Chapter 6

Colin rolled over and looked at the time display. ‘Good,’ he thought, ‘I’m in time.’

As he’d fallen asleep with Yana in his arms he’d decided to be awake for the end of this jump. He wanted to see just how spectacular the view was in this system that was a highlight of many space tours.

Due to the way that faster than light travel worked it was necessary for each jump to be in a straight line. Hyperspace was also full of nasty little surprises for the unwary, things analogous to the old mariners’ whirlpools and monsters that needed to be avoided if you wished to have a safe journey. Hence the difficulty of being a scout, as they were venturing into areas where no one had been before and they would be the first to discover these nasty little surprises.

One consequence of having humans in space was that wherever possible the jump points for a journey would be positioned near to a star, or other large, relatively motionless object. Seeing the thing there in space before they made the next jump made them feel more secure before they headed into the wild unknown.

The next jump point was just outside a star system that was full of space dust, much of it crystalline in structure. The nuclear furnace at the system’s centre was roughly three times the diameter of Sol and was spinning rapidly, giving it a rather unstable surface. These two facts allowed the system to generate a truly impressive display that attracted visitors from all over Imperial space.

Sliding out of his bed he left Yana lying there asleep, her long hair spread around her head like a nimbus cloud. Smiling, Colin slipped into the bathroom for a quick shower before he headed for the bridge.

Five minutes later Colin was humming softly as he towelled off.

A warbling alarm shocked him into silence, the towel falling unnoticed from his hands.

“Rosie,” he called, “What’s the problem?”

“I’ve just picked up a flash alarm from our next jump point,” said Rosie’s voice.

“I’ll be right there,” he called as he strode back into the main cabin.

As he reached for his jumpsuit Yana, who was now awake asked, “What do you want me to do?”

“Get dressed and then join us on the bridge,” said Colin. He smiled, “We’ll find out what’s happening and then decide what to do.”

Yana nodded and started to get up, the bedclothes that had covered her as she slept dropped away to reveal her naked body. Colin chuckled as he finished fastening his jumpsuit, “Don’t bother with any underwear,” he said, “We’ll probably be back here in ten minutes.”

He didn’t really believe that but he was trying to keep Yana from worrying, he was doing enough of that for both of them.

Striding onto the bridge he wasn’t surprised to see Adele and Zara already at their control boards. Between them stood Rosie, glancing from one to the other as they worked.

Colin dropped into his command chair, “All right, Rosie, what’s happened?”

Rosie turned towards him, “I received a flash alarm claiming to be from the ‘Viking Star,’” she reported. “According to Jane’s she’s a cruise ship that operates in this area.”

“How big is she?” asked Colin.

“The database describes her as one hundred and seventy-seven metres long and capable of carrying five hundred and thirty-nine passengers,” said Rosie.

“Did they give any indication of what the problem was?”

“The transmission didn’t last that long,” explained Rosie, “They reported that they’d been approached by a small ship that had latched on to them.” The holographic image shrugged, “then the signal stopped.”

Colin sucked on his lower lip as he pondered what to do. The sensible option would be to keep going in hyperspace until he was well past this area and then re-compute a course to Tor. Colin shook his head; there was no way he was going to do that.

“Rosie, get together with Zara and drop us out of hyper as far from the system as we can and still get a good sensor reading on what’s going on.” He glanced across to Adele, “You better make sure the weapons are on line,” he said with a sheepish grin.

As Zara and Rosie turned to discuss his instructions Yana arrived on the bridge. Colin waved her towards her normal seat, “We’re going to drop out of hyperspace and have a look at what is going on,” he said.

She nodded as she sat down quietly.

“Transition in thirty seconds,” said Rosie.

Colin returned his attention to the bridge and the possible danger he was dropping into.

Colin could only wait as Zara, Rosie and Adele assessed the situation.

“Can we move in closer?” asked Zara.

“Why?” asked Colin.

“I can barely make out the second vessel,” she replied, “It looks like it’s docked against the cruise ship but I can’t get any details from here.”

“Threats?” asked Colin.

“None that we can make out,” confirmed Adele.

“OK, jump us in a little closer Rosie, but be prepared to run.”

The micro-jump took only seconds to perform and then a sharp image of the well-lit cruise ship was centred in the main display. The ship was slowly rolling around its longitudinal axis, the large display windows built into its hull crossing in front of them as it did.

“There it is,” declared Zara, as the image on the screen moved sufficiently to display a small craft latched onto the rear of the cruise ship.

“That’s not very big,” said Colin as he tried to estimate the size of the dark ship fastened like a leech to the white cruise liner.

