by David Weber
“What’s an alternative to pirates?” he asked.
“Is this a trick question, Captain?” Kosutic inquired.
“I don’t think so,” Roger said. “I think his point is that if they are pirates, all well and good. If we blow the crap out of them, we establish our bona fides with the local powers that be. But if they’re not pirates, announcing our intentions with a broadside might be a Very Bad Idea. We have to make peaceful and, hopefully, smooth contact with the local government. So what if they’re harmless merchant ships which are supposed to be sailing in company, and the lead ship just has a lousy captain who’s gotten too far ahead of the rest? In that case, blowing them away without a warning would not be a good way to make ‘smooth’ contact.”
“Exactly,” Pahner said. “So what are the other possibilities?”
“The boat in the lead could be a smuggler,” Kosutic suggested. “Or something along those lines. And the ones behind could be revenue cutters. Well, revenue boats. Revenue tubs.”
“And it could be even more complex than that,” Roger pointed out. “They could be operating under letters of marque or some equivalent. So the ones in back could be both pirates and representatives of a government we need to contact. And if that’s the case, asking the lead ship won’t tell us so.”
“All right,” Pahner said with a nod. “We’ll tack to intercept the group. We will not fire until fired upon. Get a helmet system for Ms. O’Casey so she can use the amplifiers for communication. We’ll move alongside or send off a boarding party to make contact. If we take fire from either group, we’ll respond with a single broadside. That should make the situation clear. If they continue to press it, we sink ’em.”
“And if they are ‘official’ pirates?” Roger asked.
“We’ll deal with that as we have to,” Pahner answered. “We need intel on this continent . . . but we also need to live to use it.”
CHAPTER SEVEN
Tob Kerr, master of the merchant vessel Rain Daughter, closed the glass and cursed. He wasn’t sure where the strange ships had come from—there wasn’t anything on that bearing but the Surom Shoals, and nobody actually lived in these demon-infested waters—but they were headed right for him. And sailing at least forty degrees closer to the wind than any tack he could take. He not only didn’t recognize the origin of the ships, he couldn’t even begin to identify their design, or imagine how sails like that could work.
However they did it, though, they obviously did a better job than his own ship could manage, and he wondered where they could possibly have sprung from.
The Lemmar Raiders behind him, on the other hand, were all too well known a quantity. With luck, they would only take his cargo. More likely, though, they would sell him and the crew into slavery, and sell his ship for a prize. Either way, he was ruined. So the best bet was to continue on course and hope for a gift from the Sar, because this was clearly a case of worse the devil you knew than the devil you didn’t.
He looked back at the oncoming strangers. The more he studied them, the odder they looked. They were low, rakish, and almost unbelievably fast, and they carried an enormous sail area—one far larger than anything Kerr had ever seen before. It was amazing that they could sail the deep ocean at all; with so little freeboard, he had to wonder why the water didn’t wash right over their decks. But it didn’t. In fact, they rode the swells like embera, green foam casting up from their bows and their strange, triangular sails hard as boards as they sliced impossibly into the oncoming wind.
He grabbed a line and slid to the deck. The calluses of decades at sea made nothing of the friction, and his mate, Pelu Mupp walked over to him and flipped his false-hands in an expression of worry.
“Should we change course?” he asked.
It was a damnably reasonable question, Kerr thought grimly. The Lemmar Raiders had been in a fairly unfavorable position at the start. Well, as far as Rain Daughter was concerned. Certain other ships had been less fortunate, but Kerr had taken full advantage of the slim opportunity for escape the pirates’ preoccupation with the convoy’s other members had offered him. By the time they’d been free to turn their full attention to Rain Daughter, Kerr had managed to put enough distance between them to give him and his crew a better than even chance. A stern chase was always a long one, and under those conditions, victory could go to either side. The pirate ships were a bit faster than the merchantman, but the Daughter had a good lead, and any number of circumstances could have resulted in the Kirstian ship’s escaping, especially if Kerr could only have kept clear of the Lemmar until darkness fell. But now, with the unknowns closing from almost dead to leeward, the trap seemed to have closed.
“No,” Kerr said. “We’ll hold our course. They might be friendly. And how much worse than the Raiders could they be?”
If the crew went into slavery, they would probably end up back in Kirsti, but as “guests” of the Fire Priests. And if that was the alternative, he preferred to throw himself over the side now.
“We’ll hold our course, Mupp. And let the Lady of the Waters decide.”
Roger pulled on a strand of hair and sighed.
“Captain, much as I hate making suggestions—” he began, only to stop dead as Pahner let loose an uncharacteristic bark of laughter that momentarily made him jump. Then the captain snorted.
“Yes, Your Highness?”
“Well, I don’t,” Roger retorted.
“I know you don’t, Your Highness,” Pahner said with a smile. “You tend to do something by yourself, and then ask me if it was okay later. That’s different from making suggestions, I’ll admit. So let’s have it—what’s the suggestion?”
