by Rodney Smith
“Looks like we’ll need to shift our operations to in-spiral for a while. The Rigel to Aldebaran run is starting to dry up. We’re seeing too many armed escorts and convoys since that last container ship that the Leviathan brought in. The passenger liner captured today was a fluke. Even our attempt to infiltrate a few of our ships into the escort fleet isn’t paying off any more. Captain Craig, brief us on that route you were surveying to get us out to the Perseus sector.”
Captain Sam Craig got up from his chair and motioned for the terminal operator to bring up his plot. The lights dimmed and a 3-D view of the star cluster appeared before them in the center of the table. As the image built, several red paths from Barataria led out, but all terminated before reaching the edge of the field. One crooked blue path led all the way through the field and out into space in the K’Rang end of the Perseus sector, where several green lines stretched from system to system. Several systems were highlighted in orange or yellow.
“As you can see, I’ve successfully piloted my ship out of the star cluster into the edge of the Perseus sector, represented by this blue line. It’s our back door into the K’Rang Empire. I’ve done a sensor scan and found several cargo runs that would be worth our while, shown here in green. There are at least ten runs here that would provide us with good captures. The best point is that these here, here, and here, marked in orange, are new worlds and get a lot of high tech and machinery cargos. The two more developed systems here and here, marked in yellow, get a lot of deliveries from outside the sector that will be on the edges of our ability to patrol, but high value enough to make it worth our while.”
The captains murmured at Captain Craig’s comments, with hungry looks in their eyes.
Steven Maynard signaled for quiet. “Thank you, Captain Craig. Gentlemen and ladies, we will need to harvest this new area carefully. If we continue to hit the Rigel to Aldebaran run selectively and develop this new area as well, we can all live very well for as long as we remain smart. In addition, we might find fertile markets for trade between the empires. I’m sure there are many that would pay top dollar for proscribed goods from the other empire.”
Maynard brought the meeting to a close and the captains drifted off in ones and twos. Captain Craig and Captain Chang, captain of the Leviathan, remained behind.
“Steven, this path I found is just barely large enough for the Leviathan to make it through. If the navigators get sloppy, we could lose her to a gravity eddy.”
Captain Chang, a grizzled man in his early sixties, bristled at the comment. “I guess it’s a good thing I don’t have any sloppy navigators, then.”
Captain Craig turned to his fellow captain and said, “Lee, that’s not it. It’s just that we all have so much invested in your ship and depend on it so much. I just want to make sure you understand the risk.”
“It’s all right, Ron, I understand your concern. I think once we fit the new thrusters we’ll pull off that container ship I brought in, she’ll pirouette in space like a ballerina.”
“Pirouette?” laughed Maynard. “That I’ll need to see.”
All three left the conference room and went their separate ways, chuckling at the vision of a ship larger than a Fleet carrier twirling in space.
* * * * *
Maynard made his way to his private quarters on Helge’s Ridge. He walked out onto his terrace and surveyed what he had built so far. Below him lay a twelve-kilometer wide city, with over 300,000 members of the brotherhood and 100,000 captives. It nestled in a valley between two medium mountain ranges and had all the facilities of a second tier world in the Galactic Republic. Every resident, including captives, had private quarters, free medical care, entertainment of all types, and all the modern conveniences.
To the north was a spaceport that could handle any size atmospheric ship or spacecraft capable of landing on a planet’s surface. The ancient artificial moon above them serviced all other ships and served as the wrecking yard for all captured ships. Nothing went to waste. The yards here were capable of stripping all the usable parts off the captured ships down to just structural members and rebuilding them in four different classes of ships.
The largest class was the Leviathan, named after the biblical sea beast that swallowed Jonah whole and spit him out again, and there was only one ship in the class. The next two classes were torpedo ships designed for system defense. The Scylla class was fast, almost a fighter, and capable of firing four homing torpedoes. The Charybdis class was slower, but carried six torpedoes. If the Galactic Republic ever ventured into the star cluster and got too close, they would find a swarm of torpedoes heading their way. Maynard would prefer hypervelocity missiles, but the Fleet chips capable of guiding hypervelocity missiles were too closely guarded to acquire.
The final and most prevalent class was a combination patrol craft and marauder vessel. It was fast, maneuverable, heavily armed for a ship of its size, and with a spacious cargo capacity. The lead ship in the class, the Undefeated, was due back in a few days. It was escorting a captured Galaxy class transport with some wealthy hostages. The ransom would probably pay off the captain’s mortgage on the ship.
Life was good for Steven Maynard. He had farms, mines, mills and factories, all at his command. In a decade, after he populated this planet some more, he would deed a township to each of his captains, and expand outward where three habitable systems were awaiting settlers. Steven had dreams of an empire, and he was well on his way.
He read the latest reports from the moon station and wondered how loudly Captain Mabry would yell when she found out he was taking her pilot to captain his latest Undefeated class ship coming off the ways. He’d probably have to give her a bigger cut of the ransom to keep her from blowing up. She was a good captain, but could be such a drama queen at times.
