by Chris Hechtl
What was even more troubling was the news that the new arrivals had already started their mission by spreading the plague at each of their stops but one, a space colony that they had torn apart for fuel and supplies.
The arguing came to a head a few days before they were due to launch the mission.
“Once a population is dead, you can't harvest from them again. You can pick over the bones but then what? And we be getting sick if we do! We have always taken what we need from them, what we want, then leave them the rest. We move on to better hunting grounds, and they rebuild. Then we come back to harvest them once more. It is the way of things; the cycle that has worked for centuries.” Captain Scratch Lupen waved a hand paw to the mission. “This? This is senseless waste. It is an end to the cycle, once they are cinders we will not have anything to harvest from! Once it is done, then what?”
“But it is an order. An order from Horath and it must be obeyed,” Doctor Wilhelm said.
“I know,” the vice admiral rumbled, cutting off all argument.
“Will you forsake Horath? Will you dishonor yourself, or will you answer the call to duty?” the human doctor asked, eying the admiral. The Neos hissed or growled at him, but he ignored them, his entire focus on the Neolion.
“I know my duty,” the admiral said as he rose and walked out. The room was silent as all eyes watched him leave.
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“Should we? Should we be doing this at all? Is Horath even our home anymore?” the admiral whispered when he was alone with Captain Baker.
The Neochimp looked at him and then shook his head. “Tis an order. But oh, how I wish I could contact Thomas and find out what is going on back home,” Kix said, shaking his head.
“There were no letters from him? Nothing from any of the family on Horath?” the admiral asked.
“No. I did some digging as you ordered, Admiral. The crews on the three ships are all human and keep to themselves. I didn't have a reason to board the ship to find out more,” the Neochimp said. He remembered the sailor he was supposed to look up. He grimaced internally and made another mental note to find him later. What was his name? It started with a Z he was sure. Or was it a C? “The last thing I heard about my son was that he had been chosen to be a tactical instructor at the academy. He was looking forward to shaping new minds and settling down for a brief time,” he said with a shrug.
“Ah,” the Neocat said with a nod. “I remember; before I left, Horath was open to all races. That was what it meant to be a pirate! We were free!” he said, shaking his head. “Then when we came out here a century and a half ago, they started issuing orders to purge the fleet of one species or another. Now this …”
It was clear though that his admiral was doing something he rarely did, wrestle with his conscience. Finally, the admiral erupted. “We're loyal to a drunken whore. She takes our coin and leaves us to rot with the clap. Or shoves a knife betwixt our ribs if we even think of cheatin' her of what she considers her due,” the Admiral said with a grimace. “We knew she was never some bright shiny lady, hell, we be pirates! We're murders, thieves, and worse!”
“Aye, but there is a code! Stick to the code!” the Neochimp said, falling back on rote training to remind his boss of where they had to be. “Otherwise it all falls apart, Admiral,” he said.
“Nowhere in the code be this,” the admiral said waving a hand to the pirate's code carved into the wall off to his right. Only someone with their eyesight could see it. Only someone with night vision like a Neocat could read it in the current dim room. “Rape, loot, plunder, and burn, but nay on this,” the admiral said, shaking his head.
Kix frowned as he looked at the carving. After a few moments of collecting himself, he huffed a sigh. “I don't like it either, sir. But beggin' the admiral's pardon, tis seems to fit the code,” he said carefully. The lion looked up and over to him. “It be a form of burnin', me thinks,” Kix said looking thoughtful. “I don't like it either,” he said again with a shake of his head. “What be we do for plunder when the whole sector is ashes?”
The admiral drummed his fingers against the arm rest. “Aye. That is a big problem. I have another, tis we who be doin' this. Before, the prey would ignore the occasional raid. They pay the tribute; they pay the tithe as we ask even when we raise it. What of this? Prey who turns a blind eye is one thing, but this be a threat to all. If they should rise …”
“How?” Kix demanded, spreading his hands apart. “Sir, how can they when we have taken all their ships? All the weapons? They be lubbers; they can just die!”
“Aye,” the admiral rumbled softly after a moment. “Aye,” he said again, even softer.
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Fancy and 8116 were assigned to carry the plague along the northeastern loop to Virgin's Hole. The second pirate base was actually closer to the Trajin cluster than Tortuga was. From there they would resupply and then move on to hit the star systems they'd missed on their march to Tortuga the first time. They would return to Tortuga to resupply again and then take on another route.
For the moment, the admiral had banned use of the bioweapon on space colonies. They were to bypass space colonies when possible. They could always do something about them later, Captain Layafette reasoned.
Seydlitz was assigned her own tender as an escort. She would take the northern route straight up to hit four colonies and then turn around and return to Tortuga.
For the captain's parts, they were relieved that no one had screwed up, but concerned that one of them would screw up while they were apart and thus potentially doom the others. It couldn't be helped however; they had to play the hand they were dealt. Before using the plague, they would search for water dwellers on the off chance that there were some there. If a population was found, Captain Layafette had ordered the other captains from refraining on using the plague. He wasn't certain if it was necessary, but he wanted a healthy population to harvest and return to the homeworld.
