Pledge Allegiance (6 page)

I let out a long breath and picked up my lance, all the while facing Sumiko. “One more round. I can’t take many more shocks. These things hurt.”

“One more round,” she agreed. “Are you ready?”

I stepped back to give myself space and lifted my lance. I had no idea what I was going to do with it other than try to fend off the blows Sumiko was sure to rain down on me.

“Ready,” I said.

She lunged forward, her lance arcing up toward my chest.

I scrambled to one side and knocked it away with my own lance.

Sumiko spun around to face me and planted the end of her lance on the mat, using it to pole vault toward me, her bare feet aiming for my mask. She moved at blinding speed and by the time I knew what was happening, her kick sent me reeling back.

She followed the kick with a jab from the lance that connected with my thigh. I dropped my weapon and went down.

Sumiko jumped on me like a cat, straddling my stomach with her thighs, her lance held across my throat, just far enough away that the blue spark traveling along its length didn’t arc toward my skin.

“Do you concede?’ she asked gleefully.

“I concede,” I said, not daring to move.

“And that was the final round?”

“Yes,” I said. “Final round. You win.”

She got to her feet gracefully and stood over me, lifting her lance in the air above her head and shouting, “Yay!”

Sumiko Shibari definitely destroyed any preconceived ideas I might have had about the onna-bugeisha being solemn and stern warriors.

I sat up and removed my mask. Sumiko also removed hers, shaking out her long raven hair. “What would you like to try next?” she asked, pointing to the rack of practice weapons. “There are swords, fighting sticks, spark knives…”

“Is there any weapon you aren’t an expert in?” I asked.

She pursed her lips, thinking. Then she shook her head. “No, I am an expert in the use of all of these weapons and more.”

“I think I’ve had enough of being beaten up for one day,” I said. “We can train again when my wounds heal.”

A look of concern crossed her face. “You are wounded, Captain? Let me help you. I am also proficient with healing herbs and potions. I have many ingredients in my quarters.”

“I’m fine,” I said. “I’m not really wounded. It was just a figure of speech.”

“Oh, I see.” The happy expression that seemed to be her default look returned to her face.

I looked up at her. She fascinated me, not least because of the genuine happiness she seemed to possess. “How did you end up on this ship?” I asked her. “On this mission?”

“You are surprised that I am here?”

I shrugged. “Maybe. I’ve heard tales about the onna-bugeisha and from what I understand, they fight against threats to their home planet, Kamakura, not on private missions to save a billionaire’s daughter.”

Sumiko nodded. “Yes, I can see your confusion.” She sat next to me on the mat, cross-legged. “I left Kamakura two years ago. Since then, I have been selling my skills. This is how I survive. It is rare for an onna-bugeisha to live like this and I only do it because I have to. I cannot return to my home planet.”

“Why not?” I asked. Her face had momentarily become sad, something that was out of character for Sumiko.

“It is a long story and I am not sure I would like to tell it at the moment.” Her expression brightened. “Do you have a story, Captain? A man like you, a man in charge of this ship and all its crew, must have led an interesting life.”

I shrugged. “My story isn’t all that interesting. I joined the Imperium Academy when I was eighteen and fought in the Horde War. I slowly worked my way up the chain of command, which wasn’t really all that difficult because fatalities in the war were high. It was a dangerous life and there were moments of despair and sorrow. I saw friends and colleagues die in horrible ways on planets that were light years from home. It was tough.

“When I was finally given command of my own ship, I felt like everything I had worked for had been handed to me in one moment, the moment I first saw the
Oregon
. She was beautiful, all sleek lines and curves despite her immense size. Her previous captain, and most of his crew, had been killed during a skirmish with Horde aliens on a planet somewhere. I inherited the remaining crew and was given fresh personnel to replace the crew members who had been lost in the skirmish.”

“Did you command the
Oregon
for long before she was destroyed?”

“Not long enough,” I said wistfully. “We only flew a couple of missions before the
Oregon
was blown up.”

Sumiko nodded thoughtfully. “I was told that you quit the Imperium after that. Did you blame yourself for what happened to your ship?”

Her question was direct and asked with an honest curiosity.

I nodded. “Yes, I did. After the destruction of the
Oregon
, I left the Imperium and ended up on Iton-3. I didn’t want to be responsible for any more lives. I was barely responsible for my own.”

“Yet here you are,” she said, smiling. “A captain again. Our captain.”

“Here I am,” I said.

“You wish to save the crew you lost and make everything okay again,” she said.

