Give No Quarter (Privateer Tales Book 10)

by Jamie McFarlane

  "I know it sounds crass, but try to look at it from the perspective of the settlement. Our young people are our greatest resource," Captain LeGrande replied. Rather than seeing herself in exile, Katherine LeGrande had become invested and I appreciated her for that.

  "What are they asking for?" I asked.

  "Let's call the meeting to order, Mr. Hoffen, and we'll discuss it. Katherine, please join us." Councilwoman Peraf, an ancient old biddy, approached us from behind. I'd never been in a conversation with her where I didn't want to bash my head into a wall.

  A hand on my shoulder caused me to turn from the old woman as she shuffled away. The hand belonged to Councilman Bedros, who I'd never completely figured out. His quick smile and easy conversational style made him easy to like, but he always seemed a little shifty. We shook hands and he made his way to the table.

  The final person to enter was a small woman, Eliora; her diminutive size in sharp contrast to her position as the captain of the small settlement's protectorate.

  "Captain."

  She nodded as she shook my hand and took her seat.

  "The Council is called to order. Councilwoman Peraf presiding as chair." Peraf placed the ornate and primarily ceremonial quantum communication device on the table in front of her. It had been the very item that had gained our attention and brought us to the planet in time to save hundreds of citizens from an attack by the native Ophir.

  "The agenda for today is to discuss a petition by the principals of the Loose Nuts Corporation to allow for recruiting of citizens of Yishuv to join them as crew members," Peraf announced. "We will hear your proposal, Mr. James."

  Nick stood up. "Our proposal is simple. Informally, we'll continue to supply Yishuv with technology and material and we’d like the opportunity to openly recruit your citizens to join us. We propose a recruitment period of a single tenday and would like to hire the best three or four candidates."

  "Surely you understand our young people are needed on Yishuv. How else are we to rebuild?" Peraf asked.

  He smiled patiently, a response I’d grown used to when asking questions I should already understand the answers to. "The technology we've already supplied has both saved this proud city and serves to provide ongoing protection. Without your citizens being decimated by the indigenous population, your settlement will continue to thrive."

  "We need more," Bedros said simply. "It is not that we don't appreciate all you've done for us. Quite the contrary, we recognize that without it we would have been lost. But just as we're starting to make headway, you ask for our most precious resource."

  It was the second time I'd heard the words ‘precious resource.’ The Council had already cooked something up and were just laying groundwork.

  "Let's skip to the bottom line," I said. "We need people. Without them, we won't be able to help other settlements like Yishuv. What's it going to take?"

  "You're out of order, Mr. Hoffen," Peraf scolded. "You will wait for the chair to recognize you."

  "While your customs are unfamiliar to me, your actions aren't. I'm a trader at heart and recognize a good old-fashioned shakedown when I see it. Name your price," I said.

  "Well…" Peraf huffed. She was either a good actress or she was really offended.

  "I believe leniency for cultural differences is reasonable here," Bedros said smoothly. While I didn't know much about him directly, I knew the type. He was the guy who told you to go to hell and made you think it might be a pleasant trip. "To answer your question, Captain Hoffen, we require livestock."

  He might as well have said he wanted Leprechauns for as much as I understood his words.

  "Are we in the middle ages? Did you just propose to trade people for sheep?"

  "Sheep, goats, cows and chickens to be more specific. Three breeding pairs of each. You see, the Ophie slaughtered all of our animals and we need to replace them. I've taken the liberty of laying out the pens in the hold of your ship, Hotspur, and you appear to have more than adequate room." He flicked a plan to me and he had indeed laid out pens that would fit. He'd clearly adapted to modern technology.

  I shook my head in astonishment. "You've got to be kidding me."

  "We're setting an orbital station above Ophir," Nick said, his voice still quiet and patient, though he’d returned to his seat. "We'll want to recruit for that as well. No more than ten in total."

  Bedros looked between the members of The Council and got subtle affirmative nods.

  "And we want three recruits before we deliver the livestock. We're short-handed otherwise," I hastily amended.

  "Done." Bedros said.