The crew were vastly relieved to be away from the Neos Captain Layafette knew. Not all of them were so lucky however. Doctors Wilhelm and Goethe had to remain behind to coordinate the spread of the plague. He knew it would be hard on them, but that was their duty.
He also knew that Doctor Wilhelm was putting on a brave front but Doctor Goethe was terrified. He didn't envy either of them their mission.
Chapter 22
Tau-49436 Star System, 'Hell's Last Chance'
Lieutenant Commander S'th coiled comfortably on her saddle as she checked the status of her ship. She was proud of taking on the light cruiser, even though male Nagas would have disdained the command for her scouting and picket mission. Belfast had yet to earn her spurs, but that would come in time she knew.
It was a bit frustrating though; since splitting away from their sister ship Puglia, they had visited and scouted nine star systems without encountering a single pirate. They had made contact with the populations in many of those star systems though. They'd managed to trade with many of them allowing them to continue their journey to the end of the string of jumps. Her CIC team had found several cases where ion trails had led off tantalizingly to unknown jump points in seven star systems, but unfortunately the trail had gone cold on each of them. Her hopes of possibly closing the loop and even beating Puglia had been dashed.
Now, on their return journey, her people were looking forward to getting back to the main jump line so they could meet up with Puglia and the possible follow-up mission. Her right truehand reached up to scratch at an itch over her rearmost right eyebrow briefly. Scales flaked off. The doctor had told her she'd picked up a dandruff condition at their last stop and had even given her meds to treat it, but she kept forgetting to use them. The medication didn't do her any good in the bottle she knew.
Seven star systems she thought, seven chances and all but one had been too old to get a hard fix on the jump zone. They had the direction for each, but that was it. The one trail they had gotten a solid lock on had led them to an empty
area with several candidate stars within easy jump range according to CIC's astronomy team. They'd used the ship's telescopes to map the stars in the area so ONI could work on identifying them based on the star's signature.
One chore she had been interested in was picking up and stripping the recon drones she'd left behind her as a trail of bread crumbs. They'd picked up signs of a dozen ships in the two years they'd been in the chain, six Belfast had missed by a matter of weeks. They were faster than the ships obviously, but she had no intention of waiting an unknown length of time for them to show up.
Tau-49436. The locals called it Hell's Last Chance, apparently so named after a couple refugee ships had managed to break down in the star system. So far, trading with the locals for fuel and food had gone well. Their replicators helped with that immensely. They'd done so well in the previous stop that she didn't need to stop in Hell's Last Chance. Protocol required her to at least check in and she'd done so, but she'd decided to forgo a refueling and liberty stop in favor of getting through the star system and on their way. Since they'd spent so much time mapping the systems on their first jump, they didn't need to do as much mapping on the return flight. Therefore, they were making good time, and she had every intention of keeping that pace up. She had a bottle of blood wine bet on who would get to the Trajin cluster first, and she had no intention of losing to the likes of Captain Loggins.
Besides, she was down to her last bottle anyway, she thought darkly.
“Captain, we're getting faint neutrino readings. It looks like another ship,” CIC reported.
“Bearing and location?” the captain asked.
“We're running it down now, ma'am. The signal is intermittent. Either they've got something in-between them and us, like a moon or asteroid, or they are deliberately shielding their reactor's output,” the rating replied.
“Can you give me anything more?” Ensign Loise Sawyer, the JTO asked.
“Sorry, ma'am, all we have is a bearing at the moment,” the rating said apologetically. “We need more contacts to triangulate it properly.”
“Understood,” the ensign replied.
The Naga looked over to her as she scratched her itch. “Ideas?” she asked. Technically, it was the JTO's shift, but she'd co-opted it like she sometimes did for an unplanned war game with whoever was holding the watch.
She appreciated that she'd managed to build an almost complete female crew. Her senior officers were mostly female; only Ensign Aengus the ship's dumb A.I. and Lieutenant V'x'n the chief engineer were male. She'd asked about changing the gender of her ship's A.I. but had found out that wasn't a good idea after Lieutenant Thelma Dickenson, her chief tactical officer, had related her a story about an A.I. that had retaliated back during the bad old days before the Second A.I. War. She didn't know what the big deal was, but she'd decided to put up with it to be on the safe side.
“It's possibly a freighter; the pirates may not have picked them all off, ma'am,” the chimera JTO said.
“Possibly, but I doubt it,” Ensign Trisha Gomez replied. The Naga turned to her communication's head. “We've been picking up some transmissions directed to us in the past three minutes. Apparently, the natives are restless. Some are saying they were just raided.”
“Raided,” the JTO said in disbelief.
“As in just now.”
“Right under our nose?” Ensign Aengus demanded.
The human female turned to the A.I.'s avatar and nodded once. “It looks that way.”
“Damn,” the JTO murmured. “Hot damn,” she said after a moment.
“Ma'am, based on the Tango's location, vector, and speed, we're putting them on a course to one of the unknown jump points,” CIC interjected.
“So it is a pirate,” the captain hissed, uncoiling off the saddle.
