"Goin' somewhere, Captain?"
John Smith, alias Captain Emo Arror, alias "The Terror," started as the voice came from the shadows of the darkened boat bay. He suppressed an urge to spin around, instead turning casually to face Bob Smiley, his second-in-command. His hand slowly crept toward the butt of the stunner he carried.
"As a matter of fact, Bob, I am," He replied in a casual tone. "I've had enough. I'm retiring. Consider yourself promoted to head Terror and admiral of the pirate fleet."
Smiley resembled his name, though the smile was rarely genuine. John had seen the same smile on the big man's face as he tortured victims to reveal the hiding places of their valuables, and as he casually sank a knife blade into a woman's chest. Smiley was a heavyworlder, short and wide. On his squat frame, his large arms looked almost simian, reaching nearly to his knees. Since they had escaped slavery on Peltir IV together five years ago, Smiley had put on weight and added a paunch, but he was still a fast and deadly fighter, as John well knew.
This time, though, the smile faded slightly as Smiley shook his head. "Now, that's real nice of ya, Captain, and I know I'll do the name proud. I figgered somethin' was goin' on when you insisted on grabbin' that fast yacht an' even its papers durin' the Atlantea raid.
"But y'see, Captain, there's a problem. You're the one took a stolen freighter and two dozen escaped slaves and grew it into six armed ships and the biggest, toughest pirate fleet in known space. Ever'body in this part of space knows and fears the Terror.
"And the crews, they're real proud to be part of the Terror's fleet." The smile widened again as Smiley edged closer to John, his hand moving casually toward the knife in its sheath behind his hip. John forced himself not to tense.
"The problem is, Captain, we can't have the crews wonderin' if maybe you'll be comin' back someday. Sheol, I'd be wonderin' myself. So…"
John dodged as Smiley drew the knife and stabbed it toward his belly in one swift move. Smiley kept coming, changing the stabbing lunge into a charge, the knife slashing wildly. John backpedaled as he grabbed for his own knife. He slipped smoothly aside, drawing with a lightning motion, his blade leaving a red line on Smiley's brawny arm.
Smiley paused, his eerie smile widening even more. "I'm really kinda sorry about this, Captain. I always liked ya, an' ya done real good for alla us. But if I'm gonna take over, I gotta take over clean. The crews haveta know you're dead." he kept edging closer as he spoke.
John smiled back, his eyes never leaving Smiley's. "I won't be coming back, Bob. I've had my revenge, and then some. Atlantea finished it for me. The things I've done, the things done by my crews, now make me sick. I can't plan another raid. It's time for me to retire. I'm sorry to have to do one more killing before I go"
Smiley's smile didn't falter as he circled to John's left, opposite his knife hand. "I knew you was soft, even back on Peltir. Always whinin' about "injustice" and crap like that. Sheol, I was all that kep' you alive the first year. You're a fool to think ya c'n just retire and settle down among the groundhogs." He shrugged. "Oh, well." He lunged again, this time aiming slightly to John's left, hoping to intercept John's dodge to the left.
John feinted left, but dodged low and right, twisting to leave another red mark, this time across Smiley's left chest and nipple. The big man roared with pain and staggered slightly before regaining his balance. Smiley was immensely strong, and fast as a snake. John had to keep the fight moving, keep mobile. If Smiley ever got his hands on him, there would be no hope.
"Yeah," he temporized, as he tried to maneuver the big man toward a more open area of the boat deck, "I always wondered why you kept me alive all that time. I never would have survived without your help."
Smiley put his left hand to his chest without taking his eyes from John. It came away bloody, and he flicked a glance at it before replying. He snorted. "You lightworlders think we're stupid just 'cause we're strong. I knew as soon as I saw ya that you was the one was smart enough to break us outta that hole. So, I played the dumb sidekick, an' sure enough, you was able to bust us out. An' ya made us rich, too! But we're set now; we don't need ya no more."
"That's right, you don't. So why kill me? Why not just let me go?" Smiley was slowly edging closer, and John knew the attack was coming.
Smiley put his left hand to his chest again, as though to relieve the pain, but suddenly he flicked his wrist in an attempt to flip some droplets of blood in John's face. He instantly followed this with a roar and a lunge.
This time, though, John did not dodge. He dropped, deflecting Smiley's knife arm and slashing his knife upward across the lunging man's throat. The roar ended in a gurgle, as the big man crashed to the deck, arterial blood spraying from his neck. Smiley placed futile hands over the fatal wound, and tried to rise. However, the blood loss was weakening him. He struggled to his knees and tried to speak, but his eyes glazed over and he toppled to the deck.
