Rookie Privateer

by McFarlane, Jamie

"Are you in?" I asked finally.

  "Are you for real?"

  "Both airlock doors will work for now," Nick announced.

  "I want to be ready to sail in two hours," I replied.

  We rounded up the pirates two at a time. I made good on my offer to allow them to pack six crates each. They were very efficient in their choices. Everything from real silk fabric and intricate artwork to a variety of Earth-grown spices and crates of weapons. I hoped that somewhere in the warehouse we could find some of the precious metals taken from Colony 40, but if any of them knew about it, they weren't letting on.

  I picked two crates from each of the pirates and had them loaded into the second cutter. The remaining crates were loaded onto Sterra's Gift. I also found over one hundred kilos of frozen coffee beans, and another hundred kilos of cocoa powder. Those were worth a small fortune by themselves, but I couldn't imagine selling them. We loaded both ship's armories with blast rifles and ammunition. It was a thief's dilemma - trading time for loot.

  We were finally ready to go. Sheriff Xid was in the brig of Sterra's Gift with a very sulky Xie Mie-su. Marny, Celina and I were on the other cutter with the remaining four pirates. Marny would fly the cutter and I would keep guard on the prisoners with Celina's help. I wasn't trusting enough to allow Celina to have a weapon, but I felt like our objectives were in line enough that she would help me foil any attempts at mutiny.

  I made one last trip back to Sterra's Gift for supplies and we launched without ceremony.

  Marny's med patch had completely worn off and she was mostly immobile, but I didn't want the pirates to know about her infirmity. We slaved our ship to Sterra's Gift so that it would fly in formation. We were a pretty beat up group, but now that we were in space we would be able to relax, at least until we met up with the first of the two remaining pirate ships.

  The heavy turrets were set up to deactivate if we ever returned, but if approached without the correct security sequence, they would defend the asteroid. I didn't know if we would ever return, but I certainly didn't want the Red Houzi to set up shop again. We would also receive weekly logs from the sensor net. Nick would find that more interesting than me.

  Twenty minutes into the trip I regretted not being on Sterra's Gift. This ship was disgusting and didn't have a coffee brewer. We headed to the small mining colony of Terrence. Terrence was smaller than Colony 40, but it was steadily growing as production increased. I knew a few people who had moved there from Colony 40, but it wouldn't matter. We weren't planning to dock.

  Celina and I sat in silence for the first couple of hours. I tried talking with her, but it was fruitless. After four hours, Marny hobbled back to where I sat. She wanted to take over guard duty. I'd been up for twenty-eight hours and was fighting off sleep and didn't have it in me to argue. I made it back to the bridge and slumped in the chair. I sure hoped we wouldn't have an emergency anytime soon. I set an alarm for four hours. We had a minimum of five hours before any possible contact with the first ship and I needed to be a little sharper before that happened.

  Four hours came almost as soon as I laid back. I didn't feel at all refreshed.

  Hail Sterra's Gift. "Nick, you there?"

  "Yup." His voice sounded groggy. I hoped he had gotten a decent amount of sleep.

  "Anything new?"

  "Nope."

  "Did you check for anything new from Belcose?"

  "Yup, nothing."

  "Roger that. Changing shift with Marny."

  I escorted our prisoners one at a time to the head and got them each a meal bar. We had been accelerating since leaving the pirate hideout. If the approaching pirates hadn't discovered our new course, they wouldn't be able to adjust quickly enough to intercept. Only time would tell.

  Marny and I continued flip-flopping shifts. After twenty-four hours, I started to feel considerably more rested. It was almost a letdown when Marny informed me that Nick had received a message from Belcose and the two pirate ships had changed course and broken off their pursuit. We were out of danger.

  Terrence was ten days out on the most aggressive burn plan I could come up with that also left us enough fuel to get to our final destination. I was willing to use our fuel inefficiently if it meant getting rid of our passengers sooner.

  Celina started to warm up ever so slightly by the fifth or sixth day. We weren't going to be buddies, but she was able speak to me without glowering. She had stopped referring to Marny as a man. I hated to think about what kind of experiences could make a person so hard.

