Alexander Outland: Space Pirate (36 page)

“Not an option. This armada must be stopped or at least have their wings severely clipped. And Nitin cannot be allowed to follow Lucky Pierre’s plan with the might of Herion Military behind him.”

I sighed. “I knew you were going to say that.” I pondered—I didn’t want the
Sixty-Nine
engaged unless we had no shot of survival otherwise. “I wish I could talk to Tanner.”

The Governor shrugged. “What do you want to ask him?”

“Which ship in this fleet is the best and which pilot is the worst.”

The Governor closed his eyes. “Huh, interesting. The flagship would be considered best, but young Tanner says the ship manned by the worst pilot would probably be more what you’re looking for.”

“Um, how are you talking to him?”

“Comlink.”

“We don’t use comlinks.”

“You, Randolph and Slinkie don’t use comlinks because you all mistakenly feel they contributed to Saladine’s death. Audrey, as a logical being, knows differently. Ergo, she uses a comlink. I have one installed, and young Tanner agreed it was a good idea. The Major did as well.”

“So you can chat with the three of them?”

“When necessary, yes.”

“Where’s it installed, your brain? You didn’t repeat anything I said.”

“It’s in a molar. Very safe, very easy, hard to spot, convenient because it’s also close to the ear canal. You’re standing next to me and the range is very good. Hence, Tanner could hear you because I could hear you.”

“When did you have time to do this?”

“When we returned to the ship. On Herion. While you were playing around with the Hulkinator. It doesn’t take long. And it doesn’t hurt. Which I mention so you’ll whine less when you finally see reason.” He reached into my shirt and pulled out the matter-shifter. “You might want to hold onto me again, Alexander.” I grabbed him around his shoulders just in time.

We did the shift and my stomach complained. This one wasn’t quite as bad as the first, possibly because we weren’t going as far. We were in the cockpit of a different ship. One of the many vaguely familiar de Chances was piloting, assisted by a different de Chance as copilot.

“Who are you and what are you doing here?” the pilot shouted. I let go of the Governor and slammed the de Chance heads together. Lionside probably would’ve gotten a better crack, but I represented Zyzzx pretty well. They both went down and out.

The Governor and I flung them out of the cockpit. “Nice, a locking door.” I so locked. “Think they’ll shoot through it?”

“No. I plan to advise Miss de Chance that we’re here.” The Governor put on the communications headset this ship ran with and started chatting. I decided my skills were better used in figuring out how this ship flew.

The ship appeared to have been from Weshria originally—I recognized the instrument panel. Good for me, I could fly all of Weshria’s ships. I hadn’t been on it long or gotten a tour, but I was pretty sure the command ship was from Earth. Took a guess that the other ships in this fleet would be from a variety of planets.

I wondered why the Governor, Tanner and Lionside had accepted a comlink so easily. Especially one that was internal to the head. Maybe Lionside and Tanner had just gotten used to taking orders. Or their military training said it was no big deal.

Memory stirred. The Governor and I had been pretty sure this crew was following a military leader. But Charmaine didn’t seem like military so much as she seemed like a good actress. Nitin was military, but I was inclined to believe Charmaine—it was too clear he was working his own scheme. So, who was the military brains behind the New French Ticklers?

“I need to talk to Randolph.”

The Governor sighed. “For all your complaining about him, pray he never dies or gets sick of you. You can’t manage without regular contact with him.”

“Many would say the same about you. Want me to airlock both of you and see how I do, just for the sake of scientific discovery?”

“So testy. The Major has secured a private channel from this ship to the
Sixty-Nine
. Only live in the cockpit.” He flipped a switch. “Go ahead.”

“Randolph, the Peter Chance you won the manual from, what line of work was he in and what planet was he from?”

“He was from Earth, Nap, at least as far as I could tell. He was on leave when I met him, didn’t really discuss his career, sorry.”

On leave. Only one class of person called a vacation taking leave. “What branch of the military was he in, do you remember?”

“No. He wasn’t in uniform.”

“Audrey?”

“Running queries now, Captain. Hulky is helping tremendously, I must add. We wouldn’t be able to contact you or Galaxy Central without his help, due to our location.”

