by Randy Dyess
“Yes. I didn’t see it happen, but I saw the recordings. No one—not even pirates—should have to die that way.”
“Okay, I’ll test the suits. How much time do I have?”
“The sooner, the better. Something is about to happen—I feel it every time I talk to freighter crews coming in to dock. Everyone out in deep space is on edge. Something is going on, and the Senate and corporations are not talking about it. We need to prepare as fast as we can; I think our time is running out.”
When Owen finished his breakfast and left for his station, Dakota looked back at her plate and briefly considered if she should just dump it and start over. She didn’t like it when her ritual was disturbed. In the end, she ate her breakfast while thinking that the day was going to be disastrous.
*****
“Jerk,” Owen said to Skip as he walked back to the bridge.
The crew burst out laughing. It was tradition to haze the new guy, and the fact that Owen was the youngest son of the company’s owner, brother of the captain, and the next leader of the company made the hazing that much sweeter. “Swallow it down, nugget, and then take over navigation. You need to experience coming into Taurus Prime,” Skip said.
“Yes, sir,” Owen replied, giving a fake marine salute before sitting down at the navigation station and wolfing down his food.
Thirty minutes later, Dakota entered the bridge. “Report.”
“All normal. Exit in two hours. All crew on duty—and one nugget who feels like an idiot,” Skip said before looking at Merle and mouthing, “you owe me eighty credits, sucker.” They had bet whether their little prank on Owen would throw off the captain’s schedule. She always arrived exactly two hours from drop out and not a minute sooner. In Skip’s eyes, if Merle was dumb enough to bet against their captain, he deserved to lose everything he owned.
“Okay, boys. Prepare to drop out of FTL in two hours. I want a complete flight systems check finished in five minutes and all departments to report in thirty. Start charging weapons and let Sergeant Phelps know he has two hours to prep his marines.”
Owen had thought the two hours would drag by. This was his first time as part of the bridge crew on Sullivan’s Pride going into battle and he didn’t realize how different it would be from working on a normal freighter. On a normal freighter, you simply instructed the AI and it did all the work—the bridge crew was there in case of emergencies. Owen had spent the last five years working his way through each of the Sullivan Shipping’s freighter classes and had thought the Sullivan’s Pride would operate the same way. She was not, however, a freighter, nor a simple security vessel. This newer version of Sullivan’s Pride stripped away any pretense of being an armed freighter, which her predecessor had started out as. The new Sullivan’s Pride was more warship than anything else, and Dakota ran it like one. Her weapon pods replaced cargo holds and armed marines and combat crews replaced freighter crews.
Owen soon learned that Dakota and her crew didn’t act like a freighter crew. There was no sitting around to play cards or talking while letting auto systems exit the FTL tunnel and take a ship into port, which had become standard operating procedure for every ship for the last four hundred years. On the Sullivan’s Pride, the entire crew remained at battle stations every time the ship came out of FTL. The bridge crew had to be prepared to take over control of the flight operations at a moment’s notice, and armed marines stood by to repeal borders with weapons primed and charged to be fired without delay. With this being a brand-new ship, Dakota wanted to test everything. She was creating new operating procedures for all Sullivan Shipping security vessels and she needed to set the bar so high that others couldn’t reach it.
“Exit in five, four, three, two, one,” the speaker announced as the ship dropped out of FTL. It was normal for all systems to go offline for a few seconds after exiting—something about the collapse of the FTL bubble stripping off electrons, or something like that. Unlike Cheyenne, Dakota didn’t know the science behind the exit; she only knew that a ship would be vulnerable until the bubble collapsed completely. Having her crew ready to bring the ship up to combat status reduced the number of seconds they would be vulnerable to an attack—seconds that, in a pirate attack, could mean life or death.
The lights flickered and the warning klaxon sounded as the bubble collapsed. “Battle stations!” Dakota shouted. “All stations report.”
“Weapons green.”
“Communications green.”
“Navigation green.”
“Sensors green, and reporting all clear.”
One by one, the rest of the ship’s departments reported their status. Dakota had her AI count off the seconds until all departments reported green; their old record was ninety seconds, and she wanted to beat it today.
“Ship’s all green, Captain” Skip reported.
“Eighty-nine seconds,” Dakota said through the ship’s communications system. “Well done. We have four more stops on this shakedown patrol. Break the record each time and I’ll see to it that everyone gets a good bonus.”
A cheer went up around the ship. “Secure from battle stations. Bring ship to normal running status,” Dakota commanded.
“Aye, Captain, normal running status,” Skip responded.
“What’s the estimated time to Helion?”
“Five hours, if we use Taurus Prime to shield our approach,” Skip responded. “We could do it in two, if you want to make a run directly at the base.”
“No,” Dakota said, “keep us on this flight plan. Maintain condition three alert until we are thirty minutes out and then go to battle stations.”
