Fury - part 2
The merchanter Star of Fortune loomed in the viewscreen, its running lights blinking steadily as the shuttle approached on a docking vector. Commander Stalan Perovich shook his head. "I don't like it ma'am. At least let one of the Ravens accompany you."
Fury adjusted the left ventral seal on her spacesuit. "We've been over this, Exec. We can't get any help from outside the tribe. The Phoenix are completely focused on the Firetruce. We need to convince the Bloodlines to defy the Great Eagle, and this meeting may be our foot in the door."
"Then take a weapon."
"I gave my word."
She checked the palm control the techs had rigged onto her glove. "The Halakar envoy wants to meet privately. I'm suspicious too, but I don't blame him. Can you imagine the Great Eagle's response if he learned the Halakar were negotiating with us?"
Perovich nodded glumly. "Civil war."
"Yes, and a lot of suddenly disappeared Halakar children." Fury lifted the helmet from Perovich's grasp and put it on. Microseals clicked and hissed. She raised the visor and made herself smile. "We're not entirely helpless, Exec. I've ordered Wolf Skinner into a cloaked position off the Fortune's port side. If worst comes to worst, this ship will never reach the jumpgate."
Her readouts confirmed all suit systems were functioning properly, including the modified pack on her back. Normally reserved for SCARAB use, the pack's weight would become uncomfortable if she had to wear it long under gravity, but she didn't plan on having it on for more than a couple of hours at most.
Wearing an armor pack made her feel oddly nostalgic. She'd worn all classes of armors in her youth, and fought in countless battles. Sometimes she missed the simplicity of those days, when kill or be killed formed the extent of her philosophy. Not that the situation with the Starwolf was much different, when you came right down to it.
Her Executive Officer looked uncomfortable, plainly concerned about the possibility of Halakar treachery. There'd already been three assassination attempts in the last six months, two from unknown parties. Fury knew she represented a huge prize for anyone who brought her dead or alive before Great Eagle Alexandre Konovalev. Going into this meeting unescorted carried enormous risk, but she and her people needed all the help they could get. The Halakar would be a logical alliance. The Starwolf threatened a lot of Blood Eagle assets if they broke through at Charybdis, including the jewel of the Halakar holdings: Bira Marduk, often described as the richest world in the wilderzone.
Their pilot, a rangy stringer of the elite Falling Fifty squadron, announced their docking sequence. A metallic thump followed moments later, followed by a series of subdued clanks as the ships' airlocks meshed. Fury stepped into the maintenance airlock, well away from where her hand-picked "inspection team" assembled to board the Star of Fortune as a cover for any spies that happened to be monitoring this particular shuttle.
"Good luck, ma'am," Perovich said.
"Thank you, Exec." The hatch closed between them, and Fury was alone. When the instrument panel confirmed the atmosphere evacuation was complete, she popped the external hatch and swung out into space.
She paused and savored the moment, surrounded by the beauty and immensity of the void. It had been a long time since she'd gone EVA, and she missed the experience. Regretfully, she cut her reverie short and scanned the merchantman's hull for the airlock she'd been told to use. A few seconds later, she spotted it, a small maintenance access a hundred meters away, just under one of the port m-thrust arrays. She kicked off toward it.
"Check-check-check," she said, testing her commlink.
"We read you, Sirdar-Prime," answered a woman's cool voice. "We'll be listening for your signal."
"Thank you, Captain Jordan." She cut the link.
She reached the airlock easily and found it unlocked. It took only a few moments to cycle in and enter the mammoth freighter. She stood in a service corridor that ran parallel to the spine of the ship. Only one dim light glowed here, not enough to dispel the shadows. She estimated the faux gravity at about eighty percent of standard.
"Greetings, Sirdar-Prime." A handsome, dark-complexioned man stepped through a hatch at the end of the corridor on her right. He wore a heavy robe what appeared to be a shipboard suit. His hair was cropped short, and his temples were gray. The voice he addressed her with was deep and his tones cultured. "I am Esrehim Halakar. Please join me. I regret the elaborate precaution, but my elders insisted."
Fury lifted her visor and looked up at him. The air smelled of metal and slotlube and something sweet and perfumed that she took to be the envoy's cologne. "Thank you for meeting with me, Sier Halakar. I hope my visit will lay their doubts to rest."
He smiled a politician's smile. "As do I, milady, as do I." He bowed her into the next room. The smile stayed on his face as he took a seat behind a small worktable bolted to the deck. Fury sat in the second chair, somewhat uncomfortably due to the awkward bulk of the pack.
The envoy's expression shifted to one of concern. "Milady, you should have worn a lighter suit."
"It is nothing. My staff wanted me to wear battle armor, but I compromised."
He chuckled. "One can never be too cautious, ayia? Again, I do apologize for the crude circumstances here, but the elders wish my impressions from a personal meeting with the celebrated - some would say infamous - Fury." He held his hands out helplessly. "At the same time, they wanted to be as discreet as possible. You understand."
