The Pirates of Clew

by Taylor Smith

  “Tactical, report,” called the Captain.

  “No contacts, Captain. Only the tracking signal from the scout. Sensors are clear.” Lieutenant Gregor Connell answered as tactical lead.

  Haley shook her head slightly, wanting desperately to interject but decided against it. The last thing she needed was to be labeled an upstart and alienate the Lead Tactical Officer on her first shift.

  “Something to add, Ensign Marks?”

  Haley cringed inwardly as the Captain called her out. “Nothing sir,” she answered trying to avoid the intense stares from the other tactical officers.

  The Captain shook his head and rose from his chair to approach her. “No. Really,” he said with a false smile. “I’d like to know what you have to add over a crew who’ve been doing this for years,” he said a little loudly so the rest of the bridge could hear. “As a matter of fact, Ensign, I think you should tell us all. What has my lead tactical officer, a proven combat veteran, done wrong? Please enlighten us with your years of experience.”

  This was an evil man. Haley was convinced of it now. No officer would berate a subordinate in front of a host of peers and certainly not in that manner. Perhaps Senior Chief Benley was right; this was not the Fleet she signed up for, or trained for. This was the true Allied Fleet. It was a cruel, razor sharp world, where the motto was akin to “sink or swim.”

  Haley looked back to Connell, whose gaze dripped with animosity. She took a deep breath, focused every bit of pent up anger and disappointment and decided to swim right over these assholes. “Lieutenant Connell has missed a vessel traveling dark approximately point two astronomical units from our position across the inner edge of the asteroid belt.” Haley paused on purpose, allowing her face to betray a slight disgust and then finished with, “Sir.”

  The Captain’s sneer was immediately replaced with curiosity as he moved closer to the tactical table and said, “Show me.”

  Haley reached for the controls and then decided it best to use verbal commands. “Tac one, replay mode. Show me the last hour and remove all sensor anomalies except such anomalies that are cataloged in this,” she entered a set of coordinates and continued, “area of space.”

  The map floating above the table zoomed in to a wedge of space on the inner rim of the asteroid field. One ghost popped up, then vanished. “Sir, we’re lucky to be seeing this,” she began trying to reign in her emotions. “This happens when a ship is running silent and in the star’s shadow but catches glints of light refracted from nearby objects. I’ve only seen it a handful of times, but the asteroids are metal rich and reflecting well. There must be a rock spinning relatively quickly at just the right angle to be shining off that ship out there.”

  “It was one blip,” started Connell just as another sensor reading appeared, then disappeared just as quickly. “Ok, two. That still doesn’t mean anything.”

  Haley looked back to Connell saying, “Tac one, increase replay speed by one hundred.”

  The anomalies began appearing again and again in a precise, obvious arc pattern moving slowly through space. There was obviously something out there moving slowly through the edge of the belt. “It’s not debris or the reflective data would change slightly. The curved course also gives it away. The computer’s chewing through hundreds of readings just like this at a time trying to figure out what’s a threat and what’s not,” she began explaining. “But your pattern recognition disregards each ghost reading after sixty seconds. If you move that up to a full three minutes the computer would have recognized the pattern.”

  The Captain laughed, catching Haley off guard. “She’s got you dead to rights, Greg,” he said then turned back to Haley. “Ok then, Ensign,” he said crossing his arms. “Maybe I can use you. I want you spending time after your shift with my tactical team,” he said with a nod to Connell and the others standing beside them. “Bring them up to speed with the latest the academy has to offer. It seems we can use a little injection of fresh blood after all.”

  “Aye, Captain,” she said with a little more pride in her voice and heart before her attention returned to the tactical table. There was still the issue of an unidentified ship nearby to address. “Um, Captain, should we - .”

  Captain Andrelli cut her off with a dismissive wave as he moved back to his chair. “No. That’s our scout,” he said as he turned his attention back to his XO, who was glaring back and forth from Haley to his Captain.

