Mission to Sector ZZ1219 Read online

  “But it’s right… Oh.” Sydney said, cutting a glance over his shoulder.

  “But Syd, it’s…” Clyde was protesting.

  Sydney reached over and punched him on the arm and shook his head when Clyde looked at him. He gave a head nod back toward Johnny and put what he hoped was a knowing look on his face.

  “I get it,” Clyde said, glancing quickly over his shoulder at the tall, lanky man who seemed so at ease in the null gravity as he floated slowly feet first toward the hatch at the end of the corridor.

  Stopping his journey with light pressure on the corridor wall, Johnny floated into one of the niche berths in the crew corridor and fastened one of the five restraining bungees across the opening.

  “I don’t suppose you can tell us where you’re going or what you’re doing, huh?” Sydney asked.

  “Sure, I can,” Johnny said.

  The two men in the cockpit exchanged another glance when the silence continued.

  “Uh… But you won’t?” It was obviously a question Sydney asked.

  “Correct,” replied Johnny. He slipped a tiny device from its hidden pocket in his tunic and checked it quickly before slipping it back into hiding.

  “Well… Uh… You know, you’re kinda famous in these parts.”

  “Don’t believe everything you hear,” Johnny said.

  Both men heard the humor in Johnny’s voice when he added, “Or read, see, or are otherwise informed.”

  “Yeah, but everyone knows what you did out on the Rim.” Both men turned to see Johnny’s reaction and response to Clyde’s comment. But he was in the niche and they could not see him. They did, however, hear his soft comment.

  “Everyone is usually wrong, you know. Or so I have found.”

  “Uh… Yeah…” Clyde said. The two men exchanged yet another glance and then quickly turned their attention to the controls of the cargo shuttle ship.

  There was silence for a while, and then Sydney said, “You asleep back there?”

  “Nope,” replied Johnny.

  “You’re not mad at us, or anything, are you? We… Uh… would not want you to be mad at us.”

  “More of that Everybody knows it stuff?” Johnny asked.

  Again, the humor was obvious in Johnny’s voice.

  “Well… Yeah… Sort of,” replied Sydney.

  “Don’t worry. I’m not mad at you. Or anything,” Johnny said.

  “You married? Or involved?” Sydney asked. He winked over at Clyde.

  Johnny heard Clyde’s subdued groan.

  “No. To both,” Johnny replied.

  “Want to be?”

  “You have someone in mind, I take it,” Johnny said.

  “Well, since you mentioned it, my sister has been looking for a husband. She would probably settle for a boyfriend.” Sydney grinned over at Clyde.

  “She’s actually not that bad looking. Not my type, of course, even if she was not my sister.”

  Clyde groaned again when an obviously angry, obviously female voice said quite menacingly, “Syd, what did I tell you I was going to do to you the next time I caught you trying to marry me off to some passing pilot?”

  “Wait a minute, Sis, I…Ow!” Sydney clapped one hand to the back of his head. “What is that?” he asked, pulling something from his hair.

  “A little gift from our good friends planetside. They did not have everything sealed properly. Stuff oozed and hardened. I got it all over me sealing things up. If it did not cost so much I’d turn us around and go back to have a little chat with our trading partners.”

  “Oh, Jeez!” Sydney said. He flicked the hardened wad of whatever it was to the vacuum recovery inlet.

  “Ow!” Sydney exclaimed again, as another hard ball of material hit him in the back of the head.

  Johnny had to admire the woman’s aim and power. The bits of material she picked from her jump suit were flicked expertly and accurately.

  “After I get changed, we’re going to have a much more detailed discussion about you trying to marry me off. But for the moment, you get right back on that communicator and tell whoever it was you were talking to that I’m not available.”

  “But, Sis, I…Ow!” Another bit of the hard material hit Sydney in the back of the head.

  “I was not talking to anyone on the communicator! I was talking to Johnny Oneshot back there!”

  “Don’t give me that, Syd. There’s no one back here. Much less Johnny Oneshot. I think he’s just a legend, anyway.” She had unfastened the jumpsuit and was about to take it off.

  Johnny made a quick sound. “A-hem.”

