Jeannie had learned how to cope gracefully with individuals from all those different cultures on her travels with her father. She had never given much thought to it but she wasn't shy any more than she was picky about what she ate.
Still she found she was not just very comfortable about her public nakedness, she was actively enjoying showing herself off to some degree. She suspected the Pirate Chief's and his pet Doctor's hand in that. She needed to figure out how to succinctly inform herself of it via her rather clunky book code.
"Hrmph," Sheena half coughed, half cleared her throat.
Jeannie startled. She'd been wool gathering. She smiled apologetically at Sheena and quickly donning her sparring suit, stepped back into the spotlight at the middle of the raised stage area.
She bowed in all directions to everyone, and then facing Sheena announced, "Ready."
Sheena moved forward from the stage's edge. Jeannie backed up to keep a certain distance between them. The spotlight light expanded to include them both, and the general lighting level increased a few notches.
The room was quiet. The Pirate Chief and his guests waited attentively still and not speaking to each other, focused on the battle about to begin.
Sheena moved first. Fast but conventional, she kept her feet under her, and hands in front her. As soon as Jeannie was in range she tried to use her superior reach launching a flurry of punches. Had any of those punches connected Jeannie would have been severely hurt.
Even with Jeannie's genetically enhanced strength the larger woman had more power as well as greater weight and reach.
It made no difference as none of the blows landed. Even faking a degree of slowness Jeannie was easily able to dodge Sheena's efforts and launching a low sweep kick attack even push past Sheena and get to the opposite side of her from the audience with plenty of space to spare in their arena.
"You'll have to come to me sooner or later and then I'll win," Sheena ground out. She seemed to be taking her role to heart.
Jeannie hoped the Pirate Chief and his cohorts also thought she'd mainly been trying to get distance from Sheena. She laughed she couldn't help it. "True," she agreed. "I'll have to come to you, but don't be so sure about who'll win."
In truth she could care less about winning the bout, but she needed to keep the pirates distracted and thinking she was focused on winning the bout and nothing else.
Sheena was directly between her and the Pirate Chief and the Doctor who was sitting near him. Jeannie shuffled to her left. It ought to look like she was attempting to flank Sheena and Sheena moved to match to her own left. No longer was the Pirate Chief directly behind Sheena rather he was on a line just to her right.
It was all Jeannie needed. She could hope Sheena would see what she was doing and join her, take out the Doctor, the audience and the guards. Increase the prize and even give them a chance to survive their success.
The Pirate Chief, however, was dead meat.
Jeannie reached inside and launched an attack, a whirling set of hand springs, that would have spectacular in a gymnastic event. Sheena evaded to her left as Jeannie had expected. Jeannie continued at full speed past her directly at the Pirate Chief.
She saw his eyes just start to widen as someone tried to grab her from behind. She escaped the grip of her unknown attacker, but unable to continue forward converted her momentum to a spin kick directly backwards towards where she sensed her attacker's head must be.
She heard her attacker's neck crack before she registered who it was. It was Sheena. Sheena had betrayed her. She'd killed Sheena. She was shocked. Cold, frozen, numb and stunned. Nobody had yet touched her and she felt she'd been kicked in the stomach.
Maybe it was just a few seconds before she recovered, but it was long enough for the pirates to react, when she turned to resume her attack she found the Pirate Chief was going for a weapon.
He mustn't have been alone she heard multiple weapon reports of various types, distant it seemed, as distant as the Pirate Chief himself now.
Pain and numbness fought for her attention as darkness took her short of her target.
* * *
She hurt like hell.
She must be alive. Was that good?
Jeannie knew she should open her eyes. Figure out where she was, what time it was, and make a plan.
Somehow she just wanted to sleep. Father wouldn't approve. Did she care?
She could remember Father, she could remember her name, past a searing sting the length of her back, and what felt like a hole in one thigh, and the fact someone had mix mastered her gut, she remembered that it was good that she could.
Her memories, her very identity was under threat and remembering anything was good. Just being alive was good. Off hand she couldn't remember why.
"Absolutely determined to make the most of our free medical care aren't you?" came a warm amused voice. It's pronunciation and inflection spoke of an upper class Earth background and a good education. It was the Doctor.
Oh, yes. Unfortunate. She wanted him dead. Like Sheena. Likely not like the Pirate Chief. She remembered. She groaned.
Sheena was dead. Had betrayed her. The Pirate Chief and the Doctor, her targets lived. She was completely at their mercy. To the degree she could care past her pain and bone saturating fatigue it angered and depressed her. She'd never failed at anything so much in her whole life.
The anger made the hurt she felt everywhere she wasn't in agonizing pain all that much worse. Still she welcomed it. It meant she was still in the game.
What game was that?
"Yes, you failed," the Doctor said. "Don't feel too bad. The odds were spectacularly bad, and we had a wild card up our sleeve. You came impressively close to success." The man giggled. Creepy. "I almost would have liked to have seen that except then I wouldn't be here having this delightful conversation with you."
Jeannie grunted. She had tubes stuck down her throat it was the best she could manage. She finally opened her eyes. The Doctor's pale, but not unhandsome face floated in front of her. Something told her that was a genuine assessment that he did not have the need or urge to make her feel that way.
