Return of the Star Raiders

by Dietmar Wehr

  “Oh, we’ll take anything we have room for and destroy the rest. When the next raider ship arrives, it’ll find a ghost base, with no clue as to what happened or who’s responsible. I suggest you and Commander Anderson figure out who’s going to fly this raider ship back. My people and our prisoners will be ready to leave soon.” When Strider brought up the subject with Anderson, his response was not a surprise.

  “You’ll have to split your officers and crew, Strider. Redstone is already in orbit, and I won’t jeopardize the mission by leaving the surrounding space unscanned for any length of time. I’m sure your people can handle the challenge.”

  Jaeger was not happy to learn that he and his crew would only have a few hours to familiarize themselves with the captured ship’s controls. The only silver lining was the fact that the builder of the ship spoke the same Esperanto as did everyone on all ex-Federation planets, which meant that the crew would not have to translate labels and displays.

  When the base had been relieved of useful equipment and the prisoners were safely secured in the bowels of the freighter, Anderson gave the order for all four ships to head for Haven. During the trip back, Strider was frustrated by how little he was able to discover from or about the prisoners. The one thing that he did learn was that none of them wore a wolf’s head on their shoulder.

  Arriving at Haven’s spaceport was a relief in more ways than one. All four ships were on the ground, and the prisoners were escorted to a holding facility by heavily-armed guards, who had orders to shoot to kill if any of the prisoners resisted in any way. Anderson, Tomonaga, Jaeger, Hagen, Strider and the freighter’s CO, Daniels, were ordered to appear for a debriefing with Morningside and several of his senior officers. After Anderson and Hagen gave their summaries of what had happened, Morningside congratulated them on a text-book operation. He then asked Anderson if he and his crew had learned anything from the captured ship’s computers.

  “We certainly did, Admiral. First, the ship’s name is Nemesis. She’s a private venture, which means that she’s owned by a group of individuals, one of whom is her Captain. They had just finished a raid and had come to the base to trade their loot for some repairs and replenishment of expended ammunition. The investors come from a planet called New Atlantis. I managed to check our records of Federation planets, and there is no listing of a planet by that name, nor is there a Federation planet that has the same astrogational co-ordinates—which we found in Nemesis’ computers—as does those of New Atlantis. That seems to imply that this planet was never part of the Federation and thus managed to avoid the decivilizing effects of the Collapse.

  “We also learned that New Atlantis is a monarchy with an established aristocracy. The King, a man by the name of Traskonen, is one of the investors in the Nemesis venture. My technical crew took a good look at the ship’s equipment, including power plant, engines, avionics, weapons and life support. The control systems are better designed than those of our ships, and the power plant and engines are more compact, but in terms of technical capabilities, Nemesis is comparable to our latest designs. The ship is actually larger than Redstone or Agincourt, but the extra space is devoted to carrying the ground troops, their equipment, weapons, combat vehicles, extra food, etc. and cargo space for loot. By the way, the loot she brought to the Tubal base was mostly precious metals and jewels. Naturally we didn’t leave that behind. In terms of ship weapons, Nemesis has more short-range weapons than our ships, and it even has turret-mounted cannon for ground support. It has some anti-ship defenses, mainly auto-cannon for point defense, but it only has eight missile tubes with enough missile storage space for just six missiles per tube. It’s my opinion that the designers decided to compromise for a general-purpose design that has a limited ability to fight other ships. Offensively, Nemesis has the same fire power as our light cruisers, but our ships can carry a heavier missile load.”

  Morningside pondered that information for a minute or two before responding. “So now we know where that ship was built and where it operates from. Excellent. Were you able to learn anything about other raider ships, Commander?”

  We’re not sure, Admiral. We found references to about a dozen other ships. One of them is Hellhound, which we’ve heard about before, and it’s almost certainly another raider ship. I’m convinced that at least some of the other ships are raider ships too, but there’s no way to know for sure from the information in the ship’s computers. The prisoners may be able to shed some light on the other ships.”

  Morningside now smiled. “The prisoners. Yes, indeed, they are going to tell us a lot, I’m sure.” He looked over to one of his subordinate admirals. “Use whatever interrogation techniques will generate co-operation, Admiral Serevski. Whatever it takes, understood?”

  “Understood, Admiral.”

  Morningside turned to look at Hagen. “What did the base computers tell us, General?”

  “We discovered that the base itself is also a private venture, also funded by the King of New Atlantis among others. Additional data includes a list of five ships that have visited the base since it was set up. Hellhound is not one of the five by the way,” Hagen looked at Strider as he said that. “There are also references to other planets. We’ve not finished checking them all yet, but so far, the ones we have checked are ex-Federation planets. The rest of the data seems to be more mundane, relating to shipping manifests, keeping track of how much profit belongs to which investors, that kind of thing.”

