Commodore (The David Birkenhead Series) Page 18

  No, it wasn't the ship. It was her captain that bothered me, though for the life of me I couldn't say exactly why. He was a perfectly-average appearing individual of perhaps fifty-five or sixty years of age, all smiles at the prospect of making good money for what looked like a very simple and easy piece of work. Or maybe that very averageness was what'd set off my alarm bells after all—I'd once jokingly mentioned to the Yan brothers that the next time we met they'd have to introduce themselves all over again because I expected they'd be getting plastic surgery pretty frequently in their line of work. "Not at all," Yan Ho had replied for them both. "Because you can always tell right away when someone's had their face altered. It's a dead giveaway that something's not as advertised." And then he'd gone on to tell me about some of the telltales—unnatural curves to the eyebrows, tight-stretched skin, coloration that doesn't look quite right when examined carefully... Sure enough this smuggler had once had a good bit of work done on his face, I decided as we Rabbits trooped deeper and deeper into the ship. But he was a smuggler, after all—it was the one thing we knew for certain about him, the very reason we'd hired him. I was willing to bet that he wasn't exactly the only member of his profession ever to undergo such a procedure. And yet the alarm bells rang and rang and rang—there was something about this man! My nose wriggled impotently under the respirator mask. Somehow I was sure that one good sniff would resolve everything for me. I might as well have wished for the moon.

  Then, just as the smuggler swung open the cleverly-concealed door to his most secret of cargo holds, I had an idea. The captain had lived aboard this ship for weeks if not months or longer, and what was ship-stink if not the built-up and accumulated body odors of the crew? "Excuse me, Master," I said to Heinrich, keeping my head low and submissive. "Please?"

  Heinrich, playing the part of an Imperial Master, placed his hands on his hips. "What now, you hare-brained fool?"

  "I-I-I..." I stuttered in apparent fear. "I have to use the bathroom before I go in there."

  Heinrich's lips flattened in pretended anger, but his eyes were questioning. He knew I wouldn't deviate from the plan without good reason, and yet... Finally he turned to the others. "Did any of you other idiots drink too much water against orders?"

  Tentatively Nestor raised his hand. "I... I'm sorry, sir."

  Heinrich cuffed him, hard. The he shoved the small Rabbit in my general direction. "We'll have words about this later!" he declared. "And that's a promise." Then he turned to the smuggler. "I'm sorry, Captain Gaines. Where were you planning to water the livestock?"

  He frowned too, then pointed down a companionway. "Make a left at the bottom," he instructed. "You'll run right into it. And hurry! We don't have much time!"

  "Thank you sir! I gushed. "Oh so very, very much!" Then I raced off in that direction, Nestor close at my heels.

  45

  My aide and I went down the companionway as directed, then broke to the left. Instead of seeking out the head, however, I continued on down the corridor, hunting for an air filter. If I was correct about ship-stink, then the filter should've long ago captured the scent of "Captain Gaines". But it wasn't to be, however—I didn't make it ten feet down the corridor before Nestor grabbed at me and dragged me to a silent stop. His eyes were wide open and he was trembling like a leaf—I hadn't seen him so terrified since… Well, since I'd hauled him out from alongside the bloody corpse of a man I'd just murdered. "Sir!" he whispered in tones so low only a Rabbit could hear them clearly. "What are we going to do? What can we do?"

  My own eyes widened—it'd been so long since I'd seen Nestor behave like an abused slave that I no longer thought it possible. "Are you all right?" I demanded.

  "Oh, sir!" he wept, burying his face in my shoulder. "I don't know what's going to happen now!"

  "What do you mean?" I demanded, pushing him away far less gently than I'd have preferred. But there was so little time. "What's wrong?"

  Nestor blinked. "Didn't you recognize him?" he hissed.

  "No," I replied, keeping my voice as steady and calm as possible. Fear can be at least as contagious among Rabbits as humans, and seeing Nestor in such a state, well… I had to admit that my knees were starting to knock a little too. "Recognize who?"

