The Terran Privateer by Glynn Stewart Page A

Service that recruited from the world’s best.
    And spent much of its time babysitting.
    “I’m bringing the headquarters section down with Alpha Troop,” the tall, dark-haired aristocrat told his senior troop leader. “I’ll want your team sweeping for the cache, the section and I will stay with the XO.”
    “Any idea how large the zone will be?”
    “No. Nova Industries didn’t give us that much data,” James replied. “But then, we weren’t expecting extra supply, so I think we’ll take whatever we get.”
    “Amen, Major.”
    “Get your boys and girls on the shuttle,” James told him. “I’ll go make sure the Commander hasn’t accidentally hooked up the wrong tubes.”
     
    #
     
    The shuttle dropped from orbit like a rock, fast enough to make the Major nervous. He knew, intellectually, that the interface drive meant the landing craft could stop anywhere the pilot chose—but all of his experience in landing drops was on more conventional spaceplane-style shuttles.
    “Miss, you have done this before, right?” he asked the shuttle’s pilot quietly.
    The redheaded young woman made a shushing gesture.
    “It’s Lieutenant,” she pointed out. “Lieutenant Mary McPhail.”
    “Leftenant McPhail,” James allowed. “You have done this before, right?” he repeated.
    “Yep. Twice.”
    “ Twice? ”
    “Which is once more than any other pilot aboard Tornado, which is why you got me. Now, unless you want to be a high-velocity smear , shut up and let me do my job.”
    The Special Space Service Major shut up.
    Alpha Centauri AB2 was an airless rock, but the volcano was approached far too quickly for James Wellesley’s peace of mind. He was about to say something when suddenly they were inside the caldera , rock walls screaming past at hundreds of kilometers an hour.
    McPhail finally hit the controls, slamming the forty-meter-long shuttle into an instant hover with no warning—and no inertia. The sight alone sent James’s stomach reeling, and only ironclad self-control kept him from visibly reacting.
    From the way the pilot glanced back at him and grinned, she had been expecting some reaction. He met her gaze levelly for a long stiff-upper-lipped moment, and then winked at her.
    “What are we seeing on the scanners?” he asked.
    The younger woman turned back, running through the results of the shuttle’s sensors.
    “We’re in the middle of the caldera, about two hundred meters beneath the rim,” she told him. “But…I’m not picking up anything . As far as hiding things goes, I don’t know if they could have picked anything better—but I’m wishing someone had given us a key .”
    James considered for a moment, glancing at the sensor data being fed to his spacesuit helmet.
    “How narrow were the coordinates they gave us?” he said. “As I recall, they were long.”
    “Yeah, but that’s almost garbage data when you’re talking about coordinates on an inhabited planet,” she pointed out.
    “Except we have the exact mapping they used,” he said. “Those coordinates should get us within a hundred meters or so, right?”
    “Moving us to the exact coordinates,” McPhail allowed after a moment. “Let’s see what we find.”
     
    #
     
    Annette watched the relayed data from the shuttle’s sensors on her command displays. The main video feed was up on the bridge’s main display, but she was digging into the more-detailed sensor reports, looking for the clue they were all missing.
    She doubted Casimir had given them inaccurate coordinates, but it appeared that the Nova Industries crews had hidden the cache extremely well. It would take time to find it, which also raised questions about just how accessible it was going to be.
    “Hyper portal!” Rolfson suddenly snapped. “I have a hyper portal forming at three million kilometers.”
    “Dammit,” Annette swore. “McPhail—get back up here.”
    “Ma’am—I think we found it!” the pilot replied. “Not sure; we’re going to