Queen Anne's Revenge

by Blaze Ward

  “Can we finish dinner first?” the man asked.

  Trinidad stepped to the doorway, but not inside. The room was small. Too tiny for fighting, if the man suddenly moved. Better to let the door frame contain him.

  He looked Asian. That northern Asian look that Keller’s ambassador had about him. Eyes with the extra fold, but still more round. Skin more golden-brown than one of the Chinese Diaspora. Black hair buzzed tight against his skull. Average height, so a little taller than Trinidad, and built kinda squishy.

  The woman was the same, except she was a little shorter than Trinidad, and her hair was a little longer than the man’s. Otherwise, they might have been twins.

  Trinidad reached up with his free hand and popped open his faceplate, shifting to local atmosphere for now. Damn, that smelled good. Some sort of meat in a cheese sauce, with vegetables in the mix.

  “Go ahead,” Trinidad decided.

  This might be their last nice meal for a while. He had no idea what Commander Kosnett would do with the prisoners, but everyone back on 405 was gossiping about food right now. When it might run out. How the boss would react.

  “Is there anybody else aboard?” he asked.

  “Just my spouse and I,” the man said, picking up a spork and digging back into the bowl before him.

  Trinidad’s gun had never wavered. Neither of them had so much as blinked.

  Had they been so far behind lines that they forgot there was a war going on? Hell, this deep in enemy space, did their AI master even tell them that there were rebels against the galactic order, still fighting?

  Trinidad really felt the need for some theme music right now.

  “Nakisha, Gerry, check forward,” Trinidad said. “Clear every room but don’t touch anything.”

  A text message appeared on the Heads Up Display (HUD) on the right side of Trinidad’s helmet. “What’s for dinner?” it asked. Probably Siobhan. Evan had mentioned her and brought up oatmeal.

  Trinidad stepped far enough into the room that he could manually zoom his camera on the dish in the middle of the bar, and then over to where the woman was eating.

  “Looks yummy,” the next line read.

  Trinidad had to agree. Smelled fantastic, too. These people might fit in with Centurion Gephardt, if they cooked like that on a normal day.

  The man turned and studied Trinidad now as he watched. The crewman shrugged.

  “I would like to stow everything in the refrigerator now,” he said. “Could you step back please? You’re in front of the door.”

  Seriously, no scenario in his head had ever played out like this.

  “I am Centurion Trinidad Mildon,” he told them, trying to retain some level of control of the situation. On his local comm, he could hear Nakisha snickering, listening in. “Dragoon of CS-405. We’ll be taking you into custody now.”

  “Well, watch the left-hand auxiliary generator, as you face it from the hatch,” the woman said. “It’s acting up again and I was halfway through checking the filters and resetting baselines. I guess you’ll have to do that tomorrow.”

  Trinidad stopped himself before he actually shook his head in disbelief. He could hear Nakisha’s laughter echoing down the corridor from the bow.

  “Just come with me,” he finally said in an exasperated sigh.

  “Fine,” the man said. “But you’re doing dishes.”

  Salvage (April 5, 402)

  Kam pulled her head and shoulders back out of the opening and looked up at Phil and Bok, poised close by and obviously waiting on pins and needles. She found it funny that the casing to the captured ship’s JumpDrive was too narrow for even Phil’s shoulders, let alone Bok’s, without taking the entire thing apart first.

  “Well?” Phil asked.

  “Seems to work just fine,” she said with an elaborate shrug.

  She reached down and picked up a small, confiscated engineering tablet and keyed the button to bring it live. It was a cheap model. Two dimensional touch screen, without even a projector.

  Everything was in Mongolian, according to the words she had looked up, but Keller had made sure the whole squadron was prepared to read anything captured. And most of what Kam needed was graphical anyway. Legible enough for her needs.

  Not many people in the squadron spoke the language yet, but there were numerous training and conversational videos that the Ambassador had recorded before he left, just in case.