  "That so-called captain!" he sobbed, pressing his face into my shoulder again. "He's Lieutenant Jeffries! And such an awful, terrible Master he was!"

  At Nestor's words my own mind went 'click' as well. You can change a man's face, yes. But it takes far more to alter the cadence of his speech or the way he stands and walks and moves. Jeffries had always reminded me a bit of a rooster, the way he strutted about with his eyes eternally darting left and right, and this smuggler had exactly the same foible. Nestor's unblocked nose had done the trick for him; indeed, the lieutenant's scent had carried so much power and had brought so many nightmares back to the surface that he'd reverted to the powerless, hopelessly-abused cabin-boy he'd been during his former acquaintance with "Captain Gaines".

  "Nestor," I said firmly. "Snap out of it. I need you now like I've never needed you before."

  "He's going to betray us!" Nestor half-wailed—if he grew much louder his voice would carry all the way back to the smuggler's hole. "He'll sell you to the Imperials and then take me and… and…"

  I knew exactly what Nestor's "and" was, and it repulsed me as much now as it had then. So I reached back, grabbed a handful of air, and punched my friend in the face. "Snap out of it!" I demanded. "You've got to! Or by god that might just be exactly what happens!"

  My fist struck home, hard. It shouldn't have—Nestor's number-one hobby was hand-to-hand combat and normally he was as slippery as an eel. "Ow!" he complained, pulling back and looking up at me. "What was that for?"

  He still seemed fuzzy-headed, so I played dirty by kicking at his right knee. Instinctively he pivoted inside the stroke and countered with a series of stinging jabs to my chin. "Quit that!" he demanded. "No one ever beats up on me again, sir! Not even…" Then his eyes widened again, and this time I could see that he was back. "Oh my!" he whispered. "Sir, I'm so…"

  "We all have our demons," I replied. "And heaven knows you’ve got better reason for them than most. You were practically a child." Then I shook my head. "But that's not important right now. The big question is, what are we going to do about Jeffries?"

  46

  That question, unfortunately, answered itself. "Are you two about finished down there?" the ex-first lieutenant of HMS Beechwood demanded.

  "Not quite yet," my aide replied. "We've… Made a bit of a mess, and we're cleaning up."

  "Good try, Nestor," "Captain Gaines" replied. "But not quite good enough. I've already got the rest of your crew locked up, you see. That's a complete dead end down there—it leads nowhere and offers you nothing in the way of leverage; no one knows this ship better than I do. Two squads of fully-armed Imperial marines will be guarding my main cargo when it arrives in about… Oh, say five or ten minutes now. My worst-case scenario is that they'll be absolutely thrilled to death when I tell them who I've got trapped down in my ship's head." There was a long pause. "What's your worst-case scenario, snotty? Or should I call you Commodore Birkenhead these days?"

  My lip curled in mixed rage and revulsion. I'd always hated being called "snotty", moreso by this man than any other. "You'll call me Commodore Birkenhead sir, Lieutenant!" I replied. "Your commission is still active, if only in the deserter's section."

  "Heh!" Jeffries replied. "You've done well for yourself, as I always knew you would if you got out of Zombie Station alive. Which, I'll add as a fellow professional, was a damned slick piece of work! I offered you a junior partnership at the time, you may recall. My respect was sincere then, and is even moreso now. Who knows where we might've gone together? I haven't done too terribly badly myself, considering that I began with nothing but a lifeboat and a borrowed Imperial uniform. As opposed to a Royal Heir bloodbrother and the whole House of Marcus standing behind me, that is."

  "I alwa
ys figured you'd make it out too," I replied, a bit grudgingly. "You're many things, Lieutenant. But you're neither stupid nor prone to panic."

  There was a brief silence as both sides thought things through. "Your friends are locked in my secret hold," Jeffries said after a time. "And, I assure you, they'll not remain alive one second longer than I wish. They could easily already have been dead, but they're not. Do you understand me?"

