Table of Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Privateer
Alexis Carew #5
J A Sutherland
PRIVATEER
Alexis Carew #5
by J.A. Sutherland
© Copyright 2017 Sutherland. All rights reserved.
Created with Vellum
Even with no war on, there are always battles to fight.
A cease-fire in the war with Hanover leaves Lieutenant Alexis Carew on half-pay, in-atmosphere, and with her ship laid up in ordinary until called upon once more for the “needs of the Service.” She was, at least, lucky enough to be in her home star system when HMS Nightingale paid off, unlike much of her former crew.
She’s left to help manage her family lands, though still with no certainty she’ll be allowed to inherit them. It would be a tranquil, peaceful life, if not for the influx of asteroid miners seeking their fortunes, the uncertainties of her inheritance, and the nagging certainty that her current life is not what she really wants.
She’d give anything to command a ship again.
For “Famine”
And those, like him, who’ve seen the elephant and guard the gate.
“Thank you” is not enough, but it is all we have.
Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Author’s Note
Also by J.A. Sutherland
About the Author
One
The building’s hatch …
Door, Alexis reminded herself, as they were planetside. There were so very many things that she’d gotten used to in the four years aboard ship that she’d now have to unlearn.
The building’s door was closed, but a discrete sign on the wall beside it and a time-honored red light above the plaque made its purpose clear to the clientele and declared it open for business.
Alexis eyed the half dozen men she had with her. Nabb — her coxswain, if she’d still commanded a ship rather than being in-atmosphere at half-pay — Ruse and Sinkey, also from her former boat crew, as well as Sills and Paskell, former Nightingales the lot.
“This the place, sir?” Nabb asked.
He was younger than Alexis, just seventeen to her nineteen, but towered over her at nearly two meters — not that he needed such height to tower over her own bare meter and a half. The others in her group towered also, yet all looked to her for their next move.
It felt odd to be going into action with her lads dressed all in homespun denim and linen, such as she was, instead of ship’s jumpsuits and her Naval uniform, but she supposed she’d have to get used to that as well. With no war on, neither she nor her ship were needed, and it was only at the request of Dalthus’ Crown agent and chandler that her lads were seeing this bit of action.
“It’s the address Doakes sent us,” she said, sliding her tablet and its directions back into a pocket.
The streets of Dalthus IV’s main port town, Port Arthur, were dark and silent in either the early morning or very late night, depending on which direction one arrived at it. Most of the nightlife had ended hours before, with carousing miners and spacers finding a bunk for what remained of the night.
Some few establishments remained open, such as the one they stood before, for the most ardent drinkers or seekers of entertainment.
Or those looking to cause trouble, Alexis thought with a grimace.
“All right, lads,” she said, “you know the way of it.” She caught each of their eyes in turn and they nodded their readiness. Alexis squared her shoulders and grasped the door’s handle. “Let’s be about it then.”
The door swung open easily. It must have had quite good soundproofing, as they’d heard none of the raucous babble and shouts from outside. One of Dalthus’ founding principles was that one could do as one willed so long as it didn’t affect one’s neighbors, and that precept followed into the towns as well.
Inside, the scene seemed chaotic at first, but quickly resolved to Alexis’ eyes. Music was playing from more than one source, loud and conflicting, though no one seemed to be listening closely enough to care. Men and women sat or stood about the room in various states of undress, and engagement in activities Alexis would truly have rather not seen.
From somewhere in the mass of two or three dozen people, there was a shout, the meaty slap of a hand meeting flesh, and a feminine cry, followed by laughter.
Ruse and Sinkey started forward, hands going to their belt, but Nabb gestured them back. There was a formality to all this that had to play out and they’d been through it before.
A woman made her way through the crowd, shrugging off grasping hands.
“Mistress Auburn?” A
lexis asked as the woman came close enough to hear.
“I am, and thank you for coming, Miss Carew.” She nodded at the crowd. “It’s that same group as what took to the Orchid a month ago. Tab’s run up and their credit’s dry — leave aside they treat the girls something awful. Will you help?”
