“Are we set to go?”
“Almost.”
Martin grinned. Shadira was back to her business
personality again. ‘If it works for her
that’s fine.’ Like him she had decided to wear a mask. Unlike him she
had time to let the mask become part of her. ‘But being André Lafayette wasn’t so bad. Perhaps I’ll keep the
name, if not the rest of him.’
Martin let his eyes wander around the tarmac and the
makeshift hangars of Chamra’s only spaceport. “I am not going to miss this
place. How long until we lift off?”
“Thirty seconds.”
Martin’s head snapped back to her and the disruptor
she held with both hands. His eyes followed the barrel and stopped at the
half-dozen men moving between the hangars.
“Shit!” He made a dive for the weapon he knew
Laszlo had stored under the ramp and he came up kneeling, pointing the rifle at
the slowly approaching figures.
“Go! I’ll hold them off. We need to go NOW!”
If there was anything he had learned from Laszlo it
was that there was a weapon for every occasion and the pistols he and Shadira
carried were no use at this range. Shadira had learned that lesson long before
him, so she just dashed up the ramp without any argument.
The men approaching the Seven Seas had realized that
they had been seen and started to run towards the ship before they completely
lost the element of surprise. Martin Alcott took careful aim and drew a line of
explosions in front of them.
Before he had time to feel satisfied with himself
several disruptor bolts slammed into the ground at the foot of the ramp and
threw up a cloud of dust and debris.
He was halfway up the ramp before he noticed what he
was doing. His eyes were still full of dust, his mind still running on instincts
and adrenaline.
Dropping to one knee Martin Alcott took aim at the
sniper and cursed. Right on top of the control tower! He would never get a clear
shot at this range. ‘Could hit the
tower. Too many people in there.’
Diving into the relative safety of the airlock he
dropped the rifle and drew his disruptor pistols. He hit the control that would
retract the ramp and close the airlock, but as he did, something inside Martin
Alcott snapped.
He walked out onto the retracting ramp, both guns
aimed at the figures now almost close enough to see the white in their eyes and
his fingers convulsed around the triggers.
*****
He ran towards the ladder leading up to the bridge. He
didn’t even notice that he dropped the guns he had been holding as he reached
for the ladder and pulled himself up.
“Report!”
“Landing tractors have locked on to us,” Kiran
replied. “They must have someone in the control tower.”
“More power to the engines!”
“I tried, but it’s no use,” Tom shouted over the
groaning of the Seven Seas’ hull.
“Don’t worry.” Laszlo drew a small box from the
inside of his jacket and a wicked grin spread across his face. “I may not know
a thing about spaceships or engineering, but I know a lot about traps.”
He depressed the single button on the small box and
all around the spaceport explosions shook the ground.
*****
The Hawk put down his binoculars and cursed, as the
Seven Seas swerved drunkenly from side to side, before she steadied, gained
height, and swiftly rose into the sky.
“Get my ship ready.”
Krush hurried off to see to his boss’s orders and
for a moment Glenn Talbot was all alone with his memories.
He had taught Marty all he had known about standing
tall and when to give in to force and when to resist it. What was it he had told
him about pride? ‘Ah, yes. Pride may turn you into a survivor for a little
while, but it will never turn you into a success. To succeed you have to swallow
your pride and do what has to be done. It’s like standing at the ocean when
the tide comes in. You can stand there as long as you like, but when the waves
reach your head you can either move or drown. What pride gets you is
drowning.’
Perhaps Marty had not realized that the waves were
already playing around his shoulders. And perhaps it wasn’t too late to drive
the lesson home.
“Would be a shame to waste a friend like him,” The
Hawk muttered, but there were things more important than friendship – chief
among them his own life.
His hand came out off his pocket in one swift fluid
motion, the phaser pointed at the starship that was by now little more than a
small speck of darkness against the sun. “Damn You!”
The beam off phaser fire stabbed at the sky until the
energy cell ran dry.
It was no use. The ship was out off reach and if he
couldn’t catch the Seven Seas his life would vanish as fast as the old Klingon
scout.
*****
“Okay, no use for stealth or subterfuge now. Shadira,
stationary orbit, then put us on autopilot. Kara, Kiran - transporter room.
Start beaming up our spares from the junkyard. Tom, you go and help move that
stuff to the cargo bay.”
Martin stopped to take a breath and, while he did so,
turned to Laszlo. “Well done.” Before the Half-Romulan had time for a reply,
Martin shot out his next order: “Now get ready and bring some guns for me and
Shadira. They are going to come after us and we need to catch the Hawk’s ship
before it lifts off.”
