After I left Eri, I made my way to the bridge to see how things were running. The reports were all positive. Most of the fabricator material had already been bought back to the ship overnight so the repair crews were able to begin fabricating some of the parts needed to complete closing up the Destiny’s hull. If we could re-air those compartments we would have a little more room. Destiny was now carrying something like fifty people more than her normal crew compliment. While this was not a high number for the original warship design, FNS Destiny normally carried far fewer people, partly because she was normally away from port for significantly longer than the cruiser she is based on. We had already needed to convert a small hold to house many of the more trustworthy pirates we’d captured and the other pirates were all in the brig but they were becoming a little crowded. By now, I was even considering extending the brig but had not had enough time to give it much thought yet.
I checked the current location of the shuttles and saw one was currently loading while the other stood off waiting for a chance to dock. Reports from the pirate ship were still quite positive. The teams were able to salvage quite a lot of food and bring it back to us, which was a relief. They also found some shield nodes that would help us strengthen our shields a little more as well as eight missiles they said would be compatible with our fire control systems with some minor modification.
By this point, really they were mostly retrieving parts and materials in order to deny them to the pirates. While the scavenger parties were selecting materials to bring back, the Troopers were rigging demolition charges on the ship so we could completely destroy her when we left. Again, we wanted to make her impossible to salvage and deny her future use to the pirates. We hoped destroying her like that would make it so much harder for the pirates to salvage anything we left behind. One thing they did find which I asked them to ship back to us as a priority was three devices they thought may be mines. I thought if these devices were unknown in the Federation, then being able to examine them might result in a useful outcome for the Federation Navy. The docked shuttle departed the pirate and the waiting shuttle docked to receive her cargo. The mines were large enough that only one could be put on a shuttle at a time. There was still room for some additional items so the space was filled with whatever else would fit. Loading and transfer continued as time wore on. I found myself worrying as I had a prickly feeling growing all the way down my spine. I couldn’t help but feel something was about to happen. I called our people on the pirate ship and ordered them to start wrapping things up over there. They acknowledged my orders but didn’t say anything else. I hoped they could fit at least a few of our people on the next shuttle to return to FNS Destiny. My sense of foreboding was increasing by the minute as one shuttle arrived back at FNS Destiny and began unloading while the other continued to load.
The shuttle on FNS Destiny completed unloading and then departed, heading back to the pirate. It was about halfway back to the pirate ship, when one of the sensor operators called, “Contact”.
I looked over at her and asked, “Estimated, time of arrival? Identification?”
The reply was not good. The sensor operator reported to me that he estimated we had about two hours to exit the system and the other ship was not broadcasting any identification codes. I turned to the communications console and immediately sent the immediate recall message. The shuttle we had moving towards the pirate continued on while the one already there quickly undocked and began heading back towards FNS Destiny, this time much more quickly than previously.
Thankfully, the repair crews had been able to complete repairs to our second shuttle docking port when the additional fabricator feedstock arrived from the pirate ship so the returning shuttle would be able to dock there much more quickly than would have been possible if it needed to dock in the hanger deck. Meanwhile, the other shuttle sped up to cut down on the time required to reach the pirate ship. As it approached the pirate it smoothly decelerated and docked. It stayed there about ten minutes then undocked before racing back towards FNS Destiny. I already knew they could dock while we were underway so I ordered the helm to start us slowly moving towards the jump point. I asked navigation to set up the jump so as soon as both shuttles were docked, and we were within the jump point event horizon, we could immediately make our jump.
The first shuttle docked and the second raced towards us. It reached the halfway point when the pirate ship exploded. One second, it was sitting there quietly, the next it lit up like a miniature sun. When the light dissipated there was simply nothing left where she had been. It was clear to me, someone over there must really like blowing things up. At least, I thought, there won’t be much for the pirates to salvage. They might be a bit pissed at us for taking their prize away though. Finally, only ten minutes before we would need to jump, the second shuttle docked. Now I had everyone on board I didn’t need to worry unduly about my people. I told the helm to take us to the maximum safe speed for a jump. As we began accelerating, I felt a very slight change in the feel of the ship as the inertial compensator's lagged the acceleration slightly. The sensor operator reported the other ship also began accelerating and turning in our direction so we were reasonably confident they’d now seen us.
Minutes later, we reached the jump point event horizon and disappeared from the system and from real space. I checked the status for the various departments before standing all unnecessary crew down so they could rest. This jump was quite short, only two days but it would bring us to the fringe of Federation space. Before we exited jump space, we needed to know what course we were going to take on exit. We quite simply could not afford a mistake there.
