Five

Mountain View, Tarbos, 2248 C.E.

The hack pulled to a stop.  Jean Barrett looked out of the polymer window.  It wasn’t a pretty neighborhood, and not even the late-night darkness could hide the run-down buildings, the litter on the street, the graffiti defacing the walls.  The public walkway was dirty, and the lighting was dim.

Jean was not overly worried.  She had been in worse places, and she had a .45 caliber friend tucked into a holster at the small of her back.

The hack driver turned and looked back at her.  “Are you sure you want to go in there?”

Jean looked at the front of the bar, then back at the hack driver.  “This is the place, right?  The Anchor Lounge?”

“Yeah,” the hack agreed.  “That’s the Anchor.  It’s a rough place, Miss.  Decent folk don’t come down here to the ass end of Mountain View.  Sure you wouldn’t like to go to a place a mite more civilized?”

“The man I want to see works here,” Barrett said.

“All right,” the hack said, shaking his head.  “Your funeral.”

Barrett swiped her Inter-Visa through the cab’s payment port and got out.  “Wait here?  I should only be a few minutes.”

“All right,” the hack driver agreed, not without some reluctance.  “I’m locking down until you come back.”

Jean waved and turned towards the door.  Loud music thumped from the drinking establishment.  All right, old girl, she thought.  This is what you wanted.

She walked to the door and went inside. 

Smoke filled the single large room.  A bar stood on one end of the crowded space, manned by two large men in dirty gray shirts.  Four pool tables stood in the front, and a large dance floor occupied the back in front of a stage where a band scratched away at something archaic and loud.  Shouts and harsh laughter sounded over the music.  Barrett reached back instinctively to check her pistol in its usual spot at the small of her back, concealed by her three-quarter length leather coat.

“So,” she said quietly to herself, “Where are you?”  The news story was still on her personal datapad; she pulled it from her coat pocket, looked at the picture under the headline, “Mountain View’s Toughest Bouncer.”  A tough but homely face leered out from the pad’s tiny screen.  It was a hard face, grinning evilly, a crooked-nosed, scarred face beneath a stubble of reddish hair.

She walked to the bar, waved at one of the bartenders.  The man walked to the end of the bar where Jean stood, looked her up and down with an appraising air.  “What’ll it be, Miss?”

“Mineral water,” Jean told him.  “And can you tell me where I can find Hector Gomp?”

The bartender opened a bottle and passed it across.  “Two bucks,” he said.  As Jean passed two silver coins over, he waved a hand at the dance floor.  “As for Gomp, wait around.  They’ll be a fight soon enough.  That’s where you’ll find him.”

“I’m sure you’re right,” Jean agreed.  She took a sip of the ‘mineral water,’ grimaced, and set the glass back down on the bar before scanning the barroom for her target.

It took less than ten minutes.

The fight started over a pool game, and rapidly expanded onto the dance floor, a hell of fists, feet, and swung pool cues.  Jean leaned back against the bar and waited.

A man ejected suddenly from the fray.  Jean leaned to the side as the flying body slammed against the bar and slumped to the floor.  Two more flew backwards against a pool table and crashed to the floor.  Jean watched the brawl end as a large, red-haired man in khaki pants and a black leather jacket threw a fourth combatant out the front door.  Jean looked at the man, and then looked at the face on her datapad.  She grinned.

The big man walked to the bar, dusting off his hands.  “Lem,” he called to the bartender, “I’m dry.  Got an iced tea?”

“You Hector Gomp?” Jean asked.

“Yeah, that’d be me,” Gomp answered.  He looked at the woman who had just called him by name.  She was not big, but she was a trifle forbidding; the long leather jacket obviously concealed a sidearm.  Gomp sized her up quickly, professionally:  She may not be very big, but she is not someone to mess with.  “And you are?”

“Captain Jean Barrett,” she answered, holding out her hand. 

Gomp took the hand, shook it.  “Captain, eh?  Not Navy, I take it?”

“No,” Jean answered.  “Private ship.  I’m Captain of the starship Shade Tree.”

“Good,” Gomp said.  He took a long swig of iced tea.  “I just got out of the Corps six months back.  Three years, I got passed over for Staff Sergeant twice, and that was it for me.  Authority really wasn’t my thing, you know?”  He grinned.

“That’s too bad,” Jean said.  “Because I’m getting a crew together, and I need a Security detail.”

“Security?”

“That’s right.  You read the news?”

“Some.”

“Bound to be a war, Gomp.  Probably sooner rather than later.  Promptness works for the Grugell, not us.  Smart money says that they’ll hit us, and soon.”  She looked up at the big man.  “How many ships does the Navy have now?  A dozen?”

“Less,” Gomp agreed.  “What are you thinking?”

