Drifter's Run by William C. Dietz Read Free Book Online Page A

must watch them constantly.
    Had he missed anything? No, he'd selected the location with care. The ambush was inside the asteroid belt, but not so far in as to be dangerous.
    Over time the gravitational pull of Durna's larger planets caused asteroids to change orbits and collide. The collisions gave birth to more asteroids, or chunks of asteroids, in a never-ending cycle. A violent cycle. That's why it made more sense to steal from the roid miners than to be one.
    Another reason The One Who Falls Upward had chosen this particular site for his ambush was the system of "gates." There were twenty-seven of them altogether, carefully chosen points where conditions were fairly stable, and the roid miners could enter or leave the belt in relative safety.
    Each gate was located in close proximity to an asteroid large enough to survive a minor collision. By placing transmitters on twenty-seven such planetoids the roid miners created an informal navigation system. It wasn't perfect, but it helped a lot when some miner was trying to get home with a holed hull, or a shaky drive.
    Unfortunately the system worked in favor of the rock pirates as well, since it allowed them to prepare an ambush at any of the twenty-seven gates, and do so with a good chance of success.
    The miners knew this and countered with occasional Q-ships. Q-ships were heavily armed destroyers disguised to look like freighters. The pirates would attack them, take a terrible beating, and run off to lick their wounds.
    But time would pass and the pirates would return. Like right now. The ship called Junk was easing through the gate. Junk ! How like the humans! A ship, any ship, deserves a true name. He would name it The Wind Which Pushes All Before It, and give it honor.
    When he spoke the Finthian's voice was no more than a whisper. "Hold my children… hold. The ship is almost there…"
    Lando squirmed in his seat. The possibility of an ambush was very much on his mind as Junk passed through Gate Eighteen and entered the belt.
    The trip from Snowball to the asteroid belt had taken three standard days. Simple days during which Lando was free from fear. There were no cargo modules to catch, no bounty hunters to escape, and no police to throw him in jail.
    Not until Gate Eighteen that is. Now Lando felt a lead weight riding low in his stomach.
    Though not a warship, Junk was well armed. Her weapons, and weapons control systems, had been stripped from a pirate cruiser. A real pirate cruiser, not one of the flying jokes the rock pirates used.
    For reasons unknown the pirates had dropped into the Durna system for a look around, ran smack dab into an Imperial battlewagon, and lost the ensuing battle.
    Picking the resulting wreck up for a song, Melissa's mother had salvaged about fifteen percent of the cruiser's weapons, and installed them in Junk. Even fifteen percent of a cruiser's total weaponry is a lot for a tug so Junk was well armed.
    Lando knew this but it did little to reassure him. Weapons are one thing, but competent operators are another, and given Junk 'screw they were few and far between.
    Okay, assume Cap was sober, a questionable proposition but assume it anyway. He was ensconced in the top weapons turret, and if the pirates attacked, he might give a good account of himself. Fine. That left Melissa and Cy. Melissa was stationed in the port weapons blister, and Cy in the starboard. A little girl and a floating brain. How would they do? Sweat trickled down Lando's back as he watched the scanners.
    The One Who Falls Upward hooked taloned thumbs into his harness. It was now or never. "Attack!" As the word left his beak thirty-one fighters launched themselves in Junk 's direction.
    The fighters showed up as thirty-one points of light on Lando's plot. The computer quickly assigned each one a threat value, a target number, and requested permission to fire.
    Lando swore, released the ship's automatic weapons systems, and yelled over the intercom. "Thirty plus