The Jupiter Pirates

by Jason Fry

  Threece Suud was talking again, marching back and forth at the front of the courtroom, waving his hands with each point he made.

  “I have rarely seen such a flagrant violation of the laws of space,” he said. “When the illegal interception was made, the Shadow Comet was commanded by a twelve-year-old boy—a minor who should have been in school, not behind the guns of a pirate ship.”

  Tycho felt his face grow hot.

  His mother was on her feet, a bright rose of color in each cheek.

  “Your Honor, my family has operated the Shadow Comet for two hundred and thirty-eight years. On top of everything else, I’m supposed to listen to this man tell me how to run a starship?” she demanded. “Besides, the Comet is no pirate ship, as he knows perfectly well. We are privateers operating legally on behalf of the Jovian Union, in accordance with—”

  “I withdraw the characterization,” Suud said airily. “But changing one word does nothing to change the facts of the case, Your Honor. Which are that—”

  BANG! went the gavel.

  “Your views are quite clear, Secretary Suud,” Judge Quence said. “You should know, however, that in this region of space it’s not uncommon to find young boys—and girls, too—serving aboard starships.”

  “Point taken, Your Honor, however unfortunate the practice may be,” Suud said. “It grieves me to see a child’s formative years thrown away as some sort of apprentice criminal.”

  “Criminal?” demanded Huff, getting to his feet with a roar and ignoring both Diocletia’s hisses for him to quiet down and the sharp reports of Judge Quence’s gavel. “Tyke here is a far finer boy than any of you pampered, pretty Earthfolks! Why, if I had my laser cannon, I’d show this insolent pup what ‘criminal’ means!”

  “Grandfather, be quiet!” yelped Yana. “You’re going to get us into trouble!”

  Huff subsided, muttering.

  Threece Suud smiled a rather oily smile.

  “Your Honor, it seems appropriate to add menacing to the long list of charges pending against the Hashoone family,” he said.

  “Denied,” Judge Quence said. “It was so noisy in here I couldn’t hear exactly what was said. But I’ll have no further outbursts in this courtroom. Is that understood, Huff?”

  Huff muttered something that Judge Quence chose to interpret as a yes.

  “Mr. Soughton, stand up, please,” the judge said.

  Soughton got to his feet, arms folded.

  “Your Honor, I will speak on behalf of—” began Suud.

  WHAM!

  “Secretary Suud, first you speak when I am addressing Master Hashoone, and now you speak when I am talking to Mr. Soughton,” Judge Quence said. “Please get control of whatever identity crisis it is that you are having. Now then, Mr. Soughton, how many years have you been with Earth’s diplomatic service?”

  Suud tugged at the larger man’s jacket and whispered something in his ear.

  “About three weeks, sir,” Soughton said.

  “You may address me as Your Honor,” Judge Quence said. “Before your three weeks of service, Mr. Soughton, how long was your diplomatic training?”

  “Your Honor, let me say that—” Suud said.

  BANG!

  “What has happened to this courtroom today?” Judge Quence asked in exasperation. “You will speak only when spoken to, Secretary Suud. Mr. Soughton, please answer my question.”

  “Got no such training, sir,” Soughton said. “I mean, Your Honor.”

  Threece Suud started to get up, then thought better of it and sat back down.

  “I see,” Judge Quence said. “And what was your occupation, Mr. Soughton, before you joined the diplomatic service?”

  Soughton shrugged. “This and that, Your Honor.”

  “This and that?” Judge Quence asked, incredulous. “What was your most recent place of employment?”

  Soughton glanced at Secretary Suud, who nodded.

  “Working for Carnegie-Frick Ventures, Your Honor,” Soughton said.

  Tycho had never heard of that. He looked at his mother, but her face was impassive.

  “Thank you, Mr. Soughton,” Judge Quence said. He looked down at the papers on his desk, then peered out at the courtroom and saw that Suud had his hand in the air.

  “Yes, Secretary Suud?” Judge Quence asked.

  “Your Honor, Mr. Soughton’s length of service with the diplomatic corps is not at issue here,” Suud said. “Nor is the nature of his prior employment. His credentials show him to be a legally accredited diplomat of Earth, and those credentials entitle him and any starship transporting him to diplomatic immunity.”

