“Was that a threat? I can have your licences and permits revoked.”
“You won’t.” Ayan said conversationally. “If you cancel all your beaurocratic strings we’ll have no reason to do anything your way. Besides, you need people like us to fight this war our way, because if you’re employing people like Wheeler, you’re going to lose.”
“They don’t owe you anything for this ship. It was never yours. Now give me the command codes,” Wheeler growled.
Ayan didn’t so much as acknowledge him. Instead she calmly stated; “I expect you to transmit your compensation proposal for the full value of this vessel by the time we land on Tamber.”
“What about renegotiating the terms of your privateering licence? I’m sure we can make some adjustments for you.” replied the Fleet Warden.
“What? These people are nothing! You can’t be considering accommodation!” Wheeler objected.
Oz watched as Ayan proved to him and everyone else there that she had passed from being an intelligent young woman to a great lady. “I expect to be vastly impressed. You had better include land grants, and don’t leave out the signing bonus.”
“I’m telling you these people are just squatters and mercenaries. I bet you Valent is right behind her. If you order them to show you their faces you can capture him and present him for trial yourselves,” Wheeler ranted.
Instead of letting her temper get the better of her she smiled, held her head high and turned back towards the Clever Dream. Her squad of guardsmen began to turn to follow her until Oz watched Jake raise his hand slowly. Instead of stopping him Oz followed his lead. Jake’s fist formed into a finger pointed at Wheeler. The thirteen other guardsmen and women followed suit, and for a long moment they all pointed at Lucious Wheeler.
“There! As if you need more evidence!” Lucious shouted.
Other crewmen and women who saw the gesture followed suit, their eyes cold. The hate was so thick in the air Oz found himself breathing more heavily, wondering if he could get a kill shot off and run for cover before the Fleet Warden’s people could return fire. Wheeler backed away until he was out of sight.
Jacob Valance led the group as they turned and followed Ayan back to the Clever Dream.
“What are our options, Jason?” Jake asked as he reached the inner leisure compartment of the Clever Dream. The false portholes brightly displayed the active hangar. The Fleet Warden and her people retreated. They were replaced by several squads of Carthan soldiers, who marched to the far end of the hangar and remained there in formation. It was a form of showing a presence, and after a few minutes no one so much as looked at them. Civilian refugees and the former slaves that were too weary to help were gathered to one side of the docking bay near the only working cargo elevator. Everywhere else you looked, people were loading equipment and supplies into crates, piling cases and bags, or working to get things into position. Paula had managed to direct what was left of her deck crew to hand crank two Uriel fighters down from the racks along the side of the hangar, leaving two more hanging near the ceiling. She and a few of her more practised deck hands were desperately trying to keep things organized.
Ayan, Jason, Laura and Minh-Chu were all gathered around the table at the centre of the lavish entertainment compartment inside the Clever Dream. The holographic display system was hard at work showing different profiles, criminal charge listings, and legal reference material. Oz was hot on Jake’s heels, the rest of the guards had remained on the lower deck of the Clever Dream, ready to mount a defence or help load supplies.
“Legally, this is a huge mess. I’ve already filed a claim on the Triton in Ayan’s name, but they’ll reject it, she didn’t have her privateering licence at the time of capture and I fulfilled my due diligence, which in this case is finding out if Sol Defence has reported the Triton stolen or issued an order for its recapture.”
“What about piracy charges?”
“Oh, they’ve got you there. If they arrested you on piracy you’d either spend months defending yourself in court and get acquitted or you’d be convicted and executed.”
“Surprise, surprise. All right, how much power does Ayan have?”
“A lot less than I pretended to,” she sighed.
“Pretty amazing negotiation, by the way. Where did that land grant idea come from?” Oz asked as he stopped to stand next to her. He squeezed her shoulders affectionately. “Who’d of thought our little Sunspot would grow into someone with such a commanding presence?”
“Better late than never. I’ve been working on getting things set up on Tamber since I knew there would be damage to the Triton. I didn’t expect this though, I don’t think anyone did. I’m just glad we have something to our names without her.”
“Wheeler, I can’t believe he’s here, or something that looks and acts like him is here,” Jacob said, shaking his head.
“God, I’ve never wanted to throttle someone so badly,” Ayan added.
“Couldn’t tell. You kept your cool better than anyone.”
“Thank you. I still think bringing you was too much of a risk. You were right before, you should be in hiding.” She told Jacob.
“Him? Hide? Fat chance,” Minh scoffed. “I’m just surprised he’s taking this so well.”
“I made sure I calmed down before I came to this table.”
“I saw that pointing antic before I made it to the loading ramp. You could have cost us the little traction I had with that commander.” Ayan told him levelly.
“Fleet Warden. It’s similar to Admiral in rank. She’s right on both counts though. As much as I want to toss Wheeler out of the nearest airlock, I took a serious risk with that move. There are still prices on the Samson crew’s heads, so we’ll at least have to hide them while we appeal for the bounties to be cancelled.”
“That shouldn’t be much of a problem, especially since the Carthans didn’t try to arrest you here. It’ll take time though.” Jason mused. “I’m going to set up fake idents for you and your old crew so they can move around a bit. They might be able to show their faces with new names and a DNA mask built into their vacsuits, but you’re screwed unless you go get facial reconstruction, which might not work because you have a healing problem.”
“Never thought that would be a problem, but you’re right. You’ll make at least a dozen new best friends out of the Samson crew though.”
“It should be an easy job, especially if there are a lot of new people coming into the Rega Gain system.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” Ayan added.
“Good.” Focusing on the fine details of the situation helped. All he wanted to do was storm off the Clever Dream and open fire on the Carthan soldiers, the Warden, and make sure Wheeler died last. If it was him in a framework body, then he could experiment. Ever since he found out that he was a human of synthetic origin himself, he wondered what it would take to kill him. Wheeler provided the perfect test subject. He shook it off and took a deep breath before continuing. Ayan’s hand crept around his waist. “What about the fighters? Do you think we’ll have to surrender them to the Carthans?”
“Just having them could have exposed the pilots and Ayan to grand theft charges. If they wanted to arrest anyone, they would have” Jason replied.
“They gave me registration papers instead.” Ayan added.
“Well, then the Carthans are on our side, but quietly. They want to please Wheeler because they actually think he has something important. If it weren’t for him, I’m pretty sure we’d be fine. Better than. As it is, I’m hoping filing a complaint will tie the Triton up in the docks instead of letting Wheeler have her outright. The Carthans are stepping lightly. I suspect, no, I’m sure that’s why they’re not sending a huge boarding effort aboard to control our retreat and minimize looting.”
“That, and two thirds of the people here are ready to raise their rifles. We’ve already proven that we can defend the ship deck by deck,” Oz stated as a matter of fact. “It’s the external firepower that we can’t deal with. How long are they giving us?”
“The clock is running. We have forty two minutes left to clear the Triton of all personnel,” Jake said. His voice was tight, it was impossible to hide how he felt completely. “Is there any way we can lock down the Triton? ”
“I thought you had the command codes?” Oz asked.
“We have a command code chip,” Jake said, pulling a small golden rectangular necklace out from under the collar of his armour. “It gives someone control over the Triton’s higher functions, but there’s no way to know what the codes actually are. Anyone can slip this chip into a command console and take control of the ship, unless someone who actually knows the encrypted passwords comes along and overrides it.”
“So someone from Sol Defence could just come on in and take control without that.”
