"I've already cut orders to have our courier patrol craft locate the marines and other search groups and order them here without delay. We'll be dropping messages buoys as we go for them to follow. I've done my utmost to emphasize the urgency of re-joining us in my wording of those orders. Does that meet your approval, Lieutenant?"
"I'm sorry, sir. I didn't mean to seem presumptuous. I don't see what more you can do."
"That's okay. It's a difficult problem and a lot is riding on getting it right. I've come to depend on your operational suggestions almost as much as the excellent intelligence you've provided. You know what the reward for a job well done in this man's navy is?"
"Yes, sir. A more difficult job," Torson replied. "That brings me to my second recommendation, which is that we have the whole task force concentrated before tackling this new pirate base once we find it."
"I'll take that under advisement," the Commodore said. "If we find that base and if I think the rats are deserting it I intend to move in and stop that. I'm willing to take risks to complete the mission. That's my job. It's what I get the big bucks for."
"Yes, sir."
6: Like to Leave
The good of work is skill
And of action, timing
The Pirate Chief was pawing thoughtfully through the Chang girl's closet. She owned some rather frilly dresses. He found that interesting.
They'd jumped out of the dim little system, SC10184 if he remembered correctly, where they'd taken the Chang's Venture, now renamed the Black Luck, almost twelve hours ago. He'd spent most of that time getting some badly needed rest. He'd used the Chang girl's bed and quarters and had slept well.
Intellectually he understood that normal people, decent people would believe he ought to be guilt ridden and appalled at the atrocities he'd committed. They would imagine he ought to be resting uneasy out of guilt. He was plagued by no such problems. All he felt was satisfaction at a plan that was coming together. As well as a certain pleasure in his complete control of others' fates. He liked playing God or more accurately maybe the Devil. Certainly the Devil did seem to have more fun.
Time to get to business.
"You were watching the Chang girl during the welcoming ceremony, Doctor?" the Pirate Chief asked. It was a rhetorical question he knew damned well the Doctor had been observing her behavior intently.
"A very serious young woman," the Doctor replied. "Very confident and focused for her age. It matched the reports we had on her." Like the Pirate Chief he found the frilly dresses an interesting qualification to both those reports and what they'd seen of her so far.
"Explain these?" the Pirate Chief said holding up one of the more flamboyant fabric concoctions found he'd found in the young woman's wardrobe.
"She likely rationalizes it to herself as a double barreled means of gaining an edge in negotiations," the Doctor replied. "The frivolity of the garment being conducive to negotiating opponents underestimating her. Also injects a degree of not totally appropriate sexual attraction. Particularly in societies dominated by men likely to disconcert many individuals. Also likely to induce jealousy in many older women."
"But?"
"But although she may believe herself relatively immune to the emotions that cloud the thoughts of other, I believe it reveals a secret desire to be more feminine and frivolous."
"Girls just want to have fun?"
"Almost by definition everyone likes to have fun," the Doctor replied. "The pervasive denial of this is a symptom of the exploitive nature of large scale societies."
"So our young Jeannie Chang secretly longs to throw off the chains of her social obligations and run wild?"
"No need to exaggerate," the Doctor said, "but yes the tendency almost certainly exists and I do look forward to having the chance to work with it."
"Yes, yes," the Pirate Chief replied. "We'll get to that. However, before tackling her mental fortifications we must convince her her physical situation is hopeless."
"I shouldn't think that would be very difficult. She is a prisoner of heavily armed pirates light years from any help."
"True. You'd think any rational person would recognize that," the Pirate Chief said. "Still my experience of people that age is that they think they're both immortal and invincible. In general they have little experience of failure or frustration. This girl in particular is used to succeeding at whatever she tries."
"She did do a number on our boarding party," the Doctor said.
"She did," the Pirate Chief agreed. "Likely she's telling herself that her failure was just bad luck and over confidence. Not insurmountable odds."
"You want to give her another chance to fail?" the Doctor asked. "That seems arrogant too. She can do a lot of damage before failing to escape, and if she gets herself killed in the process that's no win for us either."
"I don't have to give her a chance," the Pirate Chief replied. "She'll make one herself. I have faith in the young lady. She doesn't know we know of the Chang policy against paying ransoms. She must be desperate to make her move before we learn of it, and before we have her locked up in purpose built security on our base."
"So sometime in the next few days while we're in normal space probably," the Doctor said.
"Correct. She has to plan to seize the ship if she's to escape and she has to disable the History's Revenge once she's done so to get away. So yes, normal space. Likely while we're on approach to our base. She'll want us to be distracted. She'll want to come back and do a Caesar on us."
"And she probably thinks we're the insane ones."
"Hey, nothing wrong with ambition. She's going to be a heck of a lot of fun," the Pirate Chief said. "I've a lot of faith in myself too, and I've got most of the game pieces, but I'm expecting her to make a good run of it. I'm going to really enjoy slapping her down."
"I find despair has the flavor of a fine wine myself," the Doctor said. "I do so enjoy working with you."
* * *
Only constant scheming in the privacy of her own mind prevented Jeannie from suffering terminal boredom.
