Mechanical Failure (2 page)

After a moment of looking at Rogers with open distrust, Dorsey visibly relaxed. He was still shaking his head, but at least he wasn't muttering about not liking pirates anymore.

“Great,” Rogers said. “Now, you're in charge of maneuvers while I manage the communications and the cargo. Just like we talked about. Okay?”

“Okay.”

Rogers took a deep breath and wiped his hand across his forehead. It was now or never, he supposed.

“Alright,” he said to the Garliali over the radio, making sure to switch the comms channel this time. “Get your cargo ship in position and start the transfer.”

“Way ahead of you.”

A small tugboat-like ship had already separated from the
Garliali group and was heading toward the
Awesome
—Rogers' ship—its heavy-lifting engines emitting an eerie blue glow. It looked like a giant beetle, with two mandibles below its flat cockpit. The Garliali fighters maintained a tight wedge formation, the tip of which pointed right across Rogers' bow and toward the Purveyors, whose formation was more like space popcorn.

“Credits first!” the Purveyor leader belched over the radio.

“Relax,” Rogers said. “I'll let them know not to get too ahead of themselves.”

Reaching forward, he keyed in the frequency for the Garliali representative.

“Listen up,” he said. “You can route the funds through the computer on my ship. I'll remove any traces from the credits so they can't be, uh, traced, and then I'll route them to the Purveyors. When it's halfway done, you can start picking up the cargo. Got it?”

“Got it, Rogers,” the female said. “You're a good man.”

Rogers had been called a lot of things in his life, but a “good man” wasn't one of them. If the two groups he was tricking were anything but notorious criminal organizations, he might have felt a little bit bad about it. Mostly, though, he was one careless sneeze away from peeing in his pants in fear.

His digital interface changed as he was notified that the credits were incoming. With a couple swift button presses and an authentication code, the money started flowing.

“That's kind of strange,” Dorsey said. “Why are they sending us the money?” He made some trim adjustments on the control panel and checked his instruments, fiddling with buttons. Some of the nervousness had already come back—Rogers could see him sitting more stiffly.

“It's complicated,” Rogers said. “Lots of, um, really technical finance stuff about money laundering and all that. Just pilot the damn ship and make sure we don't run into the cargo after we release it, alright?”

The “technical finance stuff” was a spoofing program that
would funnel all the credits into Rogers' account. The Purveyors would be receiving empty data packets, but if the finance tech he'd known from his military days had programmed this correctly, they wouldn't know about it until he was relaxing on a beach on Dathum under an assumed name.

A quiet moment passed as the sequence started working. Rogers saw a lot of code running from his command console—he even understood most of it—and his heart felt like it was trying to climb up his throat and out his nose. Just one over-observant Purveyor, and people would start shooting.

“There's the credits,” the Purveyors squawked over the radio. “You're a good man, Rogers.”

A good man, twice in one day? Something about that made his skin crawl a bit.

Rogers smirked to himself as the transfer reached fifty percent completion. Now all he had to do was unlock the cargo magnets to release the crate, sit back, and collect the best kind of money there was—someone else's. He flipped the switch to disengage the cargo and watched the open, empty space through the window.

“Beautiful,” Rogers said. “Just beautiful. See? I told you this would be easy.”

The tugboat's mandibles cinched around the crate and began its flight back to the Garliali escort, and Rogers reached for a bottle of Jasker 120, the finest Scotch in the system. Now was a time for celebration.

A beep came from his instrument panel, which he promptly ignored just like he did most beeps that came from his instrument panel. This was not a time for beeps.

“What's that?” Dorsey asked.

“It's nothing. Ignore it. Never believe computers. Just keep your eyes on the controls and keep us steady. We're going to jump back out of the same point we jumped in from as soon as we're done.”

The beep sounded again.

“Rogers,” Dorsey said. “There's a ship coming in.”

