by Kal Spriggs
“We need to hit his people,” Anton Slivko said. He was the main enforcer for the Slivko family. “We need to show them the cost for staying loyal to this man, yes?”
“Damn straight,” Mark Salazar snapped. He ran a smaller criminal organization on Old Earth, smuggling artifacts out of the ruined cities. “We need to put fear into them, get them to turn.”
“We haven't had any luck finding where he operates from,” Willy Pye whined. Ricky liked Willy, at least as much as he liked anyone. The fence wasn't as hard a case as the others here and he'd actually been the way that Ricky had got in with this criminal partnership. Willy Pye had fronted him a loan, too, which was all that had kept his people from deserting.
“We need to find out where they'll be next,” Tomas snarled. His pale green eyes swept the room, as if he might find the answer on someone's guilty conscience.
“Vega,” Ricky blurted as those eyes settled on him.
“Vega?” Anton Slivko asked sharply.
Ricky swallowed convulsively. “Uh...” he looked at Willy Pye for support, but the fence didn't meet his eye. “Rackham, he's one of Reese's people, he has an orbital platform there, used to be a maintenance depot, but he turned it into a chop shop. Even if he's not working for him anymore, he may know something.”
“Why didn't you tell us this before?” Mark Salazar growled.
Ricky felt sweat bead his forehead, but he didn't dare wipe it off. “I, uh, thought you already knew?” In reality, he'd wanted to keep an edge for himself. Now he just hoped they might give him something out of it... or at least not kill him.
“Vega system...” Anton Slivko muttered. “We have no resources out there.”
Tomas grimaced, “We have a small presence, I can have one of my people check it out, possibly.” He looked around at the group. “If Rackham is there, we should hit them hard and fast, especially if there are ships there,” Tomas continued. “I can marshal fifteen ships.”
“I can put forward a dozen vessels,” Anton Slivko said.
“I can add three,” Salazar said.
“Two,” Ricky gulped nervously.
Tomas glared at him, but this time Ricky kept quiet.
“We don't want to send too many ships,” Salazar said. “If we find out where to find him, we'll want our other people ready to move right away.” He nodded at Ricky, “He and I can go, if we locate Reese, the rest of you can attack.”
“I like that,” Tomas said. “We'll get all of our ships ready.” The look he settled on Ricky, though, made it clear that if anything went wrong, the consequences would fall on him.
Nothing will go wrong, Ricky told himself. And if it does, I'll be plotting a course for the most distant part of human space.
***
Sol System
Neutral Space
January 19, 2410
“Well,” Senior Captain Daniel Beeson sighed, “that could have gone better.” The Centauri Confederation battlecruiser jumped to shadow space and disappeared from their sensors.
“I'm sorry, sir,” Lieutenant Giovanni said, “I did the best I could.”
Daniel looked over at her, “Not your fault.” In truth, he didn't know exactly how things had gone wrong. Their first meeting had descended into confusion and bickering. When Annabelle Spiridon had returned, she'd been more civil, but there'd been an underlying tension to the meeting. Chairman-Admiral Ortega had barely spoken and Envoy Noguchi had merely tersely repeated his rejection to sharing information about shipments and industry.
Annabelle Spiridon had finally stated that any ships that attempted to violate the blockade on the Kapteyn's Star system would be attacked on sight, regardless of what nation they claimed to serve. The statement had a formal phrasing that Daniel instantly recognized as a diplomatic statement and warning in one. Since that put an end to any chance of stationing forces in that system, they'd have to find some other way to prevent Reese from trying to access the system.
“What are our options, now, sir?” Lieutenant Giovanni asked.
“One thing that Envoy Noguchi told me afterward is that the Shogunate will share information on the attacks they've suffered. Chairman-Admiral Ortega has been considerably less forthcoming, but hopefully we'll be able to map Reese's attacks and possibly identify systems where he might be operating from.” It would be a stretch, but they might get lucky. It was their only other option, other than to try to break the blockade themselves and seize Kapteyn’s Star.
