A month later, in another section of Galactic Republic space, a situation was developing that would again require the Vigilant’s service.
Russell Obwobwo was the youngest crewmember of the SS Andromeda Clipper. A recent graduate of the Merchant Space Academy, the nineteen-year-old was on the engineering detail’s third watch. His duties included making minor repairs and adjustments throughout the ship as needed. At the moment, he was working on a balky waste control pump in the port dorsal cable and piping access tunnel.
This was the second time he had to crawl along the piping to fix this particular pump. Earlier, he had gotten it to work again by loosening the mounting bolts and retightening them using the correct torque setting. The shipyard had installed it improperly. He wasn’t sure what was wrong with it this time.
Russell was proud of his ship. The Andromeda Clipper was the newest ship in the Lyman Space Shipping Lines, and he was lucky to be aboard. It was a new fast auto-container ship, designed to carry auto-containers into planetary orbit, where they detached from the ship and automatically landed at the planet’s spaceports. Once unloaded and then loaded with new cargo, the auto-containers automatically joined up with the Clipper or remained dormant to await her arrival. The automation made it a significant improvement on the older cargo lighter carriers. There were several containers to drop off and more to pick up at Rigel, the next stop.
The Clipper could do FTL Power 4 and, even though there were ships disappearing on the Rigel to Aldebaran run, the company assessed the Clipper could outrun any danger along the way. Russell heard the chief engineer say that nothing could catch the Clipper and he believed him.
Russell disassembled the pump motor’s outer casing, removed a metal shaving from the electrical connections, reassembled it, and it ran perfectly. He crawled backward out of the access tunnel. It was then that he heard the engines suddenly drop out of FTL drive and stop. The lights went out and everything changed.
A non-descript, small intergalactic-class cargo ship drifted in open space between the Aldebaran and Rigel systems. The very familiar single human occupant hunched over his command console, monitoring the space around him. A white cat stretched out on the console, occasionally nuzzling the man’s hand to get his attention.
Alistair had completed his mission of taking down the K’Rang spy network and turned all his data over to the prosecutors. He looked for an easy assignment to wind down from the pressures of that mission, and chose to investigate some ship disappearances. It seemed like an uncomplicated, routine investigation to him.
The shipping lane between Rigel in the Orion Sector and Aldebaran in the Taurus Sector was one of the most highly-trafficked in Galactic Space. Alistair was looking for why a disproportionate number of ships in this sector were not arriving at their destinations.
That ships were lost in space was not unusual. Space was a dangerous enough place that approximately twenty ships were lost in all of the Galactic Republic Space every year. However, eighteen ships had been lost on the Rigel-Aldebaran run in the last eleven months alone. Something was not right near Orion’s Belt.
Officials from Rigel, Aldebaran, and the shipping companies had poked about for months and turned up nothing. It was as if the ships had just dematerialized. No debris was found. No distress calls were received. None of the crew had turned up anywhere in Galactic Republic Space. None of the cargo had turned up. Officials on both worlds were stymied. Cargo ships were starting to run in convoys or hiring armed escort ships to make the passage. A few fast ships made the journey, relying on their speed to get them through. Those too poor made the runs singly, hoping they would slip by whatever was taking the ships.
He had been scouting around the Orion Sector and environs for weeks, looking for any reason why eighteen perfectly good ships never made it to port. His sensors showed him the entire space from Rigel to Aldebaran. He could monitor every ship moving through the region. He watched and waited for anything out of the ordinary. He waited a long time.
Weeks later, with his rations running low, Alistair was preparing to make a run to the planet Titov in the Sirius system. He was laying in his course when his sensors showed him that a Lyman Shipping Lines auto container ship on the run from Rigel to Aldebaran just disappeared. One minute it was there, the next it had vanished. Alistair cautiously moved his ship closer to the last known position of the freighter. Hours later when he cruised through the position, he found only a faint ion trail leading off in the direction of the Pleiades Star Cluster.
Alistair calculated his remaining rations, added in his emergency rations, and figured he could track the ion trail for twelve days before he would have to make a port call in the Rigel system. He turned to his feline companion and said, “I’m sorry, Rojo. I know how much you like the sailorfish fillets from Titov, but you’ll just have to live on packaged rations for a few more days.”
Alistair turned his ship toward the Pleiades Star Cluster, turned his sensors on full scan, and followed the ion trail to wherever it led.
