Dauntless

Chapter Twenty-Five<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

“Are we all clear on the plan?”

There were nods from the handful of holographic representations. The flight to the dying red star had taken two days, during which time the small force had drilled time and time again until they were nearly perfect. Philip had thrown as much confusion into the drills as he dared, testing his people’s responses to surprises as well as their ability to follow the predetermined plan. No matter what they’d pulled from the prisoners – and despite the confidence of the Marines that the prisoners had told the truth – Philip knew better than to assume they knew everything. The pirate base might have defences its masters had never shared with their customers.

“Good,” Philip said. He made a show of checking his wristcom. “We jump out of hyperspace in two hours precisely, following the pirate-approved flight path. Let’s hope that they’re not feeling paranoid.”

He grinned, projecting his confidence onto the entire command staff. “Here we go,” he said. “One way or another, the pirates will never be so confident ever again.”

The holograms vanished as the communication lasers were severed. He was alone in the pirate commander’s cabin on the Death by Stupidity. Philip would have preferred to command the entire operation from his destroyer, but in truth he wasn't going to send the Marines – and a hundred militia from Asher Dales – into the teeth of a possible ambush without going with them. Besides, it wasn't as if he was commanding a major fleet operation, where he had to remain in the rear. Four ships, one of them a helpless freighter and another a refitted pirate vessel, weren't a sizable force. And he had absolute confidence in his men.

He stood up and glanced around. The cadets had removed the signs that showed what entertainments the pirate commander had enjoyed in the privacy of his own cabin, but Philip fancied he could still sense their presence. An inspection team had concluded that the commander had kept at least three women in his cabin, who had almost certainly been killed when the ship had been captured. There had been enough blood and other signs of occupation scattered around to suggest exactly how the commander had forced himself to relax. How could anyone, Philip remembered asking his superior when he’d been a green midshipman, be so morally depraved?

The answer, he remembered, had been simple, if unfulfilling. A pirate commander was generally an outlaw, certain of death if he fell into the hands of a naval officer. His crew, if anything, were the scum of the galaxy, never able to return home – some very definitely on the run from their homeworld’s authorities. There was literally nothing holding them back from indulging the deepest, darkest impulses of the human mind. For all Philip knew, the pirates he’d killed had been paragons of virtue among their fellow scum, resisting the temptation to take that final step into depravity. It seemed unlikely, somehow.

Shaking his head, he opened the hatch – it was thoroughly outfitted with a manual lock and several bolts, a sign of paranoia – and stepped out into the corridor. The stench, thankfully, had finally been removed; according to the cadet’s supervisors, they’d washed every deck, removed an alarming amount of human and animal waste, and then vented the entire ship twice. Someone had thoughtfully replaced the air filters with systems that pumped a covering smell into the air, making it easier to breathe in some parts of the ship. It was a minor miracle that the pirate crew hadn't drowned in their own waste.

“Another sign of moral corruption,” the Senior Chief had said. Officially, he was subordinate to the midshipmen, but only a fool would have tried to assert authority over him without a good few years in the RAN. “The pirate commanders don’t even force their men to clean up after themselves. They’re too scared of provoking a mutiny.”

Philip had developed a habit of touring the Death by Stupidity every few hours since they’d departed Asher Dales. It wasn’t just a sign of nerves, but an attempt to get a sense for the ship’s normal functioning - or what passed for normal function on a pirate ship. An experienced spacer developed a sixth sense for his ship’s environment, often being able to sense an impending disaster before the **** hit the fan, but his sense had been honed for Dasher. The pirate ship’s alarming level of creaking and groaning didn't make for a restful sleep. Bartley had sworn blind that the ship was relatively safe – “as safe as we can make it,” he’d said, which wasn’t particularly reassuring – but Philip wasn't so sure. A single fault in the wrong place could have catastrophic consequences.

He stopped outside the airlock leading to the bridge and smiled. Someone had pulled a heavy-duty airlock out of an outdated colonist-carrier – built back in the days when the UN had been transporting hundreds of thousands of unwilling colonists from Earth every month – and inserted it into the hatch, giving the crew some protection from the rest of the pirates. Apart from prisoner transports, Philip couldn't think of any RAN ship that had a comparable level of protection – but then, RAN commanders rarely had to worry about mutiny. There hadn’t been a single mutiny, apart from an incident where cadets from Cadiz had attempted to take over their training ship twenty-five years ago. The airlock hissed open, seemingly reluctantly, and allowed Philip into the bridge. It had been a self-contained environment of its own, according to Bartley, before Dasher had blown hell out of the pirate hull. Now, there were cables linking the bridge to the rest of the ship – and the replaced computer core, one drawn from the supplies on Nancy. It was expensive, but only a fool would trust a computer core from a pirate ship. There could be all kinds of nasty surprises waiting for the unwary user.

Inside, the bridge had been completely refurbished. Nine new consoles had replaced the damaged ones, jury-rigged from spare parts they’d brought from Avalon. It wasn't a perfect arrangement, but it had given the cadets a remarkable amount of experience in a very short time. None of them had been allowed to accompany the small squadron on its mission, despite their protests. It was simply too dangerous for inexperienced cadets. He needed the militia, even though having them along gave him nightmares. They hadn't been trained for fighting in an asteroid-based environment.

“Captain on the bridge,” Jasper Rawlings said. He’d been on Dancer before volunteering to helm the Death by Stupidity. A tall dark-skinned man with a mischievous smile, he’d openly admitted that he was ambitious – and promotion should be faster in a newly-created navy than in the RAN. Philip suspected that a great many junior officers were going to be promoted into dead men’s shoes once the war began, but he hadn’t attempted to discourage Rawlings. Besides, the man was technically still a RAN reservist. He could go back once the war began. “Is everyone ready, sir?”

Philip nodded, taking the tactical console for himself. The pirate commander’s chair would have been a step too far. “Everything is ready,” he said. He glanced up at the time display, silently ticking down the seconds until they were due to return to normal space. “Did the Foolish Genius check in?”

“Aye, sir,” Rawlings said. “The commander called you lots of nasty names, but she says that she and her skeleton crew are ready to risk their lives in a glorious battle for the future of Asher Dales.”

“Good,” Philip said. Captain Elizabeth Tyler had been understandably upset at the part of the plan which involved her freighter, but she’d agreed – reluctantly – to assist the mission. Philip suspected that she’d only consented because she feared that he would have seized her ship if she’d refused, yet the reason why hardly mattered. All that mattered, right now, was getting to the pirate base before the pirates evacuated and left a suicide charge behind for any unsurprising naval officers. “I’m sure she’ll carry out her part to perfection.”