  Morningside gave Hagen a nod of approval before turning to look at the others. “This operation looks like it has achieved exactly what we were hoping for. We now have a possible and very likely probable source for the raider ships. New Atlantis is going to get a visit from Royal Haven Navy ships in due course. When that will be depends on what else we learn from our prisoners. By the way, how far away is this New Atlantis?”

  “It’s a long way away, Admiral,” said Anderson. It’ll take our ships almost three months to get there.”

  That raised a lot of eyebrows. “No wonder they wanted to establish a base within Federation territory,” said Tomonaga.

  “Explain,” said Morningside.

  “Well, if raiders have to travel all the way back to New Atlantis after each raid in order to replenish supplies and cash in their loot, they can only conduct two, maybe three raids a year, depending on where their target planets are. Having a base within Federation space to do those things, and even get repairs, means more raids. And it means that deeper raids on planets further away from New Atlantis are now practical. I’m actually surprised that it took them this long to see the advantages of setting up a base like the one on Tubal.”

  Before anyone else could respond, Strider jumped in. “We shouldn’t assume that Tubal was their only base. There may already be others.”

  “Interesting observation,” said Morningside. “The prisoners should know if there are any other bases and where they are. Before we start talking about what our next move should be, I’d like to address an outstanding issue first. While the mission was in progress, I broached the question of turning over to New Caledon at least one captured ship. Given how desperately New Caledon needs defense assets in case Valhallan ships attack again, our King has decided that if any raider ships are captured, you, Commander Strider, may pick one to take back as a prize ship. Since there is only one captured ship, your choice is obvious, but I’m wondering if you still want Nemesis considering that she’s not even as capable of fighting off another ship as are our light cruisers when you take missile storage into consideration.”

  Strider hesitated. It was a good question. On a ship-for-ship basis, Nemesis would lose a fight with any Haven heavy cruiser, such as Resolute, Redstone or Agincourt. Those were the kind of ships that the Aerospace Force needed in case AF ships were outnumbered by raider or Valhallan ships. But one captured raider ship defending his planet was better than no ships defending it, and the first, home-built replacement ship was still months away from completion.

&nb
sp; “I’ll take Nemesis back to New Caledon. If my government disapproves of my decision, they can easily return her, although I seriously doubt they will.”

  Morningside smiled and nodded. “They’d be stupid to give her back, at least until they’ve built enough of their own ships. Turning Nemesis over to your planet officially will require some paperwork, but that’s just a technicality. As far as I’m concerned, Nemesis is now your ship to command. We may have to lend you some technical crew so that you can take her home, but that should not pose any problems. Now that we’ve settled that issue, I’d like to hear recommendations with regards to what our next step should be. Commander Anderson, you’ll go first.”

  “We should launch a three-ship attack on New Atlantis at the earliest possible time. We go in, destroy any ships in orbit or on the ground and give the King an ultimatum to stop building or supporting raider ships. Comply or be bombed back to the Stone Age.”

  “You’re talking about going to war with another sovereign planet,” said Jaeger quietly. “We don’t know what kind of fleet the New Atlantis King has. If he has several ships of his own, we might find them attacking us. He just might have more ships than we do, and even if he doesn’t, you’re suggesting we use atomic missiles that would also cause many thousands of collateral civilian deaths. Even the raiders didn’t do that.” Jaeger stopped when Morningside held up his hand. Anderson looked angry but said nothing.

  “I think I can safely speak for His Majesty when I say that he would not authorise the indiscriminate use of atomics on civilian populations,” said Morningside. “Our enemy are raider ships. If we can eliminate them without starting a war with another planet, we should try to do that. What advice do you have, Commander Strider?”

  Strider looked over at Jaeger for a couple of seconds before responding. “Why not let my planet send Nemesis to New Atlantis on a peaceful mission to establish formal relations with its King, and at the same time conduct reconnaissance to determine how strong the King’s navy is, how many raider ships operate out of that planet and any other useful militarily intelligence that we can pick up?”

  “They’ll wonder how you got one of their ships,” snapped Anderson.

  Strider smiled. “How will they know it’s one of theirs? We’ll change any external identification. The only way they’d know for sure is if they looked inside and saw how she was designed, and we’ll prevent that from happening.”

  Anderson waved Striders’ explanation away. “They’ll ask you how you found out about New Atlantis and its location.”

  Strider didn’t have a ready answer for that one. It was Jaeger who provided the solution. “We can tell them that one of New Caledon’s star-freighters visited the base at Tubal in order to conduct some trades and learned the information from them.”

  Anderson didn’t have any more objections handy, but Morningside did. “Conducting a reconnaissance mission is a good idea in principle, but if you take Nemesis to New Atlantis, you’ll be gone for almost half a year, and your planet won’t have that ship available for repelling any Valhallan or raider attacks during that time. Did you consider that, Commander?”

  “Ah, no, sir. I did not. I withdraw my suggestion.”

  “Not so fast, Commander Strider. Is there a way to conduct the kind of reconnaissance you suggested, under the flag of New Caledon, without depriving your planet of Nemesis’ weapons?”

