Without Mercy

by Eric Thomson

  Pirates abandoning a perfectly good freighter could be for reasons other than a grand scheme with unknown objectives. Perhaps something scared them away. Or they didn’t want an old Skeid class and couldn’t bring themselves to destroy it. Or they left her as a ghost ship out of sheer devilment, to mess with any potential salvagers. Even pirates loved to play pranks although few honest people would find them funny.

  “Emergence, four hundred and fifty kilometers aft. One ship.” The green icon turned purple.

  “Extraordinarily precise for something that should be random, such as choosing where to drop out of FTL in interstellar space so one might tune the engines and recalculate one’s course,” Holt remarked in a dry tone from his station on the bridge.

  “Based on the emissions signature,” Yens continued, “it’s either a high-powered fast trader or someone less honest keeping his emissions dampened. I have a visual.”

  The image of a sleek starship with swept back hyperdrive nacelle pylons appeared on a side display. Its hull was matte black, with no markings, but liberally pitted and streaked by atmospheric re-entries. Small bumps precisely distributed along its topside and keel could only be one thing: retracted gun turrets. Of course, Kattegat Maru was equally well equipped and she was an ordinary, inoffensive merchantman.

  “Clearly of human construction rather than Shrehari, although it could be crewed by anyone.”

  “I doubt the Shrehari would bother taking something of ours into service, Chief. They’d find it a tad cramped.”

  “Aye, but the boneheads have subject species that aren’t as big as they are. Although the buggers don’t let them play without supervision, I suppose.” A red pointer appeared on the display and hovered over a larger, flatter bump near the ship’s nose. “That could hide missile launchers. And if so, it’s not an honest trader.”

  “Agreed, Chief.” Dunmoore’s eyes narrowed as she studied the intruder. Anti-ship missiles were expensive. Too expensive for honest traders who preferred evading danger through speed and stealth rather than brute force.

  “No beacon, which isn’t unusual out here. He’s decelerating.”

  “And the only reason would be Kattegat Maru.”

  “How do you intend to play it, Skipper?” Holt asked.

  “If he comes near enough without spotting us, we do a partial reveal. Only the tier one guns he’d expect from a privateer. It should suffice to put his captain in a talkative mood.”

  “Emma just reported that he’s pinging Kattegat Maru with his sensors,” Thorin Sirico said. “Let’s hope he’s sticking to a narrow cone. Otherwise, he’ll pick up evidence of a ghost. A huge ghost.”

  The minutes ticked by as they watched the newcomer adjust his course to match Kattegat Maru’s while decelerating.

  “Looks as if he’ll be coming alongside her at about ninety degrees from us on the zee axis. That’s almost ideal.” Sirico sounded like a man about to enjoy himself. “Although I can’t believe he hasn’t spotted us yet.”

  Dunmoore made a dismissive sound.

  “Confirmation bias. Since he’s not expecting Kattegat Maru to be found so quickly out in the dark, he’s not expecting anyone else to be around. The sensor scans are probably out of reflex, to make sure the target’s status hasn’t changed.”

  “That’ll cost him, Captain.”

  She shrugged.

  “So far, he’s done nothing wrong, and if he’s on the Navy’s most wanted list, Chief Yens would have found a match in the database by now. Yes, he knew where to find her, but that doesn’t prove he’s guilty of piracy. Not yet. Let’s watch and wait.”

  More time passed while the intruder maneuvered to close with Kattegat Maru, still oblivious to the large mass moving in tandem with their target.

  “I always love these moments,” Sirico said. “Scaring the crap out of unsuspecting bastards when we suddenly show up on their sensors, looking like the angel of death.”

  Major Salminen gave him a broad grin.

  “Should I worry that you seem to love your job so much?”

  He made a dismissive hand gesture.

  “Certainly not. You may be a pongo, but you’re still one of the favored few serving the Furious Faerie.”

  “Favored few? I suppose it’s better to do the scaring than be the one running for the heads.”

  “You said it, sister.” Sirico rubbed his hands with glee. “Just a little closer, my pretty, so I can show you my big guns.”

