Mutiny on Mercury (Stark Raven Voyages Book 5) Read online

  Mutiny on Mercury

  By Jake Elwood

  Copyright 2016 by Jake Elwood.

  This is a work of fiction. A novella. Totally made up. Any resemblance to actual persons, places, rebel factions or interplanetary organizations is entirely coincidental.

  Chapter 1

  The Stark Raven drifted through the cold darkness of interplanetary space, searching.

  Captain James Chan sat in his usual seat on the bridge, watching the stars, wondering if he was doing the right thing. The Raven was a stealth ship, hard to see, hard to pick up on radar. She was perfect for smuggling. While Chan was hardly meticulous about following every last law that he came across, he still had misgivings about the step they were about to take.

  The Raven had been built for piracy, and compared to that, smuggling was downright benevolent. Or so he told himself, but the squirming of his stomach would not be stilled.

  "I think it's a person," Liz Jones said. She was the pilot of the Raven, an outspoken woman of about thirty who tended to be a good friend and a bad, bad enemy. "I'll bet you any money."

  "You don't have any money," Chan reminded her. "I should know. I haven't paid you in weeks." That was the biggest reason he'd accepted this job. The ship's coffers were low, and fifty thousand dollars for a delivery was too good to pass up.

  "I have a few bucks tucked away," Liz said. "I mean, really. Delivery in eight days? What goes bad in eight days? A person with eight days of air, that's what."

  "It's contraband," Joss said glumly. She was the youngest member of the crew. Chan had given up on learning her last name. She gave a different answer each time he asked. "It's a sting. We'll show up for the drop and Solar Force will swoop in and arrest us."

  Chan was more than a little worried that she was right, but he kept his voice light. "It's live plants," he said. "They can survive a week in a crate. It's just that simple."

  "Nobody pays fifty big ones for live plants," Liz told him. "It's a person. Mark my words."

  Eight days locked in a ten-cubic-meter crate? Chan shuddered. "I certainly hope it's not a person. No, it's exactly what the client said. Rare plants. Illegal to import because the corporation wants a monopoly. We sneak it in, they pay us, we get paid, they get rich, the corporation gets screwed. Easy as falling down stairs."

  "Maybe," Liz grumbled. She turned to her console. "We're in the right place, but there's nothing on radar. Should we give it a ping?"

  Chan nodded. The client had contacted them by radio as they left the orbit of Venus. His instructions had been explicit. Another ship would leave the crate floating in deep space. There was a 'squawk box' radio beacon attached, and it would respond to a coded signal. All they had to do was transmit the signal to find the crate.

  "Sending now," said Joss, and tapped her screen. A moment later Liz said, "Got it." She worked the controls gently and the stars beyond the bridge windows shifted. "There," said Liz. "About a thousand K straight ahead."

  Nothing was visible, of course. Liz moved the ship forward, eyes glued to her console. "It just went silent," she said.

  "Want me to ping it again?" Joss asked.

  "In a minute. I know about where it is." Then, after a long pause, "Okay. Hit it again."

  Chan peered through the window and saw nothing at all. Then a star disappeared, then reappeared. He stood. "I'll go suit up."

  Joss started to rise from her seat, then hesitated.

  "I can handle it from here," Liz said. "Go ahead, Joss."

  They left the bridge and headed aft, moving past the passenger cabins and the galley. At the back of the ship the narrow corridor widened, with doors leading to the engine room and the aft airlock. Narrow lockers along one wall held vac suits, with helmets on a rack above. They pulled on the suits, fixed their helmets in place, and buckled on thruster belts.

  "Whenever you're ready," Liz said through the radio in Chan's helmet. "It should be right outside the lock."

  They sealed themselves into the airlock, waited while fans drew out most of the air, and held onto safety handles as the outside wall of the lock opened, lowered, and extended, becoming a ramp. Chan could see the cargo now, a cube as black as fresh Guinness, barely visible against the backdrop of space. With absolutely nothing to give a sense of scale, he had no idea how far away it was, or how big.

