Allies of Convenience: Pirates of the Badlands Series Book 1

by Sean Benjamin

  Now his thoughts went to their homecoming. It would be a quiet arrival, and the ships and crews would be sent to a smaller, out-of-the-way base. An inquiry would be held and completed quickly. The ships would be repaired as required, and then scattered among the various fleets. Word of their failure would circulate, and they would be treated as lepers for a time. Hopefully, ships and crews would get back into combat quickly and do the good, brave work needed to erase the blemish of this mission from their reputations. As the senior surviving officer, he knew he would come into his share of blame for this. He would lose his ship for certain. He cared about that as he truly loved his ship, his crew, and being in command. As for the rest of it, he didn’t much worry. Maybe later he would, but not now or any time soon. Maybe when he arrived home and the feared result became grim reality, he would care then about his good name, his career, and other people’s opinions. Maybe then. Or maybe not.

  He turned to his operations officer at his station behind him. “How are the integrity reports for all our ships?”

  The man looked up and responded quietly. “All ships report repairs are solid and no issues, sir.”

  Captain Sergei Korlov nodded his thanks, turned back forward, and looked toward his helmsman. “Make best possible sustained speed. Time to go home.”

  ~ ~ ~

  The lone ship streaked across the deep expanse of space. Her reflective paint job captured the black of space perfectly and the lack of running lights made her invisible to the naked eye. Her small size and flat angles of construction reduced her sensor signature to the point of being invisible on any long-range sensor. In addition, her crew had selected a flight path from the Badlands, through neighboring systems, across the Aurora Empire and into Orion Confederation territory that avoided all populated planets and trade routes. It would be unlucky, indeed, if this ship was picked up on sensors and tracked.

  The ship itself was of a construction not routinely seen. She had one long engine pod with a small fuselage stuck on the front end. Her Goth builders had unofficially christened her class of ships as Dragonfly due to the similarity in appearance to the flying insect. Of course, the official Goth designation could not be so whimsical, so the ship and her sisters were designated Geist class. When Raferty Hawkins took the ship and renamed it, he went back to a bit of whimsy. With the small ship’s subspace ability and great ability to hide, Rafe was reminded of the saying “now you see it, now you don’t,” so he named it Flicker. The ship had no weapons. She had very few redundant systems and only the single engine. She travelled alone most of the time so if she had a catastrophic maintenance casualty, it is very probable the lack of backup systems and distance from potential help would doom the crew. The Goth Table of Organization (T/O) for a Geist class spy ship was six. Pirates routinely manned their ships at less than T/O and so it was with Flicker. She had four crewmembers.

  Flicker moved steadily toward her destination. Sensors were clean and all was routine. A fine start to a long mission. The little spy ship move ahead at maximum sustained speed across empty Aurora Empire space.

  ~ ~ ~

  The convoy of five merchantmen and three Goth destroyers was two hours out of Marblefall. Intelligence had declared it was safe to move as pirate activity along the short route from Marblefall to Goth space was classified as minimal. Individual pirate ships may be encountered, but pirates were not in strength in the system. The hated Pirate Flotilla One was raiding in the Korpeau system. It was time to move raw materials and slaves to their destinations. The ships moved at the maximum speed of the merchantmen. The destroyers were at a modified version of general quarters. Sensors swept continuously.

