by Jacen Aster
“You were expecting only Eletheen crew, but I had hitched a ride through this sector to cut three weeks off my travel time. No wonder the Trivole's captain was so reluctant to allow me aboard.”
Henry got a nod in response. “Indeed, though I did not know your reason, and the captain's reluctance speaks well of him. Many have tried publicly ferrying passengers of other species to prevent being raided.” The captain sighed heavily, appearing a bit reluctant to continue. “Now, with such tactics, one can imagine that this problem is not an unheard of complication. Most privateer boats just shoot the non-Eletheen and throw their corpses at the nearest sun. They then claim that the ship was never carrying any passengers and that their claimed presence was only a bluff.” The captain paused there, obviously awaiting a response from Henry to this rather grim statement.
Henry obliged. “Ah, why am I alive then? The fact that I woke up, with my wounds treated for that matter, implies you are not ‘most’ privateers.”
The large man smiled. “Ah, and there is the crux of the matter, my unfortunate friend. I am not a fan of executions and thus go to extra efforts to ensure no ship I attack is carrying passengers. Annoyingly, I hit a bit of an unlucky snag when I reviewed the Trivole's logs and discovered your last minute addition to the ship.” He straightened back to his full height and hesitated half a moment, eyes roving Henry, seeming to take his measure. “Additionally, I was extremely impressed by your performance. The boost you managed to give the Trivole's shields nearly undid our careful ambush. It was only the overload of an improperly maintained power conduit behind you, pure bad luck that, that prevented the ship from escaping. You were knocked unconscious and no one else could understand your patch job well enough to work it around the blown conduit in time. Thus was the Trivole captured, though at much higher cost than we had anticipated. This, Mr. Harper, leads me to a solution where you get to live, I am compensated for my difficulty with the Trivole's capture, and you even get paid, thus turning our joint misfortune into a boon for all.”
“Obviously you're implying you want me to work for you. I don't see how that helps with your letter of marque though.”
The captain's smile morphed into a rather feral grin. “Very good. I suspected I would not need to spell it out for you, Mr. Harper. As for the letter, no one seems to have known about you being aboard the Trivole. I can therefore forge documents claiming you were always part of our crew, recruited to upgrade our systems with new techniques during our ongoing voyage. New techniques like that little shield trick of yours, for example. We get an exceptional engineer, you get the rather nice pay implied by such a position, and most importantly for the both of us, I don't have to kill you.”
A sardonic grin answered the captain. “Well, that does make for a rather convincing recruitment speech, Captain. As I appear to have little choice, I accept. Now what are the chances I'm ever getting off this ship again to spend my ill-gotten gains?”
The captain chuckled. “You needn't worry, Mr. Harper. My offer of employment is completely legitimate. Even if you weren't a problem for me, I'd have paid dearly for your services, had we met under less trying circumstances.” Shrugging, he added, “As I personally believe in running a ship on respect and loyalty, you shall find yourself treated like any other member of the crew, so long as you make no more trouble than they do. We aren't pirates, nor military, and thus are a bit more flexible than either would be in a similar predicament. Our current tour ends in six months, and you can leave then, free of any attempt to restrain you. Unless you choose to stick around longer, of course.” He frowned, then slowly added a bit more. “As you haven't come to us willingly, I feel I must reiterate strongly that we aren't pirates, Mr. Harper, or murderers either. Unlike many, we are honest privateers, preferring to take ships intact and with their crews unharmed. As a matter of fact, in pure spite of the difficulty your shield maneuvers gave us, we caused only two causalities on the Trivole. Both regrettable, but unavoidable. One from the very conduit explosion that nearly killed you, and the other when a section of ship unexpectedly lost pressure.”
Henry's surprise was such that it took a moment to muster a response. “Only two? There were over seventy crew on that ship!”
The captain beamed with obvious pride. “Only two.” he repeated. “There were other injuries, but the good doctor here,” he waved at Doctor Wril, nearly forgotten in a corner, “patched them up before we sent them all off with one of our prize barges.”
“Prize barges?”
“Barges we've refitted to house prisoners. We tow them behind captured ships. They are little more than life support, and thus contain our ‘guests’ safely until the prize crew gets the ship back to Rasien Lei territory, where they offload and the crew rejoins us by shuttle.”
Henry's eyebrows rose. “Sounds like you've made quite a system out of this.”
There was a certain self-satisfied smugness in the captain's response. “We have. In point of fact, the Sunny Victory is the single most successful privateer ship in the fleet.”
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
Henry hummed.
“What the hell? Are you humming?”
Henry grinned down at Naylara from his overhead perch. “I am! It’s so nice to be up here working on a power relay, rather than crawling through some horrible, greasy tunnel. Much less claustrophobic.”
Naylara, commander of the ship's marine detachment and his temporary guard until they were certain of him, looked at him like he was crazy.
“Would you rather I sing? Perhaps find small woodland animals to perform a dance routine alongside?”
Looking completely baffled, she asked, “Is that some strange Human custom?”
