TNE 02 To Dream of Chaos Page 14

  "Engine room," she snapped, "Crowbar, stand by main thrusters. Sixer, set course 275."

  * 4 *

  Although the cryptic message was brief, its focused nature let Deep Six work out an approximate source point fairly quickly, and soon Hornet had altered course to steer toward It. Waking for that source point, on the Inner edge of the ring, Coeur then took the unusual step of engaging the ship's densitometer, neutrino and neural activity sensors, despite The ir very short effective range, just to have more eyes on the lookout. In any event. Hornet nearly overran her we 11-camouflaged objective, spotting her only by faint traces of neutrino radiation from her fusion plant. Parked on a small shepherd moon, just 50 km long, this was W it Armis, the 400-ton patrol cruiser of the pirate Vega Tom, Hanging just meters above the corsair. Hornets lloodlignts found clear evidence of serious damage—laser scoring and spots of twisted metal in her drive section—yet there was no way to be certain the grounded vessel wasn't laying a trap, Cyro, therefore, kept Homefsl 50-Mj laser turret trained on the ship even as Deep Six established a tight-beam laser communications link.

  "Well, Red Sun, I see you got our message."

  "You're a ballsy woman, Tom. How'd you know It was us7"

  "Easy. Who else would fly a far trader this deep in the Wilds?"

  A lev/ desperate free traders and myself, Coeur thought.

  "Good point," Coeur said, "I assume the big dog upstairs is on your trail,"

  "That's affirmative. Seems the Solee picked up the same hot tip about Mexit that we did."

  "What hot tip was that?"

  "I'll bet you can guess."

  "Yeah, I'll bet I could too, but why don't you spell it out."

  "Fair enough. We heard the corsair Zero was after some kind of treasure here, so we figured we'd get the jump on him."

  This prompted Coeur to make an expression part way between a smile and a grimace. Though Tom was a pirate, and had killed 20 score Hivers on Ra with a Hiver.specific virus, she had also collaborated with Coeur on the plan to destroy the Mercantile Guild's Sauler headquarters, and Coeur knew it wasn't like Tom to threaten human agentsof the Coalition when she had a choice.

  Well, i don't core what any warrant soys, Coeur thought, Tom’s as much o patriot as she is o Hiver-hoter, and I don't think she'd go after Zero unless she figured he was a real slimeball. I'll hove to remember to ask her obout that after we take her into custody.

  "Understood," Coeur said, "But we can talk about that later. Do you require assistance?"

  "Not immediately, no. Our jump drive Is wrecked, though, and our thrusters won't stand up to evasive maneuvers."

  "Yeah, I believe n. How's your hull Integrity?"

  "Shored up. The forward sections are secure,"

  "All right, then. Alert your crew to Stand by; I'm going to put down and send a party aboard."

  "Glad to hear it. Armis out."

  The instant Coeur shut off the communicator, Deep Six pointed out the obvious.

  "This could be a delicate matter. Captain. Tom Is a wanted Criminal in the Coalition, and it may be difficult to justify helping her."

  "One problem at a time, Sixer. We're going down."

  The little rock Homei set down on was scarce^ large enough to muster surface gravity of 0.01 C, but it was substantia! enough to be mentioned in the computer's Imperial survey data as Opaco IV lb. This indicated that tittle lb had existed in a stable orbit for at least 100 years, and gave Coeur some reassurance as she floated Hornet down 10 a landing beside Vf it Armis In an Impact crater just large enough to shelter the sleek, 60 meter hull of the latter vessel. Lest both ships would later have to takeoffinahurry, Hornet came down with her bow pointed toward W it ArmiV stern—an arrangement that would dimmish the chance of a collision at launch.

  A collision Coeur would have more trouble avoiding was one between Physic and Tom.

  "Say doc," Coeur said to Physic, whom shelound alone In the sick bay, "I've been thinking about whether or not you should come along on this boarding party."

  "Well, it is your prerogative, sir," Physic said, gruffly throwing drugs into her med kit. "But you said Armi$ didn't have any casualties."

  "That's right. So maybe it would be better if you stay here."

  "That might be prudent, sir," Physic said, avoiding a direct glance at Coeur, "given the way I'm feeling right now."

  "Kinda like to rearrange her features, would you?"