  Klaxons sounded full battles stations on all convoy ships as three pirate vessels came out of subspace on the convoy’s port side just out of missile range. The destroyers adjusted to the threat by taking stations on the port side of the convoy. The eight ships turned to starboard and the destroyers now covered the rear of the convoy. Another three vessels came out of subspace on the convoy’s port side again. The convoy again made another ninety degree turn to starboard, and went to military speed as they raced back toward Lorelei. The two squadrons of pirate ships set up intercept courses with the first group coming in on the convoy’s starboard side, and the second group coming up from astern. They would arrive within firing range of the convoy at the same time. The three destroyers reacted to the oncoming threat. One ship moved to place itself between the convoy and the first group to appear. The second destroyer moved astern to duplicate the maneuver toward the second threat, while the third destroyer stayed close to the rear of the fleeing convoy. Each squadron of pirates moved to engage its single destroyer obstacle. It appeared the two destroyers setting up to delay the two threats might allow the merchantmen to return to Marblefall. The distance between the merchantmen with its single escort and the two lagging destroyers grew as the destroyers engaged the oncoming pirates. Missile exchanges began at long range between the two blocking ships and the two pirate squadrons. The pirates had to slow to engage the two destroyers. The convoy continued to put distance between itself and the two pirate forces.

  Just as it appeared escape was imminent, a third pirate squadron came out of subspace directly in front of the merchantmen at close range. There would be no evasion now. The lone destroyer escort had ten seconds to fire as the three pirate vessels came out of subspace. But the pirates had placed the merchantmen between themselves and the destroyer as they appeared. This complicated the firing solution and, coupled with surprise and missile time of flight, allowed the pirates to get their shields up just prior to missile impact. The pirate ships came out of subspace clustered together to ensure no single ship absorbed a full attack from the destroyer, and they constantly exchanged positions by moving ahead of each other to ensure each ship had time to recharge her shields against the assault from the lone destroyer. Thus, the enemy salvos were taken full on the shields with no loss, and the pirates could reply with full offensive broadsides without having to divert tubes to fire defensive interceptor missiles.

  Three separate battles now raged as the pirates achieved their goal of having each squadron shooting it out with individual enemy destroyers that could not mutually support each other. Even though the pirate squadrons were each short a ship, they still had their foes outnumbered three to one in three separate fights. Successful tactics had again reduced a battle to a matter of simple math. Time and distance and math. It always came to that. The outcome was not in doubt.

  Raferty Hawkins’ Alpha squadron had been the last pirate unit to appear. After they took out the destroyer, the chore of grabbing the merchantmen would fall to them as the closest squadron. This would be an easy task. The merchantmen weren’t fast and had limited shields and weapons, so they knew running was not an option and cooperation would be their best course to staying alive. Regardless of the money the Goths were paying them, it wasn’t enough to die for. As always, it’s tough to spend money when you’re dead.

  Raferty Hawkins put his left leg over the left arm of his command chair and placed his left hand on top of the dagger protruding from his boot. His right elbow rested on his chair’s right armrest and he cupped his chin in his right hand.

  “Merchantmen?”

  “They’ve been told to heave to if they want to live,” replied Tactical in her bored tone from her station.

  “Excellent. Fire when we jump ahead of Rogue on this pass.”

  Just then, a message came over all frequencies in an open broadcast. It was Killian O’Hare in all her glory. Wolfpack had been the second squadron to emerge. Her image appeared with eyes gleaming, her teeth bared, and her wolf hallie in full view. “Die, you Goth bastards, DIE!”

  Raferty smiled at the screen, then looked to his right and held the smile for Baby Doll standing beside him. “It’s good to have things back to normal.”

  She smiled in return. “Yes, it is. At least for a little while.”

  Hawkins’ smile became enigmatic. “
The calm before the storm.”

  His ship shuddered as her missiles went downrange and cries of “Predator, Predator, Predator!” echoed throughout her hull.

  Glossary

  Admin - Administrative.

  ASAP - As soon as possible.

  Bulkhead - Naval term for a wall, in particular the walls of a ship dividing the ship into compartments.

  Burgh – Edinburgh solar systems and the natives thereof.

  CIC - See Combat information center.

  CO - Commander/Commanding Officer.

  Combat information center (CIC) - A shipboard compartment with stations for sensors, communication, shipboard systems monitoring, weapons control, etc. It is the nerve center of the ship. On larger ships, CIC is located near the bridge so the captain can move easily between the two. On smaller ships, CIC and the bridge would be one compartment.

