Heat and Light Page 13

  From there, he branched off further into military weapons research and manufacturing, material engineering, and planetary surveys. Under the table, he ran the unions of his company employees. He now controlled five large mercenary companies. One had been in the Tanner system while we were there. While he didn't fit the visual description I had in mind, he still had a Slick Willie look about him.

  We watched enough public vids of him with politicians and other corporate wheels to get a very good sense of who he was. Now that we had him by the tail, we needed to find out how he knew so much about us. Time for a road trip to the Oster system. Mr. Winston Frease expected Traveler to be there in two weeks.

  19 Pop the Weasel

  Ten days ahead of schedule, we emerged in the Oster system. We had arrived well out and away from the designated system transit points to do some recon. No sign of Mr. Frease.

  There were some contracted mercenary vessels in the system. Two corvettes were traversing the systems asteroid belt that was being mined by the locals. Smaller systems, who could not afford their own navy, contracted mercs to police their system.

  Most merc companies had retired senior military officers controlling things at the pointy end of the spear. The front office desk-bound bean-counters stayed away from the real hazards. Lower rank officers also came from system navies. Those had either left their military service for the greener credit fields of the mercenaries or had a stymied go-no-where future in rank advancement.

  The lower rank associates were filled from the galactic population of merchant fleet crews, navy enlisted, and corporate survey crews. Some mercs even took raw recruits as young as seventeen, speeding them through a harsh boot camp style training.

  Mercenary ground pounders and boarding parties came from the dregs and misfits of various system Marines and corporate colonial security units.

  I had interviewed with a merc unit right after my discharge from the Marines. Most Marines took a dim view of mercs. We considered them bottom feeders with no honor. But, hey, a girl's gotta eat. Right? Instead of joining them, I signed on to do a one-year tour, on a passenger liner as an engineer, before I joined up with Hornblower.

  We had picked the Oster system because it had no space force and was a small but stable non-corporate system. We found out that the merc force here was not one of Mr. Frease's. No trace of a relationship or link between him and this merc company or its owner-operators. All in all, they looked to be one of the more respectable ones. Merc space units of this type were mostly used to keep the peace between smaller off planet competing companies involved in mining and processing as well as for search and rescue both in the cold dark and ground-side.

  We scanned Oster's single orbital that served as a transfer station for passengers and freight. Our sensors picked up four workers aboard the mostly automated station.

  The asteroid belt had localized pockets of miners and processors. Some had over a hundred workers, some only ten. Most were small outfits. There were no structures or equipment on the other planets or moons. We took an extra hard look at those.

  Our plan was to have Sojourner pop-in at the designated time at the system-approved location. Traveler would be standing by, under cloak, near Sojourner's planned point of entry.

  The entire volume around that point would have a flight of twenty stealth-cloaked fighters on the edge of that sphere in space. Traveler would control the fighters. We had run her through numerous scenarios, and she had become quite deadly at that game. With no in-system anomalies or hidden forces found, we waited.

  Three days before Traveler's projected arrival, a light cruiser with two frigates arrived. The cruiser released two corvettes that had been attached to her outer hull. They contacted the local mercs and system authorities to let them know they were here to meet some associates. They would be staying only for a few days on the system's fringe. Still, I bet the mercs and ground-siders were a bit nervous.

  Traveler and Sojourner, who now had an upgraded Surron scanning suite, did a very thorough scan of every ship before injecting part of themselves into Frease’s ships. As we expected, the vessels belonged to one of Mr. Frease's merc companies. Frease and First Officer Amanda Wright were aboard the light cruiser. Each of the merc ships had standard military weapons and load-outs.

  The clock was ticking for Sojourner's arrival. We had an internal video and audio link of each merc ship through their own systems.

  Listening in, we learned their plan was to take Traveler and her crew by boarding action while the merc ships held their guns to our head. They would threaten immediate destruction if we didn't power down in five seconds to prevent us from jumping out.

