider’s commander nodded to the StarGazer operator. They waited for the projection to lock into place.

  ‘It’s up, sir,’ Abel confirmed, pointing at the conference room.

  Petroff sprang from his chair.

  ‘Then join me.’

  They stepped past the star map and into the conference room where they walked around the projection bench while peering into the blue light, looking at the relationship between G-eo, Ashmore and Constitution from various angles.

  Abel could see the shortest path between the planets.

  ‘So it’s Ashmore, then? That’s next.’

  G-eo was the closest planet to Trevon—it just happened to be a Lynthax world. Ashmore was the next along the Rim, again, a Lynthax world. Then there was Alba, an Asian Bloc world, which they could ignore. Constitution was the next Lynthax planet after that, though significantly “off-plane”.

  Petroff looked at his graf to check what time had elapsed since the rebels had attacked the Lynthax Centre on Trevon. He did some mental math. If the rebels were taking an hour or so to get to each, and around an hour to launch and retrieve a shuttle, then the race to Ashmore would be a very close-run thing. But …

  ‘Probably ... possibly,’ Petroff said, considering an alternative. ‘Forget Ashmore,’ he decided. ‘We aren’t so heavily invested there. How long will it take for us to get to Constitution?’

  ‘At max speed? Two hours.’

  ‘Then max it out. I want to be there before they’ve finished with Ashmore.’

  Petroff marched back to his observer's chair, sat down and drummed his fingers on the armrest.

  The chase was on. But, something deep inside his gut was nagging at him. Something was telling him this would not end quickly, or cleanly. Scatkiewizc might well be fired-up and hell-bent on destruction, but, as he had found out for himself over the past two weeks, Scatkiewicz was nobody’s fool. For sure he was angry, and he was getting even—but Scatkiewicz’s personnel file suggested he would get even on his own terms, and he would not overreach. But now the beggar had a Lynthax-Maersk tanker class vessel fitted with military-grade SG, the chances of them cornering him—and his corporate-bashing friends—before the rebellion could take hold were slim at best.

  This might just take a while.

  Petroff shook his head

  No it wouldn’t, he told himself: he would get them at Constitution, and, when he did, he would get on with a day of hangings. And if there wasn’t enough rope to do the job, he would vent them from an airlock himself—and watch their blood turn to gas.

  ‘Hurry up, Abel. It’s a race. I intend to win it.’

  2

  Above Ashmore

  Who would have thought it?

  For a ship that had attacked two New Worlds in the course of three hours, and was preparing to attack a third, the V4 was surprisingly quiet.

  Being new to this game, Andrew ‘Birdie’ Goosen, a Trevon policeman until only 12 hours ago, had no idea what to expect, but Scat, a veteran of Earth’s resource wars and de facto rebel leader, had expected significantly more chaos. Instead, the place was calm. Goosen still marvelled at how easy it had been to hijack the V4 from such a possessive owner, after so little preparation and with such ease. Scat had no such concerns. A low body count was a blessing and now they had the ship it was all about the next 24 hours.

  Goosen sat alongside Tillier Bing, one of their first recruits, discussing their next target. As they did so, they prodded and probed the command cabin’s hologram. Occasionally, Goosen would look away and glance around the cabin.

  Scat was rapping his fingers on the console, no doubt running alternative scenarios through his mind.

  Newly recruited rebels, all of them ex-cops, hunkered down around the command cabin’s circular console, familiarizing themselves with the V4’s software.

  The original V4 flight crew, all of them Lynthax employees, sat on the floor beneath the forward screen, under guard and waiting to answer the next question or call for assistance.

  Further afield, small groups of rebels patrolled the ship looking for more armaments and useful supplies.

  But they did so very quietly, in stark contrast to the screaming and hollering that accompanied the initial hijack. It was as though everyone was embarrassed by the emotions on display in the first hour, and was dialling them back, absorbing the magnitude of what they had done.

  On the other side of the V4’s gravity ring, the remainder of the crew, some fare-paying passengers and a small Outer Rim Force escort—all of them prisoners—resigned themselves to the rebel’s promise of a short detention. At least until the night’s operations were complete.

