Queen Anne's Revenge
Page 15
“Where is your captain?” he asked.
Blank looks. Not captain. Weirdoes did that wrong, too.
“Where is your director?” he fixed his vocabulary and challenged the closest one.
Fearful hands pointed at the man Trinidad had shot.
Made sense. Only the commander probably had access to what might be the only firearm on the ship. At least before today.
“What’s the situation?” Siobhan called as she entered.
Trinidad grinned at her, cognizant of all the smoke, fire, and death around them.
“Need a couple of engineers to fix things,” he said. “And a pilot to do some of her navigating magic, but I appear to have captured you a freighter.”
“Excuse me?” Nakisha barked. “You weren’t alone, you know.”
At that moment, somewhere below, an engineer managed to fix a shorted line, or reroute a damaged trunk, and the grav-plates suddenly came back on, full power.
Trinidad plummeted two meters to the deck with a howl of surprise, clanging his helmet like someone throwing an anvil down a staircase.
Gerry, the big dumb marine, was standing in the doorway where his helmetcam would have the best view, next to Siobhan when Trinidad looked up.
“And PRINT!” the big marine yelled.
Packmule (June 8, 402)
Siobhan felt like the cat with all the best cream in the refrigerator, just awaiting her pleasure. The big freighter had been easy enough to move, once they’d hijacked it. Laptev had no coast guard or naval forces capable of chasing them across space, so she had just programmed a course for the Gulf and jumped.
Best to lead the locals astray, as the second jump had been sideways and down, and then down again, until they passed all the way around Laptev and ended up fifty-some light years closer to Severnaya Zemlya than they started. Not too close, as Phil had expected heightened patrols, after what Keller and crew had done last time, but the last place anybody would look for them.
The new conference room was packed with friendly bodies. Siobhan was on the second prize with most of the officers, plus Bok representing the crew. The ship had a number: long, messy, and impersonal, but everyone had taken to calling it Packmule, on account of it being slow, balky, stubborn, and being able to haul an impossible amount of food around.
Julius Gephardt, Jules, was just finishing up his rundown of the inventory they had eventually pried out of the computers.
Phil interrupted with a waved hand as Jules started off on another tangent that included gumbo ala king, which sounded rather awesome to Siobhan. She would have liked to see where that went, but Phil was in charge.
“Boil it down,” Phil grumbled. “Give me numbers, and not recipes.”
Siobhan nearly laughed at the look of thwarted genius that flashed across the Chef’s face for the briefest moment. She wondered how hard the man was fighting not to eyeroll his own command centurion.
“Fine,” Jules huffed after a moment. “Assuming the usual rate of spoilage, waste, and shrinkage as we have maintained for the last two years, we have roughly nineteen and a half months’ worth of food stocks, between the three vessels. Siobhan got lucky, in that Laptev doesn’t grow oats, so they had just delivered their last stores of that grain to the surface, replacing it with something genetically close to Russian Red Number Two wheat. Now all I need are chickens.”
“Chickens, Jules?” Phil was lost. But the man never cooked. Xui Yi, his wife, was a fantastic chef, and had entertained Siobhan and Heather for dinner on a couple of occasions, before CS-405 went to the far ends of the galaxy.
“I need fresh eggs, Phil,” Jules said. “We’ve got the grain, the water, and the milk. With eggs, I can make dumplings, gnocchi, bread, and any pasta you want. But I need chickens.”
He turned to Siobhan with a deadly serious face.
“Alive, this time, by the way,” Jules continued.
That got a tremendous laugh from all the way around the room. Everybody had enjoyed the fresh chicken, and then discovering bone broth after that had been a double win.
But yeah, they would need chickens. Siobhan could see that. Possibly cows, too, if they wanted fresh milk on a regular basis.
Phil rubbed a big paw down his face, as if trying to wipe away the weirdness of the day. They had gotten away. And stolen one of the biggest cargo vessels in the sector, fully loaded with goods. And enough food to stay at sea for a long time, since the Expeditionary Corvette was designed with exactly that in mind.
“Are you suggesting we hit a farming world next?” Phil finally asked, right up at the edge of exasperated.
Jules shrugged and gave everyone his best, awesomist chef’s sneer.
