by gerald hall
“Turn hard to starboard and up!” Alec immediately ordered in order to avoid colliding with the wrecked combat tender that was still travelling on a collision course towards Phoenix.
Alec and his entire bridge crew breathed a sigh of relief as Phoenix and the speeding wreck passed by each other only about a kilometer apart. A few pieces of debris from the Syndicate flagship bounced off of Phoenix’s hull in passing, but nothing large enough to cause significant damage.
With the demise of their flagship, the other surviving Syndicate ships quickly gave up and signaled their surrender to Alec except for the two small battlers in the rear. They raced to one of their jump tenders and quickly docked. Before Tess and the other allied battlers could reach that jump tender, it jumped out of the star system and escaped.
“Darn, I was hoping to make a clean sweep of the Syndicate force.” Joanne commented.
“Perhaps it is better that a few of the Syndicate folks did get away. This way, they can carry the message back to their masters that the Kepler colonies are not to be trifled with. Obviously, they also know that we are not to be trifled with either.” Alec replied.
“You were never someone to be trifled with, according to my older sister.” Jill, the Phoenix’s AI interjected with her pleasant London accent to the laughter of all of the personnel on the bridge. Jill’s image on the viewscreen smiled and winked in response to the laughter.
For many hours after the battle, both privateer and colonial ships combed the space where so many ships and crew died, searching for life pods from ships on both sides of the battle.
The survivors from the Syndicate ships were rescued and treated humanely as those saved from crippled or destroyed colonial ships. However, the Syndicate survivors were placed in custody and exhaustively interrogated to learn about the details behind the attack and any others that might have been initiated by Ms. Buckman beforehand..
Nearly a day after the end of the battle, Mister Wisp came aboard the Golden Phoenix for the first time. His expression, as he flew in a shuttle towards the large privateer combat tender, revealed just how impressed he was in the massive warship, even with the fresh battle scars on her hull.
“This is a very powerful vessel, Captain Martinson. Without her, we could not have possibly defeated the force that the Syndicate threw against us.” The Kepler liaison said after being led to the combat tender’s bridge where Alec was waiting.
“You can thank Captain Sampson for her presence here. He is the person responsible for getting this beast put together and getting her ready for combat. Phoenix is a hell of a ship though, I will admit. She took the fight right to the enemy and crushed them.”
“How long do you think it will take before she is ready for operations again, Captain?
“I don’t know yet. All of our ships have been damaged in this battle, several quite severely including this one. I have to wait until Colin and his techs make a full damage assessment of all of our ships. Then he has to look at all of the salvage that we have collected from the wrecked Syndicate ships to see how much of it can be used to repair own vessels. At a minimum, it will take a couple of months. But this is an extremely tentative estimate.”
A very-lifelike blonde-haired beauty appeared on one of the combat tender’s bridge monitors just then.
“What the captain is trying to say, Mister Wisp, it that I took a pretty nasty beating during the last battle. The Syndicate task force tried very hard to kill me in particular. My commander doesn’t want to push me back into the fight until he is absolutely certain that our senior repair specialist can get all of my damage repaired. He is rather protective of me that way, you see.” Jill explained.
“Who is the woman that your AI used as a model for her avatar? She is absolutely gorgeous, Captain.”
“I had to look her up myself. Jill Ireland was her name. I guess that Rita and her sisters really like using 20th Century actresses as models for their avatars. Rita, Alacrity’s AI, patterned the appearance of her avatar after Rita Hayworth. Joan patterned hers after an actress named Joan Collins. Every time that I talk with any of them, I feel like they are trying to seduce me too. But Joan is definitely the ‘bad girl’ of the lot of them.” Alec explained with a shrug of his shoulders.
“I wonder how they will react when you finally get a real flesh and blood girlfriend, Captain?”
“Honestly, I just don’t know. Hopefully, they are all willing to share. Obviously, I won’t have any privacy at all at the station or on either Alacrity or Phoenix unless the ‘sisters’ choose to give it to me.” Alec said with a shrug of his shoulders.
Mister Wisp laughed for a minute before commenting.
“Your AI is of Libertad origin, isn’t it? They do produce the highest quality and most capable AI software in the entire Orion Arm.”
“Yes, she is.”
“I am a little surprised in a way. You would think that with the people at Libertad being such religious zealots, that the AI software personalities would be somewhat ‘inhibited’ or a bit prudish.”
“I haven’t found that to be the case at all. In anything, Rita and her sisters all seem to have a certain zest for life, at least in terms of the sort of life that an artificial intelligence would have. I also have a person from Libertad on my staff. I have not found him to be particularly prudish either. He believes strongly in the things that are important to him, certainly. I have to say that his morality and judgement are also both beyond reproach as well. Based on personally knowing him and knowing the characteristics that the Libertad computer programmers built into Rita, I would not call the people from Libertad religious zealots at all.”
