Recommended listening:
Old Gray Brown Coat. A few suitable lyrics changes made this one of the most popular soldiers’ songs of the Independent Spinward Republic, and it’s a very good statement of Captain Tamrin’s character.
Glowworm-class Transport Tranquility, passing through the Great Barrier, Sector X-5
January 17, 3400,
0830 Hours, Eavesdown Mean Time
John's mind was reeling. Last night, it had seemed so simple: catch the mole, find the hidden transmitter, disappear into the Badlands, sell the goods. They'd shuffle a few bits of the exterior to change their look and the whole mess would be behind them. The job would be done, they'd get their money, and they could go on. Then Lakatos' "transmitter" had turned out to be a bunch of irrelevant junk. Sammie was still going over the electronics he'd found in there, but she couldn't find anything that looked like a hyperwave broadcast unit, even a tiny one.
The captain hadn't been able to sleep worth a damn, stirring his troubles over in his head.
Why can’t things go smooth for a change? Everything he’d expected to happen for the past couple weeks hadn’t. Were his passengers spies or honest men? Would he be able to unload the cargo? Even if they were honest, even if he did make the sale, he could be tagged, tagged firm enough to make avoiding the Techies impossible.
It was almost enough to make a man turn to Samantha’s moonshine, but he wasn’t quite
that desperate, and he’d needed a clear head in the morning. Now the morning had come, and he hunted up Olivia. He led her aside into the infirmary and closed the door, then sat down on tabletop. For a long minute he just stared into space; then Livvy interrupted his train of thought.
“Sir, that bulletin might just’ve been a coincidence…”
“Can’t be sure, though.”
“Don’t matter now; they can’t catch us until we get to the Stairway in any case…” She smiled, as much as she ever did. “… and even there, we’ll dodge them.”
“For this run.”
“Got to take them one at a time.”
![Image](http://img837.imageshack.us/img837/2469/fireflysketchmalzoe0204.jpg)
“Reckon I was too quick to slug that techie boy?”
She blinked. “…Reckon you were, sir. Going to be hard to explain that one.”
“Yeah.”
“You had your reasons.” Her tone carried the unspoken
I trust you better than words could. Captain Tamrin rubbed his forehead for a second, then nodded. “Livvy, reckon I’d better stay away from the boy for the rest of the trip.”
“Shouldn’t be too hard. After that, I think
he’s going to stay away from
you.”
He shrugged. “If he’s out of my hair till day after tomorrow, suits me fine. Gav’s on the bridge, right?”
“You going to try to raise Nazdreg?”
“If we can get a ‘wave through.” That could be tricky.
Tranquility’s transmitter wasn’t what it used to be. Hyperwave conditions in the Badlands were pure garbage, especially in the Barrier. The shoals on the coreward Umerian border were among the roughest patches of shoals in known space; they made conditions in other shoal sectors like the Outback seem tame by comparison. Even on a tight beam at maximum power, broadcasting straight down the whisker lane that led to Nguyen’s World, John had no idea whether they’d be able to get through a signal, even if they tapped it out in Morse with big damn square pulses.
But Nazdreg dealt with smugglers a lot; he had pretty good equipment, on bands that avoided most of the static. It was worth a try.
He rounded up Sammie and had her check out the transmitter. That took them down to the engine room to look at the power leads. She pulled the maintenance cover off the distribution banks and hunted through an ocean of cryptic penciled labels. When she found what she was looking for, she clucked her tongue. “I’m not sure how much longer this Kimmerling will hold out, Cap’n.” She pointed to the clear cover over the unit. “See the black near the base? That’s coming straight off the disperser. Sooner or later the emission coating wears off and it’ll short.”
“What happens then?”
“Well, I
think I’ve got the circuit breakers back together; it should be OK. Should. We really ought to replace it, though.”
That was a song he’d heard many times before, but while he often didn’t do what Sammie wanted, he wasn’t fool enough to ignore her. “You figure this is more important than the pinch coil?”
She looked troubled. “I don’t know.” She looked at the switching unit, then sighed. “If this breaks we
probably just lose hyperwave, but we might lose power. Pinch coil goes, we’re in the dark for sure... you sure we can’t replace both, cap’n?”
