"It's a goddam standoff," replied the man who had been introduced as Ster Mong, 'Minister of Defense'. "They can't leave Homesafe without losing troops and equipment, and we can't get off-planet or resupply."
"We're pretty self-sufficient," Jessica added. "Ilocanos can live off the land. But weapons, ammunition, and supplies have to be brought in, and the Santies are running a damned effective blockade. Some of our people are down to homemade weapons, bows, and spears. It's become a war of attrition. As Ster says, it's pretty much a standoff. Our main hope lies in the fact that Santiago isn't really a very wealthy planet, and they waste what they have on giveaways to the 'poor', who then have no reason to work their way out of poverty." She waved a hand. "Sorry. I was a schoolteacher, and I still tend to lecture. Anyway, our hope is that the Santie government will decide they're throwing money down a hole, and will back off."
Ster Mong snorted. "Might work, too, in ten or twelve years! The Santies have elections coming up in a couple of years. Any official that suggested backing off now would be committing political suicide. So, we sit on our butts here and send out 'press releases'!"
Cale was getting an understanding of the situation. This 'government' wasn't really doing anything effective. Questioning revealed that their last contact with the planet itself had occurred more than a month previously. Even if they managed to sneak past the Santie picket and get near the planet itself, they had no means of contacting the Resistance that couldn't be eavesdropped by the Santies.
"So," Zant said when they were alone. "These people are amateurs. Worse, they're bureaucrats. Without an organization to manage, they're helpless. I think we should work on our own. I damned sure don't trust any of 'em with our plans." He glanced at Cale. "Except maybe your friend's aunt.
Cale shook his head morosely. "Not even her. She's a good lady, but whatever we do, we need to do it ourselves, and without any 'help' from these people."
Still, they stayed around for a few days, to meet the people in the 'government' and those outside it who were willing to volunteer to help. A surprising number of them were qualified space pilots; or maybe not so surprising, given the number of skilled atmosphere miners. It was the first good news Cale had received here, and it gave him an idea.
"Believe it or not," Cale began as the three gathered in Cheetah 's lounge after they had lifted off, "I’m the legal owner of a surface and orbital ship scrap yard on Torlon.”
“Torlon?” Zant replied with a frown, “I heard they’d lost spaceflight.”
Cale nodded. “They have. The owner of the last operable ship deeded me his scrap yard before he left. Lots of military hulks in that yard.”
Dee frowned. “Okay, but what can you do with a bunch of scrap?”
“Maybe more than you think,” Cale replied with a smile. “Zant, I gather you’ve been kicking around this sector for quite a while.”
Zand nodded with a smile. “About thirty years.”
Cale responded with a nod of his own. “If you had, say, two thousand carats of flawless white diamonds, do you think you could hire a dozen or so men with orbital shipyard experience for a short-term job?”
Zant straightened, his casual smile gone. “Two thousand carats?” At Cale’s nod, he stroked his chin. “Haveta convert ‘em to gold or Alliance credits. We could do that at Freehold, if we was careful. Discount on diamonds shouldn’t be too bad.” He straightened, and his smile returned. “Sheol yeah. Go to Vishnu. They been hit pretty hard lately. They've been in a planet-wide depression for near two years, now. Lots of yards cuttin’ back, and the government is desperate for hard currencies. For two thousand carats we could damn near buy the shipyard, and pick up a load of weapons to boot.”
Cale shook his head. “We’d also have to charter a ship to get the crew to Torlon. Cheetah ’s too small to haul that many people.”
Zant looked at Cale with a hooded expression. “Yeah. But she's a beautiful li’l thing. Perfect for a little midnight tradin’.”
Cale’s smile was noncommittal. “Oh, don’t worry about it,” Zant continued. “I’ve done more’n a bit of midnight tradin’ myself.”
Dee looked puzzled. “Midnight trading?”
