Starship: Mercenary (Starship, Book 3) Read online

  Table of Contents

  Praise

  ALSO AVAILABLE BY MIKE RESNICK

  Title Page

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Chapter 33

  APPENDIXES

  Appendix One - THE ORIGIN OF THE BIRTHRIGHT UNIVERSE

  Appendix Two - THE LAYOUT OF THE BIRTHRIGHT UNIVERSE

  Appendix Three - CHRONOLOGY OF THE BIRTHRIGHT UNIVERSE

  Appendix Four - SINGAPORE STATION A Short Infrastructure History

  Appendix Five - DUKE’S PLACE CASINO SCHEMATIC

  Appendix Six - PIRATE QUEENS

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Praise for Starship: Mutiny

  “Just the kind of easygoing and unabashedly old-school space opera romp for which we’ve come to know and love [Mike Resnick] . . . whip-smart, fast-paced pure entertainment . . . simply pure escapism, impossible to resist by anyone who still remembers that good old-fashioned sense of wonder.”

  —SF Reviews

  “Resnick’s writing is effortless, full of snappy dialogue and a fast-moving plot. . . . This is high-quality work. . . . There’s a veneer of quality and above all believability that makes this heads above many space operas. . . . It’s damn good fun.”

  —SFCrowsnest

  Praise for Starship: Pirate

  “A memorable ride with a handful of Resnick’s trademark oddball characters, a shipload of faster-than-light buccaneers, and a pirate queen to die for, all lightly seasoned by Charles Dickens. A rollicking good time.”

  —Jack McDevitt

  Award-winning author

  of Odyssey and Outbound

  “Mike Resnick is one of the finest writers the science fiction field has ever produced, and Starship: Pirate is one of his very best works. A wonderful book.”

  —Robert J. Sawyer

  Hugo Award-winning

  author of Hominids

  ALSO AVAILABLE BY MIKE RESNICK

  IVORY

  NEW DREAMS FOR OLD

  STARSHIP: MUTINY

  BOOK ONE

  STARSHIP: PIRATE

  BOOK TWO

  Published 2007 by Pyr®, an imprint of Prometheus Books

  Starship: Mercenary. Book Three. Copyright © 2007 by Mike Resnick. “Singapore Station: A Short Infrastructure History” and Duke’s Place Casino Schematic by Deborah Oakes. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, digital, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, or conveyed via the Internet or a Web site without prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Inquiries should be addressed to

  Pyr

  59 John Glenn Drive

  Amherst, New York 14228-2119

  VOICE: 716-691-0133, ext. 210

  FAX: 716-691-0137

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  11 10 09 08 07 5 4 3 2 1

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Resnick, Michael D.

  Starship—mercenary : book three / by Mike Resnick.

  p. cm.

  ISBN: 978-1-59102-599-3

  1. Space ships—Fiction. 2. Mercenary—Fiction. I. Title.

  PS3568.E698S737 2006 813’.54—dc22 2006027555 Printed in the United States on acid-free paper

  To Carol, as always

  And to absent friends:

  Bob Bloch

  Jacques Chambon

  Jack Chalker

  Hal Clement

  George Alec Effinger

  Kelly Freas

  Jack C. Haldeman

  Virginia Kidd

  George Laskowski

  Bea Mahaffey

  Mary Martin

  Bruce Pelz

  E. Hoffman Price

  Hank Reinhardt

  Darrell C. Richardson

  John F. Roy

  Julius Schwartz

  Bob Sheckley

  Charles Sheffield

  Ross H. Spencer

  Lou Tabakow

  Bob Tucker

  James White

  Jack Williamson

  Ed Wood

  1

  “David,” said the disembodied voice on the Theodore Roosevelt’s communication system, “I don’t know where the hell you’re hiding, but we have to talk. You show up in my office in five minutes or the next thing this ship fires on is going to be you.”

  “Five’ll get you ten the Captain has to go hunting for him,” said a crew member.

  “I’ll take that bet, ten credits to five,” said the tall, redheaded Third Officer. “If there’s one person aboard this ship that you don’t want mad at you—besides me, that is—it’s the Captain.” Suddenly she looked amused. “Besides,” she added, “how the hell many places can you hide on this ship?”

  “More than you think, or the Captain wouldn’t have threatened him.”

  “The Captain’s in a bad mood,” said the Third Officer. “Wouldn’t you be?”

  Suddenly a bulkhead panel slid open, and an odd-looking creature of vaguely human proportions, but dressed like a Victorian dandy, stepped out into the corridor. His eyes were set at the sides of his elongated head, his large triangular ears were capable of independent movement, his mouth was absolutely circular and had no lips at all, and his neck was long and incredibly flexible. His torso was broad and half again as long as a man’s, and his short, stubby legs had an extra joint in them. His skin may have possessed a greenish tint, but his bearing and manner were properly upper-class British at all times.