  “I understand that, Secretary,” Judge Quence said. “What I don’t understand is why people who have done ‘this and that’ are suddenly becoming diplomats. Is a diplomatic career so little valued on Earth that it’s being taken up as a hobby? No, don’t answer, Secretary Suud. I’ve heard quite enough for one day.”

  Judge Quence scanned the papers on his desk again and rubbed his eyes.

  “It’s all very curious,” he said. “I need to think about it. Mr. Soughton, you are released, as is Captain Wofford and the crew of the Cephalax II. Captain Wofford, you are ordered to transfer your cargo to an orbital warehouse. It will be held in escrow pending a resolution of this case.”

  Wofford looked at Judge Quence in horror.

  “But Your Honor, that’s all my profits for this voyage!”

  “I’m aware of that, Hans,” Judge Quence said. “Just as you are aware that Earth and the Jovian Union remain technically at war, and privateering is a legal part of that conflict, whatever Secretary Suud’s opinion of the matter.”

  Judge Quence thumbed through his mediapad for a moment, then nodded and looked up.

  “Principals in this case are ordered to return three weeks from today,” he said, then banged his gavel a final time. “Court dismissed.”

  6

  CERES PURSUIT

  Well, that was interesting,” Mavry said with a smile as the Hashoones sat in a cheap café not far from the admiralty court’s polished wooden doors. Tycho was reminding himself to sip the carton of sugary jump-pop he’d bought instead of gulping it, while Yana was picking at a plate of dried fruit. Carlo blew on a thimble-sized cup of expensive coffee, while their parents warmed their hands on larger, cheaper cups.

  “So we won’t find out if she’s a prize for three weeks?” Tycho asked worriedly.

  “Maybe not even then,” Diocletia said. “We’re all in uncharted space here.”

  She rubbed her eyes, frowning, then took a long sip of coffee. Mavry put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Anyway, put it out of your mind. There’s nothing to be done about it,” she said.

  “Your mother and I have to file the paperwork with the local Jovian Union offices,” Mavry said. “Wait here until Huff gets back, then go with him to the victualing yard and restock the Comet’s provisions.”

  “Where did Grandfather go, anyway?” Yana asked, pulling her mediapad out of her bag.

  “He said he was getting a nip of grog,” Mavry said from behind his coffee cup.

  “How much is a nip?” Carlo asked.

  “It varies,” Mavry said with a grin, putting down his empty cup and getting to his feet. “Anyway, keep your communicators on—and stay out of trouble.”

  Tycho watched them vanish into the throng of spacers. Yana was pestering Carlo for a sip of his coffee.

  “A tiny sip,” Carlo warned. “This cost me half my shore allowance.”

  Yana handed the cup back, her face twisted in dismay.

  “Ugh, bitter!” she complained, then returned to scrutinizing her mediapad.

  “Don’t be such a kid,” Carlo said with a laugh. “What are you reading, anyway?”

  “The court documents Suud filed,” Yana said.

  “Anything interesting?” Carlo asked. They all had mediapads, but only Yana’s seemed to be permanently attached to her hand.

  Yana narrowed h
er eyes at her brother. “Read them yourself and find out.”

  “Maybe I will,” Carlo said, then glanced at Tycho. “And what are you mooning over?”

  Tycho didn’t want to say, but now Yana had put her mediapad aside and was looking at him too.

  “It’s my prize. Why did they go to the Union offices without me?” he asked.

  “It’s not your prize—” Carlo began.

  “It was mine in admiralty court!” Tycho snapped.

  “Tyke, relax,” Carlo said. “It was your prize in admiralty court because you were the watch officer and it was your starship during the intercept. It’s Mom’s prize according to the Jovian Union because she’s the captain. Got it?”

  Tycho nodded, and after a moment Carlo nodded back.

  “Anyway, I don’t know why you two keep worrying yourselves to death over the Log,” Carlo said. “We all know I’m going to be captain.”

  “Oh, we do, do we?” Yana asked scornfully. “And how do we know that?”

  “Common sense,” said Carlo. “I’m the oldest, and I’m the best pilot. I can fly rings around you both—Mom knows it, and we all know the Log shows it. It’s nothing to be ashamed of. I’m just saying that the sooner the three of us understand what will happen, the sooner we can start working together more effectively as a bridge crew.”

