Jolo got on the comm to engineering: “Barth, you got a secure channel to Filcher’s boat?”
“Gimme a sec, Captain,” Barth said.
“Hustle up because the bastards are gonna scan us.”
“Why they gonna scan us?” said Koba, gripping the edges of the console like gunboats were coming to take them out instead of simply being scanned by a drone.
“Relax, we’ll BS our way out of this. We only need a few more minutes,” Jolo said. Then he pressed the comm button to connect to the Persephony: “Persephony, this is Torino, how about a little professional courtesy here. We’re just a transport heading to Cresser. We’ll be jumping out in a moment and are on a tight schedule.”
“Understood, Torino. Just protocol. The scan drone is pretty quick. Sorry for the inconvenience.”
“They just launched the scan drone,” said Koba.
Greeley was still leaning back in Koba’s chair with his eyes closed, his chest slowly rising, air whistling out from between his lips on each exhale.
“Greeley,” said Jolo. “How good a shot are you with the magna hook?”
“I can hit a box from 50 meters all day,” Greeley said, eyes still closed.
“How about smaller?”
“Oh yeah, I can just about nail a half-box, like the Fed small parts boxes and what not.” He scratched his head and looked up at the display. Blue dots everywhere: smaller dots for cargo and support ships, larger for gunboats and a few huge dots for the Defenders. One tiny dot was headed straight for the Argossy.
“Koba, point our tail right at the drone and ease us out a bit. Just a little so they don’t think we’re running.” Then he slapped Greeley on the shoulder. “Let’s go fishin’.”
Greeley suited up and hooked himself to the safety line, tromped out to the edge of the cargo bay in the heavy mag-boots and stared out into the blackness of space. Far out in the distance he thought he could make out one of the Fed ships but then he realized the closest one was 50 kilometers out. Koba said the drone was 750 meters and closing but he couldn’t see it either. He waited, the magna-hook launcher in his hands, the big electro-magnet on the floor in front of him ready to load. He made sure the cable was spooled nicely and wasn’t tangled on anything, especially his right foot. He’d heard of pirates getting their legs wrapped up in the line, struggling to untangle themselves before the line went taught and getting their legs pinched off. If you didn’t get flung out into space with a hole in your suit and end up freeze dried, the best you could hope for was to walk with a limp.
Soon Koba called in to say the drone was 50 meters out and was going to start scanning. Greeley squinted and leaned out as far as he could into the cold blackness, the massive void extending out in all directions, further than sight or even imagination, the drone hopelessly lost in the black.
“Cain’t see the dang thing,” said Greeley. Koba engaged the forward thrusters and closed in on the drone by fifteen or so meters.
“Y’all got the drone yet? We can’t get scanned,” said Jolo over the comm.
“Ain’t got eyes on it, Captain,” said Greeley.
“Koba, launch a flare,” said Jolo. Soon a bright orange ball shot out of the rear tube of the Argossy. Greeley picked up the reflection off the hull of the Fed drone a few seconds later. He loaded the hook and raised the gun. At first he aimed high to adjust for distance, then remembered, the beauty part of shooting the hook in space was there was no range adjustment, the hook would track straight, so he lowered the gun and aimed right at the glint. The hook burst out with the cable trailing. He couldn’t hear the slap of the big magnet on the hull of the drone, but the moment the electro-mag found its target the winch engaged and the line went taught.
“Got it, Captain.”
“Good work. Lemme know when you get it onboard,” said Jolo. Then he called back to Barthelme. “You got the P2P connection?”
“Almost, waiting on the handshake from the Persephony.” Barth checked in a few seconds later. “We got it. Message sent, Captain. If my codes for Silas Filcher are correct it will go to him and him alone.”
“Good work, Barth,” said Jolo.
“Hey, y’all remember that little old drone? Well, the dang thing is huge,” said Greeley. “I got it up next to the Argossy now. What you want me to do with it, Captain?”
“Kill it.”
Back on the bridge the Persephony called in: “Torino, this is Persephony, we’ve lost the drone feed. Do you have a visual?”
“Negative Persephony,” said Koba.
Jolo called down to Barth but there was no reply yet from Filcher.
“Keep stalling them,” said Jolo.
“Torino, we’ll have to do a manual scan. We’re sending two gunboats from formation. Please hold position.”
“Negative. Negative, Persephony,” Jolo was winging it. Koba stared up at him with big, scared eyes. “No need to send a gunboat. We’ve just got a visual on the drone. Took its time getting here.”
“Greeley, cut the drone loose!” Jolo yelled into the comm.
“Ain’t done killin’ it yet!” Greeley yelled back.
“What’s the status on the drone?” said Koba.
“I’d say severely wounded,” said Greeley.
“Boys, we got company coming. Two gunboats,” Jolo said shipwide. Then he put his hand on Koba’s shoulder. “Relax. Hold it together. We’re just merchants.”
……
On board the Federation Defender Persephony, Admiral Silas Filcher stared at the screen at the point to point from the little merchant ship on the edge of