  Comm - Communication, communications.

  Close hold - See Operational security.

  Cyclic rate of fire - Firing a weapon as fast as possible.

  Earth day - Twenty-four hour period running midnight to midnight. Planets have different rotations resulting in different lengths of days. Earth days are used in space to ensure all ships are using the same universal unit for the measurement for time. Also called an eday or standard day. Same principle also applies to earth hour (ehour) and earth year (eyear).

  Eday - See Earth day.

  Ehour - See Earth day.

  Evac - Evacuation.

  Executive officer - Second in command of a ship or unit. The executive officer is responsible for the oversight of the administrative work of the unit, and he is considered the enforcer of discipline. In short, the commander is the nice guy and the executive officer is the hard guy. Executive officers often move up to be commanders in their own right. They are commonly called the XO.

  Eyear - See Earth day.

  Flag officer - Generals or admirals are called flag officers because they have their own flags adorned with the appropriate emblem of their rank. These flags fly at their headquarters or are displayed aboard ships if the officer is present.

  Flag rank - See Flag officer.

  FTF - Face to face.

  Freq/Freqs - Frequency, frequencies.

  Hallie - Slang for hallucinate tattoo. A hallie is a tattoo on the body that changes when it is viewed from different body angles. When the body muscles flex, the tattoo changes.

  Head - Naval term for a toilet.

  Identify friend or foe (IFF) - An identification number assigned to each ship. This number will appear on the screen of a sensor when the sensor scans that ship. Slang term is squawk.

  IFF - See Identify friend or foe.

  Intel - See intelligence.

  Intelligence - Information gleaned from all sources that gives insight into other forces operations, weapons, methods, and SOPs. Usually this information is thought of as applying to the enemy, but it actually applies to everyone including your own forces, neutral forces, and civilian/commercial entities commonly called intel.

  Kilometer (km) - A measure of distance based on the metric system. It is 1000 meters long. A meter is just less than 40 inches. One kilometer is 5/8 or .62 of a statute mile so 100 km is approximately 62 miles. Slang term is klick.

  Log dogs - Slang for logistics personnel.

  Operational security - Keeping plans, operations, methods of operation, SOPs, capabilities, and other relevant information restricted to the people who need to know, to discussions with outside sources. Operational security is commonly called OpSec. Its slang term is “close hold.”

  Operations officer - Person in charge of planning and carrying out the operations for the ship or unit. Generally, he is the third in command after the CO and XO, commonly called the OpsO or Ops.

  OpSec -See Operational security.

  Ops - See Operations officer.

  OpsO - See Operations officer.

  Net - Term for communication network with multiple units on one communication channel for command and control coordination.

  P4 - See Personal for.

  Personal For - A private message sent between commanders that bypasses normal communications channels so nobody else can read/hear them. It is often used to convey bad news or to discuss personal or embarrassing topics. It is commonly called a P4.

  Rack - Naval term for a bed.

  Sitreps - See situation reports.

  Situation Reports - Reports sent to higher headquarters or other units as required to keep them informed on the situation and the status of the sending units. Units send them on a regular basis or as required by circumstances. Usually the report has an established format that is filled in to ensure all aspects of operations, logistics, personnel, intelligence, etc. are covered. They are commonly called sitreps.

  SOP (SOPs) - See standard operating procedures.

  Squawk - See Identify Friend or Foe (IFF).

  Standard Day - See Earth day.

  Standard operating procedures - Established procedures, which all members of an organization know so as to reduce briefing times and, when faced with any given situation, all members will react in a given way so the response is coordinated and cohesive. Standard operating procedures are commonly called SOPs.

  XO - See Executive officer.

  About the Author

  Sean Benjamin is the penname for the author. He chose the name based on his two sons, Sean and Ben. He is married to a lovely woman named Lynnda and currently residing in southern California. He is a retired Marine Corps pilot and Desert Shield/Desert Storm veteran. This is his first book.