The Jupiter Pirates (15 page)

“Higgs! Chin! Tully!” Tycho yelled. “Stand your ground! STAND YOUR GROUND! You are Comets, men, and you will defend crew and country!”

Tycho drew his pistol, reaching behind him to press the magnets in the glove on his free hand against the wall.
Short, controlled bursts,
he thought.

Then the pirates were among them, screaming and firing. Flashes of laser fire lit up the darkness, giving Tycho crazy, jumbled glimpses of Comets and pirates firing, yelling, tumbling away from the walls. Carbines cracked and thudded, and a spear of laser light zipped by Tycho's ear, close enough to scorch his skin and fill his nostrils with the smell of burning hair. Someone smashed into him, sending him spinning in the zero gravity, and he fumbled for the wall, his pistol jerking in his hand as he fired again and again, screaming at the top of his lungs.

Then Croke was gripping his shoulder, mouth close to his ear.

“Easy, Master Hashoone,” he said soothingly. “It's done.”

Croke had turned his headlamp on. Five of Mox's pirates were still and silent, floating through the air. So was Chin, hand clutched to his throat, eyes empty. Higgs was hugging his arm to his side, teeth bared in a grimace.

“Tyke!” Yana was yelling in his ear. “What's happening?”

“We lost Chin, but the rest of us are all right,” Tycho said, gasping for breath.

“Acknowledged,” Diocletia said. “You need to keep moving.”

Tycho shut his eyes for a moment, trying to force his hands to stop shaking.

“Aye-aye,” he said. “Proceeding to the quarterdeck. Mr. Croke, I need this door open.”

“You'll want to back up a bit, Master Hashoone,” Croke said. “Laney, bit of light, if you please?”

Tycho crept backward a couple of steps and shielded his eyes as Croke set his carbine on continuous fire and began to burn through the lock, which was soon glowing cherry red. Tycho tried not to gag at the stench of burning wiring.

“Tully, lend a hand 'ere,” Croke grunted. “You lot cover us.”

Securing themselves on the wall, Croke and Tully kicked at the melted lock. It groaned, and the door rattled open.

“Go!” barked Croke, and the men pushed forward into the narrow passageway beyond the door, carbines raised. Tycho kicked off the wall and followed them.

The
Hydra
's quarterdeck was dimly lit by starlight. Croke, pistol in each hand, guarded a trio of Mox's crewers, who had their arms raised. Tully and Laney were behind him, braced against the back wall of the quarterdeck.

“The quarterdeck is yours, Master Hashoone,” Croke said with a grin.

Just then another door slid open on the other side of the room, and five men surged through the gap, swimming through the air with pistols raised. Croke, Tully, and Laney whirled, aiming their weapons at the new arrivals.

“No!” Tycho yelled. “They're Ironhawks!”

The men from the
Ironhawk
and the
Comet
stared at one another, fingers perilously close to their triggers. Tycho locked eyes with the leader, who had a black beard. The man's eyes moved to the captain's chair.

Tycho kicked himself off the back wall as hard as he could, aware that the lead crewer from the
Ironhawk
had done the same. He overshot the captain's chair but caught it with his foot, swinging himself around and grabbing the back with both hands.

“Tycho Hashoone, bridge crew of the
Shadow Comet
,” he said, the words tumbling out so fast that they were more noise than speech.

The other man bashed his knee into Mox's workstation and grunted, floating across the quarterdeck.

Suddenly the artificial gravity returned, slamming Tycho and everyone else to the deck. Tycho landed flat on his back, the impact driving the air out of his lungs. The two boarding parties sprang to their feet with groans and curses, then aimed their guns at one another again.

“Gravity's back on,” Yana reported.

“You don't say,” Tycho muttered, still a bit shaky. He got to his feet and saw the
Ironhawk
's mate still picking himself off the deck. Before the other man could move, Tycho put his hand back on Mox's chair.

“According to the laws of war and having achieved victory through course of arms, I claim this craft on behalf of the Jovian Union,” Tycho said. “She and her contents will be apportioned according to the laws of space as adjudicated by the Ceres Admiralty Court.”

The
Ironhawk
's mate hesitated. Croke moved his carbine uncertainly between the prisoners and the other privateers. Then the
Ironhawk
's mate shook his head in disgust, holstering his pistol.

“Stand down, men,” he said. “She's yours, kid.”

 

17
SECRETS IN THE CYBELES

A
n hour later, the power was back on and the bodies of sixteen of Mox's pirates had been removed from the
Hydra
's decks, along with those of five Hashoone retainers and two crewers from the
Ironhawk
. On the
Hydra
's quarterdeck, Diocletia and Captain Garrett of the
Ironhawk
stood with Tycho, watching as Mavry and Yana tried to break into the
Hydra
's logs.