“It’s why we’re here, Mistress Auburn,” Alexis said, though she could wish it otherwise.
Lord knows I’d rather be aboard ship, sailing the Dark and running out the guns against some enemy … that, surely, rather than this.
She grimaced. Distasteful as it was, there was still no doubt that it was needful — and some might argue Mistress Auburn’s current troubles were, in part, Alexis’ fault to begin with. Or, at least, the Navy’s — and as senior officer in-system, even on half-pay, she did feel responsible.
“Sound it, Nabb.”
Nabb nodded and raised his tablet. In a moment, a shrieking, ear-splitting whistle sounded through the room, cutting off all conversation as the inhabitants turned toward the doorway. Auburn touched her own tablet at the same time, cutting off all of the room’s speakers and ending the music. When the whistle ended, there was dead silence.
“Mistress Auburn,” Alexis asked loudly, “do you wish our assistance in clearing your property of those who do not reside here?”
Another of Dalthus’ guiding principles was that a person’s property was inviolate. Alexis wanted it clear that she was acting on the property owner’s request, to avoid any claims against her and her men for what was about to happen.
“I do, miss, and thank you again.”
Alexis nodded.
“All right, then,” she called out. “You lot’ve heard her! If you don’t live here, clear out!”
“Bugger off, girl! We’re not under your lash no more!”
Alexis sighed. That voice had come from the rear of the crowd where she couldn’t see, but she should have known it would be him. Bryant Be-damned Iveson, she thought. And with him would be Spracklen — a pair of miners she’d pressed aboard Nightingale from this very port, and dropped back here when the ship paid off in-place after the cessation of hostilities against Hanover.
And with them, she saw as the two made their way through the crowd, were Chivington and Monks, two hard cases from Nightingale who’d stayed on to try their own hands at mining the gallenium deposits in the system’s belt.
“No bosun with you no more,” Chivington said, twisting his neck from side to side so that the cracks sounded clearly through the room. “Just you and yer lackeys, an’ yer outnumbered.”
Around him the other men were standing, dumping girls from their laps and shoving them away. Alexis recognized two of the others from Nightingale, but the rest were miners originally. All were big, rough men, ready to fight.
Monks smiled.
“Is it trouble you want, girl?”
Alexis spared a thought for how she’d spent the last four months since Nightingale had paid off. Familiarizing herself again with the workings of her family lands — mines, lumberyards, crops in the fields. All good and necessary work, all to the benefit of her family and the workers who looked to them for their livelihood, all quite worthwhile.
But none of it a ship.
Four months without sailing the Dark between systems, without exercising the guns and hearing her breath rasp in the hot, close environment of a vacsuit helmet as she helped her guncrews carry shot and lay their guns, without the sheer rush of being alive she felt when the boarding tube extended and it was time to cross to an enemy ship, pitting her arm against the enemy and never knowing if the next blow might pierce her suit and end her.
She met Monks’ eyes and bared her teeth. A wiser man than Monks would have recognized that she wasn’t smiling. Alexis drew a stunstick from her belt.
“Oh, yes.”
Alexis leapt forward. She felt Nabb and the others move with her, but she was at the fore.
Monks’ eyes widened at first, then he grasped a bottle from a nearby table and hefted it.
The other miners in the room reacted as well, rushing to meet Alexis and her men. The room was soon filled with sound again, this time with crashes and grunts of battle.
True, they were outnumbered, but Alexis and her lads fought as a unit — perhaps not so much as the army or even marines, but, as in a boarding, every man had an eye on those beside him, and was ready to lend a hand if a mate found himself in trouble.
The miners fought alone, each one thinking only of himself, and that quickly doomed them, as the rabble they were.
That and the ladies they’d forgotten about. Ladies who, while of negotiable virtue, were less forgiving when only one side of the negotiations made good. In addition, the house’s own security appeared — just two men, enough to keep order on an ordinary night, but not enough to control a dozen miners intent on causing trouble.