I shrugged. “It isn’t that simple, Sumiko. There may be survivors on Savarea and we might be able to save them but the entire crew didn’t make it to the planet’s surface; that would be impossible. I’m still responsible for the deaths of the ones who went down with the ship. I feel duty-bound to help rescue the survivors but I will never forget the lost ones, the people who died on the
Oregon
. Rescuing a few survivors won’t make everything okay again.”

She went quiet for a moment and then said, “You were fighting in a war when the
Oregon
was destroyed.”

“Yes,” I said.

“People die in wars, Captain. I am sure that the crew knew the risks they were taking. You cannot be held responsible for what happened.”

She was right, of course. I knew that. People died in wars all the time and it was nobody’s fault. I knew that, logically. But logic had nothing to do with my emotions, and as far as they were concerned, I was responsible for every last person on the
Oregon
.

“It isn’t that simple,” I told Sumiko before getting to my feet. “Thank you for the fighting practice.” I needed to get back to my quarters and rest my aching muscles. I hadn’t felt this sore in a long time.

I hadn’t felt this exhilarated in a long time either.

“Thank you, Captain,” Sumiko said. “I value the lesson I learned from you during the fight.”

“You learned something from me?” I asked incredulously. “What was that?”

She grinned. “I learned that you use dirty tricks to score a hit on your opponent.”

“Hmm,” I said. “And now that you’ve learned it, my dirty tricks won’t work again, will they?”

“No, they won’t,” she said, shaking her head. “I will be ready for you next time.”

I laughed and waved to her as I exited the gym.

The transporter took me to the crew quarters’ deck and I stepped out into the corridor, rubbing my aching thigh.

That was when something hit me from behind. I hadn’t been expecting the blow but my reflexes sent me rolling with it, lessening its impact on the back of my neck. I rolled into a crouch, facing a man I had never seen before.

He was dressed like one of Hart’s soldiers, complete with a military buzz cut, and he had a look on his face that wasn’t anger or rage, but a cool expression of detachment. As if he was simply carrying out an order. Nothing personal. He was just here to kill me.

I reached for the blaster at my hip but before I had it leveled at him, he swung his boot into the weapon, sending it clattering across the floor. He aimed a second kick for my face. I threw myself backward to avoid the heavy boot and quickly regained my feet.

He came for me, arms raised and hands clawed as if he were going to try and strangle me. I wondered why he didn’t use his blaster. If he wanted to kill me, there were easier ways than hand-to-hand combat.

The soldier lunged forward and I side-stepped quickly. As his momentum carried him past me, I used both fists to club him on the back of the neck, sending him sprawling.

I ran for my blaster. But before I could reach it, my attacker leaped onto my legs, bringing me down to the hard floor. I landed heavily and all the air was knocked out of my lungs. As I tried to catch a breath, the soldier straddled my back and I felt his hands close around my throat as he attempted to squeeze the life out of me.

My blaster was almost close enough to reach. I stretched my arm out but my fingertips barely made contact with the butt of the gun.

Unable to breathe and feeling my body beginning to lose strength, I summoned everything I had left to buck myself forward a couple of inches with the weight of the soldier on my back.

My fingers wrapped around the blaster and I brought it above my head, pointing backward. I squeezed the trigger.

The man on my back fell to the side heavily. I struggled to my feet and sucked in a deep breath, immediately wishing I hadn’t.

The smell of charred flesh reached my nostrils and I struggled not to vomit. Stepping away from the body, I leaned against the wall and waited for my strength to return and the light-headedness to go away.

The soldier had been shot in the upper chest, the hole still smoking. The heat of the blast had instantly cauterized the fatal wound, so there was no blood, but the smell of cooked meat still lingered in the air.

Who was he? Who had sent him? I didn’t believe he was just some crazy acting on his own volition. The tracking device in the engine room had convinced me there was more going on in this ship than met the eye and this attack only confirmed it.

I was still pondering the soldier’s actions when the transporter door slid open. Jane Baltimore and Sergeant Hart emerged, weapons drawn.

I pointed at the body and glared at Hart. “Is he one of yours?”

He bent down and inspected the corpse. Nodding grimly, he said, “That’s Provost. He is…he was…one of my men.”

“He tried to kill me,” I said.

Baltimore frowned at me. “What happened?”

“He came at me when I got off the transporter. Tried to strangle me.” That still didn’t make sense. Why not just shoot me and get the job done quickly?

“Why didn’t he shoot you?” she asked. It was the obvious question, after all.

I pondered it for a minute or two. I looked at the body, then back at Baltimore. “Why did you and Hart come down to this deck?”

“The computer informed the bridge that a weapon had been discharged here.”

