Twin Stars 1: Ascension

by Robyn Paterson

  “What’ve I got to do to get me one of those, Cap’n?” The mercenary said, appreciation in his voice.

  Tysen, suddenly feeling extremely self-conscious, stammered “Be fortunate”, and quickly stepped away, moving over to the captain’s chair. He thought about sitting in it for a moment, and then decided he’d rather stand, so he turned and faced the empty front wall.

  “I am configuring the control pod for my use,” Esther’s voice echoed in the room as the tube began its ascent into the ceiling. “However, I would appreciate it if Mister Ulstead would have the ship’s system controls returned to the bridge.”

  “Mister Ulstead?” Tysen glanced at the man.

  “Done and done, Cap’n.”

  “Control has been restored,” Esther announced a moment later. “Sir, the Home Guard Cutter Firethorne is indeed hailing us. Should I answer?”

  “No,” Tysen ordered. “Keep them in the dark. Esther, how long to open a hyperspace window and get us out of here?”

  “It seems they were preparing to leave as quickly as possible- the drive is already charged and waiting.” Echoed the reply.

  “Captain, you look worried.”

  Tysen glanced at Ensign Helgi, who was standing nearby and watching him with concern. “I am, Ensign. They knew to ambush us here, which means they knew where we were going. Our destination was a secret meeting, but it’s been exposed. That means the people we’re supposed to meet are walking into a trap.” Then he paused and sent to his first officer- “Kip, everyone aboard?”

  “All crew present and accounted for,” came the reply.

  Tysen didn’t ask who was present, and who was accounted for, that could wait until later.

  “Alright,” he told the bridge. “Then, let’s get out of here before that other ship catches on. Esther, are we detached from the Leaf?”

  “We are, Captain.”

  “Set course for the meeting coordinates and shift into hyperspace.”

  There was a brief feeling of disorientation as the ship transited the dimensional barrier, and then they were gone.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  2718, Day 211

  Sulvan Kay was the home of the Volkstag Pirate Clan, eleven million tonnes of rock in orbit around a dimming Class G star on the rim of the Empire. As was often the case in the early days of colonization, the system had been snatched up by a small corporation hoping to exploit it for its resources, but when the real results had come in, there turned out to be very little to actually exploit. The system had two largely unremarkable gas giants and a small number of scattered asteroids, of which Sulvan Kay had been the .best prospect.

  A small mining colony had been set up on that largest of rocks, and done its best to make good on the company’s investment before discovering that the rock was as barren as the system as a whole. In the end, the whole operation had been written off, and the facilities left to sit cold and empty in space for nearly a hundred years until a small pirate clan by the name of the Temerson Alliance had stumbled upon it and decided it would make a good place to hide.

  The Temerson Alliance had fixed the place up, extended the tunnels, widened the rooms, and begun the first real steps towards colonial development. It was a great location for a base, so good that when the Volkstag Pirates showed up with a fleet one day to discuss Adolf Temerson’s encroachments on their territory they too had decided to stay.

  Today, Sulvan Kay had grown from that tiny pirate base into a fully independent asteroid colony with nearly a quarter of a million inhabitants living in the hollowed-out habitat zones underneath the layers of rock. The asteroid itself had been spun at 0.3 gees, allowing outlaws with limited access to large scale technologies to turn the barren clump of rock into someplace worth living.

  Which was why, as Ping An looked at the rapidly growing rock she had called a home for the past four years, she couldn’t help but feel impressed. The asteroid mining colony she’d grown up on had been supplied and sponsored by companies with the money and resources to make it modern and up to date. These people had literally carved out a small piece of life in the most hostile of environments with ingenuity, determination, and a few pieces of stolen equipment.

  It was why she admired them so, and why she had come to think of these people, who wore the word “pirate” as a badge of honor, as her family. They were rough, they were uncivilized, and the list of things they lacked could go on into infinity, but they were as good a people as you might find anywhere. Sulvan Kay’s habitat zones weren’t filled with bloodthirsty pirates, but families, children, workers and merchants who spent each day trying to get by like a trillion others in the galaxy. The real pirates were just the warrior class who ruled over them, and served the hereditary warlord known as Heinrich Volkstag.