  On the ninth day, both ships cut power from our deceleration into Terrence. We were only a day out and were getting close enough that it was time to part ways with Celina and our three prisoners.

  "You understand? Sterra's Gift has missiles locked on?" I was looking directly at Celina. "You will be locked out of the helm until we have cleared a full five minutes of hard burn. After that we will release the bridge and the armory to you. It is your responsibility to release the other pirates. Do you understand?"

  She looked at me with her eyes full of distrust, "Forgive me if I still don't believe you." Her voice was softer than I had ever heard. She wanted to believe. I imagined there had been a time in her life where she had believed in something or someone good. I didn’t think it had turned out well for her.

  "We will burn for five minutes and then turn it off. I will contact you by comm. Good luck Captain Celina Dontal. You are now in charge." I pulled the five hundred gram bar of platinum out of my pocket and handed to her. It was our deal, after all.

  Marny had already cycled through the airlock and was on board Sterra's Gift, manning the turret.

  I turned away and cycled the airlock. When the outside lock opened, I waved at Celina through the window, then turned and jetted toward the welcoming door of Sterra's Gift. I almost felt guilt leaving Celina on the badly damaged ship. I knew from experience that the repairs needed were more costly than what it was worth.

  I reminded myself what she did have, however, was the one thing she most desired: freedom. Something I had taken for granted.

  When I walked onto the bridge, Nick announced, "Captain on the bridge." My chest filled with pride. Having spent the last ten days on a poor imitation of Sterra's Gift, those words were ones I could really appreciate. How much like home this ship and her crew felt.

  I relieved Nick on the bridge. He had been all but chained to his chair and it looked like he would appreciate stepping away.

  Engage burn plan for the Protectorate Platform Valhalla. Burn at forty percent and disengage after five minutes.

  I hadn't spent much time on Sterra's Gift since it had received its overhaul and I had spent a solid ten days on a cutter with engines that felt like they could fall off at any time. It felt great to hear the engines hum to life as they smoothly spooled up.

  Five minutes passed quickly.

  Hail the nearby cutter. It would have been handy if we had given the cutter a new name, but we hadn't so I had to reference it by proximity.

  "Celina. Are you there?"

  "Where else?" she answered. She sure had a bad disposition.

  Transfer full control of cutter to Celina Dontal. Release control by crew of Sterra's Gift from the same cutter.

  "That's it. Ship is yours. Happy sailing," I said, not expecting a response.

  Her voice was softer and didn't hold the contempt I had come to expect. "I didn't think you would do it."

  "Roger that. Celina. Look us up sometime. I bet I will be looking for sharp captains in the future. You know, once I get my business going full tilt."

  "Thank you, Liam Hoffen. Someday. Maybe. Dontal out." She closed the communication channel.

  I didn't immediately spool up the engines again. I wanted to see what Celina's first actions as a captain might be. I zoomed my viewscreen in on her ship expecting her to fire up and make a burn for Terrence. What I saw didn't surprise me but I can't say I was expecting it either. I probably should have, given the nature of Celina's experience
.

  Three suited figures were ejected from the airlock. I could tell they were still alive but apparently Celina had decided they were undesirable passengers. It was illegal to eject passengers from a working ship in space but then, these were pirates. I couldn’t imagine they would be filing a complaint.

  Normal burn plan for Protectorate Platform Valhalla.

  It would take us fifteen days to get there.

  EPILOGUE

  It took a couple of days to establish our schedule. We had problems with storage. Every square meter of space on Sterra's Gift had been crammed with crates. There were only two beds, but with at least one person on watch at all times, it wasn't a huge deal. I had never had a sense of propriety regarding my bed, so I didn't mind that Marny used it, too.

  I preferred to take the night shift. I shifted my sleeping pattern by six hours and found I could easily sleep until noon. I would have killed for this schedule at home and now Nick and Marny thought I was some kind of hero for it. I spent my days working out with Marny. She was teaching us both a new self-defense style called Krav Maga. It was an ancient martial art invented by the Israeli military sixteen or seventeen hundred years ago.