“I suppose that the various Syndicates and other organizations who want to take advantage of the people at Libertad are the real source of this widespread belief. Libertad’s government and people certainly are very difficult to bargain with if one of their core beliefs or priorities is threatened. If you want to try to exploit any resources within their system, much less their home world, they will not budge one single centimeter either. They have what many people look at as essentially a fetish about their environment. They won’t put any factories on their home world that we are aware of. All of their industrial plants are on orbital facilities or asteroids within their star system. All of their mining is done in space also.”
“I know. If someone from Libertad draws the line on an issue, you might as well give up. They will not give in. My guy even endured being tortured very nearly to death by one of those jihadists from The True Way without giving up any information. That is just how stubborn they can be. But they are also honest to a fault. So if someone from that world gives you their word, you can absolutely count on it.”
“Well, Captain Martinson. I need to go ahead and work out the rest of the details for the rest of the claims for salvage and war prizes. Please let me know when your unit is ready for action again. My government and I offer our thanks for the excellent work that you and your people have done on our behalf.”
“We certainly appreciate your support, Mister Wisp. Without it, we could not have defeated this Syndicate force.”
“You are quite welcome. By bringing the Belair Syndicate to fight in a decisive battle, you made it possible for their power and influence in the Orion Arm to finally be broken. Now, they will have no choice but to trade with us and the other colonies in a fair and honorable manner. They cannot threaten us any longer.”
“What are you going to do with the survivors from the Syndicate fleet that we have captured or rescued, Mister Wisp? There are going to be quite a few of them based on whose we have already taken into custody and the number of life pods that we are still tracking.”
“They will be interrogated individually to learn the disposition of the assets that the Syndicate stole from us. We will also be looking for any persons who are guilty of criminal activity so that they can be tried in a court of law. Those who are innocent of any criminal activity will be returned to their homes upon their p
ledge of parole.”
“I trust that you will not mistreat any of the Syndicate personnel that you have in custody. Obviously, we have to follow the laws governing warfare. Otherwise, we would not be particularly civilized in our actions out here either.”
“We will, Captain. But, please bear this in mind. There may be evidence of piracy involved regarding the activities of some of the Syndicate personnel. That would require us to follow a different set of rules, of course.”
“I understand completely. I’m sure that you will show an appropriate sense of prudence and mercy at the same time. None of us want to be accused of committing a miscarriage of justice, so we? That would reflect badly upon both of our organizations, especially in such turbulent times as these.
At the same time, we do ask that you inform us of any information that you obtain that is relevant to us or that might assist us in our other activities on your behalf.”
“Certainly, Captain. That is a most reasonable request. You are referring primarily to information on the Lu’non, correct?”
“Yes, I am.” Alec replied without saying anything about how close the privateers’ base was to the Lu’non border.
“Well, Mister Wisp. If you will please excuse me, my people and I still have a lot of work to do before we can head back home. Good luck and thank you again.” Alec concluded before asking one of his technicians to escort the Kepler liaison back to his shuttle.
It took several additional days before the disposition of the majority of the Syndicate ships could be determined. That was because so many of their ships had continued to drift at high velocity after being crippled from weapons fire. In some cases, it meant searching for multiple major segments of a larger ship that had broken up as a result of an explosion.
All of those segments could potentially hold significant salvage value because of the equipment that they possibly still contained. Alec and Colin wanted to take full advantage of every credit’s worth of materiel that they could gain in the aftermath of this fight.
Chapter Forty Four:
New Hope Station
YBP 1194 Star System, M 67 Star Cluster, Orion Arm
August 31, 2322
Alec and Golden Phoenix had returned to their home station in order to begin the combat tender’s repairs and to give her crew a well-deserved break. Everyone coming in could see that Alacrity was still inside of the main chamber, but notably Fireball, one of the privateer group’s two jump tenders, was not there. She had been dispatched already for other reasons.
Shortly after their return to the station, Alec and Joanna were in his office at the station’s command center going over some of the post-battle reports. As usual, Joan; the station AI, was looking over their shoulders.
“I’ll be glad when all of our people are back home. I know that we won the battle. But we lost too many friends and shipmates at the same time, Sir.” Joanna remarked.
“I know. But I hope that the price that we paid will be worth it in the long run. At least, Colin will be returning later with his salvage. He will be bringing most of it aboard the Syndicate jump tender that we are claiming.
Prinz Eugen is a big ship too, with twelve full docking collars and comfortable accommodations for more than one hundred passengers. She had been one of the Belair Syndicate’s premier jump tenders and as such, was very well armed for a civilian transport. She will be a major asset for us as well. We can make very good use of a third jump tender, especially this one.
Fireball is currently travelling to rendezvous with Prinz Eugen at one of the coreward star systems. Then they will be able to transfer enough of our personnel to that former Syndicate jump tender to bring the latter safely home to our station. Then, the Syndicate crew will be able to go back to their homes without ever seeing where our home base is.”
“Well, that is certainly a relief, Sir. Keeping the secret of our base’s location is absolutely vital to our safety. But, just because we eliminated most of Belair Syndicate’s military arm and the corporate head who had apparently pushed their aggressive agenda doesn’t necessarily mean that someone else won’t try again.”