Things were beginning to make more sense. “Of course. That’s why he didn’t shoot me. He knew the ship’s computer would report the shot and he would be found out. Even if he managed to escape the scene before you arrived, you’d find his gun and the weapon’s internal log would show that it had been fired at that time.” I nodded to myself, a theory taking shape. “He wanted to kill me without using a weapon so he could get away with it.”

“But why was he trying to kill you in the first place?” Baltimore asked. “Apart from the obvious reasons, of course.”

I shot her a sardonic grin but she had a point. Why try to kill me?

Before I had chance to think it over, Baltimore said, “I know why,”

“Yeah, yeah,” I said. “I know I’m a pain…”

“No, I’m being serious,” she cut in. “If someone wanted to stop this mission going ahead, and they didn’t want to do something drastic like destroying the ship, they would only have to take out two people. You and Vess. You two each have a personal stake in this mission’s success and are motivated to carry it out. Everyone else on the ship is simply being paid to do a job. With you and Vess gone, the mission would fall apart.”

We looked at each other, a sudden realization entering our minds. “Computer,” I said, “what is the current location of Solomon Vess?”

“Solomon Vess is in the gymnasium,” the feminine voice said.

“Is he alone?”

“Affirmative.”

“Hart, you stay here,” I said. I wasn’t so sure I trusted Hart since the body on the floor had been one of his men and I decided it was better to keep him here. “Don’t let anyone touch that body. Baltimore, let’s go.” As long as Vess was alone, he was safe. Maybe my fears for his safety were unfounded. It might be that Provost was the only killer on board the
Finch
and had been planning to kill Vess after he killed me, in which case I had neutralized the threat.

“Computer,” I said, “let me know if anyone else enters the gymnasium.”

The calm voice replied, “Trooper Ronald Gorman has just entered the gymnasium, Captain.”

I ran for the transporter.

T
he transporter door
opened and Baltimore and I sprinted into the gym, guns drawn.

Vess was at the far end of the room, near the windows that projected the beach scene, backing away from a soldier who was advancing on him, fists raised.

“Halt!” I shouted.

The soldier stopped and turned to look at me. He had the same expressionless gaze as the guy who had attacked me.

Keeping my gun raised, I moved forward, Baltimore by my side.

The soldier had a blaster pistol at his hip but he didn’t go for it. He simply stood there, staring at us as we approached. He had to know there was no way he could kill Vess or me without being taken down. There was no option other than surrender.

Once we could put him in a cell, we might find out who had ordered him and Provost to kill Vess and me. We might even find out who had put the tracker on the ship, assuming the two things were related. And at the moment, I was definitely working on the assumption that they were related.

“Put your hands up,” I told him. “Nobody has to get hurt.”

Instead of putting up his hands, he went for the gun at his hip. Baltimore and I both shot him and he collapsed to the gym floor with two smoking holes in his chest.

Vess looked at us with panic in his eyes. “What’s happening? He came in here and I could see he wanted to hurt me. If you two hadn’t arrived in time…” He let that thought trail off.

“It’s okay,” I said. “We did get here in time. But you need to come with us. You might still be in danger.”

He nodded. “Yes, yes of course.”

I looked at the body on the floor. Gorman must have known he had no chance yet he went for his weapon anyway. “Now we have no way of interrogating him,” I told Baltimore.

“Maybe that was the point,” she said. “He knew we were going to kill him as soon as he reached for that gun, but he did it anyway. And now, as you say, we can’t interrogate him.”

“You really think he’s some kind of fanatic who would rather die than risk talking about his superiors?”

“Yes,” she said, nodding. “And it doesn’t bode well.”

We led a still-worried Vess to the transporter. “Where to?” I asked Baltimore as the door whispered shut.

“The bridge. Only bridge personnel are allowed in there. None of Hart’s men are authorized.”

“What about Hart himself?” I asked.

“No, he’s not authorized either,” she said.

“But I can vouch for Hart personally,” Vess said. “I’ve known him for years.”

“I’m not saying Hart himself is implicated,” I told him. “But one of his men attacked me earlier and another has attacked you. Even if we trust Hart, we can’t trust his soldiers.”

Vess looked confused. “But why? I don’t understand what’s happening.”

The transporter door opened and we moved quickly to the bridge door. It opened to allow us access. I asked Vess, “Is there anyone you can think of who doesn’t want this mission to go ahead?”

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “No one. What does that have to do with any of this?”

Morrow was on the bridge, seated at his console. He turned to look at us with a questioning expression on his face, but I didn’t have the inclination to fill him in on what was happening. Someone else could do that.

“You and I are the linchpins of this mission,” I said to Vess. “We both have a personal stake in its outcome. If we were removed, it would probably be abandoned, which is obviously what someone wants.”