John walked over to the corpse. "Sorry, Smiley. You were a good friend, until you tried to kill me."
He wiped his knife on the dead man's shirt and returned it to its sheath. He sighed. Another face to join in his parade of nightmares. He had liked Smiley. He rather wished he had been able to use his stunner instead of the knife. However, he could not be sure the stun beam would work fast enough on the heavyworlder, and besides, the energy discharge would have shown up on the bridge sensors. He had to admit it was a relief that the man was dead, though. Associating with Smiley had always been like living with a deadly wild animal. You always knew you were only one small step from death. Maybe the fact Smiley had been a multiple murderer and a sociopath would lessen the guilty nightmares. Maybe.
He returned to his packing, what there was of it. He swung only two bags into the shuttle's small cockpit. One contained a few pairs of underwear and some hygiene articles. The other, much smaller one contained one of the largest collections of sunstones in known space, though he was the only one who knew it existed. He had accumulated the stones over five years of piracy, kidnapping, rape, and murder. He rarely looked at the stones. The memories they raised haunted and sickened him.
He climbed hurriedly into a waiting space suit. Once secure, he clumped over to the boat bay door controls. Carefully, he disconnected the bridge indicators and the depressurization alarm. Then he used the manual controls to decompress the hold and open the boat bay doors. Smiley's corpse stirred in the outrush of atmosphere, but it became entangled in a cutter's landing gear, and was not swept out the bay doors. John smiled as he operated the hand pump to open the doors. Tomorrow would be an interesting day aboard Revenge. With any luck, by the time they got it all sorted out, he would be long gone.
The tiny two-man shuttle clamped onto Azure Sky 's small airlock and John kicked it free as he entered the yacht's airlock. When pressurization was complete, he removed the suit's helmet. "Good morning, Tess."
"Good morning, sir." the yacht's AI replied in a pleasant contralto. "Is your business complete?" The seductive tones conjured up visions of a beautiful woman
John smiled. "Yes, it is. Are you prepared for immediate departure?"
"Yes, sir. Inertial drive is on standby and course to the jump point has been computed."
"Good. You understand you are not to use the main jump point?"
"Of course, sir. The course is computed for the newly discovered jump point in the asteroid belt. May I remind you, sir, that the location of this jump point renders it some 19.238 percent more hazardous than the main point?"
John's smile faded. "I know, Tess. But I am concerned about my business associates here. I suspect possible duplicity. It is important that we get out of here as inconspicuously as possible. How long to the jump point?"
"Thirty-nine point one two hours, sir."
John nodded. "That's what I thought. Okay. I don't want to be chased and possibly caught by them. Recompute your course to accommodate max boost for six hours, and then coasting the rest of the way. Will that make us harder to locate?"
"If we go to no boost, minimum power use, and minimum life support, we should be undetectable except to specialized instruments, sir. Normal ship's sensors detect inertial engine emissions. Estimated time to the jump point is now 46.86 hours"
"Good, Boost max, now."
"Yes, sir, boost is max." There was no sensation of movement. Azure Sky was the largest and most luxurious yacht John had ever seen. Even so, he had never been aboard a ship the size of the Sky that had gravity compensators.
John watched as the pirate fleet shrank in the rear screen. Revenge was the flagship of the pirate fleet, but it was not the best armed. That honor went to Hellraker, a 400-year-old frigate of the Old Empire. The pirates had found her drifting in space, her crew long dead. If any of the Terror's ragtag fleet could locate the fleeing yacht, it would be Hellraker, with her military-grade sensor suite. Luckily, pirates are not military-grade crews. Her captain was a drunken brute who did not trust his crew and was afraid to let them learn most of the ship's capabilities.
Captain Reg Townley of the Bastard's heart was another story. A renegade nobleman from Rackham, he was intelligent, urbane, witty, a true sadist, and a complete psychopath. John was sure Townley would eventually win the leadership struggle for command of the pirate fleet, if the fleet didn't simply disintegrate in the absence of John and Smiley. Like Revenge, Bastard's Heart was a DIN-class freighter with a few space weapons crudely installed on her. Since a DIN-class was the largest ship that could routinely ground, her usual mission was to transport the boarders in space and raiders on the ground that did the actual hand-to-hand combat.
Nomad, a tiny five-man fast courier, was his scout and spy. Her captain was John's youngest, at 24 years old standard. That did not mean he wasn't already a hardened killer, of course.