*****
“You two ready?” Martin dropped his coat on the
deck, so he could get to his holstered guns faster. What was it Laszlo had told
him about the rifle he was holding onto as if his life depended on it? ‘Cardassian
disruptor. One of my favorites. Just leave it in the burst option. Drains the
power real fast, but it will make everyone thinking twice before sticking their
head out off cover.’
“Yes.” Shadira had decided to go with just her
usual disruptor pistol and Martin was certain she could put it to better use
than he could make of the Cardassian rifle. “And you look good in green,
Captain.”
“Thanks.” Martin looked down at the shirt he was
wearing and inwardly grinned. “Laszlo?”
“As ready as I ever will be.” With all the gun
barrels sticking out from the Half-Romulan’s wiry figure he reminded Martin of
a porcupine, but there was not time to think of the imagery.
“Right. Let’s go.” The trio stepped on the
transporter platform and Martin’s eyes met Kara’s. “You have the
coordinates?”
“As close as we could get, Captain.”
“Energize.”
*****
“So that’s it?”
“Yep.” Laszlo took a swift glance around the
corner and ducked back into the shadow of the narrow alley. “That’s where he
keeps his ship. Seen it once. Sleek little number, fast as hell, and well armed.
Even has some stealth features so you can’t scan the inside. At least that’s
what everyone says who thinks he knows about ships.”
“And just one way in.” Martin risked another
glance at the large structure. A three-story tall concrete building with just
one big gate facing the plaza. No windows, no side entrances – just a large
warehouse like may others in the vicinity. But he knew that half of the
structure was open to the sky, allowing a ship to land inside the building
without bothering about maintenance-heavy ceiling hatches.
“You got anything to blast those doors open?”
Laszlo reached for one of the guns slung over his back
as he replied: “Sure. So we are going for a frontal assault?”
“I think we have no other choice.” Martin Alcott
shot a frustrated glance at Shadira. “And don’t say it. It’s a lousy plan,
but I am pretty new to all this.”
The Orion started to smile, but then stopped herself.
Perhaps it was best not to offer any comfort to her captain. He needed his
adrenalin running high and the tension strong to keep him alive. ‘Or
perhaps not...’
“There is another way.”
*****
“We should have tried the frontal assault.”
Martin wanted to shut up Laszlo, but there was no time
for it. No sooner had they circled around the storehouse and taken position at
the corner closest to the large doors, that a shiny black aircar pulled into the
plaza and stopped in front of the warehouse.
For a moment Martin could do nothing but admire the
curves and angles of the vehicle that must have cost more than he had made in
his whole Merchant Marine career, but Laszlo drew him from his admiration.
“Just give the word.”
“Right. Take it out.”
Before the three deafening booms had fully registered
on Martin’s mind the hood of the vehicle was torn apart by the heavy tritanium
slugs.
Racing towards the car from opposite directions Martin
and Shadira drew a bead on the ground in front of The Hawk’s car to keep
everyone inside, while Laszlo kept them covered with his ancient but effective
rifle.
Martin Alcott pulled open the door to the passenger
compartment, at the last moment remembering to step out off Laszlo’s line of
fire. “Out!”
*****
Krush tumbled out off the driver’s seat and came up
on one knee, his gun rising up.
To Martin everything seemed to move in slow motion.
Even the shouts and noises around him turned into drawn-out almost-subsonic
growls.
Moved by instincts he never knew he had, his arm
snapped up, his finger convulsed around the trigger, and the Nausicaan fell.
In a single day Martin Alcott had learned to kill.
What he had not learned was to do it without remorse.
But another thing he had learned was to trust his
instincts – especially his instinct for survival.
“I said – Out!”
*****
“That was some good shooting, Marty,” Glenn Talbot
remarked more cheerful than his position warranted. “I never thought you had
it in you, but now that you killed Krush there may be even more job
opportunities for you here than I had thought.”
“Shut up.”
Martin Alcott pressed the gun barrel harder against
Glenn’s throat and tried his best to keep his hostage between him and the half
dozen men keeping a watch on them from the far corner of the hangar.
He took another two steps towards the waiting
spaceship, dragging his hostage with him. “Sorry, Glenn. Told you I had made
my choice. Afraid there is little you can do about it.”
“Maybe not, but are you really going to shoot me?
You better should.” Despite his predicament The Hawk grinned. “Because if
you don’t kill me you will spend the short rest of your life on the run. But
you can’t run from death, Marty. And in your case death will strike swiftly
and kill you very very slowly.”
“But if I sign up with you everything will be
forgotten? Yeah, that makes sense – not.” They moved a little further
towards the spaceship and Martin shot a glance over his shoulder to see Shadira
lean out off the airlock and give him an Okay sign. The ship’s small crew was
taken care of.
