Dana Cartwright Mission 2: Lancer (16 page)

She deliberated telling of her observations, decided honesty was the best tact and informed him, telepathically,
I’ve concluded that Dan Nichols resents me most.

I picked up something during the alert,
Macao answered, staring back, silently demanding to know more.
 

Do you suspect him of sabotaging the ship?

I have no proof.

His eyes loosely focused on the viewport. Then he shrugged.
I can’t pick up anything now. I feel like I’m…blind.
He let go of her hand.

Dana stiffened.
Sir?

He glanced her way.

That ship today was veiled, just the way an N-link veils the person wearing it. Perhaps I am not the only officer aboard
Lancer
with such a device.

Good point, Mister Cartwright.

She waited for a further response, silently demanding to know what he intended to do about it.

Macao left his tray, took up the padlet, and stalked out of the lounge without another word.

Dana shut her eyes and heaved a sigh, ruminating over Janz Macao’s response, sending telepathically,
Silence is not an acceptable answer, Captain.

He still didn’t respond.

She directed her empathetic senses toward the command rank officers in the lounge, picking up some emotions from Bryant, mostly about skirts and upward, and a bit from Miller and Ehrmann; but nothing aimed her way. That helped rule out the three men.

Dana left the lounge very soon after the Captain, going to her quarters to collapse on the bunk. She stared up at the patterned ceiling for far too long, mulling over the situation, succeeding in giving herself a headache.
 

After using the pressure point technique on her left hand, and some carefully paced deep breathing, she fell into a much needed sound sleep.

Less than six hours later, Dana was wide awake and down in the shuttle bay, beginning the repairs on
Trader One
intending to make it fully capable of flying the mission.

She didn’t trust the repairs to anyone else because only she had the circuity schematics memorized. There would be no ‘jury-rigging’ this time. Everything was according to the book.

The autopilot was irreparable; however, on manual, with an experienced pilot and copilot at the helm, it’d be just as safe a ship as any other shuttle. Most good pilots preferred manual control anyway.
 

Besides, it made a good reason for her to be on the mission team.
 

You wanted adventure, Dana… You wanted to fly.
 

Trader One
would fly.
 

She’d bet Sam Ehrmann and win.
 

CHAPTER NINETEEN

After finishing the repairs to the Blade Class, Dana locked the access door with her fingerprint. She wanted no one else to get aboard in her absence.

She also got busy, reviewing Star Service regulations, and found a likely loophole that could be used to get around the autopilot issue.
 

All that done, she returned her attention to the astronavigation map in the Groomsmen file; picking out the necessary data any helmsman or navigator might need. Barring a landing on some uncharted, sad excuse for a planet, all the small colonies and outposts in the sector had small ground level spaceports with easy access and quick departure. As long as both the pilot and copilot were not incapacitated, the mission would not be threatened by the lack of an autopilot system.

Feeling somewhat smug about her assessments, she went back down to the shuttle deck to make a preflight check on the ship.
 

The security officers on duty had new orders that no one was to get near the ship, unless the Captain ordered it.

Dana scowled. It became necessary to disturb both Jay Gordon and Janz Macao before she got access to
Trader One
.

Five minutes later, with the preflight nearly complete, a very weary and disgruntled Captain entered the hatch behind Dana, and made his way to the copilot’s chair.

He stretched out his long legs, folded his arms across his chest, and cast a sidelong glance her way, mumbling, “Thinking of taking her for a little test flight, Mister Cartwright?”
 

“If my C-O will permit it,” Dana returned, professionally going through the last of the check lists of onboard systems.

Macao heaved a sigh. He reached for the communications board half-way between them and fingered the COM button.

“Deck officer, this is the Captain. Clear the shuttle bay and stand by bay doors for launch.”

When Rollings responded, “Aye,” Macao called to the Bridge.

“Commander Bryant, slow to Level 1 and maintain present course. I’m taking a short test flight. You have the con until I return. Macao out.”

