by Martin H.
We figured that the factory ship couldn’t have been given an advance location where it had to wait. Too much could go wrong with that sort of plan-someone else in the area, a bit of unanticipated debris drifting through, a breakdown or delay.
Therefore, the factory ship would be sending out a signal of some sort to direct the Absolute and his supply ships to where it waited. “Would be” because it wouldn’t start emitting the signal until the Absolute sent it a query signal first. If the factory ship had been delayed in getting to the rendezvous, there would be no response to the query sig-nal. The supply ships would take a parking orbit and wait, signaling occasionally and scanning the appropriate bands.
Spike and I were sure we’d worked out the same chain of logic the pirates would have used, but even so I nearly jumped from my seat when a broad band scan announced a new signal. It came intermittently, but always from the same direction.
If we hadn’t been looking for it, we would have dismissed it as background noise.
“Checking Gilbert,” I said aloud, my hands moving across the scanner bands. “Yes!
A ship just left immediate orbit and is heading in the direction of the signal.”
“Wait until we’re sure, Allie, before starting to follow,” Spike said. “If we’re right, we have time. They won’t be going anywhere for a while.”
I nodded, listening to my comm unit’s report. “Another ship just left orbit. It’s going out on the same general vector-probably they were filed as a convoy.”
“A good safety measure,” Spike replied solemnly, “in these pirate-plagued reaches of the stars.”
“Well,” I said, feeling pretty satisfied with myself, “we’ve found them. What next?”
“The pirates won’t have unloaded whatever goods they smuggled in,” Spike said promptly, “not until their rendezvous with the Absolute is completed. Therefore, there’s certainly something incriminating in the hold of the factory ship. When we get there, I’ll go take a look.”
I stared at him, unable for a moment even to speak.
“You’re not planning on going aboard alone?” I finally managed. “Twenty trained spacers-twenty marines!- would consider that foolhardy. You don’t know how many pirates are aboard, but I doubt that the Absolute is traveling without a bodyguard.”
“Twenty marines,” Spike mused aloud, his expression wry and mocking. “Would twenty-one be enough, then?”
“Don’t be an idiot!” I shouted, then I went on more calmly. “Just how do you plan to get aboard, anyhow? I doubt they have time for traveling insurance salesmen right now.”
“Those ships don’t have just one entrance,” Spike said, valiantly ignoring my sarcasm. “I plan to enter via a service port near the engine room. Once aboard, I’ll shut down the ship’s drive. Then, once the ship can’t get away, you’ll signal for the Silent Watch.”
“And how will you get through the entry port?” I said. “They aren’t usually left unlocked.”
In reply, Spike produced a mag-key from one of his coverall’s voluminous pockets, tossing the rather routine piece of equipment from hand to hand as if it were some great amulet.
“This one is set to decode a wide variety of locks,” he explained, as if I wouldn’t recognize the make.
“And the ship’s engine?” I asked. “Do you think the engine crew will just sit by while you turn the engine off?”
Spike scowled at my doubt, but produced a packet of gas pellets from another pocket.
“I thought I’d put these in the ventilation,” he explained. He brightened and reached in his coverall again. “I have a mask.”
I sighed and rubbed my hands over my face. He probably had a weapon of some sort, too, and a coil of rope and who knows what else. The man had seen too many action vids.
“It’s my fault for not asking in advance what you planned,” I admitted, “but I never dreamed you planned on taking them on alone. Listen, I have another idea.”
I told him. Spike looked interested, but slightly disappointed. I think he’d been looking forward to playing the hero and capturing a pirate vessel single-handedly.
When I finished, he only had one question for me.
“And if they won’t come?”
“I think they will,” I said with more certainty than I felt. “As you’ve noted, they’ve been hurt by the pirates, too, and here’s a chance to get back something of their own. And if they don’t show, well, we can always fall back on your plan.”