  Dunmoore, a smile tugging at her lips, gave Iolanthe’s combat systems officer a mock exasperated glare.

  In return, Sirico put on a contrite look as insincere as it was exaggerated.

  “Okay, okay. I’ll enjoy these sublime moments more quietly in future.” He composed himself and sat back in his chair. “This is me, basking in quiet pleasure.”

  “I still can’t believe they didn’t spot us yet,” Salminen said.

  “We won’t be invisible for much longer.” Dunmoore nodded at the tactical projection, now scaled up to show three ships within the same fifty cubic kilometers of space. “Once they match velocity with us, I’ll sic Thorin on them.”

  “Maybe it’ll be even funnier if we let them board, Skipper,” Holt suggested. “I’m sure between them, Emma and Sergeant Saari can prepare a warm welcome. Then we light up. With part of their crew away, they’ll hesitate just long enough for the situation to sink in.”

  “If they don’t spot us first.”

  “As you said, the bastards don’t expect an interloper, so they’re not looking for one. Let the candidates for interrogation come to us instead of us trying to pry them out of their hull.”

  Dunmoore mulled over the suggestion, eyes fixed on the approaching ship’s image, weighing the pros and the cons.

  Then Sirico raised his hand to attract her attention.

  “I asked Emma. She’s good with the idea. Sergeant Saari is even more enthusiastic.”

  “I suppose there’s no harm in trying. Tell Emma to go ahead. But let’s make damned sure they don’t catch on we’re Fleet.”

  “I sent Karlo across in gear with no identifying marks,” Salminen said. “He’ll play Varangian Company mercenary without letting on it’s a sham.”

  An air of anticipation cloaked the CIC while they watched the unknown ship come to a relative rest five kilometers from Kattegat Maru and a mere thirty from Iolanthe, its velocity matching theirs.

  “Here we go,” Yens said. “It doesn’t get better than this.”

  “Sure it does, Chief.” Sirico gave her a bloodthirsty grin. “Wait for it.”

  “No need to wait, sir. They launched a shuttle. Unmarked, of course, and no beacon. Standard civilian model with add-on weapon pods. That thing can carry twenty warm bodies, max.”

  “Which it won’t. Twenty could easily represent half of the crew. They’re not expecting to face a platoon of the Scandia Regiment’s finest aboard a supposedly empty starship ripe for salvage.”

  “Don’t let Karlo Saari know you’ve called him and his people the regiment’s finest, even if it was in jest, Captain. Otherwise, the entire company will never hear the end of it.”

  Dunmoore gave Salminen a wink and a grin.

  “Don’t worry.”

  “Emma reports ready to capture boarders. Apparently, Sergeant Saari and his soldiers are giggling with glee.”

  Salminen sighed.

  “I doubt that’s even close to being an exaggeration. They’ve not seen much action in recent weeks, and we ground pounders love a good ambush.”

  “The shuttle is lining up with the hangar doors,” Yens said.

  And still nothing to show the newcomers were aware of a Q-ship watching them with hungry eyes.

  — Nine —

  “This seems almost too easy,” Emma Cullop whispered, eyes on the bridge’s main display as she watched a small spacecraft pass through the open doors with exquisite care. Then she realized how asinine whispering was. Everyone on the bridge, everyone aboard for that matter ex
cept Carrie Fennon, wore a tightly buttoned battlesuit. She could scream inside her helmet, but with both crew and soldiers on strict radio silence, no one would hear.

  A secondary display showed Karlo Saari’s troops hidden away in the corridor leading to the hangar deck airlock. Another gave her a glimpse of those waiting in readiness behind the stacked containers that hid Iolanthe’s shuttles. They were prepared to seize the intruding craft once its occupants entered through the airlock.

  The newcomer, an ordinary civilian model common throughout human space with multi-barrel gun pods on either side and on the top, settled gently in the center of the deck. Its aft ramp dropped to disgorge six figures in armored pressure suits as unmarked as everything else.

  They carried backpacks, slung carbines, and blasters holstered at the waist. She recognized the carbines as obsolete military variants, the sort still in use by various national guards and planetary militias.

