Wicked Wanderer
Chapter Five

by Sharon Green

Copyright 2003 by ABCD Webmasters, and Sharon Green


 


Torand Rego sat in the chair in his cabin, knowing it was almost time for him to go to the bridge, but his mind refused to stop running through his large collection of muddied thoughts. Muddied and struggling thoughts, skewed and fighting, and unfortunately he was the one the thoughts were fighting against.

It had been nearly two days since he'd seen Falk's niece, but he couldn't make himself stop thinking about her. Every time he looked at his bunk - or even glanced in that direction - he could still see her lying there, naked and smiling and waiting for him to join her. It still frightened him how close he'd come to doing just that, to lying down next to her and taking her in his arms. After his first shock at having her join him at his table at evening mess, he'd actually enjoyed her presence beside him. But he'd enjoyed her presence too much, so he'd left as quickly as he could manage it. Falk's niece wasn't for the likes of him, he knew, but when he came out of the head and saw her on his bunk…

"It wasn't really her I was mad at, but she was the one I took my anger out on," Tor muttered, not very happy with himself for having done that. "Not being able to touch her made me a little crazy, but maybe what I did was for the best after all. If she had some kind of crush on me, the crush is now dead."

As dead and ended as the girl's attempts to be near him. She'd been appalled at the idea of being made to run naked through the ship with her seat still red from the spanking she'd gotten, and she'd put her clothes on so fast it had looked like magic was involved. He was the one who'd thrown her out of his cabin then, but she'd made no effort to stay in spite of that. Tor hadn't seen her since then, and he wasn't the only one. She'd kept to her cabin for the last two days, and the only one who had seen her was whoever brought her meals.

"And not only didn't she talk to the crewman with her food, she didn't even acknowledge his existence," Tor muttered, leaning forward to cover his face with his hands. "Jerman tried to visit with her yesterday, but the girl refused to say a word to her. Jerman's doctor instincts came alive when she found out how little the girl was eating, but she ran into a blank wall again when it came to reaching through to the girl. Now Jerman wants me to talk to the girl, but how can I? Even if I manage to keep my hands off the girl, I'm probably the last one she wants to see."

The last one she wants to see. That arrangement would have been perfect if not for the heavy regret Tor felt every time he thought of it. The girl had had some foolish idea about acting like what she called a slut, and if it had been anyone but that girl he would have had some fun indulging her fantasy. With this particular girl, though, indulging her fantasy would have been more than fun, and when the time ended the pain would have been unbearable. Tor had thrown the girl out in an effort to avoid that kind of pain, but somehow it had found him anyway…

"Captain to the bridge, please," Tor suddenly heard over the ship-wide speaker, a polite summons, but a summons nonetheless. "Captain to the bridge, please."

A glance at the clock showed Tor that he'd taken a little too long with his thoughts, so he got to his feet and left his cabin. In a little while it would be time for them to make the third and last jump to Utopia, the jump that would put them in the middle of the government's heaviest protection. If the guarding forces accepted the Hawk as the freighter she pretended to be, they wouldn't be stopped. But if anyone at all got suspicious…

"The rest of our fleet is forming up, Captain," Henson said from where he sat in front of his board when Tor walked onto the bridge. "As soon as they're all in position we'll be able to make the last jump."

"The full assault group is already gathered, Tor," Lanni, his second in command, reported. "If we aren't destroyed as soon as we appear - or when we try to land - we'll be ready to try to force our way into the control facility. Considering how well guarded and sealed that facility is I don't know how successful we'll be, but we'll still try."

"How about Falk's niece?" Tor was forced to ask, trying to concentrate on nothing but the upcoming battle. "According to the plan, she's supposed to be part of the assault force. Is she gathered with the others?"

"She's ready to go, but she's waiting in her cabin rather than with the assault force," Lanni responded, eyeing Tor in an odd way. "When I spoke to her she sounded really … distant. Do you have any idea what's bothering her, Tor?"

"No," Tor answered shortly, making it clear that all discussion about the girl was over. Lanni accepted the unvoiced order, but silence didn't change the odd expression on her face or the way she looked at him. Well, let her look. As long as she didn't say anything Tor knew he would be saved from saying anything … awkward himself.

It took a while for the entire fleet to get into position, but once the last ship was where it was supposed to be Falk broadcast the time check from the Chayara to all the rest of the fleet. Tor and his people would have three hours before the rest of the fleet made the last jump, three hours to reach the planet, land, force their way into the control facility, and start taking out guard ships. If the crew of the Hawk didn't make it through, the rest of the fleet would be destroyed as soon as it appeared.