Irina Bugarov and her executive assistant, Terri Hawkins, traveled on the SS Galaxy Queen to Rigel Station for her first annual status report. Irina practiced her delivery during the week-long voyage from her home office on Shepard. She wished that the rings were opened to commercial vessels; it would cut days off her journey.
She practiced her briefing in three formats: formal long, formal short, and deskside. She did not know which he would prefer, but she would be ready, no matter what he wanted. She practiced her presentation on her assistant, who sat patiently time after time.
Irina felt good about what she had accomplished in a year. Her combine earned more in the last two quarters than all ten had earned the previous year. She had to spend some credits to improve production, which affected her first two quarters, but it had borne fruit by the third quarter and would for all of next year, too.
She also felt that hiring a security officer was a good investment. His efforts at improving security got one of her companies a high grade from the local Fleet Intel Security Officer. That rating got them a new multimillion credit contract to produce a classified component of the ring. The other companies, having seen the positive result of having good security, stepped up their security game.
Alistair Bennett coasted up to the edges of the Pleiades star cluster in Taurus sector. His sensors showed little through the cosmic dust and gas that blanketed this part of space. The minute ion trail he had been following for days was lost in the dust cloud. He dared not proceed further. His gravimetric sensors were off the scale. The gravitational forces and eddies in this packed star cluster could crush or trap his ship. Alistair looked for an out of the way location to sit and watch.
He turned the sensitivity up and down to see if anything could be resolved out of the charged dust cloud. He drew a blank. He composed a message to Fleet Intel to provide them with his log, his suspicions, and his request for a Scout Force ship with better sensors to explore this region. He had a specific ship in mind. He wondered if they would believe his theory of disappearing pirates.
Rojo jumped up on the console and nuzzled his hand. It was his way of politely reminding Alistair that he was starving. Alistair left his instruments and went through the feeding ritual. He was sorry he didn’t have any of Rojo’s favorite food left, but what he had would have to do. “Eat up, Rojo. We head to Rigel tomorrow. I’ll see what local fish they have on Rigel Prime. Maybe I can find you a treat.”
Rojo purred as he ate.
Thorson stood his sensor watch on the bridge of the pirate ship Undefeated and stared at the blank screen. It wasn’t technically blank; it displayed the nearby planets and celestial bodies all right, but was devoid of any ships that might become prey for the Undefeated. Thorson continued his watch, hoping some rich plunder would come their way.
Captain Mabry came out of her cabin and up to Thorson. “Have you found me any prizes yet?”
Thorson looked up from the screen and said, “No, Captain, I think we’ve scared them all away.”
“Thorson, I pay you for your piloting ability. Pilot us where there might be some choice cargo ships to plunder. We are going to need credits to live on when we finally return to Barataria. Come on. Get lucky.”
Captain Mabry had inherited the Undefeated from its previous captain, after she slit his throat while making love to him. It went along with her peculiar sense of humor. The Undefeated was a custom-built, fast, medium cargo ship that had been fitted with bigger engines, long-range weapons, and a tractor beam. It was a privateer ship of the Marauder Fleet. It bore no allegiance to any state and existed only on the fringes of galactic society. Some thought it romantic, but Thorson knew the punishment for piracy was spacing. He saw a sudden cold end to his future if he were caught and cast out into the vacuum. He had seen explosive decompression before and it was not something to be dismissed lightly.
He piloted the ship along the edges of the A-1571 asteroid field, in hopes of finding a hapless freighter or other likely victim. Tim, the sensor/weapon operator, scanned the surrounding space for any approaching ships. It was not unusual for the local military to randomly patrol the empty reaches of space, to forestall exactly what the Undefeated was waiting amongst the rocks to do.
They waited three days at the edge of the asteroid field, looking for likely targets. They saw large, slow ore carriers, well-escorted express freighters, and pre-fabricated asteroid mining facilities pulled by space tugs. None of those were of any interest.
The ore carriers carried bulk ores that were of no worth to the Undefeated. The escorted freighters probably carried high value cargo, but their escorts were too strong for the pirates’ weapons and shields. The mining stations were just too big to move if captured; besides, they were mostly just machinery and living quarters for asteroid miners and of no real marketable value.
They needed a big fast container freighter trying to make the run solo. Freighters sometimes did that, counting on their speed to carry them through the danger. It was only another day before he got an indication of likely prey entering sensor range.