He glanced down at the macros uploaded into the console and scowled, inwardly. The pirates would probably be surprised if they saw the Death by Stupidity again – he assumed that they knew that she was lost – so the ship’s transponder and hull signal had been rigged to claim it was a completely different ship. They wouldn't bother to check the ship’s licence papers – the very thought was laughable – but if the codes they’d extracted from the pirates weren't accurate, the base’s defenders might wait until the Death by Stupidity was at point-blank range and open fire. The manifest from the Furious Genius – currently posing as the Merry Prankster – claimed that she was carrying starship parts and other technological goodies to whet their greed, yet there was such a thing as over-acting. If they thought that the captured freighter was too good to be true...

“It's time, sir,” Rawlings said. “Two minutes to normal space.”

“Take us out when the timer reaches zero,” Philip ordered. He pushed the tension into the back of his mind and left it there. “Signal the other ships to emerge in our wake and go into stealth mode the minute they’d back in normal space.”

Hyperspace twisted into a spinning vortex in front of them and they lurched through into normal space. The freighter followed them, close enough to suggest a slightly-uncertain prize crew that was alarmingly aware that it was under the guns of the Death by Stupidity. That was standard practice for the pirates, Philip had been assured; their commander wouldn't leave his ship, but he wouldn't want his second to slip off with their ill-gotten gains and sell them for himself. There was no trust at all in the pirate world.

His console lit up as the sensors started to scan the system. The system’s primary star was colossal, a red giant that had puffed up as it approached the final few million years of its life, before collapsing down into a red dwarf. If it had ever had any planets, they’d been lost within the star’s expansion or cast loose into interstellar space. Astronomers had once believed that there were thousands of rogue planets floating through space, but humanity had only discovered a handful in all the centuries of expansion. At least one of them still made headlines as crackpots argued over the claim that it had actually once housed an intelligent race. The signs suggested otherwise.

The only companions left in orbit around the primary were a handful of asteroids and comets. It was a lonely little system, of very little use to anyone apart from pirates – or survivalists, people who’d fled the Breakaway Wars in the assumption that they would sterilise all the worlds of men. A few years ago, the RAN had discovered a survivalist colony out along the Rim and reassured them that the Breakaway Wars were long over and only Earth had died in their final catastrophic years. They hadn’t taken to the mainstream of galactic society very well; in fact, they’d sold settlement and mining rights in their system to the Falcone family and bought a starship which they’d then taken beyond the Rim. Philip almost envied them. They’d see sights that no other human eye would ever see.

“Transmit our identifying signal to the pirate base,” he ordered, pushing his slightly melancholy thoughts aside. “And make sure you transmit the manifest with it. We don’t want them getting wary before it’s too late.”

The RAN’s sociologists had found themselves appalled and baffled by the pirate communities discovered out along the Rim. Pirates who had committed vast atrocities against helpless merchantmen seemed almost civil when back at their bases, keeping their destructive instincts firmly under control. The headshrinkers had burned up hundreds of terabytes of data trying to explain it, often separating into a group that believed that order was maintained by force and a group that believed that the pirates were really a whole other culture, one that was misunderstood by the rest of humanity. Philip had his own theory and it was nowhere near as complicated as either of the other theories; the pirates had a certain interest in maintaining order on their bases, if only to fence their stolen goods to the highest bidder. They would even submit to rules intended to keep fences honest, the base reasonably intact and prevent bloodbaths when one pirate crew insulted another. People could normally be trusted to act in what they thought was their own best interests. It was when one person couldn't grasp that another person might have different ideas about their own best interests that the trouble started.

“Message sent,” Rawlings said. The message had been carefully prepared. Unsurprisingly, pirate commanders shared information with other commanders, once they’d been outfitted with suicide implants. Those titbits of information often included details like the location of a base or two. “I think I’ve located the pirate base, sir.”

“Show me,” Philip ordered. He studied the display as the information came into view. One large asteroid appeared to be holding station with a number of smaller asteroids, all of which were rotating in order to produce gravity. It was such an outdated design that it was easy to realise that the pirates had to have captured the base off someone else. Those people would now be hostages to the pirates, forced to provide food, women and whatever else the pirates wanted. He ground his teeth silently, contemplating his options. Their suffering would come to an end, one way or the other.

The rotating asteroids were surprisingly primitive. Given access to solar power and water-ice, it was easy to mine out a cavern in the centre of an asteroid and pack it with water, and then use mirrors to focus the heat from the primary star onto the asteroid, melting the ore and causing the water to expand outwards. Eventually, when the asteroid had expanded out far enough, the stops would be removed and the water would spill out into space, while the rest of the asteroid was allowed to cool. It would then be spun into a rotation that would provide gravity, which would allow the interior to be colonised by the settlers.

But modern-day technology had eliminated such troublesome methods. It was easy to build a gravity generator and use it to produce whatever level of gravity might be required. The only people who would use primitive methods would be those cut off from the rest of the galaxy, people who couldn't expect any help from outside. Dear God, Philip asked himself as they drew closer to the asteroids, how long had these people been isolated from the mainstream? Had they fled the Breakaway Wars, or had they left Earth when space travel had been in its infancy? There was no way to know.

“We are receiving a signal from the pirate base,” Rawlings reported. “They are ordering us to dock the freighter into the landing bay while we hold position outside the asteroid.”

Philip smiled. He’d expected as much – and it was unacceptable. “Inform them that we insist on being there to oversee the assessors when they inspect our goods,” he said. One of the laws the pirates had reinvented for themselves was that all goods had to receive a honest valuation from a team of experts. Those who tried to sell pirate commanders short tended to lead short and unpleasant lives. Pirate commanders didn't like to be cheated. “Or we will take our goods elsewhere.”

There was a long pause. He knew what had to be going through their heads; one ship, an unknown commander, and a freighter packed to the gunnels with goods that would be worth millions – perhaps billions – along the Rim. Would their greed be enough to overcome their suspicion? If nothing else, they didn't look like an attacking force from the Commonwealth – or even Asher Dales. A squadron from the Commonwealth would have come charging out of hyperspace, launching missiles and Marine transports before the pirates had time to react.

“They’ve updated their orders,” Rawlings said. “They will allow us both to dock into the landing bay.”

Philip grinned. They’d swallowed the bait, no doubt convinced that they could prevent him from leaving if necessary. If he’d been a real pirate, they might even have been right.

He keyed his wristcom. “We’re going in,” he said. “I want everyone ready to move as soon as we land in the bay.”

The pirates had cut a cavernous landing bay out of solid rock and docked nearly forty starships within, hidden from a casual sensor sweep. Philip was mildly impressed, even though it was a strange cross between a primitive facility and one built using modern technology. The Commonwealth’s vast orbital dockyards could have taken more ships – and probably unloaded them quicker than the pirates could have hoped to achieve – but they belonged to one of the richest and most advanced societies in the Human Sphere. It was clear that the pirates didn't have anything like the same level of technology – and the same lack of concern over detection. Their base was built to evade their enemies.

