Nine

Brickstown

Gerald Lee was a hard, ruthless man.  He ran Brickstown – named for the rough-textured, easily quarried red rock of which most of the town’s buildings were constructed – like a personal fiefdom, which for all intents and purposes, it was.

Standing well over two meters tall, with broad shoulders, a lantern jaw, and a close-cropped goatee that matched his stubbled red hair, Lee was an imposing figure.  His habit of recruiting other large, broad shouldered men, generally ones experienced in bearing arms, had resulted in Brickstown having a fairly effective private army of about one hundred and twenty effectives.  Another habit, trading in illicit military hardware, had left his army remarkably well-equipped.

Lee reclined now in an old, cracked leather chair behind his office desk, a massive affair chiseled out of the same red stone that made up the town. The desk was massive, imposing – and bulletproof.

Lee looked up at the ceiling of his office, then back at Charles Dotsero where he fidgeted in a smaller chair on the other side of the desk.

“So,” Lee said at last, “Charlie, you screwed this up pretty good.”

“I wouldn’t go so far as that,” Dotsero protested.

Lee cut him off with a level stare. “You were tracked, Charlie. Your ship was boarded, and now it’s a wreck, hanging out there in the belt with no food, no water and no drive. You’ll be damned lucky if you get your people off.”

“I’ll get them off.”

“But that’s not your real problem, Charlie,” Lee grated. “The ship ain’t going anywhere. You can always get new people. You can get a new crew. Your problem is that goddamn privateer that’s hanging out there a few hundred thousand klicks away from my colony. They’re here after one of the girls you brought in this run, aren’t they?”

“They haven’t sent any messages yet?” Dotsero evaded.

“Not yet,” Lee said, “but you know they will.”

“So,” Dotsero grinned, “what if they do? What are they going to do, come down here with a half-dozen people? That might work for boarding an unarmed freighter, but it won’t work here, will it?”

“No, but that’s an armed ship, Charlie.  A warship. There’s nothing stopping them from sitting up there in orbit and tossing pee-beam fire down on us until we give their people back. Also, there’s nothing to stop them going straight to the Feds once that’s done. You and I both have an interest in keeping the Feds out of the Belt.”

“Yeah,” Dotsero agreed.

“So, what are you going to do about this?”

“Me?”

“You,” Lee said companionably. “You led them here, Charlie. You get rid of them.”

“What about the girls I brought in?”

“Get rid of that ship,” Lee said, “Then we’ll talk.”

Charles Dotsero sat silently for a few moments, thinking very rapidly. Finally he looked up at Lee.

“I’ve got an idea,” he said. “But I need one thing.”

“What’s that?”

“I need to borrow your cadre of troops for a day, maybe two.”

“What for?”

Dotsero explained briefly.  “So, they won’t even be going off this moon,” he concluded. “Just out in the hills north of town a ways. If I’m going to do anything about that ship up there,” he pointed at the ceiling, “I’ve got to get some of their crew down here. I think I can make them nervous enough to send several people down. They’ll have to come down in a shuttle. Once we’ve got them and the shuttle…”

Lee slapped a hand down on the top of his desk. “Done!  Just make sure that nobody from that ship gets out of the Belt – got me?”

“I got you, Gerry, I got you.”

***

The Shade Tree

Jean Barrett was watching the feed from long-range scans of the Brickstown moon when the call came up to the Bridge.

“Captain, could you come down the cargo bay?” Barrett was mildly surprised to hear Gus Feller’s voice on the panel, but only mildly; the retired Colonel had already shown great capacity for getting involved in almost anything.

“What is it?”

“I’d rather show you. We pulled something off that freighter that might be… well, let’s call it useful.”

“All right. Give me five minutes.”

Four and a half minutes later, Barrett walked into the Shade Tree’s cramped cargo hold to see Hector Gomp and Gus Feller standing over a polysteel crate.

“What is it?”

Gomp looked up and grinned. “Come have a look, Cap’n. Ain’t seen one of these since the war.”

Barrett looked down into the open top of the crate.  Inside, held by a clear poly cradle, lay a bullet-shaped object crafted of polished titanium.

“Is that…”

“A Mark Nine fusion warhead,” Feller said.  “The kind they used on the old Mark 2 Lancer. In good shape, too. Two settings, five hundred and six-fifty kilotons. Old technology, but it still works.”

“Designed to take out Grugell Occupation ships,” Gomp agreed. “In open space, they make a hell of a bang. On a planetary surface, near a small town, say one the size of Brickstown – well, this baby will flatten buildings two-three klicks around, and a ground burst will make a mess of most of the surrounding area – ground zero will be uninhabitable for a century or two.”

“I suppose you two have an idea of how to use this to get our people back.”

“Funny you should mention that,” Feller chuckled, “but, in fact, we do.”

“Tell me.”

***

Brickstown

Charles Dotsero couldn’t help grinning as he read the formally receipted message on the signals station screen for the third time:

TO: BRICKSTOWN AUTHORITIES

YOU ARE HOLDING TWO MEMBERS OF SS SHADE TREE CREW.

YOU HAVE FOUR HOURS TO ARRANGE RETURN OF SHADE TREE CREW MEMBERS.  YOU WILL ALSO TURN OVER ANY OTHER PERSONS YOU ARE HOLDING AGAINST THEIR WILL.

REFUSAL WILL RESULT IN SEVERE CONSEQUENCES SAY AGAIN SEVERE CONSEQUENCES.

YOUR FOUR HOURS BEGINS NOW.

BARRETT, CAPTAIN, SS SHADE TREE

“I admit, I’m a bit surprised they didn’t run for the Feds. Have they sent any other messages?” Dotsero asked the frightened-looking signals tech.

“Not that we’ve been able to detect. If they had sent a hyperphone signal, we should have picked up some sidebands or some scatter from all the junk out here.”

“Good. Give me a message pad.”

Dotsero took the pad and tapped a message out with the tiny keyboard:

TO: BARRETT, CAPTAIN, SS SHADE TREE

YOUR TERMS ACCEPTABLE. SIX PERSONNEL TO BE TURNED OVER TO REPRESENTATIVES OF YOUR CREW AT LOCATION SIX KILOMETERS NORTH OF BRICKSTOWN. EXCHANGE TO BE MADE AT 0900 TOMORROW MORNING LOCAL TIME. COORDINATES OF TRANSFER LOCATION TO FOLLOW IN SEPARATE MESSAGE.

C.D., BRICKSTOWN

“Send that,” he said as he handed the pad over.

Moments later, another formal message flashed on the screen:

TO: C.D., BRICKSTOWN

AGREED.  SS SHADE TREE IS MOVING TO GEOSYNCHRONOUS ORBIT OVER BRICKSTOWN. SHIP WILL REMAIN IN MONITORING ORBIT OVER THE CITY UNTIL TRANSFER OF PERSONNEL IS COMPLETE.

BARRETT, CAPTAIN, SS SHADE TREE

“Perfect,” Dotsero said. “Just perfect.”

***

To see more of Animal’s writing, visit his page at Crimson Dragon Publishing or Amazon.

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