Contents
Title Page
Copyright
1: Poor Little Rich Girl
2: Giving Orders
3: Departure
4: Trapped
5: A Welcoming Ceremony
6: Like to Leave
7: Situation Developing
8: A Shopping Expedition
9: Mind Games
10: A Startling Performance
11: Puppets
12: The Valley of Death
13: God Disposes
14: Amidst the Rubble
15: New Beginnings
Request Review
PIRATE STARS
Andrew van Aardvark
Copyright © 2020 NapoleonSims Publishing
Www.Naploeonsims.com/publishing
All rights reserved.
Cover Image: Space Ships Battling ID 77147906 (c) Algol at Dreamstime.com | Background Stars (c) Brandon Siu at Unsplash.com | Saturn (c) NASA
1: Poor Little Rich Girl
The ever wanting soul
Sees only what it wants
Sometimes when you're standing on the edge of the abyss you just need to jump in.
A heady and out of character thought for Jeannie Chang. All the same one she couldn't help believing might be the only rational way of thinking about it.
They'd been grooming her to be a leader since before she was born. Her father was cagey with the details, and her Beyonder mother who she barely remembered had long since departed, but reading between the lines it seemed clear to Jeannie that her mother had indulged in some genetic tinkering with her. Jeannie guessed without her father's buy in and perhaps not entirely within the bounds of legality. Not that any Beyonder paid much attention to anyone else's laws. They wouldn't have gone Beyond if they'd wanted to do that would they have?
Her father had gone as far as forbidding her to take any IQ tests. It made as much sense as forbidding her to have her palm read in one of the bazaars they occasionally visited. Nobody took those tests that seriously.
Still Jeannie loved and respected her father and she'd deferred to his wishes. Not that it wasn't obvious she was pretty damned smart. She might be smarter than anyone she'd ever met. She wasn't sure. She was young for a certainty. Beautiful too to all appearances.
Jeannie wasn't sure why that was such a big deal. Mostly brought her awkward attention she didn't want. She'd read, and been told too, that people were more easily influenced by attractive people. Well that might be useful though she hadn't seen much evidence of it. She supposed it might make getting along with whoever she was married off to a bit easier. He'd be picked for economic and political reasons not because she liked let alone loved him. So she might appreciate that when she was older.
If her damned brother hadn't gotten himself killed and left her stuck as her father's heir maybe it'd have made a bigger difference. Giving her more personal choices than she had now.
Well she did have more strength, faster reflexes, and better perception than most people. Had never had that tested for either. Her father had been at pains that she should be careful not to let outsiders notice her advantages so she had to think they were real. Since she really enjoyed martial arts and winning too she counted herself lucky for those.
Truth be told she knew damned well nobody was going to feel sorry for her for being young, good looking, rich, and powerful. Just wasn't going to happen. She felt silly for feeling sorry for herself.
She'd been bred and trained her whole life to make decisions. Now faced with her first real independent decision of any consequence she had no idea what to do.
She'd scream out loud at the stars she was looking at, but that'd bring her guards running and likely end up putting the whole station on alert. Likely mean a lockdown and significant inconvenience to thousands of people who'd just been going about their own business. Best that she didn't indulge herself in a scream.
Here she was having her own private pity party, and not only did she owe her people a decision in the next few minutes, she was going to have to defend it, well rationally justify it, in an all-hands meeting.
Truth was she shouldn't be making this decision. Her father had delegated to her the responsibility for first planning an expedition to the Beyonders opposite across the frontier in this sector, and then that for actually organizing it. Nobody had expected her to be making the final decision on just when it should depart.
The final critical decision.
It'd been obvious as soon as they'd learned of the SDF's campaign to suppress the local pirates that a huge trading opportunity was going to open. The Beyonders out core from settled space in the sector had been cut off for years. Mostly they were self sufficient but there was no way relatively small, primarily space borne, populations could hope to supply the range of products available from Core Space and the mother planet in particular. No there was no doubt a ready market for a wide variety of goods available to who ever managed to reach it first. A market able to pay with stock piled heavy metals and rare isotopes that had largely been mined out in the more densely settled parts of space. It'd been Jeannie's job to set up the Chang clan's effort to exploit the opportunity. They were now ready to go.
Only one final question remained. Had the SDF finished all the pirates off yet? Was it actually safe to venture into space previously too dangerous because of the pirate bases hidden there?
Her father was supposed to be here at Pedlar's Haven. It was supposed to be his decision. Only he wasn't and now Jeannie was on the hot seat.
Everyday they delayed the fixed costs of keeping the expedition on hold rose higher and higher, as did the risk one of their competitors would beat them to the punch and skim off the cream of the initial extremely high profits to be expected from reopening trade with the Beyonders.