Thorson called the captain to the bridge and they watched as a faint blip resolved into an Andelian Free State registered mid-sized long-range transport. It was one of the new Galaxy model executive transports, on which corporate executives and tri-vid stars liked to scoot about in space. It was designed more for show than for the realities of space travel. It featured large gaudy fins and winglets totally unsuited for space or atmospheric travel, but it was the latest style.
The Undefeated was less fashionable, but faster and unlike the transport, was armed. As they passed, the captain ordered a shot across her bow and sent a demand for surrender. The passenger transport quickly slowed to below FTL, yawed in space, faced away from the direction of movement, and fired thrusters to bring her to a halt. Undefeated closed on her and the Captain ordered the boarding squad to stand by.
The captain of the luxury transport offered his unconditional surrender. Captain Mabry ordered the Undefeated to dock with the ship and sent the boarding party over to secure it. Within minutes, the Ascetic boarding party was signaling all secure and five prisoners to bring aboard.
The sensor/weapons operator activated the tractor beam and the two ships moved together deep into the asteroid field. Thorson left the S/W operator to keep a watch, and then joined the captain as she inspected the captured ship.
He followed behind the captain with weapon drawn, as they entered the prize.
Captain Mabry sneered and said, “Well, Thorson, what do you think of her?”
He looked around and saw the opulence of the furnishings. The airlock was stainless steel. The passageways were lined with real wood, which was something pretty rare in space due to the prohibitive cost. He looked in one of the cabins and saw gold fixtures and real cloth bedding. There were some credits invested in this ship.
Thorson chuckled, smiled, and replied, “Captain, this is a good haul. This is a very good haul.”
They made their way to the bridge and met the captain/pilot and co-pilot. The captain was a typical shuttle pilot. He was all braid and no fortitude — his uniform was highly decorative and wildly impractical. No wonder he had surrendered so quickly. The co-pilot was almost a carbon copy, just shorter and less in shape.
Captain Mabry asked, “What is your cargo and what was your destination, Captain?”
Sweat trickled down luxury transport captain’s forehead. The smell of fear permeated the air. He stuttered, answering quickly, obviously nervous, “I have Mrs. Ellen Debran and her two daughters, plus their personal baggage. That’s all. They’re in the main salon with your guards. We were headed to Rigel Station.”
Captain Mabry motioned for Thorson to follow her. She left an Ascetic to guard the two pilots. Thorson followed her back down the hallway and turned right into the main salon, where two Ascetics guarded the women.
Mrs. Debran was a statuesque woman in her mid to late forties. She had long brown hair, dark brown eyes and a nice shape. She carried herself in an erect, patrician manner. She was a very attractive woman, wearing a gold silk lounging outfit.
Her daughters were younger versions of their mother. They carried themselves in a reasonable approximation of their mother’s posture. The captain and Thorson looked on these women with equal interest, for the credits they must be worth.
The older daughter was approximately 25, with dark brown shoulder length hair. She wore a rainbow-patterned dress that fit tight across the bust and hips. Sandals adorned her feet. The younger daughter was probably 20. She had hazel eyes and the family’s brown hair. She wore a short white shirtdress, which was tight in all the right places.
Captain Mabry said, “You’re on a vessel in an embargoed area. You’ve been taken prisoner by a vessel of the Marauder Fleet. If you cooperate and offer no resistance, you will be returned to your family as soon as possible. If you cause us problems, you will spend a much more uncomfortable passage. Do you understand me?”
The older woman said, “I am Julia Debran. These are my daughters, Christine and Sylvia. We’ll give you no trouble. I ask that you not harm my daughters or me. We’re very wealthy and our family will pay a generous ransom to get us back alive and unharmed.”
The Captain smiled wickedly and said, “You will not be harmed if you cooperate fully with us. Stay here. An officer will be here soon to take charge of you. You will be transported to our nearest base on this ship. Your repatriation will be arranged there.”
Captain Mabry motioned Thorson to follow her out of the salon. A guard positioned himself in the doorway as they left.
“Thorson, I want you to take charge of this ship and get it to Barataria unharmed. Our take for this prize will be better than 100,000 credits for the ship, plus whatever the ladies fetch. If their family won’t buy them, we can find lots of useful things for them to do. I’ll take the two pilots with me and leave you with three Ascetics. We’ll follow some distance behind you. Maybe we’ll get lucky and find another ship along the way.”
