Tarpit traps were the bane of any merchant ship’s existence. After all, no ‘legitimate’ authority ever had a reason for shutting down areas of hyperspace that could even remotely be considered beneficial for travel and business concerns. And the illegitimate groups (I hesitated to even think of them as ‘authorities’) all had very painful reasons why they’d want to force ships out of hyperspace. Usually involving the whole ‘pirates took the ship and made anyone who didn’t die a slave’ kind of deal. And since I wasn’t keen on becoming a slave, or in allowing any of my pretties to be pawed at by pirates, this meant I was not happy to hear about this development.

The passenger who was quite important to my job’s completion looked at me in confusion, not quite sure what she had just heard. “What’s a tarpit trap?”

I looked at the songstress, and shook my head. “That’d be the second way to try and attack ships in hyperspace. Gravity wells screw with the warp drives, which is why you can’t go to warp in low orbit unless you’re feeling particularly suicidal. So pirates and others who want to stop traffic will set up special buoys that send out signals which basically cause starship sensors to think there’s a planet in the way. Forces them out of warp, see?”

Alais frowned, considering this information. “But they can’t target a specific ship with that, can they?”

That got a smile from me. Technically, it was possible, if they had a beacon of some sort. You just seed the route with buoys, and only activate them when the targeted craft are in range. That usually meant having someone relaying your speed and vector when you left the planet’s gravity well to warp out, or having a long-range tracer on the ship. But the singer didn’t need to know about such tricks. “No, they can’t. It is easier to stop a ship with a tarpit than by getting close and attacking them in hyperspace, but you can’t pick and choose which ships you’re targeting, you get all of them which come in range. Now strap in, I’ve got to get to the bridge.”

Running into the cockpit, I sat at the pilot’s chair, since I was the best pilot on board, and began switching off the autopilot. As capable as Raven was at piloting her main ‘body’, I didn’t think armed combat was the best time for that unless we had no choice. “Raven, tightbeam to Shadowdancer. I see Nyna is in full stealth. Tell her to keep it quiet until our ‘host’ shows up, and keep all comms tightbeam only. We don’t want to give away the game too early.”

“Understood… Shadowdancer confirms deployment orders. Captain Nyna is keeping the ship 1000 meters behind us, and 500 meters above us on the relative ecliptic. Shadowdancer reports ready for action.”

A tarpit trap was, as I told Alais, essentially a beacon, or network of beacons, that gave off false signals to incoming ships telling their sensors that there was a significant mass in front of them. This tripped the safeguards built into every hyperdrive engine in existence. It was a known issue, but nobody with an ounce of common sense or a shred of sanity would disable those safeguards. Even if your navigation was perfect, there were enough derelict ships, rogue comets or planetoids, and any number of other hazards that you absolutely needed those safeguards in place.

No matter how good your shields were, impacting a solid mass at greater than light speed would be fatal. The resulting explosion was big enough that people considered making FTL missiles, once upon a time, as a ‘first strike’ weapon, but a 100 kg weapon moving at 500c would end up being big enough to destroy a small moon outright. As in, blow it apart so badly that its gravity couldn’t pull it back together afterwards. On an inhabited planet? All life would be gone. Period. It would make the asteroid that killed the dinosaurs look like a roman candle in comparison. If you were being VERY generous.

Suffice to say, this is one of the few arms control treaties that pretty much everyone respected. Anyone found using, developing, stockpiling, or doing anything other than destroying the hell out of them on sight, would be essentially wiped off the face of the galaxy by literally everyone else. The last time a terrorist group tried to do something like that, they were killed by their own people in ways that would redefine ‘extreme prejudice’. Hell, even nukes, bioweapons, and nanoplagues didn’t get this kind of reaction from people.

At any rate, to deploy a tarpit, you had to spread the beacons in an area of space that you figured ships would cross in hyperspace. Space was big, so tarpits were usually on ‘least time’ courses between major systems, or in bottlenecks, like the Rohadendron Gap between two dark matter nebulae that channeled most of the traffic between the Bagra and Theda systems into a relatively narrow corridor. Of course, space was huge, so even a small ‘corridor’ could be quite large, which meant we’d probably see our ‘host’ jumping in at any second to try and shake us down, now that their beacon’s sensors had gotten a chance to see we weren’t a warship.

If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

Right on cue, three ships warped in, about a light-minute away from our position. They were a motely group of what looked like an Ihm corvette, an Imperial frigate, and what looked like a knelfi armed transport ship. As the light reached us, I could see big bay doors on the side of the ship. Probably converted into a fighter platform, then? We were looking at pirates, for sure.

FREIGHTER SHADE OF ZINTHOS, YOU ARE UNDER THE GUNS OF A WARSHIP. HEAVE TO AND PREPARE TO BE BOARDED FOR INSPECTION. FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT IN YOUR BEING FIRED UPON.

