Pirates (BOOK ONE OF THE RIM CONFEDERACY 1)

by Jim Rudnick

  “Sir, yes, that is true, Duke D’Avigdor—”

  “Please, here and always in private, Captain, just use my given name. No sense on standing on ceremony in private,” the Duke said as he smiled at Tanner, who could see a slightly crooked canine tooth at the bottom of that smile.

  He smiled back. “Uh ... yes, Sir ... er, David, Sir,” he said as he made a mess of the whole thing.

  The Duke paid no attention. “Captain, what can you tell me of the Baroness and your audience with her? Any items of interest there at all?” he asked quietly, but Tanner could tell that he was very interested in anything about the Baroness.

  “Umm ... David, Sir, yes, we did meet and we did chat for about ten minutes or so, which is not a lot. She told us that our request to visit ITO would have to be postponed due to planet-wide quarantine as they’ve had an outbreak of Natrium Flu. But we are allowed to visit Landers Station in high-orbit and look into Navy matters there, no problem ... uh ... Sir.” Tanner disliked very much having to call the Duke by any other name or title than plain Duke, but was reminded again.

  “David, Captain, will do fine. So, the colony is under quarantine ... interesting, let me ponder that for a moment,” he said and he stroked his chin. He looked away for a moment, and to Tanner it was as if he was looking out at ITO himself, studying what lay below and guessing as to the truth of the Baroness’s tale.

  While he looked so far away, Tanner took a moment to note the beautiful wall hangings of what looked like a hunting party with huge trophies on one wall and at the those same trophy heads mounted for all to see on the other wall. There were three oveds in a row, all with larger horns than they looked capable of carrying, yet Tanner knew that these large four-legged, hoofed, elk-like mammals from Anulet, one of the Duchy worlds, was a prized trophy and carried those horns right into battle. And beside those three was a giant head of a Jael, the carnivore much like a bear that preyed on oveds. Both were natural enemies. The Jael on the wall would have stood at least eleven feet tall and charge at over forty miles an hour, Tanner knew. Jaels were the talk of the Rim when it came to hunting, and while he had hunted smaller game before, these creatures were just too big to hunt with anything less than a cannon. He remembered the savagery of the Jael fight back on Conclusion, at least he thought he did and was brought back to the present as he realized that the Duke had just shrugged and turned back to focus again on Tanner, his eyes bright in his middle-aged face.

  “Yes, I see you looking at the trophies on the wall, Captain. Tell me, do you hunt? I mean other than Pirates?” he said as he smiled. Looks like my reputation has preceded me again. Tanner grinned back.

  “Sir, yes, I have hunted before, but for much smaller game. Winged birds on the fly and small boars much inward from here. I’m afraid that anything as big as an oved would take a much better shot than I to bring it down,” he said honestly. Hunting game is only so much fun, he thought, and invariably it had its challenges and sometimes its consequences too.

  The Duke grinned then at Tanner and pushed a hidden button as a door flew open at the far end and a Duchy naval officer marched up quickly to stand at attention and salute the Duke quickly.

  “Nelson, never mind the formalities. This is Captain Scott of the Rim Navy. He’s going to come with us on our latest hunting expedition to Anulet. Book his passage and quarters—next to my own, mind, and get him a complete set of gear from my quartermaster,” he said, rising from behind the desk.

  “Captain, we leave tomorrow at dawn. Please report to the Duchy port pad number one, at 0600. Bring what you will, but you will need for nothing on this trip as it will all be supplied. Oh yes, I know that you will contact McQueen about this—tell him I insist—and I do! We haven’t had a real Navy man along in years!”

  Tanner was ushered out and escorted back to the port in a matter of minutes, knowing that he’d be expected to go after talking with Admiral McQueen via the Ansible. Keeping on the good side of royalty was de rigueur for all naval personnel; Tanner had heard that time and time again. So hunting he would go and the admiral’s last words sounded in his head. “Careful ... be calm and very careful ...”

  # # # # #

  “Sir,” Craig the XO said crisply back on the Marwick, “permission to take Lieutenant Huber over to his new command.”

  “Is it normal for a mere lieutenant to be escorted by a commander when dropped off on his new station, Commander?” Tanner inquired as he put down the PDA with the landing reports and turned toward his XO. Sounds a bit odd, he thought and wondered why he’d gotten such a request.