“It’s smaller than us,” confirmed Zara. “I make it about thirty metres long.”

“Any signals coming from either ship?” asked Colin as he looked at the scene.

“Nothing we can pick up,” said Rosie.

“How much closer can we get without being spotted?”

“I can park us on top of him if you want,” said Rosie. “There’s no active emissions from either ship and if I keep the cruise ship between us they’re not going to get a chance of spotting us.”

“Do it,” said Colin, all his intentions of steering clear of trouble forgotten.

Rosie headed them towards the pair of ships at her best estimate of a safe speed, she didn’t start spiralling until they were a lot closer than Colin would have done but he was relying on her skills, not his own.

“What are you planning on doing when we get there?” asked Adele.

Colin blinked, realising that he’d been watching the approach, not thinking about his next step.

“If we can confirm that something illegal is going on,” he began and was interrupted by a snort from Rosie. He frowned at her and continued, “As I said, if we can get confirmation we can slip out of the system and call for help whilst keeping an eye on the ships here.”

Tension mounted as the ships approached one another. On board the Rose Zara continued to study her sensor systems, muttering under her breath as she worked. Rosie had the range down to ten thousand metres and there had been no response from either of the vessels.

“You know,” said Zara suddenly, “I don’t think there’s anyone on that small ship.”

“No?” asked Colin in surprise.

“I’ve got lots of life signs on the big ship but nothing at all on the small one,” she confirmed. She frowned and made a few adjustments to her control board, “In fact most of the life signs on the big ship are stationary.”

Colin rubbed his face with his hands and let out a sigh, “Has anyone got any ideas about what’s happening here?”

Yana was the only one that took up his offer, “You say that very few people are moving on the big ship?”

“A couple of dozen at the most,” confirmed Zara.

“Out of five hundred plus,” said Yana. She looked at Colin who made a come-on gesture with his hand.

“When there’s trouble with the slaves the authorities gas them,” said Yana. “Everyone collapses where they are, they’re out for anything up to a day depending on what they use to knock them out. Do you think something like that could be happening here?”

Colin frowned, he didn’t know and couldn’t think of a way to find out.

“It’s possible,” said Zara, “The small ship is operating at about fifteen percent over pressure. That would be enough to stop any gas seeping back into her if they’d flooded the cruiser with something like remifentanil.”

“What’s remifentanil?” asked Colin.

“It’s one of the opiate derivatives that can be used as an incapacitating agent,” said Adele. “It’s extremely potent with a relatively fast action but also short duration.” She gave Colin a smile; “Its chemical structure allows the human body to quickly metabolise it into non-toxic and water soluble forms which means there’s less chance of long-term problems.”

“Why would they do that to this ship?” asked Colin.

“Kidnapping, slavery,” offered Rosie.

“Anyone who can afford to go on a cruise is going to be in the higher earning brackets,” said Zara. “They’re going to have families that could afford to pay a ransom.”

“And we’re not far from Tor,” said Colin, “where such exchanges can take place.”

He thought for a moment, “but why use such a small ship?”

“Would you let something bigger get close to you?” asked Rosie.

“No, I don’t suppose I would,” said Colin.

“What now?” asked Adele.

“You say the small ship is empty?” he asked Zara.

“Yes,” she said nodding for emphasis.

“Then how about sneaking aboard the sneaker and seeing what trouble we can create?” asked Colin softly.

“Yes,” said Zara enthusiastically.

As the Rose slid very slowly towards the spinning ships everyone held their breath. Rosie carefully positioned the ship directly above the smaller ship’s emergency escape hatch before she reported that they were in position.

“You’re going to have to over pressurise our hatch before we go through,” said Adele, “otherwise there’s a chance that whatever seal they’ve got between the two ships will give way.”

“And our armour isn’t a full environmental suit,” said Colin, “so I’d go down as fast as everyone on the cruiser.”

He glanced to Yana, “Talking of armour and the like, can you go and get ours from the armoury and we’ll get ready here.”

Yana nodded and took off at a very brisk walk.

“It’s a good job all hatches are standardised or this could be really messy,” said Zara.

“We might think it’s a good thing but I bet the Captain of the Viking Star isn’t so impressed,” said Colin.

“You know, if they’ve gassed the crew then they couldn’t have been planning on taking the ship,” said Adele. “There’s no way that the AI on her would take orders from a pirate, no matter what threats were made against the lawful crew.”

“They could have bought along another AI,” said Colin. “Then again, they were probably after the first class passengers. They’d be a much easier proposition than replacing the AI out here.”

“Or it could be a particular passenger,” offered Zara.

