The Queen's Hammer: Pirates of the Badlands Series Book 5

by Sean Benjamin

  Hopefully, the sound of the arrival of another shuttle would be regarded as routine and nobody in the building would take it upon themselves to investigate. Thankfully, an earlier recon had revealed there were no security cameras on the roof to show the arrival. The Sunrise people had learned nothing from Raferty’s visit several months earlier.

  The squad went through the unlocked door and down the stairwell. The regional director’s corner office was on the top floor so it was only a short time on the stairwell. The team knew the interior layout from Hawkins’ visit to former Regional Director Eduard Stennes. Stennes was gone now, but the layout was the same. The first person of the team came through the stairwell door onto the top floor and turned in the opposite direction from the office to cover down the hall. The second member also turned in the same direction to cover the first person but kept his foot in the doorway to ensure the door did not close. The remaining members moved quickly to the closed door of the office. They stepped aside briefly to let O’Hare open the door and enter. She did so, and the others filed in after her and immediately covered two astonished secretaries.

  “Don’t get up. We’ll announce ourselves,” said O’Hare breezily as she walked to the closed door to the regional officer’s large office. She looked at them briefly. “If you hit some sort of silent alarm, you will be dead as soon as your reaction team shows up. I will personally see to it.” She smiled at them. “You’re not getting paid enough for that.”

  One of the team started herding the two captives to a neutral corner as a second grabbed the secretaries’ two computer units and stuffed them in a bag. O’Hare opened the door unannounced and stepped in quickly. She was followed by Keitel and the member of the team with the bag. The other member remained with the two secretaries.

  The regional director’s desk was directly in front of the door but was unoccupied. He was holding a meeting at a large rectangular conference table to the right of the door and O’Hare directed her attention there. There were three people on each side of the table, equally divided between men and women. Floating screens danced in front of each of them. The regional director, Ralph Morgenstein, was at the far end of the table, chairing the meeting. He looked up in surprise. “I told you not...” The automatic rebuke was out of his mouth before he focused on who had actually entered. The words trailed off as he realized he wasn’t going to get to yell at a secretary for disturbing him.

  O’Hare walked toward him with her shooter raised. The two others spread out to each side of her to get clear fields of fire. “Come on now,” O’Hare chided him in a cheerful voice. “Is that any way to address guests? No wonder business is hurting. Focus on the customer, for heaven’s sake.”

  As she closed the gap, she added, “If there is a hidden alarm button that you can hit with your knee or foot, I guarantee you will be the first to die in the resulting shootout.” She stopped beside him and lightly touched the tip of her shooter to his left cheek. She spoke softly. “Raferty Hawkins and I had a disagreement over this visit. He wanted to leave you with a message and I wanted to shoot you. His view prevailed, but believe me when I say I hope you try something.” She smiled brightly and so did her wolf hallie. “It will be a free fire zone then. Hallelujah!”

  She turned slightly to take in the whole party. None of them had moved but had just stared at the intruders. O’Hare addressed the group. “You read about us in your dull reports but meeting us is a whole different story, isn’t it?” She didn’t expect an answer so was not disappointed when none was forthcoming. “Now everyone will push back in their chairs.” She waited calmly as nobody moved. “I really mean it.” She raised her weapon and pointed it at a woman across the table from her. Everyone took the cue and slid their wheeled chairs back one meter. Keitel covered them from the opposite end of the table as the third member moved to the table and loaded computer units in a bag.

  “Let’s go over a few things here while we have a couple of minutes.” Killian swept the troupe with her gaze. She reached into a large pants pocket on the outside of her left thigh and took out papers folded in half with two discs tucked in the middle. “Times are changing. These are copies of paperwork just given to Admiral Hochstadt herself. The Aurora Empire has concluded an agreement with Agra 2. A Royal Navy base will be established there. I won’t bore you with the details, but you can peruse the documentation at your convenience. Even now, ships of the Royal Navy and our own Flot 1 are explaining the new order to the ships you have blockading the planet. There will be a security zone around the planet courtesy of the new Zeke neighbors.” She dropped the papers in front of Morgenstein.