He felt an odd shiver as the Death by Stupidity floated into the landing bay and glided down towards the rocky deck. There was a terrifying thump as her underside hit the deck, leaving weird little tremors running through the hull. Philip had never docked in an enclosed bay in his entire career; indeed, the only starships that might have been expected to do so were light freighters, which could land on a planetary surface if necessary.

“There’s no atmosphere in the bay,” Rawlings noticed. “I bet you that’s a security precaution.”

He paused. “And we have a welcoming party,” he added. “Seven men, wearing pressure suits...”

Philip smiled. “Welcome to my parlour, said the spider to the fly,” he said. “Open the hatch for our guests, if you please...”

 

<B style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal"><FONT size=3><FONT face="Times New Roman">Chapter Twenty-Six<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com
The pirates were seized as soon as they entered the Death by Stupidity.

“This is a raid,” Philip informed them, after they’d been grabbed, stripped and searched by five Marines. One of them was still twitching from where he’d been stabbed with a jangler while trying to resist his captors. The other four were still staring at Philip in shock. “I am prepared to make a one-time offer to you and your friends. If you surrender, I’ll take you alive and you won’t be executed. You won’t be allowed to continue to pillage helpless ships, but at least you will be alive. How does that sound?”

The pirates stared at him in disbelief. Behind them, four Marines were already donning their pressure suits. Unwisely, the pirates had chosen heavy-duty suits that concealed their features, allowing the Marines to impersonate them and get into the other set of airlocks that led into the interior of the asteroid. Once they were through, they would have to play it by ear. The captured pirates hadn't been able to say much about the interior of the asteroid, outside the casinos, brothels and markets. They certainly hadn't known where the control compartment was located.

“We won't tell you anything,” one of the pirates said, finally. “You’ll never get out of here alive.”

Philip drew a needle gun from his belt, pointed it at the pirate’s head, and pulled the trigger. A stream of needles slot through flesh and bone, scattering gore over the compartment. Philip disliked needle guns on principle, but they did have their uses. He could use one to intimidate even a hardened pirate.

“I guarantee you that you will not get out of this alive unless you help us,” he said, to the other pirates. They seemed stunned, almost as if they’d expected him not to shoot. Given the lives they’d led, surely they’d realised what would have happened to them once a navy – any navy – caught up with them. Philip’s offer was better than they had any right to hope for and they had to know it. “How many of you do I have to shoot before the rest of you finally get the idea?”

One of the pirates looked to be on the point of breaking completely. Philip leaned closer to him, pointing the needle gun directly at his forehead. “Well?” He asked, coldly. “What’s it to be? A chance to live, or certain death...?”

“I’ll talk,” the pirate said. His voice was high, almost squeaky. It would have been comical if he and his friends hadn't made a living selling stolen goods. And what had he done, Philip wondered, with any of the captured women? “I’ll...you promise I’ll live?”

Philip allowed the Marine interrogators to take over. Now that one of the pirates had broken, the others seemed to be vying to see how much they could tell in a few minutes. Skilfully, the pirates brought ID signals, access codes and other useful pieces of data out of their minds, taking turns to cajole or slap the prisoners around a little. Battlefield interrogations were rarely completely dependable, but they were running out of other choices. And, perhaps, running out of time. If he’d been running the pirate base, Philip would have made sure that he had someone counting down the seconds since the welcoming committee had boarded the ship. How long would it be before someone smelled a rat?

“We got everything, sir,” Marie said, finally. She was donning one of the pressure suits, pulling the helmet down to cover her face. Her figure was masked utterly by the shapeless garment. “I think we’d better take the airlock before someone decides to panic.”

Philip nodded. As one, the five Marines walked through the airlock and out onto the rocky deck. It was a neat security precaution, Philip had to admit, although it wouldn't have slowed Marines down for long. Armoured combat suits weren't hampered by vacuum; indeed, there was no particular reason why they couldn't vent the pirate base and suffocate the entire population. But that would kill guilty and innocent alive.

He followed their walk as they reached the airlock and keyed in the combination they’d been given by their captives. Philip braced himself – if one of them had managed to lie, they were in big trouble – but the airlock hissed open without any fuss. The seconds ticked away slowly, and then the radio buzzed. He almost jumped with shock.

“Captain, we’ve got the airlocks,” Marie said. “I'm glad to say that none of the bastards were expecting us.”

“Secure the area,” Philip ordered. “I’m sending in the rest of the reinforcements now.”

He pulled on his own pressure suit quickly, and then stepped aside to allow the Marines to precede him through the airlock. They’d be able to block the only escape route from the asteroid – unless the prisoners had lied about that – until the destroyers arrived in position to blast anything that tried to slip out. Philip sent a quick microburst transmission back to his two ships and then joined the second group heading out of the airlock. It was warm inside the suit, but somehow it always felt cold to him. A single accident would expose him to the chill of interstellar space. It was possible to survive exposure to vacuum, yet even modern medicine couldn't make the process any more comfortable.

A number of pirate ships were scattered around the deck, some looking as if their crews had abandoned them for months, if not years. Others looked alarmingly new, including a gunboat that had to have come from a first-line military, even though Philip didn't recognise the design. They’d all be taken intact, he hoped, and added to his small navy. A pirate ship would back off from even an outgunned naval ship, knowing that any damage he took might well prove fatal in the long run.

The airlock hissed open in front of him and he stepped inside, waiting along with the others for the second hatch to hiss open. Inside, there was a set of controls and a number of dead or stunned pirates. They’d all been surprised and dealt with before they could raise the alarm. Marie was bent over one of the consoles, examining it while cursing up a storm. The entire section was disconnected from the rest of the asteroid – if indeed there was a single unified computer network. It would be unthinkable not to have one on a normal asteroid habitat, but Philip could easily imagine why the pirates wouldn't want to include one on their captured base of operations. Computer technology advanced fast and it would only take one Marine with the latest hack to slip in and take over their entire system.

“We have a route,” Marie said. “The prisoners claim that the command complex is at the north pole, up from here.”

“Good,” Philip said. “Take your squad there as quickly as possible. Jangle anyone you meet; once they raise the alarm, start issuing the warning and demand that they surrender.”

Marie nodded and hurried off, leading a group of armoured Marines towards the main lift shafts. Philip watched her go, and then started to mutter orders to the militia. They’d be heading down towards the central cavern, where the pirates would be gathered, enjoying themselves. They had to be stunned or otherwise dissuaded from resistance before they had a chance to realise that they were in deep trouble. He doubted that they could force his Marines off the rock, but if they put up a fight it might give the controllers time to escape or detonate a suicide charge. He couldn't afford to lose any of his trained manpower.

The interior of the asteroid didn't stink, much to his private surprise. He pushed the thought aside as he led the way down the corridor, heedless of the risk. The pirates had decorated it with some of their loot, including paintings that might have been valuable at one time, but weren't anything more than scrap at the moment. Galactic fashion changed so rapidly that what was fashionable in one system might be nothing more than scrap at another. A couple of pirates – and a half-naked girl – ran into them and stared, only to be stunned before they could react. There was no time to separate the guilty and the innocent. They’d just have to sort them all out later.