The three ships we were tracking-a third had joined the convoy while we were arguing-headed in the direction of a large planetoid just beyond a broad asteroid belt.
The backside of this planetoid was a favorite place for smugglers to linger before bringing in a cargo, since it gave them a chance to scan the system and make certain that the black ships were patrolling elsewhere. Most successful smugglers carried legal goods as well as illegal, but who wanted to risk a search if one could be avoided?
So popular had this particular lurking spot become that the black ships checked it as a matter of routine. Still, the Absolutists might not know that. Once I was fairly certain where the convoy was headed, I took the Mercury out along a different route, one that took advantage of intervening asteroids and other bits of space debris to obscure our signal. I prided myself that the supply ship never knew we were closing on them.
Meanwhile, I sent out tight-beam comm squirts to a couple dozen locations I’d marked earlier-places where a faint signal hinted that a ship with damped identification beacon drifted, its power down-a typical smuggler’s trick. My message was scrambled, just in case the wrong ship intercepted it, and pretty terse. In a few words it invited these outlaws of the solar lanes to join the Mercury in kicking some pirate butt.
Responses came rapidly, crammed with the same ques-tions over and over: “Why are you doing this?”
“Where’s the pirate?” and, most often, “What’s in it for me?”
I sent out the answers, offering each ship that joined me and Spike a share of the loot. Most of the outlaws agreed, tantalized by the promise of gain beyond a smuggler’s dreams-and enticed further by the chance to get even with hated pirates, those big operators who made it almost impossible for a little ship to turn a slightly dishonest profit and who ruined a good market just when the smugglers had opened it up.
Not knowing how they’d respond to the political angle, I kept the news of the Absolute’s presence to myself for now. I figured if we took the pirate, I could act as surprised as anybody, and if we didn’t, it wouldn’t matter.
We glided through the Endpoint system, our engines powered down as low as possible. The fact that we were approaching a smuggler’s rest most of us had used at one time or another helped us to hide our presence. So did the fact that we were coming toward our target and the mass of our ships masked our engine signatures.
As we approached, I used the Mercury’s comm system to collect and relay information. I got each ship to give me her strengths and weaknesses. I knew from past experience-and a couple of devastating poker losses-that a couple of the other ships’ captains were brilliant tacticians. They took the information I beamed to them and transformed it into a possible plan. Despite their input, the Mercury remained in command since only her comm system had the reach and power to blip out and retrieve information so swiftly that the pirates would have no chance of detecting our signals.
Even as we laid our plans, every ship in my outlaw fleet kept alert for the black ships. At this moment, we were doing nothing precisely illegal-though some might argue that we had turned pirate ourselves-but a delay would be bothersome and the presence of a black ship or two cruising, these reaches might spook the pirates into deeper cover.
However, there was no trace of the Silent Watch in this vicinity. Doubtless they were being kept busy by the increased traffic in-system, but I did wonder if a Watcher or two-perhaps the officer who set the duty rosters-had been paid to keep the black ships out of this area. A solar system is vast beyond mortal c
omprehension; not even the black ships could be expected to patrol every bit of it.
Eventually, the Mercury closed on our target. Signaling my approaching allies to hold their various concealed positions, I set the Mercury’s scanners to a broad sweep that would be unlikely to trip even an alert comm tech. Thus, the picture that appeared on the Mercury’s screen had to be cleared and enhanced. It hardly mattered. We had found what we sought.
A hulking vessel large enough to dwarf the Mercury- though small in comparison to some war ships I’d seen- hung in the shadows behind the planetoid. Its orbit was set to avoid easy detection both from Gilbert and from the more or less inhabited reaches in the planet’s vicinity. Tellingly, the identification beacon required by interstellar law had been pulled-even smugglers usually only damped theirs- as clear a sign of a pirate ship as a skull and crossbones had been millennia before.
The pirate vessel was not a pretty ship, her hull scarred and patched, her blocky shape constructed for deep space, not atmospheric entry. She had probably started life as an ore hauler. Such ships were often drafted into pirate service as general cargo carriers.
