Starship Blackbeard

by Michael Wallace

  Drake ordered them to pull back, worried the whole ship would blow apart, fissionable materials and all. His own shields were damaged, and he didn’t want to be battered with Captain Kidd’s debris. But after a few seconds, the fires finished venting along the enemy ship. Her engines blinked and went out, and then she was flying dead through space. No return fire, no signs of life whatsoever.

  A ragged cheer went up from the others on the bridge. Drake didn’t join them, already thinking of how best to salvage the situation.

  Chapter Fourteen

  An hour later, when Ajax had harpooned Captain Kidd and brought both ships to a halt somewhere in the deep empty space on the edge of the Fantalus system, a signal finally came through from the pirates. Captain Vargus appeared on the screen. He wore a bloody bandage over his forehead that also covered one eye. No sign of his daughter or any other crew; he kept his own view close, no doubt so that Drake couldn’t see the state of the bridge. The air was hazy, filled with smoke.

  Drake leaned back casually in his chair. “You could have saved us both a lot of trouble.”

  “Damn you, what do you want?”

  “I told you, twenty thousand pounds.”

  Vargus clenched his jaw. “I don’t have it.”

  “I don’t believe you. You were coming from Barsa, right? It wasn’t on a mercy mission. No doubt smuggling or preying on merchants. I’ll bet you’re loaded with gold and trade goods.”

  “Any profits I was carrying have now been vaporized. Half my ship is destroyed. Would have burned us all to a crisp if you hadn’t also punctured my hull so many places there wasn’t enough oxygen for fire.”

  “We’ll see about that. I’m sure you won’t mind a boarding party.”

  “Send them over. We’ll give you one hell of a welcome.”

  “Yes, now that you mention it, I should probably knock a few more holes in you first. There might still be too much oxygen on board. Wouldn’t want another fire to break out. That is, if you intend to resist.”

  Vargus’s face went pale. “You have to at least give me terms.”

  “Terms are we won’t hang you as pirates. How does that sound? I’ll put you down on a neutral planet with some pocket change and your side arms because I’m not a cruel man.”

  Drake cut the link.

  “Is there going to be another boarding party?” Capp asked. She sounded eager. Tolvern looked concerned.

  “Attacking a slaver is one thing. Brawling with pirates on their home turf is another thing entirely.”

  “Half of them were probably killed,” Capp said.

  “Which would make the survivors all the more desperate.”

  “We could always pepper her with more shot,” Tolvern said. “Vent out some of the air, like you said. Suffocating pirates are docile pirates.”

  “I’m not so keen on killing men and women in cold blood.”

  “They’d do the same to us,” she said.

  “All the more reason to act civilized.”

  He was still turning this over when Barker came onto the comm link. “Captain, there’s something down here you should look at.”

  “I’m coming.” Drake cut the link and turned back to Capp. “Write up the specifications of that jump point and send them to my computer.”

  “Write them, sir?” Capp looked suddenly nervous.

  “Yes, I want to read your analysis,” he said impatiently. “What speed do we need, what’s the best approach, and all that. We’re coming out next to that star, and I want some numbers.”

  “Oh, if it’s just numbers, I can tell Tolvern and have her send ‘em.”

  “If you’re too lazy for hard thinking,” Tolvern said, “maybe you should go down to the kitchen and see if they need a dishwasher.”

  “It’s not that . . . ” Capp began. She cast her eyes about desperately.

  “I want your analysis in ten minutes,” Drake said. “Can you do that or not?”

  “Aye. I’ll do it, sir.”

  #

  Drake made his way to the engineering bay. The big, warehouse-like room could hold equipment for royal marines but had been mostly empty since the mutiny, except for locked weapons bins and mechanical suits for the boatswains, as well as other scattered equipment. Now there were battered metal crates and bits of scorched debris strewn across the floor. Barker and Carvalho were picking through it, with the latter using a computer to catalog what they found.

