Pirate Stars

by Andrew van Aardvark

  "A very poetic evocation of I don't know what."

  "The 21st century technocrats had this concept of 'progress', inevitable and bound to create a much better world despite some possible collateral damage in the transition."

  "So old fashioned people used to believe all sorts of nutty crap because they didn't know better. The earth was flat and the gods controlled the rain, whatever."

  "So we're lucky to live in the only period in human history where we properly understand everything of any importance and don't suffer from any silly superstitions. How fortunate for us," the Doctor deadpanned.

  "All the sarcasm in the universe doesn't change the fact we know more than we used to. We stopped needing unscientific explanations out of ignorance a couple of centuries ago."

  "Wrong. You know it if you think for a second," the Doctor retorted. "My entire job was to make sure most of 'us' didn't know as much as we used to. That's the purpose of the Department of Restricted Science. Do you imagine that we're only hiding the knowledge of a few technical tricks with horrific implications. I assure you young lady it is not so."

  Jeannie paused. She must be tired. Even if she'd doubted the Doctor was who he said he was there was no doubt regards the Department of Restricted Science or its purpose. Logically she lived in a society deliberately more ignorant than that of the 21st century in at least some ways. The Doctor who claimed inside knowledge seemed to think this important. She found herself in the odd and uncomfortable position of having a strong belief but not so many facts to support it.

  "This not going anywhere right now anyways so shoot. I've already promised what you want."

  "Yes, and a clansperson keeps their promises don't they?"

  "They do," Jeannie agreed. "Reputation is precious. It's hard to build and easy to lose."

  "I've come to believe in the need for change," the Doctor replied. "Also that it can be good or bad depending on how it comes. If it's forced on those who resist it by forces beyond their control it's unlikely to be good. If it's brought on by those with ability and good will less likely to be bad."

  "Sweet, Doc, disappointed in yourself are you?"

  "Yes, and by helping you, to the limited extent I can, maybe I can be a more positive agent of change."

  "Always glad to help."

  "Expand your horizons beyond our rather stifled modern vistas and you'll do better at that," the Doctor said.

  Jeannie found his solemnness almost comic, but now felt uneasy about that reaction. He might be evil and crazy but he wasn't an unintelligent or badly educated man. First things first. "So I'm going to live to be this agent of positive change then?"

  "Probably not," the Doctor replied. "Less than fifty-fifty odds on your physical survival. If you survive physically the odds are against you doing so with your mind intact."

  Jeannie was stunned into silence. The Doctor's calm considered and matter of fact tone left her little doubt he meant exactly what he said. She probably wasn't going to make it.

  "Most people I wouldn't give any appreciable chance of making it out of this alive, let alone as a functioning human being," the Doctor went on in a conversational tone. "But you've shown an astounding ability to make your own luck."

  "If I'm so lucky how come the odds are against me?" Jeannie asked. Her irritation warred with a bleak despair.

  "People make their own luck, to some degree at least. Your combination of optimism, open minded appreciation of different possibilities and ability to act decisively when opportunity knocks are rare. Usually that degree of openness to different realities results in a sort of fatalistic paralysis by analysis that precludes timely action."

  "So unless I get a lucky break and something unexpected happens I'm done for?"

  "Exactly," the Doctor said giving her the proud smile of a mentor for his precocious student. "You must, of course, recognize that break and act decisively to take advantage. Despair will prevent that. Do not despair."

  "Gee, thanks for the pep talk, Doc."

  "Excellent, sleep time now," the Doctor said injecting something. The world faded away.

  12: The Valley of Death

  To be in favor or disgrace

  Is to live in fear

  Sven Torson was tired. Almost two weeks of constant tension, calculation and re-calculation, and still the success of their whole operation hung in the balance.

  The Casablanca's conference room was a large comfortable space, well ventilated with wood veneer lined bulkheads. Usually a pleasant place to be if you weren't on the hot seat. It had never been meant to be lived in by most of two combined staffs for two weeks. It showed it.

  Smelt and felt like it too. Too many people in too small a space for too long, who'd been tense and worried that whole time.

  "Maybe you should take a break, Lieutenant," Chief of Staff Lieutenant-Commander Eva Agner said to Torson across the width of the large conference table that dominated the room.

  "Not quite yet, ma'am," Torson replied. "You know what they say at the Staff College; 'sweat saves blood'"

  The Chief of Staff gave Torson a wan smile. They'd become almost friends over the the last few weeks despite differences of opinion, rank and age. Torson had found himself considering the fact they weren't actually in the same chain of command. "That'd be more convincing if you didn't seem to be sweating blood," she said.

  "I know this verges on heresy," Torson said, "but at times like this I almost wish those 21st century thinking machines you see on the late night vids were real and we had some."

  "It's true we've had a lot of tricky calculations to make," the Chief of Staff agreed.

  "Seems like our computers aren't much better than giant calculating machines attached to some fancy displays at times," Torson said.

