Poor Man's Fight (39 page)

“The fuck does ‘Ayrshire’ mean, anyway?” grumbled Heifer.

“It’s a kind of oxen,” Tanner answered quietly.

Several pairs of eyes turned on Tanner. “Yeah, you would know that shit,”
Stumpy frowned.

“Anyway,” Gagne continued, “like I said. Three people down. With the captain gone, I can’t leave the ship. That means Freeman
leads the boarding team. We’re also down Miller and Morales. Regulations say Flores can’t go over if he’s our only qualified medic unless there’s a medical emergency. Chief, you think you can spare anyone?”

O’Malley winced. “Yeah, I knew you were gonna ask that, sir. I really don’t know. We jumped from a cold start to take-off and then pursuit speed. The engine’s already
cranky. I can spare a couple guys, but it’d be best if it was Wells and Leone. We need the rest on board here in case we have a problem. And technically Wells is supposed to be on light duty for another couple days to begin with.”

“I’m sure I’m fine, sir,” Wells piped up. “It was just a sprained ankle.”

“Yeah, but it’s a point,” the XO shrugged.

“We’ve got me,
Heifer and Stumpy from the deck crew, sir,” Freeman said. “We get Leone from engineering, that’s four of us. Should be fine.”

“
Except that only leaves us Malone on the deck crew, and he’s never even fired one of the turrets if we need someone there.” Gagne didn’t hammer on the ship’s weak training schedule more than that; the point was now self-evident. “Obviously I can do it, but I’m supposed to be
calling
the shots from the bridge. Either Stumpy or Heifer has to stay here. I don’t like the idea of you going over there with only two guys.”

The galley fell silent
. Tanner raised a hand. “Sir? I’ve gone over on boarding teams before.”

“
Those were different conditions,” Gagne shook his head. “We should’ve gotten you boarding team qualified by now, and we’re gonna make that a priority soon as we get back. At the moment, though, I’m not comfortable sending you over there. I’m taking this one seriously. Something might go down.” The XO’s gaze swept the table to ensure his warning sank in for everyone.

“Um. I don’t mean to argue, sir,” Tanner ventured further, “but I graduated third in my class in weapons and tactics school. That was a lot more rigorous than anything on the ship’s qualifications sheet.”

The XO blinked. He’d been about to say that reading books just wasn’t good enough. “Weapons and tactics? I thought that was a marine thing.”

“Yes, sir,” Tanner nodded. “Me and a couple other navy recruits from my training cadre had the time before we had to show up at our first billets. Fort Stalwart’s pretty serious about cross-training now.”

“Bullshit,” Stumpy muttered.

“You wanna see my training records?” Tanner offered without anger.

The XO already had them open. Stumpy looked over his shoulder at them and suddenly his eyes bulged. “Why didn’t you tell us you could shoot like that before now?” he asked.

“Nobody asked. It didn’t seem relevant.”

“Shit, I’d tell every chick I ever met,” grunted the shorter non-rate.

Tanner just frowned. “You meet a lot of women who are impressed by that?”

Gagne exchanged a thoughtful glance with Freeman. “Tanner,” Freeman wondered, “how long’s it been since you’ve been at a shooting range?”

“I usually go every couple days when we’re in port.”

“That’s what you do instead of going out drinking with everybody?” the XO grinned.

“I ran out of nature documentaries, sir,” Tanner deadpanned.

“You’ve read the boarding team manual, too, I imagine?”

Tanner nodded. “Couple times. And the training guide.
I know the use of force regulations. Put the written test in front of me right now, sir, I’ll pass it.”

“I don’t know, XO,” Freeman frowned. “
It
is
against regs. I mean I’ve got twenty-one years in and I’ve never pulled a firearm on a boarding, let alone fired it,” he noted, glancing meaningfully at Tanner, “but if you’re taking this seriously, regs are regs.”

