Death Ship Quest Read online

  She shook her head. “Won’t work.” Lar Tennig was also shaking his head.

  “Look, Captain,” Kas replied in a nettled tone, “We’re trying to find a way to save your lives! It’s not too late to put you back aboard your ship, you know. Now, why won’t it work?”

  “Because of something you couldn’t possibly know, Captain,” she replied. “I was born in space. My parents were traders as well. Most of the customs agents in this sector have known me since I was a babe in arms. They’ve watched me grow up. They know me and I know them. If a stranger suddenly shows up at any system in this sector trying to impersonate me, they’ll be locked up or dead before they can get a word out – and there will be some very hard questions asked!”

  Lar Tennig spoke up. “She’s telling the truth, Captain. Everybody in the sector knows Lady Jane! Hell, she’s had that nickname since she was a kid. It’s probably the only joke that’s understood in every system in the sector.”

  Kas frowned, and Jane Grey explained. “When I was a kid, oh, ten or twelve standard, I guess, I read this book about Old Earth. I dunno if it was true or not, but this book said that there was this place on Old Earth called Angle Land, or something like that. Anyway, it seems that there was a king named Henry Vee - something, and his queen was named Lady Jane Grey. Her name was even spelled the same as mine. She was young too, and she was only the queen for a few weeks, and then she was killed. It's a great tragic story.”

  “Well,” she continued, “You know how kids that age are. I decided that I would now be called ‘Lady’ Jane Grey. My parents thought it was funny to go along with me. So, now everyone in the sector knows me by that name. And I can guarantee that you won’t make it past your first recal if someone tries to impersonate me.”

  Kas’ frown had deepened. He sighed. “What you’ve told me only makes the decision harder. I guess the only thing we can do is put you back aboard your ship with supplies for several months and hope that no one finds you in time to interfere with our mission!”

  Lady Jane leaned forward again, causing serious distractions for Kas. “Hold on a minute, Captain. Even if we’re found I’m not thrilled about sitting on a dead ship for months. Maybe we can work something out. You’re Impies, right? Well, we’re Alliance citizens. Tell us about your mission, and if it’s no threat to the Alliance, maybe we can help.”

  Kas grinned. “You’re a trader, all right. And an excellent negotiator. But this isn’t a trade negotiation. I know this sounds melodramatic, but the future of mankind will be affected by the success or failure of our mission.”

  She answered his grin with one of her own. “You’re right. It sounds too melodramatic to be true. But I keep remembering that it was important enough for the Empire to send a Fleet crew out here with another three hundred in cold sleep, and for the Glory to send out ships pretending to be pirates.”

  “Captain!” Rom interrupted, “I’m sorry sir,” he continued, “but security . . .”

  Kas waved a hand in dismissal. “Security be damned,” he replied. “The main reason we’re out here playing spook is because everyone in the sector already knows about it. I can’t see that it can do much damage to talk about the mission at this point.”

  He turned back to his visitors. “An Empire battle cruiser went missing out near the edge of known space just over a century ago. Well, she’s been found. She’s intact, with her plague beacon running. The point is that she’s a complete, intact battle cruiser. That means she’s fully armed, including two planet busters.”

  “Unfortunately, the people that found her talked to people all the way back in to the Empire. So, not only the Empire, but the Alliance, the Glory and about half the independents are out looking for her. We happen to think that the best thing that could happen would be for the Empire to reclaim her; but I’m not sure the Alliance would agree.”

  “What I think we can agree on is that if the Glory or one of the nastier independents gets a fully operational battle cruiser, it could upset the balance of power throughout known space.” He shrugged. “It sounds melodramatic, but you could say that we’re trying to prevent an interstellar war.”

  His guests exchanged glances. “Well,” Jane said at last, “We know how badly the Glory wants her.” She grimaced and shivered. “I was just imagining that Swordtan in command of a battle cruiser instead of a corvette.” She looked thoughtful. “Look, Captain. As we’ve mentioned, we’re known in every system in this part of space. We can help you.”