That's why he needed to die. He made her feel things, took her memories away, he was a thief of what mattered to her most, her mind.
"You should feel happy to have survived," the Doctor said. "You didn't give us much time to be careful, you took two slugs and got nicked by a plasma blast as well as multiple stunner hits. Don't imagine you're feeling too well are you?" The Doctor smiled.
Survival. That had to be Jeannie's goal. Dead people, as best as Jeannie knew, didn't make many plans or do much of anything. So her first goal was just surviving, with her mind and values mostly intact. She was more than just her physical body.
She was in a hospital bed swathed in bandages. Even her nose seemed to be bandaged. She must of face planted.
Despite the pain she tried to move and couldn't. Strapped down or was in a full body cast she couldn't actually move. So not escaping or fighting right now or any time soon.
She had to watch, learn and plan. That she could do. She could wait and plan and try to remember who she was and what she wanted.
"You don't stop fighting, do you?" the Doctor said. "Well don't fight it or even fidget right now you'll just keep yourself from healing as fast. The nurses will keep you from getting bedsores."
Jeannie just grunted. Hurt to do even that with the tubes in her throat.
"Don't like that," the Doctor said. "No, you don't. Will the inaction finally break you? I'm curious, but you know I don't really want to break you anymore. You're too interesting as you are. Afraid you've finally pushed the Chief past his limit though. That's why he's not here right now. He's in his quarters pacing back and forth. Doesn't look good for you. He needs to do something and likely you won't like it."
Jeannie grunted with as much anger and energy as she could manage. She tried to glare at the Doctor but he refused to come fully into focus.
"Dear
, dear, you must take it easy," the Doctor said. "I'll try to talk the Chief down. In the meantime you don't want to do our work for us, do you?" He smiled again and patted her shoulder, while doing something to her IV. She couldn't really see.
"Bye now. Rest," the Doctor said walking out of her field of vision. The lights dimmed and she felt herself fading away.
She'd rest and be ready to fight again some other day.
* * *
He paced when he was unhappy.
The Pirate Chief was glad there was no one in his quarters to see him doing it. He was good, tough, ruthless, usually self-controlled and exceedingly clever, but he had his weaknesses and this urge to pace when frustrated was one of those. One he knew his pirate followers had noticed.
He hated the need but he needed to pace. His jaw hurt with anger. His eyes stung he knew if he looked in a mirror they'd have no whites, they'd be a tracery of red veins against a background of pink. The Doctor had warned him about these rages.
"Even a healthy man in his prime can give himself a stroke if he let's himself become as enraged as you can now," the Doctor had said. Said more than once at first when frustrations were more common.
It was the morning after. The Chang girl had given her spectacular dance, and made her just as spectacular attack during dinner the evening before. He'd given himself the evening and the night to calm down. He'd claimed to be checking for co-conspirators. His cowed and shocked subordinates had accepted the thin excuse.
He couldn't wait much longer to make a decision. He'd be seen as indecisive if he did.
Damn the Chang girl's intransigence.
He didn't need her willing compliance, let alone any degree of real co-operation, but it was in her own real best interests to co-operate and that and the Doctor's help with any emotionally based quibbles should have been enough. Enough to turn a set back into triumphal business model pivot. Why couldn't she see that?
It angered him so much he feared he was going to hurt himself. Worse he might give evidence of his loss of self control to his followers. Pirates were like packs of hyenas constantly searching for signs of weaknesses in their leaders, ready to exploit any opening left them.
That angered him more. Not only was he being irrationally denied what he wanted he was going to be forced into a sub-optimal decision because of the opinions of others. If there was anything he liked about about a Pirate Chief it was being able to do what he wanted without regards to anyone else's opinion.
He halted mid-stride. Took a deep breath, and clenching his teeth stared up at the ceiling. Enough.
He needed to be seen to be taking effective action against the Chang girl. She'd proved herself yet again to be surprisingly dangerous as well as intransigent and publicly this time so he couldn't minimize the threat again. Worse he she'd removed the Matheson woman from the equation.
The Pirate Chief didn't think she'd planned that, but short of having killed him or the Doctor, there was nothing else she could have done that would buggered up his plans worse.
Not only had her former guard been his failsafe back up plan against any escapes or attacks she might plan, she'd been an integral part of his longer range plan to develop his influence in the Chang clan. Well Jeannie Chang had put paid to that.
He also needed a new failsafe.
He was going to have to chip the girl. It was a dangerous, highly intrusive operation, it drove many of those subjected to it insane. Not only was the girl herself bound to hate the operation, it'd make it obvious to her father and her clan that she'd been tampered with. It was technology straight out of the nightmares that had haunted the mid-21st century. Technology that still dominated the late night horror shows.
The only slight glimmer of light in the thing was that it'd bear apparent witness to the fact he'd not been able to successfully brainwash the girl.
It was awkward and risky and he didn't want to do it. The damned girl had left him little choice.
* * *
Torson strove not to show just how tense he was.
More than a week away from the pirate base they'd just jumped into the DeGraff system, the one in which Huygen's Station lay. In less than an hour they'd have a clear line of sight on the station.