  "All in favor?" Peraf asked.

  The entire council raised their hands in agreement.

  "Motion is passed." She slammed a gavel on a small block of wood.

  I looked at Nick and then to Tabby. "Did we just become sheep herders?"

  TRAINEES

  "How do you want to go about recruiting?" I asked the assembled group.

  Captain LeGrande had joined the meeting with my senior staff. Strumpet was sitting just outside the gates to the battle-hardened settlement of Yishuv and we'd chosen to meet in one of her several conference rooms.

  "Word is traveling through the settlement," Nick said. "I've received multiple inquiries already."

  "I'll second that," Katherine LeGrande added. "Several of my old crew are interested."

  I'd invited Strumpet's previous captain to join us because she'd have insight into who amongst her original crew might be suitable for our mission. I also had a proposal I wanted to pitch to her at some point.

  "What positions are we hiring?" Ada asked. "And do we have a way to pay them?"

  "We're hopelessly under-crewed on Intrepid. If we were attacked, we'd have to run," I said. "I have some ideas about pay, but it's hard without a currency."

  "Identify the mission, Cap," Marny said. "With that it'll be easier to identify experience level."

  I briefly considered the woman who wore so many hats in our small organization. Six centimeters shy of two meters and heavily muscled, Marny out-massed any two of the rest of us. She was both a fierce warrior and as loyal a friend as I could hope to have. To say I had a secret crush on her wasn't quite correct. I tried to hide it, but my fascination with her amazing physique had been outed so many times, it was a running joke. There was just something about how such a big woman could move so gracefully… I shook my head as it wasn't a productive line of thinking. All eyes in the room were on me and so I pushed on.

  "Nick and I have been working with Jonathan to map out the failed Belirand missions. Nick, would you show what you've found?"

  Display Milky Way, Dwingeloo galaxies. Highlight Ophir, Tipperary and Dwingeloo, Nick said.

  Above the glossy conference room table a holo projection appeared, starting with a top view of our galaxy then zooming out to show the two galaxies Nick had requested.

  "As you already know, the four publicly settled human systems are all located in Orion-Cygnus." Nick drew a circle on the arm of the Milky Way we occupied. As he did, four stars grew significantly and pulsed. "You might notice that Ophir is on the very edge of the Orion-Cygnus arm. As you might not know, fold-space between galaxies is extremely efficient. It has something to do with no mass between the galaxies, allowing for bigger folds. The point is, while great distances are involved, it doesn't take substantially more time."

  "What's that to do with the other Belirand missions?" Ada asked.

  "I've taken the liberty of animating the failed or abandoned missions and their galactic locations in chronological order," Nick said.

  Start animation.

  The hologram zoomed the galactic image down to a familiar topical, solar system view of Sol, with Earth at its center. Automatically, I searched for the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter where Colony-40 was located. Nick had thoughtfully provided a blinking icon where our home had been. He knew me so well.

  "The first missions appeared to be random," Nick said as glow
ing yellow arcs emerged one-by-one from Sol, zooming further and further out to include the relatively close systems in all different directions. "As we know, vids from these first missions were publicly available which, of course, turned into a public relations nightmare for Belirand."

  "Right, because those crews died from asphyxiation or starvation while the world watched," Ada added.

  "What's this got to do with recruiting?" Tabby asked, impatiently.

  "Give me five more minutes," Nick said. Tabby nodded, but he had less than five before she pressed again. "It was about this time Belirand discovered the first inhabitable system - Bethe Peierls - and built the TransLoc gates. Now watch as they continue."

  We all watched as the arcs were more or less random until the discovery of New Pradesh and finally Tipperary. Right after this point, the Ophir mission failed and then the very next mission jumped across from the Milky Way to the Dwingeloo galaxy.

  "Up to this point, we only know of twenty-five failed missions," Nick said. "Take a look at these next twenty."

  "They're clearly searching for something," Jonathan observed as the mission indicators dotted across a small section of the Dwingeloo galaxy in a well-organized grid pattern. "We believe they were searching for The Confederation of Planets or The Kroerak Empire and we believe they eventually found both."