  "Yes," I replied. "You want to see if I can offer you a better deal than the Imperials."

  "You were never one of the stupid ones either, David." He was practically purring now. "There's a healthy streak of ruthlessness in you as well. What a pity that we never teamed up before now!" There was another short pause. "Come on up the companionway, and let's talk some serious business. Bring Nestor with you, but stay at least twenty feet away. I've got an Imperial blaster just like yours, and we both know perfectly well what a mess it can make when set to full power, wide dispersion."

  47

  I looked at Nestor—he seemed to be at least somewhat steady on his feet once more. Then, as casually as I could manage, I climbed the steps and faced my former nemesis. His true identity was so obvious now that I had to shake my head in wonder that I'd ever been deceived at all. "How'd you get the ship?" I asked him. "Win the former captain's trust and then murder him in his sleep?"

  "That's exactly how you'd have done it if fate had landed you in my place, isn't it?" he replied with a little shrug. "Beyond that, I don't care to discuss the matter. And keep in mind that we've very little time."

  I nodded and looked down at the blaster, which he held calm and steady. That was why I found it so difficult to deal with Lieutenant Jeffries, I decided. He was absolutely correct in that we weren't all that different, deep down inside. We understood what made the wheels of the universe turn, and were fully capable of jamming them up and making them grind one upon the other when it suited our own wants and needs. In a tight situation where he could be trusted, there'd be few men I'd rather have on my side than the quick-thinking lieutenant. But that was the difference between us, right there. While I admittedly had far more blood on my hands than he did, at least I'd killed for what I believed in my heart to be a worthwhile and noble goal. Lieutenant Jeffries cared only about himself—he was a pure, true sociopath. The man would turn his back and run away from anything, the moment he considered it advantageous to do so.

  So I'd just have to make that work in my favor then, wouldn't I?

  "James is going to win the war," I began. "With or without me."

  Jeffries grinned. "Why do you think you're still alive, snotty?"

  I nodded back. "Then you understand that your role in my capture and execution could never be kept a secret by a defeated Empire, and that James would hunt you down and kill you if it took him all eternity."

  He nodded back. "I do. If I turn you over and the Empire loses, I'll either die or have to go back to living like a fugitive. I'll grant you this."

  "Good," I replied, because it was the entire basis of my bargaining position. "What do you want in exchange for smuggling us out? Above and beyond the handsome fee you've already agreed to and accepted in good faith, I mean."

  He smiled. "What're you offering?"

  I gulped inwardly—Lord Robert had taught me while I was still very young that the first person to name a figure in a negotiation is always in the weaker position. But in this case, said weakness was merely a reflection of reality that it was best not to try and deny. "A full pardon, to begin with. For all previous crimes. Committed anywhere."

  "That was a given," Jeffries agreed, gesturing with his blaster. "Go on."

  I gulped again—this was so hard! What would a sociopath value most of all? Then I remembered his comments about how he'd had nothing while I'd had all of Marcus behind me. "A title," I offered. "And an estate-world to go with it. It'll have to be a new settlement—the rest are all taken. But… Ownership of a world." I smiled. "How does 'Lord Jeffries' sound, spoken from every throat on an entire planet?"

  "You'd be welcome everywhere, socially speaking," Nestor added. "No one spurns a Lord. Or the hero who rescued David Birkenhead from sure death, for that matter."

  Jeffries smiled faintly. "A clean record," he repeated. "A Lordship, fame, and my own planet. That's the offer?"

  "A Lordship and a planet on the winning side of the war," I reminded him. "What more could you ask, that I might plausibly be able to deliver?"

  "Nothing," he finally admitted. "Give me your word of honor as an officer and a gentleman?"

  "My word," I replied, reminding myself that no promise made to the muzzle of a blaster is binding. Once our positions were reversed again he'd get his pardon and whatever I felt like he deserved—no more. Perhaps in the end I was the more ruthless after all?