“That's ridiculous,” Rogers said. “We're in the middle of nowhere. The Meridan Patrol Fleet doesn't even bother scanning this sector—that's why I picked it. It's probably just a late pirate cruiser or something.”

Just to prove him wrong, a void opened in Un-Space and disgorged a bright silver ship bearing the markings of the Meridan Patrol Fleet.

“You've got to be kidding me,” Rogers said.

“It's the MPF!” Dorsey yelled. “I don't like
them
, either!”

“What the hell?” the Purveyor yelled over the radio.

“It's a setup!” the Garliali shouted.

“Cancel the calamari and get to the guns!”

“Wait!” Rogers said, but it was too late. And he wasn't sure what channel he was talking on, anyway.

Everyone from both sides started to talk into their radios at once, creating such a cacophony of panic that Rogers felt like he should be shooting something. But shooting something would immediately reveal to whatever side he shot that he was not their ally. Running away would do the same thing for both sides. So, Rogers did what he did every time he was in a battle: nothing.

Because in ten years in a peacetime military, ex-Sergeant R. Wilson Rogers had never been in a battle. And he was already pretty sure he didn't like it.

“All fighters, break formation and engage the Purveyor ships! We'll teach them to cross us!”

“Take down that Garliali freighter! Those sons of bitches won't get away with this!”

The Garliali wedge charged toward the Purveyors' motley formation, engines flaring to life as they converged on the center position that was, unfortunately, the
Awesome
. A rainbow of cannon fire lit up space like some kind of deranged slot machine in the Heshan casino, and stuff started blowing up.

“Oh god, oh god,” Dorsey said, devolving into an utterly useless
stream of babble as he sat back uselessly in his chair and held his hands awkwardly in front of him. He shook his head, his bland expression rapidly approaching panic.

“Snap out of it, Dorsey,” Rogers said, “and get ready to boost us toward the Un-Space point when you can. Who is in that damn patrol ship?” He still knew people in the Meridan Patrol Fleet. Maybe it was a buddy of his and he could convince them to jump back into Un-Space and stop ruining his swindling.

“This is ex-Sergeant R. Wilson Rogers of the
Awesome
,” he said, keying in to a known Meridan patrol code. “You're, uh, interrupting me! Interrupting this! Go away! Who is your captain? What's his favorite beer?”

There was no response. Rogers brought up a command console and started doing research as fast as he could. Maybe if he could find out the ship's name, he could contact someone he knew on board directly.

“The
Rancor?
” he said incredulously when the name popped up. “What's the
Rancor
doing here?”

“Who's that?” Dorsey called from under the seat. “Can they help us?”

“Probably not,” Rogers said. “They're all supposed to be dead. They flew into an asteroid when I was on duty.”

“Oh god,” Dorsey said, “now we have pirates
and
ghosts!”

Rogers wasn't entirely sure he disagreed with Dorsey's assessment. If he hadn't been covered in a panicked sweat, he might have gotten a chill up his spine.

“
Rancor
,” he called, not knowing what else to do. “Abandon your course and jump back to the fleet! You're
blocking my exit
!” Rogers paused. “Please?”

The
Rancor
didn't do anything at all. He expected at least for it to call for more ships, but nothing else came out of Un-Space. It simply floated in the middle of a torrent of gunfire, its shields flaring to life every time it took a glancing blow from one of the pirates' cannons, like a brain-dead animal that didn't know
where its dinner was. The crew on board the
Rancor
should have recognized his name at least—Rogers had beaten the
Rancor
's captain at several rounds of underhanded card games. But the captain was also supposed to be dead, so maybe that put a damper on conversation.

It was all falling apart in front of him, the space quickly filling with the debris of destroyed ships as the battle raged on. Behind the
Rancor
, ships started flying out of Un-Space as the two groups called for reinforcements. Even though the Meridan ship was blocking the exit, that didn't mean that a horde of pirates couldn't jump in, take a quick evasive maneuver, and then move to engage the other pirates. And that's exactly what they were doing.