“Sir, I’m not in a hurry to do anything dangerous,” Tanner offered respectfully, “and I’m sure as hell not looking forward to spending all day in a bathroom flushing out anti-rads. But we did boarding training in school. Hell, we did it in basic. Judgment shoot tests, too. Probably more than I’m gonna do to get signed off in the ship’s books. We’re short-handed and I’m probably gonna be less useless over there than I am over here.”

“Okay,” Gagne conceded, “but you follow the lead of your other team members, understood? This is a big exception to the regs, and I’ll stand by it, but past that we do this one by the book. That means I want to see everyone carrying around helmets until we’re back in port. All of us.”

As the impromptu huddle broke up, Chief O’Malley chuckled. “Guess we ought’a stop teasing Tanner before he snaps and starts shooting people at random on the flight line.”

“Don’t worry, chief. I won’t do it at random.”

***

“God
damn
it,” Ming growled as the blip came closer in on the bridge sensor bubble.

“Yup. They’re hailing us. Archangel Navy, heave to, prepare for inspection, all that shit.”

“Hold course for the moment. Kiyoshi?”

“Navy corvette,” the ops boss said. He paused, reading the ship’s data files. “She’s up at her top speed right now according to the books, but there’s no telling if she can put out
more. We’re not gonna out-accelerate her regardless. Even if we could, she’s probably getting a good ID read on us now.”

Ming fumed as he reviewed the info from the sensor bubble projection. If they could outrun the corvette in sublight, they still couldn’t outrun communications without
jumping to FTL. Even that wouldn’t buy the many hours they needed to dock, locate their buyer and offload, to say nothing of the illegality and genuine danger of jumping around in FTL within a star system. They’d have a lot of answering to do if they popped out of FTL right outside of Apostles’ Station.

Swearing to himself, Ming hit his personal holocom to bring up
Yaomo’s
quartermaster. “Hari,” he said, “we got us a major fuckin’ problem and we’re gonna have to put it to a vote right goddamn fast.”

The muscular, golden-skinned quartermaster appeared on a holo screen. From his surroundings, Ming guessed that Hari was in the middle of a card game. He quickly relayed the situation.

Hari sat up and started inputting instructions to his own holocom while Ming spoke. “Putting out the all-hands notice now.”

“Hey, Kiyoshi,” Ming said, “what kind of crew does a corvette like that have?”

“Stats on file say it’d be around fifteen or sixteen.”

Ming
moved to Kiyoshi’s station. He read over the other pirate’s shoulder, reviewing the corvette’s statistics. The public information might be inaccurate, but those inaccuracies could go either way.

“Ming,” Hari said over the holocom, “we’re ready.”

The captain took a breath to calm himself before he spoke to the crew via the PA. “People, we’re being pursued by a local navy corvette. She’s got a good identification read on us and she’s ordered us to heave to for inspection. We can try an emergency FTL jump, but we just entered the outer gravity well of a gas giant and it’d be pretty risky. I’d only give us a fifty-fifty shot in a straight ship-to-ship fight.

“We don’t have time to do a full debate on this shit, so with Hari’s permission I’m gonna give us three straight options. One, we haul ass and risk the FTL jump just before
their guns are in range. Two, we try to sucker them in close and then open up on her with everything we’ve got and hope they aren’t ready for it. Third, we let them board, kill the fuckers on the boarding team, blast the ship at close range and then haul ass out of here.

“I’d give option three our best odds. That ship’s only got a crew of around fifteen assholes, and they’re gonna have to send at least a third of them over to board.

“Vote fast, guys.”

***

“Ugh. God, I already feel gross from those anti-rads,” Tanner mumbled as he got the hand-held sniffer activated. He and the rest of the boarding team stood in the cargo bay, gathering up the last of their equipment while Stumpy opened the airlock hatch.

“We really need you to hold it together on this one, Tanner,” Freeman warned.

“I’ll be fine, BM1,” he said, hoping he was right. He glanced up at Leone. “Um. Did you check that weapon?”

