Paxisys’s eyes narrowed. “An expedition, you say? I had not figured you for the explorer type.”
I simply shrugged, and said, “Well, there’s an interesting story here. You see, back when Jagloth was still fighting the Legion, my crew was hired to do a job. We needed to get into a secure vault on one of the stations, and make sure the contents got safely delivered to someone in the system for safekeeping, so that they wouldn’t get caught in the crossfire when things finally came to a head. While we were in the vault, we looked around for anything else that might prove interesting. In a section belonging to the planetary governor, we found what you might call the governor’s retirement plan.”
Paxisys went from mildly uncomfortable, since he was the one who paid for that first job, to interested. “Hmm. Always knew that the Governor was planning something. His finances said that he’d been gathering personal funds for something big.”
I nodded. “Oh, it was big. Unfortunately, the Legion got him, so all that work went to waste. But the… retirement plan itself is still there, waiting for someone to take a chance on it. Since I’m fairly well off and have a booming business, I decided that with the whole civil war thing over, now would be a great time to take that chance. Well, it will still be a little while. The refit of my new ships isn’t done yet.”
Zumrora leaned forward again. “Yes, we’ve been watching that fleet of yours. Two new pocket carriers, thirty-two of the little craft you’re calling gunboats, six ‘armed freighters’ like your Starlight Raven, four more Assassins, another Cruiser, and those Imperial ships you brought in, on top of the fleet you already had. You do realize you are building a bigger fleet than some small planets, right?”
“Sure, sure. And I can understand how that would make people nervous. But I’m about to be splitting my forces again. In addition to security contracts within the Confederation, I need to secure the Black Star properties to prevent people from getting stupid ideas about attacking me and mine, and then there’s the expedition. Don’t know what we’ll be finding, so it is better to have enough force to deal with any problems we find. Plus, the Nightforge will be able to establish a manufacturing base once we’re where we’re going. I’ll be buying a few mining vessels, to help speed things along.”
Paxisys squinted his eyes. “It sounds almost like you’re planning on starting a new colony.”
I shrugged nonchalantly. “Well, I don’t know WHAT I’ll find, exactly, when I get where I’m going, but any survivors of the Juan Ponce de Leon might just need some help getting on their feet again.”
Zumrora looked confused, “What ship is that? I haven’t heard that name before.”
“Don’t figure you would have. It was one of the old Drake-class colony/explorer vessels Earth sent out before they got knowledge of FTL drives. Exploring the stars at sublight speeds, knowing that if they were wrong about their projected system having a world that could support them, they’d probably all die. And more than one of the colony ships went missing, to be sure. The Ponce was one of the ones that was missing.”
“WAS missing?”
I winked at Paxisys. “See, let’s just say that the Governor got his hands on one of the data recorders from the Juan Ponce de Leon, and was sure he could find the ship. Now I have the recorder, and my people have a good idea of where the ship might be.”
“And why are you telling us all this? I mean, it would be simple enough to keep that kind of information to yourself, and you aren’t exactly known for being forthcoming without some reason for it.”
“Well, for one thing, I didn’t want nosy intelligence types poking around my property any more than they already are, thinking I’m up to something nefarious. It just gets annoying finding them and sending them back. Especially since the last one had a certain prototype from that vault we were hired to raid back on Jagloth. Oh, don’t worry, Paxisys, I’m letting this one slide, especially since it made for a good test of the defensive measures we developed against that item. But if it happens again, then I can’t promise that the agent won’t find themselves dead, or collared.”
“Ah-hah. It would seem that one of my associates will need to be reprimanded. I am surprised, though that you were able to come up with a defense for something you shouldn’t have known about?”
I simply shrugged. “You hired us to get the goods. You never said anything about not looking at the goods, and while copying information for resale or blackmail is not something I would care to do, keeping a copy for my own research and to protect my people is perfectly fine in my book. You’ll note that this is the first time we’ve talked about this since then, and only because your people forced me to act.”
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Zumrora cleared his throat, clearly trying to draw attention away from Paxisys. “You said that was one reason for sharing the information with us. What were your other reasons?”
“Lets just say that I’m making advanced preparations, in case things pan out the way I think they will. The potential profits of this run are on the ‘own a small planet’ level, which means that some damn fool is going to try and take it from me, so I want to make sure your services know that I’m going to shoot first, ask questions later if people start trying to get handsy with things that don’t belong to them.”
“However, if you don’t try and stab me in the back again, then I might give you right of first refusal on any sales that come about from what I find. At the very least, there will be the map data, since I plan on taking my ships into Unknown Space.”
THAT got their attention, and I had a feeling that the conversation would have gone in very interesting directions, except that Raven interrupted us at that moment. “I’m sorry, Captain, but you have to see this!” She turned on a viewscreen, showing a CNN anchor looking rushed.
