Privateer (Alexis Carew Book 5)

by J. A. Sutherland

  “The Barbary transects Hanover, stretching from a portion of New London territory, across Hanover, to Hso-Hsi. It is a barren, desolate patch of the galaxy, with few systems and fewer habitable ones. That desolation has two effects. First, that there are few colonized worlds in the Barbary, and of those none that any sane man would wish to live on, and, second, that it is the fastest route between New London and Hso-Hsi.”

  Alexis nodded. The lower number of systems meant less normal-space mass. Since a ship in darkspace tended to move farther, relative to normal-space, the farther it was from any corresponding normal-space mass, a route which came close to fewer star systems would be faster than one which kept close to many, regardless of the normal-space distance traveled.

  It was as though darkspace itself grew larger in response to normal-space masses and shrank in their absence. Or, perhaps, the ships themselves traveled relatively faster — it was nearly impossible to tell which, as the only way to truly know where one’s position in darkspace correlated to in normal-space was at a transition point, the Lagrangian points associated with orbital bodies.

  “The Barbary worlds are a constant source of trouble for all civilized star nations. More than piracy and ransoming crew and passengers, some worlds have regressed to outright slavery,” Eades went on. “We, New London, may tolerate and even encourage the savages at times, since the region bisects Hanover itself — that they must deal with the barbarians merely to access their Fringe worlds is a constant source of amusement. At other times, however, the depredations against trade become so great that we must act. Act strongly and show them that a New London flagged vessel is best not trifled with.”

  Alexis found herself nodding again. Trade was the lifeblood of the kingdom — something which had been drilled into her head as gospel not only since she’d joined the Navy, but at her grandfather’s knee. Trade had created the fortunes of many of those who’d settled her world. Trade in the various luxury goods, bulk grains, and now gallenium filled the colony’s coffers, allowing them to purchase manufactured goods they still lacked the technological base to make themselves, and trade filled the Queen’s coffers, coffers which then financed the Royal Navy and their protection of that trade.

  “Such a time is now, given that we are not fully in a state of war with Hanover, and an expedition is planned to show those worlds that a New London merchantman is best left alone.”

  “That’s all well and good,” Alexis said, “but what does it have to do with the Foreign Office? Won’t the Navy be putting together a fleet?”

  Eades shook his head. “Not at this time, not directly. Though we have a cease-fire with Hanover, that could end at any time. It is thought this is not the best time to send warships through the Barbary, seeing as how those ships would then be, for all intents and purposes, within the boundaries of Hanover itself. A provocation of that sort would be unwise at this time.”

  Alexis found herself becoming more and more wary as Eades spoke. It was beginning to sound like Giron and the Berry March all over again — “war on the cheap” as Dansby had once called it. And likely to bring only what value such a thing was worth — failure and ignominy.

  “How do you propose to avoid such a thing?”

  “The expedition will be made up of armed, private vessels,” Eades said, “with no official involvement by the Navy.”

  Alexis pondered that for a moment, then shook her head.

  “You intend to fight piracy with pirates?”

  Eades cleared his throat and Dansby laughed.

  “Not pirates, Miss Carew, I assure you.”

  “Well, what else would you call them, then, if they’re not proper Navy?”

  “The term is ‘privateer’,” Dansby offered.

  “That even sounds like pirate,” Alexis said.

  “It is not piracy,” Eades insisted, almost huffing. “Each ship will receive a Letter of Marque, a document authorizing the vessel and its captain to seek out the Queen’s enemies named therein. You would be a fully-authorized agent of the Crown in that regard, not a pirate.”

  “I would?” Alexis repeated. “Is that what you think?”

  “It is my intent for you to command one of those ships, Miss Carew.”

  Alexis was tempted. To walk a quarterdeck just once more, even if not a proper Navy ship, and to command a crew in action — just once more, before taking up the mantle of a proper Dalthus holder. But not in one of Eades’ mad schemes, she decided. Not again.