Henry chuckled. “Not really a custom per se, just something that shows up in entertainment for small children. At any rate, I assure you that you probably don't want to hear me sing, and I will cease humming if it truly bothers you.”
“It doesn't. It just seems a bit odd. That you are hanging from the ceiling simply makes it a touch more surreal. As I understand it, the engineers are always cursing the design, saying they ought to have put everything under the decking.”
Henry shrugged before disappearing head and shoulders into another overhead access panel. His response was somewhat muffled as a result. “I suppose it's just what you're used to. Since most ship designs have you crawling through cramped access tunnels for much of this work, for me, this is something akin to paradise. I'm working on a new ship type, with tech I've never even heard of before, let alone seen, and I actually have room to stretch and move my elbows. Sure, hanging from the grav harness can be a bit rough on the joints, but it's a fair trade off.”
She gave a dry chuckle. “Tell that to Aerb'uk and the other engineers. I think they fantasize about those tunnels of yours.”
Henry snorted. “Probably. Like I said, just a matter of what you're used to. The grass is always greener on the other side and all that.” He popped back out and turned off the grav harness, contorting as he fell to land on his feet. That had taken some work. It was easy as breathing for the Rashanta, but the maneuver was more than a bit beyond most humans.
Naylara smirked at him. “Hmm, your dismounts are getting better. Maybe I should start rating them.”
Henry just shook his head ruefully. “If you're that bored, why are you still following me around?”
She shrugged. “Eh, I said I would for two weeks, which ends tomorrow. To be honest, I'd have stopped days ago but it's kind of the principal of the thing now. Plus, until we have another ship to hit, there really isn't that much to do anyway.”
“You mean besides tormenting Sair'ah?”
With a completely straight face, she nodded. “Right, besides tormenting Sair'ah.”
Henry grinned. Naylara and Sair'ah, the first officer, were actually the best of friends, but one wouldn't know it from their interactions. They were polar opposites. Naylara was the calm ice to Sair'ah's often volcanic fire, but they worked together spect
acularly. They also provided the crew with endless entertainment as Naylara seemed to consider working Sair'ah up to eruption as some sort of hobby. Henry had a similar sense of humor and had taken to helping her, making the guard duty considerably more friendly from their very first meeting.
“And date nights with Captain Keral.”
Naylara sighed at that and stabbed a finger at him. “Not so much. Ever since you came aboard, lover dearest has been too enthralled in his study of human culture to spend much time with me. I swear, the man should have been a scholar, not a ship's captain.”
Henry smirked. “Well, as you're the one that dragged me aboard, you can only blame yourself.” Of course, the fact that he loved needling the far more dangerous Naylara as well as Sair'ah won him the awe and respect of the entire crew. Mostly because he was still alive.
Naylara sighed again and rubbed her forehead. “I'm so not going there, Henry. So not going there. Let's go get some grub so you can pick on Sair'ah instead of me.”
“Fair enough.”
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
“That guy is such an asshole.”
Sair'ah outright laughed. “Yes, Henry, he is.”
“What's his deal anyway? The rest of the crew act more like reprobate bar crawlers than privateers unless they're in combat, but that guy's more...well, piratey.”
This time Sair'ah sighed. “Bla'halk is one of the best weapons officers you'll ever encounter, but yeah, he's a ruthless bastard. He served on several other privateer ships, all of which tended to be more pirate than anything, before he landed with us. No one really knows why he stays here when he clearly doesn't quite agree with our methods. Probably just the profit, but there's a betting pool going on for his reasons, if you're interested.”
“Maybe he has a crush on Captain Keral.”
Sair'ah stopped dead and looked at him with an utterly horrified expression. Henry couldn't keep a straight face and broke into a slightly manic grin.
She punched him.
“Ow! That was a bit over the top, wasn't it?” Henry said from the deck.
She huffed. “You deserved it this time. Some thoughts, once thought, cannot be unthought! I may never sleep again.”
Henry just laughed. Seeing her temper working up from a simmer to a boil, he quickly slipped past her and said, “Ah, here we are. The new primary shield controls. These will be duplicated on the bridge, obviously, but for now, I can show you the ropes here.”
Snorting at his obvious evasion, she nevertheless slid into the spot next to him. “Alright, I'll bite. Most of this looks the same, but what do these new toggles here do? And what is this display?”
Dropping into lecture mode, Henry waved at the display first. “In reverse order, the display is a more detailed breakdown of your shields. It tracks incoming fire in real-time and shows you where the damage is, as well as type and a lot of other gibberish that you won't need most of the time. The toggles are the reason for the display. You remember the shield trick I used when you first met me?”
She grumbled. “Kinda hard to forget. A merchant cruiser nearly took us out because of that.”
