“Nor is it very likely that you’re ever going to take on my fleet and win.”
“Are you making me an offer?” Urlich asked teasingly.
“I’m open to suggestions,” Vermes replied, knowing that he’d kill this son of a bitch the first chance he’d get.
“Well,” Urlich whimsically replied. “How about you let me fly off in one of the Bismarck’s fuel ships? I would, of course, raid the ship’s Paymaster’s Office on the way out. Then, once I feel safe, I’ll tell you where I left the nukes.”
“‘Nukes?’” Vermes asked with raised eyebrows.
“Yeah,” Urlich lied with pride. “Booby trapped ‘em myself after I activated the secondary AI core. Did I forget to mention that I’m a demo specialist?”
“Must’ve slipped your mind,” Vermes thoughtfully replied. He had bomb disposal teams capable of finding and disarming nukes. But the Bismarck was four miles long and two miles wide. And the marine had plenty of time to stash them throughout the ship and find nasty ways of hiding them from detection.
“Sorry. I’m forgetful that way,” Urlich shrugged. “Old age is creeping up on me. That’s why I wanna retire early and disappear.”
“One of the colony worlds?” Vermes asked. “Somewhere out past the Rim?”
Urlich nodded.
Vermes glanced at a tactical monitor and realized that his fighters and boarding pods had just entered the Bismarck’s optimal firing range.
“Do we have a deal?” Urlich asked. “Or do I get to have a little target practice before I die?”
“We have a deal,” Vermes sighed. “We’ll wait for you to launch before boarding.”
Vermes signaled one of his communications techs to have his fleet ships, fighters, and pods stand down. He’d have to find those nukes before Urlich got out of the range of his fighters. The pirate didn’t want to any of the Bismark’s crew to survive. He wasn’t a fan of living witnesses: especially this one.
“Very thoughtful of you,” Urlich replied as he glanced at his watch and started to rise. Then, he sat down again, as if he had just remembered something. “Wait a sec. I forgot to mention one more thing.”
“What?”
“About that kickass systems virus …”
“What about it?” Vermes impatiently asked.
“Not that one,” Urlich replied. “I was talking about my virus.”
On cue, all of Vermes’ fighters and boarding pods suddenly shut down. Six seconds later, each of his Raiders suddenly shut down too. Every system went offline – from life support to weapons to reactor cores. Vermes and his bridge crew suddenly found themselves afloat in a darkened bridge, minus their artificial gravity.
Vermes saw Urlich wave a middle-fingered good-bye, a split-second before the Rasputin’s communications systems failed. Then it hit Vermes like a slap in the face. The bastard had a slipped a fast-targeting systems virus into his transmission! Worse than that, when Vermes gave the stand-down order, he had unwittingly infected all of his other ships. Urlich’s virus had somehow bypassed his fleet’s anti-viral systems during their brief chat. The pirate realized that it could take days, perhaps weeks, for his fleet to get back up and running again.
The pirate shook his head at the thought of being outsmarted by a jarhead with a taste for bad music. They’d probably give Urlich a chest full of medals for capturing a pirate fleet single-handed. Vermes ordered his bridge crew to fish out the spacesuits and portable communications gear. They’d have to broadcast a surrender call to the bastard or risk being picked off like skeet. While Vermes didn’t relish the idea of ending up in prison (again), the crafty old pirate felt confident that he could escape (yet again), given time and planning.
The Bismarck’s maneuvering thrusters suddenly flared to life. Vermes watched the ship move closer, well within easy firing range of his entire fleet, and then halt. Odds were that Urlich was merely flexing his muscles. Vermes listened intently as one of his communications officers sent a surrender signal, via one of the portable communications units.
“Signal acknowledged and surrender accepted,” the officer replied.
Vermes breathed a sigh of relief. For a moment, he thought that Urlich was actually going to open fire –
A half-second later, the Bismark’s four massive ion turrets turned The Rasputin into a ball of fiery debris. On the bridge of the Bismark, Urlich drank out of a plastic beer can, with five other unopened cans laid out on a tactical console. Captain Yemti’s corpse was respectfully re-positioned in his command chair, where the marine figured he belonged. The sergeant paced around the bridge, deep in thought. In the background, Paint It Black, by the Rolling Stones, was playing.
“There are regulations against killing prisoners, Sgt. Urlich,” the AI noted. “Even in these circumstances.”
“Yeah,” Urlich agreed as he tossed the empty can aside. “Lucky for me I’m going AWOL before they can court-martial me.”
“You’re deserting because of brain-enhancing virus?”
Urlich smiled. If the AI could put it together, so could the docs at U.N. Command. He could never go home again.
“That’s right,” Urlich replied. “Once the brass figured out what it could do, they’d snatch me out of my prison cell and stick me in a lab. I’d spend the rest of my short, short life being vivisected. While I’m sure they’d figure out how to replicate it, the virus would just end up as one more weapon that the bad guys could steal.”
“What is your plan?”
“We’ll think of something. But for now, would you kindly kill each and every last one of these mother fuckers?” Urlich asked, as he grabbed another beer can and popped it open. “They’re blocking my view of the cosmos.”
“Affirmative,” the AI replied.
The massive warship’s missile batteries and ion turrets leisurely targeted the rest of Vermes’ helpless fleet and opened fire.
THE PUPPET
They had me dead-to-rights on a moonlit night.
Six plain-clothed Iranian Special Forces troops surrounded me with assault rifles aimed at my head. Disguised as oil workers, they were so close that I could smell their collective, sweaty stench. I dropped my digital recorder, raised my hands, and slowly moved to a kneeling position. One of them ripped off my Ghillie suit, which covered my desert fatigues with a layer of fake foliage. Since I had been lying prone in a patch of real bushes all night, they shouldn’t have spotted me.
I slipped into the valley sixteen hours ago and uploaded damned nice footage of six well-camouflaged missile silos in the middle of a small, fake oil field. Disguised as oversized oil derricks, the missile silos were surrounded by dozens of real derricks. While the remote facility had been logged since its construction in the early 90’s, no one had figured out it was fake until just last week. Some bored NSA egghead
