The bridge crew nervously watched the fighter on the vidscreen as it passed and cleared the stern of the Princess, repeating its first wing-over maneuver. Banking smoothly, it fell in line behind the Princess Hedonist and matched her pace, neither firing or attempting to communicate. Gantarro motioned the bridge security officer to his side, "Ensign, wake our pilots. Tell them I need their immediate presence on the bridge." The first officer looked at him with one eyebrow raised. "Don't look at me like I'm nuts, boy... They're from a warring world, they may have an idea or two." He waved the Ensign on his way, "Go, and make it fast!" He looked at his chronometer. With luck, it was about fifty minutes travel time to the gate. At this pace maybe they could safely reach the gate before the fighter's mother showed up.
The Science Officer sat bolt upright at his station and swiveled around in his chair, his eyes wide with concern. "Sir, I have three more fast movers inbound... on the edge of the grid about ten minutes out." To the bridge crew, it appeared their luck had run out.
■ ■ ■
Jack was vaguely aware of Maria's singing and the sound of the shower. He consciously listened to the sounds only because he found them pleasant and soothing. Her voice lilted softly in Spanish, and the steady hush of the running water sent waves of warm sleepiness through his mind.
The pilot gently prodded the Shepherd sleeping across his feet when the dog began to snore loudly. Jack stifled a drowsy chuckle when Fritz rolled onto his back and with his feet in the air, continued to snore without interruption.
Jack was almost asleep again when he heard the door chime. He listened carefully, not sure if he had really heard it over the sound of the shower or not. It rang again, repeatedly, urgently. Struggling to free himself from the bed linens and covers, Jack kicked vigorously and dumped Fritz on the floor with a thud. Grabbing a robe to cover his nude form, he headed for the door. "For cryin' out loud, take it easy will ya'?" He fastened the robe and opened the door.
"Sorry to bother you, sir. The Captain needs you all on the bridge, pronto..."
"What's going on, Ensign?" Jack rubbed his eyes.
"We've got company, sir..."
"Company?"
The Ensign nodded, "Pirates." Jack's eyes widened and the security man flashed a quick salute. "Soon as you can, sir."
Jack found himself saluting an empty doorway and stared blankly into the hallway. "Right away," he mumbled. After a moment, he snapped out of the trance and rushed through the suite. Throwing his robe on the bed, Jack headed for the shower.
Like most women who took their appearance seriously, Maria hated to be rushed, but Jack felt she did an admirable job in expediting her morning routine. While they dressed, Jack filled her in on the facts as he knew them, including a brief account of the visit to the Eliza Meru, minus the ghoulish details, of course. Like most men who looked upon their masculinity with pride, he did an excellent job of being overprotective and withholding his true feelings. But then again, she knew that.
As a personal best for probably both of them, they left their suite, properly showered and dressed, only about ten minutes after the Ensign's visit. Leaving Fritz with the waitress at the Ecosphere Lounge, Jack and Maria headed for the bridge. Joined by the other pilots en-route, they increased their pace. The group could be heard for some distance, their flight boots echoing in the corridors. The talk of pirates had prompted them all to wear their sidearms and passengers stared at the armed officers hustling through the ship. It was not an activity they were used to seeing.
■ ■ ■
The bridge crew, which was normally animated and amiable, sat silently at their stations, eyes glued to the view screen, as if staring blankly and wishing could change what they saw. Only Gant moved when the pilots entered the bridge, turning to greet them. His face was ashen and grim. "In my ready room, please." He pointed the way without his normal joviality.
Jack paused to look at the screen as the pilots made their way across the bridge. The Princess had been forced by the threat of great physical damage to cease all movement, little more than thirty minutes from the safety of the Genesis Gate. With all engines at full stop, she drifted gently in the quiet, starry void, encircled by four out-of-date but very dangerous Warthog fighters. The stubby little fighters were inferior by current standards, but were completely capable of inflicting tremendous damage on the defenseless cruise ship.
Pirates. Jack's stomach tightened and he took a deep breath as he entered Gantarros's ready room. He had a feeling this was going to be a very long day.
Could these be the same savages who committed the atrocities on the Eliza Meru? Jack answered his own question; it was very possible. He had hoped to meet the culprits someday, but he didn't expect it to be so soon. Nor did he expect the sides to be so uneven. `Aint this a bitch, he thought. Whenever you wish for something and it comes about, it never waits until you're ready.
Several security people were already there, including Raulya and Myomerr. There weren't enough seats for everyone, so some sat, some stood, but everyone was silent and still.
Gantarro sat on the edge of his desk and cleared his throat uneasily, then spoke softly, "Gentlemen, as you may have noticed, we are in serious trouble. Those are pirate fighter craft out there... I don't know exactly what they want, but I can guess." Despite the cool circulated air, he wiped perspiration from his brow. "Food, fuel, any type of valuable goods or cargo, women and children too..." his voice trailed off. "Jack... Trigoss gave me a full report on the Eliza Meru this morning. If these are the same pirates, either they had some kind of vendetta, or we're dealing with a whole new breed. More ruthless, more vicious, more dangerous than any I've seen before."
