Cryptikon Far Freedom Part 2

hers. Two other officers departed the bridge. Except for Freddy, only Captain Horss and her mother remained with Jamie on the bridge. She looked from one to the other, expectant of some further bad news.

  "I discovered you have merchant marine experience," Horss said to Jamie.

  "Merchant marine?" An auxiliary memory transfixed her. The images streamed through her conscious, brief and bright, concisely edited, as though a summation of events that weren't very important, except that… they led to more important events.

  "Navigator," Horss said. "You once took command of a ship in an emergency."

  "Yes, sir." The memory stayed with her long enough to keep the salient points in her brain. "The highlight of my career was as second mate aboard an express freighter. A psychopath murdered the captain and injured the first mate. I had to take over and find out who the murderer was. Except for one or two confrontations, it wasn't a difficult situation."

  "Sounds difficult to me! Why did you quit the merchant marine soon afterward?"

  "I learned my parents had died in an earthquake on Paradise. I returned to take care of their affairs and discovered evidence that, even though I knew I was adopted, I was actually related to them. They were my grandparents. I suddenly had other priorities."

  "I can imagine what they were," Horss said. "Our priorities have also changed. We need help. Will you accept a promotion to Navy captain?"

  It was a full five seconds before Jamie could respond. "You must be desperate, sir!"

  "I am. You don't know it but I'm damaged. I'm surviving, but mainly by reputation."

  "Jon," Demba said sympathetically, "you've done very well, especially considering the unique circumstances. I don't know why you continue to criticize yourself."

  "He was very kind to me," Jamie said to her mother. "If that's a symptom of his inefficiency then I don't understand the job of captain." Jamie hoped she wasn't being too generous in her assessment of Horss. It was hard to judge his qualities from the few encounters she had had with him. She liked him, and she hated to distrust her feelings. She was changing into some other person almost moment by moment. Her feelings were dominating her, they were all she had to guide her, and they could change at any moment.

  Horss reacted with a slight smile and an effort to continue with an objective tone of voice. "I'm not prejudiced by your record as a Marine, Jamie, or by your parentage. I think you can do the job, in whatever way you want to define it. Your mother wouldn't let me make this decision if she didn't agree with me. Do you have a candidate to replace you as head of Security?"

  "Yes, sir."

  "Then you'll take the job?"

  "Yes, sir. But I don't understand why you need another officer of that rank. I can't replace Direk."

  "I don't have a logical reason," Horss replied. "It just feels right to me. You are not replacing Direk. I was going to invent a new crew slot and call you a junior ship captain. If you want to call it executive officer, fine. You are second in command, followed by your mother. We are the only real line officers aboard. Report here for duty at shift change but keep your Marine uniforms until after the next stop."

  "Another stop, sir?"

  "There is always a complication," her mother said.

  The celestial view abruptly changed, leaving them sitting next to a ghostly silhouette of the irregular mass of an asteroid seen against a glowing curtain of ionized gas. Jamie turned her head to take in the panorama and saw two protostars shining in front of a pillar of black dust. She suffered another flood of memory.

  Her mother noted her inner distraction. "Have you been there before?"

  Jamie nodded, painfully absorbing the shock. She and Direk had lived there, off and on, for decades. It was their base of operations for prospecting. The dust clouds were both a signpost and camouflage. She had never questioned Direk's choice of the place but now knew he had a reason. He always had reasons. He always knew things he wouldn't tell her. It was his own method of kindness but one she hated from her current perspective.

  "We have three probes relaying data by tightbeam," her mother said. "Here's another view."

  They flew closer to the asteroid until it filled half of the bridge, then drifted to center on an opening in the dark rock. The opening jumped at them, like a mouth about to eat them, and an adjustment in the sensor now showed a spacecraft docked inside the hole. In only a moment a memory of the old ship was pried out of her auxiliary memory. She realized the implication of the ship's existence. It must have delivered Direk, or a copy of him, to the asteroid. Dead or alive, original or copy, Direk will be there!

  She would be damned if she would react to this with any sign of emotional weakness. She was a Navy captain! Her mother touched her hand, which probably meant she could sense Jamie's stress. She almost lost the battle, but some of her old Marine steel arrived to stiffen her spine.

