Which they probably won’t believe, he added, silently. The Royal Navy had standing orders to execute pirates upon capture. William had a little more leeway. The pirates could go to a work gang instead, if they wished. They can help to build Asher Dales instead of destroying it.
“Message sent,” the communications officer said. “No response.”
William wasn’t too surprised. Pirates were no better than Theocrats at maintaining their ships; indeed, arguably, pirates were worse. Their commanders found it harder to maintain discipline, even when the lives of everyone on the ship depended on keeping the hull intact and life support functional. He’d once boarded a pirate ship that had stunk so badly, far worse than a cesspit, that he couldn’t understand how the crew had survived.
“They may have lost their communications,” he said. The enemy ship was apparently harmless, but it was well to be wary. Pirates didn’t normally commit suicide, yet if they believed they’d be killed as soon as they were captured . . . they might just try to take the boarding party with them. “Order the boarding party to be extremely careful.”
“Aye, sir.”
William waited, feeling sweat trickling down his back, as the boarding party slowly entered the pirate ship. It felt . . . wrong, somehow, to be sitting on his bridge in perfect safety when his subordinates were putting their lives at risk, even though he knew that his bridge wouldn’t be safe when—if—a larger enemy warship turned up. He wondered, grimly, if he’d ever get used to sending people into danger that he couldn’t share with them.
“Captain Tomas is hailing us, sir,” the communications officer said.
“Put him through,” William ordered.
“We have secured the ship,” Tomas said. The militiaman’s voice was very composed. “We have also taken a dozen prisoners, including their captain. He wants to speak to you.”
“Scan him for surprises, then bring him back here,” William said. “And then shut down the entire ship.”
“Yes, sir.”
William looked at Patti. “When they return, have the enemy captain brought to my cabin,” he said. “I’ll be there to meet him.”
Captain Tomas was very efficient, William decided. It took him no less than ten minutes to transfer the pirate to the destroyer and push him into William’s cabin. The man was shaking with terror, sweating like a pig . . . William didn’t bother to keep the disgust off his face. He’d known Theocrats who’d been convinced they were going to hell who’d shown less terror than the piece of human waste in front of him. But then the pirate knew there was no point in being defiant. His ship was a burned-out hulk, his crew was either dead or captured, and he thought the gallows were in his future. How could he not be scared?
“You have two choices,” William said flatly. “You can cooperate with us, which means answering our questions as fully as possible, or you can refuse. In the case of the former, we’ll spare your life; in the case of the latter, you will rapidly come to regret it. Do you understand me?”
The pirate nodded, rapidly. “Yes . . .”
“Very good,” William said. “Where is your base?”
“They’ll kill me,” the pirate said. He blanched. “They’ll fucking kill me . . .”
“You are mere seconds away from being moved into an interrogation chamber,” William lied, smoothly. ONI and the other intelligence services did everything in their power to defeat secrecy implants or forced conditioning, but their success rate was low. The criminals often died on the operating table, taking their secrets to the grave. “But if you tell us the truth, you will live instead. You’ll spend the rest of your life on a reasonably nice penal island instead of having the techs poking and prodding at you in hopes of extracting your secrets.”
He eyed the pirate as the man stuttered and stammered. Did he have an implant? Had he been conditioned? The only way to find out was to test it . . . and that might easily kill him, if the implant thought he was being interrogated. William doubted the other pirates knew much of any real use, although they’d have to be questioned too. Pirate captains tended to try to keep their crews as ignorant as possible.
And they certainly don’t need to know the location of any pirate bases, he thought. Or even worlds that might be willing to buy stuff that fell off the back of a freighter.
“You’ll let me live?” The pirate looked torn between hope and fear. “And you’ll make sure they don’t get me?”
“Yes,” William said. “But you have to tell us everything.”
The pirate hesitated, then spilled his guts. William listened, silently making a mental note to have the conversation replayed time and time again, just to make sure he picked up the important details. The pirates did have a base, and the prisoner knew where it was . . . but it was quite some distance from Asher Dales. William had hoped he’d be able to dispatch a destroyer or two to deal with it. Instead, it was starting to look as though he’d have to whistle for help. The Royal Navy would be very interested in destroying a pirate base.
And the base is very close to Ahura Mazda, he thought. How did it manage to escape detection?
“We’ll have to pass the information up the chain,” he said, when he returned to his cabin after touring the ship. The pirate captain and his crew were already on their way to holding facilities on Asher Dales, while their ship was carefully dissected for evidence. “The Royal Navy will have to deal with them.”
Tanya looked displeased. She’d been trapped on the planet during the brief engagement and had only just managed to return to the ship. “We can’t deal with them?”
“No,” William said. He silently composed the message to Kat Falcone. “We don’t have the mobile firepower. Or the time. And besides, that base is far too close to Ahura Mazda. We might just have stumbled across a link to whoever is supplying the enemy ships.”
Tanya had to smile. “Does that mean we can claim the credit?”
“Some of it, perhaps,” William said. He grinned at her. “But credit isn’t important. The real problem is wiping these bastards out. And if someone else does it . . . well, I’ll raise a glass in their honor.”