  Even the rebel’s political leaders had backed away, allowing the newly recruited rebels to focus on the job at hand. The only one who had not was Scat’s middle-aged friend and Trevon independence advocate, Marvin Cade. He loitered in the command cabin, occasionally looking over Goosen’s shoulder, genuinely curious as to how radical action in pursuit of independence from Earth and freedom from corporate rule played out in practice.

  Goosen was happy that he could hear his own thoughts again. It gave him time to reflect. And Li’s bugcam had stopped flitting about, which was a blessing: the damned thing annoyed him immensely. He had not seen either Li or his news presenter boss, Chan, for quite a while. Maybe they were walking around with one of the patrols. Goosen did not care: he had other things on his mind.

  It was clear Scat wanted to make an indelible first impression before Lynthax and the Inter-Space Regulatory Authority’s Outer Rim Force could organise a response. He wanted to hit as many Lynthax owned worlds as he could in the space of a single night. That meant planning their next hit just as they completed the previous one.

  They were currently knocking out the Ashmore-to-Earth faster-than-light buoy communications network. But none of the Trevon rebels knew much about Ashmore itself. The V4’s original crew knew more, but they were not talking—unless Scat nudged them with the twin barrels of his sawn-off Grand American.

  What they were discovering was that their proposed target, Lynthax House, was going to be a difficult one to reach, and in working on the problem they were burning through a valuable resource: time.

  ‘Worth moving on?’ Scat asked, breaking
the silence. Several heads came up and then returned to their screens. Goosen saw the question was addressed at him.

  ‘How long do we have?’ he asked in reply, looking back into the hologram.

  ‘For here? Maybe another 90 minutes. Beyond that we lose night time over Constitution; it’ll have to be a daytime raid.’

  Goosen sucked on his lower lip and thought it through. It might just be worth moving on. The previous attacks were conducted in the very early hours of the morning, local time, so the collateral damage was light. A day-time raid would expose a greater number of civilians to the light-tug’s high energy release.

  And there was something else. The Lynthax Corporation’s frigate, the Venture Raider, was the ever-present bogeyman, waiting to pounce if forgotten. No one knew where it was. It had been protecting the company’s most valuable asset, the mining operations on Prebos, making sure it was isolated from Trevon’s increasingly volatile politics. But it could be anywhere now. So, they all kept the Raider at the front of their minds. There was no need to mention it again.

  ‘Sir!’ It was Tyson, one of the new recruits, the cheerful but overweight Jamaican. He was pointing at his screen. ‘It’s the Far Dark Light fuel reserves. Someone’s playing with them.’

  Scat did not reply: maybe he had forgotten Tyson’s name: Goosen’s introduction to the communications specialist had been a brief one. Instead Scat looked across at Matheson, the V4’s original second-in-command. Matheson’s head dipped between his knees to avoid Scat’s stare.

  Still looking at the man, Scat asked Tyson a question.

  ‘What kind of “playing” with them?’

  ‘We’re bleeding fuel into the skin of the ship—lots of it.’

  Goosen watched Scat walk across the cabin to prod Matheson with a foot. When Scat spoke, his tone was even but menacing.

  ‘You said comms could only be accessed from here, the shuttles and the flux-drive rooms.’

  Matheson looked nervous. Goosen had heard no mention of the medical centre when they questioned him about the V4’s comms earlier on. Perhaps the old man had held back, hoping that someone in that quarter of the gravity ring would get off his butt and help to save the ship. Or, just possibly, he was worried about going the way of the original commander who was in a body bag somewhere in the hold.

  ‘Answer up, Matheson.’ Scat ordered. Scat was hardly a big man, but he had an unnerving intensity about him. Matheson stared at the floor rather than look up.

  ‘The medical centre has access to the ship’s basic programmes, but that isn’t the same as access to comms. You were very specific at the time.’

  After Matheson spoke, he tensed. He expected a zapping or worse.

  ‘Sir! The accommodation video feed’s down as well.’

  It was Tyson again. Scat looked across, nodded his thanks and headed for the door.

