We were OK with that. We knew where seven of them were, safely covered by our weapons. Their screams of pain and moaning had to be hard on their comrades. The three groups seemed to be talking to each other as it was becoming obvious they were preparing to rush us again. One of our Troopers started experimenting with grenades, trying to bounce them off the bulkhead and around the corner. After his third try he had some limited success and caused a couple more minor casualties among the pirates. They retreated a little further up the passageway and continued their preparations. Presently two groups of pirates left the central group, one heading towards the bridge, the other towards Engineering.
When the two groups arrived at their destinations, the pirates took a few minutes to build up their courage then they mounted simultaneous attacks on both the bridge and engineering. Once again, they were met with a withering hail of fire from our blocking forces as they rounded the corners to charge our positions. Once again, the pirate forces suffered significant casualties. This time, both forces just left their casualties behind. By now, the pirates who’d made it into the ship had suffered nearly thirty casualties, casualties who could no longer fight and who they couldn’t replace. They’d been able to bring one hundred and twenty people on board. They were now down to about ninety combat effective troops.
So far we only had five casualties, one of them dead, but another one of them still able to fight. That left us with one hundred and thirty-six crew and passengers if I included myself. The rescued civilians couldn’t do much, but they still did what they could, releasing others to fight. This meant that in sheer numbers, we were almost on parity with the pirates. Of course, we only had seventy people who could fight while they still had ninety. Still, we were successfully whittling their numbers down while minimising our own casualties. We were in a strong defensive position but as we all knew; the best defence is a strong offense. We simply could not afford to sit and let the pirates chip away at our manpower for very long nor could we go toe to toe with them, not yet.
I was part of a team with three roles depending on the situation. The first was to act as a mobile reserve, coming to the aid of whichever group needed us the most, the second was to range around harassing the enemy rear and making sure none could get into a flanking position on our personnel, the third was to act as a mop up force. For now, my team were able to stay quiet and out of sight waiting till we were most needed. We just sat and watched as events unfolded, reporting to the defenders when we thought an attack was imminent. We the crew of FNS Destiny, had ample food and water, and control of all the most important areas, the pirates on the other hand, only had what they bought on board when they left their shuttles.
After the pirates were repulsed during their second attack, they headed all back towards the staging areas they’d previously established. These staging areas were obvious places for the pirates to congregate at. Each was a fairly defensible location with good visuals on the approaches. Once the pirates congregated at our kill zones after the second attack, we detonated the six mines we’d placed near those three areas. We’d previously reinforced the bulkheads behind the mines so when we detonated them, they wouldn’t open a path into a part of the ship we didn’t want to give the pirates easy access to. In addition to that, the blast and the shrapnel all went out into the pirates. Some of the bulkheads behind the mines were buckled but none were holed or even seriously weakened. There was absolute carnage among the pirates. We made nearly a quarter of their remaining combat effectives into casualties in one hit.
While they were still reeling from the mines we hit them hard with frontal attacks. These frontal assaults quite significantly added to their casualty lists though we took a few additional casualties of our own but we were able to drive them back into the central location to lick their wounds. We then picked up the dead and wounded they left behind. The wounded were kept in a secure location and cared for, the dead put into a compartment near the outer hull that had no heating, effectively making it a freezer to preserve them for later attempts at identification. Those bodies were effectively snap frozen by the cold of space.
At this point the situation settled into a stalemate while both sides sat back and licked their wounds. We had a few more minor skirmishes but the pirates were effectively contained for now. We made sporadic feints in their direction both to keep them off balance and to force them to expend even more of their precious ammunition. We also set up hidden speakers just around the corner from their location and blasted music, insults and other assorted noises in their direction constantly. We wanted to do anything we could to throw them off balance, weaken them and reduce their ability to fight or even think effectively. On the other hand, we treated any wounded pirates who we captured quite well, giving them medical assistance, caring for them and making sure they had enough to eat and drink. When some of their wounded were well enough we were able to convince them, quite easily as it turned out, to record messages to their comrades telling them to surrender. We made sure the messages stressed how they would be treated well if they did surrender. Sometimes we would turn the sound off for a couple of hours and then we would start again with the sound at full volume. Other times we would gradually reduce the volume slowly over time till they could barely hear it.
Sometimes we would let the sound run like that for a couple of hours at a time then we would start to slip in people on our side whispering to the pirates. We would whisper news of their impending deaths, invitations to surrender and suggestions about how their leaders were just scum, how they’d been abandoned, their leaders were stupid, the variety of our messages was endless. Of course, we promised them good treatment if they surrendered. Sometimes we would just repeat the word “Surrender” for hours on end. Along the way, we inserted more messages from some of their wounded comrades, comrades who they thought dead, into the mix. We were able to garner the names of some of the pirates from those we’d captured. We would whisper messages to them personally, suggesting surrender was really their only viable option if they wanted to live.
