Pirate Capital
40 days after the Fleet left the anonymity of that desolate star system they picked up the buried signal of the station’s transponder, a signal so insignificant it could have been mistaken for local background radiation left over from the big bang. The station hid itself within the great void in between large clusters of stars and used an advanced warp fields to silently shift itself listlessly back and forth to avoid its location being discovered. The only reliable way to find it was with the custom transponders the confederacy offered to its members. 13 days after they picked up the signal and three Station Defense Ships’ (SDS) came out to meet the Hellworlder fleet.
Lucile did the talking as always, but discreetly shared the transmission with the rest of the fleet.
“Unknown vessels, state your name and business” a gruff Gelid female grunted from her boar like snout, one of her tusks was broken and had been replaced with a gold one.
“I am Captain Lucile of the Lucifer, clan head of the Hellworlder fleet. We come here to seek justice” Lucile drawled in a low threatening tone.
The Gelid sneered and exposed its teeth in what looked like a smile to Aster’s primate instincts, but she knew it was an aggressive sign. “You and everyone else, what trouble did you Terrans cause this time?” it demanded.
Lucile’s face twitched “None of your danm business, we are members of the confederacy, and we are here to seek justice. Now either move aside or else!” she snarled.
The Gelid’s eyes squinted before she made a snorting sound “You never change Lucile,” Gerath said, an old friend of Lucile’s. “Follow me, your berth is 553 as always, and don’t forget you owe me a drink”
Lucile smiled “you old sow, I already paid you back”
Gerath guffawed “I saved your life when that little hellion was kicking your ass, you owe me drinks for life.”
“Aster wouldn’t have killed me, she just saying ‘hello’ in Terran. We’re a very loving and expressive people” she joked.
Some of Aster’s bridge crew turned to stare at their captain in shock. Aster ignored their stares and focused on the monitor as her mother and the SDS finished their exchange. Gerath had been a part of Lucile’s old crew back before Aster had violently reunited with her mother after searching for four years, in fact it was Aster who had broken Gerath’s tusk with an elbow to the face.
They followed the SDS at a crawling 1.3 kilolights as three more ships joined at their flanks. After a couple of hours moving at the sluggish pace they hit the exterior perimeter of the stations defense’s. The station wasn’t one solid structure like the Kruhur station was, instead it was a large collection of stolen super freighters that linked together into one massive mega ship that out massed many colonial vessels. Four layers of gravitational disturbance arrays prevented any hostile fleet from warping on top of the station like the Astaroth had with the Kruhur station. Union fleets had tried many times to snuff out piracy at the source, and every time the fields had bought them enough time to split apart and flee into a thousand directions.
The station was more than just a meetup point for pirate fleets. It was a massive black-market hub for illegal narcotics, stolen tech, and a pivotal linchpin in the illegal slave trade. Though the slave trade had been on the decline for years, and most of the stations pens were now dedicated to trafficking exotic animals. Bounty hunters, smugglers, slavers, cartels, and subversive cults all did business with the confederacy, and were sheltered under the small umbrella of control they had over other pirates. Any loot that wasn’t easy to sell on open markets could be sold to confederacy outposts for cheap and then brought here to be sold at a noticeable mark up. Most pirates operating in the core worlds just sold their swag to the confederacy, who in turn the sold it back to legal vendors, and bought weapons and ammo to then sell back to the pirates. A self-sustaining cycle of piracy that the Union hadn’t been able to snuff out for centuries.
Nowadays if the Union actually did take out the Confederacy then a whole sector in the galactic economy would collapse overnight and cause a widespread recession. Instead the Union satisfied itself with hunting any pirates who grew too brazen and tried their. And as they approached Astarte once again got a view of the Confederacies greatest strength, six massive sector gates that extended the reach of the confederacy.
These interspatial gates had allowed the Union to reach and control great swathes of the galaxy, and the confederacy had taken notes. Over the centuries the Union had kept the secrets of gate arrays a secret, so much so that people were beginning to think that the Union didn’t actually make the gates, and only made use of a finite supply of gates left over by the ancient core world civilization. A race that had once dominated this galaxy before mysteriously vanishing millions of years ago and left behind hyper advanced technology and little signs as to where they went. Over the years the Confederacy had dedicated great efforts towards stealing the six gate pairs that had expanded its influence and control greatly.
