The old man froze in mid handshake. He smiled now. Not the professional polite smile used for all occasions, but a wide, warm smile of surprised happiness. Rafe had not known what would happen when he identified himself and found he was pleased with the old man’s pleasure in his identity. He gestured to his companion. “This is Tactical, pirate operations officer.”
“A pleasure, young lady.” The Duke took the seated woman’s hand and kissed it lightly. He did not seem to notice the crooked left side of her face with its scars or the slightly different colored left eye.
Tactical tilted her head slightly and graced the Duke with a rare smile. He returned it in full measure. He held her hand for a few more seconds as if waiting for something. Nothing happened so he gave a slight bow and returned to his seat behind the desk.
He eyed both of them in satisfaction. “Your recent exploits for the Empire are well known to a small but select group of people here. I have the great honor of being among that group. Please tell me about your adventures.”
Raferty told him everything from the battle at Potenka in the Badlands to the present day. He did not go into future plans. Those could wait and, besides, the future may not unfold as he hoped it would. The Duke listened intently and when he was brought up to date, he nodded.
“What is your candid opinion of Admiral Barrett?” the Duke asked.
“I only met him four times, but he struck me as a good combat commander who should have his fleet on the battle lines and not babysitting the home systems. The Home Fleet is spread too far apart for the resources they have so if the OrCons get this close, the Home Fleet won’t stop them from getting to the home systems.”
“You’re not the only one of that opinion but that point of view did not prevail. Lord Cunningham?”
Rafe smiled a little, “Polite, polished, urbane. Two steps ahead of everyone else. Excellent in negotiations and a gentleman through and through. His sophistication and manners camouflage the fact he is absolutely ruthless. I suspect that over the years, many people didn’t realize that until it was much too late and that lack of insight on their part was probably to their extreme detriment. I think he does good things for your government but also has his own agenda. I would never trust him.”
The Duke nodded and smiled. “How many times did you meet him?”
“Three times. When I proposed the Murmansk attack, when it was approved, and at the final briefing before we departed.”
“Excellent. You understand Douglas Cunningham after three meetings when many people have not understood him despite years of observation and close contact. I have known him for decades and consider him a comrade, but he subscribes to the remark of Britain’s Viscount Palmerston of old Earth, ‘We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual.’ Douglas will advance the Empire’s interests at all costs. If he manages to personally benefit from such advances, so much the better. He also thinks he could run the government better than anyone else. You are wise to be wary of him.”
Rafe nodded and Tactical shifted in her seat. She didn’t like Cunningham for exactly the traits discussed. The Duke noticed and nodded in her direction before turning back to Hawkins.
“How did you come to your conclusion about Douglas Cunningham so quickly?”
“He insisted we take Captain Skyler Mallory on our mission into OrCon space as an official observer when there was no need for her to be there. He wanted me to train her to hunt me after the war was over. I suspect Cunningham would ensure she would command any Empire force sent into the Badlands when the war ends with the mission to reassert the Empire’s interests and their right to be in the Badlands. He didn’t like it when I made it clear that I had seen through his plan.”
Hawkins left out a few more pertinent parts of that tale; he decided this was not the time and place for them.
“What do you think of the Duchess of Albithor?”
Rafe was confused for a second by the title but then understood. “Captain Mallory is a fine officer.”
The Duke looked at him expectantly, but it soon became obvious Hawkins would say nothing more. Tactical shifted in her seat and studied the bookcase behind the Duke’s desk, reinforcing the idea that the conversation had come to an end regarding the said Duchess. The Duke could sense there had to be much more there but let it go. He turned to Tactical. “How did you come to be in this man’s company for such a long period of time?” He nodded toward Rafe.
Tactical said nothing for a moment, gauging how much to say and came to the conclusion honesty was best, but it was to be a limited sort of honesty. “We’ve known each other for a very long time and our interests have always coincided.”
Again, the Duke waited but nothing more was forthcoming.
Tactical eyed him in silence and finally said softly, “Not yet. Soon, but not quite yet.”