He swore as an alarm started to ring, building rapidly to a howling crescendo. Marie called him a moment later to report that the Marines had missed a checkpoint, which had sounded the alert. They were abandoning stealth and advancing on the command centre as quickly as possible. Philip swore again and picked up the pace. They had to take out as many of the pirates as possible before they got organised. God alone knew how long it would be before they managed to start fighting back.

The corridor opened suddenly, revealing a large cavern packed with piles of clothing, farming equipment and even handheld weaponry. A number of pirates were running around, only to stop dead as soon as they saw Philip’s men. Philip sprayed them with jangler pulses before they had a chance to react, leading the way forward into the market. The stunned pirates would be abandoned where they fell, left behind until the mopping up began. They’d be stunned for several hours, completely out of it until it was far too late.

A door crashed open at the far end of the compartment, revealing a mob of panicking pirates. They seemed intent on reaching their ships, unaware that Philip and his men were blocking their path. Many of them were stunned, their falling bodies tripping their comrades and sending them crashing to the ground, before they had any time to do anything, but a handful managed to draw weapons of their own and fire back. Philip saw one of the militiamen fall to a primitive slug-thrower seconds before his murderer was stunned and left to fall on the deck. A handful of fires had started and were starting to spread into the piles of clothing. Fire could be a deadly hazard on an asteroid, particularly if it reached explosives or chemicals...

He touched his wristcom, amplifying his voice. “THIS IS THE ROYAL AVALON NAVY,” he lied. The pirates might not even have heard of Asher Dales itself, let alone realised that it had a tiny navy. “IF YOU THROW DOWN YOUR GUNS AND SURRENDER, WE WILL TAKE YOU ALIVE. RESISTANCE IS FUTILE. WE WILL NOT KILL YOU IF YOU SURRENDER! YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED!”

Judging from the racket ahead of them, some of the pirates thought surrender was a good idea and others wanted to keep fighting. Philip led his team to the door, climbing over the stunned or dead bodies, and glanced through the hatch. It was a massive nightclub, he decided after a moment, complete with dancing strippers and nude waitresses. The slaves had turned on their masters as soon as they had realised that the navy had arrived, trying to extract revenge for years of vile treatment. Philip hated to stun them as well as their tormentors, but there was no other choice. Surrendering pirates were stunned as well, just to ensure that they didn't have a change of heart. He found himself forced to revise the estimates of how many people the asteroids had been able to support upwards. It was really quite impressive, in a way. He hoped the original builders were still around, if only so he could congratulate them. They’d done something that impressed even a citizen of the Commonwealth.

“Sir, look out!”

Philip ducked sharply as a pirate hurled a chair at him, just before he was stunned into darkness by one of the militia. The militiamen seemed to be holding up nicely, much to his relief. He hadn't known how they’d cope on the asteroid, but they seemed to be coping just fine. The pirates were certainly no match for them. Having the freedom to fire jangler pulses with more enthusiasm than aim definitely helped.

His wristcom buzzed. “Captain, we’re having problems with the command staff,” Marie said. “They want you to verify the surrender offer in person. It’s probably a trap.”

Philip nodded. It probably was a trap, but the longer the pirates remained locked up in the control core, the greater the chance they could do something to destroy the asteroid – along with him and his men. Losing the asteroid would be annoying, yet losing his men would be far worse. They’d tear the guts out of Asher Dales’ defence force in a split second.

“I’m on my way,” he said. Behind him, he heard the sound of more projectile weapons being deployed. Some of the pirates were still fighting. Others were probably willing to surrender, but their former slaves weren't giving them the chance. Philip had seen what happened when the tormented finally turned on their tormentors and it was never pretty. “Detail a squad of Marines to escort the militia. Some of the pirates are putting up a fight.”

Two hulking Marines met him as he pulled himself out of the fight. “Major’s orders,” one of them said, which puzzled Philip for a moment before he remembered that Marie would get a courtesy promotion. “We’re to get you up to the command centre without letting you get hurt.”

Philip sighed inwardly and allowed them to lead him up towards the access tubes. Apart from the Marines at the airlocks – the cork in the bum, part of his mind thought with dark humour – he didn't have the forces to prevent pirates from rushing around his platoons and trying to escape. Dozens lay where they’d been stunned, a handful mutilated in ways that suggested that their slaves were far from willing to let bygones be bygones. How could he blame them? The slaves would probably be outraged at the mere thought of not executing the pirates as soon as he’d secured the asteroid. How could he blame them for that either? It was tempting – horribly so – to simply go back on his word, but then no one would ever trust him again. He needed a reputation for accepting surrenders.

The climb up the lift shafts seemed to take hours, even though his wristcom insisted that it was only a few minutes of struggling. He forced himself through a half-open hatch that had been struck by a Marine rocket and into a small chamber. A handful of Marines were waiting for him there, nodding towards the airlock. Philip cursed when he saw it; it was the same paranoid mindset as the one that had created the Death by Stupidity’s bridge, only this time it was an entire subset of the asteroid. And there was no way to burn into it with anything short of a ship-mounted energy weapon.

He picked up the mouthpiece Marie pointed out and held it to his lips. “This is Commodore Larson,” he said, flatly. “To whom am I speaking?”

The voice he heard in reply was cold, almost unemotional. “My name is none of your concern,” it said. “I believe that we have something of an impasse. You control most of our base, but you don’t control the command centre; we control the command centre and the nuclear warhead buried within the asteroid. We can blow it and kill your men.”

“So it would seem,” Philip agreed. It wasn't the done thing to negotiate with pirates, certainly not from a position of weakness. “But if you blow the asteroid, you will blow yourself as well.”

“That is certainly true,” the voice agreed, “but what reason do we have to assume that our lives will be spared?”

Philip smiled, sensing the weakness hidden behind the cold tones. “You have a choice,” he said. “You can blow the base, or you can accept my offer. We won’t kill you; we’ll tranship you to a reasonably habitable world and allow you to settle there. You won’t have the ability to menace shipping any longer, but at least you’ll be alive.”

“Life on a farming world,” the voice said. “We insist on retaining our personal banking cards and datachips. That is not negotiable.”

Philip bit his lip to keep himself from laughing. Instead, he hesitated just long enough to make sure that the pirates knew that he was considering it. “Very well,” he said, finally. They’d never realise, at least until it was far too late, that the promise was meaningless. Their money wouldn't be any good on Asher Dales. Apart from Hsu, cards and datachips issued by the various interstellar banking syndicates would be useless anywhere within the sector. And they thought that they were putting one over on him! “You can keep your cards and datachips. Open the airlock.”

“Very well,” the voice said. The airlock cracked open and two Marines moved to cover it. “We may have something else to bargain with, if you like...”