  "There's more," her mother said.

  A small rock appeared, orbiting the larger asteroid. Analysis data superimposed itself on the image of the small rock in bright yellow letters.

  "Anomalous composition for that neighborhood," Jamie said, hardly realizing she was remembering prospector-training from more than a century ago. "Is it a ship?"

  "It's a ship," Horss said. "We've logged about twenty transmat feeds from it to the big rock. We think it's hostile. Probably a privateer."

  "As in pirate ship? When can you get us close enough to deploy my Marines?"

  "We're attempting to sneak up on them," Horss replied. "We may be within transmat range in about six hours. What would you do?"

  "Scare them. Hope they run. We're a Navy ship. We're ten times their size."

  "And totally unarmed. And if they don't run?"

  "Board them with Marines before they can pull on their drive envelope."

  "Relative velocity will preclude transmat probing for safe v-nodes."

  "We're so big they'll see our bow shock no matter how close we start our attack vector," Jamie said. "But they probably have personnel in the big rock searching for loot. They might sit still long enough for us to come alongside and board. Except, they can dance their heading notch and confuse our transmat probing. If this is a test for the captain's job, I'm flunking it."

  "They have a cannon. Remember the hope of an unarmed warrior?"

  "That his opponent will focus too much on using his weapon and ignore his other assets. You want them to shoot at us?"

  "We have a plan. I hope they don't have a cannon big enough to hurt us too badly. How many Marines can you muster for combat?"

  "All of them. They're a strange bunch! They like to fight, but they don't have any killer instinct. I'm not sure how they keep score."

  "Keep score? Never mind. Get them ready. Your mother and I will keep you updated on the target and figure out how to get you deployed. Dismissed."

  Jamie departed the bridge, carefully following a luminous guide in the multilevel deck.

  /

  Zakiya and Jon listened to pieces of communications intercepted by the probes. They watched as Freddy refined the data that described the privateer ship.

  "Any other ideas, Jon?" Zakiya asked.

  "We can try talking to them. There isn't much in the Navy Ops manuals on negotiating with privateers. The Navy usually shoots first and doesn't leave anybody to question later."

  "If we talk first and fail, do you have any doubt we can overcome them?"

  "I don't want to try, Boss."

  "That surprises me. Why not?"

  "If this was any other Navy ship, and I had an admiral aboard, I'd find a way to follow orders, with or without casualties."

  "You would have armament we don't have."

  "Doesn't matter. The principle is the same. It's the ship and the admiral that are different. I'm damned sure you don't want to kill anyone. Neither do I. About all we can do to guaranty their defeat is to ram them. Then send in the Marines. That might still kill a few. To keep the body count nearest zero, we have to take a chance."

  "Given
time, I think talking will be successful, but we don't know how much time we have. We need to make them listen quickly. Your plan is good, Jon. I wish I knew how the Marines will perform."

  "Your daughter can take that ship single-handed, if we could put her in the right place. The Marines will do the job. None of those guys will dare to disappoint Jamie. I've talked with a few of them."

  "I'm sorry I need you to make these decisions, Jon. I can no longer make life-and-death decisions. I will always choose life. I can't even think about sending Jamie into a hostile ship!"

  "Iggy is still mining the passive shielding with explosives. Should I tell him to stop?"

  "No, we keep to our schedule. This is a Malay privateer, judging from the comm traffic."

  "What does that mean?"

  "I think it means there are families living aboard the ship."

  "Mothers and children?"

  "Yes."

  "Now I remember why I sometimes hate being a captain!" Horss declared "There are probably five hundred people on that ship. It's bigger than it looks. I hope you have something very nice to say to them."

  "In case I don't see you again," she said, standing up.

  "You're going to talk to them yourself!" Horss accused, standing up also.

  "In case I don't see you again," she repeated.

  "Cut the crap, Boss! This is nothing compared to what you've already survived."

  "I just wanted to say-"

  "I told your daughter about Direk's copy. Didn't want her to lose hope."

  She opened her mouth then shut it.

  "Got you!" Horss said.

  "Don't make me kiss you, Jon! I've already embarrassed Iggy that way. Thank you!