by Peter Rhodan
“Comes with the job. Used to get two hours of coaching on socio-political matters every week while in high school. That was on top of my normal studies in those areas at school.” she shrugged again. “This isn’t the first time the training has come in handy despite how boring I found it at the time.” she shook her head as if clearing it. “Ok. Sir. What now?”
“Well. They had some information on the pirates but it is confusing. There may well be two ships, a larger vessel, and a small fast pinnace. The pinnace has been sighted in this system twice, although it hasn’t attacked anyone here. The larger ship is anecdotal evidence based on observations by ships in systems further out from here. The estimates range from a destroyer size up to a small cruiser in mass. I personally find it hard to believe there is enough traffic out here to support a pirate ship of that size.”
He paused and appeared to be assembling his thoughts.
“The problems of selling the captured goods and getting value for the stuff out here is just one of the logistical problems such a large ship would face. A small pinnace with a crew of six to twelve is a lot easier to support than a large vessel of our size, with a crew in the dozens or perhaps even more. Pirate ships tend to be overmanned so they can put prize crews aboard the captured vessels. The pirates then have the predicament of selecting the prize crew and blindly trusting them with said prize. Their next headache comes trying to arrange the logistics of getting the crew back safely with the ill-gotten gains after they have taken the captured ship somewhere further afield to sell.” He paused to stare off into space. “So, I am skeptical of the idea of such a large ship in this remote region, at least one operating out of here for any length of time.”
He paused for a moment thinking.
“On the other hand, a larger vessel coming to collect prizes and goods gathered by a smaller actual raider does make sense. Most systems are wary of an obviously armed ship in their system, even something as small as a pinnace, so a larger but less threatening ship as their tender makes sense. The larger ship mentioned could be a small cargo ship or something similar they are using as a support vessel.” he shook his head. “No doubt all will be revealed at some point as we sail through these back of nowhere systems. Maybe the Brython ship will deal with them first. The rendezvous should be enlightening. Very good job tonight people. I don’t know if we swayed them that far towards the Empire, but they all seemed delighted with our Imperial midshipman here being available to visit them.”
He smiled at her, as did several others. Most of the officers were from the other Watches and she didn’t know them as well as the ones on her Watch.
“Sir.” she nodded to him.
He turned to address one of the other members of the party. She had found she was quite comfortable doing the Imperial Princess bit, surprisingly enough. Maybe all the lessons that had been drummed into her over the years had been of some benefit after all. She considered the matter some more and decided that this visit was the first time she had ever actually enjoyed the role her birth had given her. Interesting. Possibly because she was on her own rather than with her family, Imperial nobles, and the media all watching every move she made and every word she spoke! It took traveling out to the wilds of nowhere for her to find a place she could finally enjoy being an Imperial Princess!
The ship broke orbit the next morning, ship time, and headed for the jump point to Perdita, which was the next system out. Being ostensibly within the Kimerian area of influence they had slightly more information on these planets than the ones on the other side of Holdfast. Perdita was home to a small colony on an only just habitable world. The planet’s orbit meant it was rather cold for humans and the climate hovered between ice age and frozen. At some stage, the world had been warmer and there were extensive coal and oil reserves, which formed the main basis of the planet’s economy. Even so the colony was doing so poorly there had been talk of New Melbourne taking them over at the party she had attended.
The small colony used both the coal and oil reserves for power and the excess co2 was fed into the atmosphere to build up the greenhouse effect. As a result, over the next few hundred years, the planet’s surface temperature should rise by two or three degrees, or so the colony fact page stated. The oil was also used to make plastics and various other specialty compounds not readily available so far out from the central powers.
The third jump point in the Perdita system led to Lotharian space eventually, although there were still quite a few jumps before the edge of Lotharian space was reached. Not surprisingly the Lotharians had little influence on the nearby systems this far out, not being as expansionist as some. The Lotharians nominal interest was more an arbitrarily agreed sphere of influence thing dating from the last war, rather than a clearly defined border. Most of the systems out this far were happy to accept visitors from any of the great powers. Particularly if their crews spent money during shore leave!
The Perdita authorities had seen a small pirate vessel on a number of occasions. Each time it had entered the system from the Kalcina jump point, sat and observed the system for maybe four or five hours, then jumped back out. Which meant that with light speed transmission and the position of the jump point relative to the slowly orbiting Perdita, the authorities on Perdita only saw the intrusion an hour or so after the ship had already arrived and it had left the system long before the sole customs patrol craft the Perdita government owned was able to respond.
As Kalcina had no patrol craft the Perdita Customs vessel would normally jump through to that system but had never caught sight of the pirate vessel. The jump points in the Kalcina system were close to each other and it enabled the pirate to disappear before the Perdita vessel could make the jump into that system, which obviously frustrated the Captain of the Customs vessel. Considering the age, size, and limited armament of the Customs vessel, Gizel rather thought their failure to catch up to the pirate was probably a good thing. He had little more to offer in the way of useful information other than the pirate vessel only turned up about once every two or three weeks. Not to a regular enough timetable to be able to intercept the annoying bugger, though.