She'd been pretending total blank despair for days now. Staring at the bottom of the bunk above you and sleeping a lot was not very exciting. She thought her guards were buying her act, but just the same they hadn't relaxed to any great degree.
She'd been very careful to keep them from noticing her observation of them. That had paid off. They weren't having long conversations about sensitive subjects in her presence, but they were slipping up. They weren't being as careful about suppressing any hints of what was going on.
This was one respect in which having many guards was a blessing. If she'd been locked in by herself with the lights at a constant level and meals and toilet breaks at irregular intervals, it would have been hard to tell the day or time, let alone what was happening in the wider world.
As it was she knew they were now in the same system as the hidden pirate base that was their final destination and would be docking within a couple hours at most. Ship feel and sounds hinted at that, after the last jump it'd felt like they were dumping more velocity than would be normal for a system transit. A guard's casual remark to his relief that he was glad to be finally done had confirmed her surmise.
It was just about time for her to escape.
It depended on them keeping the usual toilet break schedule for her. Tied down in her bunk she wasn't going anywhere.
There was no doubt her escape was going to take some luck. Couldn't be helped. Still they'd been taking her to the restroom and changing the guards at the same time, so as to have double the guards present without inconveniencing themselves. It was reasonable to hope they would continue to avoid apparently unnecessary hassle. They'd been surprisingly disciplined, but who goes out of their way to prolong a boring work shift?
A short while later Jeannie heard the coded rap on the cabin door announcing the arrival of a new shift of guards. Yes!
One of the pair of guards already present got up and opened the door.
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"Still imitating a sick sack of potatoes?" one of the new guards asked.
"Yep," answered the guard opening the door, "What a wimp. Youngsters these days are all such delicate flowers. A little blood and things not going their way and they check out."
"Rich man's daughter, probably pretty spoiled," the first guard responded.
"Supposedly took out a bunch of the boarding party," a third guard said.
"Well knowing some fancy kung fu tricks and ambushing some guys who got cocky doesn't make you a real fighter," the guard who'd spoke first said.
"Captain's not taking chances with her just the same," the fourth and final guard put in.
"Suppose he'd not be pleased if we skipped letting her eat, crap and wash up just this once," the first guard said.
"Captain gives explicit orders," the last guard said, "he expects them to be obeyed."
"No kidding," the first guard said. "Wouldn't want to end up like Jerry."
"Amen," came the the response from a couple of the other guards.
Jeannie filed away a question as to who Jerry was and what had happened to him.
Right now she needed to focus on the immediate tactical situation. The guards weren't currently in her field of vision. Previous glimpses of them suggested they'd be wearing light partial armor covering their torsos, crotches, and the fronts of their thighs and shins.
They'd be armed with a couple knives each, a long and a short one. They'd each have both a lethal fully automatic machine pistol and a small caliber semi-automatic pistol with selectable ammunition probably both lethal and less likely to do permanent damage. In additional to that fairly normal set of arms they'd have both tasers, and stun sticks.
Critically they didn't keep their pistols strapped down in their holsters. At least around her, they kept them ready for quick use.
Jeannie had also seen various objects attached to their belts that she suspected were stun or gas grenades of some sort. She suspected the bulge they all seemed to have in one of their breast pockets was a light emergency gas mask of some sort.
The pirates were equipped for brutally controlling prisoners as well for regular close quarters fighting.
It was all good. Jeannie intended to make the pirates' equipment her's. The better equipped they were, the better equipped she'd be.
"Let's get on with it," a guard said. "Hey, princess rise and shine," they then yelled her way.
Jeannie acted as if she hadn't heard. She continued to stare straight up.
"Geez, we're going to have to manhandle and carry her out again aren't we?" another guard asked.
"Of course and we're not even allowed to feel her up a little while doing so," came the resigned reply of yet another guard. Jeannie thought it was probably the first of the new guards. She did her best to notice and retain every detail about them even if it was of no obvious or immediate use. "Not worth risking a prized body part for the thrill," that guard continued.
"Too bad we can't use one of the slave prods on her," another guard grumbled.
"All your body parts attached, living without excruciating pain, no extra humiliating duty for years on end, these are all good things," said the guard who'd been the last to speak originally. Guard four Jeannie was calling him in the absence of a name. He seemed calmer and more than deliberate than the others, his female partner in particular. Make a note of that.
"Right," the first guard said as strong hands reached in grabbed Jeanne on one side. "Sam, help me. You two cover us."
Another pair of hands grabbed her by her legs, as the first pair grabbed her under her arms. They literally carried her into the rest room and plopped her down on the open toilet.
"Got your attention?" Guard one asked her staring her straight in the eyes.
Jeannie blinked at him. "Yes," she whispered.
"Good," Guard one said. "Strip, or we'll do it for you. You know the routine.
Jeannie did, but she'd been consistently uncooperative and this was a new low in contempt and impatience from her captors. Previously they'd been unhappily patient.
At first Jeannie moved with fumbling slowness.