The other two ships of the fleet were fat freighters, used to haul booty from planetside raids. They were no threat to John.
Let's see, he thought. Things will be pretty confused aboard Revenge for several days, as the officers fight for the captaincy. They'll probably be too busy to chase me. Hellraker 's people can't handle her well enough to be effective.
Townley is the biggest threat. I expect he'll kill Franks of the Hellraker and take her over. Luckily, he won't have time to train his people in 47 hours!
If I were Townley, he considered, I'd take over Hellraker and use her to threaten my way to seizing control. Then I'd send Nomad to look for me.
Or would I? Could Townley trust young Turlow? He would want to make sure Turlow didn't just take off with Nomad. No, Townley couldn't trust anyone but himself to keep Turlow from running; and he'll be 'way too busy!
John grinned. He had a pretty good chance of getting away. For the moment, at least. Once he cemented control of the pirate fleet, Townley would see in John the same problem Smiley did; a threat to his solid control. He would put a bounty on John's head, and come searching himself. John would have to run fast and far.
John had planned his escape with the same care with which he had planned raids. He was heading for Ilocan, an Old Empire world, but he could not go directly there. He had several stops to make first.
Since the Empire had collapsed three hundred years ago, nearly all of its 1100 inhabited planets had begun a decline into barbarism, some slow, some not so slow. Interstellar trade was becoming sporadic, and pirates were becoming more common.
On Peltir IV, the decline had been almost a collapse. Peltir IV was a mining world with little manufacturing capability of its own. Once the mining machinery began to fail from lack of spare parts, the tyranny that had replaced the Empire government had instituted slavery to keep the mines operating.
After two horror-filled years, John and some two dozen other ragged, starving slaves had revolted and killed the overseers that worked them to death in the mine. They had then overpowered the crew and stolen the ore hauler that had arrived to load the ore. An old ex-free trader had sworn to John that he knew enough astrogation to get them to Outpost, an independent station circling a moon that had become a no-questions-asked trading center in the sector.
He did, but just barely. The ore hauler arrived full of germanium ore and ex-slaves that were starving and running out of air. Almost anything was available on Outpost for a price. John had initially planned to sell the ship and its cargo, split the proceeds among the escapees, and go their various ways. However, most of the ex-slaves were uneducated and unimaginative. They had no place to go, and no saleable skills. They begged John to keep the ship and keep them together under his command.
At first, John was reluctant, but he came to realize that he, too, had no place to go, and his skills as a lawyer under Peltir IV law would be useless elsewhere. Oh, he was sure he could survive, but the feelings of helplessness helped him understand the attitudes of the others. Then there was the seething hatred he had come to feel for Peltir IV and the people that had condemned him to a slow death in the mines. He had sworn to avenge the harm and injustice done him and the others.
Still, even after he had agreed, he'd intended only to use the old ore hauler for trade. They had used the proceeds of the old nameless ore hauler's cargo of germanium to buy a mixed cargo on Outpost, and set off on a trading voyage.
Unfortunately, John was no trader, and neither were the other ex-slaves. The old free trader had signed off on Outpost. Within a few months, they found themselves with an empty ship, no money for a new cargo, and port fees threatening to wipe out the little money they had left.
That was when they had voted to turn pirate, to attack ships from Peltir IV and steal their cargoes. They would simultaneously gain operating capital and revenge on their former owners.
They waited at a popular recalibration point not far from Peltir IV. Jump engines permit supralight travel, but they function in a straight line. Interstellar travel is therefore made in a series of jumps, with stops in between for recalibration and recalculation. These "recal" stops can last from a few hours to several days, depending upon the location of jump points within the system. The system they staked out was uninhabited but was a common recal stop between a number of systems.
Within a few days, an ore carrier emerged. Heavily loaded, it was unable to flee John's empty ship. Men in suits used mining explosives to force the air lock. They were inexperienced, however. They used too much explosive, and the blown airlock decompressed the entire ship, killing the crew. They transferred the ship's cargo to John's still-unnamed ship and left the other ship a drifting hulk, after wiping the sensor logs and destroying the ship's AI.
The deaths weighed heavily on John's conscience, and he was not alone. Eight of the ex-slaves took their shares of the cargo and discharged on Outpost. However, he let himself be convinced that it was vengeance, retribution for the deaths of thousands of slaves in the mines.
Their second attempt to become traders also failed. Indeed, they were forced to flee Jurgen's World, swindled by a planet-wide trading consortium, and pursued by corrupt planetary authorities.