  ‘Matheson, this is going to cost you,’ he said without looking back at him. ‘Birdie, drop what you’re doing and come with me. Bring your PIKL and one of the reserve teams. Bing, get Welks to help you shut off the bleed. And I don’t care how much you need to hurt Matheson—get his full cooperation, this time.’

  Goosen let out a sigh. He reached across the bench and picked up his recently acquired Pulsed Impulsive Kill Laser, a PIKL, commonly referred to as a ‘pickle’ for the damage its high energy pulse did to a person’s innards. It felt like a plastic toy in his hands, although it was anything but. He flicked it on and looked up. Scat was already leaving the room.

  Goosen raced to catch up and fell in beside him.

  ‘So, Scat,’ he said, looking at the PIKL’s orange charge bar, ‘how long does it take for these things to warm up?’

  3

  They stood in front of the locked fire door, bracing for whatever was on the far side. After the hijacking, Goosen had ordered the gravity ring doors closed and sealed. Since then, anyone of the V4’s crew, passengers or deported police officers who Goosen did not think were sympathisers, was free to roam the accommodation section on the other side, with a rebel team watching the fire doors at each end.

  Scat logged onto the ship’s net and spoke into his graf:

  ‘Bing, tell everyone to clear the next section of the corridor and let them know we’ll PIKL anyone who shows his face. They’ve got 30 seconds.’

  ‘OK, Scat. We’re still working on the FDL bleed but should have the video restored in a few minutes.’

  Scat called up the ship’s schematics, looking for the medical centre. He held it up to let the much taller Goosen take a peek. The medical centre was maybe 30 or 35 metres further up along the ring’s corridor, on the right-hand side. There were two large rooms between the fire door and the medical centre: a dining hall and a media centre. The accommodation bunks were further up the ring. The medical centre’s corridor-facing walls were made of glass, so there could be no stealthy approach. It would be a rush for the door, hoping to catch the saboteur before he scarpered.

  Scat gave instructions to Bradley, one of the newly appointed rebel team leaders, while Goosen held his PIKL behind his back and fiddled with its safety. As usual, Scat was brimming with confidence. Goosen did not know where he got it from.

  ‘OK, Bradley, when we burst in, I want a man on either side of the first two doors, here and here,’ Scat said, pointing them out on his graf projection, ‘with you, and one other, moving passed the medical centre to cover the next two doors and the next section of the ring, here, here and here. Goosen and I will tackle whoever's in the medical centre, which is here. Got it?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘It’s Scat,’ he said, turning the projection around so the other three in Bradley’s team could see the schematic.

  ‘Yes, Scat,’ Bradley replied with a smile. His guys stepped away and made ready. ‘OK, guys, you heard him,’ he continued. ‘Scag, you and I go to the far end. Fanny, Clinker: you’ll cover the first two doors. Safeties off!’

  Bradley took a step forward, waiting for Scat to open the fire door. Goosen put a hand on Clinker’s back to steady him. The young man looked a little edgy.

  ‘And don’t be gentle on anyone who gives you trouble,’ Scat said. ‘Tyson, is the video up yet?’ he asked over his graf. So he had remembered the young man’s name.

  ‘Yes, sir. It’s just the one guy. He’s on the far side of the room, opposite the main doors. He’s fiddling with some equipment.’

  Scat looked up at Bradley.

  ‘OK. Ready?’ he asked as he moved to one side.

  Bradley nodded.

  Scat pushed down on the red release button set into the door panelling. The doors swung inwards. As the security team raced up the corridor, Scat turned to Goosen.

  ‘Let’s go’, he said, an instant before an explosion rocked the ring.

  They dropped to the floor.

  ‘Crikey!’ Scat muttered, looking down a corridor filled with swirling smoke. Alarms went off. The overhead extractor fans kicked in, pulling the foul air into the ceiling.

  Scat peered into the shifting blackness and shouted.

  ‘Bradley! Are you OK?’

  Nothing. Some coughing. Then some expletives.

  ‘Bradley! What just happened?’

  ‘They’ve just had their butts handed to them, Scat.’ It was Bing. ‘I can’t see the other two. The guy in the medical centre is climbing onto a bed. He’s pulling the ceiling apart. It looks like he has a PIKL.’