Henry smirked. “Right. Well, the secret to that trick is a sort of point defense to the shields. Human shield tech is better all the way around than virtually anyone else’s, but that's because our ships have stupid amounts of raw power stored. Other ships can't do that, but they can take advantage of the improvements to emitters and relays and such that channel all that power, which is what I've been installing. Mostly, this doesn't help that much. Your previous emitter and relay setup was perfectly good. However, when you use these toggles to set parameters, the new relays and emitters shine. First, they identify which part of the shield is under attack. Then, they pump power from unused sections of shield, as set at your discretion with the toggles, and dump it into the emitters specifically for the portion of shield under assault. This all happens lightning fast. Fast enough that any additional strike will encounter a reinforced shield, making the effective shield strength of the ship nearly double. Triple in some cases. At least, that’s the case so long as you're only being hit from one or two sides.”
Sair'ah let out a low whistle. “Okay, now that is impressive. No wonder that merchant cruiser was so hard to crack.”
“Thought you might like it. Particularly since this is several steps better than what I was able to do on the fly.”
“Oh, I do. I do, indeed. It's just in time, too. We have a new target.”
Harry tensed a bit before forcing himself to relax. It actually wasn't that bad. Even having been with them for only six weeks, Henry had witnessed five raids, all of them in the “deadlands.” The space between the territorial borders of the two powers was right on a major trade route and was one of the sticking points of the whole war. It was such a critical objective that it had once changed hands a dozen times in a week, before the war had shifted to commerce raiding. Ships from both sides still have to use it, though the Eletheen were, unluckily for them, a far more trade-based society than the Rashanta. Therefore, the deadlands, or the ‘Privateer's Paradise,’ as it was more colorfully called, was where most raids took place. Of all five raids, only three casualties had been reported. Two ships had surrendered outright and the other three were taken so masterfully that two of those casualties were entirely accidental.
Sair'ah, seeing his moment of hesitation, just cuffed him on the shoulder and moved on. As she was leaving, she paused for just a moment at the room's hatch and quietly added, “There are things about this business I don't like either, Henry, but it's the closest thing to freedom most of us can ever dream of. No desk to get stuck behind, no government to fear, just black space and open sky.”
Henry was startled at both her uncharacteristic softness...and the disgust he’d heard mixed in there. He stood there pondering it for quite some time before he moved on.
♦♦♦♦♦♦♦
Henry watched from the senior officer's lounge as yet another ship was prepped for departure. A small prize crew had boarded her, and its original crew had been moved into the prize barges. He'd gotten a better look at those a few weeks earlier, and they really were just minimally powered boxes in space that had breathable air, rations, sanitation facilities, and not much else. No engines, no comms, no need for guards. Just shove your captives in there and tow them behind the prize vessel. He'd been part of the crew for three months now and he finally felt safe asking the question that had been bugging him from the beginning. In truth, he'd felt safe for a month, but wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.
“So…what happens to all these prisoners that we drop off anyway? They aren't executed, are they? I mean, if they were, you'd not try so hard to keep them alive, right?”
“No, of course not. They go to the labor auctions,” Captain Keral answered, not even looking up from his report on the raid.
“Labor auctions?” Henry asked suspiciously.
“He means slave auctions!” Sair'ah spit out venomously. Her fur was bristling. She looked so angry that Henry took an involuntary step back.
“Slave auctions?” Henry said warily. “How is that possible? Most of the races would have come down on you like the wrath of God if they caught wind of that sort of thing.”
Captain Keral sighed. “They aren't really slave auctions. Despite how Sair'ah, and others for that matter, feel about it.”
Sair'ah growled deep in her throat. “It's so close as to make no difference, Captain. And you know it.”
Keral shook his head with weary resignation, obviously having had this discussion before. With an irate Sair'ah looking ready to tear the first person that said anything apart, Henry didn't want to ask for clarification. Luckily, Naylara spotted his continued confusion and spoke up from the bench where she was busy oiling her armor.
“The labor auctions started shortly after the war shifted to commerce raiding. The privateers were so successful that the government quickly became overwhelmed with the prisoners of war th
at the privateers brought in. The resources spent on POWs were growing so high that it was affecting the success of the new tactics, yet they couldn't just execute everyone. They were almost entirely civilian crews, and as such, mass executions would have looked very bad to everyone else in the sector. Worse, the state of the camps had grown so bad that disease bred from the poor conditions was killing off thousands.” She stopped polishing and met Henry's eyes, her own resembling nothing so much as chips of angry ice. “Someone came up with the labor auctions as a solution. Each non-military prisoner is fitted with a collar to prevent escape and then put up for ‘labor auction.’ Businesses and individuals can bid on them for their skill sets. The winner gets use of that prisoner’s skills until the war ends.” She paused, sighed, and added, “Thankfully, there are a set of rules for the fair treatment of the laborers that must be followed. Things you can't have them do, what you have to provide them with, that sort of thing.”
Sair'ah snorted. “Right, but no one actually enforces those rules. Even if you get caught by sheer bad luck, there's just a little fine to pay.”
Naylara shrugged and went back to polishing, albeit more slowly. “That's true enough. So is the fact that it's a major piece of why this war will likely never end. After all, if it ended, we'd have to repatriate a substantial chunk of our labor class. Functionally, Sair'ah is right. It might as well be slavery. Legally, however, it's ‘hard labor’ for prisoners of war, which is allowed by most species. Thus the lack of interference.”