“They came four months ago and demanded that we hand over vital components for their ship, or else,” Jade explained. I realised that she was glad of the change in subject. “The Government realised that it had no choice, but to comply, so it handled over everything the pirates wanted. Three months later, they returned and demanded more components and — this time — women as well. A month later…”
“They returned again?” I guessed. “Why didn’t you produce defences?”
“We did,” Jade explained. “We opened fire when the pirates arrived and tried to drive them off. It didn’t work and they were on the verge of destroying one of our stations when you arrived and chased them away. Why didn’t you destroy them?”
“They just opened a wormhole and escaped,” I explained. I felt as if I had failed personally, even though I knew that there had been no chance of catching the pirates. They hadn’t chosen to fight for long — hell, it was still a mystery why they had even fought at all. Perhaps they had wanted to make the point that they couldn’t be scared off so easily. It wasn’t as if the Jacques Delors could remain at Bellefonte forever. “They’re going to be back.”
“I know,” Jade said. Her voice softened slightly. “I was going to be one of the women going to them this time.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. I seemed to be apologising a lot while talking to her. “We saved you from that…”
“For a while,” Jade said. She grinned suddenly, a grin with no humour in it. “I’ve been infected with a particularly nasty sexually-transmitted disease. If we lost the fight, I’d have gone willingly and fucked as many of them as I could, just to see them rot away within the year. I’m immune to it myself, of course.”
I shook my head in awe. I couldn’t understand how someone could think of such a plan, and how someone else could tamely accept her fate as part of a desperate operation. It was the work of a desperate mindset, one that saw no other choice, but to sacrifice some of the young women of his planet to make the plan work. It was beyond my comprehension. Not even Heinlein had gone so far, although there had been whores who had killed and mutilated their customers.
“This is the Cabinet,” Jade explained, as we entered a larger cavern. “I believe they want to thank you personally.”
The discussion didn’t take very long. I think they were a little surprised that the Captain himself hadn’t come, although I explained that the Captain was busy supervising the repairs to the ship. The Engineer had decided that several components needed replacing and had decided to do it while we were at rest. The Captain had agreed and also decided that it would be a good exercise for the Ensigns, although for once I wasn’t going to be supervising them. Lieutenant Carolyn Lauderdale would do that almost as well as I could. She had a good touch with the Ensigns as well — and, even though it pained me to admit it, she might even have been better than me.
“I believe that the Captain will visit as soon as possible,” I said, at the end. “However, with a pirate ship in the area, he wishes to make sure that his starship is ready for battle before he leaves her.”
“Quite understandable,” the President agreed. There were undercurrents I didn’t understand. The Cabinet might even be considering seeking a closer relationship with the UN and I didn’t have the heart, or the nerve, to explain to them that that might be a dreadful mistake. The pirates were limited by what they could carry away, but the UN would reshape their society and absorb it into their system. Even if that weren’t the case, the UN would have real problems stationing a task force out here permanently. If Bellefonte had rated as a serious concern, the planet would have been brought into the UN’s system of garrisons and governors a long time ago. “Your crew will, of course, be welcome for shore leave at any time. We have some quite fantastic sights for you to see, if you would like.”
That, as I had expected, turned out to be largely impossible, although Carolyn agreed to escort the Ensigns on a pair of brief excursions into the asteroid and down to the planet. I was tempted to go, but there was too much work for a First Lieutenant to do, not least writing my share of the report on the engagement. I was tempted just to write ‘we won’ or some thing along the same lines, but the Admirals in the UNPF High Command would demand at least seven pages, in triplicate. I hadn’t realised how much paperwork had to be completed for each missile we had fired, let alone everything else. It was a mystery how we were supposed to get anything done.
“You can just copy the paperwork from one missile and use it for the others,” the Captain pointed out, when I finally took it to him. I’d made a private resolution that if our plan succeeded I was going to cut all of the paperwork down as much as possible. I could see the value in accounting to each missile, but surely I didn’t have to do so much paperwork for each of them. “No one ever looks at it anyway.”
“Thank you, sir,” I said, seriously. That made it a lot easier. Even the vast UNPF bureaucracy would have had problems trying to absorb all of the paperwork. Yianni might well discover that Engineering had tons of paperwork of its own. I wondered about giving the Ensigns a taste of my paperwork, and then decided that horsewhipping them would be kinder. “I’ll see to it at once.”
We spent another five days in the system. The Engineer’s determination to have everything checked out before another encounter with the pirate ship, or even to use some of his copious selection of spare parts, meant that we had to go through everything. The Captain didn’t discourage him; indeed, I rather think that he encouraged him. I couldn’t fault him for that. If I’d learnt one thing in my career, it was that components rarely lasted half as long as they were guaranteed to last. The Engineer even dismantled the shuttles and carefully replaced all of their components as well. It was an insane level of attention to detail.
“I’ll have to pay Bellefonte a visit before we depart,” the Captain said, finally. It had been a week of watching and waiting for the pirates, but they hadn’t shown themselves. It was possible that they had emerged from the wormhole somewhere in the outer system and were waiting for us to leave, but there was no way to find them. A powered-down ship was impossible to differentiate from a harmless asteroid, unless we carried out a visual inspection, and they could hide indefinitely. “If they do show themselves, get after them at once. Don’t wait for orders.”
“Aye, sir,” I said.
I returned to the bridge to take command as the Captain’s shuttle departed. It was easy enough to have the Ensigns run basic tracking exercises on the shuttle, checking and rechecking the shuttle’s course to ensure that it docked safely at the asteroid. We’d tried to teach them the skill without having something real to practice on, but the Captain had firmly believed that the best experience came by doing. I couldn’t disagree with his logic…after all, look where it had gotten me.
”Lieutenant,” Yianni said, suddenly, “I’m picking up a power fluctuation from the Captain’s shuttle!”
I came to my feet quickly. “Report,” I ordered. The icon representing the Captain’s shuttle was beginning to flash alarmingly. I brought up the visual feed and saw it spin out of control. There was no way that that was a standard manoeuvre, or even a pilot showing off. It was bad enough to threaten the internal compensator. “What’s happening…?”