  Chan took hold of the handle mounted on the very edge of the lock and swung himself outward. The ship's artificial gravity field let go with a lurch that always made him feel as if he was falling, and his hand tightened on the handle. When he'd adjusted to weightlessness he pushed off from the ship and let himself float toward the cube.

  The crate, it turned out, was about two meters on a side, floating about thirty meters from the ship. Chan coasted up to it, tried to grab it, and had to use a little squirt of his maneuvering rockets to halt his momentum as he slid past. Joss joined him a moment later, as graceful as a dancer, slowing herself with a hand on the crate and coming to an effortless halt.

  "We've got it," Chan said. "We're coming in." He took a position across from Joss, and the two of them used careful squirts from their thruster belts to send themselves and the crate drifting toward the ship.

  At last it coasted in and bumped gently against the inside bulkhead. Chan took hold of the safety handle, using his free hand to keep the crate from bouncing back out. When the crate was still he let go and looked at Joss.

  "I don't think there's room for us," she said.

  She was right. The crate pretty much filled the lock. "I guess we're going in from below," he said, and hit the lock control panel. The ramp rose, and he led the way along the underside of the hull to the ventral airlock. Designed almost as an afterthought, the lock was a ring set in the hull, opening onto a barrel-shaped space just big enough for a person to curl up inside. Worse, the force field which gave the Raven its artificial gravity brushed the top surface of the lock, giving a faint repulsive effect that made it hard to stay inside. Chan finally had to shove Joss in while he shut the hatch, pulling his hand back from the sliding hatch cover just before it closed.

  He took a moment to look up at his ship while he waited for the lock to cycle. The Raven was lovely, thirty meters of sleek, streamlined hull painted matte black, eight meters wide plus a couple of meters of vestigial wing on either side. She was beautiful, even from underneath, and she never looked better than when she was all alone in the deep dark.

  The indicator light on the lock turned green, and he thumbed the button. Wedging himself into the little opening was absurdly difficult, with the push of the force field constantly driving him back out. He was considering firing up his thruster belt when he finally managed to get a foot and a shoulder inside the lock at the same time. Thus braced, he was able to resist the push of the force field long enough to squirm his way fully inside.

  Finding the little control panel inside the lock was his next challenge. He contorted himself, stretched a hand behind his hip, and hit buttons blindly until the hatch slid shut and air rushed in. The inner hatch opened and Joss helped him to his feet.

  Liz appeared in the corridor while he was closing the lock. "Good news," she said. "The crate fits in the corridor. It won't go into a cabin, but at least we can use the aft lock."

  He headed down the corridor to take a look. The crate completely filled the deck in front of the aft lock. They would have to clamber over it to leave the ship. "I guess it'll have to do. Thanks, Liz."

  She nodded, heading for the bridge. "Next stop, Mercury."

  The Stark Raven hurtled through the darkness of deep space, running silent, her engines cold, only momentum keeping her in motion. Her transp
onder was off, her radar set to passive mode only. Even her bridge lights were dim. With her sleek lines and radar-dampening paint, she was as close to undetectable as a spaceship could get.

  No one can see us. This will work. We'll unload this cargo, collect a fat paycheck, and I'll never break another law as long as I live. Chan fidgeted quietly, doing his best to project the kind of calm that befitted a ship's captain. He sat at his usual console on the bridge, watching the sun loom larger and larger through the steelglass window in front of him. He'd lived most of his life in the asteroid belt and around Saturn, with the sun an almost inconsequential lamp in the darkness. Here, well inside the orbit of Venus, it blazed like a beacon, like a spotlight put there by God to expose the misdeeds of smugglers like Chan. Bloody thing. It's not natural, a sun that big.

  Joss turned to look at him, tension showing in the tight set of her lips. "I've got something on radar."

  "You'd better not be doing an active scan," Liz said.

  Joss didn't answer, just rolled her eyes. She wouldn't take offence, Chan knew. All of them were showing the effects of the strain they were under.