Ore haulers’ massive bay doors permitted small vessels to be tucked inside the hold and their powerful engines- designed not only to maneuver a great deal of mass but often to fuel processing plants within the ship-gave the unattractive ships surprising speed for short bursts. Many a pirate-hunting expedition had been left gaping when a seemingly sluggish target had departed in a contemptuous burst of speed.
I told Spike all of this, cautioning him not to underestimate the vessel and adding that the three supply ships we had followed had probably been taken directly on board.
As I saw it, we were lucky that there was only one ship waiting out here, but doubtless the pirates weren’t wasting vessels.
One ship to the fourteen in our outlaw fleet. Victory looked easy enough in the abstract. The thing was, only half or so of our ships were armed. Most smugglers didn’t bother with armament-it drew too much attention. Other recruits to our fleet were guilty of prospecting without a license; other ships held fugitives from the justice of one system or another. A few were simply the dwellings of interstellar hermits.
Armed and unarmed, sleek and beautiful, or battered bits of metal and machinery eking out a last few years before being scrapped for junk, the outlaw ships slipped through the chill void, taking heed of my cautions, tight-beaming their communications so that all the pirate ship could have heard were vague whispers that would have been dismissed as the hissing pops of a star’s breathing.
In less than an eye blink the pirate hulk found herself surrounded by a sphere of some dozen plus ships, each carefully positioned to balance our various strengths and weaknesses. Since the Mercury was unarmed and unarmored, built for speed and communications rather than war, we were placed where the pirate’s first shots should not be able to reach us.
Spike was disappointed, but I was rather glad. I would rather not risk my life-no matter how well insured.
When the glittering globe of lights on my board showed me that the outlaw fleet was all in place, I hailed the pirate ship:
“Beaconless ship, this is Captain Ah Lee of the Mercury. Identify yourself and open your ports to inspection or prepare for the consequences!”
I had deduced-perhaps “hoped” is a more honest term- that the pirate ship would not fire. No matter who had been paid off, no matter how far up the chain of command, none of Endpoint’s guard ships could overlook a fire fight right in system and the pirates wouldn’t want to attract notice.
To my dismay, the pirate ship fired almost immediately, a thin beam of eye-searingly brilliant light jolting out from forward energy batteries.
The blue-white light melted an ugly runnel through the heavy armor of the ship holding the dangerous post directly in front. Later I’d learn that an engineer had been killed. Even as the energy weapon did its worst, the nameless pirate’s gunnery tubes belched forth slower, but more deadly missiles. Energy fire from our own side caught these before they could reach their destination, but I saw that the missiles had been meant merely as a distraction.
On one side of the pirate vessel the enormous bay doors began slowly sliding open.
My tactical masters had been ready for something like this. As briefed, I thumbed a pre-coded message from the Mercury’s board, jamming the doors long enough for a barrage from a couple of the prospectors’ digging lasers to ruin them beyond use.
Our unarmed ships were maintaining a jamming screen, making it impossible for the pirate ship to call on others of its ilk for help-if any others were near. Based on our pooled observations we thought this unlikely, but still the possibility could not be overlooked.
Having given the pirate a chance to surrender without a fight, now our side attacked.
Only four of our outlaw fleet had proved to be heavily armed-all of these mining ships, which could conceal armaments as digging lasers or more domestic explosives. A few other of the outlaws’ ships possessed light lasers, these meant more for meteor defense than for battle. Each ship had been assigned its target in advance-points plotted out and selected by tight-beam communication from the moment I sent out an image of our target.
Beneath our initial barrage, the pirate vessel seemed to rock. Burning air gouted forth from several breached compartments; scanner readings showed a loss of power from various systems.
Still, the pirate hulk held up remarkably well. None of the systems we had targeted had been completely destroyed. Engine power remained strong. Even as our ships danced in evasion of expected retaliation, the Mercury’s scanners reported that backup systems were coming on-line all over the pirate ship.