  The one I need to convince, thought Ping An, laying on her bunk in the stateroom aboard a transport ship closing on the station. However, while her body was laying down, her mind was elsewhere. Like all aboard, she had access to the ship’s general sensory streams, and she’d used them to get a very personal view of space around them. For all intents and purposes, she was the ship, and soared gracefully through the void.

  From “her” vantage point, she could see the pock-marked, crater-scarred gray surface of the asteroid in glorious detail, from the craters where she’d done her basic training, to the long black surface scars of past battles. Everything that could be was recessed into the rock itself, and very little on the surface showed any signs of the life that teemed underneath. Even the entry to the docking zones at the colony’s axis was covered by a pair of large concealable doors.

  Even though the colony was well defended, with nearly a thousand-odd ships in the pirate clan’s fleet, there was still a natural instinct to hide themselves from detection as much as they could. Ping An knew from firsthand experience what a Guard Fleet was capable of, and agreed with this sensibility- to a point.

  As she watched the docking bay doors approach, Ping An felt a link request come in from the station. She’d sent out a message when they’d first jumped into the system, and now this was the reply.

  Checking to make sure it had the proper levels of encryption, she accepted the link.

  A small cartoon pig wearing glasses appeared in the space before her, the cute caricature standing on its hind hooves and looking up at her with a big smile on its face. Next to it stood a similarly cartoonish dog with a nonplussed expression and a brush cut of hair on its head. Clearly Vaela had chosen the avatars.

  “Yo!” Said the dog in Leederman’s voice.

  “Ping An!” Cried the pig in Vaela’s voice. “Welcome back!”

  “Hey guys!” Ping An said, smiling down at them. “Miss me?”

  The dog looked away. “Not really.”

  “Ha!” Scoffed the pig. “Who wanted to do this link before I even set up the encryption protocols?”

  “Ah,” Ping An teased. “So the truth comes out.”

  “Uhh…” Said the dog, looking unhappy. “So, you need me to pick you up from the port? You bringing something back?”

  The pirate captain smiled. “No, sorry kids, no presents this time.” Then she paused, and added. “Well, maybe one, but it’s coming later. Anything happen I should know about?”

  “Bella’s been given Janson’s old position for what happened at Evergreen- she’s a Squadron Leader now. She was working to convince everyone that everything was her plan from the moment you left.”

  “That’s okay,” Ping An brushed it off. “Don’t worry about it. I’ve still got the Belleflower, right?”

  “Until she convinces Volkstag otherwise.” Said the dog, sounding like he didn’t expect that to last very long.

  “So, so I need you to listen,” she told them, finally getting down to business. “We’ve got a lot to do, and not much time to do it.”

  “Ooh!” Cooed the pig, and did a pirouette. “She has a plan!”

  “Yep,” replied the pirate captain.

  Then, she told them what it
was.

  * * *

  “We’re clear, all the internal sensors are re-routed around this room and the dampening field is on. No links in or out.”

  Ping An nodded her thanks to Vaela, and then turned to look at the assembled pirate captains. Crowded into the small backroom of one of Sulvan Kay’s many bars were nine of the clan’s best captains, plus Vaela Smith, Betsey and Leederman, who had come along as support, or in Betsey’s case- muscle.

  “Alright people,” Ping An gathered their attention. “Thanks for coming. I’m not going to waste your time so let’s get right to it. The situation is this- in three standard days there’s going to be a special meeting of some of the top people in the empire. They’re doing it because the Empire’s going to hell, and they’re planning some kind of coup. The truth is, I don’t care about the politics or whether they’re right or wrong, but what I do care about is that each of those people is worth trillions in ransom. Either to the government, or to their own families, and it’s money in our pocket if we take them.”