“Why would they want that?” Vess asked.

“And why not just attack the ship?” Baltimore stood with her hands on her hips by the window, framed against the backdrop of shimmering stars. “If someone wanted this mission to be abandoned, all they would have to do is blow the
Finch
out of space.”

“They could try to do that,” I said, taking my seat, “but that would attract attention. Think of the headlines on the net. ‘Solomon Vess, galactic billionaire, killed when the ship he is taking to rescue his daughter from Savarea is attacked.’ There would be an investigation. The investigators might find out something that the attackers want to be kept secret.”

“Like what?” Morrow asked, joining in the conversation.

I thought about that for a moment and then asked him, “What do we know about Savarea?”

He shrugged. “Nothing at all. It’s in Horde space and we can’t scan the planet’s surface.”

“Maybe there’s something there,” I said, “that someone wants to keep hidden.”

“And who do you think that someone is?” Baltimore asked.

I sighed. I didn’t like what I had to say next. “The soldier who attacked me had an almost lifeless expression on his face, and the one who attacked Vess died rather than be interrogated. There’s only one faction I know of that inspires that kind of mindless attack and self-sacrifice.”

“The Outsiders,” Baltimore whispered.

A hush descended over the bridge as we all considered the implications of that. The Outsiders were the masterminds behind the plot against humanity. Somehow, they could bend other alien races to their will and form the Horde. Up until now, they hadn’t done that with humans but if Provost and Gorman were under the command of the Outsiders, then that meant a huge shift had taken place in our struggle against the faceless aliens. Somehow they had infiltrated the human race and insinuated their influence into the Imperium, our galactic government.

Vess asked, “Captain, could you be wrong about that? If the Outsiders have managed to get inside the Imperium, there’s no telling what damage they could do.”

I spread my fingers. “I hope I’m wrong but I can’t think of any other explanation for the behavior of those two soldiers. We need to talk to Hart and find out exactly where those men came from and how they ended up on this ship.” I looked at Vess. “Are you sure we can trust Hart?”

He nodded vigorously. “Yes, I’ve known him for years, even before he signed on with the Imperium. He’s a good man.”

“I’m sure Provost and Gorman were good men once,” I said. I hit the switch that opened a line of communication and said, “Sergeant Hart.”

The computer automatically routed me to Hart’s location.

“Hart here, Captain,” the sergeant said.

“I need to see you on the bridge,” I told him.

“Yes, sir.”

I closed the channel and opened a new one. “Tegan Prime.”

“Yes, Captain?” came her soft voice. In the background, I could hear the whining of the engines.

“I need you on the bridge,” I said.

“Yes, Captain.”

Next, I called Sumiko Shibari to join us.

The computer, knowing I had summoned Hart, Prime, and Shibari to the bridge, allowed them access through the door. Five minutes later, they stood by my chair. Hart looked worried, Sumiko looked joyful as usual, and Tegan seemed curious as to why she had been called here.

“There’s been an attempt on my life and that of Mr. Vess,” I told them. “Two of the Imperium soldiers on board carried out the attacks.”

Tegan’s eyes widened with shock. “An attack from within the ship?”

I nodded. Knowing that the tracker was on board, she and I had been expecting an attack from space but not from the ship’s personnel.

I turned my attention to Hart. “How well did you know Provost and Gorman and how did they come to be on this ship?”

“I didn’t know them at all, Captain. At least, not before we were hired out to Mr. Vess. Commander Everson added them to the men I picked myself, sir.”

“Commander Everson,” I said. The name wasn’t familiar to me but the Imperium was huge and my memory wasn’t exactly acute. It had been dulled by a year’s worth of drinking binges. “Who is he?” I asked Hart.

“He’s in charge of military operations in the Ripley sector, sir.”

“And he put Provost and Gorman on your team?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did he put anyone else on your team?”

“No, Captain, the other members of the team are soldiers I picked myself.”

I sat back in my chair. Was it possible that an Imperium commander was working for the Outsiders, that he had planted men on the
Finch
to sabotage our mission? It was a possibility I didn’t want to consider but had to face.

“Okay,” I said, addressing everyone on the bridge, “we don’t know what’s going on here but we can make some working assumptions. We have to assume that Commander Everson put those men on board to kill Mr. Vess and me in the hopes that the mission to Savarea would be abandoned. We don’t know why he wants us to abandon the mission but assuming he’s working for the Outsiders, which is likely judging by the behavior of Provost and Gorman, that means there is probably something on Savarea that the aliens don’t want us to discover.”

“A good theory,” Morrow said, “but something about it doesn’t make sense.”