But everyone had had enough of being on the run, of being outlaws because of the opinions of one small group of people. If the plan didn't work then everyone would die, which most considered preferable to living without hope. The idea of dying didn't bother Tor, but if he had to die he wanted his death to count for something. He just had to live long enough to take over the control facility and cut down on the opposition the others would face. After that it didn't matter what happened to him.

As soon as Decker sent an acknowledgment of the time check from her board, Tor gave the order for the final jump. The tension on the bridge was thick enough to smother an entire herd of elephants, but everyone made it through the jump alive. How long they would stay that way was another story, but…

"Right on schedule, Tramp," Tor heard from the comm board, a transmission from one of the guard ships. "You're already cleared for approach so just take her on in."

"Taking her in," Decker acknowledged, then she turned to Tor once she'd closed the communications line. "I don't believe that, Captain! How can we be right on time if they weren't supposed to know we were coming?"

"Falk said he was trying to arrange for our supposed freighter to be put on the arrivals list, and it looks like he succeeded," Tor said with a good deal of the relief he felt. "It doesn't usually seem like it, but apparently we've got supporters in more places than we know. You don't have to be a fighter to recognize a big mistake when it's made, and our loving government's mistakes just keep adding up. Falk said he was sure we had non-fighters ready to back us up with a little more than crossed fingers, and I'd say he was right again."

Happy murmurs came from all over the bridge, and Tor moved through them to reach his command chair. They still had a way to go before they reached Utopia itself, and then he and Lanni would join the assault group. Until then there was always the chance they would be needed on the bridge to make any emergency decisions…

But there weren't any emergency decisions needed. The Hawk reached the planet Utopia in a bit more than an hour, when they asked for and got clearance to land. Most ships never landed on a planet, not when freight and passengers could be off-loaded more easily onto a station, but every now and then special cargoes and passengers were taken to the planet of destination itself. Falk's hidden helpers must have been really busy, Tor realized after they were given clearance without hesitation. At the very least he'd expected to be questioned about his cargo, but no one had asked a thing…

"What do they all think we're carrying?" Lanni asked once the comm line was closed again. She sat at a board of her own, but simply watched while the bridge crew performed the necessary functions. "I mean, it would have to be something top secret for them to give us landing clearance so easily, wouldn't it? They didn't even ask if our cargo was still fresh, or intact, or alive, or whatever."

"I don't know what they think we have, but whatever it is they'll forget about it once we land," Tor answered. "We aren't going to put the ship down where they expect us to, after all, and as soon as we veer off and land near the control facility the secret will be out. If we all live through the rest of this, we can ask Falk about our 'cargo' later."

Lanni smiled faintly and nodded her agreement, her expression showing that she, like Tor, didn't care if she survived as long as they completed their part of the plan. She would enjoy going back to a normal life as much as he would, Tor knew, but making the normal life possible was the important part, not the living of it. If they didn't survive to enjoy the fruits of their victory, at least everyone else would.

"We've started down," Decker reported, giving all her attention to what was on her board. "Since it won't be long before we reach our point of debarkation, all those going ashore ought to be with the landing group."

"You're right, Decker, so the con is yours," Tor responded, standing up just as Lanni did the same. "Tell Falk's niece to meet us at the airlock, please."

"Will do," Decker answered, and then Tor and Lanni were off the bridge and on their way to where the assault group waited. Inertialess flight made moving around easy even during a landing. If anything ever happened to the inertialess drive they and everyone else would be plastered all over the inside hull of the ship, but that's why they had a backup drive. If both drives went they'd probably be dead too fast to know what happened, so the possibility wasn't worth worrying about. Not when they had so much else of a more pressing nature to worry about…

As soon as they reached the assault group, Tor and Lanni donned their gear. Armor consisted of a light-seeming coverall that took less than a minute to get into but felt heavier than it looked. That was because the coverall was made of a very dense material that would protect the wearer from most small projectiles, most flamers, and most light explosives. Light disrupters would shake up you and the armor a bit, but heavy disrupters would tear a body apart without damaging the armor. The sleeves ended in skin-tight gloves that didn't interfere with the operation of a weapon and the bottom of the coverall covered shoes or boots as well as feet. A helmet that covered the entire head attached to the collar, but the helmet didn't have to be put on until they were ready to leave the ship.

"They've just assigned us a berth, Captain," Decker said over the comm next to the airlock. "Less than five minutes before we change course, and then about a minute to landing."

"Acknowledged," Tor said after pressing the switch on the comm. "Give us a countdown for the last minute before the airlock is opened."