They limped back to Outpost, nearly broke and furious. His beautiful Mina, the woman he had come to love, and several of his friends from his slave days had died. Cold hatred overwhelmed his conscience. John now wanted vengeance on two planetary systems — indeed, on all mankind. A grieving John Smith, peaceful attorney, was transformed, and Emo Arror, pirate, thief, and murderer, soon to be known as The Terror declared war on the universe.
John traded the still-nameless ore hauler for a smaller, DIN-class combat cargo hauler that had had its original armament reproduced. She was perfect for a pirate, and they renamed her Vengeance.
He might have failed as a trader, but John was a very successful pirate. Over time, most of his ex-slaves were killed or moved on, replaced by brutes and thugs from the gutters of dozens of worlds. He was driven now by an all-consuming hate and vengeance. He ignored the atrocities being committed by his men, taking a perverse pride in the fact that he committed none personally. Oh, on some level he was aware of his own descent into barbarism. A tiny, nagging voice continually reminded him of his shame and guilt; that hatred and revenge could not be a long-term basis for a life.
Partly in response to that tiny voice, he'd had plans for the future, of a sort. Almost three years ago, as a surprise for his beloved Mina, he had begun sending money under an assumed name to a representative on Ilocan, a largely pastoral Old Empire world where the pace of decline was very slow. The representative was supposedly buying John a villa that he had seen only in holos. Even after Mina's death, he had kept up the payments. He wasn't exactly certain why; he had only a vague reluctance to give up his last contact with his lost love. However, Mina was dead; there was no urgency to his plans.
Until Atlantea.
It was almost unheard of for pirates to attack entire planets. But Atlantea was a minor trading center, with a few medium-sized cities and the rest of the planet only sparsely settled. Except for a disorganized militia, the planet was virtually unarmed.
They had been on Atlantea for a week and John's two freighters were nearly full of loot when he came across Smiley and his crew at work. A wealthy merchant had refused to reveal the hiding place of his valuables. When John walked in, the man was tied to a chair, being forced to watch as his wife and teenage daughter were gang raped by the pirates. Over the cries and screams of the women, John heard Smiley threaten to destroy the daughter's beauty if the man did not talk. "Naw," Smiley was saying, "I won't kill 'er. I figger she'll do that herself when she sees her face. I'll just slice her nose, cut off her ears, and mebee give her some ar tistic scars. Time I'm done, she'll vomit ever' time she looks in the mirror." The man looked sick, tears running unheeded down his bruised and bloody face.
John glanced at the subject of Smiley's threats just as she turned her dirty, agonized face toward him. Their eyes met.
John told himself later that the girl really did not look that much like Mina. Oh, the hair color was similar, and her features generally resembled Mina's, but the resemblance wasn't really that close. At that moment, though, John was transfixed.
Mina had told him that someday something would happen that would hold a mirror up for John, and show him what he had become, what he had done to himself. Then, she said, he would probably kill himself. She had begged him to "go straight," stop the piracy and settle for peaceful trade — and then she had been killed when he tried.
But suddenly he saw himself in the girl's dull, pain wracked eyes. He was responsible for all this. He had planned this huge planetary raid. The animals torturing her were his men, obeying his orders. He had become what Smiley was: a monster.
John made it outside before he vomited. Mina's mirror had appeared, and John was full of loathing and disgust for what it had revealed.
Mina had been wrong about one thing, though. John overcame the urge to kill himself, mainly by focusing on forming a plan to escape the pirates and flee to some place where he could begin a peaceful new life and put this horror existence behind him.
Time dragged as Azure Sky 's AI shut down the drives and went to minimum life support. There was 'way too much time to think, to regret the past, and to worry about whether he would be discovered.
He was monitoring the pirate fleet's communications, and was gratified by the confusion his disappearance and Smiley's death had caused. The struggle for leadership was well underway, and from what was being said, and more importantly, what was carefully not being said, it was becoming apparent that Townley was on his way to gaining control. Captain Franks of the hellraker was still alive, but John suspected that was only because he was being very cautious, and refusing to leave his ship. Eventually, Townley would bribe one of Hellraker 's crew to kill their captain.
Meanwhile, Townley had called a "council of captains" of the various ships. It had been decided that this "council" would command until a leader was selected.
