Chapter Twelve

Reports that have recently begun to emerge along the frontier regarding a limited number of the independent worlds; no longer considered colonies of either the Coalition or Alliance, beginning negotiations towards formalizing a potential third stellar government have met with a significant amount of derision and doubts regarding their authenticity. While heavily dismissed as meaningless propaganda by the Terran Alliance department of colonial affairs who themselves have vast knowledge of propaganda, numerous signs have begun to emerge that have leant credence to these rumors.

Governmental and corporate representatives from Alhena, Heinlein, and Alioth have been sited meeting with leaders from both sides of the civil warring Wei system inhabitants, and a massive expansion project has begun at the already vast Alioth shipyards. Largely dismissed by the Alliance as simple rumor mongering, the potential of the two largest independent economically stable systems combining forces with the largest still private ship yard in human space coming together has a few members of the Coalition government highly concerned.

Speaking on condition of anonymity a highly placed representative in the Coalition military made it plain that under no circumstances would another rivaling government; even one located on the fringes of explored space, be allowed to come to fruition.

*Excerpt from Visiting Humanity in the Stars, Brinkley Publishing, Heinlein, 2620 edition.

* * *

Being located as close to the center of the Carthage as possible, the bridge was probably the warmest place left on the ship, and the temperature in the ladderway that Lugh propelled himself down was still at a comfortable temperature. Lugh knew as he forced himself along faster than he considered safe that neither of them would stay warm for long.

“I don't care that you and the bricks are busy trying to get into the thermal control room Vitor.” proclaimed Lugh loudly as he sped through the cramped ladderway towards the bridge. “Look, it's simple, if this guy is as dangerous as you think he is, then getting the heat exchangers back online is only one of our concerns. I need you to tear the whole engineering compartment apart, put at least one of your guys on that Hawkins kid down in medical, and put someone on the bridge.”

Lugh kicked his legs out and came to a sudden stop before the rapidly cycling hatch that led to the bridge. Having no desire to meet his end at the entrance of his own command deck, he waited as the pressure door finished opening and pulled himself hand over hand through the entrance that closed behind him.

“Yes, I agree that capturing the guy before he can do anything else is important, but making certain that he can't do anything crazy like drive the Carthage into the local star isn't exactly low priority. We certainly won't be worried about the heat if the hull of the ship is melting around us.” Lugh ignored the worried glance that Sergei shot his direction and seated himself in the command chair. “Just take care of it Vitor.”

As Lugh ended the seemingly one sided conversation by disabling his earcom and swiveling his chair far enough around to get a good look at where Langley sat behind him.

“Alright, let's hear it.” Lugh said turning to his second in command. “Take it from the top Langley.”

“Right captain.” Langley said as he keyed in a command on the control panel before him and gestured to the navigation console before the captain. “Coming online now.”

As he spoke, Lugh turned to the navigation console before him and began to watch as the message that William had transmitted earlier began to play.

When he saw the man seated in what he recognized as the primary control center for the pocket drive a snarl crossed Lugh's face. The man on the small screen before him was dressed in a somewhat worse for wear black body sheath, and from the numerous rips and tears in the body sheath it was obvious that he had not made his trip onto the Carthage unscathed. It was his eyes however that drew Lughs attention; they were a remarkably dark shade of blue, and utterly lifeless.

“My name is William, and you have my friend. I'm not going to beg, plead, or try to bargain with you, we both know that you know this ship better than I ever will, and that there are far more of you than there are of me.” the voice that reached his ears was filled with cold resolution. “I'll make it simple. Nate and myself need passage, and yours was the ship we happened to end up on. We don't bear you any ill will, or have any designs on taking your ship away from you, but we also aren't going to be returned to Heinlein.”

On screen William turned and gestured, his hands making his presence in the pocket drive control center obvious.

“I've reset the pass-code for the entrance to your primary heat exchangers, pocket drive control room, and disengaged the safety interlocks governing the drive itself. I also managed to leave a few small presents in a few remarkably inconvenient locations that will ensure my demands are met.” Lugh paused the vid feed and turned to Langley.