Kalcina had a small colony on a very marginal world orbiting a large gas giant just within the habitable zone. The planet had originally been settled by a religious group of unknown denomination, but they had found the going too hard and sold the planet to Zernith Corporation, a large megacorp based in Lotharia. They had a small colony on the moon, primarily engaged in rare earth mining and they also maintained a small research station orbiting the third planet out, also a gas giant. This planet had a new moon that appeared to be slowly forming out of a ring of material that orbited the planet. The research station was a joint effort between the Corporation, the University of Toronto on New Ontario, and the University of Kimeria, seeing as how the system was technically still in Kimerian space.
The ship made orbit around the Zernith Corporation planet, mainly just to show the flag according to the Captain. The company people had little news to offer. They didn’t have military-grade sensors and the pirates had never come near the planet as far as they knew, nor had they tried communicating them. This was odd, but neither the company nor the academics at the research station were complaining about being left alone.
They had observed the small pirate vessel coming through the system once every two weeks or so, although the timing could vary considerably, and there was no definite pattern to it. The vessel had last passed through the system only a week before. It had first checked through the third jump point before returning, and then it had jumped into the Perdita system briefly before finally heading back through the jump point to Ordinoky.
The third jump point in the system was marked on their charts but there was no information as to where it led. The company people could only tell them that the system through the jump point was uninhabited and appeared empty, it didn’t even have a name just a number, N-71287W. Beyond that, they had no idea. The pirate vessel didn’t spend enough time
through the warp point to do more than check for any ships in the system before it returned, much as it did with the Perdita system.
The Captain and the XO spent some time discussing these matters in the Captain’s cabin on their way out towards the jump point to Ordinoky. Whatever they were discussing they didn’t share with the crew and both men were on deck for the jump through to Ordinoky. This system was home to a mining operation that maintained a large smelter operation and station in orbit around the fourth planet. This was a gas giant and had multiple moons, several of which were home to rare elements that the Leeds Mining Company was extracting.
The ores were dug from the moons using large vacuum-rated excavators. The material was fed into a linear accelerator and pushed out into space towards the mining station. The material only really achieved enough velocity to leave the moon’s gravity field, so it was not traveling all that fast. A large, funnel-shaped force field was used to slow and collect the material, which was then directed into storage bins before being fed into the smelter operation to extract the rare elements.
The smelter was a multi-stage plant and after the rare elements were removed the more common metals were refined out and sorted for transport as well. Iron and nickel were the main byproducts, but there were some gold and other rarer metals as well. The Brython operators were very reticent about the pirate operations when contacted. They admitted to seeing the pirate ships occasionally but claimed the pirates left them alone as being too much trouble to raid. On querying this the Operations Manager of the station said that their linear rubble projectors could easily be aimed anywhere and the rubble sped up considerably to make effective defense systems.
Gizel was near enough to hear this claim and saw the Captain’s reaction. So, he didn’t believe them either. Regardless of his suspicions, he thanked the Manager for his help and headed the ship towards the jump point to the Bamma system. The Captain vacated the bridge until it was time for the jump and Gizel continued her watch thinking about the station’s claims. She knew enough to acknowledge they could indeed aim their linear accelerators at any ships approaching the mining area, but fixed path projectiles were easy to dodge and the shields a ship used in combat were more than capable of standing up to a stream of rocks.
According to her tactical lessons at the Academy, a space station had little chance against a spaceship. All space stations were equipped with shields, not just the military stations. They were there to stop micrometeorites and other space debris, and for defense against small objects that had a speed that was high enough that the energy of their impact might allow them to punch debris through the shields. The stations also had plasma cannons and they were used to vaporize the smaller objects. Against large asteroids, the cannons would be targeted onto one side or the other of the object, and the force of the explosions used to divert the object onto a course that didn’t impact the station.
The plasma cannons used by civilian stations tended to be low on power and cheap. Way out here they were probably second or even third hand as well. Used against a small warship like a corvette, they might prove sufficient if the ship were poorly handled, but any warship that was properly handled would have little trouble with even a large station. Unlike the station, which was basically just a sitting duck, the ship could jink about, turn this way and then that way, and generally dodge the station’s plasma cannon fire. At the same time, the ship would be aiming its cannons at one section of the station’s shield, and with civilian stations, a combat ship would expect to wear the shields in that section down sooner rather than later, and then the station would be toast.
A large military station was an entirely different beast, generally having shields stronger than a battleship, with plasma cannons that were huge in size, and available in large quantities. It would take an entire fleet to assault Krestar Station for instance. But a civilian mining station way out here? Hmmm. Not much they would be able to do against a determined assault, even by a small corvette. Which meant, what? Oh. The linear accelerator story was to cover the fact that the station couldn’t really defend itself against any determined attack by the pirates, which would mean that either the pirates were really dumb, or there was something else going on.
