The Queen's Pardon (Alexis Carew Book 6)

by J. A. Sutherland

  Alexis broke off that thought and forced herself to stop wiggling her toes. Isom assured her he’d thoroughly cleaned the things, and she’d have to accept that, there being no alternative. She turned her attention to her crew.

  She had those who’d crashed with her on Erzurum aboard and those few New Londoners amongst Kannstadt’s men. The Hanoverese who’d fleshed out her force in the retaking of Mongoose were returned to Kannstadt, there being only so far she felt they could properly stretch the regulations. They were already certainly at the point of snapping, what with her returning to active duty on the excited utterance of a captain who was then taken captive and forced out of the system, effectively Impressing her own lads back to service (there being no other way for them to get home), and commandeering her own ship, Mongoose, against her own letter of marque’s immunity to such, into service.

  Manning the newly sworn in HMS Mongoose with Hanoverese would surely cause all of Erzurum and its surrounding space to swirl into a maelstrom of a farce.

  Isom had helped her with the wording of Mongoose’s commissioning, so as to assure that she needn’t worry about Avrel Dansby hanging what Admiralty left of her a second time for giving over his ship.

  Though the bit about “such commission to expire with her commander, Lieutenant Alexis Arleen Carew” did give her pause, despite Isom’s assurance that it meant her own command of the ship and not her bodily expiration, and was only meant to ensure Avrel Dansby got his ship back once they returned to New London space.

  Still, the wording made her neck itch, nooses being much on her mind of late.

  She glanced around the quarterdeck again.

  She had Layland on the helm, Tite on the tactical console, and a good master’s mate, Puryear, standing ready to assist her in lieu of a first officer, freeing Dockett to set Mongoose to rights, now she was a proper ship again.

  First lieutenant, us being a proper Navy ship now.

  The young man, Aiden, stood ready at the hatch to run messages for her, should that prove necessary — which it should not, since they were not going into an action. Nabb was on the gundeck, the ship and crew, such as they were, called to quarters. More to impress upon them that they were returned to Naval discipline — or experiencing it for the first time in the case of those merchant spacers such as the woman Davies — than any expectation of a fight from the pirates.

  Creasy was back at the signals console, Blackbourne beside him and ready to read out the text of her proclamation at her order.

  A proclamation … in the Queen’s name … by me.

  Alexis took a deep breath, then nodded to him.

  The ships they’d taken were spread out in orbit around Erzurum, repeating the broadcast in the absence of those satellites Alexis and the other private ships had destroyed in their first attack. Most of Erzurum’s settlements were enough below Mongoose to receive the transmission, but there were a few more remote.

  Creasy opened a general broadcast on all channels and Blackbourne — after a moment’s indulgence to shout, “Oi! Shut yer gobs an’ listen to Old Blackbourne, mates!” — stated with remarkable sobriety that there was a Royal Navy ship with a Royal Navy captain overhead and then faithfully read her proclamation without a single interjection of his own.

  “Make o’ that what y’will, lads,” he finished, “but Old Blackbourne’s puttin’ his name down an’ goin’ home with a full purse an’ the bloody Queen’s kiss o’ forgiveness on his cheek. You all do as y’will, but be warned — there’s a bloody bitch-woman here in orbit who’ll see your shriveled sacks tacked to her wall as trophies afore she hangs you, an’ don’t doubt that!”

  He then turned to Alexis and said, with the transmission still open, “All right, bitch-woman, Old Blackbourne’s makin’ his rescue o’ your lot, that bugger Ellender’s, an’ some sundry fellows with the Hannie t’be —” He frowned. “— five-thousand three hundred ten pounds. ’T’will be coin in hand, aye?”

  Whether Blackbourne’s demand of over five thousand pounds over an open transmission was a purposeful thing on the pirate’s part or not, Alexis couldn’t ask — of course the pirate would say simply that Old Blackbourne was just the clever sort to do such a thing a’purpose.

  Whatever his intent, the thought of Old Blackbourne collecting both a pardon and such a large sum of bounty on rescued spacers seemed to galvanize many of the pirates.

