The Starcatcher churned up to within fifty meters of the drifting spacecraft before ringing down on her main engines and heaving to. Her arc light banks blazed on, illuminating a square mile of sea. Maneuvering gingerly on her steering thrusters, she pivoted in place and brought her aft end to bear on the satellite.
During the Starcatcher’s conversion into a recovery vessel, a floodable well deck large enough to accept the industrial satellites had been built into her stern. Now the tailgate of this well deck dropped, releasing a swarm of Zodiac workboats.
For the next hour, the rubber-sided inflatables nuzzled around the drifting mass of INDASAT 06. Their wetsuit-clad crews worked through the first postmission checkout, inspecting the spacecraft for damage, detaching and retrieving the parachute array for reuse, and connecting the recovery tether.
With the tasking lists completed, air horns brayed from the Starcatcher’s upper works and the workboats scurried back into the sheltering belly of the mother ship. Winches howled as the recovery tether came taut, and slowly the Starcatcher began to back down onto her cargo.
Once the INDASAT had been walked into the water-filled well deck, gantries would deploy from the bay sides, locking the satellite in place for transport. With that done, the deck could be pumped dry and the voyage to Port Darwin could begin. There, at the Australian INDASAT service facility, the spacecraft’s payload of precious material and data could be downloaded and the satellite refurbished and reconfigured for its next mission. Within a month, 06 would be ready to fly once more.
On the Starcatcher’s bridge, Captain Moss and Mission Director Del Rio immersed themselves in the details of the loading operation, overseeing each phase from the bridge wings or via the bank of closed-circuit television monitors on the rear bulkhead of the wheelhouse. The remainder of the bridge watch was deeply involved in the recovery operation as well — so much so that the realization that they were not alone on the sea and in the night came quite late.
“Captain, we have traffic crossing the bow at three hundred yards. Range closing.”
Moss looked up sharply at the watch stander’s call. “Identify?”
“Fishing boats, I’d guess, sir. Looks to be three of them. Speed about six knots. Now bearing off the port bow.”
Moss crossed swiftly to the port side bridge wing and brought up his night glasses. Yes, there was something out there. Three tall, shadowy shapes running bow to stern and trailing a wisp of wake luminescence behind them.
“What is it, Captain?” Del Rio inquired from the wheelhouse door.
“I’m not quite sure,” Moss replied. “Small craft of some kind. They aren’t showing any running lights, but the locals, both ours and Indonesia’s, can get sloppy about that sort of thing.”
The moon had started to rise, casting a shimmering light path across the surface of the tropical sea. The first of the newcomers now glided through this glow, silhouetting itself, and the breath caught in the throats of both Moss and Del Rio.
She was an image of beauty from another age. A low and sleek twin masted schooner, gaff-rigged and rakish and outlined in the pearlescent moonlight, her dark hull sweeping up and back from a sharp cutwater to a high-set and angular sterncastle, the latter enhancing the touch of exotic alienness to her design.
“Well, I’ll be damned,” Moss murmured appreciatively.
“What the hell is that, Captain?” Del Rio asked, awed.
“She’s a pinisi,” Moss replied. “An island trading schooner belonging to one of the Indonesian mariner tribes. The Bugis, the people some folk call the sea gypsies.”
“Sea gypsies? You’re kidding.” Del Rio said, stepping up to the rail.
“Not a bit of it. They’re one of the great seafaring cultures of the world. For over a thousand years, they’ve ranged these waters from the Malay coast to the Philippines. I doubt there’s an occupied island in Indonesia that doesn’t have a Bugis colony on it, somewhere.”
Del Rio chuckled. “The Bugis, huh? You mean the bogeymen really are going to get us?”
“That wouldn’t have been so funny a few hundred years ago,” Moss grunted. “Where do you think the term came from? Back in the days of the old fast Indies trade, having the Bugis man come over the rail with his kris between his teeth was about the biggest nightmare one could have. Not only were these lads master seamen, but they were also the most notorious, most savage pirates in the Pacific.”
Del Rio shrugged. “I’ve never even heard of them before. I certainly didn’t expect anyone out here to be using sailing ships at this late date.”
“Oh, quite so. These craft are a unique Bugis design. The sea gypsies crossbred the schooners of the Dutch and Portuguese colonialists with the Chinese junk and produced a vessel that was handier and more seaworthy than either. They’re still quite common up in the archipelago. You don’t usually see them this far south, though.”
Moss frowned in the darkness. “And I don’t like to see anybody working in this close while we’re recovering. Mr. Albright”—the captain turned back toward the wheelhouse door—“get on the loud hailer. Warn those schooners off.”
It was the last order Captain Phillip Moss would ever give. Nor would it ever be carried out.
A cluster of dazzling red points of light blipped into existence on the side of the wheelhouse — the death dots of long-range laser sights. A concentrated barrage from three heavy machine guns and a dozen automatic rifles sleeted through the Starcatcher’s bridge structure an instant later, ripping the life out of every man and woman on watch there.
The laser-targeted machine guns swung aft then, focusing on the antenna arrays on the main mast and upper works, chewing them away, stifling the recovery ship’s scream for aid before it could be issued.
Powerful auxiliary engines roared to life. Two of the Bugis schooners darted in toward the Starcatcher’s flanks while the third sailing craft, the gunship, held off and mercilessly raked the recovery vessel’s decks, lifting fire only as its cohorts slid alongside their prey.
Stripped to the waist and shrieking, brown-skinned men swarmed over the rail, panther-lean and panther-deadly. Some were armed with modern submachine guns and automatic pistols. Others carried only the razor-edged kris daggers and panga cutlasses wielded by their corsair ancestors.
For the remaining crewmembers of the Starcatcher crew, the exact mode of death would be irrelevant. The decision had been made early on in the planning of this operation. No prisoners. No witnesses. No survivors.
There was no means of meaningful resistance. There was no place to hide that couldn’t be hunted out. There was no offer of mercy. After only a few minutes the screams and gunfire trailed off.
The Starcatcher’s work and running lights were extinguished and full darkness returned to the Arafura Sea. Under the cover of that darkness, a meticulously drilled plan of action replaced the blood-sodden chaos of the boarding.
A Bugis work detail swept the decks of the recovery ship, dragging all bodies into the superstructure. Life-jacket lockers were emptied. Life rafts were dragged out of their storage pods and slashed, and the hulls and the flotation chambers of the ship’s launch and whaleboat were chopped open. Life rings, wooden deckchairs, wetsuits, anything at all that could be found topside that could float, was stricken below and secured.
A second work party went about another task. Hoses snaked down into the Starcatcher’s bunkerage tanks and powerful pumps purred to life, drawing the diesel out of the recovery vessel and into the swelling fuel blivets in the holds of the boarding ships.