  “Good news, we can steal this ship and fly it somewhere,” she continued, answering Phil’s unasked question. “But there’s nothing in here we could strip out in order to fix our primary JumpSail. The technology isn’t even the same, although I can see where Henri Baudin started, back when he invented the new system.”

  Bok nodded. Phil cursed under his breath before turning to the Boatswain.

  “Complete rewire of the secondaries?” he asked.

  “Mostly done,” the older man shrugged. “The control circuits we could sometimes replace from spares and parts salvaged from the primary, but it’s a hack-job. Nowhere near as stable or safe as they did at the factory when they built it. We’re going to have problems with heat build-up and power fluctuations all over the place. Not sure how quickly we’ll burn out parts never intended for something like this, but I wouldn’t want to go more than a few hours at a time in JumpSpace, at least until we know how well we can hold everything together.”

  “Did we learn anything from the prisoners?” Phil pressed.

  Kam laughed.

  “Old married couple, out seeing the galaxy as merchant traders,” she said. “Almost remind me of my parents that way. Friendly enough, once they got over their shock. Ship’s not all that impressive, but at least the cargo is something useful.”

  “Yes,” Phil agreed. “Several thousand kilograms of frozen tuna steaks will go a long way towards keeping us in space, plus the little bit we can strip from Lan and Kiel’s cupboards, if we decide not to keep the ship.”

  She watched him stand more fully and run through some internal dialogue, eyes focused on a far bulkhead for a moment.

  “We need to keep our options open,” he finally said. “Kam, Bok, split your teams however you need to. I want this ship tuned and cleaned up so we can trust using it, long term. Or so we can at least pay Kiel and Lan back for borrowing it, if we decide we’ve gotten all the use out of it we can and end up dropping them off somewhere. Then get the systems on 405 as fixed as you can. We need to get clear of this area as soon as humanly possible, and find a path home that doesn’t run us right into more of these ships jumping around.”

  “Will do,” she said, standing as Phil turned and headed forward.

  She turned to find Bok almost as pensive as Phil had been.

  “Thoughts?” she asked the Boatswain.

  “Want to get some of my people over here,” he said. “We’ll need a damage control party flying on this boat, with whoever you assign. They’ll need to work directly with you, training, while I take a team and get our ship to the point where we can move.”

  “Sounds like a plan,” Kam said. “Send over Jules when you get back. I need him to decide how to move the cargo. Looks like we can keep some of it here, but I’d like to shift a bulk over to fill freezers forward. What can we do, if we run out of space?”

  “Throw it all inside a couple of insulated barriers and tack it to the outside of the hull?” Bok suggested. “Can’t imagine Phil’s going anywhere near a star for a while, so deep space cold will be just as good.”

  “Throw Dunklin on that,” she ordered. “We’ll use his redneck skills to dream something up.”

  “On it, boss,” Bok nodded and departed.

  Kam took a deep breath and looked back down at ten-thousand-year-old technology nobody on their side even understood anymore. She was pretty sure she could fix this. Probably fix it all, with access to the original design specifications and a competent engineering shop.

  What the hell was Phil going to do with a broken-down freighter?

&n
bsp; Prize (April 5, 402)

  “Good news first,” Phil found himself saying as he and Siobhan looked at each other across the bridge’s day office table. “There will be no oatmeal in your foreseeable future.”

  “But?” she asked, waiting for the other shoe to land.

  “Lots of fish,” Phil grinned. “I want you to take command of the other ship as part of a prize crew.”

  “What about Heather?” the woman asked carefully. “Shouldn’t she be your first pick?”

  “Heather’s already set to get her own command, as soon as one opens,” Phil confided. “First Lord knows better than to offer her a destroyer on a quiet frontier, so I expect there will be orders waiting for her, once we get back to civilization. She’ll likely head home and pick up a new corvette coming off the line, get herself a crew trained up, and come back here to help us. Time for you to exercise an independent command.”

  Siobhan was always hard to read. The woman kept her feelings and ideas close to the vest, except for oatmeal. Right now, he got to watch her go through something like the entire stages of death in a heartbeat: shock, elation, concern, and distrust.