“Get Vitor and his men over to the pocket controls now.” he said as Langley nodded and turned back to the vid.

William shrugged theatrically as the video began to play once more.

“My price to return control of your ship is simple, safe passage out of system for both Nate and myself to whatever independent system you were planning to make port at next. I'm not crazy, but I am desperate here, and as we both know, desperate men occasionally do crazy things.” William leant forward, his face filling the small screen. “Don't pretend to think for one moment that I'm not deathly serious about this. If someone cuts the oxygen off to this room, I'll kick the drive into gear and go down in history as the man who intentionally piloted a starship into a populated planet. You have thirty standard minutes from receipt of this message to contact me.”

William's face pulled back as he sat back in his seat.

“Don't make me wait.”

As the vid feed ended Sergei stepped around beside Lugh and shook his head.

“I enjoy a good lie as much as the next man, and since that man is Langley, I enjoy it enough for the both of us. And this man,” he tapped a finger against the screen where the video had displayed, “Is lying through his teeth.”

“Really?” questioned Lugh before turning his head slightly. “How long do we have left before his time limit ends Langley?”

“One second.” Looking down at the controls before him, Langley checked a readout for a moment before finishing his reply. “Almost eleven minutes Lugh.”
For once, Langley's calm informal tone didn't bother Lugh as he looked back at his astrogator.

“Alright Sergei,” he said. “You have my attention. How is he lying?”

The ever smiling diminutive tinkerer smiled back at him.

“He didn't disengage the safety interlocks because I removed them months ago.” Sergei shrugged in a self deprecating way. “That's part of why I also rerouted the main controls through my console up here. When the interlocks started acting up, I wanted to make certain I could keep a close eye on any fluctuation that happened so I could shut it all down in case something was going wrong.”

Sergei's face split wide as he grinned at his captain.

“He can try turning the engine as much as he likes, nothing will happen.”

Lugh grinned as he felt a large weight remove itself from his shoulders. Then, with a happy sigh turned to Langley.

“That just leaves us with the thermal exchangers. Tell Vitor to post half of his men outside of drive control and have the other half get the door to life support open. Once this bastard figures out that he's bluffing without any cards he's liable to try something else.”

Langley nodded with a faint smile on his face.

“Not a problem. I've got him online right now, do you still want him to send people up here and to medical?”
For a moment Lugh considered the small size of his security detachment before replying.

“Yes.” he said. “Better to be safe than sorry, that Hawkins may be more than he appears to be and it wouldn't hurt to keep an eye on him before we try to grab this guy. Once you have that done, patch me through to Tulkus, let's find out how much these two are worth to them.”

* * *

Valerija Bodil sat quietly behind her desk at the Tulkus Firm infonet management station. At her fingertips rested control over much of the information contained in the planetary infonet. For the most part her days consisted of little actual work, coupled with occasional bouts of frantic activity.

Recently there had been a great deal more of the frantic activity than she had cared to deal with. Between the highly sensitive talks going on between Tulkus representatives and the limited government that had nominal control over Heinlein, and the recent terrorist attacks that had wracked both Anson and the Clarke colony, she was understandably frazzled when her station lit up. As she turned her attention to the information before her it became apparent that one of the ships in high orbit; the Carthage, had lazed a communique request down.

With an irritated sigh she ran a quick financial check to assure that the captain of the Carthage had remembered to pay his mooring fees and was able to cover the not-insignificant cost of the broadcast bandwidth required for such a communique. Wrinkling her nose at the information that appeared before her she keyed a terse reply denying their communications link and returned her attention to gathering the information requested by the team in charge of the ongoing search for the two terrorists that had caused so much destruction recently.

Valerija frowned when her concentration was one more broken by a requested communique link from the Carthage and again denied their link.

“Some people just don't listen when you tell them to pay their bills.” she muttered to herself as she once again returned to her work.

When the third communique request reached her station she not only denied the request, she also set a command subroutine to ignore any further requests until the outstanding payments had been received and finally got on with her job.