  What Frease wanted was Ranger, the ship. Somehow, he knew it was a special ship. He even had a basic non-engineering layout sketch which was very close to Ranger’s configuration.

  The uniqueness of our ship would be confirmed when we popped-in with a small ship that shouldn't have an interstellar drive. Sojourner was also packing a new very powerful defense shield thanks to Martin's Surron Tech.

  As far as they were concerned, Traveler was just a pretty ship used for freight services. They wanted the nugget they expected to find inside her flight bay.

  With Traveler and company watching on the appointed day, Sojourner popped out a few light years away and then right back in-system, uncloaked and squawking his ship's ID, like a normal pop-in arrival. Hornblower, Roger, and I were aboard. Abby and the others stayed on Traveler.

  The response to our arrival was an immediate hard active scan by every one of the ships. There were a few seconds of confusion in their ship's control centers because Ranger/Sojourner, not the freighter Traveler, was in their sights. They quickly recognized our small ship. Frease had his units move into a tactical box around us, while the cruiser stood off. Traveler, undetected, hovered above.

  We were hailed to stand down our drive and power units. We did, or at least it looked like we had to their scanners. Traveler and Sojourner had complete control over what their scanners showed and didn't show.

  Mr. Frease com’d us and we took his feed. “Well, Captain Bonner, looks like we have you in a … situation. I recommend you and your crew comply with our instructions or none of you will live to see another day.” That rat bird had no idea what was going to happen to his ships in general and to him and Ms. Wright in particular. I very much wanted to kick her ass and break her legs, slowly, one at a time. Then throw her in the Auto-Doc with the ugly setting turned way up. Give her a cute little hunchback.

  We were told that a boarding party was being sent to dock with us. Their ship weapons were hot, or so they thought.

  A small shuttle was on its way from the cruiser. Amanda Wright was aboard and in command of seven well-armed and armored crewmembers. We were told to open our starboard cargo bay to receive them. Then to assemble all crew in the cargo hold as soon as the doors were sealed. We complied.

  Amanda strode down the ramp into the bay as if she owned this section of the galaxy. I started calling her ramp-tramp after that. The security force fanned out taking positions around us. We acted surprised to see her. I wanted to spit on her boots.

  “Nice to see you again, Captain Bonner. Very nice of you to have complied with our commands. Adam, take two of your men, search the ship for weapons and stowaways.” One of the security men responded by moving off ahead with two following.

  All the security men were wearing their helmets, but Amanda had entered the bay with hers off. She wanted us to know that it was her that we were dealing with. She ordered us to be searched, and looking at me, she said, “Carefully undo your tool belt and drop it to the deck sweetie.”

  We were searched one at a time. Our entire charade was to keep that smug little bitch talking. As she had us searched, Hornblower asked, “How did you get into this. Those ships aren't from your navy.”

  “No, they aren't. I have found better, more interesting, and profitable employment. Tell me, how did you come to have such an interesting sh
ip. No, wait, don't tell me, I already know,” she said wiggling her finger back and forth.

  “You bought it from a nice little salesman on Ambigon Station. He just happened to be one of the tens of thousands of people who report interesting things from strategic places to my employer, the more important the information, the more they're paid. Too bad about what happened to him and his family. Such a needless and tragic accident.”

  “Who is your current employer, Ms. Wright?”

  “Not your concern right now. You may or may not get to meet him. It all depends on your behavior and cooperation.” Hornblower gave her his best defeated look.

  When the search monkey got to me, I warned him not to get handsy, but he grabbed something he shouldn't have. I twisted, giving him a quick leg sweep that landed him on his ass. As he was going down, I took his sidearm. When he looked up, he saw a hot weapon pointed at his face. I heard a giggle from Abby over my Q-Com. Hey, I did warn him. Sojourner had disabled all their weapons, so there was no chance of me getting shot in reprisal.

  “STOP,” Amanda yelled. I think that was a command to not only me but to dillweed's partner who wanted to shoot me. “Get off the deck, Nash, and finish your search,” she screeched at him.