  There was murmuring among the captains, and then Captain Dragonov raised his hand. He was a stocky middle aged man with a thick head of black hair and a bushy beard, unusual among those living in space, who found facial hair more trouble than it was usually worth.

  “Captain Zhang?” He said, in his thick slavic accent.

  “Yes, Dragon?” She asked, calling him by his nickname. He had been her first Captain when she’s be assigned aboard a clan ship, and they had hit it off right from the beginning. It was one of the reasons she’d chosen him for this team.

  “I am thinking of your plan, and it sounds to be interesting, but will not a large security force be guarding this meeting?”

  Ping An smiled confidently. “Not at all. Each of the representatives is only allowed to bring a single ship, and they’re relying on secrecy to protect them while they negotiate. That’s one of the reasons this is our big chance. The truth is, none of them trusts the others enough to let them bring anything larger than a Cutter. That’s why I asked the ten of you here. There’s six representatives, and that means we’ll need at least eight ships, plus two more to guard the escape routes in case they make a run for it.”

  That caused more murmuring and whispering among the captains, this time more excited, and definitely more interested.

  “And how is it you know about this meeting?” Asked Captain Andrews, a gawky red-haired pirate with a large nose and small eyes. He wasn’t the best of Captains, but since the raid on Evergreen he’d shown himself to be loyal to Ping An and trustworthy, so she’d included him in this party.

  “Simple,” she said directly. “I have an inside man in one of the representatives’ parties. They told me what’s happening and helped me find out what I needed in trade for a cut of my profits. That make you feel better, Andrews?”

  “Completely,” said Andrews, satisfied. “I’m in.”

  “Me as well,” added the scar-faced Captain Michaels, who’d been lounging in a chair near the back of the room. “If you’ll explain something to me?”

  Ping An’s face still smiled, but her eyes hardened as she sensed a challenge coming. “What is it, Michaels?”

  “How do you plan to get us out of here without Volkstag noticing we’re gone?” He asked, then added- “And one more thing, what’s to keep him from taking them and killing us all once we’ve got them?”

  “Thanks for asking that, Michaels.” She said earnestly, and then looked around the room, making brief eye contact with each of the assembled pirates. “Let me answer the second question first- we’re not coming back. This is a one-way trip. When it’s done you’re going to have two options- take your winnings and disappear, or…”

  She let the dramatic pause hang in the air.

  Dragonov took it. “Or?”

  “Or join my new pirate clan.”

  Michaels was out of his seat now, and two of the others, Lim and Kubuna with him.

  “You’re crazy! There’s no way you’ll get away with that!” He shouted.

  “What’s the matter, Michaels?” Ping An taunted. “Afraid to be your own man?”

  Michaels snorted, “A man is the last thing I’ll be once Volkstag catches up with me! Zhang, there’s over a thousand ships in this fleet, and d’you know how many of them will be out looking for us?”

  “Every one of them, I expect.” She answered calmly.

  “Exactly!” He told her. “This isn’t a plan, this is suicide! I say we just tell the boss the whole story and take our cut. None of this sneaking around business.”

  A few heads nodded, this made sense of many of them, but not all were so sure.

  “Hold on, Michaels.” Andrews put in. “Lots of other pirate clans are around, we could ally with one of them for protection at least. There are many ways to avoid being found, especially if we get rich enough.”

  “Which,” Dragonov added. “Brings us back to Michaels’ first question. How do we get away from this base in the first place? Every ship is monitored and ten ships can hardly set out without being noticed! What happens after is a moot point if we are to die trying to leave.”

  “Exactly!” Michaels pointed at Dragonov, and then leveled his finger at Ping An. “So, tell us Zhang. How are we going to leave without being noticed?”

  Ping An’s confident smile returned. “We’re not. We’re going to tell them we’re leaving, and we’re going to do it with their blessings.”

  “Yeah?” Michaels shook his head in disbelief. “And, how to you propose to make that particular miracle happen?”

  Ping An gave a casual shrug. “Obviously,” she told him. “You don’t know Volkstag as well as I do.”