To Dana, the Captain merely nodded, giving her the permission to proceed. She fastened the safety bar across her lap and waited for the Macao to do the same.

He delayed.

“Sir, we’ll be on manual. Regulations require you wear your safety bar.”

He scoffed, but finally clicked the bar into place across his lap.

Once Dana had the ‘all clear’ signal from the deck officer, she fired up the engines and transmitted the code for the bay doors to open. With both hands busy on the manual guidance controls, the equivalent of joy-sticks on an F-class, Dana piloted the ship clear of
Lancer
.

“How fast is she?” Macao wondered aloud. He still made no effort to take the copilot’s controls.

Dana waited until they were a safe distance from
Lancer
’s aft bay doors, gave the console data readings a quick cheek, and then punched the thrust control toward maximum, though not all the way.

“Seems a little sluggish,” she commented. At first there was some vibration from the stress on the hull, reminders of the size and weight of the vessel in comparison to a battle ship like
Lancer
. “I’ll need to re-check the balance on the drives.”

Macao’s expression remained neutral until they reached an easy Level 4 and still had thrust left to push the vessel even faster. “I don’t remember these Blade Class shuttles ever being this fast.”

Dana shrugged. “I made some improvements during the refit. It may not look like much but…”

“Wish we could fire up the drone assist…oh, well…” He was smiling when he commanded, “Okay, shut the engines down.”

Dana frowned, but obeyed the order. She cut the thrusters and let the forward momentum continue unchecked.

“So…she’s plenty fast, holds together well, but if anything happened to the pilot or copilot, I don’t think the rest of the team could safely get her to a port,” Macao said.

“I think you underestimate your officers, sir,” Dana responded. “These Alphan shuttles are an easy fly — landings might be a problem.” She showed Macao that two fingers could easily maneuver the controls. “Mister Kulak could steer it to within tractor beam range of
Lancer
if it became necessary; and he has very little small craft pilot training.”

“I don’t foresee
Lancer
being in that close of a proximity,” the Captain countered. “No, Mister Cartwright, without autopilot, landings would be far too dangerous. We can’t take the chance.”

Dana scowled. “You would rather abort the mission, return this ship to base and have ground maintenance crews make repairs? Sir, why not take it into the zone, set down at one of the smaller space ports under the guise of making repairs. And, while the rest of the team noses around looking for evidence, I can be working on the autopilot system? We might even get lucky and find the spare parts, or something that can be adapted. It’s the perfect cover for our operation and solves the problem at the same time.”

“I’ve already considered that option. If Chief McHale was with us?”

“McHale?” Dana groaned. “What if he…”

“He’s not our spy, Dana, I can assure you. However, I don’t want to pull him off
Lancer
, though I trust him implicitly.”
 

“How can you be so sure?”

The Captain scowled. “McHale and I have…a lot of history.
 
He’s needed aboard
Lancer
.”

“But…” Dana groaned.

“McHale’s saved my backside too many times for me to distrust him,” Macao said.

“Forgive me, sir, but…”

The Captain closed his eyes, lounging back, “Let me tell you about Mac…”

“We were freshly christened lieutenants, with a lot more enthusiasm than common sense, and decided to volunteer for ground party duty — just a routine investigation of a bad shuttle landing with no hope for survivors — thinking, maybe, we might recover the flight recorder and that some equipment could be salvaged. I’d already spent my extra duty pay before we went down for a look-see. It wasn’t at all suspicious and all six of us on the ground party were a bit lax in our preparations. The Captain sent along a few ensigns, thinking they’d get some experience.

“The crash site was a mess, down at the bottom of a ravine. McHale, as senior engineer, pretty much took charge. He handed out assignments to all and called for me to tag along to check out some glittering, metallic debris halfway up the rugged cliffside.

“Dawn had just broken and the day was destined to be hot and humid. The atmosphere was a tad heavy for me, as an Alphan, but the Terrans felt comfortable.