  One of the figures, perhaps the leader, broke away from the group and headed for the airlock with a determined pace. There, he entered the code in use at the time of Kattegat Maru’s capture. It proved they or someone they knew had recently been in contact with the freighter’s crew.

  Cullop unlocked the door remotely from the bridge, to give the illusion that the old code still worked. It pulled back and to one side without a sound, opening on an empty airlock that appeared as it was when the pirates left days earlier. The leader motioned his crew in, then closed the outer door again before triggering the pressurization cycle.

  When the panel glowed a soft green, he opened the inner door and stepped into the corridor which ran along the bulkhead separating the hangar from the ship’s forward half before turning at ninety-degree angles on both the port and starboard sides.

  One of Sergeant Saari’s fire teams waited behind a half-closed door in the control room, next to the airlock. Two more fire teams hid around each corner while Saari and a fourth fire team waited in the storage compartment across from the airlock.

  Sergeant First Class Mattis and two more fire teams were on the hangar deck, waiting to seize the shuttle which still sat with its ramp open.

  The six intruders cautiously turned right and headed for the bend. Almost immediately, Saari broke radio silence and yelled out the 3rd Battalion’s beloved war cry.

  “Hakkaa päälle.”

  In a matter of seconds, the boarding party found itself boxed in by nine menacing soldiers in battle armor who pointed lethal weapons at their helmet visors, a suit’s most vulnerable point.

  “Surrender or die.” Saari’s voice boomed through external speakers loud enough to deafen anyone without hearing protection.

  After exchanging glances with his men, the leader barked out an order, and they carefully placed their carbines on the deck before raising their hands.

  Back on the bridge, Cullop gestured toward Chief Henkman at the technical console.

  “Close the space doors.”

  She switched her gaze to the display showing Kattegat Maru’s hangar deck just in time to see Mattis and her teams rush the shuttle. Moments later, they pushed a pressure-suited prisoner down the ramp and shoved him toward the airlock.

  Seven for seven. And a shuttle to boot.

  As prearranged, Saari took the prisoners to cargo hold C, where they stripped off their pressure suits and clothes before being searched, and handed black coveralls.

  Carrie Fennon, released from her cubbyhole by Lieutenant Zhukov the moment Cullop sounded the all-clear, watched the scene with undisguised satisfaction. The soldiers then shackled their prisoners at the ankles and wrists and left them to stew while Captain Dunmoore dealt with their ship.

  **

  Sirico pumped a fist in the air. “And one for the Furious Faerie’s sidekick, our lovely Katie. Emma reports seven boarders in the brig, one shuttle seized, no shots fired.”

  “Meaning we can go up systems and become, if not quite the Furious Faerie, then something almost as frightening. Ping him hard with your targeting sensors, Thorin. Let him know we’re here and when he looks, let him see our tier one ordnance.”

  Dunmoore would have enjoyed seeing the other captain’s face when a starship of Iolanthe’s size suddenly appeared out of nowhere without warning.

  “Signals, open a channel. I want to speak to the ship’s captain. Audio only. And bring Lieutenant Commander Cullop in on the link. She should hear everything.”

  A few minutes passed before an angry, rumbling voice spat, “Who the fuck are you and what the fuck do you want.”

  “I could ask you the same question,” Dunmoore replied in honeyed tones. “But without using crude expletives. They make one sound like such an uncouth space rat, don’t you think. And just so you understand the situation, my guns are locked onto your ship and will shred it if you so much as annoy me. At this close range, I won’t even waste a missile. Now, let’s try this again. Who are you and why did you send people to board my prize?”

  “Your prize?” His outrage sounded only partially feigned.

  “Mine. I found her abandoned, the crew gone without a trace, so under Commonwealth salvage laws, I claimed her as mine. Your boarding party is, as we speak, in Kattegat Maru’s brig under guard while we establish whether they’re pirates and should be spaced without a trial.” She paused, then in a commanding, almost cruel tone she snapped, “State your name, the name of your ship and the nature of your business here. Don’t try my patience because it will be the last thing you do.”