If their mole was going to tip their hand it was going to happen soon.
Commodore Zanjani, his Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-Commander Agner and Lieutenant Hopkins his intelligence officer were sharing the cramped flag deck with Torson. Lieutenant Olsen was manning the flag comms station. Lieutenant Adducci manned the Casablanca's comms.
Neither Adducci, Agner nor Hopkins had been informed of that all external communications were being routed through the flag comms console. Olsen manned it because it would have looked odd to have had Torson at that station. They'd told him little and the Commodore himself had made it clear to the young lieutenant that he was not to reveal that little he did know. The poor man looked as uncomfortable as Torson felt.
Torson couldn't help feeling the bulge of the pistol he had holstered within his ship suit must be showing.
He tried to relax and not watch every passing minute but somehow he knew it was exactly 27 minutes and 13 seconds later when Olsen caught his eye, and nodded to request his attention.
As he moved to look at what the flag comms watch wanted to show him he felt Hopkins following him. They must have both seen the red tagged message on Olsen's display about the same time.
Torson turned to see Hopkins reaching inside his ship suit. He felt a cold wave wash over him. He scrabbled to reach his own weapon.
Before he managed to pull it out, the Commodore had grabbed Hopkins' arm and twisting it behind the intelligence officer's back, slammed him forward hard, smashing the man's face on Olsen's console.
"Don't you dare move you bastard," the Commodore growled. "I'd love a chance to physically subdue you a little more."
Torson moved to help the Commodore. Seeing Hopkins' red contorted face he didn't think he was going to be putting up anymore of a struggle.
After a marine guard had taken Hopkins away to the brig they retired to the Commodore's quarters.
"You set up a trap for a mole?" Lieutenant-Commander Agner asked as they settled in.
"Sorry, Eva," the Commodore apologized. "We didn't really think you were a likely candidate, but you were on the short list of the people who it could be and none of the officers on that list seemed like possible traitors. If the evidence wasn't incontrovertible I wouldn't have believed it of any of you."
"Hopkins," Lieutenant-Commander Agner said. "You know even with the comms logs, if he hadn't had a gun and tried to pull it on the bridge I don't think I would have believed it myself."
"A truly horrible business," the Commodore said. "Fortunately we had Lieutenant Torson's stubbornly suspicious mind watching out for us."
"Still Hopkins," Lieutenant-Commander Agner said. "He was privy to everything, not just our entire order of battle, and every one of our communications, but our evaluations of them, and all our plans. Plus he was in charge of our counter intelligence. Who knows what other moles he may have covered for?"
"Now that's a truly unpleasant thought," Torson said. "It limits our options."
"My options," the Commodore said with a thin smile. "Although I appreciate the fact that you understand we're all in this together."
"Of course, sir," Torson replied. "Please, excuse my phrasing. It's not great news. Like the Chief of Staff said it means the pirates are completely informed on our capabilities and our thinking. They've almost certainly got contingency plans ready for anything we can do."
"So we've got to take risks in order to get back inside their reaction cycle," the Commodore mused. "I've no doubt you've got ideas about how to do that, Sven, so spit it out."
While Torson collected his thoughts the Commodore walked over to his liquor cabinet and poured what looked like three stiff glasses of premium whiskey.
"Don't have much," Torson finally said. "And you're not going to like w
hat I do have."
"Don't expect I will," the Commodore replied. "Hopkins' fault not yours though." His Chief of Staff took a sip of her whiskey and nodded in agreement at Torson.
Taking a deep breath Torson said, "They know all our plans, they've completely rigged the game, only thing we can do is change the rules. We have to kick the board over."
"Continue," the Commodore said.
"We have to move fast and with what we have to hand," Torson said. "We have to go back to the pirate base and engage them before they're expecting us. We have to put the ball back in their court."
"With just the Casablanca and the Daisy?" the Commodore asked. "Without the marines?"
"Sir, there's a good chance we'll pick up the Resolute on the way and if not soon after reaching SC10206," Torson said. "Normandy won't be too far behind. But if necessary we have to be ready to engage with just the Casablanca and Daisy."
"You can't be serious," Chief of Staff Agner exclaimed. "We know they have at least four ships in system and we expect at least double that, and more likely a dozen ships. That's without counting any strictly sub-light defense craft their base might have. The base we don't have an exact location for and whose defenses we've no data on. We could be massacred. We'd all go down in the history books with Custer." She clamped her jaws shut, and took a deep breath, and took another sip of whiskey. She looked at the Commodore who seemed amused, and just shook her head in Torson's direction.
Torson took sip of his own whiskey. Having that smooth burn down his throat helped. He looked up at the Commodore who waited patiently and then at the Chief of Staff. She seemed a little apologetic about her outburst, but both determined and worried.
"One way or another I do think this operation is going to go down in the history books," Torson said. "SDFHQ just has too many resources committed and the fall out from the results is just going to be too big. I know we're behind the eight ball and it could go badly wrong. If we do nothing or even just play it safe, then likely the pirates get away and this becomes the time it became clear the SDF could no longer control pirates."
Pirate Stars Page 17