  Kas chuckled. “I doubt it. Oh, we could use your undoubtedly complete knowledge of this sector, but I don’t think we need someone to shout “Impie spy!” at our next recal stop.”

  She frowned. “We wouldn’t do that.”

  Kas shrugged. “But we can’t take the chance that you would. No, I’m afraid we’ll just have to maroon you for a while.”

  She sighed in exasperation. “Look, Captain, I can understand your lack of trust. All you know about us is that we’re Alliance citizens who spend all our time among the independents. But that battle cruiser is a threat to the independents, the Alliance, hell, everybody! Just the thought of planet busters in the hands of the Glory is enough to make me want to help you. Having them in Empire hands is far better than having them drifting around out here unclaimed.”

  Kas started to reply, but she continued, “All right. We’ll give our word that we won’t betray you, even to the Alliance, and that we’ll do anything we can to help you get that damned thing back to the Empire!” The bald man beside her nodded, his face grim.

  Again Kas started to reply. This time it was Rom who interrupted. “Don’t do it, Captain,” he said. “It’s an unjustified risk!”

  Kas turned to him. “Rom, you’ve been crewing on traders for five years now. Tell me what you know about a trader’s word.”

  Rom shifted uncomfortably. “A trader would die to keep his word. He knows that if he breaks it no one will ever do business with him again.” He shrugged. “I still say it’s an unjustified risk. We should put them back aboard their ship and boost max away from here.”

  “He’s right, you know,” Kas said to the woman. “It is an unjustified risk. I have no right to jeopardize the mission for a pretty face.”

  She grinned. “Pretty? Not in this universe!” Then she sobered. “Look, Captain. I ought to let you maroon us. We already know quite enough to blow your mission. We know your ship’s name and we know that you were here. You also let slip that you started from Prime. It wouldn’t be too hard to reconstruct your course data, project it forward, and get a pretty good idea where you’re heading.”

  “But I don’t want to blow your mission. I want that damned battle cruiser safely back under Empire control. Oh, I won’t try to tell you that I wouldn’t rather see it in Alliance hands. But it does belong to the Empire, you’re the ones that know where it is, and you’ve got a crew for it already aboard.”

  Kas looked doubtful, and she continued, “All right, I’ll prove my good intentions. You think that marooning us would be an effective way to isolate us for awhile. You’re wrong. This is a busy recal point. In fact, the Senegalese have been talking about putting a customs post here. It would be a few days at most before we were rescued. If we wanted to blow your cover, all we’d have to do is let you listen to your man here and maroon us, then contact the Alliance embassy on New Senegal when we were rescued in a few days.” she shrugged. “You see? I’m putting myself at risk just to tell you that. You could decide to kill us and destroy the Lady. But I don’t think you will. At least, I hope you won’t.” The bald man at her side nodded enthusiastically. “Me too!” he replied, glaring at the woman.

  Kas released pent-up breath with a whoosh. “You have no idea how glad I am to hear you say that. You’ve just saved your lives. I figured the Glory would only have enough ships to picket the main recal points. That, plus the fact that we were both transiting it at the same time, told me that you’d be picked up quickly. That left me only two choices: trust you, or
put you back aboard your ship and then blast her to emm-cee-squared. I was desperately hoping you’d come up with some way to let me trust you.”

  Her eyes narrowed and her face darkened. “You mean that all this time you knew you couldn’t just maroon us? That every time you talked about marooning, you were really talking about killing us?”

  Kas nodded. She jumped to her feet, her flush deepening. “Why, you revolving sonofabitch! You . . . you . . . unprintable bastard!” She seemed about to continue when Lar Tennig put his hand on her arm. “Lady,” he said quietly, “It might not be diplomatic to insult a man with reason and means to kill you!”

  She stopped, mouth open. Her gaze moved from Lar to Kas, then back. The flush began fading from her cheeks. Suddenly she smiled and then giggled. Finally she collapsed back into her chair, roaring with laughter. Lar joined her a moment later and Kas broke down at nearly the same time. The three of them dissolved in gales of laughter as the almost palpable tension dissipated. Rom sat quietly, a smile lighting even his dour features.

