Aces (20 page)

“We can
’
t outrun them!” Taney shouted in desperation.

Valjean
’
s lip curled up in a sneer. “
I don’
t have
to outrun
them
,” he said as he casually shot Taney in the leg, and
knocked the gun out of the other pirate
’
s hand, “I only
have to outrun
you
.” Valjean turned, ran, and was gone.

Taney shouted in
pain, his left leg unusable. He fell to his knees, and the tinos hesitated,
unsure what this new development meant. Taney pulled out his backup weapon from
a holster strapped to his lower right leg. He fired it at the tinos, and kept
firing, as he shucked out of the heavy pack, got to one leg, and hopped over to
the wall. Grasping the ladder, he squeezed off four more shots, before the
little gun's energy pack was depleted. Taney threw it at the tinos, who roared
and charged.

They almost got
him on his way up, one claw dug painfully into the boot on his left foot. He
climbed frantically, pulling himself up rung over rung with his powerful arms,
until he reached the top, near the ceiling. There was nowhere to go, the hatch
there was locked. Below him, one of the tinos had climbed onto the crates, and
was leaping up, trying to get the human. If the creatures could jump another
two meters, Taney would be dragged down and torn apart.

Taney had
survived worse situations that this. The loss of blood from his leg was making
him lightheaded, and the scent of blood dripping down was making the tinos go
crazy. He wedged his good leg between the ladder and the wall, took his shirt
off, and cut it into strips with his knife. He cut away his left pants leg and
examined the wound. It looked clean, the blood was dripping, not spurting,
Valjean hadn
’
t hit an artery. Taney bound up the wound as
best he could, and used the rest of the cloth to bind himself, around the waist
and chest, securely to the ladder. If he became tired, or unconscious, he would
not fall to the waiting jaws below.

Manny pouted,
disappointed. The control card was plugged back into the slot, all the screens
were active. But without the control card's password, the shuttle wasn
’
t going anywhere. He had tried everything he could think of, to
the point of randomly pressing buttons. Not even the radio worked.

His one success
had been to get the shuttle
’
s door closed and locked. That
gave him a small measure of security. The gun was currently sitting on the seat
to his right, because he couldn
’
t fit in the pilot seat
with it in the holster. He had no confidence in his ability to use the heavy
gun anyway.

There was a
whirring sound, and the shuttle
’
s door began to slide
open! Manny struggled to unfasten the pilot seat straps. Idiot! Why had he
strapped himself into the seat of a shuttle that was firmly attached to a ship?
He barely got the straps off and lurched for the gun, when he saw a
thing
come through the door. A robot, holding a gun. Manny dove into the copilot
seat, rolled so that he was wedged behind the seatback, and held onto the gun
with both hands. He swung the gun around shakily. It was so heavy he couldn
’
t control it, the weapon
’
s barrel hit the
shuttle
’
s throttle control, and almost fell out of his
hands.

The robot had its
gun pointed straight at Manny. Manny closed his eyes, waiting for-

“Manny!” His
sister
’
s voice scolded. “Put that gun down! It
’s dangerous.
”

“Kaylee?” He
shouted, astonished.

His sister
nodded. “This is Rocko. He saved my life.”

“Twice.” The
robot said simply, stowing its weapon in a holster. “You are Manuel?”

“M-Manny.” He let
the robot take the gun away from his numb and shaking hands.

Kaylee jerked her
thumb toward the airlock. “Who
’
s the guy sleeping in a
puddle of spit outside?”

“I think he
’
s the pilot, I- how did you get here? Where did- Rocko come
from?” Manny wanted answers.

“Later.” Kaylee
responded with a dismissive wave of her hand. The big sister was back, and she
was in charge. She tilted her head inquisitively at the display screens. “Can
you fly this thing?”

“No,” Manny said
sarcastically, using his tone of voice to imply how dumb the question was,
“even if I knew how, I have the pilot
’
s control card, but
not his password.” He plopped down, sullenly, in the pilot seat.

“I know the
password.” Rocko offered.

Brother and
sister looked at the robot in surprise. “Really?” Manny asked. “Can you fly
it?”