  Once again, it was Jaeger who found the answer. “I think I may have the solution. Sending a warship to New Atlantis may not be such a good idea because their King might feel threatened by it. But if we were to send an unarmed freighter as a trading mission–I’m thinking Haven’s Enterprise—that would be the a logical follow-up to having learned about New Atlantis from the Tubal base. There’d be no reason then for their King to feel threatened at all. Our freighter would pretend to be a New Caledon freighter. There’s enough difference in accents between New Caledon and Haven that it would make sense to use officers from New Caledon.” Jaeger looked at Strider. “In terms of the logistics, we could send a light cruiser and our freighter alongside Nemesis to New Caledon. Nemesis would then be turned over to their AF Command for local defense. Haven’s Enterprise would be made to look like a New Caledon ship, carrying locally-made goods. AF officers would take command of her, and her Haven officers would come home on the light cruiser. The ship’s Haven technical crew would stay with the ship. I suppose we should ask for volunteers since the mission would be for a much longer duration than we normally ask of our crews.”

  “I like it,” said Morningside. “I’d like it even more if at least one of the officers was a Haven officer. It is a Haven ship after all.”

  Strider looked at Jaeger with raised eyebrows. “I’d like to have you along, Karl.”

  Jaeger thought about it for a bit, then nodded. “Okay, I’ll volunteer, if the Admiral will let me.”

  “The Admiral will,” said Morningside in an amused tone.

  The rest of the meeting involved discussion of possible cargoes the ship might carry, what things the officers should keep an eye out for and logistical details.

  Chapter Twenty

  Strider and his New Caledonian officers spent the next four days enjoying the Haven Capital’s nightlife and sites. Morningside had requested that the trip back to New Caledon wait until all the prisoners had undergone some interrogation in case some important new information came to light, and some did. Multiple prisoners confirmed the assertion that the ex-Federation planet Olympus had formed a friendly relationship with raiders as a raider resupply and repair base, operated by and for the benefit of the local political leader. Olympus was a lot closer than New Atlantis, and because of that, the plan was changed to send Haven’s Enterprise, which would be known as NC Enterprise, to Olympus instead of New Atlantis.

  When Strider queried the rationale for making the switch, Jaeger explained. “Our King has made it clear that he does not want to conduct a war with New Atlantis over that distance, and therefore reconnoitering that planet is no longer needed. What we do need to know is where raider ships get resupplied, how many there are, etc. Olympus could provide that kind of information.”

  “Makes sense. I’m a little surprised at how quickly your people are getting information out of the prisoners. I would have thought they’d be more tight-lipped about that kind of info.”

  Jaeger’s expression took on a self-congratulatory look. “I wondered the same thing, so I asked one of the interrogators how they did it. He told me that it became obvious very quickly that the prisoners didn’t intend to reveal anything, not even their names. One of our people had an idea. He told the guards to bring one of the prisoners to an interrogation room and to treat him roughly within sight of the other prisoners: pushing, cursing him, that kind of thing. When he got the prisoner alone, he told him that if the prisoner didn’t co-operate, he’d be returned to his fellow raiders with friendly treatment from the guards; you know, pats on the back and laughter to make it look like the prisoner had spilled his guts and that we were satisfied with him. On the other hand, if the prisoner actually did co-operate with us, we’d give him some superficial bruises and treat him roughly on his way back, thereby giving the impression that he had kept quiet. The fear that his fellow raiders might think he ratted them out, thereby earning their lethal wrath, was so great that he started volunteering information even before we had a chance to ask for anything.”

  “Okay, I can see how that might work once, but why would it work more than once. When the second guy was interrogated and given the same choice, he might immediately figure out that the first one had caved in, right?” asked Strider.

  “No, our people figured a way around that. Every time a new prisoner was brought in for interrogation, we let him know that all the previous prisoners had kept their mouths shut and therefore we were going to try this new approach for the first time. None of the prisoners who caved in would reveal what was really going on because if they did, everyone would know they had caved
in too.”

  Huh,” said Strider. “Did anyone call your bluff and not co-operate?”

  Jaeger’s smile vanished. “One guy did. The guards thanked him for telling us about Olympus and other things within earshot of the other prisoners as they escorted him back. Our eavesdropping microphones heard him explaining the whole tactic to the others, He kept on trying to convince them that he had been the only one to resist right up to the point where they strangled him to death with their bare hands. The tactic worked even better after that.”

  Strider had no sympathy for the murdered raider. He had probably done worse to innocent men, women and children during raids. When all three ships were ready to leave, Morningside gave the green light, and they were soon on their way back to New Caledon.

  Strider and Jaeger had a lot of time to chat about what their two planets should do about both the raiders and Valhalla after returning from Olympus. Jaeger thought that as they learned about the location of raider bases, they should send a squadron of warships and ground assault troops to do to them what they had accomplished at Tubal. The elimination of bases would force raiders to return to New Atlantis after each raid, and as a result, there would end up being fewer raids.