* * *

“They denied the request again Lugh.” Langley said as he glanced up from his terminal. “And they sent a demand for payment on the outstanding balance that we've run up in mooring, fuel, and broadcast fees.”

“Shit.” said Lugh as he stared at the financial request Langley routed to him “We can't even begin to cover this right now. What the hell are they thinking denying us a simple message when all I want to do is ask them how much they want to pay for these two!”

“No clue Lugh, but I can tell you that most of the fees they are wanting us to pay are ones we've been ignoring for a while.” stated Langley bluntly. “The last time they requested payment for most of this, you told them they would get paid after our next cargo offload.”

“And?” barked Lugh angrily.

“And.” Langley said quietly, his usually cheerful demeanor for once subdued. “That would be this offload.”

“Oh.” said Lugh simply. “They aren't even going to listen to us until they get the damned money then.”

“Probably not.” agreed Langley checking his terminal once more. “We have limited infonet access, but only for receiving, not transmitting.”

“Right then, if they aren't even to going to listen to us, then there's no reason to offer them our pair of stowaways then.” reasoned Lugh before turning back to his console. “See if you can pull any information off the infonet about this William character. Once you've got the data online route it through my console and patch me through to our visitor. If Tulkus doesn't want to pay us to turn them in, maybe this guy will pay us to keep them away from Tulkus, and I think we've kept him waiting long enough.”

* * *

Deep in the bowels of the engineering compartment's control center William found himself roused from a light doze as the console his feet rested atop began to chime insistently. Swinging his legs around, he glanced past the console at the still sealed pressure door. Satisfied that he didn't have any visitors yet, William turned his attention to the waiting transmission link and keyed his acceptance of the link.

Mere moments later the small display lit up and showed him the face of the man he assumed to be the captain of the Carthage. Darkly ingrained circles under his eyes and his pale complexion indicated that while he hadn't had much sleep in a long time he also hadn't left the security of his ship in an even longer time.

“My name is Lugh Cailean,” the face on the screen said. “I'm assuming that you're the second of the pair that Tulkus is searching for frantically.”

William smiled to himself as he heard the tone of Lugh's voice. The irritation and anger that came through the inset speaker below the panel didn't reflect in the minor amusement in his eyes.

“That would be me.” said William as the other man glanced out of the range of the transmitter and then back to William. “Do you agree to my terms?”

“Not at all.” Lugh said shaking his head. “No where even close to be honest.”

Williams heart skipped a beat for a moment as the captain continued.

“Frankly, I'm tempted to tell you to go ahead and try to engage the drive and laugh when nothing happens. I'm sure the look on your face would be priceless, but honestly...” the captain paused for a moment, again looking away from the transmitter before looking back. “As I was saying, honestly, I don't want you to get to worked up down there William. When a man like you finds out that he doesn't have the control he thinks he does, then people tend to develop an inconvenient case of ending up dead; and that doesn't help anybody.”

Lugh leant closer to the vid transmitter and for a moment William thought he saw the shadow of a smile cross his face.

“Let me offer you a deal Richardson. By the way, yes we found out who you are and we don't really care.” said Lugh. “Open the door, step outside of the hatch and the very heavily armed men on the other side will bring you up to medical where we have your friend, and the three of us will all sit down and have a nice little conversation.”

“What kind of conversation.” William eyed the captain warily as he spoke. “Just so I can make a carefully informed decision.”

“What kind of conversation are you expecting us to have William?” asked Lugh. “You infiltrated my ship, managed to shut down part of the life support system, and successfully barricaded yourself in the one place that would have allowed you total control of our ship if my astrogator hadn't been forced to rebuilt the control systems a long while ago.”

Lugh allowed a smile to cross his face at last.

“I'm going to offer you a job in exchange for not turning the two of you over to Tulkus. Was there another kind of conversation you were expecting?”

A matching smile finally emerged on Williams face after a few moments.

“I'll be right out.” said William before he cut the transmission off.