“That is true. But it is very unlikely based on what we have learned from our interviews with some of the captured Syndicate officers. Ms. Buckman was certainly the driving force behind the attacks against our clients. With her failure and death, there won’t be a lot of stomach for additional hostilities. Her enemies within her own organization, of which there were many because of her confrontational style, are already jockeying for position. Making another move against the Kepler colonies will not be high on their agenda. Besides, our clients will be in a much stronger position to resist another attempt. The Kepler leadership has already signed contracts to construct battlers to replace all of the vessels that they lost in the battle, plus several more to supplement them. ”
“I also talked to a few of the Syndicate crew members while we were taking control of their ships. Almost every single one of them hated Lindsey Buckman with a passion. Apparently, she was not a very pleasant person at all, even to her own people. That probably explains why most of them surrendered so easily after the combat tender that she was on was destroyed towards the end of the battle.” Colin explained.
“Somehow, that doesn’t surprise me. But, I what I am most interested in is if we still managed to obtain a fair settlement with the Kepler people, Sir.”
“Yes, I think so. The Kepler folks lost one of their combat tenders and four of their battlers in the battle. But between their forces and ours, we managed to capture two of the Syndicate combat tenders and destroy five others. Virtually all of the Syndicate battlers were either destroyed or very heavily damaged before they surrendered. Our battlers and fighters were able to pursue the Syndicate reserve jump tender force and convince them to surrender with the exception of that one jump tender that escaped.”
“I suspect Colin and that big battler of his was very convincing.” Joanna said with a smile.
“Oh, I am very sure of that. I have told Mister Wisp that we are going to claim two of the Syndicate Conestoga’s along with all of the weapons and other materiel aboard those vessels as part of our compensation. That will still leave the Kepler people with an additional six jump tenders, two combat tenders and fourteen cargo shuttles to replace their losses. The Kepler colony can build replacement battlers a lot faster and less expensively than replacing jump-capable vessels. This is why the readily agreed to our terms.
Even so, we did tell the Kepler people that we were going to keep one of the former Syndicate jump tenders to bring back salvaged ships for us. The ship we chose was the Prinz Eugen.”
“We are not going to let a Syndicate-crewed jump tender come all the way to our base, are we? Their crew will surely tell everyone in the Orion Arm about the location of our base, Sir.”
“Don’t worry. We are actually going to have our new jump tender drop off the Syndicate crew at a nearby colonized star system rather than our own. But it will be close enough to our base and far enough away from the regular shipping lanes for us to then send some of our own available people from aboard Fireball to adequately man Prinz Eugen. Then both jump tenders will travel with all of the salvaged battlers and shuttles for the final legs back to our home station.”
“What about all those little drone combatants that Colin’s little electronic trick lured away from the battle?”
“Oh, I already have Hidden Blade and Buccaneer’s Dream out there collecting those little vessels for Colin. We are going to keep the vast majority of those little vessels for ourselves. Our Kepler friends do want a few of them for reverse engineering purposes, however. We might let them have a couple, but the rest are going to be ours.
Colin thinks that he will be able to refit the ones that we are going to keep to also carry a few missiles on external pylons in addition to their internal charged particle cannon. That will definitely add to their punch.
I plan on using the drones to supplement our defenses back home. Ou
r station’s AI will be able to control them all and prevent any adversary from hacking the drone control links like we did. We have already designed a patch for that particular vulnerability.”
“What about the rest of the salvage, Sir?”
“I have already been talking to Mister Wisp. As I mentioned earlier, we are going to let the Kepler forces keep the two captured combat tenders and all but one of the captured jump tenders. That will compensate the Kepler colonial navy for their losses and give them a more than fair distribution of the wealth. The jump tenders are going to be more useful to the Kepler people anyway because those ships can be pressed into service immediately as commercial vessels. That is a fair compensation for the jump tenders that had been captured or destroyed earlier by Syndicate forces over the course of this overall conflict.
But we are still going to get the pick of the litter concerning the rest of the salvage though. I heard Colin already talking about perhaps being able to salvage several of the Syndicate battlers or at least to bring them back to the base to use for spare parts.” Alec explained.
“I expect that Colin is going to be very busy for the next few months doing repairs on our ships in addition to trying make some of those Syndicate ships operational again.” Joanna noted.
“Oh, yes. I don’t think that I have seen him happier. He is already using his battler to push a crippled Syndicate battler to the jump tender that we are claiming as a prize. He thinks that we can get at least six to nine more battlers attached to the tender’s docking collars. We also have our fighters searching the star system for more crippled Syndicate battlers for Colin. He wants all that he can get a hold of, for sure.”
“How many of them does Colin think that he can refit? Joanna asked.
“He says at least half of them. It seems that a great many of the Syndicate ships were of the same Broadsword class. Colin has been trying to mostly select ships of that class from the post-battle wreckage because of the commonality of parts within that design. This particular ship class is a little larger than our own Archers and with roughly similar characteristics, but at least a generation newer in terms of general technology. There is also one or two larger battlers that Colin also wants to try to salvage, but they will be more of a challenge, he says.