Pirate Stars

by Andrew van Aardvark

  Her personal weapons hadn't been tampered with. A blessing. She'd made do with the pirate weapons, but she had a slight but perhaps critical, edge with her familiar tools. The long sword with its high tech edge would make a difference in close quarters.

  Most importantly she found sitting at her console that she still had access. Only from that console and with her override codes was it possible to take remote control of access to the bridge.

  She wondered that the pirates had not interrogated her more throughly about details like this. Maybe they thought they'd had everything they'd needed from Lee or McKittrick.

  Her luck almost ran out as she exited the cabin. She found herself face to face with a startled pirate. She gutted him with a knife in her right hand penetrating just below his chest plate. Stuck another knife in his eye with her left hand. Leaving the knife in his eye and now holding him as a shield she grabbed one of his pistols and shot his mate behind him in his face.

  It was getting old. Exhilarating, the adrenaline rush was huge, but each of these encounters tempted fate.

  One more was unavoidable. It went like clockwork.

  Putting on a captured gas mask and opening the entry to the supposedly secure bridge she chucked in a whole string of gas grenades and some smoke just for variety.

  A flurry of acrobatics and gunfire and the bridge watch of just three pirates was dead. She sealed the bridge entrance and immediately brought up the weapon's controls.

  It was absolutely essential she take out the accompanying pirate ship. The History's Revenge she'd heard it called. There might prisoners on it but she could not successfully escape while it was functional and she was in its weapon's envelope.

  She was locked out. She didn't know how they'd done it but she couldn't access either the missiles or the guns the Chang's Venture carried.

  Time for a new plan.

  Fortunately the two ships were close and on exact parallel courses. A very unusual occurrence but doubtless the pirates wanted to be able to easily transfer between the ships at need.

  She closed the distance to one that was unsafe. Then she spun her ship around with just maneuvering jets showing the pirate her rear end with it's exhaust for her anti-matter powered reaction engines. She climbed into the captain's chair and engaged maximum thrust. Her exhaust plume bathed the pirate in temperatures rivaling that of a star's interior melting a hole in its hull. Unfortunately it also rapidly pushed her clear of her foe.

  She cut acceleration and checked her screens. The gas mask obscured her vision. She cracked the seal and checked the air. Not good but bearable. Fast dissipating gas in those grenades whatever it was.

  She took the mask off in time to see the History's Revenge blow up. Two large pieces and many smaller ones. She felt immense satisfaction. She'd done it. Against all odds she'd done it.

  Doubtless the pirates had other ships in system. Time to make tracks. She strode over to navigation and began to lay in a course.

  She double checked her the figures. She'd made a mistake. That was odd. She was no Okoro but with her genetic gifts she'd been a good navigator since she was a small girl. Her father had taken her everywhere though it'd only been the last few years that she'd been allowed to lay in the courses she calculated herself.

  Something was wrong. Her vision blurred. Gas. But the gas from the gas grenades was fast acting and fast dissipating. A trap. She should have searched before taking the gas mask off. She tried to make her way back to the mask secured by the captain's chair. She stumbled.

  Her legs crumbled. Her head hit the deck. It all went black.

  * * *

  The Pirate Chief was finally getting some rest after cleaning up the mess the Chang girl had left. It had taken hours to rescue the few survivors from the History's Revenge and to free the various individuals trapped in locked down spaces throughout the Black Luck, the former Chang's Venture.

  The Pirate Chief himself had been trapped in a corridor between the bridge and engineering for over an hour. He'd led a party to head off the deadly young woman as soon as they'd lost contact with engineering from the bridge. Somehow she'd gone another route and got behind them.

  It delighted him. He was beside himself with glee. The girl had proved vastly more capable and amusing than he'd dared hoped for.

  It was an amusement he was at some pains to conceal. His pirate minions were by and large much less amused by the destruction and death the young woman had wrought than he was.

  The loss of friends and comrades, the inconvenience and near death experiences many of them had been exposed to, and, although they'd never admit it, the fear of what the Chang girl might do in the future had left most of his pirates bitterly ill disposed towards her.

  He himself had been fond of the History's Revenge and would miss it. The loss of potentially valuable resources like McKittrick offended his naturally frugal soul.

  Logically the losses were unlikely to be of any long term significance, even to some extent beneficial. It was looking increasingly like the SDF would keep searching for his base until they found it. If so he'd need to execute plan "B", and the fewer witnesses to what had happened with the Chang's Venture and the Chang girl the better.

  Obviously he'd need to maintain the pretense of caring for the fates of his openly piratical marauder minions a little longer. It would allow him to play the exquisitely enjoyable role of the Chang girl's protector against the wrath of his follow pirates. It was pleasant to contemplate. He allowed himself to indulge that train of thought.

  "Doctor?" he said.

  "Yes, Captain," that worthy answered.

  "You've had time to review the records," the Pirate Chief said. "What flaw caused the Chang girl to fail?"

  "Arrogance," the Doctor answered without hesitation.

