by Chris Hechtl
“Okay,” Captain Chen drawled. He turned to look at the man. The man had the same hand cupped as if he was seeking a tip.
He had been warned about that by Captain Layafette and his time on Tortuga. He pulled out a coin and snapped it in half at the score line, then again until he had a quarter piece. “I'll give you this if you keep watch on my shuttle and give me some names of people who are relatively honest traders.”
“Oh aye, I can hook you up, sure thing, mate,” the balding man said, grinning as he took the quarter piece. He examined it and then bit it to make sure it was real gold. He spat on the deck and then pocketed the piece. “Aye, you'll be needing to talk to Kareem for fuel. He runs the tanker. Dajan has some of the best food. He has an in with the farms and can get you almost anything you want if tis in season.”
“And engineering support?”
“Ye be a bit out of luck there. Dead Man's Hand doesn't have a lot,” the balding man pointed to the hatch to the boat bay. Captain Chen turned back to look and noted a hand staked out above the hatch. “That be the last chief engineer we had. Lost a fight in the dome. Someone wanted to replace the hand that'd been stolen there. This place be thick with thieves and scoundrals so watch yer'self.”
“I'll keep that in mind. But why would they want a hand?”
The man shrugged. “Use it for scrimshaw or to make a goblet or some like. Or one of the canines wanted the bones to chew on, who knows,” he said, spitting again.
“Okay. Well, if you can find me a parts guy and someone who knows a thing or two about Tauren ships, I'd be willing to pay you another quarter.”
“Aye, I can do that,” the man said with a nod. “Regis might have Tauren parts. Thompson might also, but he's pricy. I'll check.”
“The ship has a node harmonic—a bad one.”
“Ah, those parts be scarce here. I'll check,” the man said with a nod. It was only when he limped off that Captain Chen noticed the man had a missing foot. He was also missing a name.
He frowned. And, come to think of it, he'd screwed up in tipping the other man's hand on what he wanted. No doubt word would spread and prices would rise. Not good.
He pulled out his communicator and called the ship to order the quartermaster over. They were going to have to have an expert in on the bartering.
Meanwhile, he decided he could at least try to find the commanding officer. Someone had to lead this asylum. There was no way Admiral Ishmael would leave the inmates in charge.
At least, he hoped not at any rate.
<()>^<()>
Lieutenant Chuck Ubber wished the skipper had let him take the lead on the supply issue. The captain had disappeared into the depths of the station in a vain attempt to find someone in charge. He'd had to come over in the cruiser's only cargo shuttle to see what he could find. He'd also posted a guard, and he'd had the foresight to bring a grav lift and some trade goods.
Not that he expected to find much. But at the moment they would settle for just about anything. And he knew from his experience on Tortuga that goods from Horath were highly prized.
The market was a bazaar of tents and awnings. All of them were ragged. Some were bedecked with Gothic gear. Skins and leather were a thing there. So were bones. Live animals and slaves too, though he avoided the slave market. He had a feeling it was going to be tough to pay for the supplies the skipper wanted, let alone the luxuries.
He was heartily glad to be in his own domain but was wary. He felt the eyes on him. He was a newcomer, and he was pretty sure they were trying to size him up to see if he was a sheep ready to be shorn or a wolf in sheep's clothing.
Let the buyer beware indeed he thought, noting some of the shoddy or old merchandise. Some of the sellers were a bit sketchy. One or two seemed drunk, but others were falling over themselves to get his attention.
Those he was particularly wary of as well as the kids milling about. He didn't want or need his pockets picked. That wouldn't sit well with his professional reputation or with the skipper.
He was well aware that the people in port, the merchants, were the real ones who got rich. It was always the way; the outfitters and bartenders made a killing while the hunters tried to scrounge up a fortune. Gather ships had been known to squander their ill-gotten gains in port for a pittance. And, if the merchants knew you were in need of something, you were in trouble.
So, he was doubly annoyed with the skipper for letting the port rat know just what they were after.
“Might as well get this over with,” he muttered as he went to a sign that said Kareem's fuel.
<()>^<()>
Captain Fisher shook her head when she got the news that they were stuck in Dead Man's Hand. That was actually what she'd intended all along. She flicked a bit of fluff out from under one claw. As a bobcat she might seem diminutive, but she was quite capable of ripping someone's throat out. She just wasn't normally a violent person, probably why she'd gotten saddled with command over a prize ship instead of an actual warship.
They'd done their duty in spreading the plague. And she wasn't happy about it. Not at all. The more her people had interacted with the techs on board her ship, the more she'd come to realize something fishy was going on.
For one thing the humans kept to themselves and didn't like to interact with her crew. They treated her crew more or less with barely disguised distaste. Like something they had dug out from their shoe.
Which bothered her. Couple that with their mission to spread death for every species, including her own, bothered the hell out of her. You just didn't do that! And why other species and not humans? She'd gotten that out of one of the techs. The slip had been small, but it had made her decide to move from passively following orders to actively doing something about it.