  She looked up at the sound. She always oriented herself with the seats in the cockpit when they were in null gravity or low gee acceleration. That meant the niche Johnny was in was over her head. “Why, I ought to…!” She fell silent and quickly began refastening the jumpsuit.

  “Who the hell are you?” she asked when she had her clothing adjusted.

  “Wilhelmina, I told you…Ow! Would you stop that? Ow!” Two more balls of hard material had hit Sydney, one after the other.

  “Willi, I mean! Willi, that’s Johnny Oneshot,” Sydney quickly said.

  She looked up at the face hanging a foot or so from hers. The head nodded.

  “You normally change your clothes right out in the passageway?” Johnny asked.

  “The lavatory is tiny. Sydney is my brother, not to mention he knows what I would do to him. Clyde would die of embarrassment if he saw me. Not to mention he also knows what I would do to him if he tried to look.”

  “I see,” Johnny replied.

  “Not in this lifetime you don’t,” came the quick response.

  Johnny smiled. “Bad choice of responses. You are a mess. I’ll turn my back and close my eyes if you want to go ahead and change.”

  “And why would I believe you would do that?”

  Willi saw a slight change in his eyes. “Because I said I would.”

  “Yeah…Well…I’ll go change in the lavatory.”

  “That’s all right. No need. I’ll go down to the cargo hold. You can call me back up when you’re done.”

  “No,” Willi said quickly. “Just…Just keep your eyes down that passageway.

  “Sydney, Clyde, painful deaths await you if I even think you’re turning around.”

  Reaching into one of the niches, Willi opened the locker built into the wall and pulled out another of the soft gray jumpsuits. She quickly changed, her eyes lifting often to Johnny. She noted that he had turned almost completely around in the niche, but had kept his head turned so she could see that he had to be looking where she had directed.

  “Okay,” she said when she was dressed again.

  Johnny smiled when he turned and saw Willi give a slight push with her foot to sail up to the cockpit and thump Sydney in the back of the head with her palm.

  “Ow!” Sydney said.

  “You know better than to call me Whi...” She cut a look back down the passageway. “You know better than to call me that.” She thumped him again, eliciting yet another ‘Ow!’ “And you also know better than to try to marry me off,” she added.

  “Well,” Clyde said, “At least he wasn’t trying to sell you, this time.”

  Clyde got a thump then, and Sydney another.

  “Don’t help me, huh?” Sydney told Clyde.

  “Why did I not know we had a passenger?” Willi asked them then.

  “Well, he’s not actually a passenger,” Sydney said, this time dodging the thump. “He’s sort of a supernumerary,” he added. “The Trinity Home contacted us while you were off-board and said he would be coming back with us.”

  “Supernumerary, huh?” Willi glanced down the passageway. “Okay. You should have used the private com-link to let me know.”

  Before Sydney could answer, Johnny did. From right beside Willi. She started slightly when he spoke. She had not had a single sensation of his approach.

  “They were told no communications about me. The incoming was a cod
ed burst transmission, encoded to sound like a routine communication from your parent ship.”

  “But...” protested Willi.

  “I’m sorry, but I really cannot say more,” Johnny told her, meeting her clear blue eyes with his own.

  Suddenly he seemed small, and she realized he had pushed off and was drifting back to the niche he had been in before. With a startled shake of her head she turned back to the cockpit and started to strap herself in the third seat. She reached over and thumped Sydney and Clyde both again.

  “What was that for?” Sydney asked, rubbing the back of his head, again.

  “Just because,” Willi said, glancing back down the passageway. Apparently, Johnny Oneshot was back in the niche, for she could not see him. “Man, he can move quick and soft!” she said mostly to herself.

  Johnny smiled in the niche. He had the comm device in his hand again. It had picked up her words and displayed them. He flipped it closed and concealed it once more. Fingers interlaced on his chest he let himself drift into a light sleep, restrained in the niche by one single bungee.

  When Willi drifted past a few minutes later, headed to the lavatory, she saw that only one restraint was up. When she very quietly started to fasten the others into place Johnny’s hand was suddenly gripping her wrist.

