David Drake - When the Tide Rises

Daniel eyed the eighty or so spacers in two straggling clumps. Fewer than two-thirds of them were former Sissies, which meant the bosun had more confidence in the Bagarians than Daniel himself might've. Woetjans was closer to theLadouceur 's personnel than her new captain'd had time to become-a truth Daniel regretted, but a truth nonetheless.

There'd be a few Sissies staying on the cruiser. Pasternak, Woetjans' counterpart as Chief of Ship, was notable among them. You could be a first-rate spacer and still not be somebody your captain wanted to take into a fight. That was all right: Sissies were needed to leaven the hundred and fifty Bagarians aboard also.

Each of the landing party carried a sub-machine gun or a stocked impeller, but they had lengths of pipe, rods, and knuckledusters as well. Some, even of the Sissies, couldn't be trusted with firearms; for example, Daniel hoped the impeller which the hulking Skrubas carried was unloaded. But he's seen Skrubas use thestock of an impeller, and he couldn't think of a quicker way to end a brawl than that combination.

At least half the personnel carried rolls of cargo tape, intended to snug down objects in the holds when there wasn't time to use more complicated restraints. It had a multitude of uses aboard a starship. One use was to immobilize people who you didn't want wandering around.

"Right," said Daniel, shuttling quickly through the options in his mind. "The country craft can wait. Barnes, Hogg and I will accompany you, if you don't mind. Now let's get going."

He suited his action to his words by striding off in the direction of theBabanguida some three hundred yards away. Half the spacers followed him in a jostling mob; they'd never been taught to march in unison and Daniel didn't imagine it'd make them any more useful to him or to Cinnabar if they could.

He frowned. He reallymust institute firearms training on a more regular basis than the rudiments that Sun and Hogg had been giving interested personnel in the entry hold on long voyages. His crews regularly saw more dismounted action than many Land Forces regiments did.

The ground was a rusty slate, hard enough that thin plates cracked off under Daniel's weight. There was no sign of water or vegetation. Scores of starships had lashed the stone with their plasma thrusters; piles of trash marked the landscape and blew across it. Some pieces of printed cardboard had been here long enough to bleach white.

Though theBabanguida was big to be trading out here in the boondocks, it was rigged with only sixteen antennas. It needed only a small crew, but it'd wallow through the Matrix. On a given voyage it'd take half again as long as ships which were better able to shift between bubble universes and take advantage of varying energy gradients.

As Daniel approached the boarding ramp at the head of his band, a spacer carrying a double armload of women's dresses stumbled down it singing, "Come you lads of great Pelosi, lift the old song once a-"

Daniel caught the looter by the elbow. "Hold on, my good man," he said, trying to sound cheery but firm. "Carry that back to the hold, if you will. It's the property of the Republic, not ours as individuals."

"Who the bloody hell are you to give me orders, shithead?" the man said. He'd been drinking something with a mint flavor and enough alcohol content that his breath would've burned.

"Wrong answer, wog," Hogg said as he reversed his impeller. He butt-stroked the looter in the belly. The fellow collapsed on his face, vomiting yellow bile and chunks of undigested meat. The dresses were of some metal-smooth cloth; they spilled across the ground with a sheen as iridescent as an oil slick.

"Now he can't carry the loot back, Hogg," Daniel pointed out mildly.

"Oh, the bugger was too drunk to be any use to us," Hogg said as he continued up the ramp. "Anyway, we can worry about it later."

In the entry hold were three more spacers-all male; on the fringes of civilization women generally weren't considered sturdy enough for the work. One had an armload of entertainment modules, while his companions had piled a score of similar units on a tarpaulin which they were dragging toward the hatch.

"Hold it!" Barnes said, stepping in front of them. "Turn around and take the crap back, boys. You been naughty."

"Hey, who says?" demanded the Bagarian at the leading edge of the tarp.

Dasi grabbed the fellow by the throat left-handed and lifted him off the deck. "Mister Leary says," he said. "Me and my friend say so too."

He tapped the muzzle of his impeller against the looter's mouth. Blood splattered from a cut lip.

The lone Bagarian dropped the modules he was carrying. Daniel pointed to him and said, "Where's the ship's crew?"

"They, they're in the forward hold, s-sir," the Bagarian said. "It was generator sets in there, too big to carry, so we locked the crew out of the way."

Then he said, "Who in bloody hellare you?" That wasn't a protest but rather a bleat of amazement.

"All right, take me to the forward hold," Daniel said, ignoring the question. He looked over his shoulder. "Four of you-Asnip, Ward, Bolden and Suplinski-come with me. Barnes, police up the rest of the looters. Tape who you have to but try not to shoot them."

"Move!" Hogg said to the Bagarian. He poked a finger into the fellow's ribs to make sure he was listening.

Daniel could-any of the spacers with him could-find a freighter's holds in his sleep, but theBabanguida was big enough that she might well have them split along her axis as well as transversely. A guide saved searching for the correct hold. Besides, it didn't hurt when they met Bagarians on the way that one of their shipmates was leading the armed strangers.

The guide took them to a locked accessway; half a dozen looters lay taped like chickens along their route. The hatch was stenciled F3, a complex enough designation to make Daniel pleased that he'd played safe.

Hogg pushed hard on the latch plate. It didn't move. He backed away and presented his impeller, saying, "Want me to shoot it open, master?"

"No, I don't think that'll be necessary," said Daniel, twisting the plate ninety degrees andthen pushing it. The dogs withdrew, ringing like an ill-tuned bell chorus. In the set position the hatch could've been locked from the bridge so that personnel in the corridor couldn't break in. Daniel had very much-and correctly-doubted that the looters had been that organized.

He'd expected the imprisoned crew to burst into the corridor when the hatch opened, but instead there was silence relieved only by the sound of somebody whimpering in the hold's chill darkness. What in heaven's name was going on?

"Come on out!" Daniel called; his words echoed. The hold was two decks high. The hull-side cargo hatch was on the level below, and a slatted staircase led down from this portal. "This is Commander Daniel Leary of the RCN-"

He figured that was a better claim to make under the circumstances than "Admiral Leary of the Bagarian Republic."

– and I need to talk to your captain." If he'd been thinking ahead, he'd have asked Adele for the commanding officer's name. It was the sort of thing she learned automatically, rather like breathing.

Nothing happened, except that the whimpering became open sobs.

"Bloody hell!" Daniel said. "I want your captainnow. Don't make me come in after you!"

"I'm coming out," somebody called from behind one of the fusion bottles. They were electric generators, the sort of thing an outlying farm would need-or, on a fringe world like Pelosi, a rich man's home even if it were in the center of Morning City. "Don't shoot, please! I've done you no harm. Please!"

"Great heavens, man!" Daniel blurted. "We're not going to harm you. I told you, I'm an RCN officer. You're a legitimate prisoner, but I see no reason for you and your crew to be locked up so long as we can come to an agreement. Come on up here!"