  She shook her head.

  “I think not, Mister Eades.” She stood and grasped the bottle of Scotch. “The second bottle you mentioned? The one for listening? I believe I’ve fulfilled my part.”

  Eades nodded and set another bottle of Scotch on the table between them, but kept one finger on its top.

  “Not even for a chance to command a ship again, Miss Carew?” he asked, echoing her own thoughts. “One last time, before it’s all atmosphere and grubbing in the dirt?”

  Alexis’ jaw clenched, hating how easily the man could read her. “We may be farmers, Mister Eades, but we do not grub. Thank you for your offer, but no.” She took the second bottle from under his finger and turned to the hatch.

  “Before you leave, Miss Carew, one last thing?”

  Alexis sighed and turned back.

  “Knowing your lack of knowledge in some things as I do,” Eades said, “do you have the look of the Barbary fixed firmly in your mind? Its borders? Where it is, I mean?”

  “Between New London and Hso-Hsi, crossing Hanover, it’s been made quite clear.”

  “Has it?” Eades smiled. Not his jovial, nondescript smile, but the one that always made Alexis shiver a bit. The one that made her wonder at the man’s thoughts, then push down the imaginings as far more than she might wish to know. “Across Hanover, yes — from New London to Hso-Hsi. Between the Core Hanover worlds and their Fringe — well, what’s become their Fringe and some of which once belonged to others. Just coreward and a bit above some worlds which once belonged to the French Republic, in fact. The Berry March, that is.”

  Alexis frowned. What was he driving at and what did this scheme have to do with the Berry March? And why should she care?

  “The aftermath of Giron, Miss Carew.” Eades sat back down. “Admiral Cammack returned with you and your ragtag fleet of little ships. Quite the story — all of the feel-good elements to it.” He shook his head. “Quite overshadowed the losses, that. And the questions.”

  “Questions?”

  “Admiral Chipley, Miss Carew, and his fleet. The Hanoverese he pursued.”

  Alexis felt a chill.

  “No official word from Hanover, of course, as they wish us nothing but ill, still. I’ve heard things, though.”

  “What? What have you heard?”

  “Stories, Miss Carew. Stories of battle after battle, of fleets leaving a trail of broken, dying ships through darkspace. Coreward from Giron, Miss Carew — through the Berry March to the edges of the Barbary and beyond into that vast, unruly realm.” Eades frowned. “Weren’t there more than just Chipley and the Hannies involved in that last action? What was it … yes, those Berry March ships under Balestra. You’re acquainted with a young lieutenant under her, are you not?”

  Eight

  It was dark, early morning, when Alexis returned planetside, choosing to put down in Port Arthur rather than the farm, since she’d only have to return to the town for the day’s Conclave session in any case.

  The night had been spent in conference with Eades, picking the man’s brain for any bit of information he had on the Berry March fleet or Delaine Theibaud — which was precious little, come to the whole of it. Bits and pieces, rumor and story, but enough to make Alexis believe him that there was a chance the survivors of that brutal, running battle might have made the Barbary — and might be there still, somehow unable to send word or return home.

  She left Eades without giving him an answer, though she was certain she’d decided. If there truly was a chanc
e to find Delaine, if he might be in need of her help, then she would go. Still, it wouldn’t hurt for Eades to stew a bit over whether his plots and plans would come to fruition.

  Likely, Eades knew her answer as well and there’d be no real stewing on his part, despite her efforts.

  There would be stewing on her own, though — not over whether she’d go, but how to tell her grandfather.

  The second day of the Conclave passed in a blur, with neither the drama nor important questions of the first day. Alexis found herself distracted time and again, having to desperately search her memory for the last thing she’d heard whenever her grandfather asked an opinion of her on the current measure. Her thoughts were scattered, leaping from hope she could find Delaine, fear that she’d find he was no longer alive, and anxiety over telling her grandfather that she was about to sail off again on some mad quest.