A swirl of talk enveloped the room, and everyone seemed to have something to say at the same time. Predictably, it turned competitive and adversarial.
"Great," moaned Brian, "Just fucking wonderful."
Mike stood with his hands on his hips, angry at the general feeling of helplessness. "So what can we do? I mean, we don't even have any birds to fly!"
"I say," added Derrik, “I really don't fancy going down without at least giving the bastards a black eye..."
"Well," interrupted Maria, "I suppose we could fly the shuttles if we could find some hardware to put on them..."
"Oh, I say! Steady on, Missy! I mean a jokes a joke, old girl, but you can't seriously consider flying one of those bloody sausages into a swirl... it's simply daft!"
"Quit being a pansy!" Maria lashed.
"A pansy!? Your crackers woman! It would be plain suicide. Maybe you've had a bit too much juice... are you blotto again?" He gripped Jack's shoulder. "I say, Jack, you need to keep this girl off the sauce!"
"I haven't had a drop!"
"Oh, right-o, and I'm Winston Churchill."
Jack couldn't take any more and threw his hands up in the air in a gesture of frustration. "OK! That's enough! Everybody just shut the hell up!"
"Thank you," said Pappy, then he addressed Gant. "Before we know if we have any options or not, we need to know what we're up against. What else is out there besides those fighters? Who are we waiting for?"
Gant wiped his forehead again. "The mother ship. She's a Raider class cruiser. She'll be here in about fifteen minutes."
"How big, size-wise, is she?"
Gant glanced uncertainly at Raulya then back to Paul and shrugged. "Considerably smaller than our physical size, but with enough firepower to blow us into asteroid dust. Why?"
Pappy shook his head. "No reason... yet. The more information the better. Sometimes the most obvious or inane piece of information can be the most important. You can never know too much about your enemy."
"True," agreed Jack. "So, if we're going to survive this, we'd better sit down and
talk. Fast. We need to know everything you know about pirate tactics, equipment, habits... Maybe we can find some weakness we can use."
Pappy jumped back in. "I think the first thing we have to acknowledge is that we can't fight them on their terms. We'll lose. We need them to come down to our level somehow, because that will even out the odds a bit."
"Right, exactly. Familiar territory, so to speak."
Paul was speaking from the military level, and Jack was speaking from a law enforcement level, but for some reason, the two facets seemed to go together very well. It also appeared the two men were understanding each others' concepts as they were presented. Something rather important seemed to be formulating in regards to a plan of action and Gantarro could almost see the electricity between the two pilots.
The others remained quiet, watching and listening with intense interest. Gantarro explained that there were many different types of pirates, and there were actually some with ethics and a certain moral code, twisted though it may be. But recently a new breed had been emerging, ruthless and violent, born of necessity to survive the treachery of certain types of smuggling. These had no conscience. The smell of blood and killing of the defenseless held a thrill for them.
Raulya explained that the tactics were as varied as the types of pirates and depended upon the circumstances and equipment at hand. In general, there would be an armed boarding party, whose size was rarely predictable. Their job would be to seize control of the ship, whether it be by force or co-operation, then the officers would board to direct the operations of their salvage and seizure crews. At this point things got completely unpredictable. Sometimes entire ships were confiscated and their crews either executed or sold into slavery. In most cases, they would take what and who they wanted, using shuttles for transports, then depart. Smaller pirate vessels had been known to land in a victim's flight bay, fill their own ship to capacity and then leave.
Myomerr speculated since they were near a Genesis Gate, on a well traveled route, and the Princess had already broadcast a distress call, the pirate Captain would opt for a fast score and be off.
Jack shook his head. "Why? It's just as easy for him to commandeer us and move away from the trade route. He'd have all the time in the world."
"Or take the whole ship," added Paul. "It would make a tremendous mobile base of operations."
"He may not have the manpower," interrupted Gant. "Many pirate crews are understaffed."
"Yeah," said Jack with a smile, "but maybe, like many criminals, he's got an ego. A big ego, maybe too big for his own good. I used to see it all the time. They get cocky, think they're invincible. Then they get stupid, make stupid mistakes."
"Geez, that's a lot of maybes," said Maria sarcastically, shaking her head. "I hope you've got something more solid than that."
Paul shushed her with a wave of his hand. "I can see your wheels turnin', Jack. Whatcha got in mind?"
Jack Steele was having a difficult time containing a Cheshire Cat grin, and it showed. The idea had just hit him. It was so obvious he was amazed he hadn't thought of it earlier. As he explained it, it became even clearer. "Look, a criminal uses a weapon not only as a physical but as a psychological means of leverage to accomplish his goal. More often than not, goals revolve around obtaining material objectives. Why? Greed, plain and simple. That is our leverage. To make him vulnerable, we need to give him a prize large enough, worth enough, that he has to put down his weapon to pick it up. This is where we'll find out how good our acting abilities are...."
Jack paused to let all this sink in and give him a moment to formulate his conclusion. The room was so quiet, if someone had dropped a pin it would have made a deafening racket. When the door from the bridge swished open, everyone jumped. The Security Warrant Officer stepped halfway through the door. "They're here..."