  They’d not even bothered to wait for Kannstadt to start his own transmission following Blackbourne’s, an offer of the same general pardon from Hanover for those few among the pirates who were citizens of that nation, before taking to the airwaves to accept.

  To the airwaves and to the air, as those boats which had so recently been put to use in patrolling to thwart Alexis’ attempts to land on Erzurum’s farms and far-flung settlements to rescue enslaved spacers, were now put to use in collecting as many of those men as the boats’ crews could manage.

  So exuberant were some of the pirates in liberating the captives that Alexis had to have Blackbourne make a further broadcast insisting that the people of Erzurum not be harmed, then a further by Kannstadt, urging Erzurum’s natives to not resist the freeing of their slaves, and, finally, another, by Alexis, offering recompense, again in the Queen’s name, for their taking.

  Alexis retired to her quarters after that, leaving it to Kannstadt to organize the details occurring on the planet below, as the Hanoverese captain seemed like he could use the distraction from his own sorrows. Erzurum’s main spaceport was entirely under the control of those pirates accepting the pardon, most of their fellows having fled to other parts of the planet, and both she and Kannstadt would be taking boats there soon. They needed to quickly gather as many freed spacers as they could, before the pardoned pirates realized just how scant the “Navy” presence in-system was.

  Alexis shut her cabin’s hatch, loosened her collar, and hung her beret on the wall before running fingers through her hair.

  “Let’s see … I’ve returned to service under dubious authority, Impressed my own crew, commandeered my own ship, issued a proclamation in the Queen’s name as a lowly lieutenant, granted amnesty and pardon to, at last count, nearly seven hundred pirates, indebted the kingdom, to pirates and bloody Hannies no less, to the tune of … what’s the total now, Isom?”

  The slight-framed clerk barely glanced up from Alexis’ dining table where he had an impressive number of documents open on its surface as he coordinated with Kannstadt.

  “One hundred thirty-two thousand six hundred eighty pounds, sir,” he said. “There’s a bit in dispute due to the conflicts of those pirates as want the pardon with those who don’t, and us not specifying the, ah, state of a body in which it’s been seized, so to speak.”

  “What?”

  “There’s some question, sir, as to if a pardoned pirate shoots an unpardoned pirate in the head, as to whether the bounty’s still good, sir.” He frowned. “As well, which parts might represent the body. There may be some as are trying to, ah, double or even triple their takes.”

  “With bodies? But —”

  “Well, a man’s got two hands of fingerprints and a pair of retinal scans to identify him, don’t he?” Isom said. He looked back to the table’s surface. “Don’t you worry, sir. It’s only a few early ones to settle, as Mister Blackbourne told them — the pardoned pirates, I mean — then to only wound their fellows if they could help it. There’s no more than ten percent of the total in dispute, sir.”

  Alexis walked slowly to her pantry, drew a mug of beer — cursing the pirates who’d held Mongoose for draining her store of bourbon — and took a long pull.

  “A hundred thousand pounds,” she muttered.

  “Plus ten percent, sir,” Isom called. “Probably best to just pay on all the parts — goodwill and all.”

  “Plus ten percent, then,” she muttered, “in Admiralty notes of hand under my name.”

  “Don’t forget the recompense, sir,” Isom called, and Alexis almost told him to mi
nd his bloody table and leave her be.

  “Oh, yes,” she said. “I mustn’t forget the bit where I buy a few thousand slaves in Admiralty’s name. That will endear me to the Crown all entire, I’m sure.”

  “Wouldn’t be so bad, sir, if so many of the farmers weren’t demanding receipts.”

  Yes, the receipts … all with her name on them. At least there was no sliding scale of rank for those, only a straight-forward ten pounds per slave paid to the slave-owner, those who weren’t also pirates, and be done with it. Isom was paying even on those slaves who’d formerly been merchant spacers, regardless of nation, and from other Barbary systems the pirates had raided — for goodwill, Alexis reasoned.

  There was a chime from her hatch.