“Have either the armada or the Herion fleet found you?”

“Not as far as we can tell.”

“Good. Let me know when you find something, anything, Audrey.”

“Will do, Captain.”

“Nap, what in the egg is going on?”

“Herion Military’s decided to join the fun, Slink. I think Lucky, Junior’s still alive and running the show. Need to find out where he is and do the whole déjà vu thing all over again.”

“You sure? I mean, Randolph beat him at poker.” Slinkie didn’t sound convinced that anyone who Randolph could beat could be in charge of this kind of operation. I couldn’t blame her.

“You know, you play with the best and things do rub off.” Randolph sounded offended. Guessed I couldn’t blame him, either.

A thought niggled. “Governor, would you say this was an impromptu or long-term strategic plan?”

He snorted. “Long-term strategic, Alexander.”

“I hate to say it gang, but I’m impressed. Audrey, we need to find where Pierre de Chance, Peter Chance, or whatever the many hells he could be calling himself is, what he looks like, and, most importantly, how we get there to kill him.”

“No argument, Captain. But why?”

“Because everyone, even Tanner, was wrong. We aren’t in this predicament because of me, Tanner, Slinkie or any other human on board. We’re in this predicament because of you.”

H
ad to think. Had to fly and think, but flying was second nature. The Governor had cleared us helping the Pirates de Chance with Charmaine. Had to figure she’d take the assist and worry about getting rid of me after we got away from or rid of the Herion fleet. Which bought me some time, but not much.

Left the armada and zipped around the fleet. Figured it was time to see what we were up against. Thirty ships, half of them battlecruisers, the rest good-sized fighters. No individual jobs, which was good and bad. Good because it meant we had less little bugs to worry about. Bad because they might just be waiting to pour out from some of the cruisers.

“Lionside, where did these ships come from if we blew up the main spaceport on our way out of town?”

“If they’re military, they came from our base. Military and civilian don’t use the same spaceport.” He made it sound obvious. Maybe on Herion it was. On Zyzzx and good number of other planets, a spaceport was a spaceport. “Nitin would have had time to get there from Spaceport City—if he survived the explosion.”

“Of course he survived it. Learn now—our luck doesn’t run any other way.” That Nitin was leading this fleet was a given. “Audrey,
if you can spare the time, I want all information on Nigel Nitin pulled out of the Herion Master Computer and the Earth Master, too. Figure he’s going by Nigel de Chance on Earth.”

“Shouldn’t be a problem, Captain.” She still sounded calm and cheerful.

“Oh, and Audrey? Have a chat with Lionside. I’d like you to start learning when it’s great not to sound all perky.”

“This is one of those times, Captain?”

“Yes.”

“Got it.” Her voice went tense. “Making all haste with the searches.”

“Much better, thanks.” Went back to flying and pondering. The Governor went onto the ship’s command and started barking orders to shoot at the military vessels. One of the many secrets I didn’t want anyone to get too comfortable with was that if I really needed or wanted a copilot, the Governor was the best option. Not necessarily better than Audrey—it was hard to beat a computer, after all—but he’d been better than Jack Rock and pretty much as good as Saladine. But having a ninety-some-year-old geezer as your copilot was pretty much the recipe for ridicule in 99.9% of the galaxy. And it didn’t hide him nearly as well as him being my perennial passenger did.

“Children, is it so hard to comprehend that you are the ones under attack? Truly, is this the first time you’ve been challenged? Ever?” Yep, the Governor was enjoying himself.

This ship wasn’t the
Sixty-Nine
, but it handled well. Spent a lot of time spinning away from laser cannon fire. The fleet was doing a typical military move—they were trying to surround the armada. “Governor, put the full navigation onscreen for me, will you?” He sighed but did as requested. Nice to see Charmaine wasn’t just sitting around. The armada had followed my lead and were erratically circling the fleet.

So Lucky, Junior had two kids and daddy’s plan. Pierre the first had undoubtedly been the one who’d gotten his hands on the robotics manual, and somehow he’d passed it along to his #1 son.