  The commander smiled.

  “Sir, our commander here is my brother, Nathan, and I’d just like an excuse to say hi—and might as well have the lieutenant tag along,” he said reasonably.

  “Permission granted, Commander. Please offer my own pleasantries and let him know that next time through, I’d like to spend an evening out with him at his Officers’ Mess.” Tanner knew he’d be drinking whatever passed for no-alco local juice on this planet.

  The commander smiled, turned, and left the bridge to gather up their passenger and leave to go to the naval base station commander’s offices.

  Tanner busied himself with other duties and signed off on all the items that kept a captain busy when landing reports and provisioners reports were due to be handled. He worried slightly about his hunting skills and was determined not to let the Duke down with poor marksmanship or hunting etiquette either. He would look into both later via the base commander perhaps, grinned at having such a resource as a brother to his own XO, and turned back to the PDA and signing the reports. He was busy for more than an hour and was surprised when his XO returned.

  “Um ... Sir?” Commander Templeton said with a questioning tone.

  “Quick trip, Commander. What is it?” Tanner said as he laid down the PDA with the final reports that still needed checking and signing.

  “Thought you should know earliest, Sir, about what the lieutenant said over at the base commander’s office.”

  “And what is that, XO?”

  “Sir, he was questioned by my brother pretty completely and offered up no real new information than what you already told me. Except for one thing, Sir. It caught me by surprise a bit, and I thought you should know soonest,” he said.

  “Sir, you mentioned that he’d been run off Neres, and as you stated, he had no idea why. My brother asked him if he’d ever met the Baroness herself—”

  “And he replied no, he’d never met her. I think he said he’d heard her is all. Has that changed at all?” Tanner said.

  “Umm ... Sir, all he added was that he’d not heard her on a public address or anything like that. It seems that he and his past girlfriend were sitting out in that anteroom we passed through. Remember the one before the sitting room where the Baroness surprised us?”

  Tanner nodded; he’d not forgotten that and its waterfall tapestries.

  “Well, he and his lady were sitting there at the last set of love seats right near the door to the sitting room, and while they were just talking, an EliteGuard came out of the Baroness’s sitting room. As he opened the door, the lieutenant could hear shouting from inside the sitting room; the Baroness was yelling at someone. And he remembered what he’d heard ... she yelled something like ‘... you’re NOT supposed to take on the damn Navy as yet ...”

  Tanner pursed his lips, sucking on the fleshy lower edge of his bottom lip. He thought about that for a moment and then nodded.

  “Why didn’t he say this before, Commander? And does he have any idea who else was in that room?” Tanner said.

  “No real way to tell, Sir, he said. And he did admit that he may not have been close enough to hear those exact words. He also said he might have gotten that wrong, Sir, perhaps he had mixed the words or some such thing. I think pretty much he had his girlfriend on his mind and not something he might have just overheard. I don’t know either, Sir, but I thought you should at least get that soonest,” the commander said
, saluted, and was dismissed.

  Tanner sat thinking for a moment before he picked up the PDA again to finish off his landing chores. Wonder what he really did hear, he thought and sighed as he turned back to signing reports to close off his day. The Scotch in his glass called to him, and he chugged the balance in a quick down the hatch motion. Pouring another, he thought for a moment about the amount of Scotch he'd consumed in his short life. Hundreds of bottles he judged as let's see, a bottle a day for what, five years was umm … about yeah around 150 plus cases. Lots. Perhaps too much for some. But not me. He nodded his head. Not too much … Scotch can make one’s temples pulse and that's not so much fun. He sipped and sipped again.

  # # # # #

  The trip via the Duchy cruiser Achilles, which was really the Duke’s personal yacht, was uneventful and fairly short: lift off of d'Avigdor, InertialDrive out to past high orbit, and then the switch to TachyonDrive to the planet Anulet less than three days away. Tanner was given enough time to familiarize himself with the yacht and he was impressed.