The Duke nodded. He understood. He had been accused of being a man of secrets but he preferred to think of himself as a man of privacy. And he was more than willing to give the same consideration to others. It would come out in time or it wouldn’t. He would not push, at least, not yet.
Chapter 6
Shane Delacruz, captain of Vindictive, turned in his command chair to regard Harper Lutz at his ops station. “When we get closer to that freighter to get some sensor details, run it through the database. That last turn toward us was a little suspicious.”
Lutz smiled at him and decided to play devil’s advocate. “It turned toward us just as it appeared on our sensors. We may not have appeared on her sensors yet so the turn was coincidence. It did turn away from us and run once it had us on sensors.”
Shane shook his head. “No such thing as coincidences as we all know. If it is one of the Goth Q ships, its sensors would be military grade just like ours so it turned toward us as soon as it saw us. She wanted to cut the distance between us. She then turned and is running now as part of her cover. She wants us to catch her.”
Lutz agreed with the statements. “So what do you want to do?”
“We will close on her and come up dead astern. If she is a Q ship, that will be a weak spot. We’ll shoot two missiles when we get to medium missile range. She will have to make a move of some sort.”
Adam Rutledge, the XO, was standing by the helm in the forward part of the bridge. “You must be damn certain she is a Q ship to fire on her.”
Delacruz shook his head. “I want a tight targeting cone. I want the missiles to pass below her. She won’t know that and will have to take some sort of defensive action. We will have her then because she will fight, or, if she is a real freighter, she will heave to. Either way, we get an answer.”
Vindictive chased the freighter. The pirate ship steadily closed the gap. Two missiles went downrange. The firing distance was far enough away from the merchant ship to allow her time to react. The ship dropped all pretense of being a freighter as panels fell away on both sides of the ship’s hull and two interceptor missiles fired from stern tubes at the incoming threat.
The freighter now switched to the offensive and several missiles came at Vindictive. The pirates were prepared for this and fired their own interceptors in defense.
“Shoot the fire and forget clusters,” Delacruz ordered.
These thirty-two missiles tubes were strapped to the outer hull, sixteen pointed forward and sixteen pointed aft. Once used, they could not be reloaded but provided a one-time fire superiority advantage. The sixteen forward tubes had offensive missiles and they roared downrange now while the regular missile launchers fired interceptors. The freighter engaged the incoming barrage with gunfire, decoys, and lasers, but three got through and impacted the rear shields. Although shields were added to the Q ship when the ship was converted to an armed merchantman, they were not military grade. The three missiles depleted them. As Vindictive continued on the offensive with missiles pouring out of her tubes, the freighter was forced to fire more and more interceptors for defense. As the distance closed,
Vindictive started shooting guns at the Q ship. The battle was slowly moving the pirate’s way. The freighter could not run away and was not very maneuverable. Her strengths were in surprise and getting the first strike and neither would happen here. Vindictive gradually forced open the defenses, and soon missiles were impacting the slowly recharging rear shields. The shields collapsed and missiles hit the hull. Explosions against the hull were followed by explosions within the ship as the hull was penetrated and missiles entered the aft compartments. The enemy ship shook under internal explosions as her engines failed and she lost power. Backup battery power worked for ten minutes to power the defenses, but the batteries drained and the defenses fell silent.
“Cease fire,” Shane ordered.
The exchange of fire ceased, and the pirate ship slowed to take up a close position aft of the Q ship as she coasted to a stop.
“Want to board her?” asked Harper Lutz from his operations station.
“No,” Delacruz shook his head. “We’ll leave her. She is out of action and no threat in the immediate future.” He stared at the image on one of his floating screens. “We will not send out a comm message to bring would-be rescuers either. Let her solve her own problems.” He turned to Lutz. “Send an after-action report to all Flot 1 ships covering this incident. Include images of the target so we all can spot her again if she is repaired and put back out in vacuum.”
Vindictive turned away. With the battle over, Shane switched his floating screens. His attention was quickly caught by a P4 from Killian O’Hare designated NOW.