  The other two men had maintained their places, scanning around the cargo bay. They weren't going to be distracted by a diversion.

  Finishing his search, my boy Nash removed something from my lower outer right thigh pocket.

  “What have you got there?” Amanda demanded.

  “Looks like ball bearings to me Miss.”

  “Bring them here. So, some of our grease monkey's little playthings?” Nash placed them in her hand, and she dropped them to the deck one at a time. Seven in all. What a performance.

  Just then, their pilot stuck his head out of the shuttle hatch, telling little miss tight britches, he was having communications problems with the Blackburn. “Coms keep fading in and out.”

  “Well, get back in there and FIX it, you moron.” Amanda was making new friends right and left.

  “Yes miss, but you might lose your communication-relay.”

  “Well, tell the Blackburn you will be off-line for a few minutes while you get it straightened out.”

  “Yes miss.” He retreated back inside the shuttle.

  The three-man search team had come back, reporting all clear. That was Sojourner's cue to go active. The suits of all our visitors locked up, face shields went opaque, sensors and coms went dead. They were all blind, deaf and dumb. As an added measure, Sojourner had their med-packs inject them with a dose of sleepy-sleep.

  Amanda, who had not had her helmet on was the only one of their crew who could still see or hear anything. I watched with satisfaction as she struggled to get her suit to move, while calling out over her coms. Not achieving that, she tried to use a voice command to get her powered armor to release. No dice.

  Their shuttle hatch closed. The Blackburn was receiving spoofed coms from Sojourner, mimicking the pilot's voice to his home vessel. Those coms were fading in and out as he reported that he was attempting to trouble shoot the unit, occasionally reassuring the folks on the other end that everything else here was fine and under control. The pilot was not actually trouble shooting, he was being asphyxiated. I could hear occasional banging as he hammered on the inner hull of the transport. It finally stopped.

  Amanda looked down, startled to see the seven ball bearings she'd dropped rise off the deck and start closely orbiting her head.

  “Amanda sweetie,” I said, “those little toys of mine can be oh so nasty. I can line them up to target your face and slowly, and I mean VERY slowly, drill right into your head.

  Or, I can make you look more butt ugly than you already are. So be nice. It's your turn to cooperate with Hornblower.” I was so glad Hornblower let me use the Floating Ball trick Martin and I had made for his magic act. I was controlling them via my Q-Com.

  Calmly, Hornblower approached Amanda, “I don't want to hurt you, but Sandy over there,” he nodded my way, “has a Marine's itch to stomp you into a mud hole. I just have a few questions. I know that Frease, over on that cruiser, arranged for your ships to meet us at those coordinates a few months back. What I would like you to tell me is just how did he know we were on our way there?” While Hornblower was talking, Roger had casually walked over and rested his huge forearm on the shoulder of her armor. He was looking down attentively from what appeared to be a great height. I wished I'd had popcorn for that show.

  Amanda's eyes were following the metal balls circling her head. “I don't know,” she said quickly. “Maybe he had your charted flight records or found out from the people who owned those survey ships you were supposed to meet.”

  “Perhaps, but I don't think so.”

  “Well, maybe you should just ask him.” She was afraid, piss in your pants afraid.

  “I think I'll do just that.”

  I had the metal balls spinning faster and faster around her head. Hornblower added. “By the way, did you know he had Jeanette Parker murdered?”

  Instant recognition of the name flashed across her face. Then she fainted, standing there in her suit. What a wuss. Sojourner had her suit inject her with sleep juice. She’d be out for hours.

  We opened the hatch to the shuttle. The pilot had passed out from the low oxygen level Sojourner had created inside. We gave him a sleep dose from an applicator we found in Amanda's armored suit pocket. Using cargo-bots, we stacked in the entire boarding party and closed its hatch. We were sending Mr. Frease a shuttle packed with cloaked mini-combat drones.

