by E. G. Castle
“They could just be being cautious. They already lost one Blastfire to us.”
“And have eleven more!”
“We only have the mayor’s word for that. And I don’t… That is, I’m not sure how, ah, accurate her information could be.”
Frank’s lips twitched, despite himself.
“True. Still, it makes sense to assume the pirates have more than less, regardless of what they actually have.”
“Yes, sir.” McKain’s voice indicated complete agreement.
The lieutenant then said hopefully, “In any case, it looks like we may get to our destination without too much trouble.”
“Hopefully, sir.” The sergeant’s voice was doubting.
***
“Mad, you are not to simply shoot at anything that attracts your attention. We do not have the missiles for that. Clear?” His second-in-command was silent. Bloody Jack’s hand dropped to the gun strapped to his waist.
“CLEAR?”
“Yes, Bloody,” she finally grumbled.
“Good. Remember,” he hated to have to repeat himself, but with Mad annoyed it was probably worth it. “Keep the Blastfires circling. With your sensors, you should be able to spot the Marines before they get too close. Then immediately com me.”
“I know, Jack.”
He frowned at her.
“Bloody Jack,” she corrected.
“If you get a positive confirmation of the Marines on the sensors, and only then, you can fire. Clear?”
“Clear,” she glumly said, obviously feeling he was sucking the fun out of things.
Minutes later, as Bloody Jack watched her leave, he wondered how badly she was going to disobey him. Being the way she was, the only question was by how much.
Then he shrugged. As long as she didn’t waste too many missiles killing civilians, he’d ignore it.
***
“Sir? I think you should see this…”
They had traveled quite a distance over the last several hours, heading towards the planet’s capital. The journey had remained fairly boring so far, but, as the more experienced troopers informed the less, that was only to the good.
Even so, the trip had the platoon more on edge then usual, with a constant underlying tension. They simply couldn’t know when the pirates might find them and attack.
Getting up, Frank clumsily made his way to the front of the truck. Although he was used to moving in unpowered armor, doing so in a bouncing truck was no easy task.
Peering through the small window set between the front of the truck and its back, the lieutenant wondered what the driver, Sergeant Von Hervitz, wanted.
“Yes? What is it?”
“Sir, look over there.” The sergeant pointed ahead, out the windshield.
Frowning, Frank did.
“That’s… What is that?”
“I think it’s a Blastfire. And if you keep watching…” Doing so, Frank saw the Blastfire wing away around one side of the horizon… then a minute later, another appeared on the other side.
“Shit. They’re guarding the capital.”
“I think so, sir. Also, they’re doing so pretty far out. They’re covering at least a hundred-fifty mile circle.”
“Right. Good work, Abe. McKain!”
“Yes, sir?” The so-far silent figure in the passenger seat spoke up.
Although he was surprised, having assumed the platoon sergeant had been in the back, Frank continued smoothly.
“What do you think? Should we continue to the guerrillas? Or will the pirates be screening them as well, in case we try to make contact? After all, they are supposedly near the capital.”
McKain hesitated before saying anything.
“Well… Actually, sir, for all we know, perhaps the pirates already exterminated them.”
The lieutenant blinked. He genuinely hadn’t thought of that. But now his sergeant had pointed it out, it was an obvious possibility. After all, their information was several weeks old; it was hardly as if the pirates were likely to leave any opposition running around for that long. Still…
“Be that as it may, we can’t be sure. And, even if we can’t meet up with the guerrilla forces, we’ll still need to penetrate the pirates’ defensive line.”
“Yes, sir.” The sergeant’s tone didn’t indicate agreement… but neither did it convey disagreement.
“Very well. I think we will continue proceeding then. However, Sergeant Hervitz,” Frank habitually dropped the ‘Von’ in his sergeant’s name. “Stop several miles outside their sensor range. We’ll decide then how to proceed, whether to continue on foot or by truck. McKain, I want you in particular to keep your eyes out for anything unusual.”
“Yessir,” the two chorused.
***
Raising his head slightly above the rock he was crouched behind, Frank examined the ravine his platoon was about to move through.
In the end, it had been decided that the platoon would continue on foot, making its way towards its hoped for rendezvous with the ‘guerrillas’.
Unfortunately, it had also been decided that they would travel in unpowered battlesuits.
While it was part of basic training to do so; it was hardly easy. Though the battlesuits were lighter than they looked, they were still heavy enough to make moving difficult. Hiking in them, therefore, was near torture. And, unfortunately, they had had to do so for several hours, to travel the last fifteen miles to their destination.
But by now, they were almost there.
“Sir, I think…” That was Sergeant Javer, who had come up as the lieutenant had been examining the ravine.
“What?”
“I’m pretty sure the guerrillas are guarding the ravine. It looks like they’ve got outposts; there, there, there and over there.” His hand waved vaguely.
“Can’t be pirates either. Wrong style, positioning is off for a trap, and too ‘professional’. For a group of pirates, anyway.”