~ ~ ~
Captain Flint Colfax reviewed the final tally for the shipyard work. Corsair had been overhauled just before coming to the Badlands so this work was upgrades for sensors and weapons. She had the best sensors now and had a new missile launcher on each side of her hull. There were fire-and-forget missile clusters pointed fore and aft, and the guns were modified to fire Nova rounds. Two additional laser positions were added. Colfax had inspected the work and it was average at best. He had been told to expect this and plan for his crew to bring the work up to higher standards. What was not average was the bill from the shipyard. Despite being forewarned, Colfax was still flabbergasted at the total. He handed the bill to his XO, Winston Summers. He perused the list of charges, and then his eyes grew wide when he reached the figure at the bottom of the pad.
“Unbelievable!” he sputtered. He turned to Colfax. “Don’t they know we are doing good work here in the Badlands? This is robbery!”
Dallas Keitel looked at the bill in his hand. The OpsO shook her head. “Captain O’Hare said it would be this way. Looks like we aren’t the only pirates and thieves working around here. We just happen to be more honest about our dishonesty.”
Colfax nodded. “You’re not lying. The shipyard people consider it a silence tax. They will never admit to seeing us or doing any work for us so they figure we owe them the extra money for their silence.” He sighed. “We will pay it.” He then smiled at his two companions. “They may be silent but I won’t be. As soon as we clear this planet, I will send a comm to Eve Maldova telling her this shipyard is a favorite of pirates. She will pass the intel on to her Goth friends and when the Goths show up, we’ll see if the management stays quiet then.”
The three smiled at each other. “Let’s pay the bill and burn out of here.” Colfax remarked. “We got places to be.”
~ ~ ~
Captain Llewellyn Terrant reviewed her bill for shipyard work accomplished. She frowned and did a monetary conversion rate on her computer to verify her suspicions. She shook her head. Shane Delacruz had warned her about the charges that were coming but they still surprised and bothered her. This shipyard in the Korpeau system was an out-of-the-way junk yard that happened to do overhauls. She had to admit they did a decent job on the engines and the mechanical aspects of the weapon systems. Sensors and any other electronics were beyond their capabilities. Terrant knew Pirate Flotilla One would not send her ship, Cottonmouth, to one of their best shipyards as they wouldn’t risk word getting out, but she had hoped for better than this. There was nothing to be done. At least she was not paying the bill with her own funds.
Her XO, Lucas Westrum, knocked on the frame of the open hatch and stepped into the day cabin. He smiled at her. “I got something that may brighten your day.” She looked at him expectantly. He continued. “Got a message from Sidewinder. She is in the Perdition System inbound. She is spending her last money for supplies at Last Chance on Absolution.”
Terrant nodded. She would have preferred all Marbellan ships had been more circumspect about their approach and arrival in the Badlands, but she wasn’t in command of any of them… yet. All she could hope was that any Marbellan ships sighted would blend into the variety of traffic always moving across the border and nobody would take a special interest in them.
She stared at Westrum. “They acknowledge my request about staging far from the trade routes and patrol areas once they enter the region?”
Westrum nodded. “They will set up at Mistral and wait.”
“Status on the others?”
“Nothing since many ships acknowledged our original message to rally in the Badlands. Don’t know who is coming and who isn’t.”
She nodded again. “Several ships are probably interested but don’t want to commit to anything without more information. I will send out an update to all concerned. I have no timetable for any Flot 1 activities yet so those ships interested in joining us will have time to figure out what they want to do. I will send out a timeline for our activities to our fellow ships after I find out what the pirate flotilla is up to.” She looked at her XO. “I hope we will be shooting it out with Goths. Bound to take some casualties, and then we have our Marbellan ships come to the rescue and their presence will become an established fact. If our comrades kill a few Goth ships, Hawkins will have to acknowledge the obvious.”
Westrum looked troubled. “You don’t know what we and our pirate comrades are going to do in the near term, Admiral?”
Terrant shook her head. “Wish I did. All I know is we will go to the Perdition system and meet other flotilla ships there. Hawkins is away in the Aurora Empire doing something about getting allies and support. I think it is a fool’s errand as the Zekes have their own problems. They may not like the Goth activity in the Badlands, but they have more urgent concerns closer to home. I think Hawkins will return with vague promises and little else.