The SDF high command had not yet publicly announced its successful suppression of the pirates. Its spacers and marines who frequented a variety of not so high brow bars throughout the sector were not so reticent. They'd bragged freely about the various pirate bases they'd found and taken. The ships they'd hunted down and destroyed. The pirates they'd either killed or taken captive. They all preferred to kill them but the law and practicality required them to accept surrenders if they were tendered.
Five pirate bands had been eliminated. The Chang clan's spies were clear on that much. And there were only five pirate bands known to have existed for certain in the sector.
So there were several questions Jeannie needed answered. Was there another pirate band, or bands, that hadn't been well known? There were fantastical rumors about a sixth band. Had any ships escaped from the already known bands? Surprisingly Jeannie's intelligence analysts insisted that there was a high likelihood they'd all been captured or destroyed. The real bottom line question was whether their planned expedition to the Beyond on the Chang's Venture was likely to encounter any pirates that remained.
Seemed obvious to Jeannie that given a minimum of caution the answer to that question was "no"; it wasn't likely what pirates remained, if any, were any real threat.
Unfortunately that wasn't enough. Sad fact was they really couldn't be sure what pirates there'd been or how many were left, or what part of space they were haunting. Pirates didn't give out orders of battle or their travel plans strangely enough. They'd never know for sure and most assuredly not in any timely fashion.
Some possible risk was unavoidable.
Her nominal subordinates, all much older than her, and with vastly more experience, weren't comfortable with her making a decision that could lose them all their lives and the clan a significant fortune.
Not much she could do to change that. She couldn't make herself older or more experienced. She was just going to have to suck it up and do he
r best. If she punted this decision now, it could be costly to the clan, and she'd have a hard time ever being accepted as a real leader. She had to step out of father's shadow at some point.
This was the time. They'd have to take the risk.
* * *
At the same time and not far away by the standards of interstellar distance the Pirate Chief waited.
Waited not very patiently on his flagship, the History's Revenge, currently powered down to deep stealth mode among the debris forming a ring around a mid-sized gas giant. The planet itself orbiting a dim primary in an insignificant system that saw only the most infrequent traffic.
"Drone report," snapped the Pirate Chief.
"Sir, quarter hour reports indicate our drones are still active and functioning and that they have yet to spot anything of interest," his sensor officer reported with a mixture of irritation and stark fear that managed to amuse the Pirate Chief some.
Both the irritation and the fear were justified.
Nothing had changed since the last automated drone report. The drone technology was extraordinarily reliable. Whatever his faults the Pirate Chief did not tolerate the sloppiness common to many pirate bands; the drones were well maintained and had been deployed with professional competence. Moreover there were multiple drones. The drones had not failed, they'd reported nothing yet because there'd been nothing yet to report.
They all knew it.
They all knew better than to say so.
The Pirate Chief's reputation for violent impatience was well earned. People died, died in the blink of an eye if they were lucky, when the Pirate Chief grew bored and impatient.
The Pirate Chief's friend, Dr. Erwin Frankfurter, not his original name of course, dared to giggle.
None of the crew knew it, but the Doctor hadn't always been a madman indifferent to his own safety. Before their capture the Doctor had been a well respected scientist. One of leading lights in the proscribed scientific field of cognitive psychology. It was the practical application of the Doctor's knowledge that had melded him and the Pirate Chief into individuals able to thrive in their new environment.
The not so good Doctor was doubtless infinitely amused by the irony that at one time the person the Pirate Chief had been would have patiently enjoyed the wait while privately elaborating his plans. The Pirate Chief's murderous impatience was of the Doctor's own making.
The Pirate Chief knew the Doctor relished the prospect that he'd soon get to ply his dark science again. That he'd get to make further adjustments to the Pirate Chief's mind that would better suit him to their changing environment.
Irony and the fun of messing with people's minds were what drove the Doctor these days. They were tastes the two friends enjoyed together.
The Pirate Chief whipped out his pistol and aiming at the Doctor yelled "Bang!".
The bridge crew jumped in their seats. The doctor giggled insanely. The Pirate Chief grinned in amusement.
That the adjustments they needed to make were not of their own authorship amused him much less.
Their current wait was the outcome of an Solarian Defence Force campaign that had hounded all the other pirate bands in the sector back to their bases, and then wiped out those bands and their bases both. Generally the SDF did not take pirates prisoner. When they did they frequently executed them after extracting what intelligence they could. A pirate would be lucky to obtain a long sentence to an unpleasant place if they were captured by the SDF.
The Pirate Chief's band had been much more circumspect then most.
The Pirate Chief used many names. Currently to his face and in bars and other dives throughout the sector he was known as "Captain Karl Student". It was a name whispered in fear by most, and dismissed as a vile rumor spread for the purposes of intimidation and extortion by many. Amusingly many who dismissed his very existence publicly, privately paid to avoid his attentions.
More usefully the SDF had no reliable evidence of his existence. The ships he took disappeared and evidence of what happened to them never surfaced. If perhaps some valuable individuals might be ransomed it was done quietly without the involvement of the law, and the hostages once returned did not speak of their experiences.
