“You keep staring at that ship and you’ll be itching to get back,” she said.
He sighed. “It’s almost time anyway.”
“I know. And I won’t keep you.”
“Have you changed your mind?” he asked. “Will you come with us?”
“I’m sorry, James. No. There’s no profit in it, and too much risk. Unless you’ve changed your mind and will sell the damn thing.”
“I haven’t. It will be a gift to the Hroom. Assuming they don’t kill me for what I did at Kif Lagoon and Ypis III, I’m hoping it will earn good will, if not for me, than for Albion and the whole human race.”
“And you’re sure it even works?”
“Sure enough,” Drake said. “I broke my own rule to test it, allowed sugar on board.”
His science officer had found a willing test subject in the mines, a Hroom who had indentured himself to pay sugar debts. Drake paid the alien’s indenturehood and brought him on board. Five minutes after Brockett injected the antidote, the Hroom changed his mind. He wanted sugar after all. Now, preferably.
They threw him into isolation for a few hours to make sure the antidote had taken effect, then sent in several ounces of sugar. The Hroom had been truly desperate by then, and fell on the sugar like a starving wolf. A few seconds later, sugar crystals still around his mouth, the alien let out a piteous wail.
“I have been tricked!” he screamed in his high-pitched voice. “This is not sugar. This is false!”
Drake had been watching through the window, and turned toward Brockett. “Then it works.”
The science officer was grinning. “Exactly as promised.”
“How long until he comes out of it?”
“He needs to run the full detox. That could be weeks or months. But there’s no risk of a relapse. Sugar does nothing for him now but leave a sweet taste on the tongue. It’s only a matter of time, and he’ll be cured.” Brockett punched something into his computer. “The next step is to test it on a Hroom who was never addicted. Give him the injection, then feed him sugar for the first time.”
“We’ll let the empire take care of that part,” Drake said. “For now, keep making doses, and document how you synthesize it.”
The Hroom was still begging, screaming for sugar, saying he’d rather die than go without. He had made a terrible, terrible mistake. Could they administer the anti-antidote? Surely such a thing must exist. Drake tried to remind himself that the Hroom would better be off in the long run, but he was not sorry to retreat up the corridor and out of range of the poor fellow’s cries.
Now, Catarina put a hand on his wrist and jolted him from the memory. “You are a good man, James, but I hope this sugar antidote doesn’t become an obsession.”
“It’s no obsession,” he assured her. “I will do my duty and see this thing into the hands of the empire. What they do with it after that is up to them.”
“So you say now,” she said, not sounding entirely convinced.
He didn’t want to discuss it any longer, so he changed the subject. “How about you? Where will you go from here? Back to pirating?”
“For now, yes. Much work left to do.”
“Ninety thousand isn’t enough for one woman? Buying a barony and all of that?”
“I need two hundred. That’s the minimum.”
“Two hundred!” Drake smiled. “Why buy a barony when you can snap up an entire duchy?”
“And if a duchy is not enough, how does a kingdom sound?”
He laughed, but there was such a serious look in her eyes that he shortly stopped. “That wasn’t a jest, was it? You mean something by that.”
“James,” she said, her tone even more serious. “I am going to show you something. It is my closest-held secret. Not just what you will see, but what you will hear from my lips. I’d ask for your oath of secrecy, but no oath would be equal to a gentleman’s honor. That is what I am counting on, your honor.”
Before he could respond, Catarina touched a control pad next to the blackened viewport, and it became a viewscreen. A blue, watery planet stretched below him, sprawling continents rising from her oceans, islands dotting her seas, and a gentle blanket of clouds wrapping her in its embrace. The planet had snow caps, deserts, green forests, and great plains, but not too much of any one thing. It was a gentle, fertile planet, like Albion or Old Earth. But nowhere that he recognized at first glance.
The image was only a recording, he knew, not anything they were looking at in real time, but for a moment, the illusion was complete.
“Where is this place?” he asked. “New Dutch territory?”
“Nobody’s territory at all. Claimed by no one. So far as I am aware, no sentient being has ever set foot on this world.”
“And you found this in your wandering? I had no idea you’d traveled so far.”
“It’s not so far from here as you might think. The planet is in the Omega Cluster.”
The Omega Cluster was a group of stars some twenty light years across that should have been in the direct path of settlement in this sector of the galaxy, except that there were no known jump points into it. Several of the stars had the profile of inhabitable systems, but there was no way to get there and verify that short of a generation ship, and nobody was coughing up the money for a multi-decade mission.
“You found a jump point,” he said.
“I did.” Catarina said it with an air of satisfaction. “There is apparently one and only one way to get into the cluster. But the jump point is decaying. My nav computer indicates that it will be active another year, sixteen months at most, and then it will be gone. Meanwhile, take a look. The planet is beautiful, James. Fertile and untouched. I didn’t want to leave. Next time I pass through, I won’t. Neither will anyone else who comes with me.”
