"I can do that," the Commodore replied. "I'm guessing you've at least one more request to make of me and while you're at it please elaborate on the security requirements."
"Ah, yes, sir. To make this work we have to force the mole to use their comms queue backdoor once again," Torson said. "I'm set up to monitor that. I suggest we do that by falling back all the way to Degraff system and communicating with Huygen's Station in near real time but without actually docking there. The need to keep our planned return to the pirate base system secret can be our justification for that. We regroup in system but we do it quickly, quietly and without granting any leave."
"Not going to make me any more popular with the troops, but I can see how it's necessary. We'll do that."
"Excellent, sir. The need for security about each piece of information is because we want to be certain only one individual could have passed it on and because we don't want to make the mole suspicious. Hope you're not offended I'm making that explicit but I think it's critical to be clear about this."
"I did understand where you were going with that," the Commodore replied, "but I agree clarity is critical in these circumstances. There's already too much that can go wrong with this that we can't control. I approve of your caution, Lieutenant."
"Thank you, sir. Regards Lieutenant Hopkins I suggest we give him a special encrypted attachment to include in his secure report back to SDFHQ and tell him it has critical information on the pirate base location and strength. Tell him we're passing it on just in case something happens to the Casablanca so it won't be lost. I'm not sure how to plausibly convince him to keep it secret without hinting we suspect a leak."
"Don't worry about that I'll handle it," the Commodore said. "Like all you spook types the Lieutenant doesn't like to tell his right hand what his left is doing no matter what he's said in briefings. I'll play on that."
"All right, sir," Torson replied. "I guess that just leaves the two communications watchkeepers, Lieutenants Adducci and Khanna. I can handle them."
"Good, you're working me hard as it, Lieutenant," the Commodore said with a slight twinkle in his eyes. Torson having a plan to solve their problems seemed be putting him in a good mood.
"Yes, sir. I figure I'll tell Lieutenant Adducci that we want her to pass on to Huygens that we found the pirate base, but it looks strong and we're uncertain how strong so we're only planning a recce in force. We'll tell her to keep it secret because we're worried about the morale impact of that information."
"Not really pleased about the idea we'd be deliberately keeping our people in the dark, but needs must."
"As you say, sir. I plan to tell Lieutenant Khanna that we need him to pass on the data immediately to the courier ship in the next system while he's on watch because the marines are going to need the time to prepare for a full out assault."
"Okay, that makes sense. How do plan to get him to keep it to himself?"
"It's a little dicey I'm afraid. I plan to tell him we're worried that there are pirate vessels shadowing some of our units and monitoring our communications and that if we restrict the dissemination of information than nobody can give it away inadvertently."
"It both alerts him to the idea that we suspect we may have a leak, and doesn't provide strong motivation to strictly keep his silence."
"I know, sir. It's just the best I could come up with. Lieutenant Khanna tends to be pretty by the book going by his record and it is classic need to know so I think it's reasonable to believe it'll work."
"I imagine that'll have to do," the Commodore said rising and extending his hand. "Good work, Sven. We'll go with that plan."
"Thank you, sir," Torson said rising himself and shaking the Commodore's hand before letting himself out.
It was a plan. Not ideal maybe, but not a bad plan for all that.
* * *
Jeannie was shopping. Happily shopping.
It was only her second visit to the shopping concourse. The first had ended in her failed escape attempt. She thought that was probably a few days ago. Her memories were hazy on that point.
At least this time she was starting her trip wearing something other than a set of orange utility coveralls. The Pirate Chief had let her keep some of the things she'd purchased on that first trip including a very comfortable and stylish ship suit. Jeannie wondered what freighter it'd been plundered off of.
In addition to the ship suit she had a rather attractive choker around her neck. Too bad said choker was doubling as a slave collar. It marked her as not to be fully trusted. It would also knock her out if she drifted too far away from the pair of burly guards that were accompanying her. Additionally they could each trigger it manually if they wished to. Had pain settings for discipline.
The Pirate Chief had explained that with a smile. He seemed to think she could use some discipline and to relish the thought of it being administered. He'd also smiled throughout his presentation regarding the dead man's switch and other elaborate precautions built into the design of the collar and its controllers.
She found it hard to be annoyed with him just the same. Some of that was doubtless the drugs currently in her system, and the repeated conditioning sessions the Doctor had subjected her to over the last few days. Some of it was despite the collar being undeniably a difficult obstacle it was one she'd already thought of several ways to overcome. None of them easy, but it was encouraging that the Pirate Chief was not as clever as he thought he was.
Perhaps the current shopping trip was an example of that. She wasn't sure. Maybe she was playing the Pirate Chief, maybe he was playing her, maybe they were both playing each other and who was to say who was doing so most successfully just yet?
In any event she was free, for some limited value of "free", and shopping for bric-a-brac to prettify her quarters, entertainment of a non-electronic sort, and things to prettify herself, jewelry and clothes.
