“I see your point.”
“That’s settled. Now to the matter of your ship.” He flipped open his communicator and studied the screen.
“My ship?”
“Your ship. It needs extensive repairs and we do not have some of the parts in our stores. Our technicians do not think your ship is safe to fly. None of them would fly it and they’ll fly anything. You need another ship. Fortunately or unfortunately depending on your point of view, I have one. As you well know, the stresses on our flight crews are immense. We lose pilots faster than we can replace them. You should be familiar with that, since you have downed more than one of our ships. You understand that your amnesty only holds as long as you work for us. If you turn against us, we will hunt you down and Captain Darwin will not hold her fire. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“One of our pilots, Pedro Martinez, got into a fight yesterday with his fire control officer. The only crimes that will get you brig time around here are murder and fighting. Pedro will be in the brig for a long time. His back seat will be in the hospital for months. We are now short crew for one of our P I ships. You’re used to flying solo. I’ll loan you Pedro’s ship until yours is fixed or we let Pedro out of the brig whichever comes first.”
“A P I ship, sir?” Sabrina was astounded. Commanding one of the most powerful little space ships in the history of modern warfare was a dream come true.
“Welcome to the club!” Captain Darwin held up her hand with the fist closed. Sabrina tapped knuckles with her as a form of salute. Captain Darwin held her hand aloft with her fingers spread wide pointing forward and her thumb curled underneath against her palm. She then raised and lowered her index finger to indicate that Sabrina had chosen the wing position. Suddenly a dozen loud, exuberant women descended on the table. The Commodore quietly retreated lighting his cigar as he went.
DEPLOYMENT - CHAPTER TWO
CAPTAIN DARWIN COMMANDED A SQUADRON of eight ships. Four were P I ships and the other four were smaller fighter interceptors. Sabrina had judged correctly that she would be intensely challenged as Captain Darwin’s wing. The control software in the Pirate Interdiction ships was not all that different from the software in her old pirate interceptor. Repairs on the ship she had been piloting when Captain Darwin “recruited” her took longer than anticipated due to the lack of parts. She definitely could get to like this heavier, more powerful, better armed P I ship. They ran simulations constantly while on patrol. They continually practiced battle maneuvers and on more than one occasion Sabrina went head-to-head with the Captain in war game exercises. Sabrina had been concerned that the others would give her trouble being a former pirate and having stepped into a position over their heads, but she was surprised to find that her combat skills and her sense of teamwork were all that mattered. Somehow the fact that she had killed a dozen of their colleagues did not seem to bother anyone.
There were jealousies and rivalries, but those were most often settled in the hand-to-hand combat simulators back on the mother ship. By the end of the first month, Sabrina had engaged all the others of her squadron in simulated ship-to-ship combat as well as hand-to-hand exercise and the only one she had not beaten was the Captain herself. She had earned the respect of the rest of the squadron because even though the Captain always won, she had not escaped unscathed from the mock combat which was more than any of the others had been able to accomplish.
Sabrina found that she was taking better care of herself because it mattered. “Bones” was an absolute horror in her enforcement of regular regimens of exercise and proper diet. “Tyrannosaurus Doc” would often verbally abuse laggards and slackers in public. Sabrina was terrified of her. She felt sorry for the kid she had seen assigned to the sick bay that first day she had come aboard the ship although she did have to admit that he seemed to be learning very quickly. There were those who believed fear enhanced intelligence.
When they were on the mother ship, their days included a full hour of hand-to-hand combat instruction under the guidance of their Marine detail. Even the battle hardened Marines were intimidated by Captain Darwin and the only one who would spar with her was a grizzled old gunnery sergeant who appeared to be an even match.
Two months after Sabrina converted from pirate to pirate hunter, Captain Darwin and her squadron were eating dinner when the Commodore wandered by. He pulled up a chair between Sabrina and the Captain. “Lieutenant.”