  "Damn right I would, and without any anesthetic "

  "Because of 5cissor?"

  "Hell, yes, because of Scissor!" Physic said, turning toward Coeur. "Coeur, what she did to that Hiver—what she did to all those Hivers—it's beyond contemptible."

  "tknow, Physic," Coeur saidcalmly. "If you'll remember, I was there."

  Aware, perhaps, of the Tine line she was treading with insubordination, Physic took sever aldeep breaths to calm herself down before responding.

  "With respect, Coeur, you may have been there at Ra, but you weren't with us when Scissor died. You were with Tom."

  "Yes," Coeur said, moving over to Physic's diagnostic table and sitting on it, "I was."

  From Coeur's pained expression. Physic realised that this was a sore point, and she immediately regretted It.

  "Sorry, Red, I didn't mean It to sound like that. I know If it weren't for you and Drop Kickgoingoff with Tom, none of us ever would have gotten off Sauler, and the vaccine never would have gotten back to the Coalition."

  "Maybe so," Coeur said, thoughtfully, "but It bothers me to think about It—Scissor dying here on the Hornet, and my not being here with him. The way you tell It, he was a real hero."

  "Yes," Physic said, remembering the grisly spectacle, "he was. He suppressed the viral symptoms so the Sauler authorities wouldn't be suspicious, but he could only do that for so long, just after we lifted off, his tissue practically disintegrated In my hands."

  "Yes, you said that, too."

  "My point," Physic said, "Isthat Tom killed him, and she ought to pay for it—even if she is your friend."

  "Well," Coeur said, getting up off the table, "I don't know If I'd call her my friend, so much as I'd call her an ally of necessity. We needed her at Sauler. And Cod knows we might need her help here, too, if we're going to sort out what's happening on Mexit. But one way or another, there will be justice for what she did to the Hivers."

  "Yes, sir."

  "In the meantime, though, I'll expect you to keep your personal feelings in check when—and If—Tom and her crew need your services."

  "Yes, sir."

  "Now," Coeur said, glancing at her watch, "I'd better go get the boarding party togeiher."

  "Say, Red," Physic said, halting Coeur on the way to the sick bay hatch, "that wasn't being Insubordinate, was it, what I said about you and Tom?"

  "Hard to say," Coeur smiled. "Insubordination is In the eye of the beholder, and I guess I didn't behind any. But don't get cocky,"

  Fifteen minutes later, Coeur assembled the minimal boarding party she felt adequate for the task of inspecting Vi it Arml
  "Captain D' Esprit, we really must insist that you tell us what's going on."

  "I wish I knew, Mr. Masaryk. I can assure you of this much, though: Vou'i) be safest here on the ship."

  An-Wing, standing beside her colleague before Homer's port airlock, crossed her arms in disgust, though the gesture was ungainly In her awkwardly bulky vac suit.

  'This is just typical," An-Wing huffed; "you Aubani probably already have a secret base here and didn't bother to tell us about it."

  "Actually, I'm not Aubani," Coeur said. "I'm Terran."

 
; "Heally, Belc^" An-Wing went on, Ignoring Coeur's comment, "isn't that just like the Aubani? First they bribe the Hivers Into putting the Academy on the> world, men they set production standards to TL1 0 so Oriflammen can't compete for contracts. Admit It, Captain; this is just pan of a deliberate plan for Aubaine to dominate known space."

  Through heroic self-control, Coeur refrained from drawing her gauss pistol and ordering the junior technarchs to stand aside. Instead, she nodded to Drop Kick and Bonzo, who effortlessly lifted the Oriflammen and set them out of the way.

  "Stay," Drop Kick said.

  Drop Kick's injunction was clearly unnecessary, though, for the graphic demonstration of the casual strength Inherent In battle dress persuaded the Oriflammen to remain riveted In place as the troopers marched into the airlock before Coeur and the doctor. Lest they come unrlveted and do something foolish, Caffer—following behind the cavalry troopers—tromped up to the airlock In his even more intimidating heavy battle dress.

  "Don't worry. Captain. I'll keep an eye on them."

  "No hard feelings, An-Wing," Coeur said, holding her hand over the inner airlock controls, "but these are potentially dangerous pirates we're oealing with."

