Pirate Stars

by Andrew van Aardvark

  "I see your point, Lieutenant," Lieutenant-Commander Agner said. "Still if we lose the Casablanca in battle we'll be no better off, worse in fact, and a lot of men and women will be dead or injured for nothing."

  "The pirates might be well armed, and they may have more ships," Torson replied, "but they're all built on civilian hulls with civilian propulsion units. If we're careful we can avoid any battle we can't win."

  "Okay," Lieutenant-Commander Agner allowed. "But what does that buy us?"

  "Those pirates have got used to having the jump on us," Torson said. "Whatever plans they've got they're going to start second guessing them once we appear earlier than they expect. Particularly since those plans probably hinge around dispersing and reassembling once we've gone home."

  "Explain please, Sven," the Commodore said.

  "We're thinking of the pirates as a military force," Torson said. "They're not. They're armed criminals. They're not fighting for any cause other than their own gain. They're going to be more interested in escaping than fighting. Their leadership might be happy to have the rank and file attack us while they flee, but the rank and file aren't going to be fans of that plan. If we can avoid backing them into a corner while also making successful resistance look unlikely there's a fair chance they'll dither until we can assemble the whole task force."

  "Also," the Commodore said quietly, "there's a chance that portions of them will try to escape separately and we can pick them off piecemeal. Messy though."

  "Yes, sir," Torson said. "It's messy, but if we manage to pick off their leadership or even just discredit them, they'll have a hard time putting their little empire back together again. If a ship or two gets away or some of the low level thugs do we can hunt them down one by one later."

  "Eva?" the Commodore asked.

  "It's not a great plan, sir," Lieutenant-Commander Agner replied. "And the Lieutenant is right I don't like it. Just the same, sir, I think it might be the best plan available to us. We'll have to be damned careful about the execution. It'll be tricky at best."

  "Agreed," the Commodore said. "Well Sven, we'll go with your plan. I want the both of you to understand clearly that I'll not sacrifice either the Daisy or the Casablanca for the chance to kill a few pirates. Make your plans accordingly."

  "Yes, sir," Lieutenant-Commander Agner said.

  "Yes, sir," Torson said. It was more than he had hoped for and less than he wanted.

  11: Puppets

  Those who think to win the world

  By doing something to it

  I see them come to grief

  Reluctantly Jeannie gained consciousness.

  She'd rather not have. She was tired. Tired of the pain, tired of being unable to even move, tired of her more general helplessness, and finally just plain tired of life.

  "I know you're awake, open your eyes."

  Jeannie opened her eyes. The face of the Pirate Chief hovered in front of her. Behind him, over one shoulder, the creepy if all too understandable, Doctor smirked. Not a good sign. Nothing that amused the Doctor could be anything good.

  "Where am I?" she said.

  "You're in my private infirmary," the Pirate Chief said. "It's been several days since that lovely dance routine you performed, and your subsequent attempt to kill me in front of my most important subordinates."

  "Sorry about that," Jeannie croaked.

  "Sorry you failed," the Doctor said before giggling. Jeannie wished she could kill him for that giggle alone, it was beyond annoying.

  "You've backed me into a corner," the Pirate Chief said. "I really hate that. I like to have choices. You've taken mine away. Most of my followers think I should just shoot you. They'd be in favor of shoving you out an airlock except they're half convinced you can breath vacuum. The less fearful ones still think I should lock you in a small room in chains and feed you gruel, before handing you back to your Dad as soon as possible."

  Jeanne managed to choke out a small almost laugh.

  "You think that's funny," the Pirate Chief said grimly. "What's funny is that your father has finally started to negotiate for your return but I don't really have the time for it anymore."

  "Huh?" Jeannie gurgled. Not her most articulate query ever maybe but the Pirate Chief seemed to understand.

  "Yes, that SDF task force was about to leave the sector, but decided to do one last sweep," the Pirate Chief said. "Unfortunately for both of us it seems to have stumbled upon this base. We've got a couple of weeks while they concentrate and prepare before they attack. Your father doesn't have my spies, he doesn't know that but the clock's ticking."