“Hmm…” Although he hadn’t seen them at first, now his scout sergeant had pointed ‘em out…
“We’d better go easy then. Don’t want to surprise them into doing anything rash. Sergeant McKain! Get the platoon moving again! But take ‘em in slow!”
Proceeding cautiously, the platoon slowly made its way into the valley. And did so while being quite hard to see. Although their battlesuits weren’t on, the camouflage function only required power to change from one camo to another, though it was less effective when shut off, as it couldn’t shift colors and shades to better match with the surroundings.
“Lieutenant?”
“Yeah?”
“Why haven’t they hailed us? I don’t like it.”
“Hail us how? Our coms aren’t up.”
“Doesn’t matter. A warning shot, then.”
“Maybe they didn’t see us.”
McKain grunted.
“If they haven’t managed to notice us by now, they ain’t gonna be worth much.”
“We are camouflaged.”
The sergeant snorted, but didn’t make any other reply.
In fact, it took another ten minutes before something finally happened. One of the scout squad, ahead of the rest, was suddenly shot. Several times.
“Ow! Stupid, freakin’, triggerhappy-” The scout immediately dropped to the ground, swearing.
“Jar, damage?” McKain called.
“Just some dents, sarge.”
“Good. HEY! Stop firing!” the lieutenant bellowed, several more shots pinging around the front of the platoon.
A last, single shot, hit a bush near the lieutenant, who had dropped to the ground.
Then a voice called out, somewhat distant, “Who the hell are you?!”
“We’re a platoon of Marines! Sent to deal with the pirates!”
There was a short pause.
Then, incredulously, “A platoon?!”
Frank gave a grimace.
Was everyone going to react that way?
Chapter Four
“…and so we’ve spent the last few hours hiking to get here,” the lieutenant finished. The man sitting at the large, map-filled table stared at him, and not in a particularly friendly way.
“I see,” the man said heavily. “And now you’re here, what exactly do you plan on doing?”
“I was hoping you’d be able to give me some insight on the situation here, sir. The information we currently have is not particularly up-to-date.”
“Hmph. Well, I suppose I can do that, at least.” He waved his hand a chair, advising, “Take a seat, Lieutenant, as long as you’re sure you won‘t break it. It can’t be comfortable to be standing around in… in that thing.”
Frank gave a small polite laugh, and took a chair, as instructed.
Before he could say anything, the other man morosely continued.
“Starting from the beginning, as it were, I was informed by my uncle that a pirate ship had been seen hiding itself on the planet. I am General Juan Gawain Val’gor, and my uncle is -was- the planetary governor, Ferdinand Winston Val’gor,” he clarified, then continued.
“I am in charge of the planet’s defenses. Such as they are,” he added, with an undertone of bitterness.
“At any rate, I had used our three gunboats, and whatever else I could get my hands on, to scout the location we thought the pirates had landed at, in the hope we might be able to catch them before they could do anything.”
“What happened? Did they ambush you?”
“No,” Juan snorted. “In fact, I’m not sure they even cared about us in the slightest. At any rate, we didn’t find the ship where we had thought it landed. I suppose it had crept away, hiding itself under a sensor-cloak.”
“That would be common pirate procedure,” Frank agreed.
“In any case, nothing happened for the next week or so. I kept sweeping the planet for the pirates, but… My gunboats were junk, and their sensors were worse.”
“So, we had no idea where they were. Then, six days after they landed, they attacked. From these very mountains, as it turned out.” The irony and disgust in his voice was obvious.
“They knew exactly where my gunboats were, and all the other, few, defenses Kzarch had. And so their very first action was to wipe out them all.”
Though he said nothing, Frank privately sympathized with the older man. To have all his forces wiped out, without accomplishing anything? Without being able to defend his own planet?
He could well imagine how he would feel in a similar situation.
Juan gave a forced shrug.
“After they removed any possible opposition we could mount, as little as it would no doubt been, they proceeded to the governor’s mansion, the center of the planet’s government. They seized it without much trouble, and killed everyone there. Including my uncle the governor.” The guerrilla leader stared broodingly at the table for several moments.
“Once they had accomplished that, they settled themselves in, and began broadcasting their demands that the planet submit to them. And when people didn’t comply fast enough, they killed them. I believe you said you visited High Cliff? Then you know more or less what they did.”
“I, fortunately, hadn’t been in the mansion, when it had been attacked,” Juan continued, backtracking a bit, “-but instead in Newholm. After I realized what had happened; the attack having been so quick that no-one knew much about it until afterwards, I gathered what people I could, what remained of the Kzarch’s military forces, and struck for the mountains.”
“We’ve been here for about the last month, doing what we can. Striking back using guerrilla tactics, spying on the pirates, and so on. Although the pirates have done their best to wipe us out, we’ve been holding on and have had some successes.” The last part was said almost defensively.
“I see, sir. May I ask what you’ve found out about the pirates, their forces composition, leaders, aim?”
Juan snorted.
“Their aim seems obvious enough!”
“What is it, then?” The guerrilla stared at him in disbelief.
“Why, to take over the planet, of course!” he finally managed to sputter out.