Steven remembered back thirty years, when the idea of Barataria first occurred to him. It was back when the Algol-Aldebaran conflict was simmering over control of the high iron asteroids in the local fields. Iron was needed to make the steel required for high-rise buildings, combat ships, and other requirements of developing worlds.
Steve captained the Survey Ship Pericles and was always looking for contracts. The Pericles had been a wedding present from his industrialist father-in-law. It was meant to provide Steven with an income suitable to keep his father-in-law’s little girl in a manner to which she was accustomed. Unfortunately, she was accustomed to more attention than a wandering survey captain could provide. One of her lovers was the jealous type and, when she wouldn’t leave Steven for him, killed them both in a murder-suicide. Steven returned home, buried his wife, sold all their belongings and left to make his life among the stars.
He found that contracting for survey work in a conflict zone was profitable but tricky work. Both sides had hired privateers who were not always scrupulous when it came to deciding what was or wasn’t an enemy vessel. Steven had some medium plasma guns in hidden mounts fitted in the Pericles, to give him a chance.
One day, he was working a survey contract for an Aldebaran conglomerate in dire need of certain minerals. Steven was picking his way through an asteroid field, doing remote assay work looking for high concentrations of the minerals in question.
An Algolian privateer happened upon him and called for him to heave to and be boarded for inspection. Knowing that his Aldebaran contract would brand him an enemy vessel, he allowed the privateer to get close and then cut him in two with his guns. Unfortunately, the privateer wasn’t alone and Steven found himself in a four hour running gun battle. His ship thrusters gave him an advantage in being able to run up to full speed then face rearward to fire. It kept the privateer back and gave Steven running room, but he needed to find someplace to get away, to hide and wait out this tenacious captain. As he ran along the face of the Pleiades Star Cluster, he thought he saw a pathway inside. He turned in against the wishes of his crew and, surprisingly his ship wasn’t crushed by the gravity or swept into an eddy never to be seen again.
; The privateer chose not to follow him, but waited at the spot the Pericles entered. With his exit closed, Steven led his ship further into the star cluster, looking for an alternate way out. He did not find another way out, but he did find something wondrous – an abandoned habitable world.
Steven spent three days conducting a full survey of this empty planet, hoping their friend waiting outside would tire and go away. It was a Class M planet orbiting within the Goldilocks zone, where the effects of solar radiation were not too cold, not too hot, but just right for human habitation. He found scattered ruins and an artificial moon from an ancient and long absent society. He couldn’t tell if they had abandoned the world or died off. In fact, he found no physical evidence, no bones or images, beyond the ruins, that there had ever been sentient beings on the planet. He estimated that it had been millennia since the planet had been occupied.
His exploration of the artificial moon found it to be fully functional. Thankfully, the old civilization used pictures for labeling their controls; so most functions were easily discernable. One of his engineers found the controls to pressurize the workspaces and did so. The air was musty, but breathable. It gave them freedom to explore the space station and discover its secrets. What they found was a shipyard capable of building and repairing medium-sized ships like the Pericles or their privateer friend waiting outside.
Steven was considering the best way to profit from this discovery, when one of his crew suggested that their food was getting low and the pirate at the gate wouldn’t have long to wait before they had to replenish their stocks. He mused how the privateer would probably love to have a hole like this to duck into when things got too hot on the outside.
Steven grasped onto this idea as a way out of their current predicament. He saw it through to its logical conclusion. He could offer to populate this world with a society of pirates. It had fertile land for bountiful crops and raising livestock. It had space for large estates and city houses. Steven saw the draw this planet could have for the right clientele.
Steven prepared a sales pitch to use on their tenacious friend still waiting outside. He ran it by his crew and they were all for it. Land on developed worlds was expensive and hard to come by. Land on new words was limited by Galactic Republic environmental and settlement bureau red tape. Here was as much land as one could want. A man could claim a whole continent if he had a mind to.
Steven approached the entrance to the star cluster just out of weapons range and called the privateer captain over short-range comms.
“Unknown vessel, this is Captain Steven Maynard of the Survey Ship Pericles.”
He didn’t have long to wait for a reply. “Captain Maynard, this is Captain Lee Chang of the Aldebaran Auxiliary Fleet Vessel, Morning Sun, present your ship to be boarded.”
Well, that was to be expected, seeing as his ship had destroyed one of his fellow privateers.
Steven started his sales pitch. He said he wasn’t likely to submit to boarding. He asked Captain Chang if he ever felt a longing to be the owner of his own land, in a place where he could live his current lifestyle free of any legal entanglements. He asked him if he would like a facility to maintain his ship where the fees wouldn’t go up based on a successful cruise.
Captain Chang came back on the communicator and asked, “Where is this Shangri La you speak of?”
Steven replied, “It is right in here behind me. Would you care to have a look?”
Chang replied, “How do I know this isn’t just a ruse to lure me into gun range and kill us like you killed the Enforcer, or lead me into a gravity eddy I can’t escape from?”
Steven replied, “You don’t, but isn’t the reward enough to overcome the risk? Come in with your weapons charged, Captain. I will do the same. If either suspects treachery, we are free to fire.”
