Escape from Enceladus (Stark Raven Voyages Book 1) Page 3

  Chan could see very little of her face, just a big hazel eye peeking between her elbows. The skin around the eye was dark and beginning to swell, and Chan's knuckles throbbed in sympathy. Shame flooded through him, washing away the rage and terror of a moment before. What kind of brute was he, to terrorize a little girl?

  "Who are you?" she asked, her voice small and frightened.

  "Um, my name is Chan. James Chan. My crew and I salvaged this ship. It's ours now. I mean, unless it's yours. Who are you? You don't look like a pirate."

  The big hazel eye blinked. "I'm Joss. I was a prisoner of those horrible pirates. They destroyed my ship, they killed everybody." The eye closed and a single tear leaked from the corner. When she spoke again, her voice held a quaver. "Thank you for saving me."

  Chan felt his chest expanding with an unfamiliar emotion. Pride. "Think nothing of it," he said, getting up. "I'm glad I could help."

  She looked even smaller when he was standing. She brushed some of the hair from her face, peered up at him with wide eyes, and said, "What are you going to do with me?" And her eyes flickered downward.

  That was when Chan, to his horror, realized that he was wearing nothing but sagging boxer shorts, and they had been jostled somewhat downward during the struggle. Blood rushed into his face and he dropped to a sitting position, hiding behind his own knees. The wretched girl just kept looking at him, and he looked down, mortified to see that his entire chest and stomach had turned pink.

  "Er, sorry. Ah, I wasn't exactly expecting to meet a lady. Thought I was alone, actually."

  She didn't say anything, just stared at him, and he slid his way toward her, bending his legs so his feet didn't touch hers. She arched one sandy eyebrow, and Chan's face, already hot enough to cook toast, grew hotter.

  He stretched out one arm, snagging the handle of the closest drawer, and pulled out the first clothing he could reach. Unfortunately it was more underwear. He scooted closer, pulled out a second drawer, and focussed his attention on the clothing, doing his best to pretend the girl didn't exist.

  I've travelled through deep space and been shot by a pirate, surely I can't be so completely flustered by one small girl. Pull yourself together, Chan. He found a jumpsuit and retreated gratefully to the door. This damn thing better fit me. I don't think I could bear it if…

  The gray jumpsuit was baggy but the arms and legs were about right. In fact, it fit better than the uniform he'd worn back on Coriolis Station. He did his best to wriggle into the suit without exposing himself, zipped up, and finally stood. He took a couple of deep breaths, gathered what dignity he had left, and squared his shoulders. "Come along," he said. "You might as well meet the crew."

  "My name is Jocelyn O'Reilly," she said. "My friends call me Joss." She sat at the galley table, her hands curled around a mug of cocoa, the crew standing around her. Chan had revised his age estimate upward, at least a bit. She was no teenager, but she was quite young.

  "Our ship was called the Dawn Treader."

  "Like the Narnia books?" Liz said, open skepticism in her voice, and Chan frowned. The woman had all the sensitivity of a charging rhinoceros.

  "I didn't name the ship," Joss replied. "I was just a passenger. With Norbert, my husband. We came out from Mars so he could work on Coriolis Station." She gazed sadly at her unadorned fingers. "They even took my wedding ring."

  Chan felt a lump in his throat. He looked around at the others. Liz's face was expressionless, but sympathy was hardly her strong suit. Singh wore the hint of a sneer. Vogel was staring at Joss, enraptured. He looked completely smitten. Joss was the first real woman he'd seen in almost three weeks. Liz didn't count; she inspired fear in a man, not desire.

  Chan was forty, and his blood had cooled with age. Singh was even older, pushing fifty. But Vogel was barely into his twenties, and the sight of Joss and her big hazel eyes seemed to have driven rational thought right out of his brain.

  "They killed my husband," Joss said, her voice catching. "They killed the entire crew. The leader was this huge man with a terrible beard." She gestured with her hands, tracing the shape of an enormous growth around her chin. "He put me in his cabin." She stared up at them, her eyes haunted. "I don't like to think of what he was planning to do with me."

  "You're safe now," Chan reassured her, and she gave him a grateful smile. Vogel glared at Chan over her head.