  Seems like royalty has no bounds, he thought as he moved upward from deck to deck, looking at how this cruiser had been outfitted differently than his own Marwick. Instead of quarters for almost 350 men, she held only 90 or so for crew and a company of 75 of the Dukes Guards led by a guard captain who Tanner noted was handling calisthenics for a platoon in the very large and spacious gym on Deck Twenty-seven. Everything on board he noted, from fittings to brass, from steel bulkhead to floor plates and grids, from transit conduit to deck control panels, was not only clean but polished and shiny bright. On the Marwick, he knew, it was at least clean and somewhat shiny due to the last refurbishment but nowhere as shiny and as rich looking as on this cruiser-yacht. Difference between a ship of the line and a yacht, he surmised and continued to work his way upward. When he went by one of the officers’ mess rooms, he noted that it was full of Guards again, all chowing down on breakfast, grousing and hurling around complaints and quips galore. At least something’s the same as our ship. He grinned and continued to tour the ship upward until he reached the Bridge at almost 8:00 to meet with the Duke as per his request when they’d boarded earlier that morning.

  “Captain, permission to enter the Bridge,” he barked out as he snapped a salute to the Achilles captain.

  “Permission granted, Captain; Willis is the name, Willis Fearman,” he said, rising and proffering his hand. As Tanner shook his hand and made small talk with the Duke’s captain, he looked around the bridge and noted it was the same layout he was used to and grinned.

  “Ah, much the same as the Marwick,” he noted.

  “Right, Scott, surely is. Same basic layouts, though I suspect that you noticed we’ve made some interior changes. Added another landing bay and put in a ballroom, library, and an armory bigger than most. We also have reduced crew and officers, though we always carry a company of the Duke's Guards every trip. Questions, Captain?” He offered a seat near his own, and Tanner took it awaiting the appearance of the Duke himself.

  “Not really, Captain. She’s still a ship and I expect she handles the same, even though her innards may have been altered,” he said, noting the Ansible, Helm, and Tactical officers were all at their station, while the Science officer was absent. Oh, he thought, and there’s no Adept station. Guess they don’t like them on board.

  “Not exactly, Scott. Because the Duke as you know sits on the Rim Council representing his Duchy, he must travel to Juno for those monthly and special meetings. One day per light-year is a bit slow I guess he felt, so we’ve added in some modifications to the Perseus class engine; we can now make a light-year in just eighteen hours—if needs be. Costs run astronomical to do so, and we must set-down for anti-matter fills every ten days or so. Which means, of course, that it’s really only meant for bursts of speed and it’s not our cruising speed at all. Helps thought when the Duke wants to get somewhere a little quicker.” He nodded to himself as he signed another report on his console’s PDA and turned back to Tanner.

  “But if the Duke wants to get somewhere fast, why doesn’t he just use the Ajax? With her two Perseus engines, she gets around one light-year in twelve hours, right?”

  The captain nodded and shrugged.

  “But the costs of running that Destroyer at full cruising speed are enormous; more than a handful of trips in the Achilles still isn’t close to one trip to Juno on her. And while I’m sure you appreciate that the Duke does have unlimited funds to work with, he doesn’t like to spend too ostentatiously for his own needs. Spends it on the whole Navy and his worlds instead,” he said quietly. “He’s the best royal out here by far,” the captain added proudly, “at least for a Navy man.”

  And Tanner knew that the captain was right; the word on the RIM was that the Duke was very involved in his six worlds and their governance, and his real favorite was his Navy. He was the kind of leader that any Navy man would follow, much like McQueen was to himself, and for a Navy man, it couldn’t be better. Might bear remembering too, Tanner thought as he filed that away under the heading 'future job.'

  The lift doors opened just then, and in strode the Duke in his hunting mufti, and on seeing Tanner, he came right over.

  “Well, Scott, has our captain been entertaining you? Sorry to be a few minutes tardy; had to finish off with affairs of state via Ansible this morning—let's get going, shall we?” he said as he half-turned toward the lift doors with his arm outstretched.

  Tanner nodded his thanks to the captain and followed the Duke into the lift.

  Moments later, they got off on Deck Twenty-two and moved away from the ship’s axis counterclockwise until they reached a wide set of double doors. Placing his hand on the door reader, the Duke grinned at Tanner, and as the door opened, he said, “so, let’s get you outfitted, shall we?” and led the way into the Armory.