It took Sabrina a moment to realize he was speaking to her. “Yes, sir?”
“Would you like to keep that P I ship?”
“Yes, sir, I would, but why?”
“Pedro Martinez will be tried for murder. His fire control officer died today. The ship is yours. All I ask is permission to use your ship as a trainer.”
“Certainly, sir.”
“Captain, after you finish eating, please take her to the Quartermaster and take care of the documentation.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Fly safe, all of you.” He turned and walked away. His shoulders were bowed and his tilted head forward unlike the boisterous man the women were used to seeing.
“Pedro was one of his favorites,” one of the other women said softly. “I feel sorry for him. He takes these things so personally. Captain, do you mind if I go see if I can make him feel better?”
Captain Darwin smiled and nodded. The woman left the table and returned to the squadron the following morning.
Six months after being “recruited”, Sabrina was clearly recognized as being as skilled and as adept as Captain Darwin, lacking only the Captain’s experience. Sabrina had grown up on the flight deck of a pirate ship. Her father was one of the most successful pirates in current times. While other little girls were playing “mommy”, Sabrina was plotting ship-to-ship battle strategies. Captain Darwin had taken all that into consideration when she developed her plan to capture the one woman she could treat as her equal. They often split the squadron in half for war games with Captain Darwin commanding one half and Sabrina commanding the other half. The rest of the flight crews on the mother ship watched the maneuvers with the passion generally reserved for professional sports. New tactics and techniques that first appeared in the mock skirmishes were incorporated into standard battle plans. The mother ship’s crew often made wagers on the outcomes of the contests, a practice that even Commodore Townsend could occasionally be found supporting financially.
They were in the midst of a war game when Sabrina noticed an unusual reading on her display.
“Captain, we have incoming at my twelve high. Game’s over!”
“Roger that! Game over. You have command.”
“Roger that!” The eight ships formed two “finger four” arrays with Sabrina’s ship in the lead.
Her sensors probed the approaching ship. She chuckled softly to herself as she recognized the ship. When she reached hailing range, she called the ship on an open frequency, “Hey! Beauregard! You in there? Beauregard Boucher, answer me!”
The voice had a sleepy muffled quality. “Who wants to know?”
“Sabrina Mahoney!”
“Say what?”
“Hey Beau, you still got that pallet of French Champagne you took off that yacht last year?”
“Nah, sold it. Gotta pay the bills. What you doin’ out here?”
“Me and my girlfriends are out cruising looking for a party. You up for a party?”
“I got a case of twenty year old California. Will that do? Hey, Sabby, what are you flying? All I see are P I’s. Sabby, where are you?”
“Beau, I’m in the lead P I and you’ll never guess who’s on my wing.”
“Sabby, I don’t like this. What’s going on?”
“Beau, it’s going to be fine. Captain Alina Darwin is flying my wing!”
“SABBY! WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”
“Beau, stand down. We’re coming aboard.”
“SABBY! Please! What’s going on?”
“Beau, stand down. We will explain when we’re
together.”
The eight women and Beau finished the stash of twenty year old California before heading back to the mother ship. The Commodore verbally and publicly took them apart for flying while intoxicated. “Bones” took them apart for getting intoxicated in the first place.
When the yelling stopped, Captain Darwin yawned and said, “I need a shower. We’ll deal with this in the morning.” She wandered off in the direction of her ship and the privacy of its shower.
The others meandered away leaving Sabrina and Beau standing alone in the galley. “C’mon Beau, let’s go to your ship. We have a lot to talk about.” Beau was still too drunk to be coherent, but he obediently followed.
By morning, things had calmed down. Commodore Townsend quietly pulled Beau away from the others and talked to him for an hour. The facial expressions the others could see gave them the impression that the Commodore was debriefing Beau and drawing opinions from him. At the end of the hour and a couple pitchers of strong coffee, the two men stood. They shook hands and the Commodore pulled Beau into a strong hug and slapped his back. Both men laughed.