  "Then, I don't know how long ago," she continued, "there was a lot of noise and shouting. The pirate leader came in, and he shoved me into the bunk and closed it." She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trembling. "It was awful. I could barely breathe. I passed out, and every time I woke up it was pitch dark, and stifling, and I couldn’t move…"

  Vogel reached out to pat her on the shoulder. "There, there," he said. "It's okay now. We'll protect you." And he shot Chan another unpleasant look.

  "Thank you," she said, patting Vogel's hand and smiling up at him. Vogel turned pink, while Liz rolled her eyes and Singh gave a quiet snort.

  "Anyway," Joss said, "the next thing I knew, the bunk flew open." Her gaze swung to Chan. "I landed on Captain Chan here, and now here I am."

  There was a moment of silence. Then Singh gave Chan a pointed glance and stepped into the corridor. Chan said, "Just make yourself comfortable, Joss. Vogel, give her space." That drew him a hurt, indignant look from Vogel, which Chan ignored. "Excuse me for a minute."

  Chan followed Singh out of the galley, Liz on his heels. As soon as the door hissed shut, Singh said, "We can't trust her."

  "He's right," said Liz.

  Chan raised his hands in a helpless gesture. "You heard her story!"

  "It's easy to tell stories," Singh snapped. "The last person we found hiding on this ship shot half the crew and stole our lifeboat."

  Liz nodded. "Taking that stinking deathtrap was doing us a favor, but still, he's right. You find someone hiding on a pirate ship, you don't think she might be, oh, I don't know, a pirate?"

  "She's a helpless victim," Chan sputtered. "She doesn't look like a pirate, does she?"

  "They don't all have crazy beards," Singh said. "We should lock her up."

  "Or space her," Liz added.

  Chan's jaw dropped. "We’re not spacing anybody!" he snapped. "And we're not locking her up. Where are we going to put her, back in a bunk?"

  "We should," said Singh. "We all might live longer. At the very least we need to keep an eye on her."

  Chan grinned in spite of himself. "Well, that's one less thing to worry about. I don't think Vogel's going to let her out of his sight any time soon. She'll be lucky if she manages to shower without him there."

  Singh chuckled, but Liz scowled, muttering under her breath. Chan wasn't sure, but he thought she might have said, "I don't trust Vogel either."

  "All right," said Chan, "we'll keep an eye on her. Now, we've got a working ship and plenty of fuel. What's our next step?"

  "Go through the rest of the ship," said Liz. "See how many more bloody passengers we have."

  Chan nodded. "Okay. And after that?"

  Singh scratched his beard. "Actually, I have an idea about that," he said. "Come with me to the bridge. I want to show you something."

  He led them to a console on the starboard side. There were no dedicated stations other than the helm. The touch screens could be reconfigured to control any part of the ship's functions. Singh dropped into a chair and tapped the screen in front of him, bringing it to life.

  "Looks like coms," Chan said.

  "Not quite." Singh expanded part of the display. "They were tracking a transponder. It's the last setting they had before the final battle. So it must be the transponder of the ship they attacked."

  Liz had a predatory grin on her face, but Chan just shook his head. "What are you trying to say?"

  "We can find the other ship," Singh said. "The one that shot a hole in the window." He jerked a thumb at the patch in the front of the bridge. "The one that hatch came from."

  "The ship's probably
dead in space by now," said Liz, an unhealthy relish in her voice. "Packed full of treasure."

  "Treasure?" Chan said skeptically.

  She shrugged. "Some kind of juicy salvage, anyway. The pirates had to be after something. Whatever it is, we can still get it."

  "Whoever they are, they put a hole in the ship last time," Chan pointed out. "If we fly up in this ship, they're likely to finish us off."

  She waved a dismissive hand. "It was a lucky shot."

  "How do you know that?"

  Liz pointed at the patch in the front of the bridge. "You don't get your hatches cut off if you're winning a battle. It's probably another ship full of dead bodies by now. If not," and she flexed her fingers in a disturbingly hungry way, "they won't be in any shape to defend themselves. And there isn't another witness in a million kilometres."

  "We're not turning pirate!"

  "Joking," she said, "I'm joking." But she looked disappointed.