  “I wish you wouldn’t talk about me as if I wasn’t here,” he said.

  “Right,” said the Third Officer with a laugh. “You just wish you weren’t here.”

  “My dear Olivia . . .” he began in hurt tones.

  “Call me Val,” she replied.

  “A mere convenience for the crew,” he said with a shrug. “To me you will always be Olivia Twist.”

  “I hate that name,” she said ominously. “You’d do well to fall in love with some other human author.”

  “Other than the immortal Charles?” he said with almost-genuine horror. “There are no other authors. Just scribblers and dabblers.”

  “David,” said the voice on the intercom. “You have three minutes to find out whether I’m kidding or not.” Pause. Then, ominously: “You want a hint?”

  “I really must go,” said the alien apologetically.

  As he scuttled away, Val held out her hand to the crewman. “Pay up. It serves you right for betting against the Captain.”

  The elegantly dressed alien made his way to an airlift, ascended two levels, got off, and finally reached the Captain’s office.

  “My dear Steerforth!” he said with false enthusiasm. “That was beautifully hand
led! Just beautifully! I can’t tell you how proud I am of you!”

  “Shut up,” said Wilson Cole. “And stop calling me Steerforth.”

  “But that’s your name!” protested the alien. “I am David Copperfield and you are my old school chum, Steerforth.”

  “You can call me Captain, Wilson, or Cole once we’re on speaking terms again. I’ll continue calling you David, since you haven’t seen fit to give me your real name.” Cole stared at the alien. “I don’t think you can possibly imagine how mad I am at you.”

  “But we won!” said David Copperfield. “There were five ships and you destroyed them all!”

  “There were supposed to be two class-H ships!” snapped Cole. “We had to fight off four class-Ks and a class-M!”

  “For which we were well paid,” the alien pointed out.

  “What we were paid will barely replace the shuttle we lost and repair the damages we sustained,” said Cole. “David, I explained it to you after the last debacle: there’s more to this business than getting the biggest contract.”

  “That’s your end of the business,” said Copperfield defensively. “My job is handling the financial arrangements. I get the contracts, you fight the battles.”

  “And if they offered you ten times as much to take on a dreadnought, or face Admiral Garcia’s flagship, would you take it?”

  “Certainly not,” said Copperfield. “The Teddy R can’t beat a dreadnought.”

  “The Teddy R was goddamned lucky to come out of this morning’s skirmish in one piece,” said Cole.

  “My dear Steerforth, if you want to be a mercenary, you must expect to fight in some pitched battles. It goes with the job.”

  “I don’t think I’m getting through to you at all,” said Cole. “You’re our business agent. You are supposed to get us assignments we can handle. We’re lucky any of us are alive right now.”

  “But you are alive,” protested Copperfield. “So clearly it was a good bargain. Two million Maria Theresa dollars for guarding Barios II against potential attack during the Jewelers’ Exhibition.”

  “Damn it, David, there was nothing potential about that attack!” growled Cole. “They knew we were there, they knew what armaments we had, they knew what we were and weren’t capable of doing. If Val and Four Eyes hadn’t done things nobody’s supposed to do with our shuttlecrafts, we’d be orbiting the goddamned planet in a billion pieces right now.”

  “I could get you an assignment protecting small schoolchildren from playground bullies,” offered the dapper alien, “but it wouldn’t pay your expenses.”

  “Shut up,” said Cole.

  David Copperfield fell silent.

  “We’re going to have to make a few changes in how we operate,” continued Cole.

  “You mean the ship?”

  “I mean you and me. I can’t let you keep endangering us the way you’ve been doing.”

  “But you have been victorious!” protested Copperfield. “So I am not endangering you.”

  “We’re operating with half the crew this ship needs, we can’t go into the Republic for repairs or supplies, we still don’t have a doctor on board . . .”

  “And you have overcome every one of those obstacles,” noted Copperfield. “I don’t understand why you are so upset.”

  “Then why were you hiding inside a bulkhead?” demanded Cole.

  Copperfield paused, considering his answer. “It was cozy?”

  A burst of feminine laughter echoed through the small office, and a moment later the holographic image of Sharon Blacksmith appeared, hovering over Cole’s desk.

  “That’s a good one, David!” she said, still laughing. “I hope you don’t mind if I play it for the entire crew. If you ever get tired of being . . . well, whatever it is you’re being, you can always get work as a comedian.”

  “You were listening?” asked Copperfield.

  “I’m the Chief of Security,” answered Sharon. “Of course I was listening. There is an excellent chance that our glorious leader is going to strangle you before you leave his office, and such an action really requires a witness.”

  “Strangle me?” scoffed Copperfield. “We’ve been friends since we were in boarding school together.”