  I found I liked that Marny slept on my couch. She wasn't much for perfume, but whether it was her soap or something else, my couch smelled like her. After a couple of days I was disappointed to find I had become used to the smell and no longer noticed it. That was until I was headed back to grab some coffee on the fifth night and happened to glance in our cabin. I noticed Marny wasn't on the couch. I didn't think it was that odd, she could be up checking on something.

  I got my coffee and when I didn't find her in the galley, I checked the armory. No success. I grinned when the answer finally hit me. I poked my head back into the cabin and saw Marny wrapped around Nick's much smaller body. I couldn't have been happier for them. I had known Nick was smitten with Marny from the first time he had seen her. What I hadn't known was whether or not Marny would accept him. The only jealousy I felt was that I couldn't spend the same time with Tabby.

  We were still three days away from Platform Valhalla when we were approached by the first Naval Destroyer either Nick or I had ever seen. The Kuznetsov had been 120 meters long and shaped like an arrow. This destroyer was shaped like the end of a sledge hammer and was 180 meters long and five times as wide and tall as the Kuznetsov. The ship’s mass had to exceed that of the Kuznetsov by at least thirty times. There was nothing sleek or subtle about it.

  Two ships never meet in space by accident. You might pass within a couple hundred thousand kilometers of another ship, but you would certainly be heading on radically different headings at radically different speeds. This destroyer slipped into space five kilometers off our port side before we had recognized they were even close. They even matched our current speed.

  "Sterra's Gift this is the Destroyer Walter Sydney Adams. Do you read?" My heart jumped into my throat.

  "Nick, Marny, could you come to the bridge? We have company."

  Hail Walter Sydney Adams. "Roger that Walter Sydney Adams. This is Captain Liam Hoffen, Sterra's Gift. We read you."

  Marny and Nick piled into the bridge and looked through the armor-glass. I pointed in the direction where the Walter Adams sat.

  I switched the video comm onto the heads up display of the bridge so Nick and Marny could also participate. "Greetings Captain Hoffen. Commander Joe Alto here. We have been asked to escort you to Platform Valhalla." The video showed an officer in a uniform vac-suit. He was older, with graying sideburns, a close cut haircut, receding hairline and bright gray eyes. He epitomized my idea of what a hawk might look like.

  I responded. "Fair enough."

  "With your permission we will synchronize navigation and put your weapons systems into passive mode." His message must have contained a command request as it popped up on my vid screen. I didn't think we had any real option. I accepted the request.

  "Thank you," the commander responded. "Are you in any need of assistance?"

  "Nothing some downtime wouldn't solve," I replied glibly.

  "Roger that. Walter Sydney Adams out." I guess he wasn't much for chatter.

  The approach to Platform Valhalla was an exercise in outrageous. A cross section of the platform was a shallow triangle. The top was half a kilometer wide with the two sloped sides of the triangle meeting in a point underneath at the mid-section. The platform was twelve kilometers wide and ships of all different sizes were docked beneath it. From our vantage point it looked as if it was only 10% occupied. I wondered if the entire Mars Navy could dock at the same time. That is, until I saw the battleship.

  You never forget the first time you see a battleship underway in space. At almost three times the length and girth of the destroyer, I had difficulty imagining what could ever stand up to the amount of firepower on display.

  I also counted two cruisers, half a dozen destroyers, and at least ten different corvettes in addition to the battleship. Hundreds of smaller craft were flying back and forth between the different vessels. I had never seen so many ships in one place.

  Commander Alto provided the location of a docking bay on the platform. We were to await further instructions once we landed.

  The approach was straightforward enough but the landing instructions didn't make sense to me. The final destination showed we would be thirty meters below the deck surface. When we arrived it made more sense, there was an open hole in the deck of the platform. I lowered Sterra's Gift through it and with help from the ship's AI, I landed on the sub-deck.

  A small group of marines in full armor, awaited our arrival.

  "Captain Hoffen, do you read?" It was a familiar voice.