  ‘Thanks Bud,’ Scat acknowledged. ‘Birdie, let’s go.’

  Racing each other up the ring, they passed Fanny and Clinker who knelt on all fours, coughing out smoke. Sliding to a halt at the medical centre entrance, Scat glanced down at the burning figures of Bradley and Scag. There was nothing he could do for them.

  Goosen saw a pair of legs hanging from the ceiling on the other side of the glass wall. He pushed past and burst into the room. He jumped up, grabbed an ankle and hung on, pulling himself off the floor.

  A section of the ceiling gave way, re
vealing an air vent that came crashing down with the man inside. A weapon clattered to the ground beside him.

  Goosen let go for a second, scrambled to his knees and then grabbed the man’s trouser belt to haul him free. An elbow came back into his face, stunning him. His weapon slipped from his shoulder. The man got a hand to it and tried to put a finger inside the trigger guard. Goosen smothered him, keeping his arm pinned the floor so he could not bring it around and loose off a shot. Goosen punched him twice in the back of the head and then grabbed his hair to bring it sharply backwards, but somehow the man twisted onto his back, almost wriggling free.

  Despite being the bigger of the two, Goosen dare not let his opponent go: not only was he very agile, but he was also incredibly quick; his hands could not be held down for more than a few seconds before one of them was free again, swiping him around the ear or chopping into his neck.

  A knee jerked upwards, twice, aimed at Goosen’s groin. It did not matter that he was on top—he was taking a beating.

  ‘Stay down, you knuckle-head! Stay down!’ he grunted, but the younger, lighter man was not listening. Again, Goosen got a clip on the neck, and another knee in the groin.

  Goosen saw red. He pushed the man’s head down with his forearm to expose the throat, applied a bear-sized paw across it and pushed himself up in a one handed push-up. He looked into the man’s eyes to see if his resistance was fading, but saw only a flash of anger, and, too late, sensed a knee come up to strike him between his legs—again.

  But that was it. The man’s resistance faded quickly.

  Even as the man went limp, Goosen did not dare let him go. He saw the face swell, then go blue, and sensed his opponent’s strength ebb away. Fearing it a feint, a ruse, it was a long time before he relaxed his grip a fraction, to let the man take a breath. But there was no movement. No gasping for air.

  Drat!

  Goosen let go, slowly, pulling himself to his feet, shaking his head and wiping blood from his right eye. Ignoring the ache between his legs, he stomped on the man’s chest and dropped to his knees.

  ‘Whoa, there, Birdie! Why use your tongue when you can use a ventilator? We’re in a medical centre, after all …’

  Goosen looked up. It was Scat.

  ‘How long have you been sitting there?’ he asked, still heaving and starting to sweat.

  ‘Not long,’ Scat replied, waving Goosen’s objection aside. ‘You were doing just fine. Though I’m surprised you let him kick you in the nuts so easily—and so often.’

  ‘Hand me those paddles, you …’ Goosen could not think of an appropriate expletive. ‘If you want to know what else he was up to, he’s got to be fit to answer questions.’

  Goosen held Scat’s stare. Scat broke it first, leaning forward to pass him the paddles. He then handed him some gel.

  Goosen zapped the body and checked for a pulse. He found one just as the man gasped through a crushed windpipe. Goosen looked up and around the med centre.

  ‘Find me an endotracheal tube.’

  Scat looked blankly at him.

  ‘His windpipe is a little squishy,’ Goosen explained.

  Still kneeling over the injured man, he watched Scat open a few cupboards. Eventually Scat tossed over an orange box. But they needed something else.

  ‘And get a medic!’

  Scat looked around and gestured at an empty room, shrugging.

  ‘Oh! You mean get one of the crew up here?’

  ‘Can you stop pulling my chain, Scat? Of course, that’s what I meant. I’m only a first responder. We’ll need better skills than mine to keep this reprobate alive.’

  ‘Relax, Birdie. They’re on their way. Bing’s on to it.’

  Still panting, Goosen sat back on his heels and forced a sarcastic smile through split lips. Scat smiled back, got up and walked to the medical centre door. When he reached it, he turned around.