  “Kotto Piris,” the man finally replied in a grudging tone. “My ship is the fast trader Kurgan. And you are?”

  Her voice softened again.

  “Shannon O’Donnell, of the privateer Persephone.”

  “A fat tub such as yours with a letter of marque?” Piris exploded. “Did the imbeciles at the Admiralty finally lose what little was left of their minds.”

  “I could point out you’re under my guns and unable to flee without suffering fatal damage,” she replied in a reasonable tone. “That means my fat tub trumps your fast trader, which is what really counts. Why are you here, in interstellar space, attempting to recover a ship that was abandoned only days ago? We stumbled across her by accident, but you came out of FTL almost dead on.”

  “And ambushed me, damn you. Why not send out a friendly warning before we boarded your prize?”

  Piris’ attempt at sarcasm made his increasing annoyance clear.

  “I wanted to see what you would do. Now that I have, I can only conclude you came specifically to recover her and aren’t here by accident since your boarding party entered the correct the airlock entry code.”

  Dunmoore heard sounds resembling a muffled curse over the comlink.

  “That’s two points against you, Captain Piris. One, you knew where to find her and two, you knew how to board her. I’d say there are grounds to suspect you’re in league with whoever kidnapped the crew and took off a cargo hold’s worth of valuable items. My letter of marque covers dealing with pirates, so I’d be within my rights to seize your ship and crew, or simply blow you up, depending on how I feel when this conversation is over. Even if I do overstep my limits, the Admiralty won’t mind. Not when it comes to pirates.”

  “You’re playing a dangerous game, O’Donnell, messing with powerful forces that don’t fear the Navy, let alone a mangy privateer with delusions of adequacy.”

  “Care to explain, so I can judge whether I should be afraid? Threats only work if there’s something to back them up. Your powerful forces don’t have their guns on me right now. I, on the other hand, can wreck you with one salvo.”

  Piris was silent for almost a minute. Then he said, “Tell you what. Give me that nasty old tub, and we’ll call it even. I won’t mention you exist, and you can go make someone else’s life miserable. Final offer.”

  “Do you like your people, Captain Piris?” Dunmoore’s menacingly honeyed tones were back. “And more importantly, do they respect you? My prize crew has seven of them in custody. I me
rely need to give the order, and they’ll space one of your men. Or more, if that’s my fancy. And they’ll keep doing so until your entire boarding party is dead. Unless you tell me what I wish to know. Then, we can call it even.”

  A written message shimmered before her eyes.

  Emma says Sergeant Saari can dummy up the boarders’ pressure suits so that if you want to fake tossing a few of them out, they’ll do it. He’ll make the dummies look as if there’s a head suffering catastrophic decompression behind an open helmet visor.

  Dunmoore glanced at Sirico and nodded once. He gave her thumbs up.

  “Are you still there, Captain Piris? What’s your answer? Will you make your crew happy or nervous? It’s all the same to me. Signals, tell the prize captain to select a prisoner and stand by for my orders. It doesn’t matter who. Unless Captain Piris has a preference.” Dunmoore paused before asking, “Is there anyone you wouldn’t miss, Kotto? Or are they equally useless to you?”

  When he didn’t reply, Dunmoore said, “The prize crew is to shove a prisoner out the main airlock. Perhaps that will get Captain Piris’ attention. Or better yet, that of his crew, which will find itself with one less comrade in the mess tonight. Watching a mutiny unfold could be entertaining.”

  — Ten —

  “No. Wait.” Piris’ voice held a hint of panic. At that moment, Dunmoore knew he wasn’t a dread pirate or a soulless reiver. A small-time mercenary, perhaps. A smuggler most certainly. But not one of those maladjusted personalities who find an outlet for their appetites by preying on others. “What do you want to know?”

  “Let’s start with my first question. Why are you here?”

  “I’m on a contract, okay. Just a damned contract. Someone hired me to find an abandoned tub by the name Kattegat Maru — last known coordinates here — claim her as salvage, and bring her to Scandia where a lawyer is waiting. He’s supposed to pay me the second half of my fee and take charge of the ship.”