  “Come through,” Alexis called.

  Nabb slid the hatch open and poked his head in.

  “Boat’s ready, sir.”

  Forty-Two

  O’, listen hearties, hear me mates,

  For this’ll touch your hearts.

  It wasn’t to the officers

  Our Alexis went to first.

  The landing field near Erzurum’s largest city was not so very big to begin with. Neither was Erzurum’s largest city, come to that — more of a town, smaller than Port Arthur back on Alexis’ home of Dalthus. The field was bare earth, but, thankfully, Erzurum’s first settlers had chosen to put their primary settlement in an area not under the perpetual gloom and cloud cover Alexis had come to associate with the planet in her brief time there.

  Here the sky was clear and bright, with Erzurum’s slightly orange tinted star only rarely passing behind the occasional white cloud, which made it all the easier to see how crowded the field was. Not with boats, though there were many, but with men.

  The pirates, those who’d accepted the pardons, had turned the field into a sort of clearing ground for themselves while they waited for Alexis and Kannstadt to come down and claim their goods — whether those goods be captured pirates unwilling to accept the pardons, surrendering pirates awaiting confirmation of their pardons, or newly freed spacers, grouped by whatever pirate band had garnered their release and awaiting a final count and confirmation of their bounty before being grouped by nationality on the bare, open space.

  The field teemed with bodies, cordoned off into groups of varying sizes, and Alexis thought it must be nearly as uncomfortable for them all to be standing in the bright sunlight as it would have been if there’d been rain. At least there wasn’t the cold of the rain and perpetual mud for them to be milling about in.

  It was, in fact, quite dry and warm here, which made for a dusty field and billows of the stuff rolled away from Mongoose’s boat as Gutis, returned from his assistance to Kannstadt, put the boat down at the very edge, some hundred meters from the masses of men. They waited until Kannstadt’s own boat grounded nearby before letting down the ramp and then Alexis strode down to meet the other captain.

  Alexis kept her back straight and shoulders back, head at just the proper angle to display her beret and its gold-rim denoting her command. This was a touchy time, their first meeting in person with the pirates on the surface, and she wanted to give the impression of a Royal Navy officer, fully confident in her ability to reduce these pirates, their boats and ships, and anything else offending her, to much the state of the dust puffing up from each of her footsteps.

  Should they discover or suspect just how slight and undermanned her forces truly were, they might well think their chances better with their former captain, Ness, and all this would fall apart.

  Kannstadt met her between the two boats. Some one of his men must have been a fair tailor, for he wore a reasonable approximation of a Hanoverese captain’s uniform. A darker color, not quite black, than her own blue, and with far more gilt than all but the most ostentatious Royal Navy captains would think proper, but certainly better for this meeting than the scaled snakipede skins she’d first seen him in.

  Closer, she could see that the material was not quite right, nor the color, but it looked as though it would do well enough.

  “Kapitän Carew,” Kannstadt said with a nod as she reached him.

  “Captain Kannstadt.”

  A firming of his lips told her that he was, perhaps, as nervous as she was herself.

  They waited while their respective boat crews disembarked and assembled near the ramps. Kannstadt had brought more men, having more available, while Alexis had a bare score and few enough left aboard Mongoose with that.

  “No one comes to greet us,” Kannstadt observed.

  Indeed, though everyone on the field was flashing looks their way, no one approached.

  Kannstadt removed his brimmed cap with its odd folds of fabric and wiped at his forehead before settling it back on his head. “Your pirate says the leaders, what there are of them, will meet us in a tavern — the …” He trailed off.

  “The Randy Whistler,” Alexis supplied. “Our own officers, those released so far, will be there as well.”

  They’d brought Blackbourne down with them, him being the former, or perhaps still, despite his capture, leader of the pirate force on Erzurum’s surface. Kannstadt glanced back at their force, which consisted of Alexis’ twenty-man boat crew, his own of not quite forty, and, perhaps, another hundred, all told, in orbit and split between all their captured ships. Alexis followed his gaze, then looked to the mass of men across the field.

