“Why don’t you ever attack Syndicate ships?” an aggrieved businessman wailed.
“Why do you think I do not?” Goodheart returned. “They are very profitable game, I assure you. Your valuables, please.”
Every few days, now, word came of another raid by a ship that grappled and cut through the side of a merchantman, and sometimes even a destroyer, disgorging a horde of shrilling Khalians whose captain wore a brightly colored necktie, each one more garish than the last. His crew cut down anybody who resisted, and weren’t terribly picky about innocent bystanders. Their last loot was always the men’s neckties.
But they always left at least a few alive and set them adrift in a lifeboat—almost as though the pirate was taunting Sales, making sure he knew that Goodheart was still striking with impunity.
Either that, or Goodheart was very much aware of the value of publicity.
But one route had more ambushes than any other—the hyperspace curve between Khalia and Target. There was no way of telling where the attack would occur, within the twelve-light-year approach to Khalia, so Sales couldn’t post sentry ships to cover every AU of it. But he could call for volunteers, order civilian suits for them, and start taking round trips on a ship that went from Khalia to Target and back. A very special ship. It looked ordinary, of course, like any other passenger ship—but Sales had ordered some very unique modifications.
The section of hull fell inward, and the Khalians leaped in among the passengers, guns leveled and ready.
“So, ladies and gentlemen.” Captain Goodheart shouldered his way in among his crewmen. “I am delighted to be your guest, no matter how brief my stay. Come, come! Have you no greater hospitality than that? Will you give no refreshment, no entertainment? Ah, but you must offer me something! Your wallets and jewelry, as a beginning.” He grinned down at the big, beefy man near him. “Come, will you not rise to greet your . . .” Then his eyes widened as he recognized the face he had seen in each of several news articles, that he remembered seeing last above this same civilian ensemble. “Sales!”
“Now!” Sales roared, a gun appearing in his hand. “He knows!”
Laser bolts seared the air. Weasels shrieked—then humans screamed. The stench of burning fur and flesh rose—for each “civilian” had concealed a pistol beside him in the seat, and the Khalians among them were caught in a murderous crossfire.
But they were quick, those Weasels. Even as barrels leveled, they dodged aside. A few were caught by bolts aimed at others, but most skipped back, wounded and furious, to the hole in the side.
“Back!” Goodheart shrilled. “So you do not smite your own! Then fight, as your fathers did at Target!”
The pirates pulled back in a knot around their hatch—but grenades hurled from among the Terrans. Weasels shot into the crowd, but their beams scorched upholstery, though here and there a man or woman cried out. One bomb came whirling back toward the humans, but two others blew. Pirates keened, and one cried, “They have disabled the lock!”
“The outer lock only!” Goodheart cried. “Back, back inside, so that we may close the inner hatch!”
The pirates disappeared like water down a drain—but Sales leaped forward, pulling a crowbar from under his jacket, jamming it in the hatch, whistling in execrable Khalian, “I hear you, Goodheart!”
”Then hear your death!” The big Khalian burst out, and the hatch slammed aside, knocking Sales back against the lock wall. He recovered-to see Goodheart towering before him, eyes glaring, claws out. Before the humans could shoot, he had grappled Sales to him.
The big human stomped on the Khalian’s foot.
Goodheart shrilled in anger and ran his claws into Sales’s arm. Then he pulled back with a howl, a slash of red across his abdomen, as Sales shrilled, “I have a claw, too!” Blood dripped from the slender dagger he’d pulled from his sleeve.
Goodheart sprang, claws reaching for Sales’s throat. Sales stumbled and fell, but drove a fist into the pirate’s belly, shoved stiffened fingers into the central nerve plexus above it, and brought a fist up to drive the big Khalian back. Goodheart stumbled away—and a fuming sphere hurtled from the opened lock. Goodheart dove back through it and the door clashed shut as the human ship filled with tear gas.
Coughing and gagging, Sales scrabbled at the fallen section of hull. One of his fighters realized what he was doing and leaped to join him. Eyes streaming, they raised the steel plate by feel alone . . .
Then the ship rocked, and Sales knew Goodheart’s ship had kicked off from his. Too late, the tear gas streamed out into the vacuum of space—but the damage was done; his fighters rolled in the aisles, eyes streaming. He and his helper threw their weight against the plate, holding it back as vacuum tore at it, trying to ease it up level with the side of the ship . . .
Then the door to the bridge burst open, and a crewman in a spacesuit hopped in, picking his way among bodies, lugging a tool chest. He dropped it by the hole and yanked out a wad of metallic cloth, shaking out into a huge, ten-foot square. He draped it between the alloy circle and the hole in the hull, pressing the adhesive edges against the metal all around it, stamping it against the floor. “Let it go now, sir!”
Sales and the agent eased the metal circle against the bellying tarp. The spacesuited man yanked another out of the tool kit, unfolded it, and pressed it into place over the huge disk. Then he pulled out a small welder and began to bond the edges of the patch to the metal of the hull.
Air pressure began to return.
Sales turned, and felt fingers dabbing at his eyes. Blessed coolness flowed from them, and he blinked away the last of the tears, managing to see a mottled image of his soldiers, pulling themselves to their feet, as the navigator and captain went on among them, smearing an antidote balm on their eyes.
The ship shuddered.
Sales lurched down the aisle, careful to avoid bumping soldiers, into the control room, staring at the viewscreen.
The image of the Khalian ship was just beginning to glitter. An explosion rocked its tail; then it was gone.
“How many times did you hit him?” Sales grated.
“Only that last, sir,” the gunner answered. “His fire-control picked off all my other torpedoes. I got a couple of laser bums in, but I don’t know if they did more than scar his armor.”
The man in the spacesuit loomed in the door. “Mission accomplished, sir.”
Sales turned with a grin. “We kept him busy long enough, huh?”
“Yes, sir,” the man confirmed. “I bonded the telltale to his ship’s skin.”
Sales nodded and turned away. “Into hyperspace, Captain.”
“That confounded human!” Goodheart snarled. He winced as the medic lowered him down to the acceleration couch.
“Sir, you really should be in your own berth. . . .”
“This is my berth, Doctor! I must see how my ship fares, how she moves! What damage was there, Throb?”
“His cannon deeply scored us in two places, Captain, but did not pierce. We will need to replace those plates at home. And his final torpedo removed a control surface; we will need great care if we seek to maneuver in atmosphere. In all other respects, we are whole.”
“That, at least, is good fortune.” Goodheart lay back and let himself relax for a few moments. He had actually thought his end had come when he realized Sales had ripped him open—the pain had been almost unbearable, until his rage had hidden it. “That treacherous human,” he growled again. “To mask a war party as a passenger liner! To camouflage weapons turrets as control blisters! It was skillfully done, so elegantly done! A worthy adversary, worthy!”