We kept this up for almost three full days. While all this was happening we continued to prepare for a final assault. The pirates were low on food, water and ammunition. They were also becoming increasingly agitated and were also becoming sleep deprived by then. After three days we turned off all the sound, then waited. Eventually we noticed four of the pirates with furtive looks on their faces edging away from their comrades. When they reached the corner they slipped around it and kept moving past our lines. Of course, they didn’t know exactly where we were, nor did they know we had them under observation for the entire time. We let them move far enough away from their comrades and through a hatch we had purposely left open, then we simply stunned them. When they woke, they were separated, each in a locked room, wearing simple coveralls with an opportunity to shower as well as food and drink on a table.
Meanwhile our observations showed the remaining pirates, now down to only about forty effective fighters were clearly planning something. We didn’t know what it was yet but it seemed they’d abandoned the bridge for the short term at least. I surmised they were probably becoming desperate for food and water by then. We’d also cobbled together a defensive position in the pirate rear so all three directions of travel were effectively blocked then. We managed to place yet more mines in the bulkheads and were just finishing reinforcing the compartments behind those mines.
After our prisoners recovered from being stunned, been given an opportunity to eat and taken the opportunity to clean themselves up, we began interrogating each of them in turn. As it turned out, it was surprisingly easy to start them talking. They were pirates it was true, but they all claimed they became pirates unwillingly. We quickly learned they had no sense of loyalty to their masters, they were more than willing to cooperate because they wanted out of the life they were leading till then. They’d decided a Federation prison would be far better than the hell they’d endured at the hands of their leaders. They’d learned through
bitter experience that failure to follow their leader’s orders resulted in extremely unpleasant consequences. The pirate leaders simply ruled by fear. During our interrogation, we were of course monitoring them for signs of lying. They very quickly learned that lying to us was rewarded with intense, even excruciating pain. Telling the truth however, was rewarded with pleasure, with food and an opportunity to rest. Except for when they were caught in a lie, which only happened a couple of times, we treated them very well. We didn’t beat them or abuse them. We fed them and gave them a reasonably comfortable place to sleep. It seems the treatment they received from us was actually far better than they’d ever received from their pirate masters.
We very soon learned the pirates were indeed very nearly out of food, water and ammunition. It seemed a very small clique within the pirate group, only about ten of them, were hoarding almost all of it for themselves. This small clique, consisting entirely of hard core pirates, were the ones calling the shots. It seemed we’d taken down almost all of the pirate senior leadership for this mission when we destroyed the two pirate assault shuttles. It turned out destroying their shuttles was far more successful than we’d dared to hope when we originally formulated the plan. Basically, it seemed we had taken out many of the most committed pirates.
The remaining hard core pirates were getting away with hording the available food and water for themselves for now because of fear and by promising that soon they would be leading a charge that would overwhelm our defences. The rest would then be able to have whatever they wanted on board this ship. Our informants didn’t have much in the way of detail about these plans, just that everyone would be involved in the charge and it was to happen on the following day. The one other thing our prisoners were able to tell us, was that all but the small central clique were just ordinary people who didn’t really have much choice. They were almost all just ex slaves, or captured ship’s crews who had a choice of doing this or dying a protracted and painful death. They described to us what they had witnessed when someone didn’t follow the pirate bosses’ orders. I won’t repeat the details of the tortures inflicted on those unfortunate people, but suffice it to say, the description was sickening. I resolved that if I survived this current situation I would make it my life’s mission, at least what was left of my life, to hunt down and destroy these pirates. I would destroy their ships and bases, I would free their prisoners, I would stop them from preying on the weak, the defenceless and the innocent.
Of course, I came to my senses quickly, as soon as I remembered I had no tools to do any of this. I had no money, not in the Federation, or influence, I wasn’t even a Federation citizen then. I must admit, I felt disappointed about it at the time. I realised I was really beginning to hate these pirates, I simply struggled to understand how anyone could live with themselves when they were treating innocent people the way these did. For their part, our prisoners already knew they were in trouble with Federation law. They were simply hoping they would be shown at least some leniency for their cooperation with us. They didn’t know who’d been torturing our lost crew-member Karath, but they all thought it would most likely have been someone from the command group. The command group it seemed, had a tendency to lead from the rear, where they were less likely to be hurt. All prisoners were taken to them and then the people who’d made the capture were immediately sent back to the front. They explained how these people were complete psychopaths who enjoyed inflicting pain and suffering on defenceless people. We realised, these were the central clique; these were to be our primary targets. With help from our prisoners, we were able to ascertain which of the pirates made up the command group, there were only ten of them and these people were no leaders. They were just bullies who used threats and fear to control their troops. If someone failed to follow orders, they would torture the unfortunate victim and make the rest watch, to make an example.