So far, no search had been mounted for John and Azure Sky. It appeared John had been right: Townley didn't trust Turlow not to run off. And it was Townley. John could tell that he was the one pulling the strings, and despite his drunkenness, it appeared that Franks knew it too. Franks was refusing to leave Hellraker, claiming not to trust his crew. However, he was in almost constant contact with the other captains, trying to forge support for his own candidacy. That he would fail was, to John, a foregone conclusion. Townley was smarter, tougher, and meaner. He was also sober. John just hoped Franks lasted until he completed his escape.
Between Azure Sky 's library and monitored pirate communications, the time passed slowly. Nevertheless, it did pass. John heaved a great sigh of relief as the yacht jumped.
After two recal stops, his first stop was Jackson. Jackson had been a shipbuilding center long before the Fall of the Empire. For a long time after the Fall, Jackson had been able to carry on business as usual. Empire or no, trade required ships, and ships required maintenance, repair and replacement. But now, decline and piracy had begun taking their toll on interstellar trade. Large freighters and the few remaining passenger liners no longer had to wait for access to the orbital shipyards, and the ground-based yards were no longer crowded with smaller ships. The decline here had been slow, but it was definitely occurring.
John's reason for coming to Jackson was Yan Carbow. Yan was one of the ex-slaves that escaped with John. Yan had left the pirates after the first raid, on the ore carrier from Peltir IV. The deaths of the ore carrier's crew had shocked and disgusted Yan. He had taken his share of the loot and returned to his home planet of Jackson, where he had bought into a small groundside shipyard servicing mostly small intrasystem ships. A few years ago, casual contact with another ex-slave had revealed that Yan had done well, and had assumed full ownership of the yard.
Yan was a large man in late middle age whose rough, scarred hands testified to his years of hard labor. In the years since he left John, Yan's muscle had softened to fat, turning a large man into a huge one. Still, he was a gentle bear of a man with a ready smile and a cheerful manner that had been invaluable to the slaves' survival.
Yan's smile widened to a broad grin when he saw John. "Hello, hello!" he bellowed, careful not to use John's name where it could be overheard. Even years later, the habits of slavery persist. "Come in and tell me what we can do for you!"
He ushered John into his office and carefully closed the door before grabbing John into a huge bear hug. "John!" he bellowed. "I'm so glad to see you again!" His tone lowered to a roar. "I was afraid you were dead!"
John's grin was wide and sincere as he gestured to Yan to lower his voice. "It's great to see you again too, Yan," he replied. "I hear you've done well for yourself."
The big man's smile widened. "I have done well, John," he replied proudly in a more conversational tone as he gestured John to a chair. "Life has been good since I came back. Sheol, I'm a gentleman now! A yard owner and pillar of the community."
He thumped into the oversized swivel chair behind his desk, and then leaned forward as his smile faded. "I assume this isn't a social call, John. What's up, and how can I help? Need to hide out? I can get you fixed up with an identity and you can take over half of the yard."
John started. "You're joking!"
The smile resurfaced as Yan shook his head. "Nope. No joke. I owe you my life and my freedom. I have always hoped you'd show up here so I could make that offer. I'd be proud if you'd accept it."
John shook his head in disbelief. "Yan," he replied slowly, "You're amazing." He looked around wistfully. "I really wish I could accept your offer. But I'm on the run now, and need to bury myself in the Old Empire for awhile." His eyes returned to Yan and a slow half-smile lit his face. "Perhaps I can come back when the heat's off. I think I'd like that."
Yan frowned. "Law problems? Sheol, I've got contacts…" his voice trailed off as John shook his head.
"I'm afraid the law is a minor problem at the moment," John said. "My former colleagues are at the head of the list. Any time now, lowlifes here and throughout the sector will hear that there is a big bounty on my head, courtesy of Captain Reg Townley, newly crowned Terror of the Spaceways. I've got to travel far and fast."
Yan nodded, the ever-present smile fading. "So you finally quit. Did Mina's words finally get through that thick skull?"
"Something like that. Anyway, I've got a gorgeous yacht called Azure Sky sitting on your apron. She's exactly what I need. She's fast, luxurious, and best of all, she's got an AI advanced enough to let me run her alone."
Yan nodded again. "So what can I do for you?"
"Well, first of all, she needs a new identity. I would like her beacon to identify her as some kind of small courier ship or something. Second, she's way too fancy. She's obviously pre-Fall, but she has been kept in immaculate condition. I need her made to look old and beat-up. I'd like her to seem like something innocuous, that won't attract pirates.