  It hurt but Jeannie couldn't help laughing.

  "We did some more surgery while you were sleeping," the Doctor said.

  Jeannie stopped laughing.

  The Pirate Chief smiled, however grimly, for the first time. "Good news for you is I didn't have you mind wiped into zombiehood."

  So Jeannie wondered what was the bad news?

  "Bad news is that I had to chip you."

  "Chip me?"

  "A programmable neurological shunt installed in your brain stem," the Doctor said helpfully.

  "What?" Jeannie asked.

  "Your brain only gets to tell your body what we let it," the Pirate Chief explained. He showed her a little box with many bright buttons. He pushed one.

  It lite her toes on fire. She gasped. The pain stopped. She wriggled her toes. There didn't seem to be any real damage.

  "It can be used to send signals to your brain too," the Pirate Chief said. "Or cut them off." He pushed another button.

  Jeannie went numb from the waist down. She couldn't wriggle her toes either. She looked at the Pirate Chief.

  "You're probably wondering how this differs in any significant way from the slave collar that proved so ineffectual against your stubbornness," the Pirate Chief said. "Well it can regulate the signals it passes on."

  Jeannie squinted at the man.

  "It can automatically govern the speed at which you may move," the Doctor said. "No more sudden attacks for you."

  "Illegal, very, bad," Jeannie said. What they'd done broke a number of stringent laws and strong taboos against both mind control and automation. It was worth a death sentence in most of civilized space and permanent incarceration with extreme prejudice in the rest. The rest where death was thought to be too lenient a punishment.

  "You can only hang once, my dear," the Pirate Chief said smiling sadly. "We passed that point a long time ago. Back to the topic at hand. We can also pass simple signals entirely of our own devising to your body. He fiddled with a small stubby joystick on the box."

  Apparently of its own volition her left arm rose from her side and her fist closed and opened. Jeannie looked on horrified. She couldn't even fight it. It was like her arm didn't even belong to her.

  "We will have to practice using the 'puppet master' functionality," the Pirate Chief said. "It can be a bit tricky and requires some skill. I rather look forward to it."

  "Bastard," Jeannie ground out.

  "Actually my parents were married at the time of my birth although I suspect they'd be disappointed at my recent career choices," the Pirate Chief said. "I'm rather disappointed that the chip doesn't lend me control of your vocal apparatus, but its last feature goes a long way to making up for that." He grinned widely and most evilly at her.

  "What?" Jeannie asked. She just wanted this horror show to end.

  "It has a dead man's switch," the Pirate Chief said. "I die and so do you. Your heart will stop. You cease breathing. Bye-Bye. No me, no you."

  * * *

  "Bloody Hopkins," Torson said vehemently. "I thought he was mediocre verging on incompetent."

  The Chief of Staff, Lieutenant-Commander Eva Agner, served him a grimace of a smile. "Sven, Sven you should have more faith in the SDF's officer selection. No Lieutenant Hopkins wasn't incompetent just a traitor."

  Torson sighed. "And altogether too competent of one," he said staring at Lieutenant-Comm
ander Agner across a conference table scattered with hardcopy print outs, charts and diagrams, as well as containers of coffee, the remains of lunch and supper, plus a scattering of dedicated computing devices in various form factors. The compartment smelled ever so faintly of unwashed bodies.

  It was over a day since they'd discovered Hopkins was the mole and they'd started back to SC10206 and the pirate base there. For most of that time both of their staffs had been jammed into the conference room reviewing data, brainstorming and arguing rather a lot. Trying to figure out what their situation was and how they could salvage it.

  Agner and Torson were alone now. They'd sent the tired and no longer effectual personnel of their staffs off to eat with the oncoming middle watch, and having done that to get some sorely needed sleep.

  "It's true," Lieutenant-Commander Agner agreed, "for the Task Force to be spread out so inconveniently, pretty much the maximum dispersal possible, Hopkins must have planned it that way. I'm embarrassed he snuck it past me. I was responsible for the planning, and he led me by the nose the whole damned way with his carefully constructed 'intelligence assessments' and 'time optimal vessel deployments'. I never thought the sneaky bastard was incompetent or a traitor."