Which would be an act of war, Daniel reminded himself.
He nodded at Lieutenant Meyers, “We'll head back to the Tanis System, go ahead and jump us out,” he said. As the Constellation dropped into shadow space, he turned to his XO. “Lieutenant Commander Capdepon, Envoy Noguchi has been gracious enough to give us full access to their data on ships lost to Reese Leone's forces. I'd like you to begin evaluating that data in correlation with our own intelligence. By the time we reach Tanis, I'd like to have a list of probable targets that Reese may visit.”
“Sir,” Lieutenant Commander Capdepon nodded.
“You can borrow as many officers as you need,” Daniel said, “I'd recommend Lieutenant Giovanni for her personal knowledge of our target.” He rose from his command chair, “I want department heads to be prepared to conduct department and ship-wide drills within the next three hours.”
“That will be all,” Daniel said, “Lieutenant Commander Capdepon, you have the conn.”
***
Chapter VIII
Vega System
Unclaimed Space
February 12, 2410
Ricky One-eye scowled and cocked his head as his holodisplay flickered. It was hard enough to see the stupid thing with only one eye, it looked flat and he knew he didn't get as much out of the Raptor's display as he should. Yet he didn't really trust anyone enough to install a cybernetic eye and it wasn't as if he could walk into a civilized planet's hospital and have them regrow the eye.
Besides, that could get expensive. His two ships remaining were barely flying as it was.
“Ricky,” Salazar growled over the comm, “your ship is ready?”
Ricky couldn't help a sneer. “Yes, Salazar the Raptor and the Panjar are both ready.” Both his surviving ships were his best, a pair of Barracuda-class corvettes he'd “acquired” during his escape from Sapphire. To be fair, he'd sold the pair of them to other slavers long before that, but he'd kept a backup set of access codes, so when he'd had to make his rapid escape, he'd seized the ships again. Serves the idiots right, he thought, since they were too stupid to change the command codes in the first place.
A quick visit to a remote penal colony had given him a crew and Ricky was once more in business. In fact, other than the loss of his entire inventory, most of his assets, and a great many of his people, Sapphire hadn't been that much of a disaster. People he could replace. Ships he could steal. But the betrayal, being set up by the likes of Rackham on this Leone’s behalf… that he couldn’t stomach.
"Porax Station," Ibrihim called out on the radio, "This is the Raptor and we have a load of vessels for you to process."
Ricky One-eye gnawed at his lip as they waited for a response. They'd decided to pretend to be normal pirates, who might not be aware that the chop shop was no longer operational. That was why they had Salazar's destroyer and four of his retrofitted freighters following behind. It would look more like captured vessels forming a convoy.
"Negative, Raptor," a crisp voice spoke a moment later, "we don't have you scheduled."
"Scheduled?" Ibrihim demanded, "Since when do we need to schedule a drop-off?"
"We don't do that kind of thing anymore," the crisp voice replied. "Porax Station is a legitimate maintenance facility. If you need repairs, then you should schedule such things."
"Porax, we got five hot ships here, and if you don't let us dock, we'll have the stink all over us," Ibrihim grated. His acting skills were one of the reasons Ricky kept him on. Well, that and the fact that he's cheated most o
ther pirate organizations so he's nowhere else to run, Ricky mentally added. He liked using Ibrihim for talking their way onto stations, he always knew what to say. And I only ever had to cut off one of his fingers for stealing… after that, he learned his lesson.
Whoever was on the other end, they were sticking to the honest routine pretty well. "If you're trafficking in stolen vessels--"
"Porax, if we do get caught, I'm going to tell the stinkies that we were headed here," Ibrihim interrupted. He shot Ricky a grin and they both snickered at the long silence that followed.
"Acknowledged, Raptor," a different voice spoke. "Just so you know, there's been a change of ownership here and we don't appreciate attention being drawn to us. Go ahead and bring your vessels in."