  “What’s the catch?” she finally asked.

  “You’re going to be largely on your own for most things,” Phil told her. “Once you figure out how to navigate and fly the old beast, you’ll have to scout ahead of us while we limp to someplace where we can steal more food. If you get into trouble, there will be almost nothing we can do to help you.”

  “We’re on our own now, Phil,” she observed dryly.

  “Yes, but you’ll be exercising command authority, Siobhan,” he replied. “I’ll have to share certain things with you that only Heather has known, up until now. And you’ll be subject to Keller’s Order 48.”

  “Oh, shit,” Siobhan said quietly.

  “Exactly, Siobhan,” Phil commiserated.

  Jessica Keller was a brilliant commander. Possibly one of the best Aquitaine ever produced. She was also a cold, vicious bitch when it came to her personal war with Buran on behalf of Fribourg and Centurion Wiegand. Thus: Order 48, only the most notorious of her standing command orders for this fleet.

  No commanding officer, including Tactical Officers who exercise command authority in combat, can allow themselves to be taken prisoner by Buran’s forces. They will exercise any and all options to evade capture, including self-termination, if the officer feels that is the only way to keep the information in his or her head out of enemy hands, in the event of probable torture.

  He watched Siobhan take a deep breath. Everyone knew about Order 48, but for most of the crews, it was only a theoretical thing. Only he and Heather had been required to sign that acknowledgement.

  Up until now.

  “Under my authority, we will impress the ship known as Resolute Revolution into Aquitaine service, Siobhan,” he continued. “You will take command, subject to the normal rules and regulations of a brevet to command centurion. As the freighter is unarmed, you will serve as your own tactical officer, should it become necessary. Will you accept this commission?”

  He waited, watching the sudden weight settle on her shoulders. She was within her rights to refuse, right now, with no black mark accruing on her record as a result. Other than losing his eventual recommendation for her own, independent command at a later date.

  Not a career-killer, but…

  “You said scouting, Phil?” she suddenly said carefully. “How far out were you thinking?”

  “We’re going to be hopping in and out of JumpSpace probably at least as much as you would be, Siobhan,” he replied, trying to figure out the angle she was pursuing right now. “I’ll need a clean path at first, and then we’ll most likely need to raid someplace to get more food and intelligence. Keller will have this whole frontier lit up by now, so we’ll have to sneak every step of the way. What are you thinking?”

  She still hadn’t said yes. Or no.

  “Raiding,” she replied with a hard glimmer in her eyes. “That ship isn’t known as a pirate, right now. That’s good for at least one surprise attack, somewhere. After that, it depends on the flow of information.”

  “Indeed it does, Centurion,” Phil agreed, letting some level of formality creep into his voice. “High risk, commensurate reward.”

  “Can I pick my prize crew?” she finally asked the question he had been waiting for.

  “Within certain vetoes, Siobhan,” he said. “You can’t have Kam, Bok, or Evan.”

  “Don’t want them, Phil,” she hesitated. “I want Trinidad, Nakisha Onks, Markus Dunklin, and Max Bathurst. That gives me a redneck engineer, a medic, and a couple of gunmen.”

  “We can probably swing that,” he said. “What are you up to?”

  “Building a wooden horse, Phil.”

  Mission Log (April 7, 402)

  “Personal log: Command Centurion Phil Kosnett, commanding RAN CS-405. Current location: Deep in enemy space near Severnaya Zemlya with a broken scout, a stolen freighter, two prisoners, and a timer running on food.

  Capturing Resolute Revolution has added more than two weeks to our available deadline before we end up breaking out the emergency rations, but it will still not get us home. As it now appears, we will need to top up on air and water first, as things will start getting thin in that time.”

  Phil paused to take a breath, looking for the words he needed. Nobody was likely to listen to this log, unless he was dead, or made it home and the Court Martial he faced went especially bad. Nothing like speaking to the galleries and history.