  "Never liked Hopkins myself," Torson said. "Honestly, though, I never figured him for a traitor either. I let my personal bias against him and my arrogance blind me to that possibility. Plenty of blame to go around here."

  "Water under the bridge," Lieutenant-Commander Agner said. "We don't have time to waste beating ourselves up about it. The official review board will do plenty of that for us if we don't figure out some way of recovering from this fiasco."

  "Okay, let's review then," Torson said. "The task force is so scattered that the Casablanca and the Daisy, plus several patrol craft are going to be alone in SC10206 for at least a day maybe close to two before the Resolute appears, with at least two more patrol craft, the Normandy will likely be yet another day with the marines."

  "Then two to three more days before the Lars Jorgenson and the Warrior turn up with the rest of the patrol craft. That's right," Lieutenant-Commander Agner said. "Always assuming Hopkins didn't leave us with another gift and falsify our information on their intended patrol paths and that their captains didn't exercise some initiative and deviate from plan."

  "Cheerful thought," Torson commented. It was necessary that independently deployed captains be able to deviate from plans according to what they actually encountered in the field it was just currently rather inconvenient. "Here's another one. What do think the odds are Hopkins didn't manage to share our plans with the pirates and that they know just how scattered we are? Just how much of a limb the Casablanca is out on."

  "Actually maybe you're being too pessimistic there," Lieutenant-Commander Agner said. "Think we would have ever had encountered them taking that merchant ship and been able to trace them back to their base if they'd known where we were going to be?"

  "No, I guess not," Torson said thoughtfully. "Could it be a timing thing, or did Hopkins just not have the bandwidth, or did he just not think to send the the information?"

  "Hard to be certain," Lieutenant-Commander Agner said. "Likely our best plan is to hang back but patrol aggressively with the fighters and patrol craft and keep the pirates just as uncertain. Then when the whole Task Force is assembled and we have good intelligence move in for the kill."

  "Best part of a week that'll take," Torson said. "Their leadership could bug out any time. Even if they don't they'll be gathering intelligence on us the whole time too."

  "Yes, but I'll bet my bottom credit our ECM is much better than theirs," Lieutenant-Commander Agner said.

  "Maybe we should use that superior electronic warfare capability to convince them that some of the patrol craft are the main force holding back, creep in close with the Daisy and Casablanca, and launch a sneak attack as soon as the Normandy appears," Torson suggested.

  "Big gamble," Lieutenant-Commander Agner said. "Two really. One that the Casablanca and Daisy aren't detected. Two that the Normandy doesn't get picked off coming in to assault alone. We're already outnumbered, trying to co-ordinate two smaller forces over interplanetary let alone interstellar distances just adds risk. I don't think so, but in any case I think we're done here. I think we'd better get something to eat and get then some proper sleep. That's an order, Sven."

  "Yes, ma'am," Torson answered standing.

  * * *

  The Pirate Chief was happy. Which recently was a change. It'd taken three days even with the most advanced accelerated healing that modern medical technology could achieve, but Jeannie Chang was finally up and out of her hospital bed and dancing to his tune. Quite literally.

  The large compartment they were in was a cross between a dance studio, a gym and an extremely well equipped medical laboratory.

  "Do be careful," the Doctor muttered waspishly. "She's not fully healed yet."

  "I am trying to take it slowly," the Pirate Chief retorted, "but I'm new to this."

  "It's too soon," the Doctor said. "If we just had the time we could do so much with this. Combining the neurological shunt with psychological sculpting has incredible potential for a three-sixty solution."

  "Not relevant," the Pirate Chief said while twitching a little joy stick to bring Jeannie's body up to standing on her toes. "We don't have the time."

  "Again be careful," the Doctor said. "Toe muscles are delicate and she's out of shape for this sort of thing. You don't want to cripple her for life."