  Haley nodded to herself and turned back to her fellow tactical officers to find their demeanors had lightened a bit, possibly impressed, but still far from friendly. She suspected it would be a long day.

  “Captain, we’re receiving an encrypted two-way transmission,” reported the officer sitting next to Saundi. “It’s marked for your eyes only.”

  “Right on time,” Andrelli said turning a quick smirk to the tactical table. “Put it through to my console.”

  Haley took a deep breath and found that she was shaking. She took another deep breath, knowing it was just from spent adrenaline and nerves. Stealing a glance toward the communications station, she saw Saundi with a wide grin staring back at her. Having learned her lesson earlier, she dropped her eyes back to the tactical table and the map displaying real-time data once again.

  “All right, ladies and gentlemen, we have a lead,” Captain Andrelli announced after a few minutes consulting with the Alliance scout. “Helm, bring us about for an inner-system heading. We have work to do.”

  Chapter 5

  “Asaya! Wait up!” Cade called as he sprinted the length of the corridor.

  Asaya turned and smiled. “Where’ve you been?” she asked as she scratched her cheek, leaving a smudge of grease behind. She’d obviously been crawling through the smaller spaces in engineering that the larger crewmen couldn’t get to.

  He finally caught up and laughed at her, wiping the smudge away. “You will never guess.”

  She looked at him sideways and said, “Um… I don’t know. Up front with the other crazies maybe?”

  “No tank,” he said with a mock-scared look on his face.

  “Nuh-uh!” she exclaimed, wide-eyed. “You’re having a go at me.”

  “I swear I’m not lying. Look,” he started excitedly with his hands out in front for emphasis, “me and George, we stayed up! The ingress was so weird. It was like a million fingers poking all over, tugging us back and forth. And the sound of the compensators… geez! We had to make course corrections and manage the power during the jump. It was wild.”

  Asaya was excited with him now, then her face dropped and she said, “That’s scary though. Being in those tanks are bad enough but… why the heck did you sign up for pilot if you knew you’d have to do that?”

  “I didn’t know!” he said in a pleading voice. “They told me right before the jump!”

  “Bastards,” she said laughing. “At least you’re in one piece. Are we docking at Clew soon? It’d be good to get some solid rack time and eat something that hasn’t been frozen for six months.”

  “Side-tracked,” he said with a growing smile. “We got lucky and found a mark on our way home. My contract started early.”

  “That’s great!” She threw her arms around him in a tight hug and said, “hey, maybe it’ll be loaded with gold or platinum on the way to the market.”

  His face dropped for a moment, wishing that was the case. “Naw. They guard those pretty well. Sounds like it’s a supply run though. It’ll be good for Clew. It should be a pretty good start on getting your contract paid-out, anyway.”

  Asaya’s face matched his for a moment before she asked, “are you supposed to be telling me this?”

  Cade looked around and shrugged. “I don’t know. No one told me not to.”

  She shrugged with him as a loud claxon erupted followed by the three chirp alert calling all crew to their stations. “That’s the lockdown alert,” she said. “I have to go.”

  “Yeah,” he replied looking up. “I have to get to the bridge. I’ll see you
after.”

  She wrapped her arms around his neck quickly then let go. “Be careful!”

  Cade grinned, picked her up and twirled her a full turn before setting her back down and then turned to run toward the bridge.

  Her laughter filled the corridor as she called after him, “You’re crazy!”

  ***

  “The haulers always enter the system here,” Captain Kova announced in his gravelly voice and drawn out accent. “They’ll be blind to anything behind the fourth planet, here,” he said pointing to a map that showed the haulers planned route toward the system’s mining facility.

  “We come up from the ecliptic and round the fourth planet just as they enter its gravity well,” added Victor Keely, the Grim Shoals second in command. “They can try to run, but at that point they’re committed to a course that we can easily overtake.”

  “Aye,” Kova responded with a devious grin. “And she’s ours.”