“The Shade Tree is armed and armored,” Jean told him.  “Shrike missiles, same as Navy fighters use.  Particle beams fore and aft.  Tri-band shield emitters.  She’s fast, she’s tough, and she’s well-armed.”

“Raider,” Gomp said.  “Comes a war, you’re thinking of going privateer?”

“There’s been talk of it,” Jean said.  “I figure on being ready.”

“You’ll need some people to run boarding parties, then.  Well, I’ve done that.  On exercises, at least.”  He scratched the reddish stubble on his head and looked thoughtful for a moment.  “Bouncing drunks gets old fast.  You got terms in mind?”

“Everyone in my crew gets a salary, board while you’re on the ship, minimum of four weeks leave a year assuming we can get you to a suitable planetfall.  Also, you get a share of any prize money.  Finally, comes a war, you’ll have the opportunity to maybe get shot, blown into vacuum, incinerated or frozen to death.”

The bouncer grinned. “What’s the down side, Captain?”

“I’ve got one hell of a temper, Gomp.  When I am pissed off, you will know it.  So will everyone else on the ship.”

The bouncer accepted another iced tea from the bartender.  He stared into the glass for a moment, a thoughtful look on his rough-hewn face.  Then, he smiled, and drained the glass of tea in a gulp.  “Well,” Gomp said, “Reckon I’ll have to watch out for that.  When I’m on the ship and all.”

***

The Sonntag Nebula, 2257 C.E.

Hector Gomp examined his ‘troops’ with a critical eye.  “Well,” he growled, “Are you all ready to repel boarders?  Not like it’s likely – I think the Grugell are more interested in blowing us to bits than taking us as a prize.  But we want to be ready.”

The six-member Security force of the Shade Tree were armed and armored, as the captain had ordered.  All six members wore varying marks of the standard Marine-issue battle armor, and they all carried carbines and sidearms with the exception of Mickey Crowe, who cradled a Parks Clean Sweep riot shotgun. 

Tim McNeal stood at the front of the small group, his helmet visor up, the usual grin on his face.  “Hell, Sarge,” he said, “those skinny bastards won’t get past the docking ring.”

“Unless they have a clampon lander,” Gomp corrected him.  “Then they can hit us anywhere, laser through the hull and jump whoever they find.  They could even hit the Bridge directly.  So I want you all ready to react to that at a moment’s notice.”

“So,” Annette Wilson asked, “what shall we do if they just blow us up?”

“As you go out the nearest hull breach,” Gomp grinned evilly, “point your carbine at their ship and blast away until you freeze.  Any other questions?”

The Security crew looked at each other silently, then back at their boss.  Gomp nodded.  He looked at the notoriously silent Mickey Crowe.  “Mickey, you and Annette take the docking port.”  Crowe nodded in a typically soundless reply.  “Tim, you and Bob secure the shuttle dock.  Yvette, Amanda, I want you in Engineering – that’s the biggest compartment, and the most critical aside from the Bridge.  If they are going to try to use a lander, that’s where I’d expect them to try to laser their way in.”

“I’ll be floating through the ship –call me if anything so much as smells funny.  Everyone have full loads of ammo?”  The six all nodded in unison.  “Flashbangs?  Tanglefoot?  Gas?  Full charge on your armor?”  More nods.  “Good.  Well, don’t just stand there staring at me.  Get moving.  Be ready to repel boarders.  Good luck.”

The Shade Tree’s small Security force swiftly dispersed.  Whatever came, they would be ready.

***

The K-1011

“The Confederate ship is changing course,” the Grugell at the corvette’s Scanning station reported.  “They are taking only minimal evasive action.  We would seem to have damaged their main drive.  Return fire has ceased.”

“We’ve hurt them” Atta the Angry snarled.  “But not enough.  Not nearly enough.”

He sat for a moment, thinking.  “Close to minimum effective range.  Target any shield emitters, any missile bays you can locate.  We will cripple them, then hack them apart piece by piece.”  He smiled an evil smile, revealing his serrated, predatory teeth. “We will repay them for what they did to our home world.”

The Scanning tech spoke up again.  “Their course change has them heading for the large gaseous anomaly we detected earlier.  There are several Confederate hyperphone beacons broadcasting at the anomaly’s periphery – it sounds like a standard navigation warning.”

“There may be something dangerous in the nebula.  An unstable star, a quantum anomaly, perhaps a collapsed star or a brown dwarf, something difficult to detect in the cloud,” Atta’s second in command advised.

“Scanning,” Atta ordered, “Be vigilant.  I want precise readings on that cloud, everything in and around it.  Helm, match the Confederate ship’s course.  Follow them in.”

***

The Shade Tree

“Coming up on the cloud now,” Paolo Guerra announced. 

On the main screen, the vast blue-gray expanse of gas spread out before them. 