There was some hope that if he kept a low profile the SDF would declare victory. That they'd call their campaign a success, disband the expensive and now unnecessary task force prosecuting it and for all intents and purposes go home. Go home leaving the Pirate Chief to extract his hidden, quite reasonable, tax from the local smugglers and odd legitimate trader.
Best not to depend on it. Hence the current patience trying operation.
The Pirate Chief's main asset was his secret network of informants.
The marauders who manned his ships and the secret base they worked out of merely leveraged that asset. The Pirate Chief had enjoyed his reign of terror in his hidden kingdom, but all good things, and all bad things, it is after all a matter of perspective, come to an end. He'd like to keep his toys but if need be he'd sacrifice his ships, his base and his men.
He would vanish into his secret network and emerge later when it was safe.
He would bolster the strength of that network as much as possible first. That was the point of the current hunt.
His network was extensive and it was secret, it did not have all the power he could wish. If his intended quarry came his way as he hoped he would gain a new powerful piece to play his game with.
There was reason to expect a ship to come this way. A ship carrying a person of power, and potentially much greater power, who was currently vulnerable.
A person he wished to capture and make his.
* * *
Having made her decision Jeannie strode down the halls of Pedlar's Haven towards her quarters. She did not think a girl's dress would be appropriate wear for the coming meeting.
As she did so she activated her portable comms device.
"Broadcast, all ship's officers and trade group support staff, Chang's Venture," she said into it with clear flat clipped tones.
"Warning Orders group in main conference room, one half hour," she said. "Prepare for departure 0800 hours tomorrow."
If it'd been up to just her, she'd have ordered them to the ship immediately, grabbed her luggage, gone on board, and left. Would have had the Chang's Venture on its way out of dock within the hour. She liked to think things through but then act with dispatch.
Formally she could have done that. In truth it wasn't all up to her. She had to consider custom and the sensibilities of others.
The departure of a ship, especially on a trading mission rather than a simple routine voyage, tended to follow a informal ritual. It would disturb the station's officials, her ship's officers and her crew if she did not follow that ritual.
If questioned they'd all claim rational prudent reasons for their adherence to custom, but Jeannie believed that to be a smokescreen of rationalization for clinging to the reassurance of routine when venturing into the unknown.
Every trip on an FTL ship meant venturing out of communication with the wider world and one's home in particular. Sometimes ships went out and did not come back, or they came back only after severe trials and the loss of crew. It was not something spoken of openly. For public consumption everyone was always optimistic about the outcome of a voyage. Every voyage was basically routine, all would be well within the competence of the adventurers to handle, and a good profit a sure thing. Privately it was understandable people should feel a nervous anticipation.
Jeannie understood all this in theory and so would go through the expected motions.
It did not take long to strip off the dress and return it, tagged as worn, to its place in her room's wardrobe. Her shipsuit, as designed, took only seconds to don, a few more seconds to strap on her side arm and knives, and fit her sword over her shoulder, and she was ready to go.
The weapons which had been unnecessary in a station as secure as Pedlar's Haven for generations were part of the tradition she was
honoring. A part she did not resent. Their familiar heft was a comfort.
A few more minutes striding across the executive section's central atrium at a pace just the right side of dignified and she was entering the main conference room. Dominated by the traditional large table of Earth wood around which her ship's officers and the staff that had prepared her cargo were already assembled.
"Owner Chang we are ready," her captain, one "Patricia Lee", announced. Captain Lee was an older woman, grizzled, dour, experienced and determined she was stocky with an air of being rock solid. She'd served the Chang clan well for all of her long career.
Jeannie took a second to look around and confirm she had everyone's attention. "Good. Please everybody, be seated," she said.
Everybody with the exception of her personal guard, Sheena Matheson, took a chair and sat. It was pointless to ask Sheena to sit. Sheena pushing two meters high and a meter wide, and even more rock like than Captain Lee, was not about to relax on duty. As Jeannie sat down at the conference table's head Sheena moved to stand behind and to the left of her. Sheena relaxed to the extent of assuming parade rest. Jeannie cocked an eyebrow at her and turned in her seat to review the other individuals in the room.
A half dozen sets of eyes looked back at her. She was in charge. It was up to her to start the meeting. "Captain Lee," she said. "Is Chang's Venture ready for departure?"
Captain Lee across the table looked to her left at her First Officer Dahlia Okoro, a slim dark women.
"The crew has been granted final leave for the evening," Okoro responded. "We've been down the roster and every crew member is either onboard ship or staying on station in close proximity. They were all warned to be prepared to be embarked by 0600 tomorrow and I sent the final confirmation orders just prior to the meeting. In the unlikely event any of them should miss boarding we've sufficient key personnel already on board to operate the ship for the duration of the voyage. I did a final inspection of the ship and all personnel just yesterday and the Chang's Venture is ready to go."
Pirate Stars Page 1