Hence her ship developing a “glitch” in her node harmonics that forced her speed to drop. It was software, and she'd spent enough time in the computers as a navigator to know how to mimic one successfully. Most of her crew didn't even know what she'd done. Those that did were keeping mum about it. That was probably for the best.
Her brief interactions with Captain Chen told her that the man didn't like her. They'd never socialized, and he had not agreed to her request to stop at Harlot's Dream to resupply, which was his mistake.
Had they stopped she would have had the glitch then and there or maybe not. She'd only thought of it after they'd passed Sparkling Seas. It was only then that she had gone through her orders to find a way out of the mess she'd been dumped into. There she'd found the orders for Chen's ship to escort hers. He couldn't move on until Booty’licious could.
She had to smirk a little at that. He was probably foaming at the mouth. And, he had to deal with the port. Good luck with that. Since he was her escort commander, he had to find a way to scrounge up supplies for both ships, not just his own.
And she wasn't going to go out of her way to help him, not until she had to.
With any luck they'd be stuck in Dead Man's Hand for weeks, quite possibly months until someone showed up to take the techs and hardware off her hands. If she had her way, the entire lot would be sent straight into the damn sun.
But, until that happened or the brass showed up, she was just going to sit there and wait.
<()>^<()>
Captain Chen was heartily tired of the base by the time he parted ways with it. He hadn't found the base commander; whoever he or she was didn't want to be found. He couldn't even get a name or gender. Everyone he had asked had shrugged it off.
He had come back pissed, but that had worn off slightly into a grudging sulk when he found that Lieutenant Ubber had gotten a bit luckier than he had. A fuel shuttle was attached to each ship. They were finishing up there. And the cargo shuttle had brought over a load of food. The XO reported some of the meat was freezer burned, but at this point he didn't care.
The big problem was the node harmonic. He couldn't just leave the damn ship as much as he'd love to do so. Nor could he take the equipment on board, his cruiser
didn't have the room. So, until they found the parts, they weren't going anywhere.
<()>^<()>
Harlot's Dream
Commodore Gena Drufeather was not happy about the report of some sort of outbreak in the market, sickbay, and lower decks. She had enough to deal with. Word was that damn prize ship that had come in from Sparkling Seas had brought it. She had just confirmed that the ship's crew were sick. No doubt they'd picked up some bug from their last port of call, and some idiot had spread it throughout the market.
From there it had spread and was continuing to spread.
She'd ordered people to be checked out who were sick. It was starting to hit some of the stations’ departments, nothing critical yet but her department heads were already complaining.
The Neosaber tooth female barred her teeth in annoyance. As if she needed any more trouble.
Chapter 17
Sparkling Seas
Captain Janice Yu grimaced as she read the latest report from Mahoney. Mahoney might be a smaller hospital ship but her crew was the most experienced. They were taking the lead on the trio of hospital ships she was escorting.
Well, hospital ships and two support ships she had to ride herd on.
To be honest, if she'd known that the outbreak was so bad and getting a handle on it would have taken so long, she would have gladly sent Captain Zlanka's division mate, Sybil Harper, back to the capital with the news. It hadn't been that bad at their last stop! Of course, the Governor Magistrate had been one major reason why. The man might be a crotchety, old ruthless bastard but he'd managed to limit the spread of the plagues by strict quarantine. He'd also realized that humans weren't being infected, so he'd used his own species to treat the infected.
He'd also been grudgingly grateful over the services from her ships. They'd vaccinated those who hadn't been infected and had helped with treating the survivors. They'd done what they could for the children at his insistence, starting with a young Neobonobo boy.
She'd given him the basic gift package reintroducing them to the Federation, but he'd made it clear he hadn't wanted to be brought in the line of fire between them and the pirates. Until they saw an end to piracy in the region, they were going to go it alone.
In a way she couldn't blame him, though it was stupid, short sighted, and self-defeating. At least with the Federation, they could draw on aide and provide support to destroy the pirates.
The funny thing was that according to the medics, someone had intervened. They weren't sure how, but there was protein evidence of applied medical nanotech in many of the survivors. A blood check had been puzzling though; there were no nanites present. There were signs that a few of the survivors had been given some sort of vaccine.
But who had done it and why remained an open question. Hopefully, ONI would find some way to shed some light on the puzzle later.
According to the governor's database, a ship had passed through recently, a yacht, the Oliver Twist. She had headed west without any signs of the plague. Janice had been tempted to follow, but instead, she'd headed south to where there were a string of agro worlds.
She'd thought initially Sparkling Seas with its island chains and continents would have been only lightly touched by the plagues. All early indications had confirmed that, which was why she'd sent the light cruiser on ahead before fully grasping the situation on the ground. Now she was kicking herself over it.
What she did know made for grim reading and some sleepless nights. How the hell could the pirates do that? It was one thing to inflict pain and suffering on a small scale, but this? Granted, they were above it all; they never really saw their victims. It still felt like they were cutting their own throats though.