“Not saying yes, not saying no, Sammie. But pick one, just in case.”
“To get on Praha?”
“If we can.”
She bit her lip. “Probably has to be the Kimmerling, then. But if we can, reckon we oughta look the new coils coming out of Tianguo; those last
forever.”
“All right, the Kimmerling it is. No promises, but I think we can cover it. Now, how’s the rest of the system?”
“It’ll run at point eight five and stay there. No promises about whether they’ll hear the old girl, but at least she’ll be talkin’.” She patted the distribution bank, then started replacing the cover.
John turned and headed back to the bridge. Gav lit up the transmitter and they tapped out the message, hoping it would get through. If not... well, they’d just have to keep sending. Nazdreg wasn’t a guy you wanted to drop in on unannounced.
0930 Hours
Konrad rolled out of bed groaning when the knock on the door came. His head ached; his jaw made the rest of his head feel like nothing.
I’m lucky that maniac didn’t break it; he’s got a punch like a power hammer. Whoever was knocking waited- probably not the crew, then. He shouted “One moment!” and tried to will his mind to wakefulness while grabbing a pair of pants and yanking them up over the shorts he’d slept in.
That didn’t take long, and it made him feel more confident as he approached the door. He slid it open; the preacher greeted him. “Good morning. I brought down some breakfast for you; figured you might not want to come up to the galley, considering.”
The doctor motioned his guest to take a seat in the chair by the passenger room’s desk, then sat down on the bed. “Thank you, ah, reverend.”
The old man smiled warmly. “Oh, I’m not quite so much the preacher as some might think, young man. More... monastic.”
“So, you’d prefer not to be called ‘reverend’ then? I mean, I’m not quite sure I know what to...”
“Why don’t you just call me Andre?”
Konrad felt like his mental balance was coming back to him. The world seemed more in focus than it had a few minutes earlier; the- priest? monk?- had a strong, reassuring presence. “Well, in that case feel free to call me Konrad.”
“Thanks. I like to stay on friendly terms with those I travel with. Makes things easier.”
“Ha. Wish I had the knack for it myself.”
“It’s not as hard as it seems.” Andre rubbed his chin. “If I can ask, what made you pick this ship?”
“Well, for one it’s headed near where I’m going. For another it looked... disreputable.”
He’d meant that to be cryptic, but Glazer seemed to get the unspoken hint. “Since that was what you were looking for, I can see you’re not without critical judgement. Did you happen to look at the name?”
“What,
Tranquility? That has to be a joke...”
“I believe it’s not.”
“How so?”
“Well, my boy, if you want to get the lay of the land here, it might be what you lack isn’t critical judgement. Might be it’s history.”
Fifteen minutes later, he was seated on the bed, tapping his way through links on the encyclopedia on his minicomp. He ran a quick search for “tranquility” in the Recent History section; the first search result was video footage. The holographic display went live, with a soft female voice narrating.
“The Battle of Tranquility Valley was among the most devastating and decisive ground actions fought during the Spinward Revolt. Located on Hera, the valley was considered a key position by both sides, as it was the only viable ground approach to the rebels’ space defense batteries in the Mountains of Dawn. Thus, when the suppression campaign turned its attention to Hera, the valley was bitterly fought over.
“The rebels, with a force of sixteen infantry and two armored divisions, held the valley against Ground Security Force assault troops for almost two months, until superior numbers and a brilliant deep-flanking strategy by Lieutenant Marshal Richard Wil-”
He glanced up as a shadow fell across the display. The woman officer from last night... Olivia? Her face was drawn tight as she interrupted him. “What does it say under ‘bloodbath’?”
He switched off the book and looked up. He hadn’t heard her come in.
“I was just trying to-” she cut him off.
“We’re not in there. We’re not generals or diplomats. We didn’t turn the tide of glorious history or whatever that thing’s supposed to spew.” Words flashed into his head:
History is programmed by the winners. He didn’t say it, not with this quite frightening woman standing right in front of him. Not when she was already carrying on:
“Nearly four hundred thousand people lay dead on that field at war’s end, about three fifths of them ours. Can you imagine the smell? Can you imagine piling up the bodies of soldiers- of friends- to build a wall ‘cause you got no cover? Blood just kept pouring out, you’d slip in it half the time, find out bloodbath ain’t just a figure of speech.” Her eyes were distant, focused on something a thousand kilometers away.