“Aye, Captain.”
“Owen,” Dakota said, “I want you to go down to Sergeant Phelps and have him go through his routine for boarders. I want you familiar with the marine’s procedures before the battle. I doubt we’ll have boarders, but I want you to understand their procedures.”
“Okay,” Owen said. “Do I get to go with them, if they have to board a pirate’s ship?”
“Not a chance—Dad would kill me if I lost the heir to the business. In fact, Cheyenne and Robert might kill me first, if one of them had to take your place and run the business. Playing around with politicians and business leaders is going to be your job. I get to play around in space while you sit in meetings and listen to those wind bags.” Dakota shuddered at the thought of spending entire days in meetings.
“It’s nice to know you care so much about me,” Owen said with a smile.
“All of us do. We have so much riding on you growing up and becoming the business type.”
“Then you need to watch how you treat me, because payback’s going to be hell.”
“Remember, I’m still on the board,” Dakota laughed. “We might vote to cut the CEO’s salary to a dollar a year, when you take over, and that you need to spend a week or two every year on the garbage run out of Meltus—you know, to keep in touch with us little people.”
Owen grunted before turning around and heading toward marine country. The rest of the bridge crew burst out laughing. Dakota always found a way to help relieve the tension before heading into battle, and Owen just gave her a better target.
*****
“Thirty minutes out,” the AI announced.
“Sound battle stations,” Dakota commanded.
“Aye, Captain,” the tactical officer responded.
“Give me a location report. I want to know where they are. Keep watching for weapon signatures.”
“I have fourteen small ships docked on an old galaxy class freighter. Five hundred thousand clicks ahead.”
“They must be using it as a base,” Dakota said. She thought for a moment. “Tell everyone to strap in. We’re going to do this the old-fashioned way.”
“Old-fashioned way?” Owen asked.
“Yes, no fly-by, this time,” Dakota replied. “I have a solution which has us using maximum declaration and parking us right next to that freighter for maximum weapons fire. We’re going to u
se everything we have and destroy all those ships at once. I want to punch enough holes into that freighter that no one will ever be able to use it as a base again.”
“Broadsides? Isn’t that a little risky?” Skip asked.
“Yeah, broadsides. Those ships are too small to have anything that could hurt us. We don’t have any reports that they have anything other than small lasers.”
“And the freighter?” Skip asked.
“If they had anything mounted on them, they’d have to already have them spun up. There are no reports of that amount of energy. We should be safe.”
Skip wasn’t sure, but he nodded, anyway. Dakota had as much experience fighting pirates as anyone alive, and if she thought it was safe, who was he to argue? Besides, watching the Sullivan’s Pride do a full broadside would be cool.
“I want a firing solution to hit all those pirate ships in the first minute, and then we’ll take on the freighter with no warnings. Remember, this is the group that blew up that school ship over Meltus—they don’t deserve a warning.”
“Aye, Captain,” the tactical officer said. Owen just looked at his sister without saying anything. He didn’t believe anyone should be killed without a chance to surrender, but he knew the crew of the Sullivan’s Pride saw the results of the terror attack on Meltus, and he doubted any of them would question Dakota’s command.
“Firing pattern configured,” the tactical officer said.
“Flight pattern entered and ready,” the helm responded.
Dakota looked at Skip, who nodded. “Execute,” the captain commanded.
The Sullivan’s Pride put on a burst of speed. Just before Owen thought they would fly right past the pirate base, the ship flipped over and started a hard deceleration. Owen grunted and almost passed out as the gravity increased to six Gs. Even with the internal dampers pulling extra power, decelerating the ship at maximum rate was risky—it could cause damage to the ship and injuries to the crew.
The ship slowed, and before it stopped completely, Owen felt the main weapons fire. “Main and secondaries firing,” the tactical officer said.
“Five pirate ships already down,” Skip said. “No activity in the others. Looks like we caught them sleeping.”
“Keep firing,” Dakota said. “I want all of them destroyed.”
“Secondaries charged and firing. Mains in another thirty seconds,” the tactical officer said.
“Five more direct hits,” Skip reported. “Two ships firing up to escape.”
“Stay on top of them. I don’t want them to slip past us,” Dakota commanded.
“No need,” Skip replied. “All four remaining ships destroyed.”
“Start targeting the freighter,” Dakota commanded.
“Main weapons targeted and firing. Secondaries on standby,” the tactical officer said.
“If they had engines in the first place, they no longer do,” Skip reported with a smile.
“How do you know?” Owen asked.
“See that blip on the screen?”
“Yes.”
“That’s the main drive nozzle. The other three nozzles are over there,” Skip pointed in the opposite direction.
“Targeting bridge and comm arrays with main weapons.”
“Why are the secondaries on standby and not being used to take out the comm array?” Owen asked.