  "Yes, she should have anticipated we'd have some sort of back up plan to keep control of the bridge. It was simple common sense," the Pirate Chief said. "Still it was only extreme self confidence that allowed her to try that escape let alone get as far as she did."

  "You wish to retain that quality?" the Doctor asked.

  "I do," the Pirate Chief replied. "I understand it'll be a tricky challenge, but I trust you and your skills."

  "I look forward to the challenge," the Doctor said. "It will take time and a delicate touch, the results will be next to impossible to verify safely. The subject is far more disciplined and aware than what we generally work with."

  "Do your best, old friend. Now that we have her secured in our facilities here on base we have as long as the SDF will allow us. I expect no more than one to two weeks."

  "Hmmm, some treatment to stretch the subjective time she experiences might be in order," the Doctor mused. His excitement at the task the Pirate Chief had given him was evident.

  The Pirate Chief smiled. "Let the fun begin," he said.

  * * *

  Torson stood on the flag deck of the Casablanca.

  He was there at the behest of the commodore. They'd been tailing the pirate and her capture for several days. So far they'd been lucky.

  The commodore had been right so far about the pirate not pausing to check her back trail. They'd got their system entry timings all right too. Entering each system after their prey had jumped but in time to intercept the event horizon telling them where she'd gone.

  Thanks to the interaction of Einstein's physics coupled with the miracle of FTL they were seeing the pirate, but the pirate wasn't seeing them. In real space nothing, radio waves or light itself traveled faster than light and most systems were at least a few light hours across. The Casablanca was arriving in system in time for the light and radiation from the pirate to reach her, before it had passed and propagated beyond them into deep interstellar space. The pirate usually was gone by then, if not it was before the hours required for the news of the Casablanca to reach where it had been.

  Some minds never wrapped themselves around the ramifications of light speed time lags, but you didn't get to be a commodore in
the SDF if you couldn't at least fake a working understanding of them. They did have some standards.

  Commodore Zanjani was smart and knew his business. He hadn't needed Torson to tell him they must be getting close to the hidden pirate base the ships they were tracking must be going to. He had had the sense and courtesy to consult Torson.

  They were coming up to trickiest part of the whole operation. They could not be certain whether the next system that they'd be entering was another transit system, or if it was the location of the hidden base.

  If it was the base system they wanted to arrive just as the pirate was approaching its base but before it disappeared into it. As they did not know where in system that base was located they did not know the exact time to reach it. They did know given the need to decelerate to the speed of a normal in system object orbiting the system's primary that it would be a longer duration than that of a pure system transit from one jump point to another.

  It was tricky, it gave them a narrow to non-existent time window to hit.

  The commodore smiled at Torson. "Feeling nervous much, Lieutenant?" he said.

  "I'm afraid so, sir," Torson replied. "We're going to be reaching their base soon and there's just no good way to square the circle of finding a good entry time for nailing down the base location versus not losing them if it's another transit system."

  "Yes, and that's before the decision as to whether we should close with their base if we do manage to locate it," the Commodore said. "Yes, they're my decisions you know. I do feel the weight of them."

  "I hate to sound like a brown noser, sir, but you bear it well."

  "I like to think I do. At least that I manage to pretend. It's odd as a hand or junior officer the service values precise attention and command of detail, and strict adherence to well understood procedures, but once you've got independent command you've got to learn not to sweat the details too much."

  It was a promising sign that the commodore was sharing his insights with Torson. Suggested he saw himself as something of a mentor to Torson. It wouldn't hurt to Torson to have another senior officer promoting his career. "I see, sir," Torson acknowledged. "You need to have the moral courage to accept you're going to be responsible for things you can't fully control."

  "Exactly, Lieutenant," the Commodore said beaming. "You need to pick good people and learn to work with them."

  The conversation died after that as they both waited for the imminent jump exit.

  It came with the usual strange flash at the back of the eyes and twisting of the guts.

  "Successful exit of Casablanca into system SC10206," the officer of the watch reported. "Successful arrival of the Daisy. No immediate threats."

  "Very good," the Casablanca's Captain, the commodore's flag captain, said in acknowledgment.

  The Commodore, Torson, and the rest of currently supernumerary officers on the bridge and flag deck kept their peace. Jump exit was no time for extraneous conversation. The bridge crew did not need the distraction.

  A short while later the sensor officer reported, "Pirate ship and prize detected in system. They're decelerating to a position near the innermost gas giant at two point one four light hours distance."

  The system had a pretty bright K2 primary. It'd not been intensively surveyed, but they had known that as well as the fact that the unusually large and close in innermost gas giant had a number of large moons including one close to earth size with a lot of volcanic action, a turbulent low oxygen atmosphere, along with large liquid water oceans. The gas giant and its moon being in the system's habitable zone. For some value of "habitable".

  "One of the moons?" the Commodore asked.

  "Likely the big semi-earth like one, sir," the sensor officer responded. "Impossible to be absolutely certain at this point."

  The commodore had dedicated communications on the flag deck, he turned to the officer manning that console.