The asteroid’s command crew looked surprisingly ordinary. Only their faces betrayed their fear as the Marines searched them, and then bundled them down the corridors into a holding cell. Marie specifically ordered them to be kept on the asteroid, just in case there were any other surprises buried within its rocky surroundings. The interior of the control room was almost as mundane, although it had the same blend of old and new technology. It was apparent, almost at once, that the pirates hadn't armed their base. They’d known they could stand off a naval force.

Philip allowed himself a sigh of relief as reports started to come in from all over the base. The pirates were surrendering and being separated from their slaves. An entire base – and at least thirty starships – had been captured, with only a handful of friendly casualties. It wasn't a bad day’s work, he told himself firmly, even if it had seemed like they would lose everything. And the pirates in the sector would never recover from the blow.

His wristcom buzzed. “Captain, this is Jenkins,” a voice said. “There’s something here you should see, sir.”

There was something in his tone that made Philip’s blood run cold.

 

More More More!!!

 

You can't stop there ,it's inhumane .My mind is reeling with anticipation.
Very Good and well done !!

 

Chapter Twenty-Seven<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

“Weapons,” Philip said.

Jenkins nodded. The secure storage bay – guarded by a security system they’d had to convince the prisoners to unlock – contained enough weaponry to outfit a small army. Hand weapons and rifles rubbed shoulders with mortars and plasma cannons, armoured combat suits – first-generation models, part of Philip’s mind noted – were stacked next to mobile air defence weapons and ELINT nodes. A planetary rebellion armed and trained to use the small arsenal could overwhelm almost any planet in the Einstein Sector – and cause no end of trouble on Avalon or any of the other worlds in the Commonwealth. They’d be hunted down and exterminated in the end, but the death toll would be immense.

“I’ve not been able to locate any common pattern,” Jenkins said, briskly. “The hand weapons are from a whole selection of different sources; the plasma cannons appear to be makeshifts run together in a specialist factory – about as traceless as you can get. But this…”

He passed Philip a small black book. “I found this with the manuals,” he said. “Someone went to all the trouble of printing out the manuals, rather than just supplying the datachips for their readers. That’s curious for someone born in this era, isn’t it?”

Philip studied the book and swore quietly to himself. He’d read it before, back at the Academy, even though there were some that claimed that even possessing the book was a sign of seditious beliefs. The Truth had been written by the man who’d founded – and shaped – the True Faith, the combination of all previous faiths that had – eventually – given birth to the Theocracy. Philip remembered thinking that it was a pity that his dream had been so badly corrupted, but between internal and external factors, his followers had never had a chance. They’d given birth to a cancer that would swallow up the entire Human Sphere if it wasn't stopped in its tracks.

“And if this book was here, it suggests that the Theocracy supplied the weapons,” Philip said, slowly. He couldn’t imagine any pirate reading the book, or any other religious text – unless it was one that legitimized their actions. How many religions permitted looting, raping and murdering throughout all of known space? But then, the Theocracy permitted quite a few otherwise forbidden acts when the victim was an infidel. “Is there anything else that might have come from them?”

“None of the weapons appear to be Theocracy-designed and produced,” Jenkins said. He was the closest thing to an expert they had – and he had access to an open-source database downloaded from the RAMC before they’d departed Avalon. “But that’s meaningless, sir. They could easily have purchased the weapons using untraceable funds and shipped them out here, if they wanted to disguise their involvement. But the book…”

It felt almost warm to the touch as Philip turned it over and over in his hands. The Theocracy’s founder had commanded that each and every one of his followers was to carry a copy of his book with them at all times, if only so they would be able to study his wisdom and decide how to apply it to new situations. Much of the advice was actually good – judge once you have the facts, not before; God helps those who help themselves – but other pieces had been written by a skilled and somewhat immoral psychologist. A person who fell into the True Faith would find it very hard to break the mental shackles and leave, assuming that they were allowed to leave.

But finding one here might be nothing more than a clumsy attempt to frame the Theocracy for someone else’s operation. Philip knew that they had to bear that in mind, yet how many other powers would be in a position to impose direct control over the sector? The Commonwealth could have overrun it within a week – assuming the Assembly would condone a second grab for territory after <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Cadiz</st1lace></st1:City> – and the Theocracy could have done the same, but anyone else would be operating on the end of an alarmingly long supply line. He had trouble imagining anyone who understood power projection dreaming up such a scheme, let alone putting it into action.

And yet…might it not be a government at all? Avalon was hardly the only interstellar power that had corporate influence within its government. Someone with enough money could certainly have obtained the weapons and set out to build themselves an empire, daring any of the interstellar powers to stop him. Philip knew that they wouldn’t stand a chance if the Commonwealth decided to knock them down, but the Commonwealth couldn’t…not without giving the Theocracy a golden opportunity to take on a diverted Commonwealth. And the same applied to the Theocracy. The interstellar balance of power might mandate leaving the newly-born star nation alone, independent.

He shook his head, scowling. “Have the pirates interrogated,” he ordered, bluntly. “I want to know everything about this place and its operations. And then prepare them for transfer to Asher Dales.”

“Aye, sir,” Jenkins said. “I’ll start on it at once.”

***​

An hour later, Philip was more confused than he’d been the moment he’d seen the weapons – and the telltale book. The pirates had admitted to storing and distributing the weapons, but they hadn’t known who they were working for – and they’d been paid enough to silence their questions. Not that it would have mattered to them just whose money they took, Philip suspected, yet there would have been a chance for blackmail…he shook his head, puzzled and irritated. Anyone who had access to the resources the masterminds had shown wouldn’t have needed to hire pirates to do anything, unless they wanted to deny everything if the balloon went up too soon.

“It makes no sense,” he protested to Tanya, who – after they’d searched the entire asteroid for traps and other unpleasant surprises – had finally been allowed to board. Most of the surviving pirates were being transferred under armed guard to the freighter, where they would be held until they could be deposited on Asher Dales. They’d been warned that any trouble would result in the entire freighter being vented and they appeared to believe the warning. “Why would the Theocracy set up the entire plot and then leave an item behind that proved their presence?”

He’d passed the book to a Marine intelligence officer, who’d noted that it was very definitely a personal volume, one that should have remained with a Theocracy believer until the day he died. And that puzzled Philip too. What he’d heard suggested that the Theocracy’s leadership wouldn’t leave one of those books behind - unless they weren't true believers…he rolled his eyes at the thought. A person who believed in God – and the possibility of divine justice – wouldn’t create a place like the Theocracy, let alone plan to expand to swallow up the entire Human Sphere.

“Maybe it was an accident,” Tanya suggested, after a moment. “They might just have left it there and forgotten about it. Or maybe its there to convince us that the Theocracy is involved when it’s really the Manchu Dynasty or the Edo Imperial Empire or…”

“All of those states would have problems defending this sector,” Philip pointed out, as they entered the conference chamber. A handful of people stood there, waiting for them. “Tanya, please allow me to introduce the true owners of this asteroid.”