“It might be. It might be someone who knows a different jump point and is a bit … hell, sorry, ma'am, you are right; I can't play devil's advocate with the evidence we've got,” the JTO said with a shake of her head. Her long ears flicked.
“Can we catch them?” the captain demanded.
“Not … no, ma'am, not at present speed. We don't have the overhaul, they've got too much of a range advantage,” Aengus reported, projecting the two ships on the plot and the vectors needed to generate an engagement.
“Comm, we're going to see if we can bluff them. Dig out the files you were working on,” the captain said slowly. She had gotten her people to come up with a bunch of ideas on how to lure a pirate into their engagement basket. They'd built files using their copy of the Horathian databases to help with the project. She'd had her human crew members dressed up as pirates act out various roles for recorded clips.
“Ma'am, our mission orders preclude an engagement unless it is inevitable,” Aengus warned.
“This falls under hot pursuit,” the captain growled, rotating her right eyes to look at the A.I. “Don't test me on this ensign,” she hissed.
“Understood, ma'am. Protest and warning logged,” the A.I. said. He dusted his virtual hands. “Now that we've got that part over with, how do we blow them out of space?” he asked, showing his support.
“That's the spirit,” the captain said, letting her flare of resentment over his supposed obstinance die. “Do we have something to get them to slow down or stop comm?”
“I think we can offer them a trade, ma'am. I think if we keep it to audio only we should be okay,” the comm officer said.
“Very well. Send out our flag and parlay request,” the captain said as she slithered around the compartment. “Let's see if they take the hook so we can reel them in.”
“Signals away,” Trisha said as she pushed the button on her station with a flourish and then sat back to wait.
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Captain Gutt of the Baltimore class heavy cruiser Black Corsage frowned and scratched at himself as he thought about the transmission. He was a brown Neoorangutan with a mixed heritage. He was also one of the best captains in the fleet in his humble opinion.
No one dared dispute that, at least, not where he could hear it.
He knew that, and he also knew that other ships kept a wide berth of him and his ship, which was why he was suspicious of the request to parlay and trade. It wasn't completely unusual, but it was for someone to offer it to him. According to the code, he had to go along with it too.
His instincts told him something wasn't right, and he was used to listening to his instincts. Other captains thought of him as a bit demented, but he was cunning and ruthless to friend as well as foe. “Tell them we'll trade when we make port in Virgin's Holes,” he said. “No, wait, I be not hearing of this ship, nor its crew. Who be they?”
“We're checking now, sir,” Lieutenant Silas, the chimera sensor officer said. He was small, and due to some gene tinkering in his family's past, he had feathers. He also had sharp eyes, which was why he ran the ship's sensors with Chief Grimorigan, the boat's bosun. “We're looking at the ship with our telescopes, but they are in shadow and won't be in sun for a few minutes. I can tell you that the unknown ship is a North Hampton class light cruiser,” the officer reported.
“A North Hampton?” the captain asked, scratching at his lower lip thoughtfully. That was a class of ship practically unheard of in the Tau Gather Fleet. He typed in an inquiry and got an image of the trailing ship. His instincts continued to tell him something was wrong with it. It wasn't until he realized the ship was not painted in the traditional black and marked as a pirate. His hackles raised at that confirmation of his instincts. “I be smellin' somethin', and it ain't be Mister Flynn's cookin',” the captain growled.
The Neoseal turned happily. “Why thank you, Captain, I've tried to improve my …”
“Quiet!” the captain barked. That immediately got the elephant seal to stop talking. “Close your yap and mind your station,” the captain growled.
The elephant seal turned quickly back to his station, trunk snoodle swinging as he did so.
The captain
sat back and thought hard. They had detected an unknown satellite in the star system when they'd first arrived. When they sent a shuttle for it, the buoy's automated systems had warned them off, then self-destructed when they tried to bring it on board anyway. The warning played out in his mind again, something about a Federation buoy. That bothered him.
“They shouldn't be in our hunting grounds. I think we be teachin' them a lesson in manners,” the captain growled. That got an ugly chuckle from the crew.
“Helm, slow the ship. We let them overhaul as the code dictates. We be seein' if they be friend or foe. But put the crew on alert lest we be taken unaware!”
“Aye aye, sir,” Lieutenant Squint, his new XO, said with a nod. The captain looked over to him and then back to the plot. Squint had gotten his place by proving his loyalty when Shira had betrayed them and gone native. That still smarted. He'd paid her back for such treachery, but she'd set off a virus in his ship. That was why he'd taken so long to get back on schedule. And to prevent it from ever happening again, he'd had the comm system's computers air gapped.
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“They are slowing, Captain,” CIC reported.
“They are, but they are suspicious, ma'am. They are asking for us to retransmit our IFF. A Captain Gutt is referred to. He said and I quote, “we'll trade in port at Virgin's Holes,” Trisha reported.
“Quaint. Any idea what he's referring to?” the captain asked.
“I'm checking now. Virgin's Holes isn't coming up in any of our databases, ma'am,” the JTO said as her partner Lieutenant Dickenson came onto the bridge.