by gerald hall
Turning slightly towards Angela, Jonathan whispered.
"I hope that you don't mind that I offered your services as well. I figured that perhaps this would be a far better home than the ones that you have had for the past couple of years. From what I have seen, this station can be a very pleasant place to live in. The world below us also offers wonders that you dare never imagine. Besides, I get the impression that these folks are considerably more pleasant to work for than Farrow’s band of pirates ever was for you."
Angela thought for a second and then smiled.
"Sure. I don't mind at all, Jonathan. I don't really think that I had much of a future with Jackson Farrow and his gang of cutthroats anyway. It was definitely time for a change."
“There is one other thing about me that you and Captain Martinson’s people might find of interest about me, Sergeant.”
“What is that, Mister Murrel?”
“I am originally from Libertad.” He calmly answered with a clear Piedmont drawl that had returned.
Just as soon as Jonathan made that admission, Angela suddenly realized where his accent had come from. While more than a few worlds had been settled by colonists from the southern part of what used to be known as the United States of America, Libertad had managed to retain the accents and idioms from a much more specific part of that country.
Jonathan appeared to have made a deliberate attempt to conceal that accent to a certain extent. But the strain of the Truist interrogations and the general fatigue that he had to be experiencing when Angela first met him allowed his true accent to leak out.
“What are you doing way out here then?” a surprised Sergeant Arromanche immediately asked. “I thought that people from Libertad pretty much kept to themselves. You all were into protecting the environment and independence of your home world, that sort of thing.”
“Well, our merchant ships do have a presence in most human-inhabited systems in the Orion Arm, but it is true that we are not often seen overtly wandering around the galaxy outside of that.
However, we do have some of our citizens who travel around to observe what it going on outside of our star system. That was the reason why I was working for Galactic Expeditions. Our leaders have found it wise to always be aware of everything going on, not only for the sake of our people but also for the best interests of all of the worlds around us.”
“Even the Lu’non?” Catherine Ashe, a tall, slender blonde-haired woman from one of Martinson’s battlers. The tone in her voice was clearly apprehensive.
“Well, the Lu’non are a special case, aren’t they? If they cannot be convinced to seek other, non-sentient prey, then they will have to be contained by some means, obviously. I can certainly understand your concerns, Ma’am, considering what the Lu’non have been known to do to younger human females.” Jonathan explained.
‘Jonathan, you never said anything about being originally from Libertad.” Angela quietly said.
“I’m sorry, my dear Angela. I have tried to keep my origins secret from most all of the people that I encounter during my travels. When people learn that you are from Libertad, they treat you very differently, I’m afraid. It was important for me to be perceived at most as just another religious colonist travelling through the Orion Arm. I do sincerely apologize for lying to you.”
“I see. But what I still don’t understand is why all of the efforts to keep everyone from finding this place? You paid a hell of a price to do so.” Angela then asked.
“It certainly wasn’t just about this base here, which incidentally would have given both the Truists and those pirates a tremendous boost in their resources and capabilities. It was about the water world that this moon orbits.
You see, the world below us contains life….sentient life in its oceans. They are primitive compared to us. But they have an intelligence on the level of Earth’s dolphins or orcas, perhaps even a little higher. In any event, these indigenous sentient beings need to be protected from those who would exploit them, even kill them. This also includes protecting them from the Lu’non. For someone from Libertad, protection of such impressive and intelligent beings as these is particularly important.
Our team from Galactic Expeditions found that an earlier expedition had built settlements on some of the small islands in addition to several large underwater installations. But these settlements had all been long abandoned by the time that we had found them. We don’t even know if humans, or some other sentient race that we have not yet encountered, constructed the settlements.
These original explorers were also the beings that moved this asteroid into orbit around this world to become an artificial moon. The primary intent was for the asteroid to be exploited for the valuable minerals contained within its core. These explorers also excavated within it to create a base from which they could conduct their operations within this star system. We don’t know why the original creators of this base left, only that it happened thousands of years ago.
It was only much later that the Red Star Collective managed to chance upon the base. They took advantage of the existing facilities here within this moon to establish a presence there.
What my fellow explorers from Galactic Expeditions did determine is that the original settlers did want to protect the indigenous aquatic race here. In accordance to my faith and principles, I was determined to continue to protect the natives here as well to the best of my ability.”
“Well, Sir. You need to tell your story to Captain Martinson as quickly as possible. He will want to know why the two of you were here too.
While I can’t read the Captain’s mind, I know him well enough to believe that he would honor your desire to also protect the natives of this world too. He’s that kind of a man.” Julian confidently remarked.
“Thank you, Sergeant. I certainly hope that you are right. I know that I cannot ask your group to leave here now. But I can request your Captain do his very best to protect the innocent beings that live on the world below us.”
“I’m sure that if these indigenous sentiments below do not offer any threat to us, Captain Martinson will do nothing to harm them.”