Thorson went to his cabin and packed a minimum of gear for the two-week trip. The luxury transport could probably provide him with anything else he’d need. He checked with the Captain, before departing to take command of the prize crew. She had nothing more for him. He held at the airlock as the two pilots and the majority of the boarding party left. The Ascetic Deacon, Third Class met him at the airlock and reported.
“Sir, we have searched and scanned the ship. There are no weapons on board, except ours. The three women, you, and my team are all that are on board. The ship is provisioned for over a month. With your permission, we will berth in the co-pilot’s cabin. It has two beds. I recommend you take the captain’s cabin. It’s quite spacious and outfitted with a master computer terminal and comms.”
“The three women are in cabins off the main salon. One of us will guard the entrance to the salon at all times. There is no other entrance. We will keep them in the salon and their rooms unless you authorize otherwise.”
Thorson was impressed with the young deacon’s professionalism. He approved his recommendations and moved his gear into the captain’s cabin. He looked around for a few minutes, and then moved to the bridge.
Thorson fired up the main command console and called the Undefeated to check comms. He got a good comms check and continued to familiarize himself with the controls. Everything was automated, so he would have no trouble piloting the ship to Barataria.
He spent a few minutes locking out all ship’s controls, external view, and comms from every ship’s terminal except the one on the bridge and one in his cabin, and set a voice imprint pass code into the system for the deacon and himself. He cued up the ship’s internal monitor system and verified all heat sources on the ship. The deacon was correct. All life signs were accounted for on the ship. No weapons were on board, with the exception of some knives in the galley.
He received a message from the Undefeated, to head for Barataria. He moved the ship clear of the asteroid field, plugged in the course, and engaged the FTL engines.
Thorson activated the sensors to warn of any approaching ships and walked to the main salon. The Ascetic Acolyte, First Class moved out of his way as he entered. The two daughters were talking on a couch, but the mother was nowhere in sight. The daughters looked up with apprehension in their eyes.
Their mother came back into the room, saw him, and said, “So, you are the one that has charge of us?”
“Yes, my name is Thorson. I will be your captain for the trip to our base. If you cooperate fully, no harm will come to you or your daughters.”
Mrs. Debran assured him they would be no trouble and invited him to dine with them that evening. He knew he would get no better offer and accepted.
James Norman was uncharacteristically nervous. He was normally always prepared, always calm. He was the perfect man described in the old saying, one who could keep his head while all around him lost theirs. He was pretty sure he was about to lose his head.
Norman was the head of security for Friedrich Debran, of Debran Industries, and he had bad news to relay to his boss. Friedrich Debran was not known for suffering fools lightly and James felt like a fool. He had arranged for four escort ships to accompany Mrs. Debran and her two daughters from Aldebaran to Rigel Station for the Haute Couture Fashion Week. Evidently, the Debran women were informed one of the fashion house’s shows had been moved up on the schedule, and left without their escorts.
Somewhere between there and here their ship disappeared. As soon as he heard of their departure, he dispatched the escorts to follow their flight path and catch up with them. They cruised all the way to Rigel Station and could find no evidence of the Debran luxury transport. Enquiries at all space stations and spaceports along their flight path were checked, to no avail.
Norman now had to inform his boss. He had ”handled” people that had displeased this man so he knew full well what he could expect. He wondered which of his operatives would be assigned to “handle” him.
James Norman paced in Friedrich Debran’s anteroom, until the door opened and Debran’s secretary waved him in. Mr. Debran sat behind his enormous walnut desk. His Chief of Staff, Roger Delphant, sat in one of the side chairs. Norman walked forward until he was three feet away and centered on the desk, the customary position when briefing the boss.
Norman started as soon as Mr. Debran looked up, “Mr. Debran, I’m afraid I have some bad news to tell you.”
Debran’s expression didn’t change. “What is it, James?”
Thankfully, his voice didn’t waiver as he laid out the initial details. “Sir, your wife and daughters’ ship left Aldebaran’s Roper Executive Spaceport at 1137, our time, yesterday, on course for Rigel Station. Although they were aware I had arranged for a four-ship escort, they left without it. Upon learning of their departure without the escort, I dispatched the escorts to pursue and overtake. Although the escorts departed only 30 minutes behind their ship, the escorts were unable to make contact with them. The escorts arrived at Rigel Station, informed me of the situation, and I ordered them back along the flight path to conduct a sector search. The escorts have searched all the way to Aldebaran and have found no trace of the ship.”