  “Aunt Carina’s older than Mom, and she’s not captain,” Tycho pointed out. “She was a better pilot than Mom, too. Or at least that’s what everybody says.”

  “Aunt Carina was going to be the captain, and we all know it,” Carlo said. “What happened didn’t have anything to do with age or piloting.”

  “You mean 624 Hektor, don’t you?” Yana asked, poking at the last little bits of fruit. “Strange how one day can change everything.”

  Tycho and Carlo exchanged a surprised glance. The Battle of 624 Hektor was rarely discussed among Jovians. In the minds of many privateers, the mere mention of it invited the worst kind of luck, even eleven years later.

  Carlo hesitated, then plunged ahead, as if Yana’s mention of the forbidden name had changed the rules.

  “It took a lot less than a day—everything changed in a few minutes,” Carlo said. “The Martian freighters entered the asteroids, our pirate ships moved to intercept them from where they’d been waiting in ambush, and then the Earth ships that had been hiding in the asteroids powered up and ambushed us instead. By the time the Jovian Defense Force showed up, most of our ships had been destroyed or crippled.”

  “Because we were betrayed,” Yana said.

  Carlo shrugged. “That’s the story.”

  “You sound like you don’t believe it,” Tycho said.

  “Depends on which part you mean,” Carlo said. “Do I believe some of our fellow Jupiter pirates sold us out? Yes, I do. Do I believe the Jovian Union let us get massacred so they could gain control of the survivors? No way—it’s a crazy conspiracy theory.”

  Neither their parents nor Huff had ever talked about the terrible moment when missiles fired by an Earth destroyer had ripped through the Comet’s quarterdeck. Diocletia, Mavry, and Carina had escaped serious harm, but Huff had nearly been killed, suffering injuries too great for him to continue as captain. The thought still chilled Tycho during solitary watches. He imagined the blare of warning sirens, the impacts like hammer blows, and then the scream of air escaping through holes in the hull, dragging along with it anything not secured into space.

  “At least Grandfather survived,” Carlo said quietly after a moment. “A lot of pirates didn’t. Stearns Cody. Helga von Stegl. Thane D’Artagn.”

  “And Sims Gibraltar,” Yana muttered. “Aunt Carina’s fiancé.”

  Carlo nodded.

  “What ship did Sims serve on again?” Tycho asked.

  “The Ghostlight,” Carlo said. “A direct hit cracked her reactor, spilling radiation everywhere. His family took him back to Ganymede, to care for him as best they could. When Aunt Carina heard he’d died, she swore she’d never go into space again. And so the captain’s chair went to Mom.”

  The Hashoones had repaired the Comet—you could still see the pale spots where the quarterdeck’s hull had been patched with new steel. But things had changed by the time she returned to deep space. In the aftermath of 624 Hektor, the Jovian Union formally outlawed piracy—but then swiftly offered letters of marque to some of the surviving pirate captains. Diocletia had aspired to be the captain of a pirate ship, but the Comet had become a privateer, a lawful commerce raider.

  A table of freighter bums behind them laughed uproariously, clanking tumblers of something vile-smelling. Yana lifted her head from staring at her plate.

  “Well, I don’t need a disaster to become captain,” she said. “I’ll beat you out fair and square, Carlo.”

  Carlo smiled and shook his head.

  “And me?” Tycho asked.

  “Oh, like I need help beating you,” Yana said.

  Before Tycho could reply, Carlo shushed them.

  “Quiet—Grandfather’s here,” he said. The Log and the Comet’s captaincy were sensitive subjects with their grandfather, but no subject was more sensitive than 624 Hektor and its aftermath.

  Huff didn’t come over to their table. Instead, he stood just inside the door to the café and bellowed at them, causing heads to turn at every table.

  “Hurry up, you lot—we’re late!” he thundered. “Can’t wait around fer yeh all day, y’know!”

  “And whose fault is that?” Yana asked Tycho with a grin as they got up from the table.

  He glared at her, still angry.

  “Oh, come on, Tyke,” Yana said, rolling her eyes. “I was joking. Don’t be so serious.”

  They got their bearings in the crowded passageway outside the café. Huff looked mournfully down at the stump of his mechanical wrist.