"I just need to ask you one more question, Mister Murrel. Who else knows about us and our new home?" Julian asked.
"No one left alive, I'm afraid, including all of my dearest friends from the Auntie Mae. The Truists made sure of that." was Jonathan's grim reply.
"If you two can help us out like you claim, then I guarantee you that you will have a whole new set of friends of the best kind." a newly arrived Lieutenant Winters said as he walked up to the group. The young officer immediately came across to Jonathan and Angela as being very welcoming by the way that he smiled and spoke.
"I just heard about these two over our communications link, Julian. I'm Lieutenant Martin Winters, the commander of this group. I am pleased to meet you. The Captain has asked me to bring you two up to the base command center to meet with him now."
"We are pleased to meet you as well, Lieutenant. Something tells me that this place will be put to good use by your people." Jonathan replied as he looked at the base around him.
"Yes. I’m sure that Captain Martinson plans to do exactly that. Hopefully, we can manage that with a lot fewer losses in human lives though, even if they were are of the enemy. "
"I'm glad to hear that. I imagine that you have a lot to do. Is there any way that we can help?" Jonathan asked with a smile.
There would be much to do before Jonathan and Angela’s new home would be ready for full operations. But Captain Martinson now had perhaps enough resources to adequately perform the mission that he was hired to do.
As Jonathan, Angela and the others walked towards the base’s command center, one of the other crewmen ran onto the bridge, breathing hard from running very quickly. He was one of Alec’s new recruits that had come aboard at Tau Ceti. It was clear that he was very excited about something.
"Lieutenant.....You should see what we found in one of the crates that we got from th
e base. Treasure....." The young man gasped.
"Calm down, boy. What do you mean by 'treasure'? Weapons? Computers? Lost technology?" Lieutenant Winters quickly asked.
"No, Sir. Real treasure..... Gold! That crate has maybe a thousand gold coins in it, nearly two hundred kilograms." came the answer from the still excited young man.
Lieutenant Winters silently stood for a few seconds before beginning to loudly laugh.
"I suppose that we really did find treasure. After all, haven't pirates throughout history always sought chests full of gold coins. Only this time, we kept the pirates from getting the gold, didn’t we?"
Very soon, all of the others on the bridge joined in Lieutenant Winter’s laughter.
Chapter Twenty Two:
Inside the former Red Star Collective Base.
YBP 1194 Star System, M 67 Star Cluster, Orion Arm
February 20, 2041
“I don’t know who I worry about the most; the syndicate goons, the murderous religious lunatics, the genocidal aliens or just the regular cutthroat pirates that know are roaming the stars.” Alec said after hearing the last of the reports about the Truist interrogations of Jonathan and the actions of the pirate band that had just been defeated.
Alec had to also deal with the issue of six other pirate personnel that had survived after their shuttle, named Hidden Blade, had been hit and disabled by naval capital lasers fired from the asteroid base. Alec’s crew found a number of video recordings that the pirates had made during some of their earlier operations. Most importantly, Rita accessed the backup database for Black Diamond. The information within the pirate jump tender’s undamaged information storage contained records of everything that the pirates did for at least the last ten years, including the mission logs and the recordings of all activity within the jump tender.
After seeing how the six had gleefully participated in the torture and murder of several captured civilian crews from only the most recent attacks by Farrow’s pirates, Alec was sickened by what he saw. While the captured pirates begged for mercy, claiming that they had only been following orders. But what Rita discovered in her search of the ship’s records found otherwise. Alec knew that he had only one choice. Interstellar law had long decreed that the penalty for murder during the commission of piracy was death. But Rita validated the decision as only an impartial artificial intelligence could.
Alec could not even consider giving the pirates a reprieve either, in spite of how badly the privateers needed more experienced personnel. These pirates simply could not be trusted. Most importantly, they knew the location of the asteroid base. That knowledge could not be allowed to leave this star system.
The six condemned pirates, five men and one woman, were taken out aboard Orca, forced into an air lock and summarily blown out into space. Taking the final decision out of human hands, Rita sent the actual computer command to the air lock door to open to vacuum. Alec felt no remorse about their deaths as he now discussed his group’s adversaries. But Alec was very pleased when Rita told him that Angela and Jonathan were completely exonerated of participating in any crimes at all. She could not in good conscience condemn either Angela or Jonathan at all.
Shortly afterwards, Alec, Joanna and Colin sat down in Alacrity’s small captain’s conference room and discussed their two latest additions to the privateer group. Alec had already talked to both Angela and Jonathan at length. He was very impressed with both their stories, which had been backed up by Rita’s analysis of the pirate vessels’ databases. Alec immediately sensed that these two people would also be tremendous assets to his unit. At the end of the interview, he offered both Angela and Jonathan positions with the MMG.