“No, I am not
programmed as a pilot.” Rocko took a step forward, and typed the password into
the pilot
’
s console. An icon in the lower left of the main
display stopped blinking, and switched from ‘
Standby
’
to ‘Active
’
.

“
Cool.
”
Kaylee announced. “Get it started, Manny.”

“It
’
s
not that simple! This is a
real
spacecraft!” Manny protested, hands in
the air. “Do we even have to leave?”

“Uh, huh.” Kaylee
said as she pulled Manny
’
s backpack from the copilot seat
and sat down. “There are four pirates, plus Rocko the robot here. One of the
pirates is stuck in a crate, we don
’
t have to worry about
him. The one in the corridor, what happened to him?”

“I injected him
with tranqulizer.” Manny said with a shrug, as if it had been nothing special,
something he did every day.

“Really?” Kaylee
looked at Manny as if she didn
’
t recognize her brother. In
fact, she didn
’
t. How did her annoying little creep
brother get replaced by a young man who knocked out an armed adult, by himself?
“That was pretty smart, bro. That makes two down. There
’
s
two more, and one of them, Rocko says, is the leader, the guy on the intercom.”
She looked at the displays in front of her, and reached toward one of them, “So
we need to make sure they can
’
t get off this ship-“

“Don
’
t touch anything!” Manny said angrily. “It
’
s
not a toy.”

He expected a
sharp-tongued retort, and had one of his own ready. But Kaylee had changed, as
much as Manny had. “Sorry.” She said, putting her hands in the air. “You
’
re the pilot, Manny.”

The pilot wasn
’
t sure how to respond to that. “Kaylee, I can
’
t
fly this shuttle. We
’
ll blow up, or crash into something,
and get killed.”

“Could you call
Seth? He
’
s a real pilot.”

Manny looked at
the radio controls. “I
’
ll try. Hello? This is the pirate
’
s shuttle, this is Manny, in the pirate
’
s
shuttle, calling Seth. Or Mom. Or the captain. Anyone. Come in. Please.”

Gina, having
nothing else to do while they waited to fall out of orbit, was sitting strapped
into her chair, idly fiddling with the radio. She didn
’
t
expect to accomplish anything, since the radio jamming was still active. The
instant the jamming stopped, she would know, because she was monitoring the
radio beacon signal of the mining camp
’
s landing pad. When
the message came through, it was on a different frequency, so she missed the
first part before she switched over. “-is Manny, in the pirate
’
s
shuttle, calling Seth. Or Mom. Or the captain. Anyone. Come in. Please.”

After the initial
soaring elation at realizing the children were not only alive, but had control
of the pirate
’
s shuttle, there ensued an argument about
what to do next. Joy insisted her children stay right where they were, lock the
shuttle
’
s door, and wait for the Navy. Her children wanted
to fly off to rescue her, immediately. Schroeder and his crew were in the
middle, mostly because Schroeder considered the odds of a twelve year old boy
rescuing them were nil, at best.

Seth broke the
deadlock. “We can do this.” He said urgently. “Listen, most of flying a shuttle
in orbit is programming the flight computer and pushing a button. I
’
ll tell Manny exactly what to do, and then he
’
ll
sit back, and let the computer fly the shuttle.” Seth was exaggerating
slightly, a forgivable evasion, considering the circumstances.

“It
’
s
not that easy.” Joy retorted hotly. “Computers can
’
t fly
the shuttle if anything goes wrong. You
’
d be risking my
childrens
’
lives. No way.”

“Joy,” Seth said
quietly, “we need to get them away from there, anyway. If the shuttle stays
attached to the ship, the pirates
will
find a way to get inside, and
your children will be in danger again. The pirates have the access codes, it
’
s their shuttle. And, if the shuttle does undock, we need Manny
to fly it away somewhere, so it doesn
’
t drift and collide
with the ship. We also want that shuttle as far away from
Nightengale
as possible. The pirates may still have missiles, if they still have someone
inside their ship, they could fire on the shuttle.” Seth was guessing. It was a
good guess, it was what he would do, if he were a pirate, in that
situation. 

Schroeder cleared
his throat. “Seth is correct, Ms. Sanchez. The fact that your children are in
the shuttle does not mean they are safe.”

Joy
’
s
resolve weakened. “
I don’
t see how asking Manny to fly
makes them safer. He
’
s never flown anything before.”