“What?” I asked.

“How will Everson or the Outsiders know if we’ve abandoned the mission or not? They won’t know if their assassins have completed their tasks or failed to kill you and Vess.”

“Maybe Provost and Gorman were supposed to call someone once they’d finished the job,” Vess suggested.

“No,” Morrow said, shaking his head. “They couldn’t do that because the ship’s computer would detect any call being made from the ship.”

“They didn’t have to call anyone,” I said. “The person in charge of the operation would know the mission had been abandoned because the
Finch
would turn around and head back to the
October Girl
.”

“And how the hell would they know we’d turned around?” Morrow asked incredulously. “There’s nobody out here but us.”

“There’s a tracker on the ship,” I said. “It’s in the engine room.”

Everyone except Tegan looked shocked.

“And when the hell were you going to tell us about it?” Baltimore asked.

“When the time was right,” I said. I asked Tegan to explain to them about her discovery of the tracker. While she did so, I watched their faces. They all looked shocked and confused, even Sumiko. None of these people were part of the plot to stop the
Finch
completing her mission, or if they were, they were damned good actors.

When Tegan was done filling them in on the details regarding the tracker, I said, “So now we may have a problem.”

“What’s that?” Morrow asked.

“Eventually, the people in charge of the assassination attempt will realize we haven’t turned around. They will have to assume Provost and Gorman failed. What will they do then?”

“Perhaps they will try more drastic measures to ensure we don’t reach Savarea,” Sumiko said.

I nodded. “My thoughts exactly. If whatever they’re trying to keep secret on that planet is important enough, and they know their plan to kill Mr. Vess and me has failed, they’ll try to stop us some other way.”

“They’ll try to blow us out of space,” Baltimore said.

“Probably. They probably would have preferred to make us quietly abandon the mission, but once they realize we’re still headed to Savarea, they’ll have to resort to more drastic measures, as Sumiko said.”

Morrow grinned. “We’re going to have us a space fight. I’ve been itching to know what this old bird can do.” He patted his control console.

I didn’t share his enthusiasm for a fight. We might be outnumbered and outgunned, and this old Avis class fighter was so far unproven in battle.

So what do we do?” Vess asked. There was a worried look in his eyes and I understood why. All he wanted to do was get his daughter back. He hadn’t expected this ship to be targeted by an alien race that was part of a conspiracy involving members of the Imperium.

“We need to keep moving forward and be prepared for anything,” I said. “It’s unlikely that anything will happen until whoever is tracking us realizes we aren’t turning around. We can give ourselves more time if we jettison the tracker. They’ll know we’ve found it when the signal stops moving, of course, but by then we can be some distance away. They won’t be able to track us any longer but they know where we’re going, so it won’t be too difficult to intercept us somewhere along the way. But I’d feel a hell of a lot more comfortable without that tracker on the ship.”

“You didn’t seem to mind before,” Baltimore said, “when you kept its existence a secret.”

“I was being prudent by keeping it there,” I said. “Now, it’s in our best interest to get rid of it. The enemy has made their move and now we need to react accordingly. That means throwing that thing out of the airlock.”

“What about the bodies of the dead soldiers?” she asked.

I turned to Vess. “Do we have a doctor on board?”

He nodded. “Yes, of course. I have no idea what condition the survivors will be in when we pick them up so I’ve brought a full medical team with us.”

“Hart,” I said, “get some of your men to take the bodies to the infirmary. The doctors can take a look at them and see if there’s anything out of the ordinary. Drugs maybe, or computer implants. Something made them act the way they did.”

We had no idea how the Outsiders controlled the Horde, and examining the dead bodies of our enemies didn’t reveal much because they had alien physiology and our medical teams didn’t know what was normal and what might be abnormal.

But human bodies that had been controlled by the Outsiders could reveal secrets about our enemy. We knew next to nothing about the Outsiders, so if our doctors could unlock some information from the bodies of Provost and Gorman, it might help us to understand the alien masterminds, and any piece of information we could find would be invaluable.

Hart snapped to attention and said, “Yes, Captain.” He left the bridge purposefully.

“Tegan and I will get rid of the tracker,” I told the others. “I suggest you all go about your business as usual but be ready to man your battle stations. We could be in for a rough ride.”

Tegan and I left the bridge and went down to Engineering. She picked up a toolbox from beneath a computer console and descended the ladder to the turbine where the tracker had been placed. I followed her down into the eerie blue dimness and waited while she selected a few tools from the box and crawled beneath the glowing turbine.

“This shouldn’t be too difficult,” she said after removing the dark gray casing from the tracker. “I can remove it without turning it off.”