“The leaders of ‘The True Way’ somehow managed to accumulate massive amounts of wealth over the past two centuries from their followers. Now, the Truists have taken that wealth and used it to build warships and recruit mercenaries to fight their war of conquest against the rest of human-colonized space. What ships that they didn’t build themselves, the Truists stole from the navies of Earth and whatever colonies that the Truists managed to co-opt or infiltrate. Of course, the Truists specifically targeted the most advanced Earth Fleet ships that they could have a chance of seizing.” Alec explained to the others.
“They try to portray themselves as the holy servants of some higher being with a goal of taking humanity to some higher plane. Many of the Truists even wear robes as though they were priests or something like that. What a bunch of hypocritical garbage. They are nothing more than a bunch of murdering tyrants trying to force their beliefs on others, whether they like it or not.” Joanna noted to the others. She had spent the better part of the past three days interviewing Angela and Jonathan in an attempt to glean as much intelligence from them as possible after Alec had interviewed the pair.
“It’s not just their ships and their willingness to show no quarter in combat. Some of those religious fanatics, the jihadists, are so dedicated to their cause that they have willingly subjected themselves to having cybernetic devices implanted to augment themselves.” Joanna continued.
“Yes, I heard about that. They call themselves Uomo Dominante or ‘Dominant Man’ in Italian. I have even been told that some of them have had perfectly good limbs and other organs surgically removed for replacement by cybernetic implants.”
“Unfortunately, it’s all true. The Uomo Dominante cyborgs are the worse of the bunch too. They don’t even think of themselves as human any longer. To them, an unaugmented human, especially one who doesn’t believe in their warped religion, is nothing more than a piece of meat to be subjugated. Some of these cyborgs even view their fellow Truists in the same way.”
“That is a hell of a way to look at the rest of mankind. I understand that one of these Uomo Dominante operatives was the person who was torturing our Galactic Expeditions friend when he was being held captive aboard a Truist jump tender.” Alec noted.
“Yes, that is what Angela told me. Actually, she used to be a member of The True Way also, but escaped from them as soon as she could. She became utterly disenchanted with them after observing their obscene acts committed against other human beings who refused to convert to their religion.”
“So, what can we do about the Truists, Joanna?”
“I don’t know yet. We have far too many potential enemies already to deal with at once, I fear. I guess that we will just have to deal with the enemy in front of us at the time first and worry about the others later. More importantly, we have to focus on fulfilling our contract with the Kepler folks. Even with what we have found here, you and I both know that our resources are just too limited at this point to do much more than that.”
“Sir, I have half a dozen tungsten-steel and depleted uranium ‘crowbars’ waiting here for my spinal mount to hurl at an enemy ship. I’d say that the Truists are definitely folks that we should keep on our ‘hit list’.” Colin sternly said as he and Tess sat in on the meeting.
“We do what we can do, I’m afraid. But if we encounter some of these Truists while we have a decisive advantage over them, we will certainly hit them as hard as we can. But that is only if and when we can afford to. Earth Fleet will be very appreciative if we are able to eliminate one of the Truist bands though, I’m sure.
What were you able to determine about those two pirate ships that we shot apart as they tried to escape, Colin? Can we fix them up to use or did we shoot them up too badly for economical repair?” Alec asked his chief technician.
“They were both standard commercial vessels that had been later modified with additional armament. That pirate cargo shuttle is salvageable, I’m pretty sure.” Colin explained.
“When you get that shuttle repaired, that will give us two big Conestoga’s with concealed armament still. They will definitely come in handy. Is there anything that you can do with that pirate jump shuttle, Colin?”
“That jump tender was damaged beyond repair by those two hits, I’m sorry to say. All that she is good for now is as a source
of spare parts. Her bridge, maneuver drive and power plant are all shot to pieces. Even if we could fix her, that old pirate vessel is not quite as large or well-armed as Alacrity. So she wouldn’t be much help for us.
But we do have another old jump tender that I found in one of the outer repair chambers that is a bit larger than Alacrity. I have started trying to piece her back together ever since I finished my initial survey of the station. I think that I might be able to finally finish her repairs with some of the salvageable components from that pirate jump tender.”
“We can certainly use a second jump tender, even if she is another antique.” Alec replied.
He was thinking of the old corvette-sized vessel in the main chamber that appeared to have been heavily cannibalized by the Collective before the original evacuation of the station. That vessel was slightly larger than Alacrity, but was designed from the keel up as a military vessel.
He had no idea of what Colin actually had in mind though. But, the listing that Alec had seen of all of the ships that were cached inside of the vast expanses of the lunar station was still far from complete.
“When I am done with her, she will be the best damned antique jump tender in the entire Orion Arm, Boss. I can promise you that.” Colin confidently declared.
“I’m sure that she will be, Colin.” Alec said with a laugh.
Colin had been very vague about any details on this antique. But Alec believed that if Colin could assemble a vessel that could improve the privateers’ order of battle, it couldn’t hurt. Projects like this also kept Colin very happy.
He loves doing the upgrades within the station, mind you. But working on ships is clearly still Colin’s first love, Alec quietly reminded himself.