  His eyes were on hers, again only inches away. “I don’t like to be confined.”

  “If we have to maneuver…”

  “The alarm will sound. I will be braced before the maneuvers can take place.”

  “No one is that quick. At least, not waking from a sleep.”

  “I am,” Johnny said.

  Willi stared for a moment, and then just nodded. His grip had not been that tight to start with, and now it slipped away completely from her wrist. Willi reoriented herself from the position the contact had shifted her into and floated down the passageway again, toward the lavatory.

  As the hours turned into days, Willi had to admit, to herself anyway… she would never admit it to Johnny Oneshot, Clyde, or Sydney… that their non-passenger was no trouble at all. She actually tended to forget he was aboard. Except when he was in her sight, which was not often.

  Willi smiled suddenly, remembering the meal they had enjoyed the prior evening. It was another of Johnny Oneshot’s contributions. She still did not know what he had done to or with their regular rations to make the meal so good. They had good food aboard, it was a trader tradition, but he had made it especially…

  Suddenly she was frowning. Willi was not going to let herself be mesmerized by his cooking skills. Or null gravity skills. Or those blue eyes. Or… Willi shook her head and whispered, “Where is he now, anyway?”

  Still under very low g acceleration, headed on a rendezvous course with Trinity Home for cargo transfer, Willi floated toward the hatch opening into the cargo hold of the shuttle. Often as not she would find him doing isometric exercises there when he was not sleeping or doing whatever else it was that he did when he was not studying on the craft’s library computer.

  When she eased into the hold, silently closing and dogging the hatch, Willi looked around, hoping to catch sight of Johnny before he did her. She had yet to accomplish it. He was the only person she had ever met that could move as quickly and silently as she in null and low gravity.

  She could not keep the wry smile from her face when she saw the flash of grey shoot across the one sizable open space in the hold.

  Johnny waved at the young woman, knowing from past experience it would annoy her, as he leapt across the open space in the hold. He loved null gravity, but knew he had to keep up an intense regimen to stay in the shape he needed to stay in to be able to do the things he must do when in a gravity field.

  Fortunately, it was often fun. He ignored the thought intruding suddenly that it was more fun than normal when Willi joined him in this particular exercise.

  “Thought I’d get a few calisthenics in before we go to watch and watch in the Belt. Won’t have much chance after that,” Willi said, matching his trajectory perfectly as he sailed again across the open space.

  Willi cut her eyes over to Johnny. “You do know what watch and watch is… I hope…” She frowned.

  She saw the sardonic smile, as Johnny Oneshot replied. “Yes. Watch and watch. Four on four off, repeat, if I am not mistaken. Not the usual four on and eight off.”

  Grudgingly, Willi nodded, adjusting for her landing.

  “Great minds, huh?” Johnny said. He tucked and flipped over, to push off in a slightly different direction this time, just to see if she would compensate and do the same. She was nearly as good, if not just as good, as he was in null gravity. “I find it important to stay in shape, when I can.”

  “Yeah. Sure,” Willi said, frowning again when she noted the placement of his feet when they contacted the crates. He was going to do another of those tricky pattern sets she had seen him do before. He never did the same thing twice. She adjusted her own landing and pushed off to stay with him, automatically increasing her speed, unconsciously knowing he would speed up on this leap.

  Soon they were performing what amounted to an intricate dance, their bodies twisting and spinning in unison as Willi duplicated every move that Johnny made during the energetic exercise.

  The two came to rest with neither bounce nor need for adjustment beside Sydney where he stood by the hatch. His mouth was hanging open. “What’s the matter with you?” Willi asked, wiping a sleeve across her forehead.

  “You two… I never saw anything like that, except the Games… You two could compete in the pairs!”

  A quick sideways glance at Johnny, and Willi growled, “Shut up, Syd. Clyde got us ready for the Belt?”

  “Yeah. Sure.” Sydney was staring at Johnny. The man was not even sweating heavily. Sydney had never seen anyone move the way he did. He quickly turned his eyes toward his sister. “Uh, yeah. Everything is ready. How about here?”

  Willi frowned. “What do you mean, here?”