The children had
been listening to the exchange. Kaylee spoke up. “Mom, you're not here. We
’
re doing this. You can ground us if you want, later, but we
’
re coming to get you.”

“You listen to
me, young lady-“

“Not listening!
We are
not
listening to you. Not this time. Seth, we need instructions.
Or Manny is going to do the best he can, by himself.”

Manny, intending
to give his mother a boost of confidence, instead had the opposite effect.
“Yeah, I can fly this. It
’
s just like a sim. It doesn
’
t look hard.
”

Joy clasped her
hands in front of her face, as she floated in
Ace
’
s
bridge. A sim! Manny thought this was all a game. Without Seth to guide them,
her children would not survive. “Seth,” she said, looking meaningfully at the
ship
’
s navigator, “you get my children away from there
safely.
Safely
. Do we understand each other?”

“Yes, Ma
’
am. Manny, you need to listen to me very carefully, and repeat
back to me exactly what I say-“

Following Seth
’
s instructions, Manny and Kaylee, working together and
cross-checking everything they did, got the flight computer programmed with a
course to intercept the command section. They undocked, popped the thrusters to
move clear of the freighter, and fired the main engine.

“If we can use
the radio, can we call my husband?” Joy asked anxiously.

Gina shook her
head. “I tried that. The radio is still being jammed, the shuttle
’
s
signal I think is being relayed through their ship. They can talk to us, and we
can reply, but that
’
s all.”

“So we wait.” Joy
said with disappointment. Now, they weren
’
t only waiting
to die.

With the loss of
the box, and now the danger of wild animals roaming the ship, Valjean decided
to cut his losses. Wild alien predator animals, running loose on a starship!
There was no way, in the vast ship, he could find the alien thing his employers
wanted. He would get back to the shuttle, and he and Becker and Dooley would
get the hell away from Ares as fast as they could. He had one missile left,
intended to be used for destroying the mining camp, eliminating witnesses. Now,
he would instead have to use it to destroy the freighter, make sure no one ever
discovered what item he had been looking for. And get rid of those two brats.
He wanted to kill them so badly he could taste it.

The one missile
he had left could not destroy the entire ship, the freighter was too big. He
regretted the loss of the explosives Taney had carried, those charges, if
placed carefully, and set off while the ship
’
s fusion
reactor was active, would have vaporized the ship. There was nothing Valjean
could do about that now, he certainly wasn
’
t going back
for Taney. That thug was probably in the belly of those beasts.

How best to get
back to the shuttle? Valjean shuddered when he thought of how far a walk it
would be, through all those dimly-lit compartments, with an unknown number of
vicious beasts. No, he would go where he knew there were no animals: outside.
Running as fast as he could, Valjean headed aft, toward a maintenance station he
’
d seen before.

Valjean was
sweating like a pig in the e-suit, the cooling system wasn
’
t
working properly. He trudged across the outside of the cargo pod, making sure
one foot was magnetically locked down, before lifting the other foot. It was a
slow process and he was in a great big hurry. Becker wasn
’
t
answering his calls on the suit
’
s radio. The shuttle wasn
’
t far now, around the corner of the pod.

Except it wasn
’
t!

Valjean rose over
the corner, expecting to see the sleek shape of his shuttle, instead, there was
an empty docking station. “
Becker!
” He shouted. “I
’
ll get you, Becker!” He raged into his radio, which was
equipped to bypass the jamming.

Wait. Valjean
looked around to get his bearings. His ship should be nearby, parked stationary
in relation to the freighter. Yes, there it was, a bright dot. He thumbed the
control to magnify the view out the suit
’
s visor. His ship
leaped into view, large as life. No shuttle. There was no shuttle attached to
the
Nightengale
. Maybe Becker had not abandoned
him? Valjean sighed with relief. No, Becker wouldn
’
t
bailout like that, that pilot was still expecting a big payday from Valjean, he
didn
’
t know Valjean didn
’
t have the
alien thing. Maybe Becker had simply moved the shuttle to another docking port,
for some reason.

But where?
Valjean considered walking over to where the shuttle had been docked, in case
Becker had left a note. That was stupid. There had to be a way to contact
Becker. As Valjean looked up at his ship, and something bright in the distance
caught his eye.