Beau returned to the table where Sabrina and the her small battle group had been waiting. “Sabby, the old man wants to have a word with you.”
Sabrina’s expression said, “What about?”
Beau smiled and said, “Now.”
Sabrina sat across the table from Commodore Townsend as instructed. The steward brought her a fresh cup of coffee and refilled the Commodore’s. “Clearly you had no way of knowing the seriousness of the situation you and your friends created. When Captain Darwin gets drunk, she kills people. Let me restate that. When she gets drunk, she kills men. She’s never killed a woman in hand combat. She is extremely dangerous when she’s drunk. She likes you. She certainly worked hard enough to find you and lure you into our little group. I understand that and am thankful that she does like you. I think you can help her in ways no one else can. If you are to be her first officer, one of your responsibilities will be to see that she never gets drunk again. Do we understand each other?”
“First officer sir? Me sir? How can that be? She doesn’t have command.”
“By the end of the day she will, and you will be her first officer.”
“Sir, with all due respect, there are others on this ship who are far more qualified than me.”
“You’re the only one qualified that’s not afraid of her and even more important, you’re the only one other than me and Bones she listens to. ‘Nuff said?”
“I don’t know, sir.”
“Sabrina Mahoney, none of your family got where they were by backing down from a challenge. I expect that you will rise to the occasion as everyone else in your family has done for generations.”
“Sir, you leave me no choice.”
“That was the plan.”
Captain Darwin entered the room obviously very hung over. A path opened in front of her. The men scattered like rats as she approached. The steward, apparently fearing for his life, gave Sabrina a fresh pitcher of coffee and an empty coffee mug. His eyes appeared to be pleading with her.
“Ma’am, would you take this to her?”
Commodore Townsend motioned for her to take the coffee the Captain.
“Hey, sister, this’ll make you feel better.” Sabrina cooed to Captain Darwin whose bloodshot eyes glared back in reply.
Captain Darwin took the mug with both hands and sipped the coffee staring off with an unfocused gaze.
Sabrina eased her into a seat. “Hey, Cap, we have a busy day today. Time to come around.”
“Call me Alina. Nobody calls me Alina anymore.” She rested her elbows on the table and cradled her forehead on her hands.
One of the advantages of being a pirate has to do with access to substances that law abiding citizens never see. Beau had a sizable stash of one such substance with which Sabrina had treated her own hangover. Hoping Bones was not looking, she sprinkled a liberal dose into Alina’s coffee. Quickly swirling the cup to mix the powder into the liquid, she said, “Drink some more coffee. You’ll feel better. We have a busy day, you need to be thinking clearly.”
Alina drank deeply of the drugged coffee and not long after she finished the cup, her eyes popped open. “What did you give me?”
“You don’t want to know.”
“I’m going to kill you!”
“Alina, no, you’re not. In about a minute the body rush will end and you will be your normal self only sober.”
“I’m still going to kill you.”
“Nope. Not today.”
Commodore Townsend casually strolled over to the two women and sat down between them. Captain Darwin cradled the warm cup against her forehead. “Maybe I should kill him.”
Sabrina laughed, “Maybe, but not today.”
“Because today, as soon as you sober up, I am going to give you your own battle group to command,” The Commodore whispered, but not so softly that Sabrina couldn’t hear it.
Captain Darwin rolled her still red eyes toward him. “Excuse me, sir? Could you repeat that?”
“It seems that our buddy Beau isn’t really much of a pirate. He has a nice ship, but it’s empty and he’s almost out of money. He agreed to join us. We’re going to use his ship as a small mother ship. It can support a flight of four P I ships and associated personnel. You get your own command as soon as the engineers can make the necessary modifications.”
“Where do I get crew? Whose ships?”
“You can take any four of our ships. We will ask for volunteers to see who goes with you. I assume you will take your ship and Sabrina will take hers. If you don’t get enough volunteers we will fill your crew from people here, but you shouldn’t have a problem finding enough volunteers.”