  ‘Once we’ve found out what else he was doing, he’ll pay for Bradley and Scag.’

  ‘Blimey, Scat! He’s three parts dead already. You want to show him hell for a second time?’

  But Scat was gone.

  There was a patter of feet in the corridor outside. Two medics stared through the glass wall, cautiously waiting to lend assistance. Goosen remembered to gather up the two weapons before waving the men inside.

  They got the man to a bed, and fussed with an airline. Goosen checked the man’s pockets for ID. It was an automatic thing for him to do, being an ex-cop, but something made this different. He had almost killed a man. When he and Scat had hijacked the V4, Scat had done all the killing, so this was Goosen’s first act of physical violence in support of the rebellion. It was an act that did not gel with his life-long duty to protect life and safeguard property. He felt guilty. He wanted to know who the man was.

  Grubbing around the man’s coveralls he found a small notebook in the leg pocket. It was filled with gobbledygook: the entries appeared to be in code alongside self-drawn puzzles. He dropped it to one side and carried on searching.

  He found nothing, which Goosen thought odd. There should be at least a V4 ID, or a boarding card.

  He started over, this time rolling the coverall’s cloth between his fingers. Stitched into the seam of an inside pocket he found a small chip. He dug it out and walked across to the V4’s medical scanner.

  Eureka! It was an ID.

  Johann Rolf: Blood type O Positive. No allergies. There was not much more. The rest of it was encrypted.

  He walked back across to Rolf and looked down at him. The man looked a sorry sight; he was weak and helpless. Goosen held the chip a few inches from Rolf’s face, twiddled it around and put it in his pocket.

  ‘Well, Rolf, you’re one lucky son of a gun. My friend would have just killed you.’

  Rolf’s eyes flashed. He struggled to speak, but couldn’t. Instead he raised a weak fist and slapped it down on the bed in frustration.

  Goosen nodded in sympathy.

  ‘That’s OK. You can thank me later.’

  4

  Above Constitution

  Commander Abel heard Petroff slam his e-reader down onto the armrest of the observation seat and utter a curse. He looked over his shoulder just as Petroff leaned around the back of his command couch to speak softly into his ear.

  ‘Abel, throw that up on the bench. Then join me,’ he ordered, pointing to the slightly curved 2-D projection of the planet Constitution that lit up the forward wall. As he strode towards the conference room he threw another command over his shoulder, this time, much louder. ‘And bring that sorry-arsed excuse for an Assault Crew Commander with you.’

  Abel wondered what Petroff would want with the man he had ordered fired only hours ago for bunking off his watch, and for little more than to play doctors and nurses with a married member of the crew. He looked across at the StarGazer operator who had made herself as small as possible. Petroff should have fired her as well.

  ‘Be quick,’ Abel told her, softly.

  ‘Aye, sir. Done already,’ she replied.

  As Petroff disappeared behind the transparent starmap, Abel took a quick look around the command cabin. He sensed his SG relaxing a little now Petroff was done drilling eyes into the back of her head. To make sure everything was working, she stretched back in her chair to look through the conference room door. The 3-D was flickering a little inside the much brighter room, but it was slowly establishing itself. Petroff was already walking around the bench, dipping his head every so often as he took in the view.

  From across the far side of the command cabin, the Venture Raider’s second-in-command caught his wife’s eye. He looked visibly hurt by the whole affair, but as with every conflict between his job and their marriage, his job came first. Abel noticed his wife turn away, embarrassed.

  Abel sighed silently and then walked cautiously past the transparent star map just as Petroff dimmed the conference room lights to enhance the image.

  ‘What does that slut of an SG say?’ Petroff asked, st
anding back from the projection, arms folded, resting his chin on a thumb.

  ‘Her name is Francine, sir. And nothing yet. The V4 hasn’t arrived.’

  ‘Good.’ Petroff replied. ‘Pity about Ashmore, but ...’

  ‘Yes, sir. Why do you need to see Archie? I mean Cummings, sir,’ he asked, immediately correcting himself. Petroff was not always a first-name sort of boss when he was on board his precious frigate. ‘You fired him not three hours ago.’