Ricky let out a sigh of relief, "Good job, Ibrihim." Now was the hard part. Any kind of business deal between two criminals who didn't know one another always carried some levels of paranoia. The chop shop, or whatever it was now, might be planning to hijack their ships. They also didn't know if Ricky's people planned to hijack their station.
Which is exactly what we're going to do, he thought, but we need to seem legitimate until we get people onboard. Salazar and Ricky had loaded up their ships with boarding parties. Ricky's were somewhat less numerous after his run in with the military ships in the 571A08 system, but he still had a couple hundred people who knew, more or less, how to handle a gun.
Salazar had close to a thousand.
Once they were able to dock, they'd drown the station in bodies, but first they needed to play nice and hopefully find some way to make certain that Reese's people didn't have any nasty tricks of their own.
Porax station wasn't big, only five hundred meters across. There weren't any other ships in proximity, either, which wasn't unusual. Once the station had a vessel in its bays, it could cut it up for scrap and spare parts in only a few days. Chop shops like it were far more common close to the core systems where it was easy to identify ships. Out on the rim, no one cared if a ship had been stolen or pirated before and even if they did, their data could be months or even years out of date.
"Any sign of defenses?" Ricky asked.
Captain Burani scowled, "A couple light turrets and a missile battery. We can knock those out quick. Not sure what they might have onboard, though."
Ricky nodded. A station like this might have a couple fighters in the hangar, armed with fission warheads... or maybe dazzler warheads if they were real bastards. Dazzler's would knock out their systems. Not for long, but just long enough for boarding craft to come alongside. Those boarding parties would be in for a rude awakening if they tried it, but Ricky didn't want to be in that kind of situation. Desperate crews might mutiny and change over to the side they perceived as winning... and it wasn't like most of his people were all that hardcore to begin with.
"Arm the Scorpions," Ricky said. “And get our gunners in position on the gauss cannons just in case.”
"Boss?" Captain Burani asked.
"In case they have fighters, I want a defense ready to go," Ricky said. The Scorpions were a fire-and-forget missile system. The Raptor mounted eight of them in its external missile rack. They were expensive, but they were active guidance missiles, far more capable than anything else his ships mounted, and a lot more accurate than his hung-over gunners were likely to be. He'd bought those eight missiles after seeing what the military-grade missiles had done to Titus and Brutus. The Scorpions could intercept missiles or fighters and he could fire them from his own console.
The gauss cannons were light weapons, designed for anti-ship fire. Those would be most useful if the station brought their turrets online. At such close range, any attack would be devastating… and Ricky didn’t want to be the one sucking vacuum.
"Yes, boss," Captain Burani replied. Ricky saw the armed light appear on his console.
Now, he thought, here's to hoping I don't need them.
***
"Sir," Lieutenant Massa asked, "are you sure we should let this scum come aboard?"
Commander Terrel sighed, "Lieutenant, I have no intention of letting them board any longer than it takes us to position our boarding parties to capture their vessels. If we had any of our combat shuttles operational, I'd have our fighters hit them and board them as soon as they drop their guard."
As it was, he was still tempted to launch his fighters. The four fighters in Porax station's hangar bay could carry sixteen dazzler missiles or eight fusion-fission-fusion missiles. He could launch them with the fifty megaton payload missiles and eradicate the entire force.
But the opportunity to seize three warships, even three warships that had probably seen little maintenance, wasn't one to miss. Their organization could use these light ships, especially for their upcoming operation, where the quality of the vessels wouldn't matter as much as the quantity.
And the freighters would help with our normal operations, he thought.
But hitting the pirates with his fighters wasn't an option, not with both of his shuttles down for repairs. His repair techs were working on getting one of them operational, but they weren't optimistic. He should have had six combat shuttles, but the loss of the Avalanche in the ambush of the United Colonies ship had required Command to pull the other four for the main operation.
Maybe if I capture these ships, Commander Terrel thought, Command would see fit to assign me to that mission. His mind flinched away from naming his superior, part of the protective mental programming he'd agreed to when he signed on.