His shuttle! It
had to be. And the engines were firing, taking it away! “
Nooooooo
!”

Manny kept his
finger poised above the main engine cut-off button, ready to act. He watched
the chronometer, counting down. Seth said this engine burn needed to be eighty
seven seconds, no more, no less. Manny was pressed back in the seat, the rocket
thrust of two Gees making it feel like someone was sitting on his chest. He
hardly noticed. He was
flying
, flying a spaceship! In the left-hand
seat, too. Pilot in command.

Eighty seven
seconds was a long burn, apparently. Seth had explained they didn
’
t have time for a normal rendezvous maneuver; slow down a bit, and let
the command section catch up to them. On the next low spot in its orbit, what
Seth called apogee, the command section was going in, and going down. There
wasn
’
t much time. In fact, Seth was guessing
somewhat, it couldn
’
t be helped.

One minute to go.
”Sixty seconds, Kaylee.” Manny reported. Kaylee nodded from the copilot seat,
and gave him a thumb
’
s up. Manny unexpectedly found
himself admiring his sister. She was kind of cool, he had to admit. More than
kind of, she was cool. How had that happened?

Valjean seethed
with anger. The shuttle was headed away from
Nightengale
,
using what looked to him to be an insanely long engine burn. The light blinked
out, the shuttle was coasting toward, what? Where could Becker be going? Not
far, without a hyperdrive.

Unless Becker had
another ship hidden somewhere? The thought of being double-crossed chilled
Valjean, a career double-crosser.

Valjean checked
his e-suit
’
s oxygen supply. Plenty remaining. He couldn
’
t stand outside the ship forever, what to do now? Get back
inside, and see if he could come up with a plan to salvage his plan, or at
least, escape before the Navy arrived.

He trudged over
toward the airlock where his shuttle had been docked, and stopped close by to
peer inside a porthole. What was that? A body, lying on the floor? Valjean
cupped his hands to block out the star
’
s glare, and
pressed his helmet to the porthole. He gasped in shock. Becker! He recognized
the ridiculous alligator-skin cowboy boots Becker always wore. What the hell
was going on? If Becker was inside the freighter, then who was flying the
shuttle?

“
Dooley!
”
Valjean spat the name out. Dooley was not, so far as Valjean knew, a pilot. Nor
was Dooley bright enough to have planned to double-cross anyone. He found it
hard to believe that Dooley had stolen the shuttle. Perhaps there had been at
least one adult crewman aboard the cargo section, an adult crewman who had used
the children as a decoy? Valjean switched his suit radio to the shuttle
’
s frequency, and growled “Dooley! If that
’
s
you in the shuttle, I
’
ll kill you! You hear me? I
will
find you, and I will
kill
you!”

In the shuttle,
Kaylee noticed a light on the radio console blinking. She looked at Manny, who
held up his hands in a ‘who knows
’
gesture. Kaylee pressed
the button, and said “
Hello?
”

Valjean hadn
’
t expected a reply, through the jamming. It sounded like–

No. It couldn
’
t be. A girl
’
s voice? “Who the hell is
this?” He demanded.

“Who the hell are
you
?” Kaylee shot back. She thought she recognized the oily voice.

Valjean
’
s anger boiled over. This was too much to bear. Who were these
brats? They stole his shuttle? He cut off the radio, and shouted out his anger
inside the helmet, pounding his fist against the freighter
’
s
hull. When he had control of himself again, he opened the radio. “I am what you
call the pirate. What are you doing in my shuttle?”

Kaylee thought
for a moment, then decided to tell the truth. “Right now, we
’
re
sitting with our feet up, eating some snacks.” She taunted.

“You stole my
shuttle, you brats!”

“
You
stole my shuttle. Boo hoo.
” Kaylee repeated in a mocking tone. “Shut up,
loser.”

“Los-“ Valjean
bit his lip. He tried a new tactic. “I can self-destruct that shuttle, any time
I want.”

Kaylee looked at
Manny, who looked to Rocko for advice. The robot pointed silently to the
control card, plugged into the pilot
’
s
console.

“As if!” Kaylee
shot back. “If you could do that, you would have done it already, bonehead.”