“The secondaries are too small to punch though a Galaxy class. Since they are not firing back at us right now, we keep the secondaries on standby, in case they have a surprise waiting for us or try to escape in a shuttle.”
“Would you ever use the secondaries in a case like this?”
“If we had to cripple the drives and stop comm at the same time, yes. The mains would target the drives and the secondaries would target the comm arrays. In this case, I don’t care if they scream out to the world.” Skip paused. “Comm arrays are destroyed. We’ve punched through and holed her at the bridge and engineering. Targeting internal cargo bays and water tanks.”
“Understood. Keep firing until all critical sections have been destroyed.”
“Aye, Captain,” the tactical officer said. The Sullivan’s Pride fired another four rounds before the old freighter was destroyed. Scavengers might make use of it, but it would never serve as a pirate’s base again.
“Circle the ship. Make sure there are no energy signatures or life signs,” Dakota commanded. “Skip, if there’s any piece of that ship that looks like it may be useful, fire mains again.”
“With pleasure,” Skip responded.
Dakota turned to Owen, “Well? Was your first battle what you expected?”
“Not really. I thought there would be more explosions. I didn’t see any.”
“You don’t, most of the time—not enough atmo, in most cases, to cause an explosion big enough to see. There might be a case where you hit a missile bay or fuel tank, but the goal is to punch holes in the hull. The atmo decompression is the true killer.”
“Is that why you’re having me test the suits?” Owen asked.
“Yes. When we put a hole in a ship, the decompression will often rip a larger hole open. Anyone near it will be sucked out while they are still alive. Cheyenne’s goal is to make the suit strong enough and with enough air to keep someone alive until they can be picked up.”
“Captain,” Skip said, “survey complete. There’s nothing left out there.”
“Understood. Stand down from battle stations and take us home,” Dakota said. “Prepare for the ceremony.”
“What ceremony?” Owen asked.
“An old Earth Navy tradition. They performed a ceremony for sailors crossing the equator for the first time. We’ve adapted it and use it for crew who go through their first battle.”
“Am I going to like it?”
“Not hardly, nugget,” Skip replied, and the rest of the bridge crew laughed.
“Owen,” Dakota said with a huge smile on her face, “don’t use up your water ration on a shower just now. You’re going to need it later.”
“What?” was all Owen could get out before the bridge crew’s laughter drowned him out.
Chapter 4
Nlipirax family territory Under Boss Klachur looked at the floating head of Grand Boss Slataxi on his comm array. “I don’t care how you do it—find the money, or I’ll find someone to take your place!” yelled Slataxi. Klachur’s boss had just demanded a twenty percent increase in taxes from Klachur’s revenue stream, and he had no idea how he was going to come up with it.
Slataxi cut the communications channel and his floating head disappeared; Klachur threw his comm unit at the wall of his office and yelled, “Stupid idiot!” He looked over the list of new demands his boss had just made and wondered how he would be able to meet them without dipping into his slush fund. “He thinks he’ll replace me? I’ll replace him! I’m not ruining my profits to fund his stupid war against the Tubvub family.” It was all bluster; Klachur knew that, if he didn’t come up with the extra tax money, he would be hauled in front of Slataxi by the Eyoxcan guard and be painfully and slowly executed.
Klachur didn’t have a choice. The Syndicate was structured similarly to an organized crime family, but with revenue coming from businesses and taxes and not from crime. Over the last one-hundred-thousand years, the Syndicate had captured over fifty-thousand planets and controlled the lives of trillions of intelligent beings.
While the Syndicate would briefly join together to capture new planets or defend their territories from outsiders, they normally feuded with each other over control of star systems. Currently, Slataxi wanted to increase his territory at the expense of the Tubvub family, and the Tubvub family was fighting back. Wars cost money, and Slataxi needed more to pay for his losses.
The Syndicate-controlled territory was divided between thirteen grand bosses who were technically equal, but major disagreements between families occurred frequently. Most of these disagreements were settled between the grand bosses with small wars, like the one between the N
lipirax family and the Tubvub family. If Slataxi couldn’t quickly win, then the Tubvubs or the council boss would bring the disagreement before the grand council, who would mediate the argument and decide the winner before the two families destroyed each other. After all, the Syndicate couldn’t weaken itself by allowing two grand bosses to destroy each other—this might allow another empire to capture their systems. A small war between grand bosses was allowed, but a major war was not.
The grand council was partially controlled by the council boss, who was appointed the leader of the grand council simply because the council boss had enough power to beat any other boss in a war. It was the job of the council boss to increase the size and wealth of the Syndicate, which was usually accomplished by bringing two or more grand bosses together to invade a weaker empire near the Syndicate’s territory. Expansion brought new planets to tax or strip for raw materials. Often, the grand bosses would work together to establish a new trade route to an empire too large or powerful to invade; wealth was wealth, no matter how it was obtained. To most grand bosses, long-term business expansion was better than quick wealth.
