by T S Paul
“Right to the point. How refreshing. Right. So have you heard about the civil war that touched off a year ago in the Empire?”
The man to Kate’s left spoke. “I heard about it. The people I spoke to said it was folks from Old Earth that started it. Are you here to tell us fairy stories? I don’t understand why you…” He never got to finish his thought before Kate’s fist nailed him in the head.
“Shut up ya Wanker! Who is the boss here?” The Captain’s men all stood down and yelled ‘Kate!’
“Ignore him. I know a little about the war.”
“Good. The people that started it were a secret society that intended to control the Empire and turn it over to the UN and Earth. Many of the governors were members. Including your old friend in New Reno.”
Kate cocked her head to one side. “That makes a certain amount of sense. Some of those governors were big operators. Drugs, prostitution, and slaves were more of their game. Go on.”
I skipped the whole clone army thing. “Earth showed up and instead of taking over they attacked the Empire. They now control Capital planet.”
Kate made a keep going motion with her hand.
“They aren’t like we are. Earth created clones, and they intend to take and hold every colony. They are killing every regular human they can catch. They used nukes on populated cities.” The vid screens behind me lit up, and images of the attacks including the massive fleet filled the screen.
“We intend to attack Earth directly. That fleet is in the middle of the Empire at the moment. They are not resupplying from the planet, but from fleets. We intend to hit them at the source.”
“Why come to us?”
“Our agents have discovered that Earth’s home fleet will be escorting the supply fleet the next time they move. We intend to jump in when they leave and take out their shipyards and supply areas. We want your fleet to join us.”
Kate looked at the man sitting next to her, and they both began to laugh. They and all their men practically rolled on the floor. They were gasping for breath when they stopped laughing. Neither I nor anyone sitting on my side of the room was laughing.
“You can’t be serious! Why do you want us of all people?”
“Because once they are finished with us, they will come for you too.” I pointed to the screen over my head. The vid from inside the Zeta extermination units began to play. To become a pirate, you have to harden yourself to see a great deal of death and torture. What played on the screen was far worse than what Pirates would do. Some of the pirates stared in utter fascination. Kate looked at it for a moment, then looked away.
“That is what is in store for the Empire. The ships from Earth have already done that to over ten million humans. They want to rid the universe of us. During the attack, they dropped nukes on cities and massacred fleeing civilians. We need to strike at them and hurt them. They have not built or farmed anything yet. All their supplies come from Earth. We need to slow them down. To do that, we need ships. You have a fleet. We want it. Simple as that.”
Kate leaned back in her chair. “You’re serious?”
I nodded at her.
“What do we get out of it?”
“Other than the joy of helping us and saving humanity? We are going to be busy hitting a technological planet and taking out everything in space. We thought you might like to raid a planet.”
“For real? I mean you will let us do that?”
“Of course. The more damage you do, the more it will slow them down for us. Time to build more ships to fight them. We have a fleet being put together on the sly. We intend to hit them in less than two weeks. My grandmother, Primus Dorr of Mars, told me to tell you that she will open trade with Celtica and recognize you as a colony world. I, as the Ambassador of Hong Kong, cannot guarantee that the other members of the Alliance will do the same. I will try.”
I could see Kate O’Malley freeze. Wilson had told me of her efforts to modernize the planet. The open trade would let her succeed.
The Taoiseach and the group she was with all began yelling at each other at once. They were speaking a pidgin of Welsh, English, and French to each other. I could barely keep up as Wilson began translating for me.
“Trade Peter! Open trade with Mars! So much we could do for the planet. We need to take the deal.”
“Deal? That’s not a deal, that is a death mission! Attack old Earth? How? So they have a fleet. So what? It’s impossible to coordinate that many ships at once. It’s a cluster-feck is what they have.”
“When was the last time you got to raid a planet? How about a planet NO pirate has every hit before?”
I needed to jump in. Using Wilson I started to speak. “Kate, we have a way to keep the fleet together in the jump. Total freedom to raid the planet. I can even show you where Ireland is if you like. How would you like to have stuff from where your people came from?”
The pirates all froze. They were not used to others speaking their language to them. Kate looked at me and nodded. “Deal!”
Chapter 14
Herding cats might be a good way of describing organizing the pirate fleet.
A chance to loot a world with no repercussions? Ancient, decrepit, and barely functioning pirate ships were lifting all across the planet. Some had not been seen for over a century.
“What the tally up to now?” I was back on my flagship in the command center. On this ship, the Admiral had their own systems and controls. The bridge was far too busy to deal with Admirals.