He was starting to get frightened now. “Captain Tamrin, he... he was there with you...?”
She sat down at the chair by the desk. “He was my commanding officer. In charge of fifty men. Five days in, there were so many officers dead he was in charge of two thousand. Kept us together, kept us fighting, kept us... kept us sane. By the time the fighting was over, he had maybe four hundred still in one piece.”
“That must have been horrible.”
“That was just the start. The
fighting was over. But you see... they left us in there. Wounded, sick, those as weren’t either as near to mad as could still walk and talk. Both sides, the Techies and our own “Republic” left us there while they “negotiated the peace.” For
a week. And we... we just kept dying. They finally sent in medships; he had about two hundred left. Of the old vets, his original company, just me...
“Why are you telling-”
“Forgiveness, trust... those are things he left back there. What he has now is the ship, the ship and us on it. He got confused, thought you were a threat to the ship last night, acted on it. But I think he’ll try to do right by you from now on.”
“That’s good to hear, ma’am... it... I can’t imagine, but-”
“Yes?” She wasn’t looking quite so distant now.
“If that battle was so horrible, why’d he name the ship after it?”
She paused, thinking that over. “Once you’ve been in Tranquility, you never leave. You just learn to live there.” Then she left, sliding the door shut behind her.
Konrad shuddered. That explained a lot about last night- an old veteran of the rebellion, half cracked up and still flying.
Why hasn’t he gone for treatment? There are ways to handle this kind of thing... He wasn’t sure what to make of it.
January 18,
1050 Hours
John was cleaning his gun when Gav called him up to the bridge. Livvy and Brecht were already there.
“We’re being hailed. It’s Nazdreg.” The range was close; he wasn’t surprised to see a face come up. Nazdreg was a ferociously scarred ork with beady little red ocular implants.
“I talkin’ to John Tamrin?”
“Hello, Nazdreg. Long time”
“Hear you got sumfin’ good for me.”
“Best stills you’ve ever seen, make liquor from anything, three boxes, two hundred Terran credits for the lot. In coin.” The credit was a trade currency supported by the UN; it was one hell of a lot more valuable than the Umerian starbuck, and respected nearly anywhere that did business at all.
“Hmph.” The ork snorted. “Not even sure I got dat much paper. You can do better than dat.”
“Paper’s no good to us. Coin. Cargo’s worth it.”
“I might maybe scrounge up... five hundred.”
“I might maybe fly on to Palatine.”
Now Nazdreg grimaced. “All right. You got da good stuff, keep da boyz happy. But I not forget this, you trying to jack up da rates. I meet you at high noon. One of da Oddboyz give you da coordinates.”
John nodded. “See you in the world.” He cut the transmission and talked, more to himself than anyone else.
“Tough bastard, that one. Landed on that rock with about a dozen of his boys, now he owns a damn army- his own little city, more or less.”
Livvy, ever the tactician, made the smart guess. “It’s a trap?”
“Bet on it. He’s gonna kill us, not a doubt.”
Brecht, again, showed that he knew to look for some things even if he was oblivious to most. “He did give in awful easy.”
“Yeah. I’m sure of it. Ork bosses don’t back down ‘less they’ve got a plan to get back at you. They’d lose face.”
Gav cocked an eyebrow. “So, what, we fly on?”
He thought about that for a minute. It was tempting- walking into that kind of a trap was a hell of a risk. And yet, and yet...
Damned if he would keep running scared forever, one complication after another, always hoping that just this once things would break his way. The cruiser, Fox cutting him off, this mess with his passengers, Nazdreg... things weren’t going to go smooth for him on this run, no matter how long he kept waiting. If he was going to get any luck for his crew, he’d have to make it.
“No. We do not. We’re gonna finish this. There’s obstacles in our path, yeah, but we’re gonna deal with them. One by one.” Now he just had to figure out how...