Gathering his rifle and pack William stepped around the control console he had recently sat behind and made his way to the sealed pressure door. After inputting the command to unseal and open the hatch he waited as through the doorway first one, then a second man entered. The emitters on the short range sonic pistols in their hands never wavered from aiming at his stomach as the second man of the pair looked the room over very carefully. Finally satisfied, his captors both turned towards him, their faces locked into what he assumed were supposed to be menacing glares.

Calmly William laid the rifle and pack on the floor at his feet before unbuckling his belt and allowing the holstered Centurion Predator to fall to the deck. He stepped away from the weapons, the odd smile on his face never left as he raised his hands carefully and showed that they were empty.

“Now then.” said William as the smaller of the two men picked up the rifle and holstered pistol. “Take me to your leader.”

* * *

And that gentlemen, brings us to the end of where I have written to. I'm working on the rest of the chapter, and will be posting it in my usual form as I finish the chapter and the writing.

Don't be expecting chapter 13 tonight, I've got to get some sleep before work tomorrow.

The air inside the engineering compartment was tense and silent as William, escorted by the two men that had entered the pocket drive control chamber made their way towards the main reactor chamber. They stepped to the side of the narrow corridor as two members of the crew led a freshly dressed Tumelo Chausiku past them. Tumelo shot daggers of hatred at William as she stepped past him; fear and hatred visibly warring upon her face. William allowed a cruel smirk to twist his mouth and he pursed his lips together to blow her a kiss as she was hurried away.

Finally alone once more in the hallway William and his escort returned to their casual stroll through the reactor chamber, where it immediately became obvious that several technicians were restarting the antimatter injection process. William came to a slow stop and felt a nudge in the small of his back from one of the two sonic pistols.

“Keep moving.” said the man swarthy skinned man behind him in a cold tone.

“Before we do,” said William, “You may want to tell them that there are plasmic thermite charges planted on either side of the main injector. I doubt that they will want to start it before removing those charges.”

From behind him the second of his guards raised his voice to be easily heard over the ambient noise of the technicians and the slowly cycling reactor.

“Right, this ugly fucker over here says that he put two plasmic thermite charges on the injector. I don't have a fucking clue what the hell that is, but you might want to look at it before you start the fucking thing back up.” his profanity laced yet melodious voice cut through the chatter and silenced the technicians. “Why don't you lot take a look and make certain he isn't lying so you don't fucking kill us all.”

William felt a second nudge in the small of his back and resumed walking in the direction indicated.

William felt a second nudge in the small of his back and resumed walking through the reactor chamber as behind them rose a nervous babble as technicians scrambled to turn the reactor off once more. William turned towards the metal stairwell as from behind him he heard his profane captor begin speaking once more.

“Not that way you shit. It wouldn't do for you to take a fucking fall on those stairs and break something like your neck going down them.” William paused as the speaker stepped around him and gestured with single hand that could have easily encompassed his face. “This way.”

The large man in a body sheath similar in appearance to the one William wore strode purposefully out of the reactor chamber, down a lengthy hallway, and towards a small inset alcove. Upon finally arriving at the alcove his escort turned to face him once more.

“Ever been on a fucking ship before?” came the brusquely worded question.

“Of course not,” said William. “I turned off the reactor, shut down the thermal exchangers, and locked myself in the engineering control center by blind luck.”

Before him, the man nodded curtly before gesturing towards the small pressure hatch that bore a label pronouncing it the Zeta-Kappa ladderway.

“Well then, in there's these hand holds,” he began before the second escort interrupted him mid sentence.

“He's being sarcastic Pyotr.” the small darkly haired man behind him shook his head in wry amusement. “He's been on a ship before. Lead the way, I'll make certain he keeps up.”

“Oh.” said Pyotr. “Then why'd he fucking lie to me Vitor?”

“Just lead the way.”

Looking somewhat crestfallen Pyotr used the holopad beside the hatch to cause it to slide into the wall recess and reveal the narrow ladderway. With the ease of frequent use Pyotr nimbly maneuvered his bulk through the hatch and began to ascend the ladderway. Momentarily left with but one guard, William felt more than he saw the second man step back and spared him a quick glance his direction.