“We have queried every spaceport and station from Aldebaran to beyond Rigel and their ship has not put in. No distress calls have been received. No wreckage has been found. I currently have the escorts making an additional series of wide sweeps along their projected path.”
“Sir, I have contacted law enforcement and military authorities at Aldebaran, Rigel, and the Fleet. They are coordinating with our escorts so more territory is being searched. Approximately 25 ships are currently involved in the search.”
“I have to conclude, sir, from the total disappearance of the ship and the lack of a distress beacon or debris, that your wife and daughters have been captured by the Marauder Fleet. If so, the chances are good to excellent that you will receive a ransom demand within ten days and have them returned unharmed within ten days of a ransom payment.”
Throughout the presentation, Mr. Debran sat stoically, calmly hearing all Norman had to present. He was so calm that Norman was made more and more nervous. At the end of his briefing, Norman’s voice was wavering slightly. He stood and waited for Mr. Debran’s reaction.
“So, my wife and those two slattern daughters of hers chose to leave without their escort. That is so typical of them, so irresponsible. Of course, you should have anticipated that, James.”
Mr. Debran looked briefly at a pocket terminal on the desk, typed in a short message, and looked back up at Norman.
“James, you’re fired. I’ll give you eight hours to clear out your things and be off Rigel Prime. If you are found on Rigel Prime after eight hours…Let’s just say you’d best not be here.”
The outer door opened and Norman’s deputy was shown in.
“Ah, Kurt, is it?” The man nodded. “Kurt, Mr. Norman no longer works here. You will escort him to his office to let him gather his personal things. He is to take nothing else. He is to use no terminals or communicators while on the premises. See that he is off the premises in thirty minutes. Recover and secure all company property, security badges, computer files, communicators, what have you. Come back here to see me once you have completed this task.”
“Yes, Mr. Debran.”
A devastated James Norman was led out. After the door closed, Mr. Debran turned to his chief of staff.
“Roger, get in touch with those people we used when we had that trouble with the asteroid miners. I have some work for them. I also want the word put out that Mr. Norman’s work has displeased me. I don’t think he is suited for work in the security field. He should find some other line of work. One other thing; the Fleet has to be doing something about these ship disappearances. Find out what they are doing. I want to meet with whoever is in charge of their activities here in sector. Call in any favors. Apply any pressure necessary.”
“Yes, Mr. Debran.”
Kelly returned to the Vigilant late, after dinner with Tammy and Candy. A message was waiting from Commander Timmons, to report first thing next morning. He assumed this had occurred to Timmons after he left the dinner party. Kelly checked for other messages, and seeing none of any importance, went to bed. He noted that Wanda had done an excellent job of sorting through the messages, separating the important from the trivial. Using her as his personal secretary would work just fine. He thought about recommending it for all Scout Force captains.
The next morning Kelly woke early, went to the dining facility, and ran into Commander Timmons in the mess line.
“Kelly, come on, let’s sit over here.”
He picked a table away from the others and Kelly followed him over. They sat down and reviewed again what needed to be done to repair the Vigilant.
Kelly presented the list of completed repairs. CDR Timmons read through the list as they finished their breakfast, then the two went to the Squadron offices, and into the briefing room.
“Kelly, I’ve got a mission for you when you come out of the yards.”
Kelly perked up and paid close attention to his boss.
“I don’t know if you’ve seen the reports, but we’ve been losing a lot of commercial ships on the Rigel to Aldebaran run. The local authorities and the shipping companies have been sniffing about, but haven’t found anything. Fleet Intel put a Reporting Officer into there a few weeks back. You may know him.”
“As you know, they have pretty specialized ships with an expansive sensor suite. Alistair saw a fast auto container ship just disappear from his scope.”
Kelly looked up with a surprised expression. Ships just did not disappear.
“He followed an ion trail into the Pleiades Star Cluster perimeter, but he lost it when he decided his little ship couldn’t handle the gravimetric stresses in the star field. He asked for a scout ship to pick up where he left off.”
Kelly did not expect another mission this soon. Chief Miller had estimated two weeks to repair the tail gun nacelle, repair the rear view camera, and replace the rail gun. It had been four weeks and they were still repairing hidden damage. “Boss, when do you want to send me out? I haven’t completed repairs yet.”