Where were they all coming from? It seemed as if both pirate groups were summoning every ship in their respective fleets to come to their aid. This wasn't a cargo transfer anymore; it was a space battle. And Rogers needed to get out of here fast.

“Aren't you going to pilot this ship?” Rogers screamed at Dorsey.

Dorsey shook his head and mumbled.

“Ugh! You're fired!” Rogers shouted, and grabbed the controls.

Equipment crashed around behind him as his frantic yanking of the controls put a couple gee's worth of force into the ship. Dorsey tumbled sideways out of the chair from the force, and Rogers lost sight of him as he focused on getting the
Awesome
out of harm's way. In the background, the comm chatter from the pirates grew even more frantic as each issued orders to its fighters.

“Punch those cannons out of the frigate! They're tearing our fighters apart!”

“Grab that damn cargo and get back to the fleet so we can get out of here!”

But the tugboat, still dutifully dragging the crate of medical supplies, fell to pieces as it was hit by a barrage of blue cannon fire.
The space battle seemed to halt for a moment as Rogers stared at the cracking hull of the tugboat and started counting the seconds until both pirate groups turned on him. He also learned what several hundred pounds of baking flour looked like expanding into open space. In a weird way, he found it kind of pretty.

“Protect the
Awesome
! All fighters cover his exit!”

“Get Rogers out of here! He's our best man!”

Rogers sucked in a breath as every fighter in both fleets started charging toward him. To protect him. From each other.

“They're going after Rogers!” both pirates said simultaneously.

The battle became a massive furball as the two groups of fighters made a valiant effort to simultaneously defend the same target from absolutely no one attempting to attack it.

“Um, guys?” he said over the comms, only to realize that he was still talking to the unresponsive
Rancor
, who still had done nothing at all. It wasn't moving to intercept. It wasn't even issuing any warnings to the two pirates to cease and desist and prepare for boarding, which was standard for all interdictions.

Warnings flared to life on his display as the plasma wash coming from the pirates' fighters' engines and cannons slammed into the
Awesome
. Rogers fell out of his chair as his scheme of evasive maneuvers was roughly interrupted by a stray shot. Luckily, since nobody was actually aiming at him, his shields were absorbing most of the impacts. His brain, on the other hand, didn't have shields, and he was quickly learning the value of seatbelts.

Rogers crawled back up to the seat and hit something on the communications panel.

“Everyone just relax!” he shouted to nobody.

“Rogers!” one of the Garliali called in a mess of static. “We're sorry we couldn't protect you! You were our best—”

“Run, Rogers!” a Purveyor screamed as his ship disintegrated. “Those bastards'll kill you! Wait, is that flour? What the—”

As suddenly as it had begun, it was over. While the fighters
had been distracted killing each other to get to Rogers, the two command ships had brought their giant guns to bear, turning each other into balls of scrap with just a few well-placed shots. The space that had been host to a simple cargo exchange was now a graveyard of gray specks and space dust. The radio went utterly and completely silent.

“Oh,” Rogers said stupidly.

Rogers turned his ship and fired his engines to full. With enough time, he might make it to another Un-Space point or lead the
Rancor
away, pull a few maneuvers, and double back to the one the
Rancor
was still blocking.

A beep sounded from his instrument panel.

“What now?” he shouted, looking down, then froze.

This particular warning was one he actually recognized. Two guided shots had been fired from the
Rancor
at the
Awesome
. The computer blared a warning: impact in thirty seconds.

“Oh shit,” Rogers said. “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.”

The
Awesome
had a single escape pod that was set to launch at a moment's notice, rigged with all the equipment needed for a short trip in space. Rogers got up, grabbing his bottle of Jasker 120, and shouted at his copilot.

“Dorsey, we need to get to the—”

The computer notified him that the escape pod had been safely jettisoned just as he saw the trail of blue light cross the viewscreen.

Dorsey was no longer in the cockpit.

“You worthless, cowardly, backbiting—”