  "just the kind of people I'd expect to associate with Aubaine," An-Wing mumbled.

  "Oh, put a sock In it," Masaryk said.

  Coeur pretended not tonotice and shut the Inner airlock door. For safety's sake, the two Arses and two Marines then paired up to check each others* suit seals.

  "Say, skipper, "Crowbar said, "I understand why I'm going on this party—that ship looks trashed—but shouldn't Physic go along, too?"

  "Negative," Coeur told the engineer, parting his suit to indicate it was secure. "Tom reported her casualties are minor."

  "Besides," Drop Kick added, "if we brought Physic aboard, they might not stay that way. That Hiver massacre is still pretty fresh for her."

  "But I thought we'd settled that," Bonzo said. "Tom was just a stooge of the Guild,"

  Coeur shrugged. "It's probably a little easier for us to be dispassionate about Ra; we weren't up to our armpits In dead Hivers, like Physic in the infirmary. Everybody secure?"

  The Marines and Crowbar lifted their arms In a "thumbs up."

  "All right. I'm cycling the airlock."

  Moments later, the airlock chamber evacuated, and the outer hatch opened to hard vacuum. A ladder had meanwhile extended from the hull tor their convenience, but residual kinetic energy made their first steps from the ship's 1G to Ib's 0,01 G sail well past the rungs of the ladder and plant them several meters from the freighter. Competent though all of them were In low-G maneuvers, the effect of their Initial stumbling landings was hilarious to Snapshot, watching their backsfrom her missile turret adjacent to the airlock.

  Were this a conventional boarding of a hostile enemy, Coeur would certainly have landed with Gyro's 150-Mj heavy laser facing the target, but she and Tom had parted on relatively good terms, and she elected not to make such an aggressive gesture. Instead, she settled for the lesser cover provided by the J2-M) plasma gun under Snapshot's control.

  Not like it matters, Coeur thought, At this range, the plasma gun will punch her armor just as well as the laser would.

  Up close, the members of the ground party saw what they could only assume from a distance: The pirate's TL15 chameleon hull was programmed to mimic the shading of the surrounding rock. The efficacy of that tactic against a direct sensor scan was dubious, but it did beat dragging a camouflage tarp across the entire hull.

  "Which hatch?" Drop Kick asked Coeur with Anslan hand gestures. Like most Arses and Marines, he cultivated the healthy habit of radio silence whenever possible.

  "Forward, behind the bridge."

  "Should I just knock?"

  "Yes," Coeur signed back, "we'll cover you."

  Drop Kick shrugged, an imperceptible gesture in battle dress, and bounded over to the hull of the warship, kicking up oust clouds with every long hopping stride. His three comrades, meanwhile, tried not to look too much like they were ready to start blasting away with their laser and gauss rifles as Drop Kick reached up to the hull and knocked three times.

  The airlock opened a moment later, and a man in a relK black tailored vac suit stuck his head out to wave the Coalition spacers aboard while a ladder lowered from the ship for their convenience, "Let's go," Coeur signaled, stepping onto the ladder.

  Coeur and Drop Kick had, of course, been spirited away from Saulerlnthe Viet Armis, so both were thoroughly familiar with her interior arrangement. Even before they entered her port airlock, Coeur was associating the damage she'd seen with Interior locations she remembered, and recalling the Vega Tom who mastered the ship.

  Vega Tom was born on Aurora and was already a 30-year-old lieutenant commander when that world's space fleet became the hub of the Dawn League's unofficial navy in 1197. Even more so than Aubaine, Aurora was aggressively Federalist, and Tom was a perfect mirror of its character. In her personnel file, Coeur read that the charismatic, black-haired woman had an easy rapport with competent enlisted spacers, just as she had a career-threatening disdain for career desk jockeys whom she felt were unqualified to serve as her superiors.

  All the same, Tom was on a fast promotion track in 1200— pilot of, and probably next in. line to command, the exploration cruiser Taylarihe Bruce. Avamplreship destroyed Taylor the Bruce, however, leaving only Tom and the ship's Hiver adviser alive. Already distrustful of the manipulative Hiver race, Tom came to believe that Die Hiver adviser actually engineered the encounter as part of a scheme to Infect the Coalition's computers with Virus—and in turn help extinguish the violent and dangerous human race that Hiveri were only pretending to help. In disgust, she resigned her commission and turned to a life of piracy to support herself.