  Torson automatically followed the Commodore's attention and idly surveyed the displays and controls while he waited for the Commodore to issue his orders. Torson had had extensive training at one time on communications gear but was a little rusty. Still something was wrong with the bearing of one of the long range communication antennas. It occurred to him in a flash what it meant and without pausing he stepped over beside the flag comms officer and mashed a large red botton on his console. Most of the lights on the communications console died.

  "What the ..." the comms officer began to exclaim.

  "As you were, Lieutenant Olsen," the Commodore snapped. Turning to Torson he bit out "Torson explain," in a menacing tone.

  "Sir, one of the directional antennas was set to point directly in system towards the pirates and that large moon," Torson said.

  "So what?" Lieutenant Olsen asked with indignation. "You can't just go shutting the power to communications on a whim."

  "Lieutenant Olsen, enough," the Commodore said. "Did you set the directional antenna to point in system at the pirates?"

  "No, sir," Lieutenant Olsen said sounding puzzled now. "Any antennas not in use should either be retracted to their rest position or pointed at an accompanying ship. That could only be the Daisy in this case."

  "The Daisy is nowhere near the bearing to the pirates is it, Lieutenant?"

  "Ah, no sir, it's not," Lieutenant Olsen. "Makes no sense."

  The Commodore looked at Torson grimly. This time his anger didn't seem directed at Torson himself.

  "Sir, I don't think Lieutenant Olsen is the problem," Torson said. "Do think there's a problem."

  "Sir, what does he mean?" Lieutenant Olsen asked the Commodore.

  "He means that the only reason that antenna would be pointed that way is because someone with access to our communications wanted to send a message to the pirates," the Commodore replied. "We have a mole. A traitor."

  The bridge had gone dead quiet.

  The Commodore looked around. He had the attention of the entire bridge watch. "Now listen up," he said. "This information will not leave this room. You will not speak to anyone not already in the know about it. You will not even discuss it among yourselves. Is that clear?"

  He looked around demanding a response with his eyes. A mutter of sharp "Yes, sirs," came in response.

  Turning to Olsen and Torson the Commodore said, "Lieutenant Torson you are to relieve Lieutenant Olsen on the flag communications position."

  "Captain," the Commodore continued, "you are to shut down all communications between the bridge and the rest of the Casablanca. You are shut down all external communications. Until further notice all messages leaving this bridge will go first through me and then through Lieutenant Torson."

  "Sir?" the Captain responded.

  "Now, Captain," the Commodore said. "We're in a tricky operational position and we our communications are compromised. We have a traitor and we don't know who or what they're capable of. Lock this place down, now."

  "Yes, sir," the Captain replied. "Lieutenants Prowse and Makowski, please step away from your stations." Prowse and Makowski were manning the communications and engineering positions respectively. They scrambled to obey. With them out the way the captain moved to each of their consoles in turn and stabbed in a series of commands.

  "Sir, all communications both external and to engineering have been routed through the flag communications console. All other communications channels off the bridge have been shut down."

  "Very good, thank you Captain," the Commodore replied. "The Casablanca will maintain course but cease acceleration." As the Captain repeated these orders to the helm the Commodore turned to Torson now seated at Olsen's former station. "Lieutenant Torson, same orders to the Daisy. Via short range whisker laser comms. My orders, she is to shut down all her communications except on that channel, she is maintain course but cease acceleration, she is to stand by for further orders."

  "Yes, sir," Torsen replied before turning to execute the Commodore's orders.

  "Captain, without compromising our focus on the pira
te vessel and where its base is I need a plan to neutralize and then find whoever has compromised our comms. I need it before watch turn over in a couple of hours. You have an hour at most, sooner would be better."

  "Yes, sir. Understood," the Captain replied.

  "Torson," the Commodore said. "The Daisy has its orders?"

  "Yes, sir, sent and acknowledged."

  "Confirmed all communications are via the the flag console only?"

  "Yes, confirmed all communications only through the comm console, external and engineering only."

  "Any idea how the the comms compromise was achieved?"

  "Sir, the logs have the message queued up for routine automatic delivery to friendly ships and bases. The pirate is ID'ed as the SDF ship History's Revenge and supposedly the large moon has SDF Base Never-Never Land on it. The time and sender fields are blank which ought to be impossible."

  "So we're completely compromised and we've no idea who did it?" the Commodore said.

  "Somebody on board given the up to date message contents," Torson replied. "Also someone who's had access to the Casablanca's communications for some time. Some one with restricted knowledge of computer systems, though they could be hiding that. It has to be a short list, sir."

  "Any thoughts you'd like to share?"

  "Yes, sir. I don't think the mole got their message out and if the pirates were depending on them they still don't know we've found them. We should concentrate on locating their base and hitting them as hard as possible as soon as possible."

  "So we wait another hour maybe and act on what we see," the Commodore said. "It's a plan. I'll go with that."

  Most of the next hour passed in a subdued silence. That they had a traitor among them who'd jeopardized the safety of the entire crew was unwelcome news. They all watched the progress of the pirate and her prize intently. Ideally they'd not have to search an entire stormy world almost the size of Earth for the base she was heading to."