“The climb proved difficult. Our hands were bleeding long before we reached the first ledge, but our target was now easily identifiable as the shuttle flight recorder, presumably jettisoned before the crash, and a valuable prize indeed, if we could get to it.

“McHale led. Quite suddenly, he lost his footing and sent an avalanche of loose rocks careening down upon me. I lost my grip and skidded several meters backward, using my arms to fend off any blows to the head from debris. My left elbow caught a large boulder and suffered a fracture. My weapon came loose from my belt and went tumbling down into the ravine. My voice-badge got smashed during the slide.

“McHale faired better. He managed to get up to the next ledge, but his knees bled profusely.

“What a pair! I struggled up to join him, tended his leg wound, using only my right hand and my teeth to tie tatters of material from my uniform about his leg to stop the bleeding.
 

“He used his sleeve to rig a sling for my arm. We decided he should stay put and rest for the trip back down and I would go up the next twenty or so meters to reach the flight recorder. I’d scoot it off the ledge and let it slide down, hopefully into McHale’s lap.

“When I was just about to grab for the recorder, a laser beam hit it squarely. It glowed and shattered. I protected my face with my good arm. Afterwards, when I looked again, I found myself looking straight into the muzzle of a Castellan weapon. The man behind the weapon sneered from behind crooked, carnivorous teeth. He didn’t look like your standard Castellan, was dressed in civvies, but my telepathic senses screamed that he was. I can usually detect a Castellan quite easily; it doesn’t work as well with some other races.

“Another, of equally tall stature, crouched on a ledge above us, with his weapon trained on McHale. ‘Throw your weapons down,’ the first shouted in Castellean.

“I responded, in a sad attempt to speak their language, that I had none. McHale didn’t understand the command; or, rather, didn’t let on that he understood.

“The first Castellan ordered me to translate. I turned my back to him to look at McHale. The Chief’s face conveyed a confidence I found rather strange. Then I closed my eyes and trained my Alphan senses on him. I picked up his thoughts and understood the plan. I faked a bad step and slid a few meters away from the Castellan. It wasn’t acting. I hate heights. I panicked, falling and crying in agony, banging my other elbow.

“While I had the attention of both Castellans, McHale drew his weapon and took them out. The first died where he was standing. The second fell from his perch and his body skidded past me, tumbling down the cliffside.

“I breathed a sigh of relief. Shock was starting to cloud my vision. McHale tapped his voice-badge, but there was no response. Must have been a jamming signal blocking transmission.

“Looking down into the ravine, we couldn’t see a trace of the rest of the ground party; no hint at all of movement down there.

“Two Castellans dead, how many more were left, we didn’t know. We had one weapon between us and McHale had a bad leg and my arm was useless.

“Fane! What a mess! An easy assignment, I kept thinking. Yeah, right!”

Janz Macao rubbed his left elbow absently, as he silently recalled the rest of the adventure, reliving with nearly equal intensity the balance of the nightmare.

“We started back down at a snail’s pace. It was hot — unbearably hot. My skin started to turn copper color from the ultraviolet. The sunblock I normally wear had washed away from sweating so much. Every muscle in my body screamed under the strain.

“McHale stopped, and lay there on his back for a time, eyes closed, face up to the sun, barely conscious. He complained of feeling dizzy. I didn’t realize, but he’d lost a lot of blood.

“I slid closer, wrestled the weapon from his grip and ended up carrying him over my shoulder once we were back on sure footing. All the while, I wondered what in hell I would do when I reached the bottom of the ravine.

“The matter proved rhetorical. The rest of the ground party, under the watchful eyes of four more Castellans, looked my way.

“These were full-featured Castellans, rugged men in their service uniforms. The others had obviously been surgically altered somehow, perhaps to let them pass for hybrid humans.

“It was too late for me to do anything with the weapon. I walked right into the pack of them and set McHale down next to a terrified and badly beaten ensign who was beyond tears. At least it was in the shade.

“In Castellean, I told their senior commander that his two men up on the ledge were dead and the shuttle recorder was destroyed.