  "Okay," the Pirate Chief said conceding the Doctor's point he brought Jeannie back down to a standing stance, both feet flat and positioned under her shoulders. "But have to get enough of a grip on this 'puppet master function' to be able to use it in an emergency. We've got maybe a week, a week and a half on the outside, before we'll likely need to bug out and I don't want to have to carry her the whole way."

  "She's not that big," the Doctor said. "And there are these things called gurneys."

  "It's the optics," the Pirate Chief replied. "There's going to be no way to bail without being seen on the way and if she's not under her own power, the guys are going to know something is up."

  "Like you're running out on your followers, leaving them to face death and at best capture," Jeannie said. "Just like the rat you are leaving a sinking ship."

  The Pirate Chief turned towards Jeannie. Her body was perfectly still. He controlled her body, but not her mouth. She stuck her tongue out at him.

  "There's no way you can wire her face and mouth muscles too?" he asked the Doctor.

  "Very delicate surgery, even tricker to control than large body muscles, and no where enough time for it to heal," the Doctor said shaking his head. "Be an interesting challenge," he mused. "But just too tricky, and we just don't have the time right now." He grinned at the Pirate Chief. "Later maybe?" he said hopefully.

  The Pirate Chief sighed and played a little with his joy stick making one of Jeannie arms and hands wave at them. "First things first," he said. "She holding up okay? Are there any actual issues or were you just griping for the hell of it?"

  The Doctor bent over his bank of instruments and displays intently.

  "Looks much better than I'd expect given what she's been through," the Doctor finally replied in a distracted tone.

  The Pirate Chief itched with impatience but he knew better than to interrupt the Doctor in the middle of a train of thought. It wouldn't speed matters up. He entertained himself while waiting by having Jeannie wave her other hand at him. She stared glumly at him. He manufactured a grin for her.

  "The signs of trauma are there," the Doctor finally said waving the Pirate Chief over. The Pirate Chief left Jeannie in a pose with her legs and arms spread wide like the famous figure of a man by Leonardo de Vinci. He had some vague justification in the sense that the pose aided the Doctor's efforts to display the physical state the girl was in. Mostly it just tweaked his sense of humor.

  Some of their ill gotten gains had gon
e into procuring the Doctor the finest, highest resolution 3D holographic medical display money could buy. The equipment was normally reserved for only the best equipped of major hospitals.

  The Pirate Chief peered past the Doctor at a pint sized green wireframe mannequin of Jeannie. The green outlines were tinged here and there by yellow, and there was even the odd reddish orange dot. Floating tiny white text appeared as the Doctor waved a wand like stylus in the image.

  "You see what I mean," the Doctor said.

  "I see," the Pirate Chief said. "What I'm seeing I'm not so clear on. I took accounting and informatics not medicine."

  The mannequin flashed to mostly yellow decorated with large swathes of red. Gasping the Pirate Chief whipped his head up to check the real Jeannie. She looked totally unchanged. Disgusted and bored all at once, but in no apparent pain.

  "That's what any regular young woman would be looking like after what she's been through," the Doctor said with a smirk. "In fact, that's what a extraordinarily fit young woman in peak condition with her build and weight would look like if they'd been through what she has. I decided it be useful to simulate a baseline human response to the abuses her body has suffered."

  "What? She's not human?" the Pirate Chief asked.

  "Technically she's not possessed of any single attribute that would justify calling her non-human," the Doctor said reverently. "This was a work of genius. Only under the sort of very unusual stresses we've imposed would it become apparent that her overall performance capacity is super-human."

  "So is she human or not?" the Pirate Chief said. "Is she legal?"

  "I'm no more a lawyer than you are a doctor," the Doctor said, "but I'd guess someone designed her so that they could claim she was human even though she's possessed of abilities beyond those naturally possible for normal human beings."

  "You think her father knows?" the Pirate Chief asked.

  "And isn't that the multi-million credit question?" the Doctor said once more in a distracted tone. "You know I don't think there's likely more than of a handful of us alive who can truly appreciate what this young woman is. She is an incredibly elegant work of design art. She incorporates all the best in human ability combined subtly in a fashion that makes her many times the sum of her parts."