  Then he sighed, looked down at the deck for a moment, and nodded. "All right. You have a deal. But the Imperials will be here any second with the primary cargo. So, let's get you settled into my hidey-hole."

  48

  "I can't believe you agreed to make that... that creature a Peer of the Realm," Heinrich repeated for about the third time into the darkness. It was hot, smelly and above all claustrophobic in the tight confines of the smuggler's hole. Nor had we any way of knowing what was going on even mere feet away—for all I knew Jeffries was even now demanding two planets of the Emperor. But there was nothing for it but to sit and endure and wait for it to be over one way or another.

  "The nobility has survived association with worse," Nestor countered, and I found myself grinning into the darkness at the expression that Heinrich's face now surely wore. Like most political refugees who change sides in the middle of a long-term and violent clash of cultures, he was a bit on the uber-patriotic side. Nestor, however, was notoriously liberal.

  "We'll worry about all that later," I replied to defuse what might yet degenerate into nasty name-calling or worse in such tight quarters. Because the hold was almost certainly bugged, I couldn't even hint that I had no intention of carrying through on my word. "For now... Heinrich, I'm sorry. But we don't have a lot of bargaining power."

  "True enough," he admitted, his voice a dark rumble. "But I still—"

  Just then the hatch popped open, and my heart almost stopped when the muzzle of an Imperial blaster rifle came poking in. But it was just Jeffries again; he'd merely exchanged his hand weapon for something more potent. "They're gone," he explained. "Ate it up hook, line and sinker! Come on out!"

  We did as ordered, too stiff and sore from the crowding to consider any course of action other than stretching and massaging the cramps out of our extremities. I'd been told that seven Rabbits and one human was the capacity of the hold, and that was precisely the correct figure. There hadn't been a cubic centimeter to spare. "We need to work out some sort of understanding," the lieutenant continued as we worked the kinks out. "I can keep you all under lock and key, but it'd be terribly inconvenient for me even more than you. And the truth is, while I can run this ship alone we'll make better time with a copilot and relief man." He looked Heinrich over. "I know the snotty can con a ship. How about you?"

  "I can," he answered simply, speaking as few words as possible to a man he clearly despised.

  Jeffries nodded back, ignoring the insulting tone. Or perhaps it simply didn't matter to him. "I offer you parole, then. All of you, in exchange for helping to work the ship." He waved his blaster at my fellow Rabbits. "I even have work for your kind to do. Of the sort you're accustomed to, I mean. Deck-scrubbing and the like." Then he turned back to me. "We must trust each other in order to succeed, David. At least to some degree. So I'm reaching out first. This is the only sensible way to do things."

  Slowly, I nodded. He was entirely correct, at least about the mutual trust part. It was going to be a long trip home; far better it be made on peaceful terms than at something just under active war. "I'll serve under your orders, within reason. You have my word, sir."

  "And mine," Heinrich agreed. The
n the Rabbits joined in as well, and Jeffries lowered the blaster-rifle.

  "Excellent," he declared. "Then I won't be needing this anymore." He locked the weapon in a heavy steel locker and pocketed the key, then to show his trust quite deliberately turned his back on us. "Up ship is in seven minutes, people. Come on up to the bridge and I'll show you the controls."

  Jeffries was nothing if not a good pilot, I soon learned. He clearly knew his ship down to the last rivet, in much the same way as old Josiah had known Richard. Such familiarity came only with long association and many, many flights together; clearly he'd been aboard for quite some time.

  "What's her name?" I asked Jeffries as he upped-ship from the mushy third-rate hardpoint just as easily as he shaved his own face. By then I was sitting strapped in at the co-pilot's station, even though there was practically nothing for me to do.

  "What's whose name, snotty?" the lieutenant demanded, half-immersed in his controls.

  "The ship's name," I explained. "The one we're in right now. All I ever heard her referred to by on the ground was her current registration number—88-483."