  Barker looked younger, more energetic than he had in years, and he seemed to have lost several pounds around his waist. He still had the walrus mustache, and was now letting his beard grow out to meet it. He wore his new insignia on the shoulder of his orange mechanic suit, which made Drake smile. He’d expected Capp to be invigorated and hopefully more loyal from her promotion, but hadn’t expected any such transformation in the gruff old gunner. Barker had been at his current rank and position for years, and Drake had always assumed he was satisfied with it. Apparently not.

  Barker looked up as Drake approached. “This is all stuff we found floating around Captain Kidd when we hauled her in. What’s left of her cargo and other debris. I thought we might find something valuable.”

  “Is this the part where you tell me you found Captain Vargus’s treasure chest? And there just happens to be 20,000 pounds in gold and silver coin?”

  “Afraid not.” Barker pulled his hand out of his pocket and hooked his thumb at Carvalho. “You think I’d let this pirate down here if I had?”

  Carvalho flashed a toothy grin. Drake grunted.

  “What I found was this.”

  Barker opened one of the scorched chests. It was filled with sugar sacks. Some of the sugar was partially burned, even caramelized by the heat.

  “Seems to be ninety percent of what they were carrying,” Barker said. “Just sugar. Wouldn’t think there’d be enough profit to attract pirates.”

  Yes, it was quite strange. The York Company had a monopoly on the sugar trade, although that didn’t entirely prevent smuggling, of course. He thought about where Vargus had been heading. One of the neutral worlds on the frontier. Under the terms of the treaty with the empire, Albion was forbidden to export sugar to any of those planets. That meant there was profit for those who could get it through.

  Still, a big ship like Captain Kidd had a lot of overhead. Surely, there wasn’t enough profit (or risk) in sugar to attract the likes of Vargus and his crew.

  “I want all this dumped.” Drake gave Carvalho a significant look. “Remember what I said. No sugar on board. We need our pilot.”

  “Aye,” Barker said. “I would have done it, but thought you might want to have a look first.”

  “And nothing else turned up?” he asked. “Just sugar?”

  “That’s pretty much it,” Barker said. “Well, as far as cargo goes. Come check this out.”

  The two men led him to the rear of the engineering bay. There Barker kicked apart some random bits of metal to clear a single large, flat piece of the enemy decking blown off during the assault, some forty feet square, battleship gray except for what had been painted onto its surface: a skull sitting above two crossed sabers.

  “We took a trophy,” Barker said with a grin.

  “I’d say that’s a good day’s work for a Royal Navy cruiser,” Drake said, “except we currently have more in common with the pirates. Maybe we should give it back with our apologies.”

  “I was thinking we’d keep it for our own use.”

  Drake sent up an eyebrow. “Oh?”

  “Sure enough. I’ll cut out the plate above your bridge and weld this in its place. We better start showing the pirate colors if we’re going to earn a reputation.”

  Drake snorted at this. “We do that, we’d better rechristen the ship. HMS Ajax seems inappropriate, don’t you think?”

  “I hear Captain Kidd is suddenly available.”

  “Turned out that wasn’t such a fearsome name. We need something better. How does Blackbeard sound?”

  Bark
er chuckled at this. “Starship Blackbeard. Rolls nicely off the tongue.” He turned to Carvalho. “Get suited up and stack this sugar in the main incinerator.”

  Drake watched the former prisoner make his way to the mechanical suits on the far wall, still suspicious of his intentions. He waited until the man started putting on the suit before turning back to Barker.

  “Speaking of Captain Kidd, I want to take her with us to San Pablo.”

  “Why?”

  “I need money, but not so badly that I’d sell sugar to get it. Vargus says he has nothing of value left on board. I’m inclined to believe him. So I thought we’d see what we can get selling his ship for scrap.”

  “She ain’t worth much anymore.”

  “Not what she was a few hours ago, I’ll agree. But she’s worth something. Let’s say the engines can be salvaged. That’s ten thousand right there.”

  “Maybe eight,” Barker said.

  “Eight, then. We could get another ten or fifteen from the rest of it.”

  “I don’t know. Depends on what she looks like when you get inside.”