The time before he'd signed on was a little vague. Yet he remembered how important it had felt, the sense of relief he'd had as he realized that Command would take care of the planning and organization, that Commander Terrel could focus on the tactical and leave any strategic planning to others. Their operations would save humanity and that was all that Commander Terrel needed to worry about.
"Signal them to dock at sections seven, eleven, and three," Commander Terrel said after a moment. "And fire up the secondary reactor, I want plenty of power available in case they plan to double-cross us." When they'd taken over Porax Station, Commander Terrel's people had located several hidden turrets, no doubt designed for just such a situation. They'd take a few extra seconds to deploy into firing position, but that should make the difference if it came to a fight.
You couldn't trust pirates, they'd do all kinds of nasty things.
***
"Now," Salazar snapped, "as soon as we dock, I want your people to move on their engineering compartment. Mine will head for their command deck." The Raptor, the Panjar, and the La Muerto Negra were coming in to dock, along with the four freighters. The last few seconds they had was spent on planning the assault.
"Boss," Captain Burani whispered.
Ricky ignored the man. "Why do your people get the command deck," Ricky whined. "My people have fought aboard stations, before, and they're good at capturing people alive. That's what we do." Granted, the fight for the station's command center would probably be costly, but it wasn't as if Ricky was going to go out there and lead them himself. He'd be safe aboard the Raptor.
"Boss," Captain Burani hissed.
Ricky ignored him and went on, "Besides, I have a smaller group to control, how about I send my people to the command deck and you secure their hangars and engineering..."
"Boss, I'm sensing additional power systems coming online!" Captain Burani interrupted.
"What?" Ricky stared at him in shock, "Is it their main turrets?"
"No, boss, but it's like they kicked on a second reactor..."
"They have hidden turrets, your bungling communications officer must have tipped them off!" Salazar shouted. "Move in, move in now!"
Ricky shook his head, yet Salazar's destroyer jetted forward and slammed into the docking collar hard enough that the entire station shuddered.
Ricky saw that and his eyes went wide. "Back off, pull back!" He shouted. Porax Station was small enough that an impact like that could tear the entire station a
part. He watched with wide eyes as the four freighters docked in succession, each slamming into the station and setting the station turning from the impacts. Sure enough, as the fourth and final freighter came in, it struck at a slight angle and even as the airlock opened, the entire docking tube disintegrated as the freighter and station bounced away.
Ricky was glad he'd put on his suit and installed his catheter, because he pissed himself as he saw hundreds of bodies sucked out into the cold vacuum of space.
"Station weapons are coming online, boss!" Captain Burani called out.
"Evasive maneuvers!" Ricky One-eye snapped. "Engage their turrets!"
The Raptor and the Panjar both dodged away, even as their weapons opened fire. The light gauss cannon turrets should have been pinpoint weapons. But Ricky's poorly trained and panicky gunners fired out of synch with the ship's maneuvers. They sprayed the side of the station, striking unarmored decks, weapons emplacements, and even Salazar's ships. Air and water vapor exploded outwards and the already reeling station began to tumble, projections breaking away.
A tumbling body spun through the void to smash into the forward window and Ricky flinched back as the armored composite vibrated from the impact. In a panic, Ricky launched the interceptor missiles. Not that it would matter, they would only track on ships, not the debris around them
The guns continued to fire, smashing more and more of the outer part of the station.
"Cease fire, cease fire!" Ricky snapped. "Dammit, just stop!"
The station heeled over, ejecting debris and bodies in an expanding cloud. Salazar's La Muerto Negra remained docked, but two more of the freighters spun away, systems online but tumbling. Did they have their internal bulkheads open? Ricky watched with horror as those ships continued to vent atmosphere.
"Allah be merciful," Ibrihim muttered.
Ricky couldn't argue. Porax Station was ruined. Even if some systems remained online, the Raptor had cut through too much of the outpost's structure. Portions continued to break away as the station tumbled. Station-keeping retro-thrusters fired in an attempt to halt the tumble, but there'd been too much damage and Ricky saw a central stanchion flex and then snap as the station broke in half.