THE PURSUIT
After we entered jump space I called navigation, tactical, sensors and a couple of others together to decide on our direction of travel when we arrived in the next system. We had two days to make the final decision but we did need to know where we were going to by then. The sensor operators told me the new ship was picking up speed and turning towards us as we went into jump so we expected them to exit the other end less than an hour behind us. I wanted to be accelerating away and as far from the jump point as quickly possible when they did exit. I didn’t think we could get away with the tactics we’d used with the first two ships we destroyed because we simply didn’t have enough useable ordnance to throw at them and we were already carrying too much damage to get away with it.
I started the meeting by stating our situation so everyone knew what we were there to discuss. I’d already asked the navigators to identify and plot our options on exit so now I asked them to explain those options and the pro’s and con’s for each option to everyone there, at least as far as they knew. As it turned out, there were really only two options, two jump points viable to us as escape routes. One would keep us in the system we were currently heading towards for somewhat longer but it did lead us to a system that was firmly within the more trafficked regions of Federation space. The other allowed us to exit the next system significantly sooner but left us with a need to transit through one uninhabited system and carry out an additional jump before finally reaching Federation space. The big advantage of this route was that it led to one of the strongly garrisoned systems. This second route would take us a few days longer before we could reach a decent space station but we were reasonably confident we would find a strong Federation Navy presence when we arrived. We needed to find a major station to be able to arrange medical treatment for the people we had in stasis pods. We would however, also need to stay ahead of our pursuer that little bit longer before reaching the safety of Federation space. The first direction could put us into a heavily trafficked route but without necessarily coming into contact with the Navy therefore potentially putting civilian ships at risk. Either way we had no way of knowing when we would meet a Federation Navy presence, nor did we know if that presence would be strong enough to help us with the pursuer on our tail but believed the second option would maximize our chances of finding the help we desperately needed. The
last thing I wanted, was to lead death down on some poor unsuspecting ship’s head. The only thing I could be reasonably certain of was if we took the longer route we would be a little less likely to run into any civilian ships along the way.
I decided to request everyone to go think over the options and report back to me in five hours, I wanted all the pros and cons so we could make the best possible decision under the circumstances. After they all left I sat in my chair, thinking for over for an hour. Which was the best direction for us to go? Which direction would bring us under the protection of the Federation Navy more quickly? What were our pursuers intentions? How far would they persist in the chase? Would any of our freed captives have knowledge that might help us? How could I keep the pirates away from innocent and unprotected people? I had so many questions and very few answers, still, I thought given enough time, I would be able to find answers for at least some of them. I contacted Eri to check on the progress of the new patients. She told me most of them could leave the medical bay now so I decided I would have the Troopers begin debriefing and working to identify them immediately so they could be assigned quarters relatively quickly. I contacted the Troopers to start that process but asked that someone bring Ensign Fraser to me when Eri agreed she could be released. I asked them to take her to the stores so she could obtain some new clothing on the way and then give her an opportunity to clean up and change, I wanted her feeling relaxed. She could be debriefed in my presence and I might, I hoped, obtain some answers to at least some of the questions plaguing me at the time. I told them where I would be then sat back to think while I waited.
The Troopers escorted Ensign Fraser into the compartment I was waiting in about thirty minutes later. She looked pretty nervous so I reassured her that she was safe and we were merely going to debrief her for the record. I then pointed her to a comfortable chair.
As she sat, she asked, “Why are you observing this debriefing Sir?”
“Because I have some specific questions that need to be answered. I think you can probably answer them, at least I am hopeful that will be the case. FNS Destiny has been away from her home port for a long time. She is damaged, under crewed, short on armament and we have someone chasing us. We are going to need all the help we can get to safely return her and everyone on board, home.”
She nodded as the Troopers fitted her with a number of instrument packages that would tell us a lot about her state of mind, whether she was lying or not sure about the answer, and when she was frightened or angry. She didn’t object because in the Federation, this was the normal procedure to be followed during situations such as this so she expected it. Once the Troopers finished their preparations, the debriefing began. They started by having her identify herself, her role within the Navy, time in service place of birth, year of graduation and all those other minutiae that are specific to any given person. This would give the interrogators a baseline on her physiology and enable the appropriate people to confirm she was who she claimed to be at a later date.
Ensign Anne Siobhan Fraser is an attractive human female, born on Cambridge, the human colony world. She is slim and fit, about 170 cm tall, with a pale complexion, blue eyes and auburn hair. When we interviewed her she was about twenty-six years old and working as a protocol officer in the Federation Navy. She joined the Navy as a cadet with her parents blessing as soon as she was old enough. Qualified to enter the officer training school she did very well till she made a fairly significant mistake during a training exercise which resulted in her being sidelined into the track which culminated in her becoming a protocol officer working on a diplomatic mission. Her family was basically a military family, supplying officers to the Federation Navy over many years. She had uncles and aunts who were serving members and other relatives who were now retired from the service.