“The sort of person you used to protect?” asked Colin curiously.

“They’d have had to come up with something better than a gas to take out one of us,” said Zara flicking her eyes towards Adele. “And I bet that that’s the same for anyone who’s really important.”

“Any member of the Imperial family, that’s for sure,” said Adele.

“How about the head of a House?” asked Colin.

“Possibly,” said Adele, “I know that several of our brothers and sisters have been made available to key individuals outside of the Imperial family.”

“Who?” asked Colin.

“I don’t know,” said Adele, “That information would only be available on a need to know basis and we,” she indicated herself and Zara, “don’t need to know.”

“So if there’s not a House Lord on board, there could be a member of his family,” said Colin, “and that would fetch a good ransom reward for these people.”

“If they bother to wait that long,” said Rosie. “They could make them a slave immediately and probably get as much selling them to a different House as a plaything.”

“Probably with less exposure if they did it that way as well,” said Zara.

“We’ll find out in a couple of minutes,” said Colin as Yana struggled back onto the bridge with three of the silver cases.

“Here’s your armour,” she said, “I’ll get mine and the weapons now.”

“Don’t bother with your armour,” said Colin before she could leave, “Just bring the weapons here.”

She gave him a hard look before nodding and heading off again.

“You’re not taking Yana with you?” asked Rosie.

“She’d probably get in the way,” replied Colin as he crossed to his armour. “The truth is I’ll probably be in the way of these two, but I’m in charge so I get to decide who goes and who stays behind.” He dragged the vest over his head, “Don’t worry though, I’m going to be at the back and let your sisters deal with anything that crops up.”

Yana’s second trip to the armoury was much quicker than the first. She came back to the bridge with the four silver cases that had the individual weapons in them.

As he strapped on his Glock twenty Colin said, “Yana, you hang around on our side of the hatch, if anyone comes through that Rosie hasn’t given the all clear to, you let them have it and we’ll sort the details out later.”

He picked up the MP5 and scooped up two of the magazines that snapped together and fitted them to the weapon. That gave him sixty rounds on the weapon and that was before he clipped two more of the magazines together and dropped them into a side pocket of his jumpsuit. Beside him Adele and Zara went through the same motions silently.

“Shall we go ladies?”

Adele nodded and led the way to the airlock, Zara patted Colin on the shoulder as she passed him and followed her sister. Yana followed the group silently as Colin tracked the two bots and tried to prepare himself for whatever was going to happen.

As the inner door closed Colin had a sudden thought, “Uh, ladies,” he said, “How many bad guys are there likely to be?”

“About a dozen at a guess,” said Zara.

“Don’t you think you should have thought of that earlier?” asked Adele, giving him a stern look.

“Don’t worry,” said Zara before Colin could reply, “we’ve already taken that figure into account.” She gave him a happy little grin, “If there had been too many we wouldn’t have let you try this.”

Colin felt a moment of relief and then began to worry again, who exactly was in command of the Rose?

“Oh that hurts,” he mumbled as the increase in pressure made itself felt against his eardrums.

“Yawn,” instructed Zara, “It will equalise the pressure between both sides.”

Colin tried it and felt relief as his ears popped.

“Hatch opening,” reported Rosie via the helmet’s radio. “There are still no signs of activity on board the vessel you are entering.”

The hatch opened and the two bots disappeared, moving into the ship in a fluid motion, each of them working to cover the other with the minimum of effort. Colin swallowed and stepped into the craft behind them.

There wasn’t a lot to see, the emergency hatch was situated well to the aft of the craft. Moving forward they passed secure storage areas with their doors open. A quick glance showed that they were more like cells than either passenger cabins or stock rooms. They contained a metal sink and toilet and three bed racks and nothing else. As they slipped by Colin did a mental calculation and figured that they were looking at eight rooms, or space for twenty-four prisoners in this section alone.

He stepped out of the last cell and whispered into his microphone, “Rosie, how many other cells are there like these?”

“Just the ones you’ve passed,” came the reply.

Colin continued down the corridor looking for the two bots that’d led the way. He hadn’t gone far when a voice in his helmet let him know where they were.

“They’ve fastened an emergency lock over their normal hatch,” reported Adele.

An emergency hatch was like two sheets of plastic held together by static electricity; you could push your way between the two sheets without compromising the seal greatly. The device was used to provide an emergency way of entering a ship if its hatches were locked open, or had been blown open.

“Why would they do that?” asked Colin.

“It’ll save them having to cycle through the hatch system when they bring their prisoners back,” said Adele. “And with the over pressure they’ve got on this side there is no way that any contamination is going to work its way into their vessel.”