He sighed. “And now we have to replace the platforms,” he added, “before someone else comes calling.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
* * *
PIRATE BASE
“Admiral, Captain Davis’s compliments and we’ll be dropping out of hyperspace in twenty minutes,” Midshipman Edgeworth said. He held himself so stiffly that it was clear he was terrified. “He wishes to know if you’ll be watching from the bridge.”
Kat concealed her amusement. The midshipman was so young that she couldn’t help thinking that he should be wearing diapers. Had she ever been so young? She didn’t really want to think about the number of mistakes she’d made as a young officer, mistakes that had embarrassed her more than she cared to admit. She’d been young and ignorant—and unaware of the depth of her own ignorance. And now she was the Old Woman.
No, she corrected herself. I’m not the Old Woman. I’m just the tagalong.
“Please inform the captain that I’ll be watching from the CIC,” Kat said. She could have stepped onto the bridge, but unwritten protocol suggested she should stay off the bridge during an engagement. The last thing the superdreadnought’s crew needed was confusion over who was actually in command. “And dismissed.”
The midshipman vanished so quickly that Kat was mildly surprised the hatch opened in time to allow him to escape. She didn’t really blame him. She’d been a duke’s daughter, back when she’d been a midshipwoman, but a word from the wrong person would have been more than enough to ruin her career.
She sat back in her chair and watched the timer slowly tick down to zero. The pirates had been either very brave or very stupid to put their base so close to Ahura Mazda, although she rather suspected they’d had an agreement with the Theocrats. Her investigators had encountered countless Theocrats who’d secretly purchased everything from alcoholic beverages to porn, all smu
ggled in from the Commonwealth or the Jorlem Sector. The gap between pirates and smugglers was smaller than the latter would like, she suspected. A down on his luck smuggler might just decide to play pirate long enough to put himself back in the black. Who knew? William might just have pointed her at the Theocratic Navy’s hidden base.
Unlikely, she told herself, before she could get too enthusiastic about the prospect of winning the war in a single blow. Too many people know about this base.
“Admiral,” Lieutenant Graves said, “we will be dropping out of hyperspace in two minutes.”
“Very good,” Kat said calmly. She forced herself to sit back in her chair and relax. She’d issued her orders; she’d done everything she could to ensure victory . . . now, all she could do was wait. She had nothing to gain by micromanaging her officers. “Inform me the moment the situation changes.”
Violence shuddered as she opened a vortex and slid back into realspace, followed by the rest of the squadron. Kat leaned forward, watching the display as powerful sensors started to sweep space for targets. It was easy to see why the pirate base had remained undetected for so long. A tiny cluster of asteroids, so far from their primary star that they were practically worthless; hell, the entire system was practically worthless. The only item of interest, save for the asteroids, was a large comet that seemed to be on the verge of breaking free of the star’s gravity and starting to wander through interstellar space. And . . .
She smiled, coldly, as her sensors picked up a handful of starships hastily cutting loose from the asteroids. There were no signs of any superdreadnoughts, nothing larger than a midsized cruiser, but they’d definitely stumbled across a pirate base. One way or another, they’d do some good. The enemy had been caught completely by surprise. If she was lucky, they’d have no time to power up their vortex generators before her fleet was on them.
“Transmit the signal,” she ordered. The enemy was already activating a handful of ECM buoys, but they were pathetically out of date. “And then order the destroyers forward.”
“Aye, Admiral.”
Kat watched the display update, wondering how many, if any, of the pirates and smugglers would heed her call. She’d be in some trouble, back home, for unilaterally offering to guarantee the lives of anyone who surrendered, although she had a nasty feeling that most of the people who knew useful pieces of information would be implanted or conditioned never to reveal it. Her techs were already preparing to see if they could beat the implants, this time. It would be hard on the pirates, but she found it hard to care.
We can put pirates out of business by dropping them on a penal colony, she thought, as the squadron converged on its target. They won’t threaten anyone ever again.
“Some of the ships are powering down their drives,” Lieutenant Graves reported. “The remainder are still breaking for space.”
“Repeat the signal, then order the destroyers to open fire,” Kat ordered. Ideally, she wanted to take the pirate ships intact. Pirates had a habit of press-ganging captives into working for them, and if they could be rescued . . . “If possible, they are to cripple the pirate ships.”
“Picking up targeting sensors,” Lieutenant Graves added. “Their defenses are going online.”
“Probably trying to buy time,” Kat said. She doubted the enemy base could stand off anything larger than a destroyer, if that. “Order the destroyers to take out any active weapons or sensor platforms.”
She watched, grimly, as her destroyers began to exchange fire with the pirate ships. The pirates were outmatched but fought back with a mixture of desperation and brutality. Kat wondered, not for the first time, how the pirates could even keep themselves supplied . . . although she knew, from bitter experience, that colonists along the edge of explored space were often careful not to ask too many questions about where their supplies had actually come from. They simply needed the supplies too much to risk angering their suppliers.