  O’Hare looked benignly at the people staring at her in disbelief. Morgenstein spoke for all of them. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Believe it, because it is definitely happening.”

  “Our friends there will fight.”

  “Maybe your friends there would fight except for the fact you have no friends there. You have paid mercenaries who will take your money to blockade farmers but have no intention of taking on Royal Navy ships or Flot 1 ships. They know that ends in only one way. They will back off, especially if we destroy one or two ships for demonstration purposes only. Here’s hoping it comes to that.” She smiled.

  “In addition to dropping off these documents, I have one more reason for stopping by.” Killian now jammed her weapon hard into Morgenstein’s cheek and looked down at him. “There are going to be some changes in the future. If Sunrise reacts to these changes as they have in the past, they will be sending some not-very-nice people out to do some enforcement work in retaliation.” She now leaned close to Morgenstein so they were eyeball to eyeball. “If that were to happen, I will hold you responsible and I absolutely promise you that I will personally spatter your brains on the nearest wall in response.” She leaned so close their noses almost touched as she talked low and soft. “Trust me when I tell you that. Anyone from Sunrise starts playing rough, you are a dead man.”

  She stepped back and looked over the regional officers again. “Well, that’s about it. I would love to stay and threaten you some more but, alas, I have places to be.”

  The three intruders began to back out while keeping their weapons pointed at the table. Killian smiled at the head man. “We simply must get together and do this again real soon.” Just as they were about to exit she gave a final warning. “If you hit an alarm, you better hope your reaction team doesn’t move too fast. If they cut off our departure route, and we are forced back in here, we will come in firing. Something to consider.”

  They were out the door, through the secretarial space, and moving down the hall in an instant. They heard the doors behind them close and then automatically lock. “They hit an alarm,” O’Hare remarked calmly. “I am definitely losing my touch. I have got to stop listening to Hawkins and start killing a few people just to show how serious I am.” She turned back and fired several rounds into the door and the surrounding wall. “Just scaring them,” she announced to nobody in particular.

  The team moved to the stairs as they collected squad members on the way. A quick run up the stairs was briefly halted as they had to shoot through the door to the roof as it had locked in response to the alarm. Once through, they moved across the roof and into the shuttle. Already fired up, the craft lifted quickly and accelerated straight ahead. The pilot banked away from the building to move behind taller adjacent structures. In fifteen seconds, the shuttle was lost from view from the Sunrise building as the craft set a course for home. The two lookouts were already on their way to Westrose via public transportation.

  O’Hare looked at the team as they settled in their seats. “Well done,” she announced over the comm system. She looked at Keitel. “Be sure to get those computers to Baby Doll when we get back to Destiny’s. First priority is a list of all their investors. I bet the secretaries’ computers will have that.” Keitel nodded in response.

  ~ ~ ~

  Aboard Lowe, Admiral Dietrich was just arriving on his fl
ag bridge after leaving Admiral Hochstadt at her stateroom. The comm station reported a message from the Sunrise Corporation in Baseline had just arrived. The comm had been sent to Sunrise’s home office, but the info addressees were the Imperial Navy chain of command. The comm specialist routed the message to Dietrich. He shook his head as he read a summary of O’Hare’s visit and the news she had passed on about the new Royal Navy base at Agra 2.

  He called Admiral Hochstadt in her stateroom. “I’m sending you a text we just got from the Sunrise office in Baseline, Admiral.” He forwarded the message to her message queue.

  Hochstadt read the message and went to the flag bridge. “Any chance we can intercept the shuttle.”

  Dietrich shook his head. “Already did a scan. As soon as our meeting ended at Destiny’s, O’Hare must have run to a shuttle on the roof and raced to Baseline. She was shooting the place up while we were in our shuttle on our way here. Dozens of shuttles are running around down there right now, and they departed the Sunrise building a little over thirty minutes ago. They are already on the ground somewhere.” His voice had a note of resignation in it. He continued. “Any chance we had of calmly and privately formulating a response to the new Zeke base on Agra 2 just went away. Now the Sunrise people will be barking in our ears the whole time.”