  And they had been too busy to discuss it since. Nor had Abel found a long enough break in Petroff’s black mood to bring it up.

  Petroff did not respond immediately, but he did look up at him as he fiddled with the 3-D.

  Abel dared not press further. He knew he was a little closer to his ACC than he should be and that Petroff was making another mental note. But the same could be said for his relationship with most of the crew. Maybe Petroff was thinking that the discipline on his beloved Venture Raider was less strict than it should be, especially for a ship that was about to face combat for the first time.

  Abel had screwed up and he knew it. When Petroff had arrived, fresh off the back of inspecting a burned-out Lynthax Centre on Trevon, he had expected to find a fully functioning frigate. What he got was a watch that was either asleep or bunking off.

  But this ACC-SG affair had been a bolt from the blue for everyone: as much for Abel as it was for his second-in-command. It now left the frigate without an Assault Crew Commander, and Abel nursing a very disgruntled friend and senior officer—not to mention managing a very pissed-off boss. He felt a little relieved when Petroff turned his attention back to the glowing blue globe suspended inside its glass-sided cage.

  ‘I’ve been reading his file,’ Petroff replied, looking carefully at the satellite system that circled the planet. ‘He’s resourceful ... even if he is a lazy ass-head.’

  ‘And ...?’

  ‘And I’ll need him. Just dock his pay. He can make good when the V4 arrives.’

  Out front, Abel saw the crew making themselves busy as the prisoner was led through to the conference room. Petroff waved the ACC inside without looking at him and then made him wait.

  Archie Cummings appeared to have just woken up: his black hair was a mess and he wore the same stare of disbelief he had worn when Abel had dismissed him. Despite still being half asleep, Abel knew his ACC’s mind would be racing, probably wondering if Petroff wanted yet more flesh.

  Well he probably did. The next few minutes were bound to be awkward. The silence made them both uncomfortable.

  Petroff glanced around Cumming’s shoulder, dismissed the escort with a flick of his head and then looked up to eyeball a fit-looking, six foot five inch man in his late twenties, dressed in a crumpled under-suit. His over-developed shoulders and legs stretched the fabric taught; his narrow waist and hips seemed to swim inside of it.

  ‘You’re leading the attack when it’s due, Cummings,’ Petroff told him. ‘Come back in one piece, job done, and you can have your job back.’

  Abel looked for a reaction. All he saw was Cummings looking quizzically back at him. It was clear the crew had kept him in the dark since his dismissal.

  ‘He hasn’t a clue, has he?’ Petroff asked, turning away from Cummings and glaring at him. Abel gave him the slightest of Gallic shrugs by way of reply. What were we supposed to tell him? You had me fire his arse. And we’ve been too busy to chat.

  ‘We’re at war, Cummings,’ Petroff finally announced.

  ‘With whom, sir?’ Cummings asked, not believing him. There was nothing to go to war against. The secessionist movements on the company’s worlds were just a babble of politicians; their armouries were filled with constitutional clauses and lawyers briefs, and very little else. He had seen more action with the Inner Rim Force, which was not saying much.

  ‘With the Trevon rebels,’ Petroff replied.

  Cummings inclined his head towards the bench.

  ‘But this is Constitution.’

  ‘It is, isn’t it?’ Petroff confirmed. He waited for Cummings to make what he could of that.

  ‘Then why aren’t we over Trevon?’ Cummings asked.

  ‘Because, Cummings, some two-faced meddler let them have the V4 and they’re running riot with it. They’ve already taken out the Lynthax Centre in Go Down, and our headquarters on G-eo. In fact, we think they’re doing the same on Ashmore right now. But this is where we get them—here: in Constitution space.’

  ‘Yeah?’ Cummings said, relaxing his shoulders. His smile widened, revealing a row of expertly capped teeth. The scar running from his upper lip to his artificial left eye creased upwards. Ignoring both of his bosses, he took a pace closer to the bench and fiddled with its magnification. No way was this jerk going to fire his most experienced ACC. Not now—not if the rebels have gotten themselves faster-than-light capabilities.