  * * *

  As the doors opened, Ping An stepped out into the operations center for Sulvan Kay- a large domed room with a high ceiling buried deep inside the asteroid. The room was arranged in concentric circles with nearly a hundred operations consoles facing toward a single raised middle platform. Atop that platform was Volkstag’s office, fringed with a ring of one-way mirrored glass so that he could look out and see the flock gathered around him, but they could never be sure if he was watching them.

  Even as Ping An approached, only seeing herself reflected back in the armored glass, she couldn’t be sure if he was watching her come. She couldn’t be sure, but she felt he was.

  Walking around to the stairs, Volkstag’s assistant Daniel nodded to her from his standing desk and waved her up. Clearly she was expected.

  Up a dozen steps and she maneuvered past a mirrored panel into a surprisingly bright and open circular workspace. The outer edge of the room was lined with a ring table that held trophies without obscuring the view. The inner part of the room was occupied by a pair of extended sofas, a low marble table and a faux-wood rocking chair.

  The chair was positioned to have a clear view of the single entrance, and that is where Heinrich Volkstag now sat. He was working on some AR windows Ping An couldn’t see, and didn’t acknowledge her as she came up, letting her stand and wait instead. There was nothing around her, and the arrangement was designed to leave a visitor feeling isolated and exposed while he had the furniture near him for psychological effect.

  She took the moment to study him. He was a thin, long-faced man with chalk colored skin, an appearance that had helped earned him the nickname “Reaper”. His fondness for wearing dark colors didn’t help in this regard, and today he was wearing a dark purple shirt and black slacks as he sat in the chair with his long thin legs crossed.

  The product of an inherited position, he was a cautious and careful man who seemed to spend every anxious waking hour worried about his station. As a result, he was quite unpredictable in his moods and behavior, and whether this was due to stress or a way to keep others off-guard Ping An had never really been sure.

  Finally, he looked up at her and smiled as though he hadn’t noticed her standing there and was mildly embarrassed at the oversight.

  “Welcome back, my friend!” H
e said in his high pitched voice. “How was your trip to the core?”

  It seemed this time he had decided to be nice.

  “Got drunk and spent time with old friends, sir.” She said, keeping a respectful tone.

  “Ah,” nodded Volkstag thoughtfully. “Sounds like an excellent way to reunite, I wish I was able to join you. But, with this bounty on my head it makes it a bit difficult, no?”

  “I never would have expected that to stop a Volkstag.”

  Volkstag’s laugh sounded more like a cackle. “You’re right,” he agreed. “It didn’t stop my mother, or my brother. They both went coreward many times, and both came back carrying riches for the clan.” Then his green eyes fell on her. “So, tell me Ping An- what did you bring back for the clan from your trip?”

  “Information.” She said, and let the word hang there a moment.

  “About what?”

  “A rich trader. He’s bringing a trade convoy through one of the outer systems on his way to the Becker’s Folly system. It’ll be carrying rare foods and military supplies- the regular traders have stopped going there.”

  She saw his eyes start darting around as he called up what she guessed to be an infographic window of the system she was talking about. Then after a moment’s research he focused on her again and nodded. “Yes, they are most isolated, and desperately in need of trade. A ripe choice for a daring trader.”

  “Or a daring pirate.” Ping An added.

  “Agreed,” he said happily. “Give me the data, and I will begin the work of planning the operation immediately.”

  But Ping An shook her head, “No.”

  “What?” The warmth was gone in an instant, replaced by cold intensity.

  Finally, she looked at him, looking him straight in the eye. “No. Do you think I’m a fool? If I tell you this, then you’ll just give it to one of the mission commanders and what will I get out of it? Nothing!”

  “Ah.” He said, studying her. “So, you want a bigger piece. My Ping An is getting ambitious in her success.”

  “Damn straight I am,” she said angrily. “I worked hard to get this convoy’s flight plan, and I want to be the one who takes it.” Then she smiled, a challenge. “It’s that simple.”