“Into the ladderway.” said Vitor in the commanding tone of one used to having his orders followed. “Follow Pyotr and just remember that I'll be right behind you.”

William eyeballed Vitor and nodded to the sonic pistol he held tightly in his left hand.

“You probably want to put that away. It's kind of hard to move in these things with only one hand.”

Having said his piece, William swung himself into the ladderway and began to rapidly ascend the narrow shaft. With a sigh Vitor carefully holstered his pistol, slung the rifle he had retrieved from William across his shoulders and followed them into the ladderway.

The path that Pyotr and Vitor led William along threaded through three separate ladderways, and down several corridors before finally ending just outside of the starkly lit medical bay. With a gesture of his pistol, Vitor motioned for William to step inside.

“Here's our stop.” he said as he stepped away from their prisoner.

“That's it?” asked William as the doorway opened before him.

Vitor didn't respond verbally, simply with a faint nudge in the small of Williams back with from the emitter of his pistol. Warily stepping into the medical bay, William's eyes adjusted rapidly to the harsh lighting and stared across at the flat laying slab where Nate lay.

“Come on, we don't have all day to stand around.” came Lugh's voice from where he sat at a small table. Indicating a seat across the table from him Lugh continued, “Please, take a seat Richardson.”

William strode across the short distance and stopped beside the proffered seat for a moment and glancing around.

“Nice ship you have here even if it's a bit outdated compared to what I've ridden in before.” said William as he slid into the seat. “Terran TFN series if I don't miss my guess.”

“Correct.” said Lugh as Vitor and Pyotr stepped in behind William and took up posts beside the sealed doorway. “I stole her fair and square when they dumped her into their ghost fleet at Dubhe. It seemed such a shame for a ship like this to simply waste away until they came to salvage her, so I decided to breath new life into the old girl. All it took was a few people with the know how to get her running, and the two of us haven't been apart since.”

“Nice.” commented William simply. “Nate alright?”

“For now.” said Lugh as glanced over at the slab where Nate lay unconscious. “How long he stays that way depends on you really.”

“Shocking.” snorted William. “You trying to leverage a nonexistent emotional attachment to him isn't going to work. I've been carrying his worthless carcass with me since Anson without him doing anything other than pissing me off with endless questions.”

“Ah.” Lugh said as Nate's role in the attacks cemented itself in his thoughts. “So, if we go ahead and shove him out an airlock it won't make a bit of difference to you then.”

“Not at all.” William said with a dismissive gesture. “Like I said, he's not done anything helpful since this began.”

“Vitor.” Lugh looked past William to where the two men stood watching the exchange and motioned to the Nate and the slab. “Have Roger and Pyotr dump Hawkins if you would.”

Giving Lugh a questioning glance, Vitor nodded once and tapped Pyotr on his massive shoulder.

As Pyotr stepped to where Nate lay and began to undo his restraints, William shook his head while a faint smile played across his scarred visage.

“Well played.”

Lugh nodded in turn and Vitor called Pyotr back to where he once stood.

“Let's put the games out of the way shall we?” asked Lugh. “You don't exactly have many options open to you Richardson. The way I see it, unless you and Hawkins can make it worth my while to keep the two of you aboard, I've got no reason to not sell you to Tulkus and walk away with a fairly hefty reward.”

“You mentioned a job offer?” William said as he leant back as far as the small seat would allow.

“I did.” said Lugh. “It's not for you, it's for Hawkins there. This isn't a large operation, and it's not exactly making money hand over fist right now. Because of that, some of the more experienced crew elected to not ship out on the Carthage for another trip. Their departure leaves us rather short handed, and Hawkins there...”

Lugh pointed in Nate's direction.

“Has experience as a slow burn technician.” Lugh's eyes narrowed faintly as he stared into Williams cold stare. “I could just make the offer to him and considering how terrified he is right now, he'd probably jump at the chance to get out from under your thumb. But that would leave me with the difficult problem of what to do with you Richardson.”