"Will do," Decker said while Tor turned to get his helmet. Tor felt the urge to stop dead when he saw the girl Chayara just about into her coverall, but staring would have been stupid if not suicidal. He needed all his attention to be on the task at hand, and once they were all in their helmets the job should be easier. He hoped…

Five minutes either drags or flies by, depending on what you're doing and what you're waiting for, but this time the minutes managed to both drag and fly. Tor was in the midst of wondering if Decker had forgotten about the countdown when it suddenly began.

"One minute to open airlock," Decker's voice came over the general intercom. "Fifty-seven … fifty-six … fifty-five… "

There was a general shifting in place as the assault group readied itself, and Tor felt more excitement in the air than anxiety. They'd all been waiting so long for this moment, the time when they'd try their best to depose the most repressive government the human race had ever had to fight against. History had brought forth conquerors and tyrants in fairly large numbers, but the worst of them acted not in an effort to terrorize but in an effort to do "right." More horrors are committed in the name of good than in the name of evil. Someone delighting in being evil is a joke; someone delighting in being good is a nightmare.

Lanni handed Tor his rifle for the preliminary long distance work that would be necessary, both of them already wearing their hand weapons in holsters. A glance showed Tor that the girl Chayara also wore a hand weapon, but she hadn't been given a rifle and that was good. Tor didn't want the girl getting involved in the fighting, not unless her life depended on defense, and the rest of the group had strict instructions to guard the girl's life with their own. Guarding the girl would be guarding their luck, but for Tor the effort would be much more - even though he refused to think about what the much more entailed…

"Twenty-six … twenty-five … twenty-four…" Decker's voice said over the intercom, making Tor wish he could hurry the count in some way. It was nice to know exactly how much more time they had to wait, but dragging the thing out second by second became nerve-wracking. And the ship hadn't entered the control facility's exclusion field yet, otherwise they would have felt the shock -

"Nineteen - I don't believe it!" Decker said suddenly, no longer sounding mechanical. "Attention assault group! As soon as we entered the facility's exclusion field, our presence seemed to cause an explosion of sorts! All the guards stationed around the building have gone down, and the ones in sight aren't moving! There are some heavy equipment vehicles around as well, but I can't tell about their personnel. Watch yourselves going out… Seven … six … five … four … three … two … one … go!"

Tor hadn't felt it when the ship grounded, but the opening of the airlock was impossible to miss. They were using a large freight airlock, and Decker's controls allowed both inner and outer doors to open at once as a ramp extended. Tor ran through the airlock and jumped onto the ramp with his rifle held at the ready, every sense he had alert for the smallest movement as he rode the ramp most of the way to the ground. Lanni and the rest of the assault group were right behind him, but Tor had grabbed point and meant to keep it.

The heavy equipment vehicles were closer to the ship than the unmoving bodies on the ground, but instead of protecting the people inside them the vehicles had apparently acted as transmitters rather than insulation. The crews inside the vehicles were very dead, as opposed to the troops scattered across the ground. The ground troops seemed to be no more than unconscious, just the way Chayara had been when her talent had blown the exclusion and disintegration fields on Moradan's station…

"Decker, close the airlock again and keep it closed until you hear from me," Tor said at once into his helmet mike while he headed for the building they'd come to take. "Most of these guards are unconscious, and we don't want them deciding to tour our ship once they wake up. Assault group, attention. We now need to find a way inside the building before these sleepers come awake. Once inside we won't have to worry about them any longer."

A handful of the members of the assault group had already started for the building housing the control facility, and at Tor's orders the rest of the group did the same. Tor himself was almost there, his attention on the building's main entrance, when a voice sent his attention in another direction.

"This small door is unlocked," the girl Chayara announced from where she stood to Tor's right, an open door right in front of her. Three members of the group were behind her, but even as Tor headed in that direction two of the group members moved in front of the girl - where they should have been all along. Tor wanted to ream them for letting the girl be the one to find the open door, a door that could have had any number of guards behind it, but now wasn't the time. Later, though…

The small door led into a room that had chairs and drink dispensers, not to mention a number of guards on the floor. It was most probably a break room for the outside guards, but it also had a large double doorway that led into the facility. Both the outer door and the double doors could be locked securely, so once all of Tor's people were inside he had the unconscious guards dragged outside and then ordered both doors locked. The longer it took anyone to break in, the longer he and his people would have to destroy the ships guarding the planet.

Tor sent a couple of his people to make sure all other doors into the building were locked, then he led the rest on a search for the main control room. They were actually attacked by guardsmen on the way, men and women who seemed to have been protected from the field backlash to a certain degree by their body armor, but only the first attack came as a surprise. Almost everyone dived for cover even as they brought up their rifles, but one lone figure didn't do the same. That figure used its hand weapon to drop the attacker, and then strolled forward to inspect its handiwork.