“You want to continue to eat like kings and queens, I need a better logistics train,” he scolded. “Think of it as trading up for other problems. You won’t starve. Now you’ll bitch about needing a fancier menu instead.”
More laughter.
“We can’t hold a planet,” Phil groused.
“We don’t have to, Phil,” Siobhan finally spoke up, unable to contain the mad energy in her belly much longer. Or the giggles. “Why not take one they don’t know about?”
Heather, of all people, turned a hard eye on Siobhan.
“Stop reading my mind, Siobhan,” the First Officer challenged.
“What are you two up to?” Jules asked, possibly frightened that the women were about to call his bluff.
“We know what systems Buran claims,” Siobhan replied. “We have their entire navigational records for the sector.”
“Correct,” Heather took up the thread now. “And there must be worlds that just haven’t been colonized yet. Look how many planets the ancients terraformed in the early days. Let’s steal one.”
“Steal a planet?” Phil asked, his voice heavy with sarcastic disbelief.
“Hey, finders keepers, right?” Siobhan countered. “And we are a scout. Let’s become explorers.”
Siobhan noted a change in Phil’s eyes when she said that. Must have triggered something, because the man suddenly smiled.
“Yes,” he agreed, maybe a little too readily. “But a farm needs farmers. Either you folks take up tilling the soil, or we’re going to have to get someone else to do it. And I’m not about to go capture prisoners, just to make them work.”
“We’ve got twenty-nine warm bodies now,” Siobhan offered.
“Twenty-seven,” Heather corrected her. “Kiel and Lan are passengers, not prisoners.”
“Do they know anybody?” Siobhan asked, more as a joke than anything.
She grew concerned when Phil’s face got serious. Like maybe he was considering asking them if they had cousins interested in starting a farm somewhere.
“I’ll ask,” he said after a beat. “What’s the worst they could say? No?”
“Wait,” Siobhan was aghast. “Serious? Get some folks from The Holding and ask them to run a secret farm for us on an unknown planet? That sort of thing?”
“Fresh start on a new world,” Heather, of all people mused. “Plus a lot of free labor from us, setting them up in the first place so they can become self-sufficient. I imagine you could be rather successful, if you didn’t have any capital loans to pay off, and no taxman coming.”
“What have you crazy bastards been up to while Trinidad and I have been off having adventures?” Siobhan asked sarcastically.
“Plotting how to get even,” Evan Brinich suddenly spoke up. “Oatmeal was right out, so we had to get creative.”
More laughter. Siobhan grinned. It was good to be home.
“Okay,” Phil tapped a finger on the table top to get everyone’s attention. “This sounds like something worth investigating. Who knows anything about farms? I’m a city boy.”
“You know,” the Boatswain suddenly spoke up. “I’ve been giving some thought to retiring from the Navy for a while now. This might be a good job for me.”
“What do you know about tilling the soil, Bok?” Phil asked. “You’ve been in the fleet l
onger than most of the rest of us have been alive.”
“And before that, I grew up milking cows and mucking out stables twice a day,” the short man replied. “Joined the Navy to get as far from that life as possible. That’s why I’ve stayed in for forty-three years. But I could see retiring to a farm. Actually, it would be more of a secret naval base than anything else.”
“How much crew would you need?” Phil turned his whole torso to face his Boatswain. “To do it right?”
“Assuming you can hit a farm somewhere and steal chickens and other livestock?” Bok asked. “Surprisingly few. Most of the work we can automate, so we’ll need tractors and pumps for the most part. Bodies are necessary when it comes time to harvest.”
“Start a list,” Phil ordered, taking Siobhan’s breath away. “That will tell me who we need to hit next.”
Phil Kosnett was serious. They weren’t going to take the Packmule and Queen Anne’s Revenge and just run across the border for home. He was looking at going full-on pirate, raiding Buran space for a living, or at least until they could get a message to Keller or the Imperials.
Imperials.
“Hey,” Siobhan asked suddenly, cutting off all the chatter as heads turned towards her. “Does anyone know what Buran does with Imperial prisoners they take, after a ship is lost attacking Samara? I don’t see The Eldest just hauling them out back and shooting them. Goes against most of what that bastard professes to believe about what’s best for humanity. Where do they go?”