“Smuggling,” Cale replied. “Zant is saying that Cheetah would be a great smuggler’s ship.” His smile widened. “He’s right, too.”
“Damn right,” Zant confirmed. “Anyways, getting’ a ship shouldn’t be a problem, either.”
“It would help if the captain kinda forgot where he went. Torlon is my bolt hole.”
Zant winked. “Gotcha”. He looked lost in thought for a moment. “Sheol, I don’t think we’d have any problem getting that all done for two thousand carats.” He glanced at Cale sharply. “Guess you’re better at it than I ever was. So, what exactly is your idea?”
"Well," Cale replied, "I was just thinking about how many people at the mine are qualified space pilots. Oh, I know," he forestalled Zant's reply, "most of them aren't certified for jump piloting, but if what I'm thinking about works, they won't need to be.
"Just suppose we got together a bunch of skilled orbital shipyard workers, and took them to Torlon. Then we cruise the junkyard looking for small intrasystem ships that we can arm. Meanwhile, we have a team building the biggest damned carrier ever seen; no hull metal, just a framework of girders and supports. We use them to attach the little ships and the jump engines from an Alpha class bulk cargo hauler. We load the carrier with as many ships as we have pilots, and drop them off in recal systems one jump from Santiago and Ilocan. Then we mine the jump points. I think we could play hell with their supply lines. Every time they send a minesweeper to clear the mines, our ships attack them. Minesweepers are small and poorly armed."
Dee shook her head. "But they're just junk," she said. "Scrap! The reason people scrap ships is because they'd be too hard or too expensive to fix."
Zant was grinning. "Maybe. There's lots of reasons ships get sold for scrap. Sheol, some of 'em are in complete operatin' condition, but the skipper misses a couple of payments and the bank auctions it."
"One of the ships in my yard is a completely operational Beta class liner," Cale replied. "Anyway, he added, "We're not concerned with 'fixing them up'. We want functional inertial drive, life support, and some weapons. We don't care how she looks, or about the condition of secondary systems. There are quite a few hulks that can be stripped for parts, and that Beta class liner means the workers can live aboard, and won’t have to shuttle back and forth from the surface.”
Zant jumped up and pounded Cale on the back. “Damn, man, sounds like we got us a plan!”
Freehold was a man-made planetoid circling an uninhabited star. There were hundreds of these things scattered throughout the Empire. They had been built over the centuries by various multisystem conglomerates, System-wide syndicates, and even hyper-wealthy entrepreneurs, mostly to avoid taxation, regulation, or even system criminal laws. Most were superluxe hotels, casinos, and spas for the very wealthy. Some were designed as cruise stops for liners making circle tours. When the Empire began to crumble, the very wealthy either disappeared or adopted far less ostentatious lives. The planetoids tried various ploys to save themselves, mostly in vain. Those that began shorting maintenance fell to catastrophic life support or power failures. Most were simply abandoned. Some were seized and turned into pirate lairs, and some into havens for the disreputable of all types. A very few like Outpost, John Smith's first port of call, managed to survive, after a fashion, becoming trading centers for trade both legal and illegal.
Freehold actually experienced most of those fates. Originally built as a superluxe casino, the management had tried scaling back operations and promoting it as a family getaway and a cruise stop, but as business continued to decline, Freehold moved down the social ladder. More and more disreputable characters arrived, driving out the few remaining customers and liners still available. At one point, it was invaded and seized as a headquarters by the chieftain of a large pirate gang. Some years later, several of the neighboring systems joined forced and attacked, killing the pirate chieftain and scattering his gang. After several years of abandonment, Freehold began to be used as a transfer point for smuggling shipments, and then the center of a smuggling empire that even had its own orbital shipyard. Finally, legal cargoes began being traded as well as smuggled ones, and Freehold became established as a sector-wide center for trade of all types, legal and otherwise. There were still plenty of smugglers and assorted lowlifes on Freehold, of course, but the legitimate traders outnumbered them — or so it appeared.