  Cade watched on as the meeting took place on the small bridge of the Grim Shoals. They’d entered the Vorn system and had sat quietly near the fifth planet’s moon while they waited for the hauler. He was excited and scared. This wouldn’t be a simulation, nor would it be an asteroid. At least he would have George there beside him in case he screwed up.

  “Time ta earn your sweetheart’s freedom, Mr. Cade,” the Captain said with a wry grin and laughed along with the rest of the gathered crew.

  Cade felt himself blush and laughed with them best he could. He decided not to try and create any clever quips in response. But the pay from their actions today would be a good start. They were lucky to have stumbled upon this information on their way back home. Their original timeline would have them back at Clew by now for leave, repairs, restock and to drop his parents off. With his work starting early, it would shave several weeks off his year of service.

  Station leave was never that important to him, anyway. He tended to only venture out into the habitat when his parents would ask him to. He spent most of his time on the Grim Shoals with Asaya since she couldn’t board Clew until her contract was completed and her citizenship approved. If he hadn’t sponsored her for her citizenship, someone easily would have as she was well liked. His parents were citizens of Clew, however, and security there is so heavily monitored there would be no way for them or the other indentured workers to escape unnoticed. That also carried a death sentence.

  “Ya know, Mr. Cade,” the Captain continued in a more serious tone. “Asaya be a good girl. But if by chance she ends up bein’ a spy…” he let the word hang in the air for a moment. “You die too.”

  Cade shook his head. “She’s no spy, Captain.”

  Kova shrugged with his usual dark grin and turned back to his screens.

  “Ready?” George asked from beside him.

  Stirred from his thoughts, Cade nodded and reviewed the flight plan they’d come up with. He pre-entered everything into the computer and double checked his numbers via his implant.

  “Bring up the mains, Mr. Cade,” called the Captain, outwardly excited about catching the hauler.

  “Aye, Captain. Bringing the mains online.” Cade entered the sequence, checked his readings for startup and then activated the main engines. “Mains active.”

  The Grim Shoals stirred, finally awake after days of lounging in the shadow of a rocky moon. The distant hum of the engines slowly ramped up and the lights brightened as the reactor began feeding the ship more power.

  “Take us ta the fourth planet. Keep it between us and our hauler’s entry point,” the Captain ordered.

  “Aye, sir.”

  The Grim Shoals leapt forward and arced upward away from the fifth planet’s moon. Cade watched the telemetry carefully. There was an exact point in which he had to line the ship and the fourth planet up before he could goose the throttle. They would quickly come into sensor range of the hauler once the mains were brought up to any decent amount of thrust. If his calculations were short, the hauler would spot them early and run.

  Cade found exhilaration within him that he didn’t know existed. Maybe he was cut out to be a pirate after all. He grinned at the thought: Cade, scourge of the border worlds. Might be fun, but he knew at once that his future was with Asaya on Clew Station.

  “Watch your heading there, mate,” George said from his side.

  Cade checked his readings and found he was right on course. “I don’t see anything wrong. Did we miscalculate something?” he asked, beginning to get worried.

  “You’re driftin’ a little. I can tell your mind is wandering away. Keep focused here, Cade,” he said quietly.

  George was right. He wasn’t paying as much attention as he should. He nodded in response and kept a closer eye on his instruments, which told him they were approaching the fourth planet. “Captain,” Cade said. “We’re starting our run around the planet. We should come in sight of the hauler in fourteen minutes.”

  “Very good, Mr. Cade,” the Captain said with a glint in his eye. “Run out the guns!”

  This got Cade’s attention. He’d never heard that command before and adrenaline pumped through him in response. Several metallic clanking sounds echoed through the ship followed by a clinking vibration that sent a shiver down his spine. “What’s that sound?” he asked George in a whisper.

  “Deck guns rollin’ out, mate,” George said with a lopsided grin. “Ammo loading too.”