  "Not that this changes anything," I said. "Our mission is as clear as ever. We follow Belirand's trail to find human populations that need aid. What is just as obvious from all of this is the strategic importance of Ophir. We already know that fold-space between galaxies is significantly more efficient than within galaxies, making Ophir's position at the edge of the Orion-Cygnus arm of the Milky Way critical for staging missions."

  "If it's so strategic, why did Belirand abandon Ophir?" Tabby asked.

  "The only explanation I can come up with is they found a better location," Nick answered. "But that's just a guess."

  "Regardless, defending Ophir just became a top priority," Marny observed.

  Captain LeGrande smiled wryly. "And I thought you just invited me for my sage advice."

  "We're concerned with what Belirand will do once they discover we're in the Aeratroas region," I said. "That and we're not sure how they'll deal with our acquisition of Intrepid."

  "You also have a new problem," LeGrande said. "The Council of Yishuv is considering asking you to leave and not return. Some believe you bring more danger than value."

  "That's gratitude," Tabby spat. "I suppose they'll wait until we fetch their cows, though."

  "They're not wrong," Nick said. "With us continuing to drop into this system, we're painting a target on Ophir."

  "In three more centuries, Yishuv will be right back where they started," LeGrande said. "This colony was seeded with more than twice as many settlers as they have now and roughly the same technology. This generation and the next few will live well and grow, but in time, technology will fail and people will become complacent. Yishuv will not succeed if they wall themselves off. What we need are the means to repel a Belirand strike force."

  "I'm glad you see it that way, Katherine," I said. "Because we believe you're the right person to lead that initiative."

  "Me? My experience is as a ship's captain. What do I know about defending a planet? We have exactly three guns on the planet's surface and they're hundreds of stans old."

  "No ship is going to attack Yishuv directly with her current defenses," Marny said. "They'd be more likely to bombard from space. You must have an orbital defense platform."

  LeGrande tipped her head, considering Marny's words. "Do you have a solution for this?"

  "In three tendays, we'll place a mining platform in orbit. What we need is someone to command Strumpet," Marny said. "It wouldn't need to be a full-time operation."

  "What would Yishuv get out of this?" LeGrande asked.

  "Aside from protection?" Tabby asked.

  "I hear you and I agree. But I need a way to sell this to Yishuv's council. Like it or not, they recognize their strategic importance," LeGrande answered.

  "Do they get that we're putting our necks on the line for desperate people, possibly in as much trouble as they were in?" Tabby asked.

  "They do. They're just looking out for their own best interests," LeGrande answered. "They need to see a benefit to Yishuv, otherwise this will be a lot harder."

  "Steel sheet and beam to start with," Nick answered. "Eventually, nano-crystalized steel. I just forwarded a copy of a proposed trade agreement with Yishuv that places a value on the services we're requesting and the value of the material we can provide."

  "Perfect," LeGrande said. "To be clear, Strumpet's mission would be to defend Yishuv and the new orbiting platform."

  "There may come a time when we need your help against Belirand. We'd like to be able to call on you if that happens," Nick said.

  "I accept. I'll command Strumpet on one condition," she answered.

  "What's that?" I asked.

  "We're renaming her. I'm not sailing around in a French whore."

  ***

  "Merrie, Amon, what are you doing here?" I asked.

  Tabby, Marny and I had set a table in the hold of Hotspur and were interviewing possible crew candidates. The arrival of the energetic, young engineer and her blacksmith husband was unexpected. We'd put out a call for general crew and had been interviewing mostly young candidates, maybe sixteen to twenty stans. Merrie was hardly general crew material.

  "We want positions on the orbital platform," she said.

  In the two days since we'd talked to Captain LeGrande, while we'd had a lot of interest in the crew positions, we hadn't advertised any needs related to Petersburg Station which would arrive in three tendays.

  "What do you think Yishuv's council would say about that?" I asked. "I can't imagine how they'd feel about losing their top engineer and blacksmith."