In this initial attack, it had been to our fleet’s advantage that the Mercury had been able to scout ahead, to our advantage as well that none of our number believed we could take a pirate vessel without coordinated effort and planning. In that way, our small flotilla was wiser than marines and militia, for these often underestimated their opponents.
I bit my lip in growing desperation, speaking more to myself than to Spike:
“We can’t keep this up for long. None of our ships has the power to keep firing and we don’t have a warship’s armory. If we don’t take the pirate out soon, it will get away and leave us to do the explaining when the black ships arrive.”
“The pirates don’t know that,” Spike said suddenly.
He’d been rather quiet since the real fighting had started, though he’d had plenty to say while the outlaw fleet assembled-some of it useful, too.
“What?” I asked.
“The pirates don’t know that,” Spike repeated with emphasis. “They might suspect our capacities are limited, but not those hop-headed Absolutist fanatics. They aren’t going to want to see their treasured Absolute blown into oblivion. Can’t you…”
“I’m right with you,” I said, hands surging over my boards as I worked up something that would splice into the pirate ship’s intercom system and override any other messages. “Spike, get on another channel and tell our fleet to prepare for another strike. Don’t worry about being overheard. It might be better if we were.”
Spike nodded, and moments later I could hear him snapping out orders to the others. We’d all hoped that we’d never need fire a shot, but not one of us had been so optimistic that we didn’t plan for a fight. As we hadn’t lost a ship-though there had been damage-our second strike could go ahead as programmed.
The most heavily armed of the miner ships-a ship I suspected of doing a bit of small-scale piracy itself when opportunity presented-took the front this time. A red-orange globule was forming on the tips of the forward energy weapons when I broke through the pirate’s internal communications.
“This is the commander of the fleet surrounding you,” I said, promoting myself shamelessly. “Surrender, else we will destroy you. You have been warned once. We will not be so gentle a second time. Since we want your cargo, not your persons, we will be targeting pers
onnel compartments. No one can expect to survive our next attack.”
It was all bluster and balderdash, but I was counting on what Spike had said, counting, too, that the pirates would not be quite certain just what armaments we might have hidden among our motley fleet. After all, their ship looked like nothing more than an ore carrier. What might we be?
“You have a five count to surrender-absolutely,” I announced.
The last was a hint to the pirates. Surrender the Absolute, and we’d let the rest pass.
Who knows, maybe the pirates would take us for Batherite Loyalists who’d tracked the Absolutist leader into hiding.
I wondered what the rest of the fleet would think.
“Absolutely!” I repeated as thunderously as possible. Then I started counting,
“Five! Four! Three!”
On five, the globes of energy forming at the tips of our ships’ energy weapons turned white hot. On four, missile tubes rotated, some preparing to vomit forth nothing more than junk-but the pirates didn’t know that. On three, I added a bone shivering frequency beneath my vocal track. On two, a thin, panicked voice yelled over a broad band.
“Don’t fire! Don’t fire! It’s over here. In control! We’ll surrender! We have everything under control!”
It didn’t sound like the speaker had even himself under control, but I heard Spike sonorously address our allies:
“Stand by, fleet. Don’t power down. I repeat. Don’t power down.”
A crackle from another channel-from one of the hermits, I think-reported simultaneously:
“Scan shows no evidence that pirate vessel is powering up. We still hold the advantage.”
I addressed the panicked voice. “Identify yourself.”
“I’m… Jeremy, Jeremy Langthorp. I’m with this ore carrier, the Deep Pockets, it is.”
“Deep Pockets,” I confirmed. “You seem to have pulled your ID beacon, Captain Langthorp.”
“I’m not the captain.” Langthorp shrilled a thread of near hysterical laughter. “They shot the captain, the fanatics did, shot her soon after they came aboard and she wouldn’t drink their foul tea.”