Aww, that was so cute how they thought we wouldn’t see that they were pirates. I opened the channel to the Shadowdancer. “Nyna, are you getting this?”

“Yes, Master. Orders?”

“The ships are all older models, but I find I am not in love with the idea of what looks like a tramp carrier being allowed to launch fighters. That would complicate my life to no end, I’m sure. It is time for a live-fire test of Shadowdancer’s big gun. Remove that carrier from my sky, and then proceed to disable the frigate.”

“Understood. The Raven will handle the corvette?”

“Yes. And have the Valkyries standing by ready to launch. They may launch when the frigate loses engine power. Tell them that this is their chance to prove to me what they can do. If they do well, let them know that there will be plenty more opportunities to ‘play’ in the future. Their objective is to seize control of the frigate and prevent the pirates from escaping or self-destructing. Otherwise, there are no restrictions on this run. I want to see what they’re made of.”

“Understood, Master. The Valkyries will be ready.”

“I know they will. Raven out.” With that done, I checked the ranges. We were closing with the ‘warships’, and our weapons were ready. I smiled as Raven noted the EM pulse as the Shadowdancer fired at the pocket carrier. Raven did the math, and noted that it would be one minute until impact. Might as well make the show worth the cost of admission.

I opened a channel to the frigate that hailed us. “This is Shade of Zinthos. And just who am I speaking to? I don’t see a flag on the side of your ship that says I have to pay attention to a damn word you say.”

The screen showed me a scruffy looking Knelfi (didn’t know that was possible) man who sneered at me. “Then you’re a fool! I am ‘Slayer’ Valkiam, pirate lord of the—” I was sorry (not sorry) to cut the man off, but that was when I fired the particle cannons at the corvette. It was a direct hit, and looked like it did some godawful damage to the bow of the ship, which wasn’t helped by Cali or Jaynie opening fire now that the shields were down, or the missile I launched afterwards. Before ‘Slayer’ Valkiam could get his wits about him, the corvette was a cloud of rapidly expanding gas and debris.

“I’ll kill you for this! No one makes a fool of ‘Slayer’ Valkiam! Have Jameson launch his fighters! I want this ship bleeding atmo in five minutes!” There was a pause, as one of the people off screen said something, and then, “WHAT DO YOU MEAN, THE BLACKFISH HAS BEEN DESTROYED? FIND WHAT KILLED THAT SHIP, DAMNIT! ALL GUNS, ALL MISSILES, FIRE!”

I had to engage in some hasty maneuvering at that point, since the full firepower of the frigate was focused on my ship for a moment. The shields held under what fire we couldn’t avoid as we accelerated into a broadside with the frigate, and ‘all missiles’ turned out to be four, and the missiles were extremely dated, especially in the area of their ability to avoid point defense. They didn’t get close.

The frigate turned to try and chase us, but then two particle cannons reached out and slammed into the frigate’s aft quarter. Shadowdancer had elected that moment to announce their entry into the fray. The frigate held up for a moment under the particle cannons, but by then, it was under the guns of the turrets on both Shadowdancer and the Starlight Raven. The frigate’s shields collapsed, and concerted strikes from Shadowdancer’s ion cannons quickly had them dead in the water.

As promised, the Valkyries launched as soon as the frigate stopped accelerating. Time to see what my girls could do.

But before we could enjoy the spoils of the frigate, I decided to take the Raven across the battlefield so we could see the remains of this ‘Blackfish’ that our less than illustrious ‘pirate lord’ was yelling about. Apparently, that was the name of the pocket carrier I’d had Shadowdancer target. Surprisingly, there was still a wreck to investigate.

This was surprising, because the main gun of my corvette should have been enough to wipe that converted freighter from the face of the universe with a single shot. Unfortunately, what we had here was a case of overpenetration. It was the same as in the real world when you shoot someone with a really powerful gun, and the bullet goes all the way through, but sometimes shooting a person wearing a ‘bulletproof’ vest might take more damage because the damn plates (the front one, if you’re lucky) transfer more of the kinetic energy to the target, causing all kinds of unpleasantness. The Shadowdancer was literally too powerful for shooting civilian craft, and punched a hole straight through the ship, from bow to stern.

Of course, considering that said line took out the bridge, engineering, the main reactor, and the engines, I was still willing to call this test fire a success. The ship may not have been obliterated, but the ship was powerless and dead, along with most of her crew. The only life signs Raven could detect looked to be poor schmucks trapped in the fighter bays, which were still exposed to vacuum. But without orders, and a very definitive show of the power we had available, those crews were sitting tight. For now.

It would be interesting to see what kind of salvage we could pull out of the freighter.