  Finally, they began to compose themselves. “What’s a ‘revolving sonofabitch’?” Kas asked. “I’ve been called names by experts, but I’ve never heard that one.”

  She stifled a laugh. “A revolving sonofabitch is a sonofabitch any way you look at him,” she managed to get out before being once again carried off by gales of laughter. Kas, Lar and even Rom joined her. Kas managed to choke out some comment about ‘revolutions’, sending them all back into paroxysms of laughter. It was a good start for what Kas hoped would be an effective partnership, and not one of betrayal.

  Before they boosted for the jump point Edro went over to the Lady Jane to erase the communications recordings involving Starhopper. He also gathered personal belongings for their new recruits. Neither Jane nor Lar suggested that they be allowed to return to their ship for that purpose; this partnership was too new and too fragile to permit that. As soon as Edro returned, they boosted for the jump point at max acceleration. The Lady Jane remained behind, of course.

  “Y’know,” Lar observed, “By the time we get back here we’re liable to be a space legend; ‘Lady Jane, ghost ship of the Hatchell system’. Found drifting with her drive coils and sensor array damaged, but no sign of the crew.”

  Jane grinned. “Not really. Oh, maybe for awhile. But as soon as the authorities see our com tapes they’re going to be more concerned with the Glory. They’ll probably assume that Glory bastard grabbed us. It could cause a helluva stink, though.”

  Rom was still unhappy about trusting the newcomers, but as soon as they’d jumped, Kas called Jane and Lar to the bridge. “Our next recal point is a system called ‘Homesite’. What can you tell me about it?”

  Jane shrugged. “Not much there. Its only claim to fame is that it’s the only privately-owned planet in known space. It was some tycoon’s great idea. He bought the rights to the only terrestrial planet in the system from the government of Singh about twenty years ago. I hear it pretty much wiped him out, but he had this hare-brained idea that a privately-owned colony, operated for profit, would be more efficient than colonies with more typical governments.

  “So he bought the planet, set up a shuttle service to Singh, and started trying to sell land. As I understand it, he planned to market his land in other systems once Homesite started to pay off. Only thing was it never did pay off until the heavy industries moved in. No laws or oversight, of course, so they could operate pretty much as they pleased. For the past twenty years they’ve been raping the planet’s resources, polluting the air and water, and just generally running the place into the ground.

  “About the only people there now are a couple hundred thousand employees of one or another mining, smelting or processing companies. We’ve made a pretty good profit there a few times, though. Not enough people to attract most of the larger traders, so us little guys can run a load of luxuries in there, and make a pretty nice bundle.” She shrugged. “You won’t have to worry about customs there. No import restrictions, so no smuggling.”

  Kas nodded. “Good. After D’Jellabah and Hatchell I could stand a little boredom!” He told her about their experience at D’Jellabah. He didn’t spare himself and confessed to his errors in dealing with the dealers and chandlers.

  She chuckled. “Don’t worry about it. Oh, in most systems, you’d have attracted lots of attention. But on D’Jellabah you were just another unbeliever, and all unbelievers are crazy or stupid. Or both. They’ve got a weird version of Islam going on there, and it’s starting to hurt their economy. Did you notice that the port field was surrounded by a fifteen-meter wall?”

  He nodded. “Sure. But I didn’t want to ask about it. I was afraid they had some sort of insurrection going on, and would get suspicious.”

  She shook her head. “Nope. It’s to keep from offending the godly by exposing them to the fact that there are other inhabited worlds that don’t share their religious quirks. The shipping agents, factors, dealers and chandlers are permitted to deal with visitors, of course. But visitors are not permitted to leave the port field.

  “They’re getting almost as hard to deal with as the Glory, and their balance of trade is starting to show it. A few more years of this religious fanaticism and they won’t have to worry about contamination by unbelievers – nobody will go there to trade.” She shrugged. “Anyway, that’s why the customs inspection was such a pain in the ass. Oh, they were looking for contraband, all right, but mostly they were interested in anything that might contaminate the godly. If they’d found anything they considered ‘blasphemous’, you wouldn’t have left there alive.”