  The Commodore further down the table who'd been going over the latest reports on the pirate's fighting ships, they'd identified ten of them so far, looked up and joined the conversation. "It's no accident it's SDF policy," he said. "We don't want to have to depend on machines to do our thinking for us. It's necessary our officers understand the math and be able to form 3D pictures of situations in their own minds. I think it's a good policy however inconvenient it might be right now."

  In other words Torson thought pipe down and stop griping.

  "Besides, Sven," the Chief of Staff said to him sympathetically, "it is your plan that has us playing hide and seek behind this gas ball."

  Torson nodded wearily. They'd been kicking this same ball around for days if not weeks. As feared the Casablanca and Daisy had arrived in the pirate base system SC10206 with just a few patrol craft in attendance. The rest of the Task Force had been some indeterminate number of days behind.

  The safe plan would been to hang back together in the outer fringes of the system in the rough vicinity of the jump point they'd entered by and could expect their reinforcements from. Retreating if they seemed threatened by superior pirate forces.

  Unfortunately the safe plan almost assured the entire pirate force would escape, undamaged and without their having to been able to even gather significant information on it. Only so much data could be gleaned across the width of a solar system. Numbers of ships could be though and the pirates could be depended on to flee once the SDF force had the numbers to take them on.

  The Commodore had made it clear he was not willing to risk the Casablanca on a sneak attack. He had been willing to accept a modified version of Torson's original proposal.

  A sneak attack against unknown odds had been an unacceptable throw of the dice. As long as it kept its distance and refused to engage the pirates at unfavorable odds the Casablanca was safe. Unfortunately hanging back around the entry jump point in the outer system also meant it couldn't gather good information on the pirate operations or ships let alone interfere with them.

  Getting in close, but not too close, to the pirates without their noticing had been the compromise plan the Commodore had decided upon.

  It'd been a long painstaking process for
the Casablanca and its escort to creep around the perimeter of the system and then approach the pirate base hidden by either the system's primary, the gas giant the pirate base's moon orbited, or at times indeed, the bulk of that moon itself. It'd taken time, patience, and a lot of calculation of angles and apparent diameters to craft the course necessary. They'd never been entirely certain they'd got those calculations right or that pirate sensors or ships wouldn't pop up in some extremely inconvenient location.

  In the end all their hard work and patience paid off.

  Now carefully hidden close in behind the bulk of the gas giant the pirate base orbited, with a patrol craft faking their presence in the outer system the Casablanca and Daisy could not see the pirate base directly anymore than it could see them. Small largely ballistic fighter craft launched as quietly as possible did that.

  They'd managed to gather detailed information on the pirate base, and more importantly the pirate ships, of inestimable value. When the Normandy arrived, it had to be soon, its marines wouldn't be going in blind. Even better not only did they have a count of the pirate ships, they had good identification of them. Wherever they fled the SDF would be able to recognize those ships if they saw them again.

  They'd even intercepted enough of the pirate comms that they could identify some small but senior set of individual pirates. Not the top leadership mostly, but individual ship's captains and watch officers had been careless at times. It was all good but not what Torson had hoped for.

  Torson looked up to find Eva looking at him with amusement. A warm amusement he rather thought. Hoped perhaps.

  "Ten ships, Sven," the Chief of Staff said. She'd guessed exactly what he'd been thinking about. "We can't get into the engagement envelope of all of them at the same time, let alone the base too. We'd give them a good fight, take a good chunk out them for sure."

  "But?" Torson said.

  "No way we wouldn't get hurt too against numbers like that. Maybe lose the Casablanca or the Daisy completely."

  "That half dozen ship feint they sent against the Resolute when she arrived yesterday was a missed opportunity," Torson said.

  "Maybe, but we saw it too late," the Chief of Staff said. "They were cagey to boot, didn't over commit much if at all."

  "So ma'am, realistically what are the odds we're going to get an acceptable chance to engage?"

  "Not good. Ten ships most of them as well armed as one of our corvettes like the Daisy, even given better trained crews, better sensors and better fire control it's a lot to chew on."

  Proving that he'd been listening all along the Commodore spoke up. "Do the math, Lieutenant. We both know it's just a first order approximation of the balance of forces, but they've got ten ships each roughly the equivalent of the Daisy. Make the Casablanca worth three of them, and each of the destroyers two, even with Lars Jorgenson and Warrior having arrived and all of us back together and operating as one fleet that's just even odds."

  "Sir, we've got the patrol craft and the Normandy too," Torson replied. "And, sir, we're better than them. They're pirates do you really think they'll all stick around for a stand up, head on fight?"

  The Commodore gave a small sigh. It was something Torson knew he'd never have allowed himself on the bridge and certainly never during combat. The long hours of planning together had temporarily created a more relaxed atmosphere. Still it was a sign the Commodore was consciously indulging him.

  "Sven," the Commodore said. "The Normandy may be an assault transport, but it is a transport. It's armament is strictly defensive. For argument's sake let's say it and the pirate's base cancel each other out. We both know the patrol craft aren't intended to fight in the line of battle either but let's count three of them as worth a corvette. With a dozen patrol craft that gives us another four corvette equivalents. Fourteen corvette equivalents on our side versus ten on theirs once the Normandy, Lars Jorgenson, and Warrior have all arrived. A slight advantage to us everything else equal. Agreed?"