And most of their tech is ancient, she thought as a starship old enough to be her great-grandmother vanished from the display. They’re tough enough against civilians, but not against the military.
“The pirate base is opening fire,” Lieutenant Graves said. “They’re throwing everything at us.”
Kat nodded curtly. William’s report had, if anything, understated the case. The missiles the pirates were deploying were so badly out of date that she doubted even one of them would get through her point defense. They hadn’t been bad designs, a couple of decades ago, but now they were useless.
And that’s something to raise with the Admiralty, she thought as the enemy missiles crawled towards her ships. Our advantage in missile ranges and speeds may not last very long.
She watched, coldly, as the missiles entered her point defense envelope and were rapidly scythed out of space. No interstellar power could allow itself to be at a disadvantage in missile range and speeds, not now. The Commonwealth-Theocracy War had been the first major interstellar conflict in history, certainly the first fought with modern technology, but some basic cynicism in her insisted that it would not be the last. Every interstellar power had sent observers to the front line, taking notes to prepare their navies for the future. The Commonwealth could not allow its lead to slip away . . .
Which will mean spending more money on R&D, she reminded herself, remembering her disagreement with her brother. And there will be no enthusiasm for that back home.
“The last of the missiles has been picked off,” Lieutenant Graves said. “There wasn’t a single wasted shot. They didn’t even get through the outer defense envelope.”
“Repeat the signal to the pirate base, then deploy the marines,” Kat ordered. “And then order the destroyers, squadrons two and three, to sweep space around the base. If anyone is lying doggo out there, I want to know about it.”
Lieutenant Graves blinked. “Admiral?”
Kat felt an odd flicker of disquiet. William would have understood. And he would have carried out his orders without questioning them. She understood the importance of understanding why as well as what, but being questioned was still annoying.
We allowed too many standards to slip, she thought crossly. She’d been in command. The fault was hers. But she’d been too depressed to care. And now we have to practically start from scratch.
“Do it,” she ordered. No point in making excuses. “We don’t want to give anyone a chance to sneak away.” She relented, slightly, as Lieutenant Graves passed on the orders. “The smarter ones will know they don’t have time to power up their vortex generators and flee before we either force them to stop or kill them. So they’ll run silent instead, hoping to get far away enough to escape altogether. It won’t be pleasant, particularly when the life support starts to die, but it should be enough to keep them alive and free.”
“Um . . . yes, Admiral,” Lieutenant Graves said. His console bleeped. “Admiral, the base is offering to surrender, but they want to discuss terms.”
“I bet they do,” Kat said. She smiled, thinly. “Inform them that they are to shut down all weapons and defenses, then open the airlocks and await the marines. Any resistance will be met with deadly force, but we won’t execute anyone who surrenders peacefully. There will be no other terms.”
“Yes, Admiral,” Lieutenant Graves said.
Kat felt her smile widen. They were in occupied territory now, a place the Commonwealth ruled by right of conquest. There would be no messy questions over jurisdiction, not here. The Commonwealth had taken the Theocracy’s place and no one had even tried to challenge it, save for the Theocratic die-hards. There would be no cozy arrangements with system governors or independent asteroids to save their lives, no suggestion that the Commonwealth didn’t have the right to pass judgment on the captured pirates.
“The remaining ships are powering down their drives,” Lieutenant Graves said. “And the asteroid is surrendering.”
Kat nodded, although she didn’t relax. Questions would be asked back home. She might be blamed for allow
ing murderers, rapists, and thieves to live, even though life on a penal world would be no bed of roses. Perhaps she should simply drop them into one of the roughest areas on Ahura Mazda and see how they got on. Who knew? Perhaps they’d improve the place.
“The marines are boarding the asteroid,” Lieutenant Graves told her. “No resistance so far.”
“Good,” Kat said. She keyed her console, accessing the live feed from the marine combat suits. “Let’s hope it stays that way.”
She wondered, as she watched the marines make their way deeper into the asteroid, just who had originally built it. The designers hadn’t attempt to spin the rock to generate gravity, something that would have been a dead giveaway if someone took a careful look at the asteroid; instead, they’d installed a fairly basic gravity generator. They’d probably assumed, and they hadn’t been wrong, that the rock would hide the energy signature. The prisoners looked a fairly degenerate lot, clearly terrified. Their former captives were in a very bad state indeed.
“Get them to sickbay,” she ordered, although she knew the marines were already doing the best they could. “And make sure you keep an eye on them.”
“Four hundred captives,” Lieutenant Graves reported, once the asteroid was swept from top to bottom. “And fourteen ships.”
“The ships might come in handy for something,” Kat said. She wondered, morbidly, if she could train enough locals to operate them before the Commonwealth finally gave up on the Theocratic Sector. Perhaps she should ship them directly to Asher Dales. William would be able to make use of them. “How many of the pirates claim to have been conscripts?”
“Seventy, so far,” Lieutenant Graves said. “They’ve been separated from the others.”
“Good,” Kat said. “Perhaps they’ll want to stay here instead of going back home.”
Debt of Honor (The Embers of War) Page 27