Today was a special day at the Black Star Yards. Oh, sure, some would say that it was merely another Wednesday, but then, those people were always far too literal for their own good. No, what made this day special was that it marked the one-year anniversary of the Black Star Company arriving in Dimiya and causing such a stir at the Arena (and our subsequent banning from the official gambling rings at the Arena).
I wanted more ships to add to my little fleet, but I didn’t want our ‘proprietary’ hull material to get out into the general population. So I found an old shipyard that had been basically abandoned after the Jagloth ‘incident’ cut into their business, and bought it for a song. Thus, the Black Star Yards were born. I grabbed some talented people who had been forced to sell themselves into slavery because of that same Jagloth incident, and put them in the chief positions at the shipyard. They started by getting the thing up to date and in repair, and then we began work.
A light-weight material that could be printed on a fabber and had similar strength to normal hull materials (warship hulls don’t count)? My yards were suddenly VERY popular for new freighters and such, since less weight meant more thrust for less fuel, which meant you could carry the same cargo faster than a comparable ship with a heavier hull. Freighters weren’t the only legit users wanting ships like this. I also got several rich types who wanted speedy pleasure craft, the equivalent of sports cars.
The Confederation military was also happy to buy my tech. I arranged a nice little deal with the Navy, starting with a licensing fee for when they printed the material on a fabber, paid by mass. Sure, a ship like Shadowdancer wasn’t any good for a slugging match, so you weren’t going to find a heavy cruiser or larger made out of that material, but for the lighter craft, which needed speed and maneuverability more than the ability to take a hit from a superdreadnought? That was always a good thing. Which is why the Navy was using our material for all their new fighters and attack shuttles. Any weapon powerful enough to get through their shields would likely scrag fighters and shuttles regardless of how much armor they had, especially if it came from a warship, so speed and maneuverability was life. Getting that without compromising on weapon weight was a big bonus.
Of course, it wasn’t all meetings and management. Sure, I had to pop up for meetings now and then, but I’d made sure to buy good managers, and a mix of them being slaves, and me not being a dick to them made them pretty loyal, so they were doing their best. Especially those who had lost everything on Jagloth. That whole community was rallying behind me for the simple reason that I didn’t treat them like trash when they were at their lowest. They weren’t overworked, they were fed and sheltered, and they were able to conduct their ‘off-duty’ lives as they wished. It was far and away a better life than most of them expected when they were forced to sell themselves.
Naturally, the business side of things wasn’t all I’d been up to. The girls and I still flew around, doing jobs. Sometimes it was freelance. Sometimes it was internal jobs for the Company. But as the Shadowdancer’s sister ships came online, we were able to do much more than just simple pirate hunting and trade runs. After a few security gigs, Black Star became known for being discreet ‘troubleshooters’.
Of course, I was the one naming the new ships, instead of Myna, and after seeing the results of Shadowdancer’s weaponry first hand, I decided to call them Assassin-class corvettes. Which is why the first of the new ships to join the Black Star Fleet was the Simo Hayha. The others got more conventional names, but I wanted at least one ship in my fleet dedicated to one of the single deadliest men in history.
As with Shadowdancer, the Hayha, along with the Wistaria, and Artemis, all sported smaller ship crews, but included small teams of raiders, capable of taking on jobs both in ship-to-ship or ship-to-ground roles. They were scalpels, not broadswords, but each Assassin was more than capable of dealing with smaller threats. And when they moved in groups? They could be pure terror. And that was before you added in the Raven or my sixth ship.
Which, I guess, is why I was getting this meeting. I had just come in from a freight run for Elnaril Triswyn’s syndicate on the Raven, having taken a load of ‘spices’ to Gatlock and returning with several cages of ‘exotic animals’ as the other group’s payment, when Black Star control informed me that I had a guest waiting for me in my office at the Yards. I kept an office there, so I could conduct business away from prying eyes. We weren’t hiding, but being on an orbital shipyard made it so much harder for government types to spy on us when we were doing work for the criminal elements, which was a big plus for them. And being able to keep the press firmly away from our building meant that people who wanted a pleasure vessel could have it built without the news being spread all over the place. What we lost in ‘walk-in’ business was more than made up for by those wanting discretion.
Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Now, though, I had a bit of a surprise, since there were two people in Confederate uniforms in my office. One was in a Confederate Navy uniform, a Lieutenant and part of Naval Intelligence, if I was reading his insignia correctly. The other was Alok Paxisys, now dressed in the ‘official’ uniform of the CIS, the Confederate Intelligence Service. I’d always suspected him for a spook, but he hadn’t contacted me since that first time over a year ago, so I’d put him out of my mind.
“Ah, Mister Paxisys, what a pleasure to see you again! I was so pleased to hear that you survived all that unpleasantness on Jagloth. I hear the cleanup of the system is going well?”
