, or at a bookstore near you.From Chapter 9
In the shipping channel between Ishtar and Demeter, an old man yawned, struggling to stay awake. The instruments whirred and clicked, and near the end of his turn at the wheel the sounds always lulled him to sleep. But it was no matter. He’d made the run hundreds of times, and the stars never changed. There was still the huge, glowing cloud abaft and to port, where the mining colonies were as thick as the whores on Ishtar. Ahead, the cloud dissipated, the reddish glow turning a wispy blue. And as the radar kept sounding, his thoughts turned to the greeting that awaited at the end of the run.Blip.
It should be summer along the Demetrian Riviera when they arrived, he smiled. The girls would be prettier, but Demetrian whores were fussier. Less likely to indulge a withered old spacer—at least, not for less than a premium price. And a lot more trouble, what with their fancy clothes and all. Not like the spacer’s girls on Ishtar.
Blip.
In the back, he could hear Shamus stirring. It was nearly his time to take the chair. The two of them had roamed across half the galaxy, he smiled, thinking back to their younger days. Made it far into alien skies, too. Lots farther than most.
Blip.
Of course, that was before they knew about the aliens. Or, at least, about how close the lizards were venturing west. Now, the spacers all had to keep to this side of the Hodges System. And it was a pity, he thought. Some of the prettiest skies were east of Hodges.
“Damnation!” cried a voice from the ramp.
The old man turned around to see Shamus, his partner, whose eyes were wide with fear. “Ye dodd’rin’ old fool!:” Shamus screamed. “Ye can’t hear the radar a-soundin’ trouble?” He dashed from the ramp, heading straight for the ship’s radio.
Turning back to his instruments the old timer finally saw it, clear as the heavens.
There were three of them.
At this distance the ship’s computer couldn’t identify them, but both men recognized the readings at once. And they knew they’d never be able to change course in time.
Brigantines.
Shamus tuned the radio to the emergency channel, hoping he’d entered the right password and trying to keep his voice calm. It wouldn’t help them if nobody could understand them message.
“This is Freighter-9042, call name Demetrian Mist. We have a Code-One emergency in this sector. Repeat—Code One emergency. Over.”
“This is Ishtar Command,” came a woman’s voice over the radio. “We read you, Demetrian Mist. State the nature of your emergency.”
“We’ve spotted pirates. And they’re heading right for us.”
Too impatient to tolerate his partner’s sluggishness, Shamus shooed his old friend out of the pilot’s seat and began trying to change their heading. Lugging a half-dozen cargo trailers in tow, the ship would take at least ten astrokilometers to slow and come about, and the pirates looked to be forty klicks away. If help didn’t come soon—
“Freighter-9042 to IshCom, status inquiry.”
“Roger, Demetrian Mist. I’m checking for ships in the vicinity. Keep this line open and start transmitting a distress beacon.”
“Roger, IshCom. Please hurry.”
Shamus turned from the helm console to the trailer controls, on the left-most panel, and began to enter the security code to jettison their cargo train. He hated the thought of decoupling. The payday that awaited them on delivery would have left them sitting pretty for half the year, and given them plenty of cash to spend on Demeter once the paperwork cleared. But if it came down to their hides, they’d leave the cargo for the pirates and be off, as quick as a Ceresian gigolo.
* * *
Striding into the command center, Admiral Clay cast a stern glance from the monitor screens on the left to the radio controls on the right. He was pleased to see the room well-disciplined and tightly controlled. Every technician was seated and focused on the instruments, and there was none of the mindless chatter that often made the Command Deck seem so chaotic. Every voice was either asking or answering a question; a crewman sat at every screen. Everyone in the Cosmic Guard knew just how deadly a pirate raid could be, and the coded security announcement calling him to the bridge had made clear that another attack was underway. The admiral didn’t like the turn things were taking the last few weeks; he didn’t like it one bit.
“Admiral on the deck!” announced the officer of the day, a dark, pretty lieutenant commander whose name Clay couldn’t remember.
“Situation?”
“Brigantines moved to attack a lone freighter along the Ishtar Spike, Admiral. Fortunately, the freighter was sticking right to the middle of the shipping lanes. We had a squadron of escorts patrolling the affected sector. They scrambled and put the bandits to flight.”
“The freighter?”
“It was hauling a train of six cargo trailers. The pilot decoupled almost at once and took flight. But the pirates didn’t seem interested in the cargo—they started after the freighter. The escorts arrived before they could close. Now they’re helping the freighter recouple with its cargo.”
“They took after the naked freighter?” Clay squinted.
“Yes, sir.”
“But the situation is under control?”
“Yes, sir.”
“All right, Commander—carry on.”
Clay left the Command Deck and walked down the wide corridor toward his office. Guards from the Security Office snapped to attention as he passed, but he was too preoccupied to nod an acknowledgment, as he usually did when young Cozzies tried to impress him. This was the seventh pirate attack they’d seen in the last three months, he thought. All against lone freighters.
He decided to issue another advisory, this time strongly advising against solitary travel, and urging all commercial shipping to form into convoys before entering interstellar skies. He knew he’d get resistence: the shippers always resisted advisories, and usually ignored them. It delayed their delivery schedules and added to their costs. But he knew he’d never be able to make a mandatory directive stick: the threat was still too amorphous, too random, too unfocused. He’d be overruled by Central Command by the end of the day, if he tried to impose another Convoy Directive. Just like he was at the outset of this latest round of attacks.
Arriving at his office, he strode into his private chambers and locked the door behind him. Gazing at a picture of himself as a young skipper, he smiled sadly before taking a seat and beginning to write out his notes for the report he’d file later in the day. He’d spent his youth battling pirates, he reflected. He’d chased them away from Demeter and cleared the shipping lanes all the way to Central Terra, but they never really disappeared. The past few months it seemed that they’d returned as bold as ever, raiding ships closer and closer to base, harassing the lanes from Ishtar all the way to the frontier.
Briefly, he thought about scheduling a command conference for the next day, to discuss their options. Maybe a simple redeployment would give them more assets to use along the commercial corridors. With the aliens behaving themselves, they certainly could spare some ships from the frontier. But he dismissed the idea as soon as it formed in his head.
They’ll just think I’m an old granny, the admiral chuckled. Attacks had always tended to come in streaks, and whenever pirates got bored, they’d take to buzzing convoys, just to amuse themselves. Still, he thought, it had been nearly a year since they’d seen Chadbourne Wilkes and his band of cutthroats. Wilkes was not often given to lying low, and he was hardly the type to retire quietly. Clay couldn’t avoid thinking that while the raids were doing no real harm, they seemed a lot like an enemy probing for weakness.
Finally giving it up, he decided that everyone else was probably right, and he really was just an old granny. He quickly sent along his advisory, and turned his attention to resolving the logistics snafu that kept routing half of their food from Looking Glass back to the Hodges Binary, and most of their replacement parts back to Central Command.
© 2009 by Jeffrey Caminsky
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