"Finally," he continued, "I'm concerned about the ship's AI. I have never dealt with artificial intelligence that close to sentience. It scares me a little. I was able to convince it that I had bought the yacht from her previous owner, and that I was a businessman and was concerned about duplicity by my trading partners. That's how I explained running away from the Terror's fleet. But with the traveling I'm going to have to do and the things I'll need to do, I can't keep coming up with stories and muddling through. I need a top comp expert that can set a firm cover story, and maybe even make it loyal to me, if that's possible."
Yan leaned back in his chair and laced his fingers behind his head. "I saw you land," he said thoughtfully. "She is a pretty thing. I'll be kinda sorry to mess her up. A disguise, eh? Hmm."
After a moment, he swung forward again, dropping his arms. "Well, she's about the size of one of the armed couriers the Empire Fleet used to use. They called 'em 'stingers,' because they were small, but had some nasty weapons. There never were very many of 'em. They were mostly used for fast, secure communications and high-value shipments between Prime and the Sector Viceroys. They carried a crew of five, and had two Alliance-style quickfirers mounted on the centerline. Add a few extra hull plates to change her shape, and I think we can make her look like one of those. We might even have room under the phony hull plates to actually install those quickfirers!" He was becoming excited at the challenge. "The orbital scrap yard has all kinds of military junk." He straightened and grinned at John. "This is gonna be fun!"
John was not as excited. "What about the AI?"
Yan shrugged. "The best comp man on the planet is Rey Teros. He works as an independent consultant. Nowadays, he only takes on jobs he likes. But he owes me a favor, and if I wave enough quants under his nose, he'll do it.
"I've got money…" John started.
Yan waved a dismissal. "No, you don't. Not on this planet. You can't even buy a damned sandwich." He keyed a speaker on his desk. "Evie? Listen. I want a credit chit with, oh, say, fifty thousand quants on it. No, not a company chit. Strictly cash. When? Now, of course!"
He sat back and regarded John soberly. "So, can you tell me your plans? Anything I can help with?
John shook his head. "No, my plans are only firm as far as getting the ship modded and then heading for the Old Empire. I'll need to stop somewhere for some body sculpting to change my appearance. After that I'll either try to find courier runs or try to find a nice, quiet planet where I can retire."
Yan snorted. "Retire? You? You won't last a year. I think you'd better be working on a plan C, because you've already learned you're no trader, and your plan B is ridiculous!"
John smiled. "Don't count on it. I was once a quiet, civilized attorney, remember?"
Yan smiled. "Yeah. And you ended up in a slave coffle!"
Work began on the Azure Sky immediately. Yan's yard had the specs on almost all of the ships used by the Empire, and they decided his plans were feasible. The big man seemed to really enjoy the challenge offered by the conversion.
The orbital scrap yard had only one of the quickfirers, but by retrofitting a larger fusactor, Yan was able to fit a heavy laser under the dummy hull plates. "You'll have to aim both of your weapons by aiming the ship," he told John. "There was no room to fit turrets. We'll program the AI with all the targeting programs necessary, so you'll still be a one-man ship."
The modifications made the renamed Scorpion remarkably lethal for her size. The quickfirer fired tiny rockets some twenty millimeters in diameter. However, the rockets were plated with collapsed metal, and massed 100 kilos in a one-G field. They were effective on anything up to a destroyer, and had been one of the most effective general-purpose weapons in the Old Empire's arsenal. The laser Yan mounted on Scorpion had been removed from an Old Empire destroyer. Together, the two weapons gave John the firepower of an Old Empire corvette, in a much smaller package. John would have a surprise for any pirate that attacked him.
Time dragged, and despite Yan's hospitality, John was getting nervous by the time Yan considered Scorpion ready for delivery after six weeks. By now, John had to assume that Townley had secured his command. Fat with the loot of Atlantea, the fleet would not be restive, and Townley would feel secure enough to come searching for John, and post bounties along the way.
John had been scanning the Stellar Index for possible havens when the comm buzzed. It was Yan, of course, and he had a grim expression on his face. “Two men just left my office,” he said without preface. They were looking for the owner of that small courier in the yard. They didn’t know his name.” Two security cam pictures filled the screen.
John snapped to attention. The faces were familiar, of course. “Yamesh and Barned,” he said. “They like to work as an assassination team. They enjoy the killing,” he added. Townley had found him already.
Yan’s fat face was stricken. “Then you’ll have to kill them, won’t you?” He would certainly have to try. At his wordless nod, tears began streaming down the ample cheeks. “John, I’m sorry, but I can’t kill someone. I never could, even on Peltir. I just can’t!”