Currently the Station was basking in the rays of a lone white dwarf to help feed the massive consumption of the behemoth station. The station’s flight control tower alerted the Hellworlders of a safe flight route and the fleet broke away from their escorts and joined the slow-moving traffic. Their own ships standing out against the scrap metal junkers that made up most of the stations trade partners. Soon they had skirted the edge of the station and sent the clearance code to their hanger bay, massive rusty bay doors opened and the sleek Hellworlder ships slipped past the electric blue field that retained the atmosphere of the hanger bay.
Astaroth slid into berth number six and the tripodal landing gear slid out of her seamless hull and gently touched down on the station floor. A suspended catwalk extended from the back wall along a metal gantry and deck apes in EV suits tossed thick corded ropes over to the ‘yard apes’ of the hanger bay. Aster had no idea why both the crews insisted on tying a spacefaring warship to the docking ramp like any other ocean-going vessel, it made absolutely zero difference and yet her crew observed the ritual every time they made port.
Aster cracked her knuckles and rested a hand on Tenken, “Come on Kar, let’s go see what Jersey has to say, don’t let anyone leave the ship” she ordered as she left for the bridge. She exited the warm interior of the Astaroth for the cold exterior hanger, her exposed skin prickled from the cold and her breath was visible as she exhaled. The blue field retained atmosphere and heat as best as it could, but there were limits to whatever space magic kept the heat back while also letting their ships through. She noticed the temperature dropped in direct proportion to the mass the field allowed through, and since an entire fleet had just passed through the temperatures within were close to or below zero degrees Celsius and the moisture was rapidly freezing on anything metal.
They walked briskly across the rapidly frosting catwalk to the upraised observation tower they had dubbed the ‘yard house’. They had to leave a contingent of shore crew behind to keep the lights on in the facility, and when the fleet wasn’t in port the shore crew offered mechanical repairs to other ships for a small fee. But when they received her quantum com they would have finished their work and closed off the facility and began prepping for their arrival.
As she stepped into the yard house she instantly smelled the wonderful smell of coffee, real coffee. She and the other captains made a b-line for the freshly brewed pot of java and enjoyed its warmth before devoting any attention the mustachioed boss of the Hellworlders Capital offices, Richard Tooley. Who everyone simply referred to as Jersey for his thick accent. Only when they all had a warm cup of joe in their hands did they turn to his expectant features.
“So yaah back, why?” he drawled in a thick north jersey accent. Aster was pretty sure he faked the accent, or at least he slathered it on a little thick intentionally just to be confusing. Just like Highland did, whenever Terry spoke with Saint Mary he sounded completely normal, not a lick of Scottish to be detected. But when he was out in public his accent came out in full force, assaulting the ears with its spiteful bastardization of English.
“The Aunviry ambushed us on Femeri, we lost a lot of men and they tried to steal the Astaroth” Aster said bluntly after a deep and burning glug of coffee, she had run out of her own personal stash and had to drink Xeno-joe like the rest of her crew. Her last real hit of coffee had been that meeting with the contact.
Jersey grunted “Dat splains why dey’v been pouring in over the last month. Nearly the whole fleet es here. And all the rest have been avoidin us, no one wants to make a deal with us right now, haven’t made a sale in weeks.”
Part of his job was also to comb the market looking for any profitable bargains he could strike, buying cheap and selling high when he could. It made a small profit, but it’s real value was in the information he gathered.
“Any news” Aster asked?
“Ya, big fleet of Kruhur attacked the station again, fourth time this year. There’s a huge bounty on every confirmed kill.” He said.
“Good,” Modius said “Astarte and I just took out a big pocket of them, that should be worth a lot”
Jersey turned to Modius “Eyy little Kally es all grown up, I saw Azzy fly in, she’s a biute.”
Modius smiled “I’m a captain now Jersey, I’m named Modius now, not Kalwen” he chuckled. When Modius joined the fleet as Bell’s second lieutenant they had taken him the capital station to get a good idea of how the rest of the galaxy’s pirates acted. Apparently he and Jersey stumbled off at one point and had to fight their way out of a bad situation when some dumbass slaver tried to Shanghai them. They were thick as thieves now.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.