  "Roger that. Lieutenant Belcose?" I responded.

  "Yes. Request permission to board. I would like to send a squad of Marines in to secure the prisoner. Will you comply?" Geez, the guy always sounded like he had a stick up ...

  "Good to hear your voice. Permission granted. Let me open the door. It isn't in that great of shape. Oh and we have a bonus prisoner for you," I added.

  "Repeat last?"

  "We have two prisoners. We ran into Sheriff Xid and decided we would bring him along. I was hoping you would take him off our hands."

  "Wait one," he replied. It took more than five minutes for him to get back to me. I suspected he was looking for permission. "Okay. We will take possession of both prisoners."

  The Marines were a professional group. With a minimum of fuss, they extracted both Xid and Mie-su from the brig. After babysitting them for the last twenty days, if I never saw them again it would be too soon. Xid was a disgusting slob and Xie had a mouth on her. I felt a little sorry for their new jailors.

  I watched the Marines remove Xid and Mie-su from the door of the bridge. When they were gone, Belcose remained and approached me.

  "Nice job, Captain. Commander Sterra would like to extend hospitality to your crew. Would you be available at 2200 for a shared meal?"

  "We would be delighted," I answered without hesitation.

  "Oh, and there is the matter of the offline storage device you are in possession of?"

  I pulled the black marble out of the pouch in my suit and handed it to him.

  "We will get this analyzed. Looking forward to dinner." He nodded and exited. It took me a minute to realize he hadn't been wearing a vac-suit.

  "Is this bay pressurized?" I asked.

  Marny answered. "Sure is, Cap. We dropped through a pressure barrier."

  "Didn't know such a thing existed."

  "Takes a crazy amount of power, but these platforms have energy to burn," she answered.

  "There is more than one of these platforms?" It was hard to imagine the Protectorate had one, much less several of them.

  "Last I knew, Mars Protectorate had five. They are spread out at different elliptical orbits around the Sun. There are probably more that we don't know about." I wondered what other surprises I was in for.

  We met Gregor Belcose
and Commander Sterra on board the Kuznetsov. It seemed like it had been years since the last time we had been there. In reality, it had been forty-five days. Nick and I chose to wear our new civvies, as Marny called them. She was wearing a normal vac-suit.

  Steward Gellar once again provided an amazing meal. It was far superior to any of the restaurant food we had eaten. She put out a spread of what she called fried chicken, mashed potatoes and cream gravy. In addition, there was a fresh salad and a vegetable called asparagus. We ate until I didn't think I could eat anything more. At the end however, I smelled the now familiar scent of fresh coffee. I wondered if we would get to have her chocolate cake again and drooled at the thought. Her dessert course wasn't cake, but a pie made with fresh peaches and vanilla ice cream. I thought I’d died and gone to heaven.

  "Commander Sterra? Is it possible to request Steward Gellar's company for a moment?"

  "Certainly, Liam." She spoke quietly into the collar of her suit.

  The smiling face I had come to associate with the steward appeared at the Commander’s left side.

  "Ms. Gellar, thank you for a most excellent dinner."

  We all clinked our silverware against the crystal glasses. I had learned this gesture of appreciation last time we had eaten on the Kuznetsov.

  "Just as your dinner was appreciated, my crew wants to also thank you for supplying us with coffee for our last trip." More clinking from Nick and Marny. "To show our appreciation we would like to present you with a small token."

  I pulled out two small boxes I had wrapped in bright floral silk scarves. Loot from the pirate hideaway.

  "Oh, pretty," she responded.

  "I am not sure what you will do with its contents, but if anyone would know how to use it I imagine it would be you. The boxes contain five hundred milligrams of both saffron and cocoa. I understand they are both very desirable ingredients used for cooking."

  She pulled her hand up to cover her mouth and looked at me in shock. She then looked at Commander Sterra for permission.

  Commander Sterra nodded and responded, "Normally we can't accept gifts, but it would appear this is simply a trade of supplies and I see nothing inappropriate." She winked at the steward.