"I appreciate their concern, sier. As I hope they appreciate mine." Fury dropped her smile. "We here at Charybdis are all that stands in the way of a huge Starwolf invasion. Ursula DiVaragas has assembled what amounts to the entire fighting capacity of the Starwolf. If Charybdis falls, I think we face a difficult and prolonged war, perhaps a losing one."
Halakar shook his head. "I know. Utter chaos. This ship carries a full cargo of weapons and armor. It is the ho-"
Fury had no patience for fencing. "I need warriors," she cut in flatly. "We have SCARABs. We have guns. I need Knights to use them." She leaned forward. "More than anything, I need a commitment from your House. This is no time for playing politics; the stakes are too high."
He coughed. "Milady, believe me when I say the Halakar are sympathetic. The Great Eagle grows more… unstable each year. However, the consensus among the Bloodlines is that they require a significant victory before they are willing to break fealty with House Konovalev."
She snorted. "A significant victory against DiVaragas is impossible without aid! Ymir is well-defended, and - forgive the expression - packed with Starwolf."
"The Great Eagle has promised to send two full Orders to Charybdis if you surrender yourself to Outermost."
"Two Orders are not enough. If they were - and if the reinforcements came in time - then I would surrender." She stood. "This discussion is over, sier."
"Milady?" His hand came up from under the desk holding a heavy pistol. "I really cannot let you go, much as I would like to." A pair of beefy warriors stepped through the hatch. "Please keep your visor up. If you don't, I'll have to wound you rather severely."
"So the Halakar declare for the Great Eagle."
"On the contrary, they wish to support you. This is a private venture, I'm afraid. The other Houses are indeed looking for something to inspire them to pick a side, though. Your capture will serve that purpose well enough, while making me extremely wealthy."
She stepped back into the corner, keeping her voice level despite her racing heart. "I suppose you will hold me hostage in return for safe passage outsystem?"
He smiled warmly. "It seems an obvious tactic, milady."
"Is it your final offer, sier?"
He looked momentarily puzzled. "It's not an offer, Sirdar. It's an fact." He gestured, and one of the warriors produced a hypo. "Don't worry. You'll be quite agreeable in a moment."
"I don't think so." She thumbed the glove control that activated her pack. "Omega," she added, pulling her visor down firmly.
His weapon spat fire at her arm, but without effect. Comprehension dawned in his eyes. "Shield pack!" he shouted. "She has a hunchin' shie-"
A portion of the bulkhead exploded into the room in a hailstorm of shrapnel and white hot metal that vaporized Halakar's head and upper torso, but left Fury unharmed. She saw one of the two warriors go down with a jagged shard of metal through his chest, but missed the fate of the second man. An instant later, atmosphere rushed out through the hole into open space, taking what was left of Sier Esrehim Halakar with it.
"You can never be too cautious," Fury murmured, holding onto the twisted remains of the desk. She fought her way to the hatch, where she found the second warrior's broken body wedged in the hatchway.
The Captain of the Wolf Skinner hailed her. "Sirdar-Prime? Are you CC?"
"Yes, thank you. Fine shooting, Candlessa."
"Thank you, ma'am!" Pride filled the captain's voice at the compliment. "We aim to please."
Fury cut the link and concentrated on getting out, heaving the second warrior's body up and letting the wind pull it away. The heavy energy pack supplied just enough extra weight to help her keep her feet. It took her an awkward few moments to struggle through the hatch and seal it behind her. Leaning against the bulkhead in the sudden silence, she took a few deep breaths and laughed with the elation an escape from death brings.
Raw God, that was close!
The shield pack was completely drained. It only held a few seconds of charge when carried independent of a SCARAB, but those few seconds had been enough, thank God. She shuddered at the thought of what the hypo might have held. A powerful hypnotic, obviously. Most were harmless, but some of the more potent ones caused serious brain damage as a side effect. She had no difficulty picturing Halakar administering the latter variety.
Still, the incident had proven useful in an unexpected way.
Zen masters were said to strike a sudden blow to their students to shock them into new ways of thinking. An utter clarity had descended on Fury, as though she'd received just such a blow. Heretofore, her assumptions about the situation had proceeded from the hope that the Blood Eagle nation would come to its collective senses. That clearly wasn't going to happen. Not without extra prodding, and she now had an idea on how to provide that.
She opened a new com channel. "Exec? Halakar's dead. Send the shuttle to pick me up. Then get a supply officer over here with a couple of hardsuit Quads for backup. Clean this ship out. Inform the crew Halakar and his guards were… victims of a Cardinal Spear assassination attempt against me. Send them home with our condolences after repairs have been made. There's more, but we'll discuss it when I get back."
"Yes, ma'am!"
"And Exec?"
"Ma'am?"
"Assemble the command staff in my quarters in one hour." She allowed herself a smile. "We have a change in strategy."[1]
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References