  “Whatever we get would go a long way toward repairs and resupply,” Drake said. “Even ten thousand pounds would make a difference. Problem is, how do I carry her through the jump point?”

  He pulled out his computer. There was Capp’s analysis, and now he understood her reticence in writing it. He could barely parse her poor English. The sentences were fragmented, the spelling its own dialect. The lower-class speech patterns—what they called York cockney—now sounded in his mind’s ear like glass scraping on metal when he read them.

  His first inclination was to be irritated. Maybe if Capp didn’t balk when asked to write, she’d sound more clever than a sod digger in the Canadian peat bogs. No doubt that’s why the navy had kept her out of pilot school. But then he thought about how she must have felt writing it, worried he would stare at it and think she was an uneducated dolt.

  And anyway, the numbers looked good, as did the analysis, once he got past the clumsy prose. Their target in Fantalus was a loose jump point, which meant they could arrive at a lazier angle and a slower speed and still make it out of the system. The jump point on the other side was a bit trickier. They’d need to accelerate while coming in at a precise X, Y, Z angle with minimal deviation. After that jump, Capp’s knowledge broke down. The third jump, the one that would take them to San Pablo, might be unstable. She’d need to consult the nav computer when they got through.

  He shared this information with Barker to get his opinion.

  The engineer frowned and rubbed at his stubbly chin. “I don’t know. I could probably coax .095 from the engines while towing the pirates. But accelerating on the other end, while caught in the star’s gravity well? Also, that close in we’d need to shift power to the cooling systems or we’d bake to a crisp.”

  “So we can’t take her with us,” Drake said, frustrated.

  “That would be my assessment. Not with the current deficiencies in equipment and piloting.”

  A high, melodic voice sounded from behind the two men. “What if I promise a piloting upgrade? Could you manage, then?”

  Drake turned on his heel. Nyb Pim had stepped through the doors into the engineering bay and was taking long strides toward them. He’d pulled on a shirt, though he was still barefoot. His color was better, and his eyes had lost the milky look. Nevertheless, his unexpected presence was alarming.

  “Who let you out?” Drake demanded.

  Nyb Pim gave the quick wrist turn that was the Hroom equivalent of a shrug. “The pirates let me out, it would seem. There was a flash, and the power went out. The doors opened. I went into the hallway, and there was no guard.”

  Oh, yes. The flash-bang. Must have caused the doors to open, and since the ship was designed to bring critical systems online first, the Hroom might have had several seconds in which to make his escape.

  “That was two hours ago. Nobody noticed you were missing?”

  “Apparently not. I thought about going to the bridge, but decided that might cause more disruption than it was worth. So I went to my old quarters—do you know they are untouched since I was arrested?”

  Neither had Drake’s been, so he supposed that wasn’t a huge surprise. Perhaps they’d intended to make wholesale changes once Rutherford had returned to Vigilant and a new captain had been assigned to Ajax.

  Drake cast his glance at Carvalho, who was now fully strapped into the suit and using its powerful hydraulic arms to move the heavy crates of sugar. Even the little bit salvaged was enough to addict a hundred Hroom. A single taste for the pilot would destroy the progress made in detoxing him.

  Nyb Pim’s tongue snaked over his pink lips. He didn’t turn to look at the work. “Perhaps we could go somewhere else. Somewhere with fewer . . . temptations.”

  “Of course.” Drake gestured toward the doors, positioning his body so as to block the view of the sugar as they moved.

  “A moment, sir.” Nyb Pim turned to Barker. “Gunner,” he began.

  “Chief Engineer now,” Drake corrected.

  “Indeed?” The Hroom had no eyebrow to raise, but it was in his tone. “Chief Engineer Barker. Can you bring us to .092 with the pirate ship in tow?”

  “Aye, but Captain says we need more than ten percent the speed of light to make the second jump.”

  “There’s another jump in the red dwarf system, a looser jump. We can go through at a lower speed. But it requires a bigger pivot and takes us in the wrong direction.”

  “Don’t much like the sound of that,” Barker said.