The other captain chuckled and said, “I don’t know you, Captain, but I like your style. It will be a pity if I have to kill you.”
Steven keyed his communicator, chuckled, and said, “I feel the same way about you, sir.”
Captain Chang was impressed by the found world and also realized its potential as a base for those not friendly with the law. He and Steven agreed to sponsor this world to the right kind of people. One of their first joint tasks was to name their world. They looked through history files for any similar arrangements and found an old Earth pirate named Jean Lafitte, who operated a similar gathering of pirates on an island called Barataria, so that became the planet’s name.
Steven put the word out through the various prison networks of a world more lenient than those they were serving time on. The word spread quickly through the cellblocks and camps. He told convicts that a world awaited them if they had needed skills and could control their passions. Steven advertised for people with experience in construction, heavy manufacturing, light manufacturing, shipbuilding, agriculture, engineering, hospitality, and other fields. He received queries by the thousands. His population grew and pretty soon his idea became a city.
Lee Chang put the word out through the pirate network and ships showed up by the dozens. There were some early problems with some of the pirates being a little too ruthless with their captives. Those captives that weren’t killed were worthless for use on the farms and in the factories. That was when the code of the brotherhood came into being.
The code was simple logic: Loyalty to the Brotherhood above all, aid fellow brothers in need, inflict no needless harm to captives, keep the secret of Barataria, and above all, thieves can’t abide other thieves. These simple rules kept the Brotherhood from descending into anarchy. Unfortunately, for those who could not learn to live within these rules, infractions could mean death. Once you joined the Brotherhood and learned of Barataria’s location, you could never leave the Brotherhood. A few had to be hunted down and killed for that lesson to soak in.
* * * * *
Fleet comms channels were burning up with messages from the major shipping lines, several corporations, and two world governments to do something about these ship disappearances. There was even Galactic Republic Senate pressure being brought to bear. The Vigilant would be departing as soon as she could be resupplied. They were given priority with base supply so that would be no time at all.
Kelly reviewed his orders as the base shuttle delivered him to the Vigilant: Proceed to the vicinity of the Rigel-Aldebaran trade route. Rendezvous with Fleet Reporting Officer Alistair Bennett. Assist him in his investigations, as appropriate. Determine the source of the ship disappearances and resolve the matter successfully.
It was a simple mission. All he had to do was do what the Rigel and Aldebaran governments’ best investigators and the combined resources of ten shipping lines were unable to do. All he could think was what a great mission they’d given him.
* * * * *
Sensor Lead Technician H’Talli, of the K’Rang Missile Corvette J’New, ran an in-port training exercise for his sensor section in the Combat Information Center, using saved sensor files from their patrol a week prior. He supervised his section as they scoured the old sensor data, rating them on their ability to quickly identify ships by engine signature, type, and size.
He had a timer and a list of targets he had personally identified on their last patrol through the D’Rin sector. This sector was peaceful and their only targets normally were commercial vessels of various types and sizes. It was a perfect training opportunity. As the techs worked, he tracked how quickly they identified and classified targets on the basis of his own score.
The D’Rin sector was sort of a backwater by K’Rang standards and the J’New was the only ship dedicated to this sector. Here the border had no mines or sensors, but was secure by the impenetrability of the D’Rin star cluster, a dusty star nursery consisting of a few large blue stars, even fewer yellow dwarf stars, and hundreds of brown dwarfs too feeble to ever become true stars. The gravity and the magnetic fields they created were treacherous to ships. Many a scout ship was lost attempting to find a passage through
to human space.
He checked his list and saw that the next target ship was an ore carrier due in sensor range in ten seconds. He watched to see who would be first to react.
Sensor Technician T’Get reacted first, but he should not have been able to detect the target for another eight seconds. H’Talli moved to see what T’Get was sensing.
“Sensor Technician T’Get, what is the target you are working?”
“Sensor Lead Technician H’Talli, a ship has appeared from the D’Rin star cluster. I believe it is a Human ship of a type not in our data base.”
H’Talli doubted the junior sensor analyst and asked T’Get to show his data.
T’Get ran the sensor file back and focused on the face of the D’Rin star cluster, where he had seen the ship. In a moment, a ship appeared outside the boundary of the star cluster. The ship was there and the next instant, it was gone.
T’Get replayed the file and H’Talli’s pupils widened, his fur stood up, and his blood ran cold as the ship came into view again. H’Talli froze the feed as the ship appeared. He moved T’Get out of his seat and sat down to work the target. It was unmistakably a Human ship. The engine signature was that of a common gravity well/FTL engine of Human design. Unfortunately, it dropped back into the star cluster before its class and armament could be determined.
H’Talli stood up on unsteady legs as the realization of the find sunk in.
He announced to the room, “This training is ended. Put your positions in proper order and you are released for the day. Report back here at 0500 tomorrow. Sensor Technician T’Get, you will remain behind.”
As the section filed out, H’Talli sat back down at the sensor terminal and reprocessed all the data on the Human ship. He had no doubt in his conclusion.