  Cade remembered the Grim Shoals had four deck guns that could easily shred a cargo ship’s light armor. He’d seen a case of shells being rolled through the corridor earlier. They looked to be slightly larger than his forearm and the ship could fire two per second from each of its four weapons.

  “Guns locked into place and loaded, Captain,” a crewman reported.

  “Very good, Mr. Tavan,” the Captain drawled out. “Make sure your aim be true. Don’t hole my prize less I order it.”

  “Aye, Captain,” came the response.

  “Sixty seconds, Captain,” Cade called out as his instruments told him they were almost around the planet. He watched as the seconds ticked down and the Grim Shoals streaked around the planet.

  “Contact!” came the warning as instruments began alerting that they’d found a ship nearby. “It’s the hauler.”

  “There she be,” drawled the Captain as he leaned forward in his chair. “Open hailing channels,” he ordered. “This is Captain Kova of the Grim Shoals,” he began once the channel was open. “Shut yer engines down if ya value your lives.”

  A few tense seconds later, a response resounded over the speakers on the bridge: “This is the cargo ship Vespin. You’re in violation of the treaty signed by-“

  “Heave to, ya dogs!” Kova interrupted, his voice loud and aggressive. “Heave to, or I’ll open yer bridge ta space!”

  The crewman named Tavan took that as his cue and fired his warning shot.

  Cade flinched as the Grim Shoals shuddered against several sharp thuds. The four shots passed very close to the haulers bow. He turned back to his console and found they were coming up behind their prey so he adjusted their course slightly to ensure the best intercept. Suddenly, his estimated course changed to overshoot the ship they were chasing. The hauler had cut engines. He throttled back and saw his projected course realigning to a good capture.

  “Better,” the Captain said with a more reserved tone. “Keep yer course! Prepare to be boarded.” Kova cut the connection and turned to Cade saying, “Your turn, Mr. Cade.”

  “Aye, Captain,” Cade replied with his heart suddenly beating a mile a minute. He double-checked his instruments and found they were almost on top of the hauler. He throttled back slowly and applied a few spits of reverse thrust and guided the Grim Shoals smoothly alongside the cargo ship.

  Taking a closer look, Cade fine-tuned the ships angle to align the grapple cannon just to the left of the haulers main airlock. “Ready for grapple, Captain.”

  “Fire grapple!” answered Kova with a dramatic wave of his arm.

  “Firing
.” The Grim Shoals shook again as the grapple was flung across space and dug into their prize. Cade watched the data carefully as he slowly reeled in the line. The hauler twitched, or he thought he’d caught sight of slight changes in their estimated course. His heart pounded. They were fixing to roll! He immediately slammed home the grapple speed to tighten it and ignited the maneuvering thrusters as the hauler began writhing.

  “What are ya doin’ ta my ship!” shouted an angry Captain Kova as he and the rest of the crew were almost thrown from their chairs.

  Cade deftly maneuvered the ship, trying to ride along with the hauler’s roll but keep a taught grapple line. “They rolled! Trying to rip the grapple - ,” he started then went silent again as he concentrated on keeping the ship in-line with their catch and in one piece while fighting the force of the roll that the gravity systems couldn’t keep up with.

  The Captain laughed as he clung to his chair trying not to be thrown. “Hold on, Mr. Cade! Ya caught a fat fish! Fight her! Fight that marlin, Mr. Cade, until she tires!” The Captain continued his laughing and hooting.

  Cade shook his head, not sure what a marlin was and now sweating profusely trying to keep hold of the hauler. After a full minute of squirming and thrashing about, the hauler finally slowed and shut their engines down completely, as they realized their fight was futile. Cade slumped back into his seat and was greeted with a torment of congratulatory whoops and backslaps.

  George looked to him with a wide smile saying, “that was one of the tougher catches, mate. Damn fine job!”

  Cade could only smile and nod. He hoped his heart would calm down soon, and he took several deep breaths trying to relax.

  “A fine catch, Mr. Cade,” the Captain said as he sank back in his chair. “Mr. Keely, prepare for boarding.”