He stepped back to allow Tanya to handle the diplomacy, which was something he preferred to avoid where possible. The asteroid’s builders had left Earth long before the Breakaway Wars, back when humanity hadn’t grasped the true relationship between hyperspace and normal space. They’d gotten hopelessly lost and eventually staggered out of hyperspace near the unnamed red star, without a hope in hell of getting anywhere they might be able to set up a planet-based colony. Instead of giving up and committing suicide – as some other explorers had done – they’d started to build asteroid habitats that had provided enough living space for their entire population. They’d even been redeveloping the beginnings of an advanced technological base when they’d been discovered by the pirates. The pirates had recognised their vulnerability and moved in, threatening to crack the habitats open to force the settlers to surrender, allowing them to take over peacefully. Since then, the settlers had been a combination of labour force and chattel slaves for the pirates, along with a number of kidnapped crewmen press-ganged into pirate service. Their asteroids – with their women and children – had been mined with nuclear weapons. Resistance would have meant the mass slaughter of their entire population.

“I think we can be fairly safe in stating that no one will consider you responsible for their crimes,” Philip said, once they’d discussed the fate of the captured pirates. A handful seemed to have formed relationships with settler women, but most of the others were utter scum. Philip hated himself for refusing permission for the settlers to lynch them all, yet there was no real choice. He’d made a bargain with the pirates, after all, and the information they were providing was useful. “I would suggest, however, that you allow us to set up a permanent base out here.”

He smiled at their reaction. They were defenceless against pirates – and knew it. The asteroid wasn't a full-scale shipyard, but it was better than anything else in the sector – at least until <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Quincy</st1lace></st1:City> managed to move his shipyard to Asher Dales. Combined with the talents of press-ganged merchant crewmen who’d formed links with the settlers, it would make an excellent repair yard for the navy. And the captured ships would allow them to start running proper patrols and escort every freighter in the sector. The pirates wouldn’t know what had hit them until it was far too late to prevent their being chased out of the region. Let them go ply their trade somewhere else.

“Any of you who want to move to Asher Dales would be welcome,” Tanya added. “We’re always looking for new settlers and you would definitely fit in with the population.”

Philip wasn’t so sure about that, but he held his tongue. His relationship with Tanya seemed to have been put on hold while he’d commanded the Death By Stupidity into the pirate base; he certainly hadn’t been willing to allow her to risk herself on that mission. And then there was Marie’s warning, nagging at the back of his mind. Why was it, he asked himself silently, that women were far harder to understand than a starship’s main drives? He would sooner have tried to fly one of the first spacecraft to leave Earth’s atmosphere than comprehend a woman.

“Many of us would be grateful,” the first settler explained. The pirates had tried to prevent their slaves from setting up their own networks, but they hadn’t been able to watch each and every corner of the asteroids. It was lucky that they did have a government, of sorts. They’d soon be on their way to modern civilisation with a little help from Philip and his navy. “But I think that many of us would prefer to stay where we are. Planets are dangerous places for young children.”

Philip had to smile at Tanya’s expression. Some societies – the RockRats being the most numerous of them – believed that planetary biospheres were only the cradle of human civilisation, not where the human race should live out its entire existence. They built massive space habitats, places where they could control the entire environment as they pleased – although they hadn’t been able to prevent the spread of rats, cockroaches and even rabbits. Philip tended to agree with them, even though many habitats were more vulnerable than a planetary environment. If anyone ever did manage to develop force fields, perhaps there would be a mass exodus into space.

“I’d like to keep the fact we took this base quiet, for the moment,” he said. Interrogating the pirates had revealed that an alarmingly large number of pirate vessels were out hunting for targets. They’d come back one by one – and hopefully be captured before they realised that the base was in new hands. If the navy was lucky, they might be able to wipe out most of the pirate vessels in the sector before word spread that the base was no longer a safe harbour. “We’ll move the vessels and the captured pirates elsewhere and see what else falls into our net.”

Tanya nodded. The pirates would be interrogated until they disclosed everything they knew, and then transported to Asher Dales. Those who decided to serve on work gangs would be given a chance to earn their freedom; the remainder would be deposited on a large uninhabited island, where they could build their own society – or starve. The choice would be theirs. It was a better offer than anyone else would have granted to pirate scrum.

Several hours passed slowly as the pirates were checked, processed and then loaded into the captured vessels. Philip was more worried about that than he cared to admit. While he had every confidence in the Marines he’d recruited to keep control of the prisoners, he was rather more worried about the militiamen. They had done well fighting in the asteroid, but a starship’s interior was a dangerous place for a fight. If the prisoners managed to break free, either through hidden command codes or sheer luck, the entire starship might be lost forever in hyperspace. There were ghost stories about ships that were lost and never seen again. Very few of them ended well.

“There’s an astonishing amount of supplies here,” Bartley informed him. The pirates had stripped many vessels of experience components and then dumped them in the asteroid, seemingly abandoning them to rot away. A RAN warehouse would have had the components sealed to prevent them from decaying before they were put to use. “I think we’ve made a vast profit on our expenditure.”

Philip couldn’t disagree. There were enough supplies to keep the captured vessels going for a few years, even if they couldn’t draw additional supplies from the Commonwealth or another more developed star system. It added a dangerous weak point to his plans, however; they would need to leave a destroyer on duty at the asteroid, watching to be sure that no pirates managed to return and retake the asteroid base. With one destroyer already permanently assigned to Asher Dales, it would only leave him one destroyer to use to respond to any sudden new threats. At least they’d be able to start working up the pirate ships for use as part of the navy. A couple of weeks would give them a force they could use to cover Asher Dales.

“Get a list of what we need and start transporting it to Asher Dales,” he ordered, after scanning the inventory. A pair of Marines and a dozen militiamen had gone through the colossal piles and, according to their report, had barely touched more than a quarter of it. Some of the supplies were actively dangerous to their owners, they’d noted. What kind of idiot left canisters of cooling fluid near breathable atmosphere? They were damn lucky they hadn’t sprung a leak, or they’d have wiped out half the asteroid before the emergency systems realised that there was a problem. “And then make sure you get some sleep.”

“I’ll sleep when I’m dead, sir,” Bartley said. He held up what looked like a prosthetic arm. “Do you know what I can do with this?” Philip shook his head. “Neither do I, sir, but I’ll have a lot of fun finding out.”

***​

“This is the largest fleet I have ever commanded,” Philip said, four days later. Forty starships hung in a rough formation around Dasher, bound together by communications lasers. The former pirate ships seemed to be in reasonable shape for pirate vessels, although Philip suspected that they hadn’t even begun to root out all the traps and unpleasant surprises left in their computer cores. “And I don’t have enough ships to patrol this entire sector.”

