Chapter 10
“We are through the gate” called out the navigator. The Paladin emerged into space again in Carnithal, they followed gate traffic controls instructions until they got away from the gate. I turned to the communications station. “ signal the League station and ask them what they would like us to do.” we waited, and waited as Communications was redirected over and over again until finally “Sir, I have the station commander for you.” , “thank you, comms put him on please.”
“This is station Captain Lawerence, why are you contacting me today” the Station Captain looked off screen “ Paladin”. “ Sir, Paladin encountered pirates three jumps outside Marconus” the Station Captain cut him off. “I’ll transfer you to one of my officers so you can report the incident, anything else?” the captain asked dismissively. “Yes sir, we have already reported the incident. We are here to receive the bounty paycheck and re-arm.” I nodded at comms and sent the bounty report over to the commander. The commander frowned but read the report. “Everything seems to be in order for the bounty payment so that will be transferred to you but I simply can not allow you to rearm here, the League military does not sell ordinance to civilians.”
“ Sir, the Paladin is a Paledes vessel with a militia captain in accordance with the Sedona Accords any militia vessel engaged in action against enemies of the League are entitled to repair and rearmament. Section 4 paragraph 2.” The Station Captain clearly looked it up and a few minutes later he looked back “ I agree with you that it says that but I don’t see how that applies in this situation. a small band of pirates was unlikely to be a threat to the League as a whole.”
I tried not to show how annoyed I was at this guy’s intentional stalling. If he wanted to help us it would have been easy for him to justify it by a transfer of supplies to a militia ship or by choosing to rely on the Accords if he was worried about the legal case, so I had to force the issue. “ Sir, forty years ago Prime Minister Canvil signed the Madison Declaration after the passenger liner Madison was attacked by a band of particularly brutal pirates. Part of the language of that declaration named pirates of any type enemies of the League making our fight against pirates a fight against enemies of the League.”
The Captain again checked some things then finally said “ alright I’ll let the quartermaster know to expect you, good day Captain.” the Station captain hung up. “Well that worked out I guess” I mumbled to myself. “Mighty unneighborly Sir.” Max said next to me and I laughed. The Paladin proceeded towards the station Ashley took off in the corvette to dock it separately. We docked at the station and I headed down to the airlock and went through to the station.
A private met me at the airlock “ hello sir if you follow me I will show you the way to the quartermaster.” I thanked him and followed him through the docking ring to a larger section of the station where a cart was waiting. We climbed in and drove to another section of the station we parked and walked to a door labeled Quartermaster.
The door opened and the private waved me in, an older man was sitting behind a desk with a holo screen up. He looked up as we entered and the Private saluted which the man returned “ thank you private that will be all.” ,” yes,sir” the private dropped his salute and left. “ Hello captain, I’m warrant 2nd Green before we get started. I wanted to say well done! I reviewed the footage to confirm what we were allowed to give you.” he stuck his hand out and I shook it. “ Thank you sir.” he invited me to a seat in front of his desk and we sat down.
“ Do you have a copy of the supplies you used and damage you took?” I sent it over to him. “Alright so the station Commander was very specific about only giving you the bare minimum according to law” I frowned but he continued before I said anything “ so that is seven rounds of long nine ammo and 57 rounds of small arms ammo. Now onto the good part.” he said, giving me a smile like someone about to have fun just barely following the rules. “ Now, League regulations state that any armor damaged in combat must be taken out of service until checked by a certified technician as the League doesn’t use the types of armor we have to assume they are total write offs” I smiled back as I realized where he was going with this. “ so that's four sets of armor, the Accords say we replace militia gear at the same or better so I believe that means you will receive four sets of mark eight marine armor do you agree”
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The look he shot me suggested I would be a fool not to agree and I agreed with that assessment. “ Yes sir I do not see any issue with that.” We spent another twenty minutes going over the equipment and gear getting the most we could out of the minimum allowed. When we were done the Warrant called another private to show me the way back to the Paladin. Three days later a company called Swiftsure Solutions offered to buy the Corvette from us, apparently they did high value low volume freight transport. The sale went through quickly and our bank account was doing well, then Emily came running into my office.
“ BEN, Ben, I found one and it's here!” she yelled excitedly running into my office. “ found what?” I asked, looking up at her and raising my eyebrow. “ A plasma Core that will fit the Paladin it's a little stronger than her original but within spec!” I sat back and smiled, having the plasma core would be a huge advantage allowing us to have proper shielding and the power to fire the main spinal cannon, the ammunition used by the mains was just a combination of mostly common metals with a few exotics we would need to buy. The main benefit though was the rounds themselves had no complicated electronics so we could manufacture them on board. Then I frowned “ that's great but how much is this going to cost us?” some of Emily’s enthusiasm died. “ Well you know that corvette we just sold?”.
I sighed “ that much?” she nodded, then continued “ to buy it but it's not going to be easy to install. The engineering team can do the hook up process but. To get it in we will have to bring it through the hanger back wall which really requires a yard." Now I sighed “ can we afford that?” she nodded “yeah the paladins was a converted freighter so this has been done before so it should only cost like 80% of those bounties we just got.” I sighed just like that we were back to making ends meet. At least this time we would be fully operational when it was all said and done.
***
It was two weeks later the Plasma generator had been installed and test and it was working just as advertised we had fifteen smart rounds for the main gun these we couldn’t make ourselves but were essentially missile that could survive the huge launch forces the main applied we did every test to them we could including launching one at no target with the explosives removed we fired it and had it flip before firing its engines. Math to get it to enter the orbit of the gas giant at a speed we could retrieve it was hard but with each one costing as much as we made in a month it was worth it. We printed off thirty dumb rounds; they didn’t maneuver like the smart rounds making them a challenge for long range firing, but still packed a large punch for regular rang work, as had been proved during the war.
I was again working in my office when there was a knock at my door, “come in” I called and Jasmin walked in. “ sir, do you have a minute?” , “Sure Corporal what's up?” I said, gesturing to the chair and closing down my search for another cargo. “ I have been decrypting the information we got from corvette's computers sir, and it finished last night and I found something Important.” She then went on to describe that the Pirates base was in Theocracy space and that they had many League Citizens hostage on a converted mining station about ten days away, and a slave vessel would be arriving in two weeks. They had a destroyer guarding the station. I debated what to do for a few seconds but the situation was pretty clear to me.
There was no way the League could get there in time even if they started to gather a force right now, not to mention an official League force entering Theocracy space was unlikely to go over well. No this was going to be up to us I was just going to have to hope that there was enough on the station to pay for the cost of the operation. I asked Jasmin to put together a briefing for the officers then I made a call. “ Warrant Green, this is Captain Miles. Would you join me on my ship tonight for dinner?”