  "Yes, sir. Agreed."

  "But everything else isn't equal. We're divided into two parts and they're concentrated between us. Long term we've got the backing of the SDF and they're alone, but right now they're operating directly out of their base and our closest one is a half dozen systems and most of a week away. If our two fleets pound each other into mostly floating wreckage who's in the better position to rescue their survivors and repair or salvage their ships?"

  "They are, sir."

  "Exactly, Lieutenant," the Commodore said, "which is why I'm not going to lead our fleet piecemeal against their concentrated fleet in a head to head battle. Understood?"

  "Yes, sir."

  * * *

  Once again the Pirate Chief found himself in his quarters pacing. Only the Doctor kept him company.

  It was necessary that he display an air of nonchalant confidence to most of his followers. Now more than ever. The SDF had found their base. There was no doubt every one of his ship's captains and crews were wondering when they should turn rat and run for it.

  After all it was exactly what the Pirate Chief was wondering himself. Pirates were in business. They looked for loot and free license, not stand up battles against a real navy.

  The intelligence network he'd carefully built and the in-depth planning he'd based on it had failed him.

  He'd had his band lay low while the SDF annihilated his competitors. He'd had every expectation that having eliminated them the SDF Task Force would return home. His well placed moles had assured him of that.

  They had given him every expectation that not only would he survive, but that he would prosper.

  That had not prevented him from formulating back up plans. Multiple back up plans.

  Two of which had already failed.

  Plan "B" had been to simply evade the SDF's extended search. Given the size of space and how well hidden his base was that search should have failed. It hadn't. He'd been greedy. He'd had bad luck. The SDF leadership had been clever, skilled and aggressive. Qualities he'd not expected of them.

  Plan "C" had been to evacuate his base while the SDF took the time to assemble the necessary force against it. Once again a good plan had failed because of unexpectedly aggressive SDF leadership. Given the usual nature of high ranking SDF officers alone that should not have happened. Given the insurance of his well placed mole it really should not have happened. Still it had. An odd occurrence that warranted some intensive analysis when he had the time for it.

  Right now that very unexpected aggressiveness ought to have created opportunities for him if he could figure out how to exploit them.

  "You can't plan for everything," the Doctor spoke up. "The universe gets its vote in the end."

  The Pirate Chief stopped in his tracks and looked at the Doctor. "Mostly worked in the past."

  The Doctor sprawled back on the sofa he was sitting on, arms akimbo he gave the Pirate Chief a smirk. "'Mostly', 'in the past'. You're the strategist and leader, but I think I understand the human organism better."

  "Your point?" The Pirate Chief asked with crossed arms and a glare.

  "Going to have to edit that impatient proclivity to boredom out of you when we go underground," the Doctor replied with a mildly defiant expression.

  "Alright," the Pirate Chief said clasping his hands behind his back and resuming his pacing. He did so, quite deliberately, more slowly and more sedately than before. A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

  The Doctor nodded approvingly. "Humans as a species are marvelously varied and adaptable. As individuals whether we suit our environment is a matter of luck, and our adaptability is confined to our childhood and youthful years. As individuals we don't adapt well to the big infrequent changes that very occasionally and very inevitably occur. As a species we adapt by letting the old fogies die off and allowing better adapted youth to take over."

  "Heard this lecture before," the Pirate Chief sighed.

  "You'll hear it again as often as necessary," the Doctor replied
leaning forward with a serious expression. "Just as you'll hear the the great advantage of the technology I'm pioneering is that it allows an individual to adapt. It allows adaption without the loss of the skills and knowledge that are so necessary to a advanced technical civilization. Children are all barbaric savages. They can't help it they're born that way."

  "Fine. Great. Okay. What actions for right now, for our current situation are you suggesting?" The Pirate Chief stopped in his tracks to stare at the Doctor once more. His body language paralleled his verbal demand for a useful answer.

  "You have become used to exercising your influence secretly and remotely," the Doctor said. "You've known all about your opponents and their plans whereas they didn't even realize you existed. Your plans had to take account of them, but they didn't have to allow for them trying to thwart your plans. You've been playing solitaire. Now you're playing poker."

  "I'd be happier about having a more interesting challenge if we weren't all in here," the Pirate Chief said thoughtfully looking at the Doctor. The mildness of his tone denying the content of his words. "Not just our egos, fortunes, and freedom are at stake here, old friend, our continued survival hangs in the balance."

  The Doctor shrugged as if to say "what's new?". Aloud he said, "This time you're going to have to mix it up. The enemy is going to get a vote. Your odds are good I think. You have the traits that should allow you to make your own luck. You can spot opportunity. You can act decisively to take advantage of it. It'll be fun."

  The Pirate Chief stared at the Doctor for a few short seconds and then barked out a peal of laughter. "You really are crazy, aren't you?"

  "As designed, old friend, as designed," the Doctor said smiling.