  “What do you mean, the wrong direction?” Drake asked carefully.

  “The jump is inside the corona of the red dwarf,” Nyb Pim said. “But if you put me in the pilot’s chair, I can take all of us through to the other side.”

  Chapter Fifteen

  Tolvern sprang from her chair when the door to the bridge opened, and Nyb Pim ducked his head to come in. Her heart thumped, and her hand went for her side arm. But before she could draw it, the captain followed behind. His posture was firm and confident, and the commander relaxed.

  Capp rose from the oversize pilot’s chair where she’d been lounging. She stared at the Hroom with a scowl deepening over her face. She’d pulled up the sleeves on her jumpsuit to show off those ridiculous lions on her forearm, but now pulled her sleeves back down, as if self-conscious of her station in life. The tattoos were a reminder of that.

  Well, what did Capp expect, anyway? Two weeks ago she’d been a prisoner on her way to the helium-3 mines. Before that, she’d served as a marine corporal, and before that some kind of smuggler. Did she think she’d be permanently elevated when they had one of the finest pilots in the navy waiting in the wings? Wean the Hroom from the sugar, and of course he would be preferable.

  For the moment, Drake ignored Tolvern’s questioning look, and made his way to where Capp stood.

  “How long until the jump?” Drake asked.

  “Jane says forty-seven minutes,” Capp responded.

  “Maintain course. Barker has new information about the parameters of the jump and what we’ll need from the engines. You will check with him.”

  “Wait,” Capp said, sounding confused. “You mean I’m still doing the jump?”

  “Yes, Ensign. Of course.” A slight frown passed over Drake’s face. “Now is not the time to interfere with your work. Unless you’re unsure of your calculations, that is.” A moment of silence, then he added, “Well, are you?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Good. There might be a change on the other side, though, and it will get tricky. Nyb Pim will handle that jump.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  Drake gestured toward the war room. “Commander.”

  Tolvern followed him and Nyb Pim back. She cast a glance at Capp, who settled back into the pilot’s seat with a sigh and a renewed look of complacency.

  The captain turned up the lights in the war room and shut the door. Tolvern sat
opposite the captain. Nyb Pim took a seat on the end and seemed to collapse into the chair, his face slack, his limbs dangling. He carried an expression of deep exhaustion, as if he’d only managed to hold himself upright with the greatest of effort.

  “You’re giving Capp a false sense of security, you know.” Tolvern said.

  “How so?”

  “She’s going to think she’s really some sort of assistant pilot, not someone warming the seat until we get Nyb Pim back where he belongs.”

  “I meant all of that, Commander.” Drake certainly looked serious enough. “All ships have an assistant pilot. Anything can happen in space, and you don’t want to be stranded because you were relying on one man. Or Hroom, in our case.”

  “That doesn’t mean we want Capp on the bridge. Put her in engineering or stick her in the kitchen cooking eggs or something.”

  “I’d rather have her where I can keep an eye on her.”

  “You really think she’ll get in that kind of mischief in a few days?”

  “Maybe, maybe not. I’m thinking long-term.”

  Tolvern stared. “Wait, aren’t we dumping her at San Pablo or wherever?”

  “I’m not so sure anymore. Not sure about leaving any of them behind, to be honest.”

  “You can’t be serious,” she said.

  “We need more crew members, not fewer. So unless you think we’re likely to find more reliable people in the port of San Pablo than we’ve already got . . . ”

  “They could hardly be worse.”

  Nyb Pim cleared his throat. “Discipline seems somewhat more lax than when I last sat in this room. Since when do the crew of Ajax speak this way to their commanding officer?”

  Tolvern flushed, ashamed at her conduct. “I am sorry, Captain. Forgive me, I misspoke.”

  Drake dismissed her apology with a wave of the hand. “We’ve had a rough go of it,” he told the Hroom. “Mutiny, attacked twice by the navy, then this fight with the pirate ship. I am carefully choosing my battles until I decide what to do next. Tolvern is excitable, but she doesn’t worry me. I’m more concerned with you.”