“Insanity if you really want to know. Anyone with a ship wants in on this raid. So far we have four carriers, a battleship, four cruisers, twenty-five destroyers, more frigates than we can count, along with converted freighters, luxury ships, liners, and what I swear is a colony ship out there.”
“A colony ship? Which one?” I peered at the screen. It resembled a poorly organized history parade. Hundreds of small ships filled the area around the planet.
“IFF says it’s Marcus’s Revenge. Records obtained from your friend Sam say it was launched from Earth in the second wave and promptly disappeared. That would make it at least a hundred and fifty years old. I’m surprised it even flies!”
“What’s the Taoiseach say about all this?”
“So far nothing. I think she’s in shock. Even we didn’t know that Celtica could put up this many ships.”
“It’s a chance at Earth that is drawing them. A great many of them won’t make the first jump.” Part of my still winced at the thought of jumping in a rickety old spaceship. “Keep me informed if something really surprising shows up.”
~~~~~~
“How many ships are out there?” Kate felt faint.
“We aren’t sure. I contacted the Martians and asked them. They gave me a running total, but it keeps changing. The last count was around two hundred. I had no idea this many ships were even here!”
“Where did the battleship come from?”
“It’s the Lament. The Murphy clan found it on a moon shortly after the second Interstellar War. They fixed it up enough to fly and brought it here. I knew about it, but the last time I saw it they were using it as a farm house! It had horses and cows in the cargo bays. Wanna bet it still smells like a farm?”
“That’s insane. Where are they all coming from?”
“We’ve been salvaging a long time Kate. Many of those are heirloom ships. Retired former pirates have been keeping the engines hot as a project. This is a golden chance for many people. One last epic score. Hell, it’s a free pass from the Martians to go for it!”
“It almost sounds too good to be true. There has to be a catch somewhere!”
“Kate, you’re not going with them are you?” Commander Jordan looked over at his boss.
“No, I’m not. Reluctantly, I’m putting Peter Lonergan in charge. He has the most recent experience and his three cruisers are in the best shape. Someone has to stay here to rule the planet. I’m keeping the Ganuaile II here with me. It, along with the fighter wings, should be
able to protect the planet. I want you to go with Lincoln Hawk on the Revenge. Before you complain, I know he’s a nightmare to work with. But, he has the only heavy cruiser worth a damn in the whole fleet. If any ship is to survive this, it will be the Revenge.”
“Do you really think it will get that bad?”
“They aren’t telling us something. I suspect that many of these won’t be back. Hell, you know our people. Some of those old timers just want to go out in a blaze of glory!”
“That, I can believe. I will suck it up and play nice with Hawk. I might have to kill him though.”
“At least make it look like an accident. His crew is pretty loyal for pirates.” She looked at her officer and laughed. He looked like a fish with his mouth open.
“I’m a Pirate Queen, I can be just as ruthless as you are.”
~~~~
Captain Lonergan now Commodore Lonergan was happy. He finally had his wish: to be in charge of a massive raid! Even he had no idea that there were this many ships on the planet.
“Do we have any order to them all yet, Danny?”
“Sort of? The big ships are all clustering around the Lament and Marcus’s Revenge. They have formed up into a semblance of a fleet. I’m in contact with a Captain Kurns over there who swears that he once served in the Sultan’s Navy. While I think he’s lying, he does know how to organize a fleet.”
“The Sultan? Damn, wasn’t that the name of the guy that started the First Interstellar War?”
“Yeah, that was like over a hundred years ago. This ship we’re on dates from around then. He has to be lying.”
“Make it clear to him that I am the one giving the orders. See if he can get some of the smaller units organized. I need to shuttle over to the Martian flagship. They claim they have a way to communicate in jump.”
“How?”
“No idea. Has to be some Martian doohickey. That is something to steal if it works.”
~~~~~
We finally got the pirates organized into a cohesive unit. Commodore Lonegan came on board to pick up the Doohickey as he called it. We call it a CATT.
“No! I’m not taking one of those evil, unnatural beasts on my ship. Not going to happen.”
I sighed. “If you don’t take the CATT with you, we can’t communicate when the raid starts! As I explained before, the CATTs can communicate in real time. We are only going to punch one hole through the defense wall. When we do, we will send you the coordinates. That will be the signal to jump. You will only get the coordinates if you take the CATT.”
The pirate looked as though he wanted to argue. “Commodore look. We can take down a section of the shield. Without us, you are welcome to try but why do the work when we will do it for you? After that, go crazy. Leave human ships alone, meaning us. Everything else is fair game. We can give you a few hints and we have old maps of where countries were before colonization. This will let you find Ireland. It’s our understanding that most of the planet is wide open, completely undefended. Take the CATT. His name is Edward.”
“Fine. What does it eat?”