  ‘Yes: yeah,’ Petroff confirmed, watching Cummings spin the planet a little faster and then freeze the image as Constitution’s capital, Welwyn City, came into view. He tried to stand a little taller when Cummings turned back to face him, but it was of no use. Petroff was a slightly built, pot-bellied, but carefully groomed man of average height, in his late thirties: he was a product of a man-made environment, soft seats and too many directors’ dinner nights. Standing in front of him was an athlete of the warrior class, the beneficiary of an unusual number of legal and not-so legal neural enhancements. And even if Cummings’ more basic neurals failed to measure up to Petroff’s recently acquired neuralnet implant, it was still a no-contest: Cummings was a nak muay farang; he was Lynthax Security’s undefeated, but highly volatile, kick boxing champion.

  Not that it mattered. Lynthax’s Director of Security did not need to be a warrior. Petroff had people for that. He had a frigate, a dozen weapons-capable starflyers and tens of thousands of good old-fashioned doorstops positioned at Lynthax installations on a half dozen corporate-owned planets in the Outer-Rim. All Petroff needed was to command a warrior’s respect.

  ‘And you think they’re heading this way?’ Cummings asked, provocatively, looking back at the image.

  Abel cut in.

  ‘Yes, we do, Archie. By our calculation, Constitution is next. We both assume they’re hitting Ashmore now, or have already hit it and are heading this way. We must stop them here.’ Take the frigging hint, Archie. Let it go.

  ‘So, who are these Trevon rebels?’ Cummings asked, catching the point that Abel agreed with their boss. He pushed himself away from the bench and looked at the both of them, relaxing more.

  ‘OK,’ Petroff started. ‘Tell me you know an Earth Delegate was assassinated.’

  ‘Yes. I heard. Rebels, eh?’

  Petroff nodded. Cummings was not to know that ISRA had murdered one of its own—probably to kill the constitutional negotiations before they got started—and that Lynthax had been roped in to help make it happen.

  ‘And that you know ISRA was replacing the local Trevon police with its Outer Rim Forces.’ Petroff continued. That was one of the first things ISRA did. Booni was not yet a cold corpse on a slab before ISRA made that happen.

  ‘Yes,’ Cummings replied. ‘That was always going to be a rat-for-fleabag exchange.’

  ‘And that any of them without permanent residency was to be shipped out on the V4.’

  ‘Yes, sir. The V4 was to bus them back to Earth ... Oh! You mean they didn’t want to go? They hijacked it.’ He feigned his surprise.

  ‘Yes, Cummings,’ Petroff confirmed, adding a little sarcastically: ‘Well caught. So you weren’t bunking off for whole of the last few days, then?

  ‘They’ve also released that traitor of a House Representative, Terrance Nettles,’ he continued. ‘And they’re working with some Asian Bloc journalists, stirring things up. We’re not sure how they got to take the ship, but ISRA has something to do with it, I’m sure of it.’

  Up and until this point, Petroff had resisted mentioning his thoughts on the Inter-Space Regulatory Authority’s in
volvement. It was a wild accusation to make. That piqued Abel’s interest.

  ‘ISRA? Why the hell would they want to help them?’ he asked.

  ‘Because they’re a bunch of wily toads, Abel,’ Petroff replied, bitterly. ‘That Cohen character can’t be trusted. He’s playing games. He’s got his own agenda, I’m sure of it. And that wooden top, Cotton, is playing along.’

  ‘How do you know, sir? How could you even guess at that?’ Abel asked.

  ‘Politics, Abel,’ Petroff replied, not really answering the question: to do so would have implicated him, albeit it indirectly, in the unsuspecting Booni’s assassination. Petroff had not pulled the trigger—he was certain ISRA’s Colonel Cotton had done that—but he had reduced security at the time, just as Cotton had requested. It was a request from higher up, Cotton had implied, to excuse a clamp down and provide cover for some deportations. ‘Because of the bleeding politics,’ Petroff continued. ‘Let’s just say I’ve known them for long enough, shall we? They’re not to be trusted. In future we keep ourselves to ourselves. You’re not to report to ISRA unless I agree it. If they want something, point them in my direction.’

  ‘Even direct orders, sir?’ Cummings asked. ‘This is still an Outer Rim Force reserve vessel, isn’t it?’