He'd believed her when she told him that she wanted to buy things that would make her look good for him. They both knew it was true. She did want to look attractive for him, the maybe not so crazy and definitely effective Doctor had ensured that. She didn't care why she felt that way. She did feel that way. She couldn't help it. She felt an overwhelming desire for the Pirate Chief's attention and approval, just thinking of it excited her.
She didn't doubt the Pirate Chief realized she retained some intellectual attachment to being her own woman. She hoped he underestimated it. In any event the man believed in the carrot and the stick both. He wanted to encourage her in her efforts to please him.
His apartments were full of objects both rare and unique.
He valued the quality of such things over mere quantitative wealth and power.
"I'm at the top of the heap in my own little universe here," he'd said. "I have all the wealth any single individual can enjoy, and more real power over those within my reach than any head of government or high ranking military officer does in the core worlds. A man's stomach is only so big, so I value rarities. I value what few or no others can hope to share with me. I try to exercise taste in my poor uneducated way."
Jeannie had thought he'd protested too much. Where ever the Pirate Chief had originated he'd obviously received a fine education and developed refined tastes. More than he was eager to display to his studiously crude followers.
She'd appealed shamelessly to his vanity. "I'm a rare acquisition for you aren't I?" she'd asked. "You want to me to impress by my unique beauty do you not?" she'd wheedled.
He'd understood she was attempting to manipulate him of course but seemed unable to avoid being flattered by her effort. In any event he'd given permission and a practically unlimited credit balance to her. She was to find gowns and jewels, and to make herself look good for his benefit. While she was at it she could pick up some odds and ends, books, pens, other bric-a-brac to make herself more comfortable.
She'd established her taste for reading with the Pirate Chief's own small library of actual physical books. "Guess even you ca
n't hack a paper book," he'd said to her request to buy more. He hadn't noticed the finger nail marks she'd made on the pages of his precious volumes. The marks by words like "cannot", "trust", "any", "one", and "kill" and "head".
Messages from herself to herself, so she'd remember the most important points about who she was and what she must do.
Necessary messages it would seem given the spottiness of her memories of the market. She recognized isolated bits and pieces of it but had no continuous memory of her last trip here.
She had remembered the view from the staircase down, and the use of banners to advertise various wares, she remembered the clothing shop her and Sheena had got their new ship suits in.
Sadly it made sense they'd edited parts of her memory. She must have somehow obtained information useful in escaping that they did not want her to retain. It was scary that they could change a person's memories like that. Just how much of a person's identity was tied up in their memories. She didn't know but she had to think it was a lot of who someone was. Was she really the Jeannie Chang they'd captured anymore?
She wished Sheena was with her. Sheena had been with her on her first trip here. The pieces she could remember made that clear. Doubtless she'd been involved in Jeannie's escape attempt and the Pirate Chief wanted to deprive Jeannie of her help. By herself it was much less likely any effort of Jeannie's to escape would succeed.
Jeannie drifted along in the crowd thinking and just enjoying being around people after a long period of isolation. She stopped to listen to a band playing pirate ditties. She could remember enjoying them on her first trip to the market although both the time before and after was blurred. For some reason Sheena wasn't part of that memory. Odd, she wondered what it meant.
Not far from where the band was playing was a small hole in the wall shop selling "stationary" which apparently mean books of blank paper, pens using ancient technology called "fountain pens" and actual physical books, bound in leather inset with gold leaf and containing real paper pages with fixed sized words printed in ink on the inside.
It was really rather a pity she intended to deface those books with those pens even if ever so slightly with little, arguably accidental, marks by certain words.
Her joy at the fine dress shop just a little further along was almost unalloyed. Ounce for ounce the Pirate Chief certainly wasn't getting off lightly regards her purchases there, there wasn't much to most of the gowns. Mostly they were mere suggestions of cloth meant to tease and draw attention to her natural assets not to conceal them.
And if that was true of her purchases at the dress shop it was even more true of her even more expensive purchases at the jewelry shop she found a little later.
As she spun about admiring the image of her newly adorned self in the concave wall of full length mirrors provided she wondered if the joy and delight she felt at just how excitingly fetching she looked, how provocative she looked, was entirely hers.
Probably not, but it felt good just the same, and her obvious surrender to it should help lull the Doctor and the Pirate Chief into complacency about her intentions.
Too bad she couldn't tell if that wasn't just rationalizing the meddling they'd done with her mind.
* * *
"Lovely my dear," the Pirate Chief said to Jeannie. She was in fact looking quite delectable. The Pirate Chief was quite pleased with her. He was even more pleased with how her education was coming along.
She was standing in the middle of his main receiving room twirling and dipping to display herself to the best advantage for his edification.
It wasn't much more than a week since her last escape attempt. The Pirate Chief wasn't under any illusion that he'd managed to completely subvert her in that time. Even a brutal blunt force, and therefore risky, re-programming would in such a short period would only produce a mono-dimensional personality having limited remnants of the original person left intact. They hadn't had the time to fully subvert her. Not if they wanted her to be able to fake being her old self.