  He looked at her curiously. “How do you know what they consider ‘blasphemous’?”

  She shrugged. “You don’t. Even more conventional Islamic believers have trouble figuring out D’Jellabah’s religious quirks. So you take your chances. And fewer and fewer traders are willing to take that risk. It’s a lot easier to just skip D’Jellabah and trade elsewhere.”

  Kas nodded. “I noticed that there weren’t many ships at the port.”

  She chuckled again. “And there won’t be, until D’Jellabah learns to share the universe with people of other beliefs.”

  Kas found himself spending more and more time with Lady Jane. Even the seemingly endless series of Jasc games with Gran became less frequent.

  Their conversations became the highlight of Kas’ days. Somehow they never seemed to run out of topics, or become bored with each other. Kas found himself getting up in the morning anticipating their chats, and saying good night only reluctantly.

  But Lady Jane was wrong about Homesite. Almost as soon as they’d completed emergence from jump, Rom announced the presence of a ship, and moments later Edro reported that they were being hailed.

  Kas frowned. “What kind of ship?”

  “Empire-pattern corvette,” Rom reported.

  “She says she’s the Singh system ship Shiva, Captain,” Edro added. “They demand to speak with our Captain.”

  Kas looked at Lady Jane, standing beside his command chair. She shrugged and spread her open palms. “I dunno, Captain,” she responded to his unasked question. “They’ve never had customs here before much less picket ships. I think you’d better answer them. There must be something wrong.”

  “Yar,” Rom put in sourly, “They’re lookin’ for a battle cruiser.”

  Kas shrugged. “Maybe,” he replied. “Edro, put them on the main screen.”

  The man who appeared was dark, with a large, thin nose. He wore some sort of cloth wrapped around his head to form a large helmet-shaped headpiece.

  “Who are you and what are you doing here?” he demanded without preamble.

  Kas had opened his mouth to speak when Lady Jane cut in. “Raj? Is that you? What’re you doing sitting on your ass out here? I thought you had some cushy posting on Singh!”

  The man had noticed her as soon as Lady Jane spoke and relaxed slightly. He shook his head as she finished. “The question is, what’re you
doing out here?” he replied. “You wouldn’t be planning to sneak in on the night side and pick up a load of thorium, now, would you?”She laughed aloud. “In this bucket? DIN-classes are good for a lot of things, Raj, but sneaking isn’t one of them! Naw,” she continued in a careless tone, “this is just a recal stop. Don’t tell me somebody’s finally figured out how to make smuggling profitable at Homesite?”

  The man grinned. “Yah. Seems somebody’s been stealing heavy elements from the processing plants, and smuggling them off-planet. The Magnates contracted with the government of Singh to put a stop to it.” He shrugged. “And what’s the prettiest trader in the sector doing aboard a DIN-class, and not in the Captain’s chair?”

  She shrugged again. “Captain Preslin here got himself a charter to run a bunch of cold-sleep colonists out to the rim. The Lady Jane’s laid up for awhile, so I contracted to be kind of a local guide.” She grinned mischievously. “You know the weird things you local-system chairwarmers can dream up to harass us poor, innocent spacers.”

  The man laughed aloud. “‘Poor’ and ‘innocent’ are not words that I would associate with you, Lady Jane.”

  She shook her head in mock sadness. “And I thought we were friends,” she replied. “Captain Kas Preslin, this is Raj Brahamaputra. He’s an Ensign or something in Singh’s Navy. Raj, this is Captain Kas Preslin. Kas is an Impie trader tryin’ to make his way through the independents without getting’ himself killed.”

  The man nodded, glaring at Jane. “That’s Commander, not Ensign, as you well know, Jane. If it weren’t for the fact that Captain Preslin is a stranger out here, I’d come over there and paddle your backside for you!”

  She stuck out her tongue. “You’d better bring a working party if you want to try!” She struggled to keep a straight face, but finally broke into a smile. “Seriously Raj,” she continued, “Why don’t you come on over, and we’ll have a cup of caf and get caught up.”