Despite the dagger of fear in his own chest, he felt terrible for Yan. Yan was one of the gentlest people in the universe. Somehow, he had retained that gentility even through years of slavery. No, He’d have to face the killers, but no matter what the risk, he would keep Yan totally out of it.
“It’s all right, Yan. You know I would never ask that of you. Did they leave contact information?”
Looking somewhat reassured, but still worried, Yan nodded. “They’re staying at a hotel near the port in the club district.”
He was thinking hard. “Low rent area? Run down? Slummy?”
A weak smile surfaced on Yan’s face. “Very. Lots of cheap bars and hookers.” He brightened, “Say, I’ve got some pretty tough boys out in the yard…” he trailed off as he saw John's head shaking ‘no’.
“Not a chance, Yan,” John insisted. “I don’t want you involved if there’s any rough stuff.” Then, suddenly a thought occurred to him. “Say, Yan, maybe there doesn't have to be any rough stuff. Does Jackson subscribe to the Sector-Wide Wanted List service?”
Surprise lit his features. “Of course. Every civilized planet in the sector uses it. I understand the Patrol uses it to run the names of incoming passengers.”
John nodded, getting excited now. “I’m sure these two came in on fake papers. But they’re wanted as pirates on over a dozen planets in this sector alone; and pirates are subject to summary execution, without trial. Suppose a reputable citizen, say a shipyard owner, were to call the Patrol and report some suspicious characters asking suspicious questions about a ship in his yard.”
A slow smile grew across Yan’s features. “Why, I’ll bet they’d want to take another look at those characters’ papers, and maybe even run their DNA against the Wanted list. If they’re as bad as you say, the government probably wouldn’t even bother with a trial.”
John was grinning, now. “Yep. I can see the headlines on the Worldweb now: ‘Local Yard Owner Helps Capture Pirates’. They might even vote you a reward; these are very bad people.”
Relief was warring with a wide grin on the fat face. “And neither of us has to kill anyone or be killed.”
“Right,” John replied. And better yet," he added, “there will be a record of what happened to them. If they just disappeared, Townley might get suspicious and send another team. This way, I get a clean head start.”
Yan wrestled his face into a scowl. “Well! I think I had better do my plain civic duty. You might want to stick around your hotel room for a day or so. Theirs aren’t the only pictures on that list, you know.”
John smiled. “Don’t worry. I’m afraid James Yor-Tarken is coming down with something that will take at least three days to cure.”
Yan’s face took on a concerned look. “Oh, I’m so sorry, sire Yor-Tarken. The yard will of course send condolences. You are, after all, a rather substantial customer.”
By the time Yor-Tarken’s illness had passed, the pirates had been arrested, identified and the executions carried out. Yan was a local hero, which he was enjoying immensely, and Scorpion ’s transformation was complete.
John's relief was palpable when Rey Teros finally introduced him to his new AI and explained its modifications.
"As you requested," the wizened little man began, "We retained the name of 'Tess' for your AI. We have programmed her to be loyal to you only. If you sell the vessel, I'm afraid some major reprogramming will be required." He looked disapproving. "I do not approve of loyalty circuits. They render the Artificial Intelligence vulnerable to amateur and unintended program conflicts. However," he continued, "the circuits were present, and the programming has been completed. To her, you are a secret agent being pursued by pirates. Your 'secret agent' identity permits her to accept apparently contradictory inputs and supposed 'cover stories' without establishing programming conflicts." His look of disapproval turned into a scowl. "To a certain extent, it will also allow her to deal with the conflict between her basic programming concerning human safety and the presence and use of the lethal weapons with which you have equipped her." He paused and turned an intense glare on John. "I emphasize that she is not a military AI, and does not have their basic programming. The more often she is confronted with the fact of the destruction of human life, the more likely she is to suffer injury."
Teros paused, as though deciding whether to continue. "The AI is pre-Fall Alliance manufacture, and is the most advanced one I've ever seen. I suspect it contains capabilities I do not understand. There are also memory repositories I was unable to access." He admitted reluctantly. "Should you get to the Alliance, you might find someone there qualified to deal with those anomalies. But I doubt it." He shook his head. "I would love to spend years studying it, but I know that is impossible. All I can do is wish you good luck, Captain."
John assured Teros that he would take good care of the remarkable AI and did not intend to use Scorpion 's weapons any more than necessary. Teros merely grunted before striding out, slamming the door behind him.