"Thank you, sir," she said, producing a smile and dimples for him. The Pirate Chief smiled in return for although he had no doubt whatsoever she thought she was at least in part faking it for him, he also had no doubt she was doing so much less so than she believed. If the girl had any way to measure just how much the Doctor had modified her emotions and attitudes she'd be appalled.
It was very amusing. She was likely kidding herself more than the Pirate Chief let alone the Doctor. The Doctor was lounging on a sofa watching the whole show with a degree of amusement quite unusual for him.
"Doctor," the Pirate Chief said. "I do think you've managed to quiet the unreasonably negative emotions Miss Chang was taught to feel towards individuals in our line of work."
"Yes, yes," the Doctor said. "I'm quite pleased with her. She's really a very reasonable and flexible woman, as well as very intelligent."
Jeannie managed a smile and a curtsy for the Doctor. It almost prompted the Pirate Chief to get hasty and to attempt to indulge himself with her on the spot. A bad idea, she wasn't likely ready emotionally and until she was she was dangerous to get too close to. The Pirate Chief glanced at the two guards that still accompanied his captive everywhere. Unfortunately they were likely necessary.
"So perhaps time we tried to appeal to that intelligence," the Pirate Chief said.
Jeannie heard him and reacted, bowing in his direction with a flourish, and raising her eyebrows in question.
"I fear my dear that somewhere in that little head of yours with that powerful brain of yours that you still see us, myself and the Doctor, as somehow your enemies," the Pirate Chief said. "As people you must fight and never sincerely co-operate with."
Again Jeannie did not reply verbally, just tilting her head to one side while continuing to eye the Pirate Chief raptly.
"Please dear, you can be honest with us," the Pirate Chief said softly and with every appearance of genuine affection. He was pleased. Her behavior was evidence that the Doctor's work to make her adverse to directly lying to them was working.
Jeannie affected the posture of a little girl being disciplined. Standing straight, hands clasped in front her, contrition but stubbornness too on her face. "I am not free to leave am I?," she said. "I have guards. You took me captive by force, and seized my ship, cargo and crew. You dealt with people who trusted me in an arbitrary and brutal fashion. Those were not the acts of a friend."
"There are two kinds of people in our universe, dear," the Pirate Chief said. "Those who believe there are only two kinds of people in the world and those who don't." He smiled at his formulation.
"Yes, sir," Jeannie said curtsying. She gave him a pretty little pro forma smile. She was less than impressed with his point.
"My dear, I had hoped you'd learned to respect me," the Pirate Chief sighed. "Some at least. 'Name is the mother of the ten thousand things' but 'The name you can say isn't the real name'."
"I am familiar with the Tao Te Ching," Jeannie said flatly.
"Perhaps, but have you really tried to learn it?" the Pirate Chief asked. "Have you taken what it teaches to heart?"
"I'm not clear what mysticism couched in ancient Chinese from thousands of years before space travel has to teach about the modern world except that people are endlessly gullible," Jeannie replied.
Perhaps they'd dialed up the girl's proclivity for straightforward honest bluntness just a little too high. "The point is that although it is useful to label people and other phenomena, to put them in a variety of bins, two or more, it inevitably does some degree of injustice to the complexity and shades of nuance possessed by reality. People are not black and white. They are not all one thing and nothing else. They should not be considered as just either a friend or an enemy."
"Decisions require getting off the pot and picking either 'yes' or 'no'," Jeannie retorted. She hesitated and looked apologetic. "I'm sorry but I think that's true," she said.
"Is your father a friend of yours?" the Doctor asked her
.
Jeannie hesitated.
The Doctor smiled, he knew she wanted to make a quick confident reply that would bolster her case but that the urge was at odds both with her natural intellectual honesty and the increased desire not to deceive that he'd instilled in her over the last few weeks.
"I never really thought to evaluate him in those terms," she admitted. "He's my father, he loves me, our interests are the same."
"And yet he has been making decisions for you since before you were born," the Pirate Chief said. "Decisions intended to further his interests and those of the Chang clan. He altered you at the time of your conception to have a degree of intelligence and of physical prowess that meant you could never fully fit in with the rest of humanity. He gave you an upbringing that further ensured you were isolated from normal human contact with other people. He has imposed huge duties and responsibilities upon you and yet you're barely out of childhood. He has used you as a tool from the beginning at the expense of any chance at true happiness you might have."
"I am happy to serve my clan and my father," Jeannie stated.
"And you were happy to dance for me," the Pirate Chief said.
"Yes, because you've brain washed me into enjoying that," Jeannie said. "Besides it's harmless and makes no real difference that's material."
"And your father and clan who've had you since birth and who have very strong vested interests in your attitudes they haven't in effect brain washed you from the beginning?" the Pirate Chief asked. "I'm not criticizing. It's natural family should want to raise children a certain way, and that somehow respect for one's elders that extends to taking care of them in their old age and always following their advice is often on the menu."
"It's natural for humans to look out for family," Jeannie replied.
"It's natural for humans to look out for themselves first of all, and to want power even when it's not necessarily in their best interest to seek it," the Pirate Chief said.
Pirate Stars Page 15