“I was thinking about wind position,” Roger continued, after deciding that it wasn’t a good time for a discussion of whether one Prince Roger MacClintock had been making too many stupid mistakes lately. Most of the watchers had returned to the deck once the general outline of the approaching ships and their formation had been established. A Marine private was now perched at the fore topmast crosstrees beside the Mardukan lookout, using her helmet systems to refine the data. But at this point it was a matter of waiting nearly two hours as the ships slowly closed the intervening gap.
“They’re coming in on our starboard bow, straight out of the wind, but the formation of six ships is spread to our west, and it takes a few minutes for us to wear around. If we stay on this course, when the pursuers come up to us, the most westerly ship will be in a position that would make it hard for us to completely avoid her.”
“I’m . . . not quite getting this,” Pahner admitted.
Roger thought for a moment, then did a quick sketch on his toot, detailing the human/K’Vaernian flotilla, the lead unknown, and the trailers.
“I’m sliding over a graphic,” he said, flipping the sketch from his toot to the Marine’s. “From the point of view of avoiding contact, we can break off from the lead ship easily. But if we decided to avoid the trailers, we’d have three choices. One would be to tack to starboard when we come up to them. That would put us in a position to take full advantage of the schooners’ weatherliness to run past them into the wind and avoid contact handily. But it takes a bit of time to tack, and there’s a small risk of getting caught in irons.”
Pahner nodded at that. A couple of times, especially early in the voyage, when the native Mardukan captains were still getting accustomed to the new rig, one or more of the ships had been caught “in irons” while tacking, and ended up facing directly into the wind, effectively unable to move or maneuver until they could fall off enough to regather way. It was not a situation he wanted to be in with potential hostiles around.
“We don’t want that to happen,” he observed. “Go on.”
“Our second choice would be to fall off to the west,” Roger said, “opening out our sails and either sailing across the wind, or coming around to let it fill our sails from behind while we run almost away from it. That’s a ‘reach’ or a ‘broad reach.’ The problem is, on eit
her tack, the westernmost ship would have at least some opportunity to intercept us. We could probably show them our heels—I’d back any of ours, even Snarleyow, to outrun anything they’ve got. But there’s a risk of interception.”
“In which case, we blow away whatever unfortunate soul intercepts us,” Pahner noted as he brought up the sketch on his implant and studied it.
“Yes, Captain, we can do that,” Roger agreed, licking a salty drop of sweat off his upper lip. “But I submit that it would be better to be in a position where we can avoid contact altogether, if that’s what we decide to do. Or control the maneuver menu if we decide to engage.”
“Can we?” the captain asked. “And should we be discussing this with Poertena or the Skipper?”
“Maybe,” Roger said. “Probably. But I was thinking. If we tack to starboard and put them on our port side, we’ve got all that maneuver room to starboard. It’s a better wind position. Also, if we decide to jump in, we can get to windward for maneuvering better from that position. But we need to wait a bit, until we’re a little closer.”
“I’ll talk it over with T’Sool,” Pahner agreed. “But unless I’m much mistaken, that’s a very good idea.”
“They’re wearing around,” Pelu said.
“I can see that,” Kerr answered. He rubbed his horns as he considered the small fleet’s maneuvers. Its units were changing to an easterly heading on the port tack, and the maneuver was a thing of beauty for any seaman to watch. The sails seemed to float into position naturally, and in a remarkably short period of time, all five ships were hove over and flying before the wind.
“They’re in a better position to drop on us from windward,” Pelu worried. “Could they be some new ship type out of Lemmar?”
“If Lemmar could build ships like that,” the captain snorted, “we’d already be in chains in Kirsti! And if they’re in a better position to drop on us, they’re also in a better position to avoid all of us. They can leave us in their wake any time they want to now, but before, they could have been cut off by the western Reavers. Actually, I think what they’re doing now is a better sign.”
“I wish we knew who they were,” Pelu fretted.
“I wonder if they’re wishing the same thing?”
“Ready for some more unsolicited input?” Roger asked with a grin.
“Certainly, Your Highness,” Pahner replied with a slight smile. “Every fiber of my being lives to serve the Empire.”
“Somehow, I think I detected just a tad of sarcasm attached to that answer,” Roger said with an answering grin. “But I digress. What I was going to say is that we need to make contact with these folks.”
“Agreed. And you have a suggestion?”
“Well, for first contact, we’ll need someone who’s well versed with the translator program and whose toot has enough capacity to run it. And that means either Ms. O’Casey or myself. And since it’s a potentially dangerous situation . . .”
“You think it makes more sense to send the person I’m supposed to be guarding,” Pahner finished. Then he shook his head. Firmly. “No.”
“So you’re going to send Eleanora?” Roger asked sweetly.
“Quit smiling at me!” Pahner snapped. “Damn it. I’m the commander of your bodyguard, Your Highness. I’m not supposed to be sending you into situations because they’re too dangerous to send somebody else!”
“Uh-huh,” Roger said. “So, you’re sending Eleanora?”
“There is no way you’re going over to that ship,” Pahner said. “No. Way.”
“I see. So . . . ?”
“Ah, freedom!”