But none of them possessed the technical know-how to make an Audrey. Randolph had said it took a lot of skill and training to be able to even read and comprehend the manual, let alone do the creations. Those skills were few and far between. Audrey had been right—if I hadn’t kept Randolph with me, because of how badly he did on anything at the Academy not technically-based, a low-level position at a Thurge power plant would be all he could have hoped for. I was the only one who’d seen the genius in him. He hid it well, after all. Contemplated my lifelong streak of finding the best misfit in any crowd. Decided I’d navel-gaze once I could feel confident I’d still have a navel to gaze at.

So that meant Junior had to find someone with the technical expertise and the willingness to give it a go. Maybe that was why the second generation hadn’t done anything—no one with the right know-how had been found. Or they all hated each other, which was my gut guess, based on my observations of most extended families I’d ever run across.

That Junior had lost the poker game intentionally was now a given. He’d put the manual up not because he was stupid but because he was clever. Knowing Randolph, he’d looked at and discussed the merits and veracity of the manual—I’d trained him to make sure he was getting real Knaboor Ducats, after all, not dressed up pieces of comet. Proving Randolph’s qualifications would have been easy.

Proving I’d finally found the person Tanner and the Governor both felt was truly in charge—the guy who thought like me—was also easy. Because I wasn’t having any trouble now in coming up with just what Junior was up to and why he’d done what he had. He was a smart, sneaky bastard but above all, he wanted to stay a smart, sneaky bastard. He was willing to risk his own blood to do it, too. Tanner was right—I could think like someone like this, but I wouldn’t allow myself to become someone like this.

Spun through the interior space of the main part of the fleet. The fleet didn’t have tractor beams or attach cables active. Wasn’t sure yet if this meant they really weren’t trying to capture the armada, or if they
felt they had too many of their own ships around to take the risk.

I figured Junior had hoped to snatch Randolph somewhere close to when they’d played poker together. But our exit from Herion was pretty typical—fast and with a lot of law enforcement sniffing our vapor trail. Had to figure we’d left after that poker game in similar fashion. And even knowing who Slinkie was hiding with, it had taken Tanner two years to actually be in a position to collide with us. So it taking a long time for the de Chance Family Players to catch up wasn’t a surprise.

They were based out of Trennile Main for sure. The rare metals in the matter-shifter being on Trennile 7 were proof enough for me. But they weren’t really from Trennile Main—they’d just taken it over, probably in Pierre the First’s time.

This clan set a store by their Earth heritage—the flagship was from Earth, their expansion followed Earth trails. I figured we’d find they were related to some form of Earth royalty somewhere. Either that or one of the first Earth space explorers. Something. There was too much pride attached to Earth. It was there in the little things—names, for starters. Nigel was a common name, yes, but it originated on Earth. Charmaine was also Earth-based. Pierre and Peter, same thing. The reason everyone else learned to translate names was because of Earth. Earth had marked the galaxy like no other planet. Like we’d marked Herion, in a way. Only we were small satellites and Earth was the big gas giant.

“Why didn’t he name Nitin Peter the Third?”

The Governor pulled off his headset. “No idea. Maybe there’s another brother who’s not part of the plan.” Put his headset back on. “Children, truly, if I wanted to play games, I’d have stayed on Herion. Do none of you know how to aim a gun before you pull the trigger? None of you?”

I left the Governor to his haranguing. He was so good at it, and for once he wasn’t haranguing me. It was a lot more fun to listen to him complain at someone else for once. Went back to my pondering. I wasn’t having to fly too hard, meaning Herion Military
wasn’t trying to kill us—they were going for the capture. At least, for the moment.

Wasn’t sure if this meant Nitin wanted to ensure his vast array of relatives wouldn’t be harmed, if this was part of the overall strategy and how they planned to get Herion Military ships and personnel, or if Nitin wanted to be sure Audrey and her creator weren’t aboard before he gave the order to set cannons to vaporize.

“Any guesses as to what the real plan is?”

Got an exasperated sigh as the Governor pulled off the headset again. “The same three options you’ve come up with, I’m sure. And, no, I have no idea if the goal is success for one, two or all of them. Assume no outcome equals our health and longevity.”