  All except Rhett, of course. The Raven's only non-human crew member stepped onto the bridge, a tray in his metal hands. Designed to be a butler and abandoned by his former owners, the robot had surprised Chan by becoming a trusted and valued part of their little team. He moved through the bridge now, setting cups beside each of them.

  "Thank you, Rhett." Chan picked up the cup, grateful to have something to occupy his hands. The smell of warm tea wafted up, comforting and familiar, and he sighed. "What do you see?"

  Joss mumbled an absent "Thanks" to Rhett. "Two or three ships," she said. "Fifteen degrees to port and maybe five degrees down. Hundred thousand kilometers or so."

  How close will we be when we pass? He tried to do the math in his head and abandoned it. Too close for comfort.

  Liz shifted in her chair. "There's time to evade if we do it now."

  "Then they'll see us for sure." Chan made himself take a sip of tea. If you can't be calm, you can look calm. "No, we'll carry on as we are. With any luck we'll drift right past them. They'll never know we're here."

  Not unless they're military ships, he didn't add. Really good radar will pick us out at that range. And by the time we know we're in trouble, we'll be right on top of them.

  The urge to bring up Joss's display at his own console was strong. The decision was made, though. Gawking couldn't help anything. It could only make him look nervous. To his surprise he found himself missing Singh, who had briefly been the Raven's engineer and tactical officer. Singh had sold them out, and had died for it. It had been a long time since Chan had been able to think of the man with anything but fury, but the truth was, Singh had always been unflappable in a crisis. His years of experience in the Mars navy would have been priceless just now. At the very least his imperturbable presence would have helped Chan remain calm.

  And he was my friend. We didn't see eye to eye, even before he betrayed us all. But he was a friend just the same, and I miss him. He sighed, feeling as if he'd just put down a weight he'd carried so long he forgot it was there. He grinned. "Remember the sludge ponds on Coriolis?"

  Liz was the only one who'd been with him on Coriolis Station, before they'd found the Raven. She looked up long enough to make a face at him. "I'd rather not," she said, "but thanks for reminding me."

  "This is much more interesting," Chan said cheerfully. "I'm glad we're here."

  Liz gave him a look of utter disbelief, then shook her head and returned her gaze to her console. Joss gazed at him, eyes wide, then crinkled her lips in a small smile. And some of the tension left the bridge.

  They were forty thousand kilometers from the mystery ships when a buzzer sounded and Liz said, "Radar! They're scanning us."

  "It's not us," Chan said. "It's probably a general—"

  "I've got transponders," Joss interrupted. "They're Mercury Orbital Guard."

  "How's the signal strength?" Chan asked, hoping it was a coincidence that they drifted into transponder range at the same time as a random radar sweep.

  "It's loud," Joss said. "They see us." To underline the statement, she touched an icon on her console and a scratchy voice filled the bridge.

  "Unidentified vessel. This is the Mercury Orbital Guard Cutter Atlas. Heave to and prepare to be boarded. I repeat, this is—"

  Joss cut the link.

  "Heave to," Chan muttered. "What century does he think this is?" He looked at Liz. "Can we evade them?"

  Liz shrugged. "We won't know that until we see how fast they are." She flashed him a rogue's grin. "Shall we find out?"

  There was a lump of greasy ice in Chan's stomach, but he made himself grin back. "Do it."

  Liz touched the screen in front of her and the sun vanished from the window. Chan activated the screen at his console, the simplest way to keep track of Liz's maneuvers. The Raven was hurtling toward the Orbital Guard ships at high speed, so turning away was a hopeless option. Instead she sent the ship reeling sideways and fired up the main engine, increasing their speed even further. They would tear past the little fleet so quickly the cutters would never catch up.

  The only tricky part would be the critical minute or two they would spend at a range of only a few thousand kilometers. If the Orbital Guard ships were well armed, the Raven was going to have a rough time of it.

  "The Atlas is on an intercept course," Joss reported. "The Myrmidon is heading away from us. Looks like they're trying to match velocities. The Achilles is staying put." The third ship would be waiting to see if the Raven was a decoy, sent to lead the pickets away from their post.