“You have a solution to this problem?” asked William as he almost casually steadied himself against the table

“I do.” said Vitor from behind William. “The Carthage doesn't exactly follow the enforced restrictions on alien archeology.”

“Call it what it is.” said William turning to look at where Vitor stood. “It's smuggling and looting dead worlds.”

“Fair enough.” Vitor said. “It's not always a safe or easy job. Some times the Terrans get involved, and they would love to get the Carthage back in their hands. Occasionally other smugglers have to be encouraged to leave a lucrative find, and once in a rare while there are natives that object to their stuff being stolen. That's where we come in.”

“We?” asked William quizzically. “Exactly how many “We” are there in this endeavor of yours?”

“I'll answer that.” Lugh said as he drummed his fingers atop the table. “We have about seventy people aboard the Carthage right now. It's supposed to be crewed by almost two hundred.”

“Seventy men and women.” said William thoughtfully. “And let me guess, most of them don't have anything to do with the dirty end of the job.”

“Be reasonable.” Lugh said with a grandly encompassing gesture. “Do you really expect me to send an astrogator down to some raggedy smugglers camp to haul crates or run off the competition?”

“Of course not.” William said. “Figuring technical crew and command, I'm guessing that most of the crew who didn't sign back on were the hands on end?”

“Right.” Vitor said once more. “You would be surprised how many people get squeamish at the thought of killing someone. They may be fine at the idea of stealing artifacts from others who are just as much looters as we are. Most people have trouble shooting another human, but add an occasional three meter tall monstrosity to the mix and...”

Vitor trailed off as William nodded in understanding.

“And then you have someone that ends up dead pretty quick. I follow.”

Lugh leant forward and stared across the table at William.

“But you don't have that problem, do you Richardson?” said Lugh. “You have no problem killing anyone.”

“Not at all.” said William shaking his head. “As long as I'm getting paid for it, I've got no problem killing anyone, or any thing, at all.”

“Good.” Vitor said walking up to stand beside William. “The jobs yours if you'll take it. Equal share pay as any of the rest of the bricks.”

“Bricks?” asked William faintly confused.

“Bricks.” said Lugh. “If myself and the officers are the mortar holding the crew together.”

“Then the bricks are who the entire thing is built on.” finished William. “I understand the analogy.”

“So, are you in then?”

William glanced over at Nate one final time before nodding his head in agreement. “You just hired yourself a killer.”

“Good.” Lugh said as he stood slowly from the chair. “Vitor will get you squared away and introduce you to the rest of the crew. I've got to get back to the bridge and see about finding us a likely target.”

“One thing.” said William as he too got up from his seat. "Nate?”

“Vitor will take care of him too.” nodded Lugh as he made his way to the doorway. “Welcome aboard the Carthage, Richardson.”

Having struck the deal he wanted, Lugh nodded at both Vitor and William before leaving them alone with the unconscious Nate in the medical bay.

* * *

>see thread
>think it's Firefly
>get excited
>realize it's not firefly
sadfrog.avi

And that dear readers, is the end of chapter 12.

When first our story began, Nate was nothing more than a recently fired wage slave looking forward to being homeless, and now he's gone from that to rather wealthy, to being beaten and having a friend killed (which will probably be fixed in editing later for Graham to have died in the crash), to being a wanted fugitive being towed around by a psychotic mercenary, to getting shanghai'd into working for a crew of smugglers on a stolen starship.

Not bad for 45,000 words written for the most part in just a bit over a week.

While I'm tired, I'm also still awake, and don't really feel like sleeping for now.

Anyone got thoughts on the story so far?

>>11974341

Sorry, no firefly here. In compensation, allow me to give you a picture of another starship I found online.

Thanks for the latest dose of awesome BOM.

Glad to see you are keeping the story going.

>>11974501

Glad to. I figure even if only a few people are reading the story still, I'll get it finished and posted. If It ever goes anywhere, awesome. If not, then hell with it, at least I made the attempt and had fun doing it.

Gonna probably head off to bed folks.

Night all, I'll be back around tomorrow evening.