  "However, you're right about one thing." Chan scrubbed his fingers through his hair. "They must be damaged. They could still be out here, and they might be in trouble. We should probably check up on them." Liz gave him a doubtful look, and he grinned. "And, if it turns out that the ship really is a derelict, well, it would be a shame to let all that salvage go to waste."

  She grinned, and he raised a warning finger. "But we go in carefully," he said. "If they're okay, we back off. We don't pick any fights."

  Her face dropped a bit, but she nodded. Chan turned to Singh. "Can you find the ship?"

  "I can get a direction," he said. "The instruments on this ship are about a thousand times better than the Albatross, may she rust in pieces. We'll find her in no time."

  ###

  It took about two hours. The bridge didn't have a captain's station as such, so Chan dropped into an empty seat and used the display to browse the technical specs of the ship while Singh navigated and Liz flew. The ship had guns, he saw, though he didn't know how to fire them. There was a rail gun on either side, running the length of the body on the underside of the hull, with separate magazines for ballistic rounds, exploding rounds, incendiaries, and tracers. All the magazines registered as empty. There was also a laser, mounted on top of the hull just behind the bridge. The laser ran directly on engine power, so they had effectively unlimited ammo for it.

  "I think it's coming from Enceladus," Singh said at last. "The signal fades in and out but it doesn't move very far. I bet they're in orbit."

  "We'll get there in about forty minutes," Liz reported.

  "Good work," Chan said. He felt a bit silly praising them, but if they insisted on taking him seriously as captain, the least he could do was play the part.

  Liz nodded, but Singh frowned before turning back to his console. He was older than Chan, with more than a decade of experience in the navy. He might resent having Chan as his superior.

  Chan shrugged. There was nothing he could do about Singh's ruffled feelings except lead with a light hand and try to keep them all in profit.

  "Can you tell me anything about this ship we're tracking, Singh?" Chan asked.

  Singh scowled at his console. "Not a thing, Jim. Her transponder's not in the database."

  Chan frowned thoughtfully. "Interesting. Either the ship's new, or she has something to hide." The black ship's transponder would almost certainly not be in any database, but a cargo or passenger ship ought to be.

  "So we don't know what she's called," Chan said. "For that matter, I can't figure out what this ship is called." He patted his armrest. "I can't find her name anywhere. That doesn't seem right."

  "Let's call her the Dawn Treader," Liz said with a touch of sarcasm. "I hear that name just came available."

  "Well, she's painted all black," said Chan. "What's a bird that's black?"

  "Penguin!" Liz said. "Let's call her the Penguin."

  "The Dirty Ostrich?" Singh suggested. "That has kind of a ring to it."

  Chan winced. "Do you mind if we stick to birds that fly?"

  "I knew a guy once," said Liz. "He had a yacht called the Flamingo. Are those black?"

  "I don't think so."

  "Oh, I know!" Singh said. "The Dirty Buzzard. Those are black, right?"

  Chan shook his head, feeling suddenly tired. "I'd kind of like to forget about all the dead bodies we've seen," he said.

  Singh gave him a blank look, and Chan sighed. People born off of Earth just didn't get certain things.

  "The Blackbird?" Liz asked. "I'm almost certain those are black."

  "How about the Raven?" said Chan. "You know, like in the poem."

  That drew blank stares from both of them.

  "It's a bird," he said. "A black one. They live on the fringes of human society, like us. And no one ever puts them in cages."

  Liz smile and nodded, but Singh frowned again. "Seems kind of short," he said. "How about the Dirty Raven?"

  "Well, she's a lot cleaner than our last ship." Chan scratched his head. "What else could we call her? The Bold Raven? The Striking Raven? What's another word for, I don't know, simple and striking?"

  Singh tapped his touchscreen and looked up. "Stark?"

  "The Stark Raven," Chan said. Something about it sounded not quite right, but he hated to keep contradicting Singh. "All right. Sounds good." He patted the console in front of him. "I dub thee Stark Raven."

  When Enceladus came into view it was a pale grey half-sphere streaked with blue and pocked with craters, like a mottled dome showing above the plane of the rings. Saturn was a dirty yellow dome in the background, vast enough to make the little moon seem inconsequential. Chan and Singh left their seats, standing on either side of the patch, peering out through the remaining strips of glass.