  Alexis chewed another forkful of peas. Her thought to tell her grandfather over dinner, at one of the nicer restaurants in Port Arthur, might have been effective in keeping the volume of his objections down, but not the content.

  “Are you mad?”

  “The last man to ask me that, I threatened to shoot,” Alexis muttered, carving a bite off the slab of roast beef on her plate.

  “What?”

  “Nothing, grandfather, I’m sorry.”

  Neither was the Mylins’ presence having the mitigating effect she’d hoped for, though they did seem to be less inclined to call her mad.

  “Now, Denholm …” Mylin began.

  “Don’t you ‘now, Denholm’ me, Sewall, as though it’s me being unreasonable. It’s a ‘now, Alexis’ we should be hearing over this nonsense.”

  “It is not nonsense, grandfather, nor am I mad.” She stabbed at a pea, sending it skittering off her plate, over the table, and into Sewall Mylin’s lap. She flushed and shot him a look of apology, getting an amused grin in return. “I’ve a duty as an officer to go.”

  Alexis knew, even as she heard her own words, that it was the wrong tack to take with her grandfather. Not that he was a stranger to duty, but because he had a different opinion of what hers should be.

  “Your duty’s to the lands and the people on them now, Lexi-girl. Next in line for the holding shouldn’t be off to parts unknown on a whim.”

  “Hardly a whim, grandfather, and I’m no longer your little girl, I’ll thank you to remember.”

  Alexis immediately regretted saying that, as well — even before she saw the hurt in her grandfather’s eyes and the reproof in Sewall Mylin’s.

  “No. No … Lexi, Alexis, you’re not, I suppose. But you are my heir now, and I’m getting no younger.”

  “That is not a good argument,” Alexis pointed out, “as we just yesterday argued that we’ve the very best of medical care on Dalthus now. Argued it before the whole of the Conclave, in fact.”

  “She has you there, Denholm,” Mylin said. “You’ll likely double my age now we’ve proper health facilities and treatments — and I’ve another forty or more years.”

  “Accidents happen,” Denholm said, with a glare that made one wonder if he were speaking of his own or Mylin’s chances.

  “Do you plan to tangle with another bear-cat, grandfather?”

  “Shite-weas … look, that’s not the point either.” Denholm sighed. “You have no idea, Lexi, how glad I was when the news came that your ship was to pay off — how relieved. These last few years, I’ve picked up the Naval Gazette and feared I’d read your name on the lists of dead.”

  Alexis closed her eyes. She knew he’d worried, but to hear him voice it too was different.

  “The whole point of the Navy was to give you a bit of time away from Dalthus,” he went on. “Time to change the laws so you could inherit, and we have that now. Isn’t it the perfect time, with your ship paid off and you on half-pay, to resign that commission and come home for good?” Denholm took a deep breath. “This isn’t even the Navy, you say — just that Foreign Office fellow who’s left you in the fire before. Why follow his lead again?”

  “For Delaine,” she said.

  Denholm shook his head. “Lexi, it’s been over a year those fleets are missing — the lad’s likely —”

  “No,” Alexis cut him off. She knew what he’d say, but didn’t want to hear the words. That Delaine was likely dead, that the odds of him being amongst those who made it to the Barbary, assuming any had at all, and the further chance that he might be alive on some world there, were too high. “If it were grandmother, if there was a chance, no matter how small, would you hesitate to go?”

  That hit home, she could see, for even after all the time that passed, Denholm still loved his long-passed wife deeply and completely.

  “You’ve not even said you love him,” he said weakly.

  “I love him enough,” Alexis said.

  “Denholm,” Mylin said, “if you can’t look in this girl’s eye and see every bit of your Lynelle’s determination, then you’re blind, man.”