There were no females in this group, actually, there were no females in the group who boarded FNS Destiny. Apparently, the pirates reserved females solely for pleasure and breeding, whether those females liked it or not. When a female became useless for one of those roles, she was almost always simply shoved out an airlock while the pirates looked on in glee. Occasionally they would keep a female alive long enough to torture her if she had annoyed them enough. Other females were always made to watch their female companions being tortured but they never knew what happened to the ones who simply disappeared. The more I heard about these guys, the more they pissed me off. We considered the situation before coming to the conclusion after a while that once the pirates had fully committed themselves we should hit them in the rear with everything at our disposal. This tactic would put the pirates in a pincer and the pirate leadership group firmly at the front, or at least one of the fronts. Our mobile force would be the hammer and the barricade, the anvil. We hoped this would result in the pirate leaders rapid demise and that in turn, would quickly result in the surrender of the remainder.
We knew our side would be very likely to suffer significant casualties in the upcoming engagement. I found myself worrying incessantly about the safety of the ships officers. The ones I met were all good leaders, leaders who I knew, would choose to lead from the front. They were leaders who I worried might end up as casualties. Once again, I tried to convince the Captain to hang back or at least order some of his other officers to do so. I tried to convince him he needed to be protected for the good of the ship. While he understood my concerns, even agreed with my point to some degree, once again, I failed in my goal to protect him. I found myself wondering at the sheer pig headedness of these Tangesha officers. It seemed to me, they just would not listen to reason, not on this matter, not on ensuring their own safety.
We waited, making sure we had ample ammunition stocks at each of the barricades. We in the mobile party carried as much ammunition as we could so we would not run short at a critical moment. In addition to those preparations we had designated runners who would bring more ammunition up from the stockpiles if it was needed. We began doing frequent personnel rotations on the barricades to make sure everyone was as rested and as well fed as possible. Right then, we only kept a relatively small group at the barriers themselves keeping watch. We had additional people resting in compartments nearby so they could reach their duty station in seconds when the time came. There were enough people in those nearby compartments to provide adequate reinforcements if these were needed, otherwise, their job was to keep the rest supplied with ammunition and to evacuate any wounded to safety. This time, everything would be on our side, we had the numbers, we had the positions, we had the ammunition, and we had the morale to carry this through.
In all honesty, we were not completely confident the first barricade could hold against a full blown attack of the type we were expecting. Because of this, we set up a second line of defence behind the first. This second line was not as strong or as comprehensive as the first but we already had bulkhead mines in place along the pirate line of advance. We thought they would sustain significant casualties just breaching our first line of defence. Combine those casualties with the damage we expected the mines to do to them and we thought by the time they reached our second defensive line, there would be very few of them left. With the casualties we expected the pirates to sustain, we were confident that if we couldn’t hold the first line we could easily hold the second. If they could get past the second line, then we would be forced to hunt them down before they could hurt anyone else on the ship.
When the next day came we watched as the pirates prepared to make their attack. It was clear, this was to be their make or break effort, really we had given them very little choice. As expected, they had, of course, chosen to head towards engineering. It made sense really because just beyond our barricades was a major junction that would allow them to head in one of several different directions. From their point of view, if they could fight their way past the barricade, they might be able to find food, ammunition and water. Of course, by now they really wer
e becoming desperate. The bridge as far as they knew, was a dead end. We could effectively bottle them up there and deal with them at our leisure. The third direction they could take only led out to vacuum as far as they knew so there was no point in going that way.
Once they were committed, we moved out of our hiding places behind them. The pirates had left the few wounded they had recovered behind so we just stunned them as we passed. Other people from FNS Destiny’s crew followed behind us and picked up all the weapons and other supplies the pirates left behind then returned to take their wounded. If the remaining pirates returned to this location, their comrades and everything else they’d left behind would be gone. The Captain had forbidden the use of any of our remaining stasis pods for the pirates till after we had captured or killed all those remaining at large on the ship so our medical technicians did what they could for the pirate wounded to keep them alive and to make them as comfortable as possible under the circumstances. Our prisoners were taken down to a secure location so we could try to identify each of them while they were still unconscious.
Star Man 1: Star Bourne Page 18