“Would ya rather I call ya Kally, or Azzy?” Jersey asked, his shit eating grin exposing his silver and gold capped teeth.
Modius rolled his eyes, an expression he picked up from us “Azzy” he consented.
Jersey barked a laugh before turning to Lucile “Cots and bedding are all ready for any who come ta shore. But let your people know that they need to be careful traveling the station right now, ugly snake fuckers are always looking to nab us nowadays.” He cautioned.
Lucile shook her head “can’t keep them confined, after the hell we went through in Bedona and the long journey here I need to get them off the ship before they explode.”
“Then we will have them move in groups of ten, fully armed.” Aster suggested.
“That will work, we should also make a list of safe places. Any suggestions Mr. Tooley?” Bell asked the dock boss, her crisp Victorian contrasting starkly with his own rough Jersian.
“Ah maybe a few, and its Mr. Fowler now. Me and Jess finally got hitched, I took her name.” He showed the ring and fluttered his eyes like a blushing bride in jest.
“That’s good to hear” Aster said sincerely, “We’ll have a proper toast later, I need to go instruct my crew on the situation.” She patted him on the shoulder and finished off her coffee before stepping back into the frigid exterior.
~~~*~~~
Alwen had been staring out of one of the exterior window in one of the garden rooms as the ship approached the ‘station’, which was not the fine and elegant megastructure Femeri or Parox were. This monstrosity looked more like a hundred barely space worthy ships had been tacked to each other with tape and glue. All awkwardly jutting angels, blocky hull and rounded bulbous hulls strapped together, and it sported blaring vibrancy of exterior graffiti. Some of the graffiti was in common, and some in strange alien lettering she didn’t recognize. And of course, along with the logos and crude curse words, there was a disturbing amount of strange looking alien genitalia on display.
Maybe she had been spoiled by living on the Astaroth, but a lot of the other ships appeared to be piles of scrap with shoddy weapons strapped onto the outside. Some of the other ships were sleek and deadly like the other Hellworlder ships, but those were rare and far between. Spaceships were rare on Torwen, but everyone they launched had millions of hours put behind their construction. But for space age civilizations that had been around for centuries space capable vessels were commonplace, and many had taken shortcuts in their construction.
Staring at the great amount of traffic and commerce Alwen came to realize that this station of pirates was no secret to the Union. Even if the pirates had somehow kept this from the public there was no way the Union officials didn’t know that this place existed. Which meant that the pirates were crafty and resourceful to have existed for so long without being annihilated. Or the Union was far more incompetent than Alwen had first thought when she dreamed about going into outer space.
Torwen was trying to desperately learn all the intricacies of interstellar society, and had made great strides in the years after first contact. A barely hidden secret like this would have been great and terrible news to her government, it could push Torwen to move forward and fully join the Union to avoid a threat like this.
The Union had been trying to persuade Torwen to join from their first meeting. But they didn’t really have much to entice her people, the food rations they offered were calorie poor compared to native food. The medical knowledge they offered wasn’t applicable to their own biology, and Torwen already had the free planet wide health care the Union was offering. They were very interested in the warp drives and other scientific wonders the Union took for granted, but those were off the table until Torwen had reached a certain milestone of ‘societal development’. Something about preventing intergalactic culture from corrupting Torwen before they were ready. The visa’s that had allowed Alwen to join the Astaroth had been the only thing the Union had to offer at the negotiating table to keep diplomatic talks open.
But if her government knew that a hive of active marauding pirates existed then they might be pushed to reconsider the Union’s offer. Unfortunately alerting her government would also alert them to Alwen’s short career aboard a pirate vessel, and it would get a lot of her new friends in trouble.
“Come on,” Alice said turning away from the window as the ship passed through a blue fuzzy energy field and settled into the cavernous hanger bay. “I need to get off this ship before I go mad”
“Get off and do what?” Alwen asked, not really enthusiastic about exploring a pirate station.
“The capital’s got tons of things to do, bars, fighting pits, an open-air market filled with tons of cool stuff.” She held up a finger as she ticked off each item. “There’s brothels too, but, uh, we try to avoid those here” she looked a little shameful at the last part.
