An Officer’s Duty (56 page)

“I’m afraid we do not have the right medical supplies for healing K’kattan injuries on board our own vessel,” Ia added, glancing at the figure still huddled inside the bunk-nest. “But I can summon a capital ship, which should have the right supplies and trained personnel. Or I can give you clearance to head for the nearest Terran Battle Platform or K’kattan Battle Nest, whichever you prefer,” she offered to the dark brown alien at her side.

“We will accept the capital ship offer,” the captain chitter-translated. “It is likely to be fastest.”

“But—sir, the pod thing!” Culpepper protested, peering over his shoulder as Myang finished binding his hands and stooped to hobble him. “It’s full of blue poppers!”

Sighing, Ia dug her scanner out of her pocket. Flicking it on, she aimed it into the nest. The scan confirmed the presence
of the drug after a few seconds. “Yes, Private, it
is
a sac of drugs. But blue poppers are not illegal for the K’katta to possess because to them, it is
not
an hallucinogen. Their physiology reacts to it like it’s nothing more than a triple-shot caf’. Drugs are an
internal
matter, Private, regulated by the sovereign rights of each sentient government. You were to report its presence, nothing more.”

“And that gave you the right to
shoot
me?” he demanded, swaying as Myang tightened the second of the zip-ties around his waist.

“Did that sac of poppers give you the right to shoot that alien?” Myang growled, shaking him a little via the straps in her hands, before reaching around to apply a third one. “I think not!”

Ia answered him as well. “No, Private Culpepper. Your
refusal
to obey a lawful, direct order given to you from your commanding officer here inside the Salik Interdicted Zone gives me the right to shoot you. It’s right there in the protocol regs for the Blockade zone,” she reminded him, gun still trained on his face. “Discipline
must
be maintained while serving on Blockade duty. There will be no necklaces made of ears, no collection of severed legs, and
no
unstable soldiers serving in this zone. Not at
my
post. Not on
my
watch.”

“The prisoner is secure, sir,” Private Myang informed her, tightening the last strap around his waist. “I’ll gather his things once you have him.”

Holstering her gun, Ia nodded at Myang. “Acknowledged, Private.” She turned her attention to the other Human in the cabin. “You’re lucky I am strong enough to carry you, Private Culpepper. Given how angry I am with you, I’d be tempted to just kick you down the nearest access shaft, and let you take the damage that would result.

“But unlike
you
, I am in control of myself, and I will abide by the rules and regulations of Blockade Patrol.” Hooking her hand through the ties circling the middle of his back, Ia heaved him off his feet. Ignoring his grunt of pain as the plexi ties bit into his stomach, she hauled him out of the alien crew quarters like he was nothing more than a sack of garbage.

AUGUST 11, 2495 T.S.
PIRATE SHIP
STELLAR LONGEVITY
NUK NUK 117 SYSTEM

Timing was everything. So were decisions.

There was the decision to hurry through the inspection in the previous system. The decision to give the order to jump immediately to this one, while Ia and her boarding crewmembers were still in the pods, just after they reattached to the backs of the
Audie
and the
Murphy
. The discovery of a lone pirate ship just a short flight away from their reentry point, and the command to attack and destroy its defenses with a shorthanded gunnery team.

The decision that the ship looked “sufficiently shot-up” wasn’t Ia’s, but then she knew that her junior officer for this patrol run, Lieutenant Second Grade Linsey Odingaarde, would make a bad call. Yes, the gun turrets had been successfully destroyed, but not nearly enough of the FTL panels.

Still, it was definitely Ia’s decision to agree to launch the pods back out again. Or rather, just the one, since there was a slight hang-up in the launch mechanism for the other pod. A flaw that she created carefully via electrokinesis. It delayed the other pod’s launch by a full six minutes, which was enough time for her pod to land and start carving an entrance into the other ship. The second pod therefore landed on its chosen section of hull just as Ia stepped into the still-hot opening carved beyond the pod’s airlock, and began its sealing process just a little bit too late. Timing was everything.

“Holy—!”
Lieutenant Odingaarde shouted in their headsets.
“The FTL panels! They’re firing up the FTL panels! Disengage! Disengage!”

Turning, Ia hooked her mechsuit hand around the edge of the pod entry and smacked the emergency release button. Yanking her arm back hard and fast, she slammed her hands into the walls above her mechsuited head, bracing herself. The pod slammed its airlock door right in Private Knowles’s face, and blasted its sealant foam. A lot of air rushed past from the loss of that seal, but the bulk of her mechsuit, braced between arms and legs, kept Ia anchored in place.

Warning sensors beeped, letting her know the laser-carved
entrance was threatening her servo-fingers and mechanized feet with excessive heat. The stars were now moving beyond the oval cut into the side of the smuggler’s ship. Only slightly, and more from a course change than from actual, fantastical speeds, but it did confirm that the ship’s thrusters were indeed warming up. It also meant that, mere minutes from now, they would be moving fast enough to exceed the speed of light.

Even at just a quarter of that speed, the sheering forces caused by leaving the field’s zone would be enough to rip anything apart. The hole she stood in was too small to need worry about the field divoting inward around her—the probabilities put it at less than a hundredth of 1 percent—but it wouldn’t be a comfortable place to stay.