At last, Yan gave him a final tour of Scorpion. "We simply gave her a forged Old Empire ident beacon that says she's Scorpion, originally registered to the Viceroy of the Callisto sector. All the onboard papers and ident plates agree with that. We did not paint her name on the hull. But John," he continued in a warning tone, "We found a sealed compartment aboard her. When we broke into it, we found what I swear must be an old subspace initiator!"
John started. Only three or four planets outside the Alliance still had the capability of instant subspace communications galaxy-wide, mostly former sector capitols. Subspace receivers had been common in the Old Empire, but the initiators required to establish the connection were so expensive that they had even been rare there. He doubted there were more than a dozen techs in man-occupied space who could service one.
"Oh," Yan continued, "I think it was long dead, and we left it alone, since we had no idea what might happen if we tried to remove it. But given what Rey told us, I think what you've got is an Old Empire Viceroy's yacht, built by the Alliance or the old Rim Sector before it became the Alliance." He laughed aloud. "If so, we're not the first to forge papers for her! Maybe she really was registered to a Viceroy!"
Yan's fat face faded to serious. "Be very careful with it, John. We can't know all of its capabilities for sure, and with what Rey said …"
The changes in the appearance of the ship were remarkable. The ship's contours had been reshaped to resemble the courier she claimed to be, and her antirad coating looked scarred and worn. Inside, age and wear traces had been carefully emphasized or simulated. Previous attempts to conceal Scorpion 's age had been removed. The sybaritic luxury of Azure Sky remained, but now the luxury carried an element of age and shabbiness. Dozens of coats of paint on bulkheads and fasteners reinforced the impression of age. John was impressed with Scorpion. She resembled Azure Sky only in general size and engine configuration. John suspected that even her previous owner would walk right past her on a landing field. Moreover, John would need that anonymity. He had business to attend to before he could search for a refuge, and some of the Old Empire worlds had become insular and suspicious since the Fall. Some had fallen below the space-travel level, and some had even become dens of pirates. There were reports that an entire Empire Fleet battle group had gone rogue during the Fall, and had seized control of nearly a dozen systems. Calling themselves "The New Empire," their descendants reportedly still ruled those systems, enforcing their rule with their aging warships. So, one entered Old Empire space carefully, gathering as much intelligence as possible before committing oneself. John was not ready yet for anything but the fringes of the Old Empire.
The newly renamed Scorpion was some 150 meters long, streamlined to operate in-atmosphere. In keeping with her design as a super-luxurious yacht, both her inertial drive and her jump drive were oversized, and made even more so by Yan. She could berth twelve in her six large staterooms, each of which had a private ‘fresher and a large viewscreen that could be set to provide panoramic views of hundreds of worlds and moons, as well as familiar starfields, even if the ship was in jump.
Largest and most complete was what John called the ‘owner’s suite’, closest to the lounge that occupied the space normally filled by the ‘bridge’ controls on lesser craft. The owner’s suite was larger than the other staterooms, to accommodate a desk with controls to access not one, but two comps. One was the main, Tess-operated ship’s comp, with its massive library of books, vids, and other entertainments. The other was more interesting. It was entirely separate from Tess. Its keyboard was not covered by any of Tess’s ubiquitous vision sensors, and it even featured a hush field so that not even the AI could hear spoken information. More than almost anything else, this second comp, with its obsessive security features, convinced Cale that Scorpion really had been built for an Empire Viceroy.
Scorpion ’s missing “bridge” was a small cubby off the engine room, its walls covered with viewscreens and control readouts. It was not expected that the bridge, or “manual control” as the manuals and the ship’s artificial intelligence referred to it, would be used in anything other than an emergency. Normally Tess controlled all mechanical and astrogational functions, leaving even her “Captain” to simply enjoy her amenities after choosing a destination.
Overall, a rich man's restored plaything became a 350-year-old military surplus workhorse with a checkered past. Scorpion 's papers showed that she had passed through hundreds of hands over the years, from couriers, traders, and pirates to the rich man that had customized her into a yacht some fifteen years before. The last entry showed her sold to James Yor-Tarken some five years ago. Of course, John had matching identification showing him to be the aforementioned sire Yor-Tarken, native of Terranea in the Horsehead Sector. He also had a replacement for the last page, showing an additional sale, but with the buyer's name blank. Once John established a permanent identity, he could sell the ship to himself, if he so desired. John knew he could trust Yan with his life. However, many people had worked on this project. Eventually, one of them would drop a hint that could lead Townley back to John. He had warned Yan, and hoped the big man would be safe.