  When Coeur met Tom a year and a hall later, she was already a well-known pirate, having picked up both Vi it Armis and a cutlass scar across her right eye, complementing the fearful effect of her black TL14 vac suit and crew-cut hair. What few people realized—outside Coeur and Drop Kick—was how much the pirate act was just that—an act. Her preferred targets were Guild ships and Teddie naval vessels, and Coeur earnestly believed she would no sooner fire on a Coalition starship than she'd lop off her own arm.

  "Hey, (led Sun, Drop Kick," the man in the black suit said, taking off his helmet after the airlock had cycled and he had led the spacers into the corsair's interior. A rough-wrinkled man, he nevertheless wore a personable smile, and was instantly recognizable to Coeur and Drop Kick.

  "Well, if It isn't Vink," Coeur said.

  "Tom's engineer," Drop Kick explained to Crowbar and Bonzo.

  "So," Coeur went on, "Is Tom around?"

  "Right here," Tom said a moment later, a tall woman In a tailored azure vac suit stepping through a bulkhead hatch forward. "Clad you could get here so quickly."

  Both Coeur and Drop Kick paused a moment, however, before shaking the hand the pirate offered, not quite certain If It really was Tom. While Vink was certainly familiar, Tom looked quite different than they remembered. For one thing, her face was fuller, with only a hint of Its old scar, and her hair was grown out nearly to shoulder length—now blonde, and far less severe than the butch crew cut they remembered. Indeed, with her tailored blackvac suit exchanged forone tinted blue, Itappeared that only ner pale blue eyes were completely unchanged.

  "Vega, "Coeur said finally, accepting the offered hand, "you've changed."

  "Really? I thought I was the same sweet giri I always was."

  "Uh-huh. No, your appearance. I assume you changed It to throw off the odd contract killer"

  "You assume correctly."

  "Plastic surgery?"

  "Actually, no," Tom said. "Til 5 microbots. You drink 'em In solution, they resculpt your features, then you piss'em out when they're done."

  "Sounds pretty nifty—what, you pick those up at the local drugstore?"

  "Actually, no. I grabbed a case of them from Sauler before we blew
the place,"

  "Oh,"

  Vink, meanwhile, took Crowbar and Bonzo aside.

  "You must be Crowbar," Vink said. "Red Sun talked about you."

  "What did she say?" Crowbar asked.

  "Not much. Just that you had a beard."

  Crowbar looked at Coeur curiously.

  "That's a strange thing to teii someone, skipper."

  "Well," Coeur said, " they're rare in the Arses—you know, 10 keep a good seal around your face whenyou pull the hood of your body sleeve up."

  Now that he could look more closely, Crowbar saw that Vink also had a fair amount of facial hair, though It was light and hard to distinguish against his wrinkles.

  "On the other hand," Coeur went on, "a lot of Tom’s crew have beards, because they have advanced space suits and don't need to wear body sleeves under them." "U sort of advertises their affluence," Drop Kick added.

  "Oh, I don't know about that," Tom said, stroking her chin, "I haven't been able to grow one."

  "Are you an engineer too?" Vink asked Bonzo.

  "After a fashion," the Marine said, "t do most of the maintenance on our vehicle sensors and computers,"

  "Well, then, these two are the ones I want to see," Vink said, turning from Crowbar and Bomo to Tom, Coeur and Drop Kick. "Mind if t take them aft?"

  "Is that acceptable?" Tom asked Coeur.

  "That's why I brought them. In the meantime, you can tell Drop Kick and me what you're doing in this system."

  Tom nodded.

  "All right. Come forward with me.

  The Hornet party then separated, with Vink leading Crowbar and Boruo aft toward the badly damaged engine compartment. Tom, meanwhile, took Coeur and Drop Kick a few meters forward to the bridge. In a ship that was rnosUy drives and fuel, this was the only open area forward of the drive compartment, but it was fairly large, with seven workstations. The only thing that kept the area From looking large was the arrangement of the workstations—five were lined up in a row behind the pilot's and copilofs workstations, the only way they could fit in the narrow neckof the Ship.