She'd gladly do them the service if they didn't do it themselves though.
“Bastards,” she murmured, looking at the blue marble.
Sparkling Seas was mostly water with a pair of medium-sized continents spaced halfway around the planet from each other—one in the northern hemisphere, the other in the southern hemisphere. The natives did a lot of sailing to move goods between continents, if they did so at all.
The one small bit of a silver lining about it all was that they'd picked up news of a visiting pirate ship. It had been months ago, but according to the surviving locals, most of them her own species of human she thought in bitter self-reproach, had told her people that a prize ship had come by and had headed to a pirate base in the area.
Based on her updated stellar charts, that would be Harlot's Dream. She'd been tempted to scout the base, but Shelby had anticipated her and had issued orders to prevent her from doing so and tipping their hand.
If the news was true, it put the prize ship passing through sometime after the planet had been infected. Which meant the prize crew might have picked up one or more of the bugs when they'd visited the planet.
Which sucked for them she thought with cold satisfaction. Them and their base.
It didn't bode well for the other ship that had passed through a week after the bastards in Seydlitz had. The civilians had been lucky to have missed the pirates. But, unfortunately, they hadn't missed the plagues. They'd taken the warning but had been low on fuel. Since Sparkling Seas was on the doorstep of a pirate base, they'd taken the chance to refuel.
And most likely paid for it with their lives she thought.
The good news was if any survivors on the ship managed to keep it together to get out, they'd be arriving in the capital. And weren't they in for a surprise when they did! She shook her head in amusement at that thought.
She did have to admit they were picking up a good bit of detail while remaining in orbit. The surviving natives loved the idea of the new Federation sector capital being four jumps away. They were also interested in joining the Federation, if only to get rid of the damn pirates.
Which meant two parts of her three major mission objectives was complete in that star system. They'd shown the flag and applied the cures to the plagues. And her people were working on the third, picking up every scrap of intel they could about the planet and surrounding area.
The good news was that they had no problem applying the cure to the natives. The bad was that there were few survivors to give it to. And, those that were still alive were widely dispersed.
In order to get the surviving population completely over to their side, they needed to take out Harlot's Dream and establish a picket.
Given the star system was a crossroads that made a bit of sense. Not that they currently had enough ships to do that at the moment.
Oh, and they had another bit of good news; they had plenty of fish and seafood. Most of the native's fishing fleets were docked, but the few that weren't had no problem supplying her ships and people with fresh protein.
Another week. Just one more to let them sort out the islands on the planet. If the medics tried for longer, she'd send one of the support ships back with news to the capital. She'd been tempted to do so before. After all, it was just four jumps, but they'd needed the support ships.
She shook her head. She should have taken on a courier; she should have insisted on it.
A little late now, Janice, she thought in self-reproach.
In a week Sybil Harper should return with news of the star system they were supposed to be heading to next. She'd planned on being at the jump point by then. Now that was going to change. So be it.
But only a week. Anything more and she was going to send the damn tanker back to whistle up some additional help.
<()>^<()>
Tau-1252
Slash and Tear returned with news of the evacuation of Tortuga. Shelby kicked herself for not anticipating the move. Had she done so she might have been able to send a cruiser or two around to ambush one or more of the convoys and returned the favor to the pirates.
Annoyed with herself she checked the clock and then her logs. There was no time to catch the first, not without having to go out of their way to do so.
The first convoy hadn't had much of an esco
rt, just the one cruiser. Would the others do the same? She wasn't sure. Was the Neolion clearing them out while he concentrated his warships to come after her?
That thought made her hesitate further.
She bit her lip as she considered her options. There were only two ambush points her people could get to. The best was Tau-33ZD Black Hills. The destroyed star system would be the perfect ambush point. Nebula and debris clouds, not to mention residual radiation, would give her ships great cover. Better yet it was only two jumps away. The other was much further afield and harder to get to. It was also closer to Dead Man's Hand.
The question was could she afford the risk of uncovering her defenses a little to do so?
She set the thought aside as she considered her other deployment.
A corvette was on its way to the Tau-1929 jump point. She was destined to end up in Lebynthos as a picket with the courier she'd stationed there. The next trip by the Conestoga would bring them material to help support their mission there. The civilian ship had already dropped off some supply pods for the courier. Her next mission would drop off a small cargo shuttle and the core of a modular station complete with solar panels. She would also drop off a gas refinery platform and supplies to keep them on station for several months. Now that she had a functional orbital fortress at each jump point, she planned to use the smaller warships to cycle through Lebynthos and any other picket every six months or so.
She had even issued orders for the Beta convoy to drop an ansible platform in Lebynthos.
She went back to the report from Slash and Tear and cursed softly. Damn! One cruiser, from the report it had to be Black Corsage, covering twenty-eight fat unarmed prize ships. What a haul! Her people wouldn't be able to cover them all but damn!
But, she didn't really have the ships to send. Not at the moment.