“I congratulate you on your prize, Master Hashoone,” said Garrett, a handsome man with red hair and dark eyes. “First Mate McRae wasn't happy about it but said your acrobatics were quite the thing to see. Can't say I've ever claimed a bridge in zero gravity myself. What's it like?”

“Kind of fun, except for the landing,” Tycho said.

Garrett smiled and nodded.

“Any luck?” Diocletia asked Mavry and Yana.

Mavry shook his head. Mox's bridge crew had locked down the files, and so far no threat had proved frightening enough to persuade them to unlock them.

“They're more scared of Mox than they are of anyone else,” Diocletia said with a sigh.

“Shame that Mox escaped,” Garrett said.

“We saw the gig launch, at the end of the fighting,” Yana said. “But we didn't have the right angle to take a shot at it.”

“We had the angle, but it didn't matter,” Garrett said, shaking his head. “It was out of range before our gunners could punch through its armor.”

The rest of the news was good, though. Mavry had discovered eighteen Jovians locked in the
Hydra
's hold, the crew of a freighter intercepted by the
Hydra
three days before. With the Jovians freed, the hold now served as a brig for Mox's pirates. Carlo and Huff were back there now, looking for the man from Yana's photo. And Tycho was going through security camera footage, trying to spot anything Mox's pirates might have hidden during the battle.

They all turned at the sound of footsteps. Huff, Carlo, and Grigsby entered the quarterdeck, the man from the photo walking dejectedly between them. The
Comet
's surgeon had bandaged Carlo's face and given Huff a sling for his flesh-and-blood arm.

“It's nothing, Mother,” Carlo said, noticing Diocletia's eyes on him. “Blaster shot grazed my cheek.”

“The lad will heal,” Huff said. “An' have a scar to make the girlies in port go wild.”

“What about you, Dad?” Diocletia asked.

“Bit more than a graze,” Huff admitted, pulling back the sling. Tycho gasped. His grandfather's right hand was gone, vaporized in combat.

“Now don't go cryin' over me,” Huff growled. “Bit less flesh and a bit more metal is all. That hand did nothin' but pain me anyhow.”

“Speaking of which, your indicators are starting to flash red,” Diocletia said. “Why don't you go back to the
Comet
to recharge?”

“Arrr,” Huff muttered, glancing at the readouts in his chest. “Too much excitement.”

As the
Hydra
's bells rang out four times, Huff stomped off and Diocletia turned to Carlo and the sour-faced man from the photo. Yana came to stand by her mother's side.

“Like I already told them, I'm not giving you any passwords,” he said.

“Mm-hmm,” said Diocletia. “What's your name, crewer?”

“Joss Roke,” the man said.

“Well, Joss Roke,” Diocletia said. “You've been found working for a known pirate, murderer, and slaver, with a hold full of Jovian citizens whose craft was illegally intercepted.”

“I'm just bridge crew,” Roke objected. “Signed on at Ceres. I never heard of Thoadbone Mox before—thought he was a legal privateer. Once we were out here and I saw things were different, what could I do?”

Diocletia smiled at the man.

“I
am
a legal privateer, Mr. Roke,” she said. “So I'm acquainted with the penalties for the crimes Mox has committed. Do you know what they are, Mr. Roke?” Diocletia took a step closer to Roke, her voice quiet. “You'll
hang
, Mr. Roke,” she said. “It's a bad way to die. What
might
keep you alive is to tell us everything.”

Roke swallowed but shook his head.

“You want me to turn on Thoadbone Mox?” he asked. “You must be crazy, lady.”

Grigsby cocked his carbine and stuck it under Roke's chin, eyes blazing.

“Respect,” he said in a cold voice.

“Go ahead,” Roke said. “Mox will do a lot worse.”

“Mr. Grigsby, that's not necessary,” Diocletia said. She nodded at Yana, who showed Roke her mediapad and the photograph of him standing next to Suud's aide and Hindman.

Roke went pale. Yana grinned.

“Nobody's asking you to turn on Thoadbone Mox,” Diocletia said. “We're asking you to turn on Threece Suud.”

* * *

After a bit more convincing, Joss Roke gave up the password for the
Hydra
's computer system—to Huff's amusement, it was the name of Mox's grandmother. Once they had the password, Tycho sped through views recorded by the
Hydra
's internal and external cameras, while Yana inspected the transmissions Mox's ship had sent and received. Meanwhile, Mavry and Carlo began searching through the logs. They were full of evidence—meticulous records about everything from ships intercepted to ports visited.

The Hashoones recognized seven names as being among the sixteen Jovian craft that had gone missing. And Mavry quickly noticed something odd: after every intercept, the
Hydra
had climbed high above the plane of the solar system, visiting a slightly different point each time.