Which means the only way out is to go in, and the only viable option for survival is capture. Which puts me right on schedule.
Carefully turning around, Ia worked her way further into the ship until she stood at the brink of a cargo hold, partway up the wall…and found three p-suited sentients, two Humans and a Tlassian, struggling to haul a heavy metal plate along one of the aisles between crates and canisters of unlabeled goods.

The Tlassian was the first one to spot her. He stilled, his tail twitching inside his suit. The others tugged on the plate for a moment more, then followed his line of sight, peering up through their half-silvered helms. They froze as well.

Taking advantage of their hesitation, she jumped down from the hole, aiming for the aisle they were in, which was offset from the hole by barely a meter. Using her boot thrusters to brake her fall, she landed with a
clunk
that she felt up through the legs of her suit. Once she had her balance, Ia just walked up to them.

Her heads-up scanners showed the plate was mostly ferrous, high in steel content. Activating the electromagnets in her mechsuit gloves, she pressed the palms to the metal with two
clanks
. Lifting it out of their hands barely strained the suit’s capacity. They stared, taken aback, then followed her warily as she walked back up the aisle, then scattered out of her way when she put her back to the wall and burned her boot thrusters a second time. That strained the thrusters, but leaping was not an option, not with such a small hole for a target, nor while carrying such a heavy metal plate.

The suit’s sensors were a godsend, letting her shift subtly. The moment she could catch her heel on the rim, she pulled herself into the hole, cutting the thrusters. She didn’t pull the plate in after her, however. Leaving a gap of almost a meter, she used the eye-blink interface on her heads-up display to disengage her inner helm from the outer one, and cracked open the suit.

From there, it was a matter of grabbing onto one of her own suit arms and dropping to the now mostly cooled edge of the hole while she stripped off her arm unit and tossed it into the mechsuit’s cavity. The moment it landed inside and clattered down into a leg cavity, Ia electrokinetically resealed the suit. There was no way she could allow anyone on this ship’s crew access to either mechsuit or arm unit technology. Some rules and regs, she would break, and had broken. Letting military tech fall into enemy hands was very much not necessary, so this was not one of them.

From the front right thigh pocket, she grabbed a grappling gun and a small hand-welder. From the front left compartment, a belt hung with a holster and a shrapnel grenade. Even standing several centimeters back from the opening, the suit’s arms were long enough to give her plenty of room to maneuver. The sight of the stars slowly shifting beyond the suit was an unnerving one; that meant they were now traveling at least half the speed of light. She didn’t have much time before the transition came. Ia quickly slung the belt around her grey-suited hips, holstering the welder.

Aiming up through the crack between hole and panel, she shot the grappling gun up into the struts bracing the ceiling of the cargo hold. The motor on the oversized gun had no problem lifting her minuscule weight; it was meant to lift a soldier in halfmech armor, and possibly even one in full-mech. Lifting herself up through the opening, she reached out with her mind the moment her feet cleared the hole. The suit retracted its arms, pulling the slightly larger panel up against the bulkhead of the cargo hold with a
clang
that vibrated through the ship and down the wire, making her sway a little oddly.

Kicking her heels, Ia played out the line, swinging until the magnetic soles in her feet clipped the panel and stuck, allowing her to pull herself in close. Drawing the welding gun, she
zapped the edge of the plate in six spots, then reached out once more with her mind. None of this would have been possible without her electrokinetic gifts; if the other pod had made it to the ship, one of her crew would have been stuck on board alongside her at the very least, and that meant at least one mechsuit would have fallen into enemy hands. But with her gifts, she was able to close her eyes, concentrate, and program the mechsuit—arm unit safely tucked inside—into releasing its electromagnetics.

Guiding the suit backwards, she made it leap out of the hole. There wasn’t even a thump, since the warp panels instantly pushed the suit away from the ship, shredding it to dust. There was, however, a bright flash that seeped through the unsealed edges, letting her and the three crewmembers down below know that they had crossed the lightspeed barrier. Rappelling down, Ia kicked off one of the crates, landed in the aisle, and turned to find two more pirates had joined the first three. Pirates who were armed.

Turning the welder gun sideways, showing that it was just a welder and not a laser pistol, she slipped her hand free of the grappling gun and down to her waist. One of the armed smugglers motioned with his weapon, clearly wanting her to drop the welder and put her hands up. The welder dropped to the decking in a clatter that was felt rather than heard, given the lack of air in the hold, but when she lifted her pressure-suited arms above her head, the grenade was visibly gripped in her other hand.

They froze. Ia wriggled the gloved fingers of her empty hand, then lowered both arms. She had the advantage now, and they knew it; if they fired on her, the grooved grenade could go off, catching
all
of them—clad only in p-suits, which were tough, but not that tough—and shredding their meager protection against the airless state of the cargo hold, killing them slowly if the blast didn’t kill them outright.

Once she was sure they wouldn’t move, Ia stooped and picked up the welding gun again. Stepping forward, she offered it handle-first to the Tlassian. He hesitated a moment, then took it from her and edged toward the patch on their hold, focusing on it as the greater priority right now. Gesturing for the others to go ahead of her, Ia slowly herded the remaining four back
up the aisle toward the inner airlock separating the hold from the rest of the ship. She even made sure they cycled through first, flicking her p-suit-gloved fingers in pointed instruction.