“You see, Glenn, you didn’t give me much time to
think, but I think it was enough.” Trusting Laszlo, and now Shadira, to keep
an eye on both The Hawk and the thugs in the far corner, Martin relaxed just a
little and continued: “You have some major operation running here, Glenn. I
guess you have someone big behind you, maybe even the Orion Syndicate. If they
ever heard you had some newcomer like me throwing a wrench into your works I
might be dead soon, but so would you. That’s something you taught me once,
remember? Mistakes are only acceptable if there is no one there to watch you
make them.”
They had almost reached the airlock and Martin was
ready to move on, but he wasn’t quite finished. He shoved Glenn Talbot aside
and trained both his pistols on the man who had taught him more about life than
anyone else ever had.
“You want my ship. Fine. That’s your business and
I don’t care why you want it. But there is one lesson I have learned and I
didn’t learn it from you. You can’t buy trust - you have to earn it. But
once you earned it it’s the most valuable thing you have.”
“I thought you had earned my trust, Glenn, but
others did a better job at it in one week than you did in five years.”
He pulled the trigger and Glenn Talbot – The Hawk
– slumped down like a felled tree.
Martin Alcott dove into the spaceship and fired his
other gun at the door controls right after the airlock had closed. The lock
exploded in a rain of sparks.
It would take at least ten, maybe fifteen minutes
before the door could be forced open and by then Martin and his crew would be
long gone with all the anti-matter they needed.
Too bad for The Hawk that he had shielded his ship so
well no one could get a transporter lock on the inside. ‘He should be quite
stunned when he wakes up.’
*****
Tom walked onto the bridge and slumped down in one of
the chairs at the aft stations. For a moment his eyes were glued to the view
screen and the warp stars streaking by the Seven Seas.
They were steadily moving away from Chamra and the
live he had known for over twenty years. Most of the crew were asleep. Srel was
likely to dream happy dreams of riches and glory. Laszlo’s sleep was likely
filled with muzzle velocities and happy thoughts of death and destruction. What
the twins dreamed of Tom didn’t even want to imagine.
“I am glad you made it back in one piece.” Shadira
didn’t even bother to reply and Tom made another attempt: “How do you think
the Captain is doing?”
“As well as can be expected I’d guess.”
*****
Martin opened one of the desk drawers and reached for
the bottle of Saurian brandy. He filled the glass to the rim before he smashed
the cork back into the bottle so strongly he would never get it out again.
His knee hit the drawer and slammed it shut as he bent
forward and slurped some of the brandy. “Here’s to you, Captain Dyson,
wherever you may be. At least you knew what you were doing.”
Secure that he wouldn’t spill any of the brandy
Martin Alcott reached for the glass and let some of the fiery liquid run down
his throat. He had never killed before, but there was a small chance he had only
wounded, not killed, the men who had tried to take control of his ship.
“No way. I killed some of them. But was it worth
it?” How many had he killed? Two, three, four? It was still hard to remember
any details. Everything had happened in a blur. Did the numbers make a
difference? ‘Either them or me, but what’s with that? Is my life worth
more than theirs? Or was it Glenn who killed them by sending them after me?’
The thought had a certain appeal, but it didn’t
change the fact that he had been the one to pull the trigger. But if he hadn’t
done it, what would have happened to the rest of his crew?
And of course there had been Krush, but that was
something Martin couldn’t really regret. That one had been the Nausicaan’s
choice and Martin found it hard to regret what he had done. Perhaps if
everything hadn’t happened so fast, if he had had time to think about it right
after it had happened, but the memory had started to blur seconds after it had
happened. And still... getting the Nausicaan’s dead eyes out of his dreams
would take a long time – if it was possible at all.
He raised his glass in salute to the framed pictures
surrounding the small desk. “Wish you were here, so you could tell me how to
do this.”
He took a deep gulp of brandy and shuddered. Setting
down the glass hard Martin Alcott shook his head. “And if you where here you
could tell me why the hell Glenn wants this damn ship so much!”
His eyes fell on the metal plate between the pictures
he had always taken for a sort of dedication plaque. He had seen it a hundred
times during the last few days, but never paid it much attention. There were
seven stars on it and underneath them a small inscription.
“When you sail the seven seas just trust your lucky
stars. But whatever riches you may seek, remember that not every treasure comes
in gold and silver.”
‘Right
you are,’ he thought. ‘I got my ship and my crew out alive. That’s something money can’t
buy.’
Martin Alcott leaned back in his chair and toyed with
his glass as he listened to the steady sound of the engines.
With every second he put more distance between himself
and the man he had once thought to be his friend. One day he would have to face
Glenn again and fight for his life again, but not today.
THE
END – For Now
Chapter
1 Chapter 2
Chapter 3 Chapter
4 Chapter 5
Chapter 6