“How do you explain that?” Mavry asked his children.

“Easy,” Carlo said, pressing a cold pack onto his cheek. “It's an asteroid in an irregular orbit. Nobody who didn't already know it existed would ever find it.”

“Which makes it the perfect pirate hideout,” Tycho said.

“But despite what the Defense Ministry said, the logs don't show Mox working with any other pirates,” Mavry said. “And he went there only after intercepting Jovian craft.”

“So you're saying it isn't a pirate hideout?” Tycho asked. “Then what is it?”

“Let's find out,” Mavry said. “I have my suspicions, though.”

Tycho had something he had to do first. While the rest of the Hashoones were busy, he slipped back to the
Comet
. Huff was in his cramped cabin, plugged into the power unit that recharged his cybernetic parts.

“Tyke,” Huff said, delighted to be visited. “You did well back there, lad.”

“Grandfather, I was looking at the internal security cameras,” Tycho said.

“Mox had security cameras?” Huff asked. “Huh. Didn't peg ol' Thoadbone as so conscientious.”

“I saw what you did,” Tycho said.

“So are you going to report me?” Huff asked. “They'll put me in prison, yeh know. That or worse.”

Tycho considered.

“No,” he said. “I'm not going to report you. But you have to tell Mom. And the others.”

“Okay, Tycho,” Huff said. “When things are settled, I will. Captain's honor.”

Tycho nodded and turned to go. But then he stopped at the cabin door and looked back.

“Can you tell me why you did it?” he asked his grandfather.

“When I tell the rest, I'll tell yeh that too,” Huff said.

Tycho nodded and returned to the corridor. He put his foot on the first rung of the ladderwell, then heard the sound of drawers opening nearby. Stepping away from the ladderwell, he poked his head into the cuddy and found that Diocletia had returned from the
Hydra
and was brewing a cup of coffee.

“Tycho,” she said. “You did very well back there. I'm proud of you.”

Tycho ducked his head, then smiled.

“I was just happy to do something useful,” he said.

“What do you mean by that?” Diocletia asked, sipping her coffee.

Tycho hesitated, but it was too late.

“Let's face it,” he said. “Running communications and plotting navigation are the two least important jobs on the ship.”

He scowled, wishing he hadn't said anything, that he hadn't followed up his good work aboard the
Hydra
with a complaint that would earn him a rebuke and get recorded in the Log.

Diocletia put down her coffee cup and crossed the cuddy to stand in front of him. She took his face in her hands so that he had to look up at her.

“Tycho, listen to me,” she said with a smile. “Talking to people and knowing where to go are the most important jobs a captain has.”

 

The
Vesta Runner
's cargo bay doors were beyond repair, but the bay itself hadn't been damaged when the
Shadow Comet
and the
Ironhawk
blasted their way free. That allowed the two privateers to settle back into their cradles for the long trip to the mysterious asteroid above the solar system. Leading the freighter on the voyage was the
Hydra
, hastily repaired and attached to her long-range tanks. She was now piloted by Carlo, with Yana and Tycho filling out his temporary bridge crew.

“Would you look at that?” Yana said wonderingly as they neared the asteroid. It was long and flat, perhaps a kilometer long, and tumbling in an eccentric orbit through deep space, so far from the regular spacelanes that it made the Cybeles seem well traveled.

But it wasn't lifeless. Yana put the results of her scan on the
Hydra
's main screen. The surface of the asteroid was dotted with pressure domes and pitted with mines.

“That's a huge operation,” Tycho said with a long whistle.

“Yep,” Carlo said. “A corporate factory of that size must demand a lot of labor. And I think we can all guess where they've been getting some of their workers. You were right, Tyke. It is a slave camp.”

“I didn't say anything,” Tycho said, but he couldn't resist grinning at Carlo.

“Incoming transmission,” grumbled the
Hydra
's artificial intelligence, a rather disagreeable program that responded—sometimes—to the name Atticus.

“Put it through, Atticus,” said Tycho. “No visuals on our side of the transmission.”

The main screen flickered, and the Hashoones were confronted by a scruffy, irate-looking man in a stained jumpsuit.

“Mox!” he yelled. “You're late! We have shipments ready for transit back to GlobalRex! And did you bring me new laborers?”

“
Comet
and
Ironhawk
are launching from the
Vesta Runner
,” Yana reported.

“You can turn the video feed on now, Atticus,” Tycho said.

The man stopped complaining and stared at his screen, clearly confused.

“I beg your pardon,” Carlo said. “There was a slight delay while we were capturing Mox's ship. Oh, and you might want to prepare for a visit, sir. Starships from the news media and the Jovian Defense Force are about a day behind us, and they're really interested in what you and GlobalRex have been up to out here.”