Roger leaned back in the sailing harness, suspended from a very thin bit of rope less than an arm length above the emerald sea as the catamaran cut through the water at nearly sixteen knots. D’Nal Cord shifted and tried to get into something that felt like a stable position—difficult for someone his size on the deck of the flimsy craft—and rubbed a horn in exasperation.
“You have an unusual concept of freedom, Roger.”
Most of the small boats of the flotilla were traditional “v” hulls, but both Roger and Poertena had insisted on at least one small “cat” for fast movement. Building it had required nearly as much human-provided engineering knowledge as the much larger schooners—light, fast catamarans require precise flexion in their crossbraces—but the result was a small craft that in any sort of decent weather was even faster than the schooners.
And it was fun to sail.
“I have to admit that this is sort of fun,” Despreaux said, fanning her uniform top. “And the breeze is refreshing.”
“Back on Earth, catting and skiing were as close as I ever got to being free,” Roger pointed out, bounding forward in the harness to see if it improved the point of sail. “You guys would actually let me get away for a little bit.”
“Don’t complain,” Kosutic replied. “Your lady mother’s spent most of her life wrapped in cotton. As your grandfather’s only child, there was no way the Regiment was willing to risk her at all. She rarely even got to leave the palace grounds.”
“Frankly, I could care less about Mother’s problems,” Roger said coldly, swinging back in his harness as Poertena altered the cat’s course slightly.
“Maybe not,” the sergeant major replied. “But you’ve had more experience with ‘real people’ in the last six months than she has in her whole life. The closest she ever got to dealing with anyone but Imperial functionaries and politicians was the Academy. And even there, she spent the whole time still wrapped in cotton. They wouldn’t even consider having her do live zero-G drills—not out of atmosphere, at least. It all had to be in simulators, where there was no possibility of exposing her to death pressure. And if they never let her do that, you can just imagine how much less likely they were to let her do things like, oh—just as an example that comes from the top of my head, you understand—leading a charge into a barbarian horde. And no cut-ups like Julian were allowed within a kilometer of her.”
“And your point is?” Roger asked. He leaned further outward and dangled his hand into the water as a slightly stronger puff of wind hit the sail. “Speaking of risks, you do realize that if there are any of those giant coll around, we’re toast?”
“That sort of is the point,” Kosutic said soberly. “Imperial City is filled with professional politicians and noble flunkies, most of whom have never had to scramble for money to supply a unit in the field. Who’ve never been exposed to ‘lower class’ conditions. Who have never slept on the ground, never gone to bed hungry. In some cases, that means people who not only don’t understand the majority of the population of the Empire, but who also don’t like them or care about them. And in other cases—which I happen to think are worse—they don’t understand them, but they idealize them. They think there’s a special dignity to poverty. Or a special quality to being born into misery and dying in it.”
“Saint Symps,” Despreaux said.
“And various soclibs,” Kosutic agreed. “Especially the older style pro-Ardane redistributionists.”
“There’s at least an argument there,” Roger said. “I mean, too much concentration of power, and you’re not much better off than under the Dagger Lords.” He paused and grinned. “On the other hand, I know you’re all a bunch of low-lifes!”
“And if you live entirely by what you think is ‘the will of the people,’ you get the Solar Union,” Kosutic continued, pointedly ignoring the prince’s last comment.
“Pockers,” Poertena growled, and spat over the side.
“Yeah, Armagh mostly sat that one out,” the sergeant major admitted. “But Pinopa got it bad.”
“What really burned some of the early members of the Family was that the ISU used Roger MacClintock’s policies as their ‘model’ for that idiocy,” Roger said. “Prez Roger, that is. Roger the Unifier. But without accepting the societal sacrifices that were necessary. And then, when it all came apart, they tried to blame us!”
“I cou
ld kind of understand getting involved in planetary reconstruction,” Despreaux commented. “Some of those planets were even worse off than Armagh. But leaving your main base completely uncovered was just idiotic.”
“And why did they do that?” Kosutic asked, and proceeded to answer her own question. “They had to. They were already so wrapped up with social welfare programs that they couldn’t build the sort of fleet and garrison force they needed and still be redistributionist. So they depended on bluff, sent the entire damned fleet off to try to do some planet-building, and the Daggers nipped in and ate the Solar System’s lunch.”
“The Daggers were very good at killing the golden goose,” Roger said. “But we—the MacClintocks, that is—learned that lesson pretty well.”
“Did we?” Kosutic asked. “Did we really?”
“Oh, no,” Roger moaned. “This isn’t another one of those ‘let’s not tell Roger,’ things, is it?”
“No.” The sergeant major laughed, but her eyes were on the native ship they’d come to meet, and her gaze was wary as Poertena wore around its stern, preparing to come alongside to port. “But take a good look at your grandfather’s career,” she continued, “and then tell me we’ve learned. Another person who’d never worked a day in his life and thought the lower classes were somehow magical. And, therefore, that they should be coddled, paid, and overprotected . . . at the expense of the Fleet and the Saint borders.”
“Well, that’s one mistake I would never make as Emperor,” Roger joked as Poertena completed his maneuver. “I know you’re all a bunch of lying, lazy pockers.”