  “David, I really think you’re losing it,” said Sharon. “The two of you never met until last year. You are not old school chums. You are not even a human being, and your real name isn’t David Copperfield. You are—or at least you were—the biggest fence on the Inner Frontier. Now, I know that’s unpleasant, but those are the facts.”

  “Facts are the enemy of truth!” snapped Copperfield. “Do you think I’d have shown Steerforth how to avoid a lifetime of piracy if we hadn’t been lifelong friends? Do you think I’d have enticed the Hammerhead Shark to my world if I weren’t doing a favor for a classmate? Do you think I’d have turned my back on everything I’d been and come away with you if we didn’t share a special bond?”

  Cole and Sharon exchanged looks. “I’ll take it from here,” he said, and her image vanished. “David, you enticed the Shark to Riverwind because you didn’t have any choice, and you came away with me because half a dozen different pirates were all out for your head.”

  “Well, that too,” admitted Copperfield.

  “Do you want me to return you to Riverwind?”

  “No, certainly not. They might still be looking for me there.”

  “Would you like me to set you down on the next colony world we come to?”

  “No.”

  “Fine. But if you’re staying aboard the Teddy R, we’re going to need some new ground rules.”

  “Surely you don’t want to go back to piracy,” said Copperfield.

  “No,” replied Cole. “We’re a military ship and a military crew. We were uniquely unfit to be pirates. I’m surprised we lasted almost a whole year at it.” He paused. “We can’t go back to the Republic. There’s still a price on my head, and a huge reward for the capture or destruction of the Teddy R, so we’ll practice our military trade here on the Frontier, as mercenaries.”

  “Which is precisely what I suggested to you two months ago,” said Copperfield.

  “I know, and it was a good suggestion—but we’d like to live long enough to enjoy what we earn. Twice in a row now you’ve chosen the best price without considering what we had to do to earn it. The Teddy R is not a dreadnought. It’s a century-old ship that should have been decommissioned seventy-five years ago, except that the Republic kept getting into one war after another. There probably aren’t a thousand ships in the Republic’s fleet of almost two million that can’t outrun and outgun us. One-on-one we can probably take just about any independent ship on the Inner Frontier—but you keep putting us in situations that aren’t one-on-one. We’ve been lucky, but we can’t stay lucky. So from now on, you bring every offer to me, and I will decide whether or not we accept it.”

  “But that hurts my credibility, to say nothing of my bargaining position.”

  “It doesn’t hurt it as much as a laser blast, or a pulse ray, or slow torture, all of which almost certainly await you if you keep putting us into these situations.”

  “How did you get to be the most decorated officer in the fleet with that attitude?” said Copperfield bitterly.

  “He is the most decorated officer out of the fleet,” said Sharon’s disembodied voice, “to say nothing of its most-wanted criminal. We’re all proud of him, even if he’s the reason none of us can ever go home again.”

  “You shut up too,” said Cole. He turned back to Copperfield. “That’s it, David. You will bring every offer to me for my approval—and I have to know more than what they’re paying; I have to know everything that might happen, starting with why someone is paying enough for us to consider accepting the job in the first place. If you can’t get the information I need, then either I or one of my officers will speak directly to the supplicant to determine the full range of possible dangers we might face.”

  “That emasculates my position,
” protested Copperfield.

  “Oh, I like that word,” said Sharon.

  “It makes me little more than an errand boy,” continued the alien.

  “We tried it your way, and we’re luckier to be alive than I think you’ll ever realize,” said Cole. “Now we do it my way.”

  “I don’t know if I can.”

  “It’s your decision. We can always use another gunnery sergeant.”

  “But I’ll give it a try,” said Copperfield hastily.

  “All right,” said Cole. “You’ll still be our point man, you’ll still make the contacts. The Republic’s still got huge rewards posted for me, Four Eyes, and Sharon, and there’s a couple of dozen worlds that want Val dead or alive—and those two men and the alien we picked up on Cyrano all have prices on their heads. You’re about the only one who can leave the ship with a reasonable chance of returning unappre hended. So tell Christine or whoever’s working the bridge where you want to go next, and we’ll take you there—but you no longer have the authority to commit us to a mission. Is that clear?”

  “Yes, Steerforth.” Pause. “I mean, yes, Wilson.”

  “All right. We’re done. You can leave.” The alien turned and walked to the door. “And David?”

  “Yes, Steerforth?”

  “The next time you try hiding from me inside a bulkhead, I’m going to have the panel fused into place.”

  “You knew?” asked Copperfield, surprised.

  “The man has spies everywhere,” said Sharon’s voice. “It’s positively fiendish.”

  Copperfield left without another word.

  “So, you want to meet me in the mess hall for coffee?” asked Sharon, her image appearing again.

  “Not yet,” said Cole. “Send Four Eyes to me. I need a damage report.”

  “What about Christine and Val?” asked Sharon. “After all, they are your Second and Third Officers.”