Although he shouldn’t have been, Frank was actually surprised… that the general believed that.
“Sir, I highly doubt it,” he began. “Pirates aren’t- They’re not usually would-be conquers. They get into the business for profit, not power. Even if this bunch had delusions of grandeur, they must know that attempting to conquer a United Federation planet,” Frank managed to keep himself from adding, through a considerable effort of will, no matter how unimportant. “-will provoke a military response. In fact, that’s why we’re here,” he added, not quite accurately.
“At any rate, if they had wanted to conquer a planet, they would have gone after an independent one. One without the capability to sufficiently defend themselves, or to summon help.”
The guerrilla general gave an irritable shrug.
“Then what are they here for?”
“That was one of my questions, sir,” Lieutenant Harsmith reminded him. “Along with what their forces’ composition is, and who their leaders are.”
The subtle rebuke drew a frown from General Juan, but he answered, “Very well. Their forces, as far as I’m aware, consist of three spaceships, which they currently have landed near the governor’s mansion, at an air field there. They have als-”
“The ships are designed to land?” Frank interrupted, surprised. It was quite uncommon for spaceships to include landing on a planet as part of their basic duties and design.
“Eh? No, I don’t think so.”
“So then why…?”
“Maybe they just wanted to all be on the planet,” the general suggested, “-or perhaps, they didn’t want to be detected by any passing ship, as they would have been if they remained in space.”
“Well, maybe,” frowned the lieutenant. “And what classes are their three ships?”
“Two frigates, and a cruiser.” Frank pursed his lips. The frigates were quite common as pirate ships, and even cruisers weren’t unknown. But to have a pirate group, and indeed, pirates didn’t usually form groups, contain two of the former and one of the later?… These were hardly run-of-the-mill pirates.
“I see. And their other forces?”
“Twelve Blastfire gunboats. Somewhere around twenty or so attack shuttles. A few airships. And about three thousand or so pirates.”
“Eleven Blastfires, actually,” the lieutenant corrected. “We destroyed one as we approached the planet.”
“Ah?” The guerrilla general suddenly sat straight. “You have the capability to destroy gunboats?”
“Yes, general. My h-squad, which carries heavy weaponry, can take one out, especially if they catch one by itself. Further, the combined fire of my platoon’s wegs and certainly their exby rifles would take one down.”
“Really? Excellent!” The guerrilla general, having been at the wrong end of a weapons imbalance for the last month, was quite pleased.
“I don’t suppose you could let some of my soldiers…?”
“I’m afraid not, general. We only really have enough weapons for ourselves.” That wasn’t quite true… But regulations strictly forbade the handing out of weapons to anyone other than those approved of by high command. It didn’t really matter much, however. Battlesuit weaponry was only really usable with a battlesuit. “…Plus your troops wouldn’t be able to handle battlesuit weaponry anyway.” The general frowned again, then shrugged.
Before he could say anything more, the lieutenant asked, “And what about their leaders? Or any information on the pirates themselves, like what they call themselves?”
“Well, they don’t really have a name for their group, as far as we know. But we do have a name for their leader. Bloody Jack.”
“Bloody Jack?”
“That’s what he calls himself. No last name, either.”
The lieutenant thought for a moment, then gave a mental shrug. He had never heard of the pirate
before, but maybe one of his Marines had.
“Okay. Anything else?”
The general shrugged.
“Not that I can think of…” he said, grudgingly.
“Then I-”
A man burst through the door.
“General! Sm’ithers team’s been killed!”
“What happened?” he snapped, rising slightly.
“They were coming back from their mission, sir! Then one of the patrolling gunboats noticed ‘em… It fired a missile, sir, and wiped ‘em all out!” The man was almost crying in rage.
Juan himself was near shaking in fury. For the next several minutes, he treated Frank to a long and fierce monologue on the evil of the pirates, and what he’d like to do with them. It took a bit of time before the lieutenant could manage to extract himself.
***
“…And then someone broke in, and said one of the guerrilla squads had been wiped out. I didn’t get anything else useful from him after that. So, what do you think?”
Keeping quiet, McKain thought for a minute.
“…It’s not much more than we already knew,” he finally said, slowly.
“Yeah… Though we do know now what sort of forces the pirates have, and that the pirate captain’s name is Bloody Jack. I wanted to ask you about that. Have you heard of him? Or any of the Marines, perhaps?”
“Actually… One second.” Folding his helmet visor down, McKain spent a few minutes checking something.
“Right. On the current wanted roster there’s a bit of info on him. Bloody Jack -no last name. Head of a group of pirates, on the larger side. No real solid information on them, though. Generally focuses on looting cargo ships. Has been operating for about six or so years. Fairly dangerous; both the crew and he himself. Likes to use a fire-pistol.” The lieutenant had to blink at that. A fire pistol? That was rather odd…
“Is noted for being particularly good at executing operations; he rarely fails to get the target he has his eye on. A good planner, obviously. Nasty; prefers to kill witnesses where practical. Not a scorch the earth type, though.”