Many pieces of the puzzle that was Catarina Vargus came together. Her wandering, her money hoarding, her cryptic remarks about “lords of space.”
“Two hundred thousand pounds,” he said. “Enough to buy a small fleet and all the supplies needed to get a toehold on a new world. You’d need a couple of thousand colonists, of course.”
“That’s the easy part. The human race has never had a shortage of explorers.”
“Not just explorers, but farmers and engineers. Men and women in equal numbers. Maybe five thousand would be a safer number.”
“Now you’re getting the vision,” Catarina said.
“Not to mention seeds, animal embryos, machinery. There wouldn’t be any resupply. You might be cut off for decades. Centuries, even. You don’t want to find yourself wearing animal skins and banging stones together in a couple of generations because you didn’t think it through.”
“Not just things, but ideas,” she said. “The rule of law being the most important. A man’s rights and responsibilities clearly understood. Every person free, yet subject to the crown at the same time.”
“I see. Catarina the First, Queen of New Albion.”
She thrust out her chin. “And why not? Although I don’t like ‘New Albion’. It gives Old Albion a claim over us should they get through.” Catarina gave him a sly look. “And I don’t need to rule alone.”
“Are you suggesting that I would be king on this new planet?”
“Let’s not get carried away! I’m thinking more . . . prince consort. But your son might be king some day.”
Drake chuckled. The whole scenario was ludicrous, as implausible as it was grandiose. How would she keep the endeavor secret long enough to get there first? Would Albion simply let them go? Would it be possible to attract the right sort of colonists, or would they be adventurers and pirates? And yet, there was something terribly seductive about her vision.
“Come with me, James,” she urged. “We’ll pool our money and talents. No more Albion, no more war with the Hroom. No worries about these strange new aliens, either. We’ll be out of their reach, all of them.”
“Let me think about it,” he said. “I’m going to find the Hroom flee
t and deliver the antidote, see if I can learn anything more about Apex. That’s all I can promise for now.”
Catarina looked disappointed. “Very well. But I won’t wait forever. If you won’t join me, I’ll find another partner, someone who is more committed.”
#
Drake was back on his ship twelve hours later. Blackbeard and Orient Tiger circled the moon twice more as they finished running diagnostics on the repaired systems. Then the two ships parted. Catarina took hers back toward the fringe worlds, where she could prey on shipping. Drake headed in the opposite direction, cutting directly toward the heart of the Hroom Empire.
Four days later, they approached one of the Hroom worlds, densely populated with cities and farms, great ports, and sprawling cities. Red vegetation and blue-green oceans stretched beneath a thick, steamy atmosphere. He expected to encounter an empire fleet, but nobody challenged him. Albion could have jumped a task force right into the system and captured the planet with an orbital bombardment and a few thousand marines.
He was tempted to harpoon a merchant vessel or two, distribute his antidote, and consider his duty accomplished, but he’d traveled too far to do a half-hearted job of it. He wanted it in the hands of military officials, with whom he could discuss its ramifications, while sharing information and concerns about Apex. About the new war between the Kingdom of Albion and the Hroom Empire.
So Drake continued through the system. His crew was jumpy, even the few Hroom on board anxious, as they penetrated deeper and deeper into the empire. Should they encounter trouble, there was no safe port, nowhere to run now but from one hostile system to the next. And still they continued.
On the fifth jump, they came out of a concussion that was more severe than usual to spot seven Hroom warships converging on their position. Two were mighty sloops of war, with the other five being smaller destroyers and mid-range patrol boats. Capp and Tolvern urged him to flee, saying they could find a less-threatening opponent to approach.
“No,” Drake said. “We’ll kill the engines, keep all systems on standby. Make no hostile moves. Nyb Pim, open a channel. Tell them in their own language that we are seeking a peaceful rendezvous. That we have very valuable cargo and information that may change the course of the war.”
“Yes, sir.”
As Nyb Pim began to speak in his hooting, owl-like language, Drake watched the viewscreen and the approaching warships all in formation. A few months ago he had been locked in combat with these enemies. Thousands of them had died by his command. And now, he was going to hand them the most valuable gift imaginable. He was either doing something noble and just, or committing a crime for which his name would be cursed by fifty generations to come.
Or perhaps, he thought, the truth was a little bit of both.
-end-
From the Author
Thank you for reading Lords of Space. The series continues with book #3, Dreadnought. Buy it right here! If you enjoyed the book, please consider leaving a review on Amazon. Reviews help other readers find the books, which in turn will provide the financial support to continue writing more stories in the series.
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Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Lords of Space (Starship Blackbeard Book 2) Page 20