“It’s a robot they don’t eat. He is a thinking being with rights. Treat him like you would any visitor. He can help.”
The pirate glared at Edward. The CATT stared at me for a moment and then pretended to sleep. “He’s not very happy with you. Edward said that if he loses another body, he will blame you.”
I hate internal conversations. “Wilson, tell Edward that I don’t care. I needed a volunteer and he said OK.”
“Commodore just take the CATT. Now, come over here and look at the star map.” I led the pirate over to the master plot.
Several hours later I sat wrapped in Dar’s arms in our quarters. “Is it me or are the pirates just that dumb?”
“It’s not you. I had a look at some of that intel that Wilson pulled out of their computers.” Dar shook her head. “They are even more messed up than my home world is. According to their own records the UN just dumped them here and left with the ship. They left Earth with over forty-thousand people. It was a forced settlement. They lost over half in transit. I think only your buddy Sam had a worse landing. At least these people didn’t have dinosaurs. I don’t feel all that sorry for them. They have been at constant war with each other for a century. Clan vs Clan until that Martian ship came upon them. They then tried to spread their war out to the stars. Piracy kept them fed. But now all they do is kill and steal. That Commodore Lonegan is one of the worse.” She snuggled down closer to me.
“Kate O’Malley is smart. Smarter than we give her credit. She knows we didn’t tell her the odds or the fact that we could time this wrong and all die. She’s letting us take the malcontents.” I gently rubbed Dar’s shoulders.
“Yeah. I thought it was something like that. That Commodore was a bit of an idiot. He’s all slash and bash. It should be a very interesting attack, provided we all get there in one piece.”
“I’ll get us there, never fear. Grandmother promised to have the barrier system down so we can go. What we don’t know is how long it will stay down. From what I’ve seen of Earth’s tech, those stations are the best they have to offer. I suspect that once they are gone, they cannot be replaced. Wilson informed us that Junior said the Earth supply fleet leaves tomorrow. We will give them time to jump and we will hit them.”
“Did the other Allies send ships?”
I felt myself wince. “Sort of. As we expected, the Rus sector declined. All they really have are a couple of converted mine-layers and fuglies. New Texas sent their only ship of the line, the Texas. Don’t get too excited about it. It is a battleship, but it’s left over from IS1. Where they got, it is a big mystery that no one is talking about. It has been gutted and rebuilt from the keel out but it’s never been tested. At least not in battle. Minerva sent half the new fleet. It’s a risk but even she understands what happens if Earth gets any sort of edge.”
“That was smart of Min. Besides, who is going to stop her? She controls the entire military.”
“True. My sister is a force to be reckoned with. Counting the pirates, we have several hundred ships for this little adventure. However, I’m not counting the pirates. I expect to lose about a quarter of those ships during the first jump, they just don’t have the legs for it. The rest? Call it cannon fodder for the planet. The clones on Mars swear that most of the installations on Earth are unguarded but they are only techs and not soldiers. We won’t know until the attack.”
Dar stood and reached down to pull me up. “Come on then. Let’s get a good night's sleep so we can attack in the morning.”
Chapter 15
“Does everyone have the coordinates?”
“Yes, Admiral. The pirate fleet claims they are ready.”
“Then send the signal to jump!” I crossed my fingers and my toes. This was going to be a big one.
Tree and Bee sent signals of their own. Ships in New Texas, Hong Kong, and Martian space jumped at the signal.
~~~~~~~
“Amalie, Athena and the ships are making their first jump.”
“Thank you, Bellona. Signal first Fleet and tell them to break through.” Amalie Dorr, Primus of Mars stared up at the plot in the command center. This attack would either prolong or shorten the war. First, they had to make a hole.
Mars has always had the power to get through the inclusion zone around Earth. It was just an application of extreme firepower. What held them back was the expense of it. They had always assumed that Earth was technologically more advanced than the rest of the galaxy. Breaking through is one thing. Being destroyed shortly after is another. However, the clone prisoners told Martian command the real truth. Earth lost that tech edge a full century ago! They could barely do the upkeep on the platforms and space stations. The Martian first fleet was exactly that, the first ones built. They were old and mostly useless. Good only for picket duty or light escorts. Fitting them with robotic controls was easy.
~~~~~
“Number two, station 425 alph
a is under attack!”
“Do we know by who, Number four?” Number two was the Gen-Mod in charge of crop and food production for both the planet and the expeditionary force.
“Sensors only say they are being repeatedly attacked.” Number two cocked his head in consideration.
“Contact number one. That station is in sector twenty-five. Could this be a probing attack to test our defenses?”
“I’m not the strategist that he is but it could be. Shall I alert the Alphas?”