“Yeah,” Manny
added with bravado, “you must be the
dumbest
pirate who ever lived. What
pirate school did you flunk out of?” Manny looked back at Rocko, whose massive
form was squeezed into one of the passenger seats. “We got your robot, too.”

“Uh huh, and hey,
that dum-dum guy with the robot? I think he
’
s locked in a
shipping crate.” Kaylee said with a barely suppressed giggle.

“I
’
ll
blow up this damned ship!” Valjean screamed.

That made sister
and brother pause. Jen was aboard the ship. Kaylee turned off the radio.
“Manny, you think he
’
ll really do it?”

Many thought for
a minute. They were risking Jen
’
s life. If she were still
alive. “No way. He still wants the alien thing. And he
’
s
on
the ship.”

Kaylee turned the
radio back on. “And blow yourself up with the ship? Duh? I don
’
t
think so. But if you want to blow up the ship, go ahead, we don
’
t
care.” She said, with her fingers crossed.

“You kids bring
that shuttle back here right-“

Kaylee
interrupted. “Mister pirate?”

“Yes?”

“Bite me.” Kaylee
turned the radio off, leaving Valjean to sputter and rage to himself.

“Should we tell
Mom, and the captain, about him?” Manny asked.

“No. Maybe later.
It
’
ll just make Mom more worried.” Kaylee herself wasn
’
t entirely sure her brother was right about the self-destruct.

“
OK.
Thanks, Rocko.
” Manny said.

“You are
welcome.” The robot replied.

“Rocko,” Kaylee
asked, “why are you helping us? That pirate guy owns you, right?”

“Correct. My
current owner is Colin Dooley, the man you met, who is now in a shipping crate.
Before Dooley owned me, I was owned by an Army major, who purchased me as Army
surplus, after my model became obsolete.” The robot said, without a trace of
emotion. “Major Thompson and his family were stationed on Brekka, which is an
outpost world, and can be dangerous. He purchased me to be a guardian for his
two children. My processor and base code were modified by Major Thompson. When
he was transferred to Earth, he couldn
’
t take me with him,
so Major Thompson sold me to a dealer, where Dooley found me. Dooley did not
know I had been modified.”

“So, you
’
re programmed to protect kids?” Manny asked.

“Correct. I
cannot, by action or inaction, allow a child to be harmed.”

“Huh.” Kaylee
observed. “That
’
s cool. What were the kids like? Major
Thompson
’
s kids, I mean?”

“A girl, Carla,
and her brother, Eric. They were twins, both were 15 the last time I saw them.”

“Rocko? Do you
miss them?” Manny asked.

“Yes.” The robot
admitted. “I do not experience emotions, but my functioning has been
incomplete, without them.”

Valjean was
breathing hard, filled with rage. He pulled out his gun, screamed, and shot at
the freighter
’
s hull, leaving dark scorch marks. The
blaster fire had little effect, other than making him feel better. He jammed
the gun back into the holster he wore on the outside of the e-suit, and forced
himself to calm down. To think.

It was time to
get out. By himself, apparently. He
’
d shot Taney, who had
probably been eaten by now. Becker was either dead or unconscious. Dooley, the
moron, was locked in a crate? And that stupid robot! Valjean had never trusted
the damned thing. He looked up at his ship, hanging motionless a kilometer
away. He had no shuttle.
Nightengale
, in her
current condition, could not be remotely piloted, even if Valjean knew how to
do that.

A kilometer. He
needed to cross a kilometer of space.

How?

Clearly not by
walking, so?

Valjean trudged
over to the airlock, only to find it locked. Just before departure, Manny had
dashed back inside
Ace
, closed and locked all the cargo doors, and
manually locked this airlock door. Keeping a firm grip on his emotions, Valjean
walked the hundred meters forward to the next airlock.That one opened. He
stepped inside, cycled the airlock, and stepped back inside the ship, gun
drawn, wary of wild beasts. He opened his helmet faceplate, and sniffed the
air, there was nothing out of the ordinary. The doors at both end of the
corridor were securely locked. In between, he found three small storage
compartments that were unlocked, none of them had anything useful.

He went back into
the corridor, looking around for inspiration. And found it.