  Alexis felt horrid as her grandfather’s shoulders slumped in defeat, but she knew that he’d accept it now. Not that she needed that acceptance to go, she was determined in that, but she didn’t want to do so with anger behind her — not if she could avoid it.

  “Promise me you’ll come back.”

  “I’ll try.”

  Later, they walked from the restaurant to their hotel.

  The Mylins walked some distance ahead, holding hands like young lovers, though they’d been decades together. Alexis smiled at the sight, then twinged with sadness.

  She glanced at Denholm out of the corner of her eye. He’d been alone so long — since her father’s birth and grandmother’s death — and never in that time a hint of anyone but Lynelle.

  Then, though, she thought of Julia. There was affection between the two, she knew, but suspected Julia, at least, felt more. Stolen glances around the kitchen, a hand on laid lightly on his forearm or shoulder, even the good-natured teasing that passed between them.

  Alexis pursed her lips.

  Yes, the signs were there, if one could read them — or weren’t blind to them from being dense as stone. Perhaps there was some way she might penetrate that stone and make her grandfather see what was right before him —

  “So you love him?” Denholm asked suddenly.

  Alexis started, not expecting that question — she’d already answered it, hadn’t she? She felt her face grow hot, not really wishing to discuss Delaine with her grandfather. It was her love life, after all, and no part of his —

  She broke off, realizing what she’d been musing on even as he’d asked.

  Bother.

  “I believe I said as much,” she said.

  Denholm chuckled.

  “Said ‘enough.’ That’s an answer to a different question entirely, I think.”

  “I —” Alexis paused. She did love Delaine, but she knew the question Denholm was asking. Was Delaine to her what Lynelle had been — was — to him?

  She caught her lip between her teeth and chewed. She’d thought of this more than once, and her thoughts disturbed her. She thought of Delaine and building a life together, but there was no clear vision of what that life would be. Too many other things crowded in from the edges — her ship, though she had none at the moment, her crew, both as some sort of faceless mob gathered around her and all clamoring for a bit of her time and needing to be watched over, and a few more distinct.

  Isom needed her, obviously, for she’d have to find some way to get him back to his former career as a legal clerk, no matter how he might claim he was content to serve her. Nabb, obviously, for he was so young — she shrugged off the annoying fact that he was not so very much younger than she herself was — and setting him up in some situation of his own if they weren’t called back into the Service soon. All of the Nightingales who’d been stranded on Dalthus when the ship paid off needed looking after — even bloody Creasy, who’d somehow managed to convince even some of the Carew farmhands that the vile c
reature was a sort of spiritual being.

  The creature itself held no place in her thoughts, despite her having to admit that she might find she woke a bit better rested when the thing somehow managed to find its way into the house and past her locked door. Likely the thing simply took advantage of her more peaceful nights to claim a place in her bedding.

  Then, if she were to take over the lands, there were all of the men and women who worked the Carew holdings. The farmhands, those in the villages, the miners — and now, even, the gallenium mining in the belt. Independent and rough as they may be, they deserved her attention too — at least to see to it they had as safe a way to do their work as she could manage, and a fair price paid for their goods. There was talk some of the merchants already setting up shop on the stations were running the sorts of scams that seemed to come with every mining boom and —

  No, she broke off, there was just so much and so many she must be responsible for.

  How could she ever devote the effort to Delaine that he deserved when there were so many others she had to care for? Come to that, how had the Mylins managed it for so long? They had nearly as many hands looking to them and seemed as conscientious as —

  “Lexi-girl?”

  Denholm’s words brought her back from her thoughts and made her smile. At least her objection hadn’t stopped him from calling her that — she’d have been saddened if it had. There was a comfort to it, even if it came with him questioning her a bit.

  “I’m not certain how to explain it.”

  Denholm smiled. “There’s a lot of that comes with love.”

  “I suppose so.” She caught her lip between her teeth, worrying at it, then decided to press on with her own question. “Grandfather, have you ever — since Grandmother passed, I mean — well …”