“STD’s?” Alwen asked. Prostitution was legal on Torwen so long as the facility met certain health code requirements to prevent the spread of disease.
“Uh that, but mainly because a lot of the uh ‘service workers’ don’t exactly have a choice in the matter. None of us are very comfortable with that.”
Alwen’s face fell “That’s awful, why don’t you do something about it?”
“Because it’s a pirate station Bones!” Alice spluttered. “Look I would love to do something about it, go in guns blazing and kill all the creepy fucks who use such a place. But then where would I be? This is a hive of outlaws and criminals; they would have us out numbered twenty to one. The best any of us can do is deny them our patronage.”
Alwen’s temporary rage went away, she was on a pirate ship after all, and just because her friends were good people that didn’t mean that they had the ability to right every injustice in the galaxy. “I, I understand, but still, that sucks, is it a common thing on Earth?”
“No, not where I grew up.” Alice said firmly. “It used to be a big problem in some other places on Terra until a gang of escaped, uh ‘service girls’, went around and shut down places like that”
“How?”
Alice grinned “With fuckin broadswords. Guns are hard to find on Terra, but steel and metal grinders aren’t. So some girls went around and started stabbing all the rapist and slavers they could find. They called themselves the Maidens.”
“That’s pretty brutal” Alwen said meekly.
“They deserved worse if you ask me, any way the Maidens act like a police force throughout much of Africa, laying down some good old fashioned street law. Nothing official, since Union technically thinks of them as violent rebels, but the Union doesn’t actually bother to do any policing, so they can get away with a lot as long as they have the people on their side. There’s actually a lot of groups like that on Earth, the Triad, the Zapatistas, Sin Fain.”
“Why doesn’t the Union actually do the policing, Wraith- he, uh” Alwen trailed off as a wave of dread crawled over her as she recalled how warm his blood was.
“HEY!” Alice shook Alwen’s shoulders, breaking her out of her lapse. “You with me?” she asked concerned.
Alwen swallowed down her dread and forced herself to smile “Yeah I’m fine, he said that you guys acted like police on Earth” she said trying to change the subject.
Alice wasn’t convinced “You need to get that checked out; PTSD can be very rough without treatment.”
Alwen sighed “I know, I tried a session with Bachir, but Torweni psychology is different enough to make you methods useless for me” she said dejectedly. Her one session with Bachir had left her feeling worse than before, at least she could get eight hours of sleep most nights.
“Alright, as long as you know.” She said softly. “Anyway your right, in North America us Vet-clans end up taking the role of local sheriffs in our communities. I did a little stint in a city called Los Angeles once, it was brutal there. My home in the Rockies was utopian compared that. The Union has one central police force, they get deployed and moved around as there needed since most worlds don’t have much crime. It’s a different story on Earth, things are so bad there we need a constant police presence. But most species can’t even withstand Earth’s gravity or background radiation, and any who can flat out quit if they get sent to earth. They tried to hire humans, but their background checks are so thorough and limiting that they can’t hire enough, and the ones who do join are then targeted by anti-Union terrorist groups. So instead we have to govern ourselves locally. The Union doesn’t approve, but they can’t really stop us. If they really wanted us to stop policing ourselves then they should come down and make us stop.” She explained as they walked to join to join the large crowd of people waiting to get out of the ship.
“You Terrans sure are contentious bunch” Alwen said mildly.
“Ye ‘ave made an enemy fer life” Alice said in a mocking Scottish accent, some joke amongst the Terrans Alwen didn’t get, but played along with anyway.
“No but really, everything I have heard about Earth makes me wonder how you made it past the stone ages” Alwen said more seriously.
“Don’t look at me, shit was fine until we joined the Union.” Alice complained, leaving out the fact that Feliniods along with other uplifted species didn’t exist before the Union. Alice thought of herself as an American and claimed the history and culture despite being from a species of previously non-sapient Asian predators. To Alice, she was just as American as any European, African, or Native, American. An opinion not everyone shared.
“You guys are always clashing with the Union though, are they really that bad?” Alwen asked. There was always animosity amongst the pirate whenever the Union came up, which seemed at odds with the grand peaceful interstellar society the Union had built over the millennia.