  The Stark Raven sped forward, flying just above the rings, which looked like a field of icy boulders racing past beneath them. Enceladus loomed larger and larger, until they could see the creases of the vast rifts that lined the surface.

  "Where's the ship?" Singh demanded.

  "On the far side," Liz told him. "I think it's in an equatorial orbit. We should see it in about ten minutes."

  The mystery ship was a tiny speck when it came into view. The ice particles here in the E Ring were tiny, microscopic in fact, making the ring into a smooth white sheet. When Liz brought the Raven higher the other ship was highlighted against the ice like a butterfly displayed in a box. Liz nudged the joystick in her hand and the view tilted. "Hang on," she said, "it's finally time to do some real flying."

  There was no need to hang on, not with the force engine compensating for their inertia. Still, it was hard not to lean as the rings tilted and turned. Liz brought them in close to Enceladus and swept across the moon's equator, matching trajectories with the mystery ship and coming up on it from behind.

  "Scan it, will you?" Chan said to Singh. "See what you can find. I'm going to see if she answers the radio." He reluctantly left the window and took the nearest bridge station.

  "Looks like a small cargo ship," Singh reported, peering into a screen. "The transponder's still on, but I don't see any running lights. I can't see any damage, but she's too far to make out much detail."

  There was no response to the radio ping. Chan punched in a quick text message, explaining that they were not in fact pirates and were offering aid. Then he transmitted the message and sat back, not really expecting a response.

  "Wow," said Singh. "This ship does thermal scans. Can you believe it?" He tapped away at the screen in front of him. "The ship's pretty cold. There's a tiny bit of heat left in the engines, but the rest of it reads sub-zero." He looked up. "Either there's no one left alive, or they've got good insulation. I can't tell which."

  Chan stood and walked to the strip of glass on his side. The mystery ship was close now, and getting closer as Liz moved the Raven forward. The ship was a bulky rectangle with a pair of thrust nozzles showing on the back. It was painted white, just like the hatch that was now part of the Raven.

  When they were within a hun
dred metres Liz moved the ship higher and Chan got his first glimpse of the top of the freighter. The Raven's running lights played across the hull and he saw her name, painted in neat black letters. She was called the Mixatonic.

  There was a depression in the hull's top, as if a component had been removed. When he saw the ring shape of a hatch he understood. "The lifeboat's gone," he said. "I think she's abandoned."

  They moved farther forward, and pretty soon Chan was sure. There were holes in the freighter's hull, jagged punctures that would be from the rail guns, and neat, precise circles from the laser. After a dozen holes he stopped counting. There wouldn't be a single pressurized compartment left in the entire ship. A dark square yawned on the starboard side where the hatch had been cut away.

  Liz said, "So, she's all ours, then, right?"

  Chan sighed. "I can see this tragedy has affected you deeply, Liz, but try not to get too emotional."

  A flicker of motion caught his eye. It was Liz, faintly reflected in the glass, making a rude gesture.

  He returned to his seat and scanned through the usual emergency frequencies. "I'm not seeing a distress beacon," he said. "Let's go aboard and look for survivors." He glanced at the ceiling, where the bearded pirate had damaged the hatch escaping in the Albatross. "I guess we'll be using the lower lock."

  The Raven had a dozen nav cameras in strategic locations around the hull, and Liz used them to ease the ship in close. She lined up the two locks, then grinned in triumph as a metallic clatter echoed through the ship. "We're docked," she said.

  "Oh, damn," said Chan. Liz and Singh looked at him, surprised, and he gave them a bleak grin. "This means I have to put my suit back on."

  In the end they all went together. Exploring the freighter didn't require five people, but no one wanted to stay behind, so they all suited up. The ventral lock was a tiny ring set in the floor in the corridor behind the bridge. There was only room for one person at a time, and Chan, claiming the privilege of rank, went in first. The lock was like a barrel that he lowered himself into, with his knees against his chest and his head curled forward. The hatch pressed the back of his helmet as it closed, and he felt the vibration of the fans pulling air back into the Raven. When all the air that could be recovered was gone, the hatch beneath him slid open and he dropped into the freighter.