  “I have tasked Centurion Skokomish with taking command of the freighter and becoming our own scout, assigning her a team that has all the makings of a modern pirate crew. It is my current belief that we simply cannot make a straight run home to our previous operating base, as Keller would take our disappearance as a risk that CS-405 has been captured, and so must immediately move Forward Base Omicron to a safer location. Thus, we will eventually need to cross the Gulf and make it through Buran patrols to reach safe harbor at an Imperial world.

  With few habitable stars in the Gulf itself, we will have to raid at least one enemy system before undertaking the long sail across the darkness, both for intelligence and consumables. CS-405 is one of the better ship classes to undertake such a mission, and I have high confidence that we can make it.

  Repairs have the secondary JumpSail in some level of working order, but the primary will need to be pulled at a dry-dock and replaced in toto. Boatswain Bok Battenhouse has a file containing notes and suggestions for an improvement to the engineering design, to prevent a repeat.

  His current theory is that the final shot that struck us, a hit on an aft panel partly tempered by the edge of a shield wall, triggered some sort of power spike in the generator, which burned out some of the control circuits. When we transitioned to JumpSpace, the generator began to overload, unable to properly regulate the power demands of the JumpSail itself, and created a feedback loop that eventually caused the system to fail explosively, taking out both JumpSail controllers.”

  Phil paused again, contemplating the next steps. This was just about a worst nightmare for a command centurion, a wounded deer being stalked by tigers in the heavy brush.

  “Crew morale is good, at present. Food and consumables are plentiful enough at this time. The greatest risk will be raiding a system. Smaller planets typically have a small, automated station in orbit, which could provide us air and water, but we will still need to acquire food and intelligence. To do that, we will have to take it, either from another freighter such as Resolute Revolution, or capture it from a planet.

  We can assault a station, or land the prize vessel on a surface, and conduct operations. The risk at that point is aggressive patrolling by Buran’s border fleet, in light of Keller’s massive raids all along this border. We cannot face any enemy warship on even terms, as even a Hammerhead has us massively outgunned. Flight would be our only option in the occurrence, with any deployed crew potentially captured
. Heather Lau and I will not leave CS-405, but Siobhan Skokomish will be aboard Resolute Revolution. She has acknowledged Rule 48 and signed the documents into ship’s memory.

  Hopefully, it will never come to that.”

  Queen Anne’s Revenge (April 7, 402)

  Siobhan was in the starboard of the two seats up front, enjoying the vista of outer space through a big window, rather than her normal view on a screen. The seats swiveled inward on posts when you unlocked them to move, so she could turn around and talk without standing up. They weren’t all that comfortable, but Lan and Kiel had kept them clean. Hell, the whole ship was clean, except for the kitchen, where Trinidad had assigned himself the task of handling all the leftover dishes.

  Flying this ship, she had learned, pretty much involved a couple of flat-panel screens with programmable buttons on all four sides. You called up a function menu, and commands pointed at the associated button you needed to push. Primitive, but pretty much invulnerable to time and wear.

  A sound behind her caused Siobhan to turn.

  “Сайн байна уу,” Siobhan said with a grin as Trinidad stepped onto the cramped bridge.

  “What the hell was that?” Trinidad replied, stopped dead by the gibberish coming out of her mouth.

  “Mongolian,” Siobhan said. “I said hello. As of right now, this whole vessel is going to be conversational Mongolian, whenever possible. You’ve got the videos from the Ambassador and Bhattacharya to watch. Plus all the stuff I downloaded. I don’t care how good your Mandarin is. The places we’re going won’t necessarily speak it, and I figure we’ll need to do some really fast talking.”

  Trinidad nodded.

  “You and Nakisha are probably the best at that, then,” he said after a moment. “I can see what I’ll be doing after dinner. Until then, what’s the plan? Phil said something about a Trojan horse?”

  “There is not enough food to get everyone home,” Siobhan replied. “Chances of us finding another ship like this are low, so we have to go take it from someone. To do that, we have to walk right up to them, all casual like, before we pull out guns.”