“Sabrina goes with me?”
“If you’ll have me,” she quickly replied, cutting off the Commodore’s less diplomatic response.
“As first officer, if you like,” he recovered quickly.
“If you wish, I would be honored to be your first officer,” Sabrina glared at the Commodore. “Let me handle this!” She hissed at him.
Captain Darwin sat in silence for a moment, her mind slowly assimilating the news. “Your first duty as my first officer is to recruit a crew. I’m going back to bed. I will see you at lunch time.” She stood, wobbled a little and staggered back to her ship.
Two pilots, four fire control officers, two flight engineers, two munitions specialists, one electronics specialist, one navigator, one comm specialist, three female Marines, Beau and Sabrina stood for inspection when Captain Darwin reappeared looking much healthier than she had earlier. “Excellent. You have done well,” she said after she had spoken to each of her new crew members individually. “We’re short a medic.”
“Bones made that difficult,” Sabrina answered.
“Who do you want?”
“You know that kid that arrived the same day I did? He’s pretty sharp. He’s kind of afraid of you, though. I think Bones is taking advantage of him and didn’t want to let him go.”
“Does he mind being taken advantage of?”
“Hard to tell.”
“We can’t let Beau be the only man on the ship, now can we?” Captain Darwin grinned. “We can take advantage of the kid the same as she can.”
Sabrina laughed and some of the other women giggled. Captain Darwin sauntered in the direction of sick bay.
“Bones.”
“It’s ‘Doc’ to you!”
“Bones, I need a medic.”
“Get in line.”
“No, I don’t think you understand. I need one that makes house calls.”
“Sounds like a personal problem.”
“No, it’s a personnel problem. I am taking one of your people on my ship and I need you to see that he is properly equipped and stocked with whatever supplies he might need.” The two women glared at each other.
Captain Darwin broke the deadlock. “See the nice young man hiding behind the cabinet? We unde
rstand you’ve had him performing personal services which if he was not performing willingly, we could have you busted for. We understand you promised him a promotion. You haven’t given it to him. I’m giving him that promotion. He will be our ship’s doctor and my personal physician with all the rights and responsibilities that involves. You will let him go, now won’t you?”
They glared at each other for a few seconds. “When and where should he report?”
“1900 hours on my ship.”
“Consider it done.”
DEPLOYMENT - CHAPTER THREE
CAPTAIN DARWIN’S SMALL TASK FORCE departed a week later. Two of the P I ships fit in the freighter’s hold and the other two were attached to the docking ports. Five ships all told, with a total crew of twenty headed for a nearby portion of the shipping lanes where the Federation did not have a significant presence and illegal activities were as common as legal ones.
After arriving on station, they found excellent hunting. They quickly “recruited” several more vessels and their crews while on patrol. Sabrina’s non-violent tactics backed up by the threat posed by the other P I ships virtually ensured that the suspect ships surrendered without being fired upon. After capture, the drug runners saw their cargoes distributed into the vacuum of space. They and their ships were “recruited” and taken to Commodore Townsend’s orbiting base of operations. A Marine and a fire control officer would assume control of the ship and take it back to the mother ship. They would return with the cargo ship that made the weekly supply run. Smugglers and their shiploads of contraband would often be escorted by a P I ship along with the fire control officer and the Marine. Somehow, though, the slavers never made it to the mother ship. For reasons that neither Sabrina nor Alina ever explained to anyone’s satisfaction, they had no fatalities and only minor injuries on any of the ships they captured except slavers. There were no survivors among the slaver crews. The captives intended for market were returned to safety, but the people who operated the slave ships had unfortunate accidents and or disappeared into the vacuum of deep space. This discontinuity phenomenon became the subject of much speculation on the mother ship, but no one, including Commodore Townsend, felt safe in challenging it.
Solomon Family Warriors II Page 67