Tanya shrugged. “I think you’d be able to capture more,” she said. “How in the name of the universe am I going to explain all this to my father?”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something,” Philip said, dryly. He glanced down at his wristcom, which was counting down the seconds to Asher Dales. Harmon needed practice commanding a starship coming out of hyperspace, in preparation for his assignment to one of the captured light warships. The Asher Dales Navy was suffering from an embarrassment of riches; instead of having too many crew and too few ships, they now had too many ships and too few crew. Philip had spent two days grappling with the problem of stripping experienced men out of his original ships to crew the captured vessels before deciding that some of the ships would have to be held in reverse. “Anyway…”

He indicated the eerie lights of hyperspace as they started to roll into a funnel of energy, directly ahead of their position. A dark patch appeared, expanding into a vision of normal space, glowing with pinpricks of light that represented stars. Dasher roared out of hyperspace and settled into normal space, followed by her consorts. Philip allowed himself a sigh of relief that wasn't entirely feigned. He had confidence in Harmon, but the Captain was always responsible for the safety of his ship. It had taken hours of mental struggle before he’d convinced himself to watch from the observation blister rather than hover around the bridge.

An alarm sounded; the red alert siren, calling the crew to battle stations. Philip was on his way out the hatch before his wristcom chirped, calling him to the bridge at once. He made it there in record time, nodding to the Marine who’d opened the hatch as soon as he’d heard his commanding officer running down the corridor. Harmon was on his feet, staring at a single red icon dominating the main display.

“As you were,” Philip said. Red alert was no time for salutes. “Report!”

“Captain,” Harmon said, and then swallowed, hard. “Captain, sensors are picking up one heavy cruiser in orbit around Asher Dales.” There was a long, almost pregnant pause. “Her IFF identifies her as a Theocracy ship, sir.”

 

WHAT ?
OK next please !!

 

WHAT !!!! leaving us hanging like this..... May chickens invade your living room and poop all over the carpet.

 

there goes the paddle

 

Chapter Twenty-Eight<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

Philip swallowed an urge to curse out loud.

“Check the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:stockticker w:st="on">IFF</st1:stockticker>,” he ordered, grimly. A single heavy cruiser could tear his formation apart before he could order an immediate retreat. They didn’t seem to be firing, but then they weren't in range – yet. He hadn’t anticipated a threat upon their return to Asher Dales. “Confirm that that’s a Theocracy ship and run it against the database – let me know what we have on the bastard.”

He settled back into his command chair and tried to project an image of calm. Inside, he was nervous, grimly aware that the visitation might herald bad news – or the start of the war. The Theocracy wouldn’t have cut loose a heavy cruiser unless they intended to avoid war…or would they? One heavy cruiser wouldn’t make a difference to the titanic fleets that would clash on the <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Cadiz</st1lace></st1:City> border.

“The database reports that she is a Type-XI heavy cruiser, indigenous class and designation unknown,” Harmon reported. The specifications – or ONI’s best guess at her specifications – flickered up on Philip’s private display. Very little was known about the Theocracy’s designs, but ONI had observed a number of their warships and believed that Type-XI ships were missile-heavy, designed for long-range duels than close-quarter combat with energy weapons. The Commonwealth preferred more versatile ships; there was a note in the database that the class had first been observed ten years ago and could easily have been refitted since it had first been launched. There was no way to know short of taking the ship intact, or watching what happened when she opened fire. “She is running a standard active sensor scan, but she isn’t actively targeting us.”

Philip frowned, puzzled. The time to contact was ticking down alarmingly fast; surely, if the Theocracy had come to take the planet, they would have opened fire by now. There was nothing to be gained by allowing a small squadron armed with energy weapons into energy weapons range, not when the squadron could be devastated by missile fire before it could hope to do more than scratch the heavy cruiser’s paint. If they weren't targeting his ships…did that mean they came in peace? It seemed unlikely. What deals the Theocracy made, judging by past experience, lasted as long as they found it convenient to keep them. They would break their agreements the moment they found that they served no further useful purpose.

The tactical console chimed. “They are hailing us,” Harmon said, in surprise. “The message ID header names her as the Warrior of the Lord, commanded by Captain Rican. There’s no mention of him in our databases.”

Philip wasn't surprised. ONI had been trying to figure out who was who in the Theocracy, but outside the Sultan himself and a handful of senior officers it was an impossible task. The Theocracy kept a lock on all information that might allow Commonwealth officers to understand the men behind the titles and positions. This Captain Rican might be a fanatic, or a more thoughtful, careful personage – or someone who resented being exiled to the Einstein Sector when the **** was about to hit the fan at <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Cadiz</st1lace></st1:City>. Or he might be an unimaginative martinet. There was no way to know for sure.

He straightened in his command chair. “Put him through,” he ordered. “Let’s hear what he has to say.”

Communications equipment was about the only equipment on starships that was almost interchangeable from one interstellar power to the next – not that Philip would have attached a communications module from the Theocracy to any of his ships, just in case there was an unpleasant surprise or two attached. The display changed instantly, revealing a dark-skinned hawk-nosed face, smiling broadly. It was focused in on the Theocracy Captain’s face, refusing to show any of the bridge behind him, a fairly simple security precaution. Philip hadn’t bothered; the specifications for destroyers like Dasher were a matter of common knowledge. Unless the Theocracy was truly alien, its intelligence services had probably copied a great deal of public data – and claimed that it was a really neat piece of espionage. Spooks had more in common with each other than the societies they were supposed to support.

“Captain” – he corrected himself after a flicker of hesitation – “Commodore Larson,” the Theocracy Captain said. He spoke Standard English with only a faint trace of an accent, rather than relying on any automated translation software. That spoke well of him, Philip reminded himself. Translation software sometimes produced howlers that could cause offence – which could in turn cause a war. “I am Captain Rican, representing the Theocracy of the True Faith.”

“Commodore Larson, commanding the Asher Dales defence force,” Philip said, tightly. Captain Rican appeared to be enjoying himself, which didn’t bode well – or maybe he was just enjoying the chance to show off his ship to a hopelessly-outmatched force. “Might I ask you to state the purpose of your visit?”

“I merely wish to hold converse with the planet’s governors,” Captain Rican said, calmly. “And I wished to see for myself the reputed force that has terrified pirates throughout the entire sector.”

Philip scowled inwardly, hearing a note of mockery running through the Theocrat’s tone. Between the three destroyers, they’d accounted for seven pirate ships destroyed, along with a pirate base – and a number of captured starships. Perhaps they’d made an impression on the pirates already, but he rather doubted it. They didn’t tend to advertise their losses. Unless, of course, the Theocracy was secretly backing them behind the scenes; they’d have heard about many of the losses.

But that doesn’t quite add up, he thought, grimly. Captain Rican couldn’t have learned about the captured base when no one outside his squadron knew that it had been taken. Unless there had been a cloaked ship hiding within the system, watching events ad reporting to Captain Rican and his crew. But then…why would they give away its presence to Asher Dales…?