She pulled down her pants and did her business in the toilet. She slipped free of the pants entirely and fumbled the water on half leaning into the shower stall.
She ascertained the guards were both a bit distracted, turned the water onto full scalding hot and sprayed them both in their faces.
She leaped between them towards the restroom door grabbing their machine pistols as she did so.
Landing in a crouch on her feet, she independently aimed each gun at the faces of the two startled guards in the main room and fired off a pair of bursts. Sheena had once told her that for anyone else this sort of thing was a stupid fiction seen in unrealistic action movies. Jeannie's genes and a fair amount of practice made it a very handy reality for her.
Less than a minute had passed, but the two restroom guards were reacting like the hardened professionals they were. They weren't fast enough to aim let alone fire before Jeannie was able to twist around and shoot them in their faces too.
Stage one had worked.
Had anybody heard the machine gun fire?
She worked as quickly as she could stripping the smallest female guard of her armor and outer clothing, quickly rinsing off the most obvious gore, she kept one machine pistol, a small pistol and several knifes. She took all the grenades.
She listened briefly at the door. No sounds of running reinforcements. No alarms were sounding.
She exited the room and ran aft. She needed to make sure of engineering first.
The two pirates she met on the way both went down with knives to the throat before they could call out.
She paused briefly outside the hatch to engineering, and listened for anything unusual, or just useful. Nothing.
She entered her owner override codes into the hatch security pad and forced both doors to open simultaneously with maximum dispatch. A very dangerous mode to allow on a space ship that could lose atmosphere, but useful in this circumstance.
She fixed the space's layout in her mind and dived through the open doors. Hitting the deck she rolled several feet to the base of the main machinery control consoles. Power, life support, water, three sorts of propulsion, fire fighting, and emergency air lock controls all redundantly provided for made for a lot of controls even with modern automation.
A watch of four people was normal.
As Jeannie reached the consoles she jumped up and knifed the man standing closest to her. That left four people. One extra. Looked like McKittrick had been checking up on the watch.
Looked bad. She didn't waste time bemoaning her bad luck, she turned her back on her former engineer towards a man and a woman who'd been sitting watching displays. They were just starting to stand, pulling out weapons as they did so. She knifed one in the throat and shot the other in the face. Very useful being an ambidextrous multi-tasker.
More shots sounded behind her. She whirled to find McKittrick and the other watchman had shot each other point blank in the guts.
McKittrick slumped back against a console trying to hold his charred guts in.
The other last pirate watchman was sprawled on the deck. McKittrick must have surprised him. Surprised her. No time to think about that. Must focus.
Jeannie shot him twice more just to make sure. Once center of mass. Once in the head. Sheena had told her horror stories about anti-insurgent actions under the guise of training. Despite being a combat experienced ex-marine, or maybe because of it, Sheena was distinctly pacifistic in her outlook. Violence may be necessary, it is never desirable.
She strode over to McKittrick.
"Must be in shock," he said. "I can feel that it hurts but it seems far away."
Jeannie just nodded. There was little useful she could say and she didn't have much time.
"Your codes will still work," McKittrick said. "I didn't believe there could be anything as evil as these pirates. I never imagine
d I'd become one of them." He closed his eyes and sighed. He looked dead but Jeannie slit his throat to make sure. He'd likely saved her life, but his loyalties were definitely confused.
Later she could indulge in nightmares about it.
She didn't have the time now. Control of engineering meant control of everything inside the ship. Two problems, she couldn't just vent all the vermin in human form, there were almost certainly members of her own crew being held prisoner onboard. Unlike McKittrick they'd not turned traitor and committed moral outrages to cement their new loyalty. They wouldn't be already either dead or dying either. It wasn't her right to decide for them that being dead was better than being a pirate captive.
Her second problem was that although it was possible to control propulsion from engineering it was not practical to navigate, or employ the ship's weapons from there.
She did what she could. Some spaces, the passenger lounge she'd overheard the pirates saying was now their main mess, the area around the armory, the gym other places she thought there'd only be pirates right now she vented. She triggered non-lethal fire control measures, water mist and foam everywhere else possible, it'd make the pirates lives more difficult without killing any prisoners. She locked all the spaces and accesses she could only allowing herself a route to the bridge. She switched propulsion control to answer only to her codes. Finally she set engineering to go into full lock down on a short time delay and ran.
She retraced her steps from the passenger section. She met no more pirates. They were dead, locked in their cabins or at their now useless duty stations. Plan was working so far. She found the passenger cabin directly below hers above on the crew's quarters deck.
There was a manual emergency access hatch connecting the two cabins. Unlike on a military ship it was discretely hidden instead of being clearly marked. Passengers and crew were briefed on them explicitly as part of their mandatory safety briefing. Jeannie could only hope the pirates had not bothered to read the ship's safety manual.
Emerging out of the deck in her now strangely unfamiliar quarters, she noticed they'd been used by a pirate. Apparently pirate discipline didn't extend to making the bed. Fortunately the new occupant was elsewhere. A successful surprise assault through the emergency hatch would have been difficult.
Pirate Stars Page 9