  They must only get through this meeting without quashing what the pirates had already accepted, then all those spacers would begin being transported up to those ships, and they’d have more than they’d ever need.

  Enough to meet this Ness when he returns and grind him to dust for what he’s done here? Perhaps, if I’ve any say in it.

  She looked to Kannstadt who raised his own eyes from where they watched Alexis’ foot twist her boot into the dry earth of Erzurum’s field. She flushed and cleared her throat, but Kannstadt gave her a predatory grin as though he understood exactly what she’d been thinking.

  “Ja, Kapitän Carew.” He gestured across the field. “After you?”

  To get to the town’s buildings, and their meeting place, they had to first cross the empty space between their boats and the waiting men, then walk through those men themselves.

  The crowd quieted as they approached, but there were still sounds, and Alexis could see that the groups of men were segregated in some way. The pirate groups were clearly identifiable, for they all had proper ships’ jumpsuits or other clothing, rather than the loin cloths or skins of the former captives.

  Alexis paused for a moment to take in the scene. There must be thousands of men on the field already. “So many,” she muttered.

  Kannstadt stopped beside her. “They are not yet done,” he said, nodding to a pirate boat setting down at the outskirts and another coming in behind it.

  She realized the Hanoverese was right. The masses of men assembled on the dusty field were not the whole of it, and the pirates were still bringing in former slaves from outlying farms and plantations. Despite her shock at the running total Isom kept of both men and pounds owed, those numbers would not nearly be the end of it.

  “We need more ships,” she whispered.

  They resumed walking and as they got closer and she could make out the occasional voice, she could tell that the former captives were also segregated, with some groups speaking English, some German, and others French. Apparently, the pirates, or the released crews themselves, were put together in groups by their former fleets.

  A boat’s ramp lowered and a group of three-dozen half-naked, more-than-half-starved, captives was ushered out of the boat to stand on the field. They weren’t bound, but might as well have been, edging away from their captors, the pirates still being armed with both pistols and some sort of stunstick to keep order.

  Alexis supposed she couldn’t blame them for that — it would be as foolish for the pirates to trust their former captives not to take some sort of revenge as it would be for those captives to accep
t the pirates’ word that they should just stand easy and everything would be all right in a bit.

  There were armed pirates, these with rifles, all around the groups of spacers, as well, and some of these had boxes similar to what the farmer, Isikli, had used to control the slaves on his farm. So the pirates had not yet removed or deactivated the explosives implanted in these former slaves either.

  The men off the new boat were pointed toward larger groups which they approached tentatively. Those at the edges of the group smiled and waved them forward, patting backs, wrapping an arm around shoulders, and explaining, Alexis supposed, what was going on to the new arrivals — whether they explained the truth or whatever rumor was most prevalent at the moment, she couldn’t say.

  There were grins as their new situation, perhaps not perfect or perfectly understood yet, but certainly better than what they’d expected sank in, and then came the calls — ship name after ship name.

  “Onslaught?”

  “Comète?”

  “Mölders?”

  “Pompee? Hey, lads, any off Pompee?”

  Then from farther inside the group — from the middle, its edges, wherever the fellows from that ship had found each other and formed their tight knot of shipmates thought lost forever.

  “Oy! Onslaught here!” With an upraised arm. “That you, Osburn? Bloody Dark, man, thought you were a dead ‘un! Make a lane for Osburn, lads!”

  “Ici! Ici! Comète! Ici!”

  “Hier! Mölders, hier!”

  Heartbreaking were those who received no answer. To have seen their ship beaten and wrecked, they and their mates left behind the fleets to fend for themselves, the arrival of the pirates, and then to be sold off into servitude on Erzurum — only to have this glint of rescue, but without their fellows.

  “Pompee, lads! Any off Pompee?”

  Left to idle at the edges, wondering at the fate of their mates, and smile half-heartedly at the back pats and assurances of those around them that, “Easy, lad, there’s more boats comin’ every minute — no tellin’ where a man got to on this Dark-forsaken ball o’ mud. You’ll see.”