  Traveler flew the shuttle back to the Blackburn while maintaining a garbled and intermittent chatter with the cruiser. Frease was on his bridge asking what the hell was going on as his communication officer attempted to make sense of the stream of incoming gibberish.

  When the small ship was halfway home it clearly broadcast Amanda’s voice saying they had communication problems but that everything was OK, that they were on their way back. Then it went coms dark.

  We watched the small ship enter their flight bay. Its hatch swung up and open. Nobody emerged. A flight bay crew member walked over and looked inside. After a few short seconds, he com’d the bridge. Then all hell broke loose on the Blackburn.

  Crew members rushed to unload the sleeping occupants, laying them on the deck. It took three people to move each of the boarding party. That powered armor is heavy. They removed the sleeper's helmets, giving each one a few not too gentle slaps. I noticed that Amanda got one particularly hard smack. Put that guy in for a medal.

  Frease was watching the flight bay activity from the bridge. He was very pissed. We took his communication-ping. When his face appeared on the screen, he demanded to know what we had done to his crew and why the hell he shouldn't blow us all to hell right now!

  Hornblower let him bloviate for a few more seconds, then calmly said, “Well Mr. Frease, your boarding party got sleepy. They decided to go home to take a nap. As for why you shouldn't blow us out of space, the simple reason is that you can't. You see your weapons don't work anymore. Oh, and by the way, the crews on all your other ships are asleep too. Perhaps you work them too hard.”

  When Frease heard Hornblower use his name, he flinched slightly. Even before Hornblower had finished, Frease fell over. Several of our mini drones had made their way to his bridge, hypo-darting the entire bridge crew. The remaining crew fell to sleep from oxygen deficiency.

  The two frigate ships jumped out on an automated return to where they had come from. Their crews would wake up soon not knowing what had happened. Traveler had inserted a control-block on their jump-drive so they couldn't come back here. The block would go inactive in a few days. Traveler piloted the two corvettes to dock with the Blackburn

  We docked aboard Frease's flagship. Before Traveler had restored full oxygen concentration to the cruiser and the corvettes, our drones had circulated, dosing all the crew members. Everybody was in La La Land.

  Our bots
carted Mr. Frease and good old Amanda over to Sojourner. They were dumped in a double bunk stateroom. Bouncer was outside, blocking the door. I had packed a bag with Amanda's things, more because I wanted to snoop through her stuff than to give her any comfort. Roger had done the same for Frease.

  Traveler scanned the ship looking for any memory storage blocks not stored in or connected to the ship. She located a small data-block in the ship captain's quarters and in Frease's. Looked like we had Frease's little black book of secrets. The cruiser Blackburn and its crew were sent back home.

  20 Court Order

  We kept Frease and Amanda on ice until we had them in our cavern complex in lock-up. Adjoining cells for the happy couple. Each transparent cell had its own private restroom, a comfy bunk and storage shelves for their personal items. After all, we weren't savages.

  Amanda was the first to wake. We watched the video feeds as she came around and started to assess her situation. She saw Frease in the next cell. Walking over to the transparent wall separating them, she gave it several sharp slaps. “Wake up, Winston. Wake up, damn you.” Realizing she was not getting a response, she gave up.

  She rifled through the shelves, looking for something among her belongings. Not finding it, she let out a lengthy string of very unladylike curses. What a potty mouth. Miss Manners, from her finishing school, would have been so disappointed.

  Entering her restroom, she shut the door. Yeah, we were monitoring that too, but only Traveler was evaluating her actions in there. Traveler was on suicide watch. Besides, nobody wanted to see her take a dump.

  After about two minutes she emerged. She searched her cell centimeter by centimeter. She pulled on the shelves to see if she could break off a section for an improvised weapon or tool. Then she checked the bedding and the bunk. The cell lighting and ventilation were inaccessible, fifteen feet above her head. She slumped on the bunk. She was truly screwed. Given that, I knew she would still look for any crack or weak point she could exploit to escape.