“Then we will be a lone flotilla on our own. I predict we will stay in the Perdition system to resupply our force while staying out of harm’s way and then will be coming back into the Badlands to execute a mission on the flotilla level. Probably get some hits on Goth targets before the new Goth admiral and her staff can get organized.”
Westrum nodded. “Maybe our pirate friends will take some casualties in the fight?”
Terrant smiled. “With any luck. They will need replacements then and we will ensure some candidates are available.” She stood up. “Time to get out of this junkyard and on our way.”
~ ~ ~
Renegade pulled hard through the starboard turn. Rocks and boulders bounced off the shields and further depleted them as the small ship plowed upstream through the field of spinning stones. Ringo seemed not to notice. She had attention only for the fight at hand. She reviewed her tactical screens and spoke to helm. “The Goth has slowed up. He thinks we’ll continue to run upstream using the asteroid patch for cover. He will climb up above the stones to chase us in clear space. We will go behind that large asteroid ahead of us and, once out of sight, come hard around the asteroid for a turn back on target. We’ll take him head to head as he starts to climb up out of the belt. I want to empty on his engineering in one pass and then pull up out of the rocks. We get his engineering before he gets clear, the asteroids will do the job for us.”
Helm acknowledged the order and Ringo turned to her OpsO behind her at his station. “You get one pass at this. Don’t screw it up.”
&nb
sp; Her OpsO nodded as he built the missile engagement parameters to ensure they didn’t lock onto spinning rocks. Ringo was satisfied Renegade could get this Goth in one pass. If that proved not to be true, she would come back around for another attack. The Goth destroyer thought she was chasing a scared little pirate corvette. She would soon learn otherwise.
The Goths were sensing the kill. The destroyer had followed the pirate into the stream of rocks two minutes prior. The pirate’s rear shields had absorbed multiple missile hits during the chase in open space and seemed to be failing. Just a few more hits, the rear shields would collapse and then rounds would be impacting on engines. A vision of the future that turned out to be only a mirage. The pirate was slipping away now. The pursuing destroyer saw the rock stream was thinning out ahead and started to climb to exit the small asteroid field. They would continue the chase in open space while the quarry was still in the rocky maelstrom. The pirate would be overtaken quickly then. Getting shots down into the swirling rocks would be a challenge, but the Flot 1 ship would not get away. The destroyer captain was confident of success regardless of how long it took to get the fugitive ship.
Renegade disappeared from the sight and sensors of the pursuing destroyer as she went around a large asteroid. The pursuer continued to climb during the lull in the fight. Renegade pulled hard around the tumbling massive boulder and emerged on the other side, racing back at the destroyer and her surprised captain. Renegade went slightly nose up to aim at her enemy and raced downstream at the climbing Goth warship. Missiles came out of all tubes in a continuous salvo. Cannon fire followed. The Goth crew took a second to adjust to the surprise attack. Then it took two seconds to get interceptors programmed and fired. Close range always favors the first to fire accurate rounds and so it was true here. The pirate missiles overwhelmed the interceptors and several hit the underside of their target. Pirate gunfire augmented the hits. The attacking pirate passed the Goth in fifteen seconds. She raked the target with close-in gunfire and lasers as she passed. Only fifteen seconds, but it was enough. The shields protecting the bottom of the engineering spaces collapsed. Gunfire, lasers, and missiles hit the hull in that area. The port engine flared under the assault, and the destroyer spun to port as the starboard engine was providing the majority of the power. She was now side on to the barrage of rocks, asteroids, and space debris. The assaulting rocks smashed into the starboard side of the ship and battered the shaky shields. Renegade continued to fire as she pulled up and out of the rock stream. The pirate vessel pulled a hard turn to stay above the Goth ship. The destroyer had stopped firing as she slewed sideways and shook under the asteroid buffeting.
Echoes from Yesterday: Pirates of the Badlands Series Book 4 Page 4