Starliner(87)

"Colonel Ngo," Ran said, making a guess at the passenger's rank, "Trident Starlines doesn't intend to take action through the government of Federated Earth, even though the crewmen bribed to provide access to the arms crated in the hold say they were contacted directly by officials of the Nevasan Embassy on Calicheman."

That attribution was false, but Ngo—obviously the unit commander—had boarded on Tellichery with the remainder of a team rushed there from Nevasa, packed into a courier vessel. Ngo couldn't be sure that there hadn't been a screw-up on Calicheman, somebody operating directly instead of using cut-outs.

Given the way the departments of any government hid mistakes from the outside world, the Nevasa military high command would probably go to its individual graves believing that the Nevasan Ministry of External Affairs had blown the hijack. In fact, the plan had been uncovered by a computer sort of the passenger list, looking for anomalies, backed by the paranoid certainty on the part of all the Empress's officers that there was something to find. The Brasil's disappearance had guaranteed that.

A manual search of hold luggage as it came aboard turned up a capsule marked "DENTAL EQUIPMENT—FRAGILE," which contained weapons for ninety-six troops. In all likelihood, there was an innocent man or woman in the two lifeboats that had been launched, but the poor bastard would play hell proving it.

And Ran Colville didn't much care.

"You can't—" Ngo cried.

"Good day, sir," Ran said sharply. "Mohacks and Babanguida, good luck and I'm looking forward to seeing you soon."

Mohacks gave Ran an ironic salute, touching the barrel of his weapon to his brow. Babanguida simply grinned.

"Bridge," Ran ordered, "break contact. Commander, I think that does it."

Kneale nodded from the screen. "I'll inform Captain Kanawa," he said. His face dissolved into fluorescing speckles.

There was silence in the machinery room. By now, the passengers had dispersed from the Boat Deck so the corridor was quiet as well.

"Shit," said one of the Cold Crewmen to Swede. His voice wasn't loud, but there was more hatred in it than Ran had ever heard before in a single syllable. "That's fuckin' it, then?"

Swede nodded. Why he had that nickname—if it was a nickname—couldn't be guessed. He was a squat, dark Kephalonian, as strong as a troll. "Let's get back to quarters. They've wasted an hour, and they'll expect us to make up the schedule for them. As we will."

"I was looking forward," the other crewman said, "t' getting stuck in t' some of them pussies."

He stroked the shaft of his adjustment tool, a three-meter rod with a selection of sharp-edged tools at the head end. The surface of the tool's molecularly-aligned steel was pitted by years of micro-meteor impacts.

"Another time, Lewis," Swede said. He draped one arm over his subordinate's shoulders and walked him out toward their duty quarters on the deck below. The arc shears hung from Swede's other hand without apparent difficulty.

The remainder of the team followed. Ran took the submachine guns as the Cold Crewmen left the machinery room. The first man resisted instinctively, but the second tossed the weapon to Ran before Ran was ready for it. The barrels of the two submachine guns clashed together.

"It's not worth shit anyhow," the crewman said with a sneer. "Next time I bring my tool. See how the pussy screams with my tool sliding through him."

Ran watched Swede's watch disappear down a drop shaft. He felt wrung out. The guns and bandoliers of ammunition were suddenly too much for his arms to bear. He set them on the deck and began unbuckling his own belt of stun grenades.

Wanda Holly appeared at the open hatch. She was beaming. "Nice work, sailor," she said.

"God, Wanda," Ran said. "I feel like I just tended three engines by myself and a double watch besides. And I didn't do anything. I just stood here and waited."

Wanda bent and picked up the submachine guns. She frowned. "Let's take the service shaft up to A Deck," she said. "We don't want to startle any passengers in one of the regular lifts."

She leaned over and gave Ran a peck on the cheek. "Not after you and the rest of us did such a job to make sure they won't wake up to a nasty surprise," she added.

"Let's hope," Ran said, slipping an arm around his fellow officer's waist for support and companionship. "Let's just hope."





IN TRANSIT:

TELLICHERY TO TBLISI

"That's funny," said Yeoman Etcherly. She spoke loudly enough that Bruns, the Second Officer (Ship Side), would hear across the electronic hum of the bridge though she didn't call to him directly.

Bruns stretched. There were only three of them in the large room at present: Bruns; his helmsman Donaldson; and Etcherly, the navigating technician. That was the normal complement of the starliner's bridge while under way, though Captain Kanawa would inspect at least once during the watch.