To say Tor was furious was the understatement of the century. The lone figure was the girl Chayara, of course, and she had no business shooting attackers. Not to mention being without her guards…

"Are you people asleep or dead?" Tor demanded once he'd voice-coded a private message to the three who were supposed to be guarding the girl. "Why was she standing there alone shooting when she should have been behind the three of you?"

"Captain, it wasn't our fault!" Armin, one of the three men, said for all of them, his voice unsteady. "One minute we were all around the girl, and the next she'd stepped out ahead of us and we were being shot at. We all grabbed for her before taking cover, but somehow she just … slid out of our grips. I swear I don't know what could have happened!"

"Whatever it was, don't let it happen again," Tor ordered, not about to waste time debating what was and wasn't possible. Could it have been the girl's luck that let her be in just the right position to stop the first attack? If she'd been pulled back she wouldn't have been in that position, so it hadn't proved possible to pull her back. No, Tor didn't want to think about things like that, but no matter the reason for the girl's being risked, he still refused to let something like that happen again.

"Nice shooting, Chayara," Tor said once he'd voice-coded a message to the girl alone. "You did a good job, but shooting isn't the reason you're with us. I want you to stay behind your guards from now on and let them do whatever is necessary to keep all of you safe."

"You're wasting time and effort keeping me guarded, Captain Rego," the girl responded, a distant bitterness to the words. "My luck won't let me be killed, and you should know that. I may be a failure at everything else in life, but even I can pull a trigger and hit a target the size of a man or woman. The rest of you need to be careful, but I don't."

"That's a pretty theory, but I hope you'll excuse me if I don't buy it," Tor growled, close to appalled by such a deadly outlook. "Just because your luck has kept you alive until now doesn't mean you can't be hurt or killed. You get yourself back to your guards and stay behind them, or once this is all over you'll wish you'd been killed. Do you understand me?"

"Sure I do, Captain," the girl responded, even more bitterness in her voice now. "If I'm hurt or killed you'll have to tell my uncle about it, and you really don't want to do that. Well, I'm recording our conversation, so if you turn out to be right you'll be able to prove that I disobeyed your orders. Now you can relax. Off."

Her last word cut the connection, leaving Tor ready to ream out dead air. He didn't know what was wrong with the girl, but he also didn't have the time now to find out. If they all lived through the invasion, though…

Tor doubled the girl's guard before continuing on into the building, and it was a good thing he did. The next attack was three guardsmen strong, and the circle around the girl was among the first to be shot at. No one was killed, not when the guards were using solid projectiles in their guns, but all those members of the group who were hit were knocked down. Even if nothing like ribs or arm or leg bones happened to be broken, the ones hit would be badly bruised.

Lanni came out of cover to throw a shock grenade into the area where the three guardsmen had attacked from, and as soon as the grenade went off the assault group was able to continue on. The three guards had been stunned by the explosion, and removing their helmets let some of Tor's people stun the three more thoroughly. The fewer dead bodies their attack produced the better off they would be, Falk had said, so when they had the choice they stunned rather than killed. The next attack by two guards didn't give them the choice, but the assault group still moved on.

And then they turned the last corner to find the control area right ahead of them. The sketch of the facility that Falk had gotten somewhere had been fairly accurate, and there weren't even any guards standing in front of the security door. The entire wall, including that door, was made of reonate, a clear material that let you see into an area you couldn't force your way into with anything less than a nuclear explosion. Everyone in sight in the area seemed to be unconscious, which meant that even if one of Falk's silent supporters wanted to let them in it was no longer possible.

"Now what?" Lanni asked as they all stood and stared at the wall and door. "If we can't get in there we've just been wasting our time."

"Getting through that door shouldn't be too hard," Tor heard the girl Chayara say before he was forced to admit that he didn't know what they would do now. "That lock has to have the usual fail-safe, so all we have to do is use it."

And with that the girl stepped over to the lock's keypad, hit the clear button, inputted five zeroes and a five, then hit the clear button again. There was a loud click, and then the airlock-type door went to full open.

"How did you do that?" Lanni demanded of the girl, pure delight in her tone. "I've never even heard about fail-safe codes."

"It's one of the best kept secrets the lock makers have," the girl answered, her own voice as dismissive as it had been earlier. "Learning locks and what can and can't be done with them has been my hobby for years, but it actually took me a month and a half to work out this particular fail-safe. Of course, I had a set of specifications to work from, which made finding the answer that much easier."