  "You might as well fire up the radar," Chan said. "See what you can tell me about those ships. How big are they?"

  "Kind of dinky," Joss reported after a moment. "They're not much bigger than us. The Myrmidon is actually a little smaller." She shot him a worried glance. "I can't tell you anything about their weapons, though."

  "We'll know soon enough." Chan glanced at his display. Liz was taking them past the intercepting ships at a steep angle, and using the ship's maneuvering thrusters to put minor wobbles in their vector. The ship was capable of much sharper maneuvers. She was saving a few tricks for when the cutters actually opened fire.

  "Kill the radar," Liz said, and the images of the three ships became fuzzy and indistinct on Chan's screen. A moment later she snapped, "They're shooting!"

  Only Chan's screen and the sickening swoop of the stars through the window told Chan that the Raven was dodging with the frantic desperation of a hare evading dogs. All the motion was absorbed by the Raven's force fields. His tea didn't even slosh in his cup as Liz whipped the ship back and forth.

  The Atlas flashed past at a range of less than a thousand kilometers, firing lasers and rail guns as she came. When her nose was past she only had a laser that she could bring to bear, and she got in one lucky shot, the beam searing across the Raven's hull for less than a second. A buzzer sounded, and Joss glanced up. "No damage," she said.

  After that the Atlas was out of the fight, her trajectory taking her wide at high speed. It would take her hopelessly too long to kill all that momentum and give chase. The Achilles was far aft of them.

  Only the Myrmidon remained a threat. She was tens of thousands of kilometers ahead of the Raven and moving away, but the cruel physics of space travel were such that the Raven was rapidly overtaking her.

  Chan scanned his console. Liz had the Raven turned sideways, her powerful engine driving her away from the cutter at right angles to the Raven's original flight path. The cutter was matching the maneuver, pursuing the Raven on one axis even while the Raven's velocity brought her closer to the cutter along another axis.

  "We're a pretty good target with the engines blazing," Liz reported. "The saving grace is that her rail guns all point forward. She can't bring them to bear without sacrificing her best angle of acceleration. If she's built like the Atlas, we've only got the la
ser to worry about."

  As if in answer a buzzer sounded, and Liz tickled the controls. The buzzer went silent, and Joss, her face pale, said, "No damage."

  "We're a little bit faster than they are," Liz said. "We're going to get about twenty K closer, and then we'll start to pull away. If we can just—"

  The buzzer interrupted her again, and she jinked the ship sideways. The buzzer was silent for an instant, then sounded again. Liz started to maneuver constantly, whipping the ship up and down with the maneuvering thrusters, making them harder to hit. The buzzer still sounded every few seconds as the patrol boat's laser touched their hull.

  "This isn't working," Joss rasped. "We're at eighty thousand kilometers. Twenty thousand closer before we even start pulling away? They'll cut us to pieces."

  "We'll be fine," Liz muttered, raising her voice to be heard over another growl from the buzzer. "They haven't hurt us yet."

  The buzzer sounded again, and for an instant the steelglass window flashed crimson. A black patch appeared on the side wall of the bridge, and Chan smelled burning plastic, then heard the hum of the Raven's air circulators.

  "Go nose-on," he said impulsively. "Make us disappear."

  "They know where we are," Liz protested, but she turned the Raven, pointing it directly at the Orbital Guard ship. Chan stared through the steelglass, as if he could see the other ship at a range of eighty thousand kilometers.

  "The windows are pointed right at him," Liz warned. "One good hit and we're all dead."

  Chan nodded. "Well, let's make us hard to hit. Keep dodging. Stay nose-on as best you can, but dodge a little."

  Liz nodded, her hands on the controls. The stars shifted and wobbled as the ship rocked. She was hardest to detect from directly forward, and the bulk of the ship would hide the bright signature of her engines to some degree. The Myrmidon knew pretty much where she was, but at eighty thousand kilometers that left a lot of room to miss.

  "Seventy K," Joss said. "So far, so g—"