Dead silence. Quizzical faces and shrugs.
“Would there be anything in the logs of the Packmule?” Heather asked. “The ship goes to dozens of planets. I’ve never looked in the Gazetteer for something like that, but nobody ever asked. Fribourg and Aquitaine always had a channel for swapping people home after a year or so.”
“You and Siobhan find out,” Phil ordered fiercely. “That’s a labor force we can use, as well as a marine raiding company we can train, if they exist and we can find them. Ladies and gentlemen, understand this. We could make it home right now, safe and sound and extremely successful with the two ships we’ve captured and the damage we’ve done to Buran. I’m not satisfied, however. Keller will have to regroup and repair ships, so Buran would have time to do the same. I don’t intend to give them that time. We can keep up the pressure here, and harass the hell out of this entire sector, and the ones around it, just by continuing to act like pirates. We need a base next, and then it will be time to consider if we should leave the Caribbean and sail to North America, South America, Africa, or hit prime targets in Spain and France.”
He paused, slowly turning his head to fix his gaze on everyone. Siobhan felt the mad power in those eyes as he got to her.
“The rest of Keller’s squadron always gets the combat glory,” Phil said. “I intend to do something here that will rank up there with The Long Raid and The Expedition. Any questions?”
Siobhan held her breath. So did the rest of them.
The audacity of what Phil Kosnett was proposing made everything she had done up until now look like knocking over a corner convenience store for pocket change.
Siobhan found Heather’s eyes, seated on the other side of Phil. They shared a hard, meaningful smile, flashing back to the captured bridge of this ship, and the potential for mischief they had discussed.
And now, Phil was going to top that.
“I’m in,” Heather said simply.
“Let’s do this,” Lady Blackbeard answered her.
Read More!
Be sure to read all three of the CS-405 books!
Queen Anne’s Revenge
Packmule
Persephone
Available at your favorite retailers!
About the Author
Blaze Ward writes science fiction in the Alexandria Station universe (Jessica Keller, The Science Officer, The Story Road, etc.) as well as several other science fiction universes, such as Star Dragon, the Collective, and more. He also writes odd bits of high fantasy with swords and orcs. In addition, he is the Editor and Publisher of Boundary Shock Quarterly Magazine. You can find out more at his website www.blazeward.com, as well as Facebook, Goodreads, and other places.
Blaze's works are available as ebooks, paper, and audio, and can be found at a variety of online vendors (Kobo, Amazon, and others). His newsletter comes out quarterly, and you can also follow his blog on his website. He really enjoys interacting with fans, and looks forward to any and all questions—even ones about his books!
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Also by Blaze Ward
The Jessica Keller Chronicles
Auberon
Queen of the Pirates
Last of the Immortals
Goddess of War
Flight of the Blackbird
The Red Admiral
St. Legier
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CS-405
Queen Anne’s Revenge
Packmule
Persephone
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Additional Alexandria Station Stories
The Story Road
Siren
Two Bottles of Wine with a War God
* * *
The Science Officer Series
The Science Officer
The Mind Field
The Gilded Cage
The Pleasure Dome
The Doomsday Vault
The Last Flagship
The Hammerfield Gambit
The Hammerfield Payoff
* * *
Doyle Iwakuma Stories
The Librarian
Demigod
Greater Than The Gods Intended
* * *
Other Science Fiction Stories
Myrmidons
Moonshot
Menelaus
* * *
Earthquake Gun
Moscow Gold
* * *
Fairchild
* * *
White Crane
* * *
The Collective Universe
The Shipwrecked Mermaid
Imposters
About Knotted Road Press
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Queen Anne’s Revenge
CS-405: Book One
Blaze Ward
Copyright © 2019 Blaze Ward
All rights reserved
Published by Knotted Road Press
www.KnottedRoadPress.com
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ISBN: 978-1-64470-008-2
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Cover art:
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Cover and interior design © 2019 Knotted Road Press
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This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. All rights reserved. This is a work of fiction. All characters and events portrayed in this book are fictional, and any resemblance to real people or incidents is purely coincidental. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
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