Indira Krishnavarna snapped her fingers.  “Captain,” she said.  “Those hyperphone beacons – the Sonntag Nebula has been marked off-limits.  There’s a quark star in there somewhere, SN-006Q, first one we’ve found.  Problem is we’re not sure where it is in this mess.”

“I remember the bulletin from the Navy,” Barrett said.  “It’s a collapsed star, next best thing to a black hole.”

Giorg Constantin spoke up.  “Captain?  I may know how to get out of this.”

“Go ahead.”

“We can use that gravity well.  I think I can plot a course, nudge us with maneuvering thrusters, and slingshot us past that Q-star – if Ophelia can get a decent position fix on it.  If I read it right, we should be able to come out of it with enough delta-V to shoot us right out the far side of the nebula, fire up the drive and pop into subspace before that Grugell ship can reacquire.”

“Unless they can match the maneuver.”

“That’s possible.  It’s also possible that we’ll be torn apart by tidal forces, or crash into the star itself.  It’s a long shot.  But it’s better than letting that Grugell shoot us up.”

“Anyone got a better idea?”  Silence.  “All right, set it up.  Ophelia, get a good 3-D gravimetric before we hit the cloud, get as good a fix as you can on the Q-star, feed Giorg the data.  Paolo, you’re going to have to fly it – are you good with that?”

“I’ll give it a shot, Captain.”

“OK, that’s the plan.  Everybody find a seat and buckle in, I have a feeling this is going to be rough.”

“Captain, based on readings, I recommend we come to course one-oh-one by five,” Giorg Constantin reported from Navigation.

“Paolo, do it.  New course one-oh-one by five.  Take your conning orders directly from Giorg until we are clear of the nebula, we’ll be doing this on the fly.”  The deck  gave a lurch under their feet as the Shade Tree hit the first concentration of nebula gas.  “Shut down the main drive.  Maneuvering thrusters ahead full.”

***

The K-1011

The Confederate’s tactic was obvious.  “So, you want to hide in the cloud, so you?”  Attakickell III allowed himself a cruel smile.  “Helm, ahead emergency.  Follow them.”

Tiktikitti III bent over his terminal station.  “Type IV nebula,” he reported, “Commander, that will take our cloaking device and sensors off line and interfere with main drivers.  We will be down to visual contact and thrusters.  We will not be able to acquire targets for weapons systems.  Nor will we be able to fire main batteries, even if we can acquire a target.” 

“I’m aware of that,” Atta the Angry snapped.  He cursed himself silently for a moment, having forgotten the effect a gas cloud could have on his anti-proton emitters.   “Secure emitters.  Follow them.”

“By your command.”

The Grugell corvette surged ahead with emergency power, diving after the Confederate privateer.  Ahead of them, the nebula loomed.

“Commander,” called the Scanning technician, “I have it – there is a large gravity well in the center of the nebula.  I have confirmed by analysis of gas movements and space matrix strain.”

“How large?”

“Very large, Commander.  Probably a collapsed star.  A neutron star, perhaps, or a quark star.  It will be very dangerous to approach without good location data.”

“Locate it as precisely as possible before we hit the cloud.  The Confederates may try to draw us into it.  Plot a course close by the gravity well without breaching the point of no return, and set our trajectory on that course.  That’s what the Confederates will do.”

Tiktikitti III agreed.  “That would be the only way they can hope to escape.”

“Obviously.  But they will not escape.  When they emerge from the nebula, we will be right behind them.”

“The transit will be dangerous; there is a very good chance our ship will suffer damage, perhaps severe,” Tikitikitti pointed out.  “Of course, the Confederates suffer the same chances.”

“This is the Imperium’s newest, most advanced ship.  We are undamaged; our shields and inertial dampers are at full capacity.  Our odds of making the transit without incident are better than theirs.”

“True,” the second-in-command conceded.  “However,” and he leaned in now to speak softly into his commander’s private ear, “we have learned all too well that the Confederate’s scanning technology is often superior to ours, for whatever reasons.  I realize we may not speak too openly of such things, but when the survival of our ship as at stake, we must be honest in this at least.”

“Granted.  What do you have in mind?”

“They will have a good fix on that gravitic anomaly.  Probably better than ours.  We should match their course, adjusting for the difference in mass between the two ships.  If they survive, so will we.  If they do not, at least we will have accomplished your goal, Subcommander.”

Atta nodded.  “Perhaps you are right.”  He spoke to the Helm and Navigation stations:  “Can you match the Confederate ship’s course and speed, allowing for mass differences to transit this gravity well?”

The two officers conferred briefly.  “It can be done, Subcommander.  The odds of our survival are at least as good as theirs.  Better, since we are undamaged.”

“Done, then.  Plot you course, follow them in.  I want main batteries ready to target as soon as we clear.  Does everyone understand?  Very well, proceed.”

***

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

Links, in case you need them:

Anderson Gentry (Ward Clark)