“This is a CNN Breaking News update from our headquarters on Dimiya. A fleet of pirate ships has just entered the Dimiya system, and is on course for the Black Star Shipyards in orbit of Isil, Dimiya’s moon. While it is unknown what has provoked the pirates into launching this raid, it is suspected that the reports of the Black Star Navy being involved in several pirate-hunting expeditions, as well as their being used in the recent Imperial Civil War, has made the pirates believe that there is wealth for the taking.”
I growled, “Turn that off, Raven, and get me a tactical read of the situation.”
The news report blanked out, and was replaced with a tactical display of the space around the Black Star Yards. Blue dots represented Black Star ships, while a cluster of red was advancing on them. We watched for several minutes as the ships began advancing on the shipyards. I was pleased to see that my Navy wasn’t a bunch of idiots, as even without my order, the ships were moving into a defensive position. “Tactical report.”
“When we arrived back in the system the Confederate Navy pulled back the ships which had been guarding the Yards. Since they were replaced by the Black Star ships, this was not viewed as an issue. If I had to guess, I would say that these pirates likely have had the Yards under observation for some time, but were unwilling to chance dealing with the Confederate Navy. They are probably expecting the ships to be on skeleton crews, with most of their people sent ashore for leave.”
“In other words, they wanted to hit us when they thought we were weak, and either disable or capture our ships?”
“Most likely, Captain. They have deployed tarpits to keep Confederation Navy from interfering. Sensor images of the ship we believe to be the lead of the enemy force indicates that it is the Wolf’s Fang. It is supposed to be under the command of a Captain Loraine ‘Temptation’ Savant. Captain Valkian of the Savage Rose was her cousin, it seems.”
“The Savage Rose? Wasn’t that the pirate ship we towed into Dimiya after the dumbasses tried a tarpit trap on us?”
“Yes sir. Valkian was captured and sold as a slave at the local markets, though I do not know who his current owner is. I calculate a 75% chance that this attack is one of opportunity, and a chance for the pirate to get revenge for what happened to her cousin. There is also a 12% chance that she intends to take hostages to force the return of her cousin to her.”
“How many ships are we looking at? And what types?”
“The Wolf’s Fang is classified as a Destroyer. I believe it is a decommissioned Confederate Thavank-class destroyer from before the last war. Emissions are a 67% match to the Hactha, which was reported decommissioned and sent to the breakers. Margin of error in the emissions profile could be due to shoddy maintenance and replacing older components with newer ones. In addition, there are twenty-one other attacking ships, mostly corvettes or converted freighters, but I am detecting two frigates in the mix. Wolf’s Fang is currently hanging back, likely to direct the battle.”
She paused, and then said, “Fighter launch! We now have fighters launching. Three squadrons total, designate fuglies. One each from the destroyer and two pocket carriers.”
“Deploy our own tarpits, don’t let them just cut and run. Launch all Raptors and Thunderbirds, have the Dragons on standby. Fighters are to take out the enemy fighters first, and prevent them from making attack runs. All gunboats are to concentrate on the lighter craft. Assassins and Shinokage are to target the frigates.”
“Captain, the Breath of Hades is asking for orders.”
“Inform Captain Enlen that she is to maintain stealth, and to track the Wolf’s Fang back to their base if the ship tries to run. I wish to find out where this foolish woman has been hiding, and personally explain to her why she should never have done something so stupid as attacking my people.”
“Captain Enlen confirms. She will track the enemy destroyer.”
“Weapons analysis on the enemy ships?”
“Primarily missiles and energy weapons. Strength is consistent with last generation models. If they had caught us in a low readiness state, or if the rumors going around about how our ships are weak when not striking from stealth were true, they could possibly have been able to force a landing on one or more of our ships. Against normal civilians, they would easily have been able to accomplish whatever their goals were and escape before Confederate Navy ships could intervene, assuming they weren’t paid off in advance.”
Zumrora sputtered, “Then navy would never—!”
I shook my head as I cut him off. “Unless they thought they could do it without being caught. I’m willing to assume that you two didn’t know anything about this, but that doesn’t mean that nobody in the Confederate government wasn’t aware beforehand, or that there aren’t corrupt officials who would be willing to ‘slow’ a response in return for hard currency.” Zumrora shut up, ceding the point.
Looking back to the tactical display, I noticed something, and began to smile. “The tarpit spooked the pirates. They’re trying to turn about and flee, but they’re too far into the faux gravity well. They’ll never make it out before the fighters and gunboats get to them.”
Indeed, the pirates had only just started their turns when they got into weapons range of the Black Star ships. The fighters were completely wiped out, as they were lesser craft flown by worse pilots and were fewer in number than my Raptors and Thunderbirds. The gunboats began tearing through the corvettes and converted freighters, their main guns which belonged on a battleship being far too much for the little ships to take. In a convincing rout, only twelve of the twenty-two ships made it out of the tarpit and were able to jump to safety, the Wolf’s Fang running fast as she could ahead of the pack.
Looking back to the two spooks, I said, “Now, what were we discussing?”