“You’re too kind, Captain Mollen. And yes, the cleanup, such as it is, is over. The system will never recover, of course, since Jagloth is a barren rock and under quarantine for the next century or two, until we can be sure that any remaining nanites have been rendered useless by radiation and the elements. Some industry remains in the outer worlds and outposts in the system, but I’m afraid most of it has come under the influence of certain criminal elements, and with the coming war the Senate does not have the resources to deal with it.”
“Now, may I introduce my companion? This is Lieutenant Maeral Zumrora, of the Confederate Navy.”
The knelfi man nodded, and offered me his hand. “Captain, it is a pleasure to meet you. Alok’s said quite a bit about you. If I hadn’t read the reports myself, I would have been sure that half of it was lies and character assassination.”
I laughed as I shook his hand. “Well, as you know, in the year and a half we Nomads have been here, there’s been a lot of changes. I’ve simply been able to ride the waves of change better than most. Right place, right time, and all that mess. Still, I’ve done all right for myself and my Company.”
“Yes, now that you speak of it, your Company is rather strange, even by Nomad standards. According to my information, there are only twenty-seven free people in your company, including yourself, but almost a thousand total names on your register, is that correct?”
I shrugged noncommittally. “Well, it is actually 38, and actual membership is 1412, but yes. Much of my company includes those who were displaced after the fall of Jagloth. I’d had a run of good fortune, so I purchased as many as I could before they hit the slave markets, and gave them work to do. So far, everything is working out well. Most of the thirty-eight are actually family and friends of some of my slaves.”
“And before you ask, the total number of Nomads in my company is only 22, myself included. Two, along with myself, are in the core group that works off the Starlight Raven, my private freighter, another has taken up residence on Dimiya, in Shvehona City, where she operates a small arms company, making custom firearms, five more are tech heads and mad scientists dreaming up the impossible, one is a captain serving under me, and the other twelve are listed as small craft pilots, operating out of my newest ship, the Vicious Return.”
Alok nodded at this point, and said, “Yes, we were quite surprised when we saw you had put together what amounts to a small escort carrier with a single squadron of fighters. We were even more surprised when we found that the fighters did not match any known configuration on file.”
“Ah, well, as you probably know, the Black Star Company has been getting into more security work recently, and I felt it was necessary to increase the assets we had in the field. Fighters give us additional flexibility to take on more jobs.”
Zumrora leaned forward. “And these new fighters? We’ve only been able to get limited data from long range scans, but they appear to be quite impressive.”
I smiled, and said, “That they are. There were a lot of people with great technical and theoretical skill who managed to escape Jagloth. They sold themselves to pay for their families’ passage away from Jagloth. I purchased them and gave their families shelter, and they’ve been most grateful. In addition, some of the nomads working for me have proven very clever in coming up with new ideas. They offer a fresh perspective, you see.”
“So you expect us to believe you and your team have been able to design entirely new fighters and ships in under a year?”
“Oh god, no. Some of the proprietary tech we are using was originally developed by people who are, unfortunately, no longer around to claim it, having been lost on Jagloth. Some things are ideas people have had before, but we apply them in different ways. Again, different perspectives. Oh, and we have a ton of computing power at our disposal, which allows our AI to run simulations as we go, projecting and troubleshooting new designs.”
I grinned at Paxisys, and said, “Though I am sure you guessed some of this already, after you took delivery of the pleasure craft you ordered through a third party last month? Have you taken it apart yet to find out how it works?”
“We would have, if the hull wasn’t seamless except for the entry port and the engines. Impressive design.”
Zumrora nodded. “Indeed. We were most interested in the fact that this ‘pleasure craft’ was, while built to civilian codes, clearly capable of much more than just jetsetting corporate types.”
“Ah, well, it is a rough universe out there, so I thought it best to leave room for customers to put in upgrades or have secure storage spaces for their goods in case they were boarded by raiders. Of course, the Black Star Fleet are designed for protecting corporate assets.”
“Give it up, Zumrora. This one enjoys playing his games too much to give anything up without a reason. Let’s just get to the point, shall we?”
Zumrora sighed, and leaned forward. “You’ve been following the situation in the Empire, I trust?”
“Naturally.”
“Well, our predictions are that, if things remain as they are, the civil war will end before they year is out, and then the Empire will be turning their attention outward. Our intelligence says that the Emperor has started some kind of cult that is spreading through both the civilian and military leadership. It is likely he means to start some kind of crusade against the rest of the galaxy when he has enough support at home.”
I nodded, “That gels with what my sources have told me. Oh, don’t pretend to be shocked, Paxisys. Hell, even CNN knows that Nomads have their own information networks, that aren’t restricted by borders. The people I’ve talked to within the Empire have told me all of this. So, what is it you want from me?”
Paxisys sighed. “We want to hire the Black Star Fleet for a few jobs behind Imperial lines.”
Leaning forward, I grinned, “Well, now you’ve got my attention.”