“You’ve got two weeks. We’ve turned up the heat on the yard as of today. The yard boss will be waiting for you when you get back.”
Kelly whistled. “Two weeks — can I wait for the paint to dry? I’ll do it, Boss, but it’s pushing it. They still have to repair any remaining damage to the hull, replace the damaged rear view camera, and put it all back together — not to mention test it.”
“I have faith in you, Kelly. If it were easy, I’d have given it to someone else to do. I’ll line up some Intel briefs for you this week.”
“Thanks, sir, I’ll let you know what I need.”
Kelly returned to his ship, called in the chiefs, assigned specific tasks and duties he wanted accomplished, and gave them all the information he had. Chief Blankenship reinforced his orders by directing the chiefs to coordinate amongst themselves and assigning specific dates and times to have the tasks completed. They would be very busy for the next two weeks.
Thorson and Mrs. Debran became quite close during the weeklong trip to Barataria. He found her to be charming and she found him to be quite gallant for a pirate. He noticed the daughters always found something else to do that required them to retire early to their cabins, leaving him and Julia alone together. Her charms won him over and he resolved to see that they were not harmed or inconvenienced more than they already had been. He was certain, from the way she described her husband’s possessiveness towards her and her daughters, that he would surely pay whatever ransom was demanded.
Julia had explained earlier that Thorson and his captain had best make sure no harm came to them. Her husband would buy any force needed to find them, hunt them down, and ensure they met a painful, lingering death. He would do this, not because he loved them, but because they were his and what was his was inviolate. Thorson could expect the same response if he had stolen a favored horse or ground car. Julia and her daughters represented something that her husband considered to be a symbol of his success and stature in society.
Thorson told her that as long as he was alive, nothing bad would happen to her or her daughters. If she was wrong and her husband decided the symbol they represented was not worth the ransom, he would sell everything he owned to purchase the three of them, to keep them out of coarser hands. Mrs. Debran took his drink, placed it on the table, sat in his lap and kissed him.
Irina Bugarov gave her deskside annual report briefing to Friedrich Debran. He was somewhat distracted, but was impressed with her spending credits to make credits. Her production improvements were impressive and innovative. He was also impressed with her security officer incentive that resulted in additional work for one of her firms. Debran congratulated himself at choosing such a good chief for his defense subsidiary. He distributed a significant portion of his bonus funds to her account. This was credit she could use for any purpose, including increasing her own salary, if she chose.
Russell Obwobwo cautiously crawled through the port dorsal cable and piping access tunnel. He had heard muted explosions and plasma rifle blasts several days earlier. The chief engineer had sent him a coded message to hide and stay hidden, but it had been several days, he’d eaten the last snack bar he’d kept in his tool kit, and hunger was overcoming his caution.
He crept through the access tunnel as quietly as he could. He figured that whoever had taken over his ship would be smart enough to read the crew manifest and realize one member was missing. He listened to hear if anyone was moving around the ship near his position and had heard nothing for over a day. He needed to get somewhere he could access a data terminal and find out what was going on. It also wouldn’t hurt if he could find a food replicator.
Alistair Bennett read the reply to his request. He was getting the captain he wanted, but not for four weeks. At least Kelly was a known quantity. He wondered how many ships would disappear in that time.
It would be nice to see Connie again. The two of them had hit it off on their last combined mission. Connie made it abundantly clear that she was interested in him. They both realized that their careers would not let them carry it farther than just enjoying each other’s company when they could be together. That was good enough for now.
He looked over at Rojo, happily chomping away on some flaked Rigelian moonfish, and prepared his ship for lift off. He plotted a course to where he lost the ion trail and looked for hiding places. There was a large dust and rubble cloud near the path the ion trail had gone. He could sit there until the scout ship arrived. Maybe he’d get lucky.
“Finish up your fish, Rojo. We’re about to go back to work.”
In a few hours he received clearance, powered up his ship, and left the Rigel System. Rojo curled up on the command console beside him and went to sleep.
The steam from power cleaning the ventilators blew through the kitchen like a white fog. Sally Halstead looked up from her cleaning as her boss, One-Eyed Pete, came into the kitchen of the Ruin View Restaurant, carefully stepping around the roller racks of plates. Pete, true to his name and true to his pirate persona, had an eye patch over his left eye socket. The eye had been burnt out in a welding accident years before, when a piece of molten metal slipped behind his welding goggles. Modern prosthetics existed that could replace his lost eye, but he preferred the patch. He thought it gave him gravitas.