“Under the terms of the Albion Conventions, I am pleased to welcome you to Asher Dales,” he said. It was a lie and he knew that Captain Rican knew that it was a lie, but there was no other choice. The Albion Conventions granted certain rights to even small and relatively puny star systems, yet they didn’t include the right to refuse visits from more powerful interstellar powers. They’d been drawn up in the wake of the anti-terrorist wars that had plagued the first centuries of expansion into space. “I trust that you and your crew will behave themselves in line with the planet’s laws?”

“I am sure that they will,” Captain Rican said, with equal insincerity. Philip kept his face expressionless. The bastard was enjoying himself. He’d almost sooner face a salvo of missiles; it might have been lethal, but it would also be honest. “But as it happens, only a handful of my crewmen will visit the surface. I do not wish to expose them to theological contamination.”

Philip nodded. At least that was standard, although the reasons behind it were a great deal more mundane than Captain Rican suggested. The Theocracy’s most populated worlds were literally bursting at the seams, the result of their ‘go forth and multiply’ philosophy combined with forbidden genetic modifications that made multiple births the norm among their women. A Theocrat grew up amidst incredible deprivation, forced to struggle for food while being harangued by clerics into becoming a loyal and accepting follower of God – which meant an unquestioning obedience of the Theocracy’s leadership. Who knew what would happen if they saw Asher Dales, or Avalon, or even <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Cadiz</st1lace></st1:City>? They’d start to question the lies they’d been told from birth.

“In which case, I look forward to hosting you at a reception in your honour,” Philip said, smoothly. Alcohol was technically forbidden in the Theocracy – which didn’t stop its representatives drinking themselves senseless while visiting other worlds. It would be interesting to see what Captain Rican had to say while drunk. “And if you wish to discuss further patrols…”

Captain Rican held up a hand. “I have been…requested to inform you that the planet <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Jordan</st1lace></st1:country-region> has applied to join the Theocracy,” he said. There was an odd expression, just for a second, on his face, one that Philip found hard to read. Who could make a request of a starship commander…he swallowed a curse under his breath. The Theocracy ensured that each starship carried a Cleric, who was – to all intents and purposes – the true commander of the ship. “Once the formalities have been completed, we will insist on full participation within the sector’s defence force.”

He smiled, rather less pleasantly this time. “Thank you for welcoming us to your planet, Commodore,” he concluded. “I’m sure we will enjoy ourselves immensely.”

***​

The Theocracy’s shuttle could be heard long before it came into view, although it was being tracked by Dasher and the handful of automated sensor platforms that had been emplaced into orbit around Asher Dales. Philip straightened up, silently grateful that Asher Dales had yet to design a proper dress uniform for its officers and men, and looked over at <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Barrington</st1lace></st1:City>. The Chairman looked shocked by the sudden shift in events; he’d even wondered aloud if the Theocrats had been lying about <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Jordan</st1lace></st1:country-region>’s sudden decision to join the Theocracy. Philip wasn't so surprised. Cassandra’s warnings about the Theocratic refugees on the planet’s surface had prepared him for the worst.

“You know, we don’t have to let him land,” Tanya pointed out, from where she was standing next to Philip. “We could claim that…”

Philip shook his head. “Old joke,” he said. “Where does a five hundred pound gorilla sit?”

Tanya blinked in surprise. “I don’t know,” she said. “Where does a five hundred pound gorilla sit?”

“Anywhere he wants to,” Philip said. He smiled at her expression. “I doubt that the person the gorilla sat on found the punchline very funny either.”

He looked up at her. She was beautiful, even wearing the shapeless smock he’d recommended. God alone knew how Captain Rican would react to being greeted by a woman, but – in theory – the Albion Conventions would prevent him from taking overt insult. Philip had less faith in the conventions than many others in the RAN; who, in the Einstein Sector, was going to enforce them? It was tempting to hope that a nasty incident on Asher Dales would convince the rest of the civilised galaxy to unite against the Theocracy, but that was nothing more than wishful thinking. The civilised galaxy might be quietly grateful that the Commonwealth barred the Theocracy’s path to their doors, yet they weren't going to get off their butts and do anything helpful. As long as the wolf couldn’t get to them, they weren't going to lose sleep…

The thought was a bitter one, underlined by the growing howl as the shuttle finally came into view. It was a huge boxy shape, clearly intended as something more than a mere personnel shuttle. Philip suspected that it was actually the Theocracy’s version of a Marine Landing Craft, complete with bulkheads that could be ejected out into the atmosphere, allowing the Marines to dive out of their transport and fall towards the ground. The handful of passive sensors he’d scattered around the spaceport revealed no active sensor emissions that might signal an incoming attack, but that proved nothing. They wouldn’t have any difficulty targeting the city manually if they intended to launch a surprise attack.

He shook his head as the craft came to a halt and slowly lowered itself to the ground. The Theocracy didn’t need to play games, not with a single heavy cruiser in orbit around Asher Dales. It didn’t take a tactical genius to know that Philip’s squadron – both his destroyers and the captured pirate craft – were hopelessly outgunned, particularly if they didn’t have the chance to prepare the battlefield ahead of time. They could simply have taken the planet if they wanted to take it, so why play games?

The craft grounded itself and the front hatch opened without fanfare, revealing Captain Rican, a man dressed in long black robes, and a handful of men who were clearly the Theocracy’s version of marines. Captain Rican led the way down the gangplank, saluted the flag – as interstellar custom dictated – and then saluted the city council. His eyes flickered over Tanya once – there was no hesitation, at least as far as Philip could see – and then he looked away from her. The black-robed man – the Cleric, Philip guessed – looked more annoyed, but said nothing.

“Welcome to Asher Dales,” <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Barrington</st1lace></st1:City> said, after the salutes had finished. “It is my pleasure to invite you to share our food and drink.”

“I’m sure it is,” Captain Rican said, with the same hint of amusement he’d shown Philip, back while they were exchanging pleasantries on their respective bridges. “I would be honoured to share your food and drink.”

Philip watched with a growing sense that the whole scene was surreal as the Theocrats were shown around the capital city. Judging from the reports Philip had heard, the Theocracy had cities almost as large as the mega-cities of Earth had been, but they seemed to take Asher Dales in stride. Perhaps Captain Rican and his Cleric had travelled to many other worlds, in line with their duties, or perhaps they’d just been trained not to reveal much of anything to the observers. The Cleric even added a few questions of his own about the single wooden church in part of the city, expressing his admiration of the simple structure.

The city seemed quieter than normal, Philip noted, as they reached the Town Hall. At his suggestion, many of the city’s population had retreated to their homes – particularly their young and attractive daughters. It was starting to look like he’d panicked for nothing, but he refused to discount his paranoia. The Theocracy had some underhand reason for being in the sector, one that required an entire heavy cruiser to back it up. Yet…if they had that much firