Fleet of the Damned (18 page)

"I think it's the admiral's daughter, sir."

Clot! That was just what he needed. A drunk for company. "Tell her I'm not here."

The sentry started to back out, hesitated, and then pushed something forward. It was a single rose and a small gift-wrapped package.

"She said to give you this, sir," the sentry plunged on. "Said it was to say she was sorry. Uh… uh… I think she'd know I was lying, sir, if I told her what you said."

Sten took pity on the man, accepted the gifts, and waved him out. "I'll be with her in a minute."

He placed the rose to one side, took a hefty snort of his Stregg for courage, and slit open the package. There was a small computer card inside—identical to the ones he used in holography. What in the world… He slid it into one of the drives. A three-dimensional model of a tower jumped out on his desk. It was a perfect replica of one of the barns used by the ancient hop farmers! How had she known?

No matter how one looked at it, this was one hell of a way to apologize.

They had a midnight picnic-style dinner at one of the most fashionable restaurants on Cavite. Brijit van Doorman insisted on buying.

Sten almost hadn't recognized the woman when he had met her on deck. The last time he had seen her, she had been beautiful but drunk, with a spoiled pout on her lips. This time there was no pout, just large anxious eyes and a nervous little smile.

"I almost hoped you weren't here," she said in a soft voice. "I'm not very good at saying sorry—especially in person."

"I'd say you're very good at it," Sten said.

"Oh, you mean the little barn." She dismissed the gift with a wave. "That was easy. I just asked your friend, Alex. We've spoken on and off for days,"

So that was why the tubby heavy-worlder had gone out this evening, with mysterious chuckles at no apparent jokes and pokes into the ribs of the others.

"I assume he also said I'd be onboard tonight."

Brijit laughed. "Is that such a betrayal?" she asked.

Sten looked at the long, flowing hair and the equally flowing body. "No. I don't think so."

Somehow, the stroll back to her gravcar led to a lingering talk that neither seemed to want to cut off with a thank you and good-bye. Which led to the dinner invitation. Which took them to the restaurant that Sten was sure even Marr and Senn would envy back on Prime World.

It was an exotic outdoor café perched on the end of a private landing strip. The center was a beer garden, where the patrons could gather and drink and converse as the late-night picnic baskets were packed with their orders. Surrounding the beer garden were many small opaque bubblecraft. Each craft was large enough to comfortably fit the basket and two people.

Sten was not surprised that Brijit had made reservations. They waited about an hour in the quiet garden, talking, sipping at their drinks, and watching the bubbles silently drift off into the night to swirl around and around the restaurant in darting orbits, like so many fireflies.

Sten told her about himself as best he could, skipping with hidden embarrassment over his Mantis Section years. Strange that he should feel that way. The lies were so drilled in and part of him that normally they seemed almost real. Perhaps his discomfort was just a product of the warm night and the chilled wine.

Brijit chattered on about herself and her navy-brat upbringing, which had involved jumping from system to system as her father rose through the ranks. Although unstated, Sten got the idea that she was uncomfortable about the pomp that van Doorman liked to dress his command with. Uncomfortable, but guilty about her discomfort.

Eventually they were summoned to their own private bubblecraft. They boarded, the gull-wing port closed softly in on them, and they lifted away.

There must have been more than a hundred items in the basket, all bite-sized, with no flavor exactly the same as the last.

Brijit told Sten the rest of her story over brandy. Of course, there had been a lover.

"I think he was about the handsomest man I've ever met," she said. "Don't get me wrong. He wasn't the big-muscles type. Kind of slight. Wiry slight. And dark." She paused. "He was a Tahn."

It all came together then for Sten. The admiral's daughter and her Tahn lover. Sten could imagine how van Doorman would handle a situation like that. It would be very painful for both parties. It would also be something van Doorman would never let his daughter forget.

"I only have one question," Sten said.

"Oh, you mean Rey?"

"Yeah, Rey. I understand you two are engaged."

"Rey thinks we're engaged. Father
knows
we're engaged. But as far as I'm concerned—" She broke off, staring down at the lights of Cavite.

"Yes?"

Brijit laughed. "I think Rey is a clot!"

"So, what do you plan on doing?"

Brijit leaned back on the soft couch that spanned one side of the bubble. "Oh, I don't know. Play the game, I guess. Until something better comes along."

Sten had heard tones of something like this before. "Aren't white knights a little out of fashion?"

Brijit came up from the couch and snuggled herself under one of his arms. She peered up at him with a mock batting of large liquid eyes. "Oh, sir," she said softly, lifting up her lips. "I don't believe in white knights at all."

A moment later they were kissing, and Brijit was falling back on the couch. Her dress slid up, revealing smooth ivory flesh covered only by a wisp of silk between her thighs that was held in place by a slender gold chain about her waist.

Sten brushed his lips across the softness of her belly. Then he unclasped the chain.

CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

"T
his is imperial Tacship
Gamble
. Request landing clearance."

There was no visual onscreen, but Sten could feel the controller down on the planetoid below goggle.

"This is Romney. Say again your last."

"This is the
Gamble
," Sten repeated patiently. "I want to land on your crooked little world."

"Stand by."

There was a very long silence.

"Ah think, young Sten, y're givin't these smugglers more slack'n's warrantable."

"Maybe."

At last the transmitter crackled. "Imperial ship… this is Jon Wild. I understand you want
landing instructions
."

"Correct."

"Since when does the Empire knock on doors like ours?"

Kilgour relaxed. "You were right, lad. Now we're gettin't somewheres."

"This is the
Gamble
. When we want to trade."

"Trade? There's just one ship up there."

"Correct, Sr. Wild."

"Clear to land. Follow the GCA beam down. I wish I could make some kind of threat if you're lying to me. However… this conversation is being recorded, I know, and I have a right to counsel, legal advice, and such…" The voice turned mildly plaintive.

"It would be interesting if you're telling the truth," Wild continued. "A vehicle shall be waiting to transport you to my quarters. Romney. Out."

***

Jon Wild was a piece of work—as was his planetoid. Romney was a planetoid hanging just outside anyone's known jurisdiction. It had been domed generations earlier as a transmission relay point. But technology had made the relay station obsolete, and it was abandoned.

It had taken Sten some time to find Romney. Actually, the whole idea had been Kilgour's.

"Lad, wid'y vet m'thinkin't," he had begun. "When y' hae ae dictatorship ae th' Tahn, y' hae violators, human nature bein't wha' it is. Correct?"

"We saw enough of that when we were on Heath," Sten agreed.

"Glad y' concur. If y' hae pimps ae thieves an tha', dinnae it be possible't' hae smugglers?"

Sten got it instantly and put Kilgour in motion. The tac-ships had gone out beyond the Fringe sectors and hung in space, silently monitoring single-ship movements. None of these reports had gone to 23rd Fleet Intelligence—Sten knew that there would be an immediate order to investigate. Eventually there had been enough data to run progs. Yes, there were smugglers, moving in and out of the Tahn worlds. Yes, they did have a base—actually, less a base than a transfer point for goods coming from Imperial worlds intended for import to the Tahn.

But there are smugglers and smugglers. Sten had swooped on a number of ships heading for Romney, checked cargoes, and interrogated crews. Satisfied, he had marooned, on a conveniently outlying planet sans communications, the smugglers and survival supplies.

He had enough to discuss the state of the galaxy with whoever led or spoke for the smugglers. Evidently that person was Jon Wild. Sten had conjured many pictures of what a master smuggler might look like, from a grossly overdressed and overfed sybarite to a slender fop. He did not expect a man who looked as if he would be most satisfied working in Imperial Long-dead Statistics.

Nor had he expected that Wild's headquarters would resemble a dispatch center. From appearances, the smuggler chief would have been a most satisfactory number two for Tanz Sullamora's trading empire.

Wild had offered alk to Sten and Alex and seemed unsurprised when it was refused. He sipped what Sten surmised to be water, taking his time in his evaluation.

"You wish to trade," he finally said. "For what?"

"You saw my ship."

"Indeed. It appeared most efficient."

"Efficient, but not very comfortable."

"Doesn't Admiral van Doorman supply you properly?" Wild asked with buried amusement. Sten did not bother answering.

"What gives you the impression," Wild continued, "that I might be of help?"

Sten wasn't interested in fencing. He handed over the manifest riches from the smuggling ships he had seized. Wild put them into a viewer, then took his time responding.

"Let us assume that I had something to do with these shipments," Wild said. "And let us further assume that in some manner I could provide equivalent resupply for your ships, Commander. Briefly—how much of a rake-off are you looking for?"

Kilgour bristled. Sten put a hand on his arm.

"Wrong, Wild. I don't give a damn about your smuggling."

"Uh oh."

"My turn now. I've seized your cargoes just to make sure you weren't moving arms or AM2 into the Tahn worlds. You aren't."

Wild seemed honestly shocked. "One thing I am most proud of, commander. I have no truck with war or its trappings. But if I can manage to provide, for people who have the means to pay for it, some small items that make life more convenient, without forcing my customers through the absurdity of customs and thou-shalt-nots… I will pursue the matter."

"Thank you, Sr. Wild. We'll be equally frank with you."

Sten and Alex's plot was fairly simple. They had monitored the smugglers' movements long enough to show that the same ships were coming in and out. Therefore, these smugglers had orbits plotted that did not intersect the intense Tahn patrols. Since they were not trading in guns or fuel, Sten wasn't bothered—obviously the Tahn would be forced to pay with hard credits, credits that would not be spent on their own worlds. Slight though it probably was, this might marginally unsettle the Tahn currency base.

Sten's proposal was most simple—he would like any military information that Wild's men and women came up with. In exchange, so long as they held to the no-war-stuff policy, he would leave them completely alone.

Wild shook his head and poured himself another glass of water. "I don't like it," he said.

"Why not?"

"Nobody's that honest."

Sten grinned. "I said we'd like to trade for good things, Sr. Wild. I didn't say that we'd strike an honest bargain."

Wild relaxed in relief. "I, of course, will have to discuss this with my captains."

"Best y' be doin't it w' subtlety, Wild," Kilgour said. "If y' leak to the Tahn, an' we get ambushed…"

"You may assume subtlety, Warrant Officer," Wild said. "I have been smuggling for half a century, and, thus far, no one has gotten closer to my operation than you two." He stood. "I do not foresee any difficulties from my officers," he finished. "Now, would you care to examine my orbit plots so we may determine the most logical meeting places?"

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

"A
h think were a wee bit lost, young Sten."

"This is clottin' ridiculous. We both aced navigation school. How can we be lost three klicks outside the base? Lemme look at the map again."

Sten and Alex pored over the map of Cavite City one more time. The other members of the
Claggett's
crew hovered nearby, trying not to laugh too obviously at their superiors.

"Okay, one more time," Sten said. "South on Imperial Boulevard."

"We done tha'."

"Left at Dessler."

"Check."

"Then right at Garret."

"We bloody done tha' too."

"Now we should see a skoshie little alleyway about halfway down Garret. The alley cuts straight through to Burns Avenue. That's the theory, anyway."

"Tha be'it a rotten theory. Tha's nae such street!"

The problem they were having was that Cavite's street system was as much of a warren as ancient Tokyo. To compound their difficulties, half the street signs had been obliterated or ripped out by roving street gangs.

Their journey had started out innocently enough. Sten had decided to reward his people for all their hard work by treating them all to a big bash of a dinner. He had told them to pick out any place at all, and hang the expense. He was mildly surprised when the vote came in. Almost every crew member had elected to chow down at a Tahn restaurant. In particular, they picked the Rain Forest. It was an out-of-the-way little spot that boasted the spiciest Tahn food in the city.

Sten had no objection, but he was curious. "Why Tahn food? What's wrong with the native stuff?"

He was greeted with a chorus of "bleahs," which he took to mean that the best of the native fare boarded on bland greasy. So, the Rain Forest restaurant it was. Sten and his crew had some last-minute refitting to do aboard the
Gamble
, so the plan was for the others to go ahead, to be met at the restaurant later.