  All Navy cruisers had an Armory, but this was three times as big and stuffed with rack after rack of various weapons and other deadly items. As he walked inside the room, Tanner thought that the Marwick’s Armory held only small caliber projectile rifles and crowd control shotguns and various sidearms in holsters for both everyday and dress use too. But this was totally different and much more than he’d expected.

  “Right, Captain. Now I think you said you had hunted before, correct?” the Duke said, moving down the center aisle of rack after rack of rifles, carbines, and shotguns. Most as Tanner saw were brands and calibers he recognized as weapons that the Duke’s Guard would be using, all unsuited for any type of sportsmanlike hunting trip. But as they moved past the racks, they got to the center of the room, and the Duke faced the starboard bulkhead. There, suspended against the wall, were various weapons that were all slug throwers Tanner noted. They moved past the cleaning benches and ammunition lockers to stand right in front of the display.

  The Duke studied the selection before them and then took down a rifle and checked the breech and magazine and worked the action a single time to ensure that the rifle was unloaded and handed it to Tanner.

  This first rifle was a basic weapon: a Fabarm single-shot rifle that used plain projectile .238 caliber bullets. As Tanner hefted it, the Duke offered that he may want to use this one if he thought his accuracy was pinpoint as oveds had only two small kill-spots and only the best hunters used this rifle.

  Tanner nodded at that and said, “My hunting might be a bit rusty so my aim might not be so true,” and handed the weapon back to the Duke.

  Perusing further, the Duke took down a Merkel over-under .45 SUPER carbine that could bring down a large oved at full charge and put it down beside him against a cleaning table leg.

  This one, Tanner knew, had one hell of a kick but would most likely be his choice. . He hefted and practiced bringing it up into firing position, fingering the double triggers as he asked about what might be better for him.

  The Duke looked back to the wall and took down what Tanner could see was quite a weapon. It was a .405 Hornby semi-automatic. It could punch throu
gh almost any animal on any planet, Tanner thought as he slowly took the proffered weapon. Haven’t seen one of these in years, he thought as he glided it up and into his armpit and squeezed his cheek into the stock to take aim at the far bulkhead. The round from this moved at more than 3000 fps and at almost 600 grains would pack enough power to not only knock down an oved stone-cold dead but would take out most of the chest of the big animal at the same time, if he tried for a heart shot. He grinned at the Duke and handed it back.

  “Not for me, Sir ... it’s too much of a weapon, and I’m not skilled enough to handle it. I think this Merkel will do fine—do you agree?” he said, once again hefting and pointing the over-under carbine. Light, easy-to-carry, and a good bush gun when trekking through the foothills where oveds gathered; this one would do fine. Beside the rifle was a bandolier with more than twenty shells, and Tanner knew he wouldn’t need more on this hunt.

  “I concur, Captain. The Merkel is a strong weapon and you’ll do fine with it. Personally, I use the Fabarm, as it is not outside my own skill to take down an oved with one shot. Together then we will be fine as a team.” He busied himself with setting up the cleaning supplies and items to break down each weapon and clean and polish them. As Tanner helped, he thought to ask about the other teams that would be hunting with them.

  “Sir, can you offer what the teams are, and who’s with whom?”

  The Duke nodded as he rammed the cleaning cloth into the barrel time and time again, seeking to ouster every bit of dirt and dust therein.

  “Yes, Captain. There will be you and myself, as team A. My bodyguards, Guard Lieutenants Phillips and Norman—though much put out by not being paired with me—will be team B, and the last one is team C which will be one of my naval officers, Admiral Kent and our Guard Colonel Harrison, two fine officers in my own Duchy forces. Here, use this,” he added as Tanner was having trouble getting into the breech of his weapon with the cloth, and he accepted the cotton swab gladly. Moistening it with alcohol, he was able to gather up the few grains of grit he found and left the area shiny and polished. They continued to clean their weapons, trading hunting stories from mostly the Duke’s past, and Tanner realized after awhile that while the Duke was, well, a Duke, he wasn’t a bad sort after all. They ended up joking about some novice hunters and how they’d choked up when being charged by even small game, and soon the weapons were clean, polished, and ready to be used. As the Duke packed them back and away into the weapons tote for tomorrow, he commented to Tanner in a friendly manner.