Alice cocked her head to the side contemplatively “I’m not really good at interstellar politics, you’d have to ask the cap’n for a more detailed explanation. But if you ask me, I just don’t think the Union works for Terrans. One bloated bureaucratic control freak of a government might work for a vast majority of the galaxy, but its really the wrong kind of government for Terrans. Even the Trikes and Bone’man have their own plethora of issues with Union rule. I think we should be left to interpret our own destiny’s and govern ourselves. So long as we don’t hurt anyone else I don’t see why not.”
Alwen thought for a second and tried to consider how it would be if Torwen actually was a Union world. She had already had a few occasions to deal with the torturous amounts of paperwork required to get her visa, to confirm her health, and to set up her bank account. She imagined how taxing it would be if she needed to fill out a contract in triplicate every time she administered pain killers to a patient. The Union already considered morphine a class 5 narcotic and a class 7 poison, how hard would joining the Union impact stuff like that. What was deadly to most species was a staple of medicine on Deathworlds, and their absence would ruin whole communities.
The hatch to the top deck opened and the waiting hordes of crew members slowly shuffled out to stand on the freezing deck. Alwen had no idea why it was so cold outside, she just gripped her elbows and shivered until Alice wrapped a fuzzy arm around her shoulder to keep her warm.
The captain stood at the front of the ship that the Terrans mysteriously insisted on calling ‘bow’ instead of a front. “Listen up!” the captain roared over the crowd; her voice echoed around the metal hanger. Alwen looked to the other ships and saw that other crews of Terrans had been assembled and were currently being instructed by their own captains. She even got her first glimpse at the other ships of the Hellworlder fleet “You will be allowed to go ashore, but things are tense right now and lone crew members might be a vulnerable target. No one is to wander in groups of less than ten. If you split off to use the restroom, you will go in triplets. If you encounter any ugly snake-headed bastards you are not to attack. I don’t care what your reason is, unless they attack you first you don’t touch them!” she bellowed, her voice filling the cavernous room.
The Captain stepped down and the assembled group broke off into smaller groups to begin arranging themselves.
Alice leaned into Alwen “Things must be bad if they think we need to be in groups of ten or more. Lets see, you, me, Gabe, and Izzy makes four, any suggestions.
“Limey and Gato” Alwen offered.
“That’s six” Alice looked around to see if anyone wasn’t already in a group and wandering off, but everyone had grouped up pretty quickly. “Ooh, I know. I have some friends on the Lucifer, let me send them a message.” She said and began to fiddle with the device on her wrist.
The twins made their way through the crowd and Alwen ran over to drag both Limey and Gato. Gato seemed less willing to join when he saw Alice, but Alwen just pulled harder at his resistance until he gave in.
Alice got a response and smiled “Alright that’s twelve.”
“Who’d ya get?” Limey asked.
“Metallika and Mute have a group of six, they’re gonna join us”
Limey groaned “Darn, I owe them drinks after that sticky situation in Wrethren”
They laughed and made their way down the ramp and began to head to the exit. Alwen felt a bit of apprehension about going off into an unknown station full of pirates, some of which had who had been a part of the group who had killed Wraith and Sean. But she laid a protective hand on Makaze and felt reassured by the steel hanging from her hips.
They walked down the ramp and began to push their way through the throngs of people to get to the Lucifer on the other end of the hanger, careful not to slip on the ice that had rapidly formed and was slowly starting to melt as the heat from the engines and ventilation warmed the room. They walked past several other much smaller ships that must have been the Tempter and Fiend class ships, Alwen couldn’t tell which was which. They walked by another long and sleek ship, comparable in size to the Astaroth, put painted an off-white color instead of the ashy gray of the Astaroth. The black English letters on the side read BC-03 Beelzebub.
They had just passed another sleek gray warship like Astaroth labeled BC-04 Asmodeus, when Alwen saw a thin male figure who looked strikingly familiar chatting with Captain Astarte and Lieutenant Karega. Alwen had to stop and did a double take as she recalled why the figure looked so familiar
“Kalwen?” she gasped in surprise.
At hearing his name, her brother, Kalwen Djani, turned from Astarte and smiled at Alwen “Its been a while hasn’t it, little sister.” He said in Torweni.