  "You'd be surprised," Merrie said. "With the arrival of Cape of Good Hope's crew, there are more than enough technically minded people on planet. And try to find work as a blacksmith with an industrial replicator two doors down. Amon has been relegated to farm work."

  "Do you know what we're doing on that platform?" I asked.

  "Not completely, but I suspect you're harvesting the ore from an asteroid that is more than sixty percent pure with the dual objective of making a livable habitat and manufacturing steel materials for trade. You're sitting on eight kilo-tonnes of sifted ore that needs processing, while there's a thousand times that much material still to be harvested. Further, I believe you're looking to construct a nano-steel manufacturing plant, which would require the use of an industrial replicator, much like we have in Yishuv."

  Tabby and I exchanged a glance and I barely suppressed a bark of laughter. Merrie's cheeks reddened and she pushed back from the table.

  "Wait," I said. "It's not what you're thinking."

  Amon, who still hadn’t said anything, grabbed her hand, stilling her for the moment.

  "I don't think it's such a ridiculous notion," Merrie said, hotly. "And I'm tired of being cast as a dumb local."

  "Merrie, I can honestly say that there is no member of my crew who consider you a dumb anything. What Tabby and I found surprising is that you seem to grasp the essential function of Petersburg better than most of us."

  "Oh," she said sheepishly. "Does that mean you'll consider our application?"

  "Top of the list, Merrie, but it will have to wait until we return with the livestock. Yishuv Council has capped us at three recruits and we need them as permanent ship's crew. Once we return, we plan to staff Petersburg Station with four full-time residents," I said. "I'm comfortable offering you two of those four positions."

  "We accept," Merrie said, thrusting her hand out.

  "What if Yishuv Council throws a fit?" Tabby asked, shaking Merrie's proffered hand.

  "Leave that to me." Merrie smiled and led Amon away.

  Marny waved in the next recruit in the short line that had formed. We
'd interviewed over twenty possible candidates and had another twenty to go. Most of them seemed woefully inadequate for much of anything on a ship. They were simple farmers, apprentice woodworkers, bakers and laborers.

  By the time the Herschel star was low in the sky over Ophir, the three of us were mentally exhausted and Tabby was becoming more of a liability than a help.

  "What are we going to do?" I asked, palming the security panel to close the hold door. "None of those kids have any business on a ship."

  "You're looking at it wrong, Cap," Marny said.

  "How's that?"

  "There are only three on that list I wouldn't consider. The rest are a recruiter's dream," she said.

  I stood flatfooted, looking at her incredulously.

  Tabby, on the other hand, had climbed to the top of the bay and was standing in the boxing ring, looking down at us. "Can we have this conversation while I hit someone?"

  Marny chuckled. "You need to exercise that new foot, Cap."

  I'd all but forgotten about my new foot.

  "Or what? I'll want to hit people?" I asked as I followed her up the ladder to the inverted exercise area we'd installed in Hotspur's hold. One thing that had improved almost immediately had been my ability to climb a ladder.

  "You're thinking of these recruits as officers. We need people who will follow orders and not get overly creative. Mark my words, some of these people will surprise you once they get their sea-legs."

  "Do you have three in mind?" I asked, pulling an elliptical running machine from the floor.

  "Aye, I have six," she said. "I've sent their names to both of you."

  Tabby lunged across the ring at Marny who caught her attack and rolled back, tossing Tabby behind her into a padded barrier.

  I pulled up the top three names and was surprised by the amount of detail Marny provided with her recommendation for each of them. Zebulon, Mark-Ralph and Baker. We'd talked to each of them for less than five minutes, but she'd observed much more than I had. I recalled that Zebulon had an easy smile and had been part of the tree cutting crew. Having grown up planet-side doing manual labor he was bulky. Mark-Ralph was average height by spacer standards which made him short on Ophir, but like Zebulon, he was bulky due to manual labor as a farm laborer. The next name on the list was Baker. I scrolled through the interviews back to Baker's. Brick layer, average height, jet-black hair and not overly talkative. I remembered that her hands were scraped up and calloused from what I imagined was constant contact with the tools of her trade.