"Sure, using the specs was the next thing to cheating," Lanni said, her tone full of sarcasm. "If I'd worked on the problem myself, with or without the specs, I could have solved the code like in … never. I knew I liked you, Chayara, I just never knew how much."

Lanni was chuckling by now, but Tor noticed that the girl didn't join Lanni's amusement. But his people were pouring into the control area, so Tor voice-coded a connection to Lanni while he waited to bring up the rear.

"Lanni, have the girl close the door again once we're all inside, and then stick with her," he said. "Try to make sure she doesn't do anything reckless while the rest of us are destroying guard ships."

"Will do, Tor," Lanni acknowledged, but she sounded as if she wanted to say something else entirely. Whatever it was, she'd undoubtedly realized that this wasn't the time.

Once inside the control area, Tor had the unconscious workers moved to a small break room with three guards standing over them. Some of Tor's people had been inspecting the equipment while the unconscious bodies were cleared away, and then those people began to hand out orders and explanations. They were the ones who were the experts in weapons technology, so Tor simply stepped aside and let them do their job. It wasn't long before every board in the room had someone sitting in front of it, and after a moment Romman, the leader of the experts, turned to Tor.

"We're all set, Captain," Romman said, her voice sounding more excited than was usual with her. "We can open fire at any time."

"Then make the time right now," Tor answered. "We only have a little more than an hour to prepare the way for our fleet, so let's not waste any of those minutes."

"Right you are, Captain," Romman acknowledged, then she sat down at her own board. "Programming in the first firing sequence right now… All sectors commence firing."

Tor heard nothing, of course, but the sections of wall above the equipment had a wrap-around view of ship deployment. Tor had thought the view was a painting of some kind, but when one ship after another of the hundreds shown began to explode and disappear thanks to the giant orbital guns, Tor realized he was looking at a screen. Dozens of ships went up like the sitting ducks they were, and then the surviving ships began to move.

"Programming in the second firing sequence," Romman said, her voice now filled with satisfaction. "All sectors commence firing."

More dozens of ships disappeared from the display, and Tor might have been upset by the extreme loss of life except for the fact that everyone aboard those ships was a volunteer and a staunch supporter of their repressive government. No man or woman who wasn't provably loyal had a chance at being part of the crew of a guard ship, a job that had become one of the most sought-after sinecures. All you had to do aboard a guard ship circling Utopia was sit around and relax, and the pay vouchers just kept coming in and piling up. That was probably why the vast majority of the ships hadn't yet moved; their crews were too busy taking it easy.

Less than half the original number of ships was left when Tor heard a sound like a balloon popping. He turned to see what had caused the sound, and just stood staring at the insides of one of the instrument banks that were now all outsides. A small column of smoke rose from one part of the insides sitting on the floor, and the helmeted figure standing second closest to the mess half turned in his direction.

"Chayara thought it might be a good idea to take all that apart," Lanni said, the words faint and the least bit unsteady. "Our helmets keep anyone from gassing us, she said, but there was a good chance someone had installed a different kind of fail-safe. Looks like she was right."

To say the least. Tor examined the place the exploded charge had come from, seeing what looked just like a very large bomb. If the primer charge hadn't been removed in time, there would have been nothing left of him and his people but smears on what was left of the walls and instruments. The figure standing closest to the mess was the girl, of course, and she stood staring at him with her arms crossed. She didn't say a word and her face was hidden by her helmet, but if she wasn't staring at him defiantly then Tor had never seen the gesture. Anger flared briefly in Tor's mind, anger that had to be swallowed down, but Tor didn't like the taste. As soon as that invasion was over…

As soon as that invasion was over, Tor intended to have a long talk with the girl. He would start out by getting them both out of their protective gear once they found someplace private, then he would put her over his knee again. Taking down her pants and underwear would start his enjoyment, and then he would have a nice, round seat to take his anger out on. She would struggle, of course, and maybe even yell and call him nasty names, but the first swat of his hand would change the tone of the yelling.

Tor felt a lot of pleasure as he pictured himself smacking that arrogant backside over and over until the girl was howling and her seat was a bright red. Even if his hand started to hurt from giving her the spanking, he would still keep it up until she garbled out some kind of apology between the howls. After that he would give her only a few more smacks, possibly ten or a dozen, and then he would force her back to her feet and make her tell him what the trouble was. If she refused to answer she would find herself on her way back across his knees, and she'd have to take another ten or a dozen smacks before he'd be willing to listen again.

Yes, Tor thought as he turned back to the wall array and its picture of exploding ships. Since we owe her our lives in more than one way, I'll do anything I have to in order to find out what's troubling her. But I won't comfort her afterward, I won't… I won't…!