“Sally, get your rump over to the spaceport. I’ve just bid on the food stores on that new container ship they just brought in. Get me a good inventory of any of the packaged foods and bulk ingredients and bring them back. If they have any of those new replicators and base food packs, get inventories of those, too.”
Sally looked at Pete with disgust. “What do we need those for? I made you rich by cooking up gourmet delicacies. I don’t need replicators.”
Sally stood a head shorter than Pete, but she could be a forceful woman. Pete backed up and put up his hands as if in self-defense. “Relax, Sally. You don’t need replicators. They can’t cook anywhere near as good as you, but I can sell them to the Marauders’ ships when they come through for refit and upgrades.”
Sally threw her cleaning towel at Pete and stalked away to get ready to inventory the ship. Maybe she could find some good ingredients. She could always use new spices. She was continually running out.
Sally was a smallish woman, a little broad in the hips. She was pleasant enough looking, but no great beauty. Her dazzling smile had long ago faded away. She had been born and grown up in the Algol system. Her parents had passed away and, with no other family in the system, she’d gone to Rigel to become a chef and passed with honors. She was returning to her home when her ship was captured by a Marauder Fleet ship and brought here to Barataria to be sold. She wasn’t rich enough to be ransomed, but she could cook.
One-Eyed Pete needed a chef. He bid top credit for her when he found out she could cook. She made him a very rich pirate. The Ruin View went from an out of the way low-end diner to an out of the way trendy top-rated gourmet restaurant. All the senior pirates of the Baratarian Brotherhood were regular diners. Even Steven Maynard, the head of the Brotherhood, dined here regularly at his usual table.
Her cooking ability almost got her elevated to membership in the Brotherhood, but One-Eyed Pete blocked that. He couldn’t take the chance that she’d leave the Ruin View for some other restaurant. He treated her well, almost as an equal, but made sure she never lost her captive status. He worked her hard and infuriated her regularly, but never bothered her for sexual favors. With Pete it was purely business. Sally could do a lot worse, under the circumstances.
Sally changed into street clothes, gathered up her pocket tablet, and set out for the spaceport. She looked off at the ancient alien ruins in the distance, from which the restaurant got its name, and mumbled, “Replicators, just a bunch of damned techno-nonsense.”
The pirate cutter Bonnie Maria edged slowly through the star field. Captain Craig could almost feel the shifting gravity pulling his ship this way and that. He stared at the screen of his specially configured gravimetric feed and searched for the path that would get him through to K’Rang space. He and his crew had been out for a month, a month of nerve-wracking tension as they pushed down blind gravity tunnels and narrowly avoided gravity eddies that could trap them forever.
Captain Craig looked at the fuzzy image, searching for another pathway through the field that would not stop at a dead end. This gravity tunnel, for that is how it looked on his screen, seemed promising. He followed it past a trio of brown dwarves far off to starboard and thought he could see a clear opening ahead.
In a few minutes he cautiously poked his nose into the clear space, enough to give his sensors a free view of the space ahead. He put his recorders on high speed and high resolution and collected all that he could until his sensor operator reported a ship approaching from port.
Captain Craig withdrew back into the star field and started mapping the complete course back to Barataria. He spent the whole return voyage analyzing what he collected in his short view of the K’Rang space beyond the Pleiades. He was pretty sure he found a new and lucrative hunting ground for the Brotherhood.
The Missile Corvette J’New made its weekly pass along the face of the D’Rin star field. Lead Sensor Technician H’Talli recorded the sensor data from the passage to use at some future training event. There never was much that went on in this sector, but there was enough varied commercial traffic through it to make it a challenging sensor classification exercise. He counted over ten ships of various types and sizes. These would make a good training opportunity for his section when back in port.
He observed the B’Kili system just off the starboard beam and the F’Tuj system ahead and off the forward starboard quarter. These systems containing two main worlds provided a lot of cargo traffic to analyze to keep his team on their toes. He liked these exercises, using recorded data after the patrol was over. It was always too noisy in the CIC during a patrol to really work the targets. He had spoken to the captain about it, but had not convinced him how much more effective his analysts could be if the CIC was quiet while they did their jobs.