Pankowski System,
Silesian Confederacy,
June 1859 PD.
Jeremy Tanner tapped his thrusters, braking his last few meters-per-second of velocity and grimaced as his shuttle nudged just a bit too solidly into the cargo bay buffers.
“Man, I hate these backwater, back-assward depots!” he growled, and Inga Mastroianni, his flight engineer, snorted.
“You say that every damned time,” she pointed out.
“Because it’s true every damned time. At least they could install a couple of traffic-handling tractor units!”
“And deprive you of the opportunity to show off your impeccable piloting?”
“Impeccable piloting’s not worth a bucket of spit in vacuum if I misjudge an approach.”
“Probably do more damage to the station than to us,” Mastroianni said a bit more sourly, studying her own readouts. “They must’ve put this place together with your bucket of spit and maybe a little glue.”
“Like I say, backwater, bare-bone, and back-assward.”
“Not saying you’re wrong, but on the other hand, backwater has its advantages,” she pointed out.
“I guess you’ve got that right,” Tanner conceded, and tapped the com panel. “Yo, Traffic Control,” he said, with a grimace for Mastroianni. Calling the half-assed, casual voice that had greeted the merchantship Joseph Francis upon arrival “Traffic Control” constituted physical abuse of a perfectly respectable title. “We’re here, in case you hadn’t noticed. Somebody want to open the goddamned hatch?”
“Keep your vacsuit on,” the female voice replied. “Our guys are on the way. You got your manifest ready?”
“Of course we do.”
“Okay. Give us another couple of minutes.”
Tanner rolled his eyes and hit the intercom button.
“Yeah?” a voice growled.
“Two minutes—they say. Better get ’em on their feet.”
“Be easier if they weren’t tranked so heavy.”
“Bitch, bitch, bitch.” Tanner shook his head. “The Joey’s never lost a shuttle yet, and we’re not starting with mine, asshole.”
“Then why don’t you come back here and get them moving?”
“Because that’s not my job,” Tanner shot back, and closed down the intercom.
“He’s got a point,” Mastroianni said. Tanner looked at her, and she shrugged. “I didn’t say it was a good one.”
Tanner grimaced. After twelve T-years with Manpower, Incorporated, he was solidly in favor of tranking cargo to the gills during transit. His last ship before the Joseph Francis had lost two cargo shuttles when the slaves aboard them rioted. It hadn’t done the cargo any good in the end. Slavers like the Joey might be merchant hulls, but most merchies—even legitimate merchies—out here in Silesia normally mounted at least some armament. On the other hand, none of the shuttles’ crew members had survived the experience, and Jeremy Tanner had no desire to emulate them. Besides—
“So, here we are,” a new voice said over the com. “You’re so hot to unload, you want to go ahead and crack your hatch?”
“Sounds good to me,” Tanner said, and nodded to Mastroianni.
“Thanks,” the new voice said. “Oh, and one more thing,” it added as the hatch opened.
“What?” Tanner demanded, then stiffened as the unmistakable “chuff” of a flechette gun came over the com. It coughed twice more even as his head snapped around to stare at Mastroianni.
“Just that you might want to open the flight deck hatch and come out with your hands where we can see them.” The voice was more clipped and professional—and far, far colder—than it had been. “If you do, you’ll probably live at least a little longer than your buddies in the cargo bay did.”
“And yet another fly into the spiderweb,” Captain Benyamin Shing announced over the com in tones of profound satisfaction. “Good job on the timing.”
“Practice helps,” Major Jacques Benton-Ramirez y Chou replied, tipping back in his chair aboard the freight platform. On the display before him, Shing’s “workboat”—a beat up looking commercial craft whose “trash hauler” exterior concealed the armament of a light attack craft and personnel space for a full platoon of BSC commandos—had just docked with the Joseph Francis. Getting it into position to pounce before Jacques’s station-side personnel grabbed the inbound shuttle had been a little trickier than usual, but Shing was right. The timing had worked out almost perfectly.
“So does the fact that most slavers are frigging idiots, Sir,” Sergeant Major Brockmann observed from her place at the communications panel.
“Fair’s fair, Miliko. Far as they know, this shithole of a station is still under Manpower management.”
“All due respect, Sir, they’re still dumber’n rocks.”
“Sar’ Major’s right,” Shing put in, and Jacques chuckled.
“Not arguing the point, Benny. Just pointing out that we’re helping them be ‘dumber than rocks’ this time around.” Jacques climbed out of his chair and stretched. “Get the bastards cuffed and moved to the platform. I want their ship out of here and headed for Beowulf ASAP. No telling when the next fly will be along.”
“It’s sort of a waste of time to bring them back with us,” Shing pointed out, and Jacques snorted. Under the Cherwell Convention, the slave trade and piracy were the same thing. Which meant Joseph Francis’s crew would shortly follow God only knew how many slaves who’d been dumped into vacuum to get rid of incriminating evidence.
“Got to dot all the ‘i’s and cross all the ‘t’s,” he replied. “It’s even possible one of them has something worth trading to keep his or her sorry ass alive.”
“I can always hope they don’t, can’t I?”
Shing’s voice was much bleaker than it had been, which didn’t surprise Jacques. Private Benyamin Shing had been part of Jacques’s team for over three T-years before he’d been direct-commissioned and assigned a team of his own. And like Brockmann, who’d piloted the shuttle the day of Allison’s rescue, he was the child of an ex-slave. Brockmann’s father had been “cargo” aboard a slaver which had encountered one of the rare Solarian League Navy cruisers actually enforcing the Cherwell Convention, while Shing’s mother had been liberated from Manpower in an operation much like this one. A lot of the BSC’s people came from very similar backgrounds.
And had very similar attitudes.
“Well, it shouldn’t take us too long to find out,” Jacques replied now. “And just between you and me, it won’t break my heart, either, if they don’t.”