Alexis dodged a swing of Monks’ bottle and swung her stunstick in return. Monks blocked that blow, then winced and staggered as a chair broke across his back. Alexis took the opportunity to jab the stunstick into his midsection and by the time she’d assured herself that he was truly down, the scuffle was almost complete.
Nabb drew back his arm to hurl his stunstick at one last miner who’d turned to menace a girl who’d broken a bottle over his head. Before he could let loose, though, a second girl leapt onto the miner’s back, clawing at his eyes, and the first landed a solid kick into his fork.
Alexis winced as the miner collapsed, groaning. He’d likely have preferred the stunstick, whose effects would wear off in less than an hour, to what he’d just received.
The house’s owner caught Alexis’ eye and nodded thanks.
“I’m sorry for the damage, Mistress Auburn,” Alexis said, “I trust you’ll forward a bill to Mister Doakes so it can be added to their port fees?”
“I will, but two chairs and a few bottles is cheap carriage to be done with them.”
Her lads had things well in hand, slapping restraints on the stunned and otherwise incapacitated miners. Alexis eyed Monks with distaste.
“Afters!”
Alexis’ head came up at the shout, catching sight of a figure hunched in the room’s corner, two of the house’s girls nearly blocking her view of him.
“That one’s no trouble, usually,” Auburn said. “Though he does get a bit loud if the girls taunt him too much.” She shrugged. “Never seen a man afraid of drink before.”
“Indeed,” Alexis said.
Scarborough, for that was who she knew the hunched figure to be, curled into a ball, whimpering. The two girls left off their fun and placed the bottles they’d been tormenting him with on the bar. He’d been the worst of this lot at one time, until Nightingale’s crew came together and locked him in a vat late one night’s watch. A vat filled all but centimeters full of something Alexis rather preferred not to think about.
“He had a bit of a rough time aboard his last ship,” Alexis said. “It left him quite unlike himself.”
“Well, he, at least, the girls can keep in hand.” Auburn ground a long, sharp heel into Monks’ thigh, making the unconscious man twitch. “These others …”
“Why let them in?” Alexis asked. “If you know what the outcome will be?”
Auburn scowled. “Alone they’re not so bad — rough, but I’ve girls for that trade when the price is right. It’s when men like this band together that things get out of hand — and out of pocket, when they’ve run their coin dry as well.”
All of the restraints were tightly on and checked.
“Doakes will see their bill set against their mining ships and any cargo,” Alexis said. The chandler and Crown agent had the authority to ground those ships or enter liens against future loads of ore the men brought in from the belt, at least — though he didn’t have the authority or men to keep order in the town itself.
“Thank you again, Miss Alexis.”
“Come along, then, lads,” she called. “Back to the boat and home.”
“But —”
Nabb broke off, flushing as Alexis glanced from him to the girl pressed against him in far more tangible thanks than Mistress Auburn’s. In fact, all of her lads seemed to be fielding similar expressions of gratitude. She wouldn’t begrudge them that bit of thanks, truly — at least not those who had no one back on her family homestead who might be looking for them — but they’d have to make their own way back to Port Arthur to collect.
“Shall I tell your mum you’ll be delayed, Nabb?” she called over her shoulder as she headed for the door. “And Miss Eliza down to the village, Sinkey?”
Before she could recite a third name, there was the sound of hasty goodbyes, a promise or two to return that she’d pretend not to hear, and her little troop was with her on the street.
Two
She met Doakes on the way back to the landing field and their boat — well, Nightingale’s boat and not properly hers any more than the ship itself was after being laid up in-ordinary at the end of the war.
But the warrants still living aboard, bosun Ousley now the senior, hadn’t objected to her request of its use. She was, after all, the senior Naval officer in Dalthus System, much as she was on half-pay and in-ordinary herself.
Privateer (Alexis Carew Book 5) Page 1