"Thank you," said Gant, rising. The Warrant Officer left and the door closed again, leaving them in an uneasy silence. Gant stepped over to a small view screen and turned it on. The pirate cruiser was slowing to a stop abreast of the Princess. She was dark and menacing. Though much smaller than the Princess Hedonist, the cruiser bristled with enough firepower to easily destroy the luxury liner. "Oh no..." whispered Gant. While everyone peered at the image, only Raulya and Myomerr seemed to have the same opinion as the Captain of the Princess Hedonist.
"What is it?" asked Brian, who had moved next to Raulya to get a better view.
"It's the Ynosa..."
"You know this ship?" asked Paul.
Myomerr nodded, stroking her whiskers, "She's changed a bit, but yes, we all do. Raulya and I both, served on her. She was a UFW cruiser."
"You mean she's gone renegade?"
"No," said Gant, staring at the screen. "She disappeared in battle over a year ago. All hands were expected lost. Heavily damaged, her communications dead, she drifted out of the battle without power and was never seen again. It was widely thought the Ynosa disintegrated... That's fairly common with her level of damage. Power plants race unrestrained, with no load and no place to dump the overflow of energy, they go into a meltdown. Not a pleasant way to go. We all had friends on her..."
"I'm sorry," said Jack, knowing the words to be inadequate.
Gant shook his head and took a deep breath as if putting away the memories, "No..." he held up a hand in dismissal, "no regrets..." He turned back to the group. "Ok, they'll contact us when they're ready. Where were we? Ah yes. Mr Steele, tell us more about the acting abilities we're going to need... and this wonderful prize we're to tempt them with." His smile had returned. He was feeling devious. Maybe this was a chance to even the score for all those ghosts that walked through his mind.
It was as clear as a bell now, the whole plan. There were lots of variables, of course, not every circumstance could be accounted for. There would be some instances that would require thinking on the run. But, all in all, a very probable plan. Jack was feeling very confident and doing his Cheshire Cat impression again. "Ok, so, this is what we need to do..."
■ ■ ■
The pirate Captain's face would be larger-than-life on the bridge's vidscreen, but Jack and the other pilots watched on the small monitor in Gantarro's ready room. With the split screen function, the pilots could see and hear Gant as well as the pirate.
Using a set of small, remote communication headsets, one with the microphone removed, Jack could speak to Gant without the pirate's knowledge. This allowed him to audio-prompt Gant in case something came up that hadn't been discussed, which might in turn, alter the plan. The biggest concern was, of course that the pirates would simply blast holes in the Princess for grins and giggles. For the moment, the vidscreen was focused on the pirate vessel sedately floating in space abreast of the much larger Princess Hedonist.
Gant had returned to the bridge, leaving the pilots and security people to their discussions in his ready room. Unfortunately, there was not much to talk about until they were contacted by the pirates. So they waited. Chatting uneasily, with awkward silences, they stared at the viewer to see if anything changed. Several people jumped when the buzz of the intercom panel interrupted one of those silences. Jack reached over to the desk and pushed the button to answer the call. He could feel his heart thudding in his chest, hoping it was the landing bay crew calling to tell him the preparations he'd ordered were finished. It was and they were.
"Good news?" asked Brian.
Jack smiled as he pushed the button to disconnect the call. "So far, so good."
Paul stood up and stretched. "So what now?"
Jack's smile had not faded and he thumbed at the vidscreen. "We wait for General Custer..." Nervous laughter circulated through the room.
"Check it out," said Mike, who had been examining the pirate vessel on the screen. "It actua
lly has a skull and crossbones on it."
"Get outta' here..."
"No, really, I'm not kidding... look." He tapped his finger on the vidscreen. Everyone moved closer to get a better look and Raulya adjusted the control to enlarge the picture.
"He's right," said Pappy. Jack nodded absentmindedly, staring at the screen and pulled on his lower lip.
"So, what's the big deal?" asked Maria.
"Well it is a bit odd..." began Brian.
Jack broke his silence and agreed with Brian, "Damn right it's odd, it's downright strange! We're out in space a zillion miles from home, and there's some guy using an insignia originally used by pirates in Earth's seventeenth century. Christ, I find that pretty incredible! Don't you?"
It was obvious by their expressions that they were beginning to realize how bizarre that really was, but before the discussion could get any further the vidscreen flickered and the ship disappeared. It was replaced by the face of the pirate Captain.
"Look, he's human!" Indeed he was. A shock of curly reddish-brown hair hung to his shoulders, a thick mustache underlined his strong nose and a well trimmed King Arthur style beard accentuated his jawline. His eyes were dark and flashing. He wore a loose, white silk shirt with large billowing sleeves, ruffles around the cuffs and ruffles down the front.
The pirate stood with arms crossed and glared confidently, his bejeweled fingers sparkling in the light of his command bridge. Raulya adjusted the sound and set the split screen function so they could see Gantarro as well.
Wings of Steele - Destination Unknown (Book 1) Page 21