  Petroff visibly bristled. He did not need reminding. The Venture Raider, previously the Inner Rim Force Singapore, was a decommissioned IRF class-two frigate, originally used to keep the peace in the Sol system. The Inter Space Regulatory Authority only allowed Lynthax to maintain its military-grade StarGazer and high-powered weaponry for as long as it was a part of the Outer Rim Force Reserve. That meant the ORF could call the ship up for service at any time, and at Lynthax’s expense. Only Petroff no longer thought the ORF would use it to guarantee the safety of Lynthax’s company assets. Those days were gone: ISRA’s Ambassador Cohen and his military stooge Cotton were up to no good.

  And there was another very important personal reason to be wary: the Raider had scooped up that alien Thing Petroff had found in the Grecos system. At least that’s what he assumed it to be. It was now on Prebos, a local mining asteroid a light year from Trevon, where Lynthax’s own researchers were prodding and pulling it apart. Naturally the crew knew of its existence, but no one else outside of a select few did. And Lynthax had no intention of ever telling the Inter-Space Regulatory Authority anything about it.

  ‘To hell with ‘em,’ Petroff replied. ‘We’re at war and the ORF isn’t prepared for one. If they get their hands on this ship, they’ll not know what to do with it.’ And they would learn too much.

  ‘And right now we need the ship more than anyone else,’ Abel added. ‘It’s clear that Scatkiewicz’s only after the company.’

  ‘Oh, yeah? Not Earth then?’ Cummings asked. It was the first time he had heard of this Scatkiewicz character.

  Petroff stepped forward to make a point:

  ‘It’s the same thing, Cummings. We are Earth! If we can’t make shipments, Earth dies.’

  ‘And the shipments must continue,’ Abel added, looking over Petroff’s shoulder. ‘No ifs or buts, Cummings. Whatever it takes, they’ve to continue.’ As Abel spoke he cut a hand across his own throat a couple of times. Bury it. Move on.

  ‘So I guess we had better get moving then, sirs,’ Cummings conceded. ‘What’s the plan?’

  Abel breathed a sigh of relief.

  ‘Right, then,’ Petroff said, finally getting to his point. ‘I don’t want the V4 damaged beyond repair. She’s too valuable to our shipping efforts. You’ll have to board her.’

  Abel and Cummings looked at each other. They had practiced boarding armed vessels several times over the past 18 months and they knew it to be messy. Some level of damage was unavoidable and it was wasteful in terms of men. The simulated casualty counts were always high. Fighting along air-vented corridors, on an unfamiliar ship, and mostly in the dark, was also a frightening business. But Petroff was not finished.

  ‘And we’ll need to make sure they don’t get to launch their attack on the surface.’

  Cummings head went back a fraction, Abel’s too. Don’t damage the V4 but board it and stop the attack? They both understood the need to minimise the damage: the Lynthax-Maersk Vessel 4 was an extraordinarily large and expensive tanker, one of dozens that shipped vital resources to Earth, but hell! The rebels, whoever they were, and whatever their goals, might have other ideas.

  ‘We’ll need help, sir,’ Abel pointed out. ‘We can’t do this without Constitution being involved. We’ll need to let them know what’s going on.’

  ‘Yes, we will, won’t we,’ Petroff agreed.

  ‘And I still think it’s important to shift the company data around a little,’ Abel counselled, ‘even if it won’t be as secure as you’d like. They could download everything onto gel cells and ship them out to the Farm. At least make a physical copy and get it out of the building. It doesn’t need to go via the net, not even our own.’

  Petroff took that under advisement. Lynthax kept a lot of data on Constitution that it did not dare keep on Earth. He turned to Cummings, wondering why he was still loitering.

  ‘Well, you’ve been temporarily reinstated. What else do you want?’ he asked.

  Cummings did not reply. He was staring at the 3-D image, already anticipating the V4’s option.

  ‘Don’t just stand there, man—go work up your assault teams!’ Petroff insisted. ‘And Abel, get our local CEO and his head of security on a secure line. Oh, and their head of IT. Like you say, we may as well plan for the worst.’

  Abel headed out into the command cabin.