  Hochstadt looked at the Sunrise message on Dietrich’s floating screen. “Of course, that was O’Hare’s intention. Scare people and stir up a hornet’s nest so we are spending our time responding to hysterical civilians. That’s why she dropped in at their headquarters. Now the Sunrise people know they are not safe anywhere. Won’t help matters.”

  “Hawkins did the same thing some months back. In fact, my FTF with him was across the street from their HQ at a restaurant there. You would think they would have improved their security after that but apparently not.”

  Hochstadt remained silent as she stared at Dietrich for a long moment. The mention of the FTF jogged a thought she had been having for some time. “You like Hawkins, don’t you?”

  Dietrich thought for a second. “I’m not sure ‘like’ is the right word. I don’t hate him. I guess the bottom line is I have a certain respect for his talent and courage, and I can understand some of his frustration as some incredibly stupid things have been done here by so many different people and organizations. The ongoing slave trade is embarrassing. Killing his mother and her people in an ambush was stupid. The attack at Ulatar was stupid. Hard for me to believe ships in our Navy would even be in the vicinity for something like that.” He shrugged and turned to Hochstadt and stared directly into her eyes. “If it comes to it, I’ll kill him. Won’t like it though.” He paused and then added in a soft voice. “In their attack on Rosstrappe, they didn’t put one missile into base housing. He could have easily killed hundreds of women and children in revenge for Ulatar, but he didn’t do it. I bet his captains were hounding him, but he didn’t break. You damn well know O’Hare would have taken the shots.” He leaned closer to her. “Hell, most people would have taken the shots, but he didn’t. That’s got to rate something in your book.” He paused for a second and then added, “By the way, back at Destiny’s, he would never have pulled you up in front of him so you’d take the rounds in the back.”

  Hochstadt wasn’t convinced. “Are you sure?”

  Dietrich was convinced. “Positive. If they didn’t have overwatch, they would have had weapons taped under the table within easy reach.” He turned away as Hochstadt stared after him.

  Chapter 30

  The six Royal Navy warships were spread out in a line abreast. Below them, the ships of Pirate Flotilla One were also in a line abreast. They were followed by the four freighters contracted to bring in the initial building supplies for the new base. Agra 2 was dead ahead. Commander Kathie Hollingsworth, captain of Cobalt, was in command of the Royal Navy squadron. Captain Shane Delacruz commanded Flot 1. Six warships were in orbit above Agra 2. All of them were small corvettes, a motley collection of five hired mercenary vessels led by one corvette of the New Brittany Navy. Their job was to intercept any ships entering or leaving Agra 2 not approved by the Sunrise Grange. Currently, all six ships were unengaged as traffic to and from Agra 2 had fallen to next to nothing over the last several weeks. Although there were blockade ships around the other Agra planets, this planet was seen as the leader of the discontent with the Sunrise Corporation, so Agra 2 required special attention of having more ships around it.

  When Flot 1 had departed the quadrant for the Aurora Empire over almost three months prior, the Sunrise Grange had used the lull in the threat to tighten the blockade on all the Agra planets but especially Agra 2. The center of gravity of the blockade effort was Agra 2, and breaking the blockade of that planet would be enough to force open the other planets. The combined squadron had every intention of doing exactly that.

  The Brie corvette moved to the front of the blockade unit as the six small ships set up between the approaching vessels and the planet. The closing combined squadron stopped and floated in front of the blockaders, well within missile range.

  Hollingsworth talked over all frequencies. “You are disrupting normal operations around our new Royal Navy base. Go about your business… as long as your business is far away from here.”

  A bearded man appeared on the screen. “I am not aware of any base here. You are interfering with operations to hinder and capture renegade ships who are attempting to avoid transportation taxes and are suspected of moving illegal cargos, possibly even slaves.”