  “Well, if we have to take evas…”

  “Sid, this cargo was secure for hard maneuvering the day after we lifted off the planet. Have you ever known me to leave anything to chance?”

  She shoved him slightly toward the hatch. “Un-dog the hatch. I want to shower and change before we go to watch and watch. And get something to eat. You got the galley set?”

  “Of course!” Sydney replied. He cut a look over his shoulder. “Are you going to man one of the arms consoles?”

  Willi spun around at Sydney’s question to Johnny.

  “Oh,” Johnny said, that sardonic smile once again on his face, his eyes going to Willi’s, “I think this ship is in capable hands without any interference from me.”

  “You can damn well bet it is!” Willi said, mostly under her breath. She turned and went into the lavatory.

  A few minutes later Willi floated up the corridor to the control station. “I’ll take the con, Clyde. I want you on weapons when we go in. Sydney, Scans and Countermeasures. I got a bad feeling about this one. They hit R-2’s shuttle their last trip through, and Sandusky’s, too.

  “Of course, Sandusky’s shuttle did not have any trouble turning them away. They’re almost as good as we are.” Johnny hid his smile at that, as Willi continued, “But the R-2 team took heavy damage and lost their cargo. That is not going to happen to us. Damn pirates!”

  Clyde looked at Johnny as he floated up, and then Sydney. For once, Sydney was subtle. He just shook his head slightly and strapped himself in to the seat beside his sister. Clyde nodded and took the third seat, at the primary weapons control console.

  “You’re the best pilot in space, Willi,” Clyde said. “I got no worries. I’m just here because it’s regulation.”

  “Damn straight!” Willi said, turning an appreciative glance on the young man. He was shy and rather retiring, she knew, much the opposite of her brother. But she had seen him in action on the weapons systems in training and in action.

  He was as uncanny as Sydney was on the Sca
nners. Willi knew it was not simply braggadocio when she admitted to herself that she might not be the best pilot in space, but she probably was very close to it. Other than a crew from the Sandusky and one from the Infinity, they were undoubtedly the best shuttle team in space.

  “Where do you want me?” Johnny asked quietly.

  Willi started to tell him to strap into a sleeping niche, but hesitated. He had been no trouble and did seem to know the workings and procedures of small craft. “Take the Systems Console. We’re ninety percent capacity. Shouldn’t be any problems… never have been… but… take the Systems Console.”

  “Aye,” came the soft response.

  It did not really register on Willi, but Sydney turned his head and saw Clyde’s lifted eyebrow. Again, Sydney managed to keep his foot out of his mouth, by saying nothing.

  They had been into the Belt for only a few minutes when Sydney said, “Blip on long-range, bearing Zero, Zero, Zero.”

  Johnny’s lips curled just slightly as he monitored the System Console as requested; but felt the shuttle change course and accelerate. He was sure he could not actually feel or hear the weapons system come to bear on whatever was creating the blip on Sydney’s scanners. He did know that Clyde had the weapons targeted and ready.

  Sydney’s voice was still calm, but Johnny knew, just as did Willi and Clyde, that he was concerned when he said, “Bogey, Zero, Zero, Zero. Bogey, ten, zero, zero. Bogey, zero, ten, zero. Bogey…We got a blockade ahead, Willi.”

  Before Willi could respond, Sydney spoke again. “I’m getting blips all around us at long-range.” He lifted his eyes from the monitors to look at Willi. “They’ve got us surrounded! I can’t believe it! The pirates have never done anything like this before! There must be twenty ships out there!”

  “Heat’em up, Clyde,” Willi said softly. “They must have heard about the shipment of fissionables. Damn it!”

  “They’re all small attack craft,” Sydney suddenly said. “One seaters. All closing. Incoming! We’ve been ambushed!”

  “Okay, Clyde,” Willis said. “Fire at will!”

  Johnny continued to monitor the ship’s systems control panel, but he was able to watch the expert crew do everything possible to escape the ambush. Sydney was using every countermeasure the ship had, Clyde was using every weapon the ship had, and Willi was using the craft itself. They were as good as Willi had inferred.