Leone shrugged. “I’m sure it’s fine.” Without thinking about it, Leone pulled the laser pistol from its holster, pressed the self-test button, and then frowned. “Huh. Freeman. This gun is bad. Or the power cell or something.”

“What?” Freeman blinked. He stepped over to Leone, looked at the pistol’s indicator lights and then frowned darkly. “Goddammit. Everybody check your weapons. If you already did it, check ‘em again.

Tanner didn’t know whether to bathe in sweet vindication
or worry about what else might be wrong with the ship’s armory. He had already checked his own pistol, but went through the process again per Gagne’s instructions.

“Okay, we ready?” Freeman asked. “Let’s go. Head over.”

As he swung himself over the airlock, Stumpy cast a wary look at Tanner. “Don’t shoot me,” he grumbled.

Tanner soon followed, bracing himself for the disorientation of moving through the vestibule and then coming out in an environment
with an opposite up and down. On the other side of the airlock, he found Stumpy standing in front of a couple of members of the freighter’s crew, both of them rough-looking men in civilian clothes. Like his shipmate, Tanner pushed up the faceplate of his helmet.

A quick look at the sniffer showed acceptable readings. No power signatures to weapons other than the boarding team’s own. No traces of gunpowder. No immediate hazardous materials. Radiation readings were what they expected: significant, but within safe parameters for short-term exposure. Tanner wondered how often the crew of the freighter took anti-rads, and how unpleasant prolonged use must be.

Freeman came over next, followed by Leone. The bald Indian crewman waiting in the airlock vestibule stepped forward. “Second mate Venkatesh,” he said.

“Bos’un’s Mate Freeman,” said the other man, pushing his faceplate up before they shook hands. “Sorry to hold you up like this.”

“Is there a problem?” Venkatesh asked curiously. “We were cleared once already.”

Freeman offered a chagrinned shake of his head. “
The problem isn’t necessarily on your end. System regulations require a physical inspection. You guys didn’t do anything wrong, but whoever cleared you did.”

“Okay, then,” nodded Venkatesh. “What do you need from us first?”

“Got a manifest and ship’s roster we can look through?”

“Right here,” said the agreeable second mate.

***

“There are only four of them,” Kiyoshi muttered. The feed from the tiny concealed holocom camera carried by “Venkatesh” offered a clear picture of the boarding team and the two pirates
who met them.

“Keep your eye on your station,” Ming reminded him. “I’ve got this.
Be ready for action as soon as I give the word.” He hit a different channel on his holocom. “Hey, Tully. It’s pretty much what we thought, but there are only four guys. Hari’s bringing them to the port bay now. You got enough people? Everyone’s at stations, but there are always plenty to spare on this boat.”

“I have four of us here, plus Hari and Sam,” Tully replied. “Should be fine. Ain’t like we can squeeze any more guys into the passageway, anyway. Sure we can’t just get ‘em into the cargo bay and
shoot ‘em?”

“We won’t get Hari and Sam clear without tipping them off
, and besides, they’ve got a guy with a sniffer on him. Make sure nobody’s carrying a gun like I told you, Tully. You’ve gotta do this up close.”

“Yeah, I’ve checked. We’re good. Buzz Hari to let him know we’re in place.”

“Right.” He would also have to tell the ambushers waiting at the other cargo bays to stand down. No one could have known which bay the boarders would opt to check first, but now that was settled. Before he did that, though, Ming looked over to Kiyoshi. “Everybody set?”

“Damage control and gun crews ready,” Kiyoshi nodded. “Courses laid
in. Engineering says give the word.”

Ming checked to ensure one last thing was in place. Alfie and Ngoc
waited at the airlock, ready to send their bomb through. Satisfied, the captain and keyed in a code to give Hari a silent thumbs-up.

***

The readings on the sniffer bothered Tanner. Everything only came up in trace amounts, but they’d continued throughout their walk through the ship. “BM1?” he beckoned.

Freeman glanced over to Tanner as they walked, then held back a pace or two to look over the screen on the sniffer. “Have you guys
carried weapons recently?” Freeman asked.