  Hollingsworth was amused. “I’m sure you’re not doing any of that type of work, but I have no intention of arguing the point. Get out of the way or we will run you over.”

  “We have our duty.”

  “What you have is about thirty seconds before we empty our missile magazines on you. We’ll see how good a defensive shield your duty can put between you and us.” She spoke to her ships. “We move ahead at one-quarter speed. You know your targets. Lock on. We will shoot in twenty-eight seconds.” The two lines of ships moved forward slowly. Ten seconds passed. Two of the mercenary ships turned and departed together. Another followed three seconds later. Eight seconds after that, the last two mercenaries turned together and immediately jumped to max speed.

  Hollingsworth smiled into the screen and spoke to the last holdout, the single Brie corvette. “You are alone now. Do you want to be the one to personally start a war with the Aurora Empire?”

  The Brie ship didn’t reply but rotated and sped out of the area. The newcomers took up an orbit around Agra 2. The four supply ships moved into position between the orbiting warships and the planet. Equipment began to be unloaded. A shuttle departed for the surface to begin marking the layout for the surface base. Captain Cassidy would participate in a groundbreaking ceremony in one week.

  Chapter 31

  The mission briefing stretched on. Tactical had covered the operation but there were several parts to this evolution, and timing was critical. Each participant’s role was discussed in detail. Timetables were established down to the second. Then came the questions. These were answered to the smallest aspect. Finally, there was one last question.

  “You sure he’ll go guns only at the start?” Mason was skeptical. He had rejoined the ship just in time to command her at Agra 2 but had been doing his own mission during recent discussions for this event.

  Rafe nodded. “We’ll be tight on his stern so missile lock is iffy. If the missiles don’t get a solid lock on us, they might lock on to some freighter, and there is no way they let that happen. His own people would override that idea. Besides, he will think he has an unsuspecting, non-maneuvering target floating off his stern in close gun range. He thinks he will knock us out before we know what’s happening.”

  Reed nodded. “Risky, but if it works…”

  Hawkins smiled. “Should be fun. You get to be in command throughout. Good times.” He looked at his watch. “Rendezvous with Cottonmouth in three hours.” The briefing broke up.

/>   Three hours later, a small group was waiting at the starboard airlock as Cottonmouth’s shuttle arrived. Rafe was going over his briefing notes for Terrant as the green light lit within the airlock to show a solid lock. A second later he heard Tactical’s voice with a note of resignation. “Why am I not surprised?”

  Hawkins looked up and through the porthole into the airlock. Llewellyn Terrant was coming from her shuttle wearing her admiral’s dress uniform. She moved confidently to the hatch as it swung open and revealed the pirate greeting party. Everyone stared at each other for a moment.

  “Officers’ mess,” Rafe announced as he turned and walked away without acknowledging Terrant.

  The group moved to the mess compartment and took seats around the largest table which had been set with beverages and snacks. Hawkins looked across the table at Terrant. “You need a different outfit before facing Yossian.”

  “This uniform will anger him and get him spinning,” Terrant replied defensively. “That is the point of him seeing me, isn’t it?”

  Raferty nodded but not in agreement. “I can understand the reasoning but I bet he has a dozen images of you in various uniforms for identification purposes. He probably has one of you in your dress uniform on his dart board. When he sees you in that uniform, he will be unhappy and then argue about you wearing the uniform of an extinct navy. You will reply with some appropriate insult, and it goes downhill from there. That is not the way I want this conversation to go.” He stared at Terrant. “This is not about the past. It is about the present and the future. I want him to think you are winning here. That you have adjusted to your new surroundings and have a lot of good things going on. You have put the war and your Navy in the past, and you don’t even think about that anymore. I want him to think his war criminal is living the good life and is not the least bit concerned about him hunting her. We have to make him think your ship and people are just a small part of your expanding empire. You now have your fingers in a lot of pies and many friends in high places. He needs to see you regard him as a minor nuisance of no particular importance. You must dress the part of a successful business woman with a bright future.”