  “Wish I had me persuader,” he grumbled. “Ceres ain’t wild like it used to be, but seems there’s always some young punk what wants to cause a ruckus.”

  “Nobody’s going to mess with you, Grandfather,” Yana said, and Huff brightened.

  “Come on,” Carlo said. “Let’s get to the yard and see about getting the Comet resupplied. Before Threece Suud decides that’s illegal, too.”

  They shouldered their way through the throngs of spacers, ignoring the come-ons of the shop fronts’ holographic displays.

  “What do you think Judge Quence will decide?” Tycho asked his grandfather.

  “Don’t know much about lawyerin’ and don’t care to learn,” Huff said, fixing a band of passing roughnecks with a glower. “But ol’ Quencie, he’s a sensible sort, been around the solar system a time or two. Pirate once upon a time, even.”

  “Judge Quence was a pirate?” Yana asked in disbelief.

  “Oh, sure. First mate aboard the Dead Hand, ’fore she crashed on Thelxinoe,” Huff said. “Quencie mostly stayed on the right side of the law, stuck to runnin’ freight, but he’d fly with a black transponder when it suited him. Got in a scrap with him once or twice myself, when I was captain.”

  “Why’d he quit?” Tycho asked.

  “You’d have to ask him, laddie,” Huff said. “One day we heard he’d shipped off to Mars to get himself a fancy law degree. Yeh want my opinion, though, it’s that Uribel never much cared for being shot at—took it personal.”

  “Ex-pirates shouldn’t be judges,” sniffed Carlo.

  “And why’s that?” asked Huff. “If a body’s going to sit in judgment of others, better he’s lived a little, not wasted his life in a courtroom.”

  “Because we need laws, Grandfather,” Carlo said. “And if you’ve broken them before, you’re in no position to enforce them later.”

  “Arrr, belay that,” said Huff. “Laws don’t come floatin’ out of deep space, boy. They’re made by folks. Some of them’s good folks, some not so much, and laws are like children—they look like the folks what made ’em. Remember the reason we Jovians is fightin’ Earth, Carlo. I know you’ve heard lots of high-f
alutin’ talk ’bout why, but comes down to some unfair folks made some unfair laws way back when, and ever since then Earth folks been too stubborn to admit they’re wrong and undo ’em.”

  “But Grandfather—” Carlo said.

  “But nothin’, Carlo,” Huff said. “You seen that Mr. Suud—sounds like he wants to outlaw privateerin’, or make it impossible. A generation ago the solar system was full of pirates, and now there’s just a handful of us left. Suppose they took privateerin’ away too. What would you do? Dock the Comet an’ leave her to rust?”

  “You’re being overly dramatic, Grandfather,” Carlo said. “It wouldn’t come to that.”

  “I bet everybody thinks that, before things change,” Yana piped up.

  Huff nodded at Yana, his mechanical eye bright in his face.

  “Arrr, that they do,” Huff said. “That they do.”

  They were waiting in line outside a chandler’s depot when Yana gave a start of surprise.

  “Look!” she said.

  Tycho looked, but saw nothing unusual—just the normal crowd of spacers.

  “That man over there—he was at admiralty court, sitting behind Suud,” she said. “Suud spoke to him after court was adjourned. It looked like he was giving him orders.”

  “Which man?” Huff asked.

  “The one with the mustache,” Yana said.

  “I don’t recognize him,” Carlo said doubtfully.

  “That’s because you weren’t paying attention,” Yana said. “Remember what Mom said about the importance of things that happen in port? I gave everybody on that side of the room a good once-over. It’s him—and he wasn’t on the Ceph-Two.”

  “So he’s Suud’s aide,” Carlo said. “So what?”

  “Look at the guys he’s with,” Yana said. “Do they look like Earth bureaucrats to you?”

  Tycho didn’t recognize the man, who was wearing the sort of drab tunic you saw many places on Ceres, as was the man next to him. Tycho couldn’t say for sure what he looked like. But Yana had a point about the others. Everything about them—from their rolling gait to their numerous earrings, tattoos, scars, and missing parts—suggested they didn’t work at desks but made their living in space. They might be freighter bums with colorful pasts, but they might also be pirates, or even slavers.