So what was going on? she mused. Ahh. The station was most likely paying the pirates off. Had to be. Right. Was that all they were doing?
“Sir.” she said to Lieutenant Lars.
“Desnoute?” The Lieutenant turned her hazel eyes towards Gizel.
“Can we scan for a small communications buoy off the warp point, sir?” she asked.
She hadn’t really thought out her idea before opening her mouth and now she reddened as she realized she might be about to become a laughing stock.
Lars gave her a hard look.
“Why would there be a buoy way out here?”
Which was a good question. The communications buoys were not cheap, they needed a long-lived power plant, and a large stock of message drones to avoid needing frequent replacement, which meant their use was confined to busy affluent systems. Usually, they were only found in inhabited systems or routes between the inhabited systems. Given the scarcity of traffic out here there would be insufficient demand to justify the cost. There hadn’t been any communications buoys since before they had reached the New Melbourne system.
“I just had a thought, sir” she answered.
She realized immediately how lame her response was by the raised eyebrow of the Lieutenant. She rushed to continue.
“They’re claiming they would use their mineral linear accelerators to keep the pirates off if they attacked, which sounded lame to me. Sir. Which led me to wonder if perhaps they had a deal with the pirates. Paid them off to be left alone.”
Lars nodded acceptance of this argument.
“Wouldn’t be the first time that sort of arrangement had been made out in the fringes,” she said.
Gizel nodded. “Yes, sir. But then it occurred to me that what if the deal included them acting as a target spotter. Some freighter comes lumbering through and they flash a message to the buoy on the edge of the warp point. The buoy sends a drone through the warp point to presumably another buoy, which sends a message to wherever. This would enable the pirates to know who is coming and they can start planning accordingly.”
Lars studied her for a moment.
“Sounds a bit elaborate for a bunch of hick pirates,” she offered.
Gizel shrugged. “I may be wrong, sir. But a detailed scan of the area near the warp point should solve the issue, one way or another.”
The lieutenant looked thoughtful. Gizel had actually placed her in a difficult spot. Gizel had no idea how Lars would have reacted to a normal, wet behind the ears midshipman making such a suggestion, but Gizel wasn’t exactly your normal midshipman. Besides that, any competent officer would check out such a theory when it was presented to them, just in case. Especially given they were now in a system through which a pirate was known to operate on a regular basis.
After several moments the Lieutenant nodded.
“We’ll be off shift by the time we get close enough to detect a buoy, but I’ll make a note for Lieutenant Kilmoh so that they can check out your theory.”
Best she could hope for.
“Thank you, sir.” she offered, and then returned to her station.
Nothing more happened until their shift ended. Down in the mess the conversations revolved around the usual topics, such as how long would it take to get to Holdfast. Would the Brython ship be on time? Would they find the pirate ship, and if so would destroying it earn them a bonus? Most pirate ships had rewards posted on them, but no one had heard any details about this one. The ship concerned would get about a third of the money, the rest going to the organization the ship belonged to.
The ship’s share would be divided up amongst the crew, with the officers sharing a third of the prize money. Some pirate ships were so nasty that several planetary governments, large corporations, and insurance underwriters
would all offer rewards. About ten years ago a Kimerian ship had destroyed a notorious pirate on the edge of Brython space. So many people had rewards out for the capture or destruction of that particular pirate that even the ordinary crewmen received just over five hundred crowns each.
Gizel doubted a little corvette-type pirate, which was what this seemed to be, would have much in the way of rewards floating around for it. Still, any small amount was always a nice bonus to an ordinary crewman she imagined. She always tried very hard to put herself in the place of others with a less fortunate birthright, although truly grasping some of the problems even her fellow officers grappled with was very difficult for her. She was coming to understand that a lot of her fellow officers, along with the ordinary crew, she imagined, were driven as much by financial need as anything.
She spent a lot of time analyzing conversations she overheard amongst her fellow officers and had learned a whole lot about what drives ordinary people. Mortgages seemed to be a big one. She even overheard one of the ordinary crew telling his mate how after this cruise he and his missus would be able to put a deposit on a unit. This proclamation seemed to make the other fellow jealous, as much as he was happy for his mate. The males tended to talk a lot about females of course. The females spent as much time talking about other females, and sadly generally disparaging them, and less about guys. She tended to keep her own counsel and just listen to non-shipboard-related matters and learn about how other people lived their dreams, and the problems they had.
She had hardly settled into her bunk after dinner and sitting around the mess for a bit with her fellow officers when the ship went to Action Stations. She scrambled into her combat uniform, space suit overalls, grabbed her helmet, and headed for the second bridge. Everywhere the crew was scrambling into position. She piled through the hatch into the second bridge, which was aft, in front of the engine room, and moved to her position as assistant tactical officer backing up Lieutenant Tremaine. With no indication whether this was a drill, and with the ship operating in the back end of nowhere, every member of B watch was alert and studying the screens.