Even I could see she was very disappointed, even angry with herself for wrecking her chances of starship command with her mistake but still, she seemed to have come to terms with the circumstances she now found herself in. Even with that one mistake she still graduated with honours and could still hope for an illustrious career. By this time, she should have been promoted past ensign but her position meant she was out of the line of sight of people such as the promotions board and was overlooked. My experience with her since then is that it was a mistake to bump her from command track in the first place, and an even bigger one to overlook her afterwards. Looking back, I now know someone with political influence decided to push her aside for their own reasons corrupt reasons. We have served together almost non-stop since we met and she is one of the finest officers I have come across since arriving in the Federation.
Once the Troopers established who she was, they asked her to relate the circumstances leading to her becoming a prisoner on the pirate ship. She told us she was traveling on a yacht with the daughter of one of the Federation councilors, Lady Conti, as an adviser and assistant. Anne explained for my benefit that the Federation council is the principle governing body of the Federation. While the individual peoples of the Federation are largely self-governing, the Federation Council itself is the overall governing body. The Federation Council is responsible for holding the Federation together, the overall defence of the Federation, encouraging trade within and outside of the Federation and ensuring the Federation continued to expand peacefully and grow stronger. It also acts as an impartial mediator to help resolve issues between individual Federation member states.
Ensign Fraser was responsible for ensuring the correct protocols were followed as the Lady Conti of the Tangesha people visited successive Federation worlds on her diplomatic mission. Her role was to advise the Lady of the correct forms of address, arrange meetings and all the other minutiae a good assistant must do. The primary goal of the mission was to foster increased trade and strengthen ties between the different Federation member worlds. One aspect of Lady Conti’s mission was to gather data about what each planet needed and what each had to offer, then whenever possible, she tried to arrange trades so that each of the planets had at least some of its needs met. As an additional though undercover part of the mission, she was investigating reports of corruption in the existing trade agencies within the Federation. The mission was going well and the spirits of the group were quite high. They left the world of Karalt, home world of the Codai people. When they jumped into an intermediate system on their way to the next world they intended to visit they were attacked and captured by pirates. The yacht they were traveling on was not a particularly large ship though quite fast but the pirates were waiting near the jump point. When they down-jumped, the pirates quickly disabled the yachts engines before boarding her.
Many of the crew were tortured to death, even though they surrendered but Lady Conti, Ensign Fraser, one other Federation naval rating and a few of the Lady’s retainers were captured and taken aboard the pirate vessel. The pirates forced them into a compartment containing a number of prisoners from other ships they’d attacked but aside from the pirates gloating and pawing some of the females, they were largely left to their own devices. At first, after they were captured, they were not treated too badly. About seven weeks before the rescue, the prisoners became aware that the pirate ship was preparing to ambush and capture another ship. It seems one of the pirates was gloating within earshot of some of the prisoners about all the money he expected to make on this, their latest foray. They were expecting to be paid a nice fat ransom for the Lady Conti and they were expecting to soon capture a deep space explorer. Apparently they thought the crew of that ship would fetch a healthy price in the slave markets. That ship was of course FNS Destiny, and the crew was our crew though Anne didn’t know which ship it was at the time. They thought the rest of their prisoners would also fetch a nice price in the slave markets adding even more cream to the cruise. The pirate boasted to his crew-mates about how this would be the most successful cruise any pirate ship ever made. He told them how he was going to spend his money. It seemed he planned to live like a king.
&n
bsp; The prisoners did not hear anything more about what was happening till a few days later when the pirate ship suddenly shook violently a few times before most of the power went out. We thought this was most likely our missiles striking the pirate ship and disabling it. Instead of the pirates surprising us, we were able to very effectively turn the tables on them. The pirates had previously left enough supplies of food and such for their prisoners to eat till they received a reply to their ransom demands for Lady Conti. After the battle, things went very quiet for some time.
Prior to the violent shaking of the ship, the prisoners could hear the normal sounds of a functioning ship, water rushing through pipes, footsteps walking past their prison, the omnipresent soft background sound of machinery. All of that was now gone except for the sound of escape pods being launched. The prisoners tried to escape from their prison but they had nothing, no tools and no access to ship systems to be successful. Thankfully, up until about a day before we rescued them, the ventilation and water systems continued working at least enough to keep them all alive. They would not have lasted much longer if we’d taken more than another day, or perhaps two to find them.
As it turned out, we estimated they were there for nearly five months in total before we finally rescued them from their prison and bought them aboard FNS Destiny. When Ensign Fraser finally wound down, the Troopers skilfully but gently asked a few questions to clarify different points in her narrative. Of course, the entire debriefing was recorded, both visually and audibly. We deliberately kept the environment as non-threatening as possible and by the time the debriefing was completed, the Ensign was clearly more relaxed. When Anne’s debriefing was finally completed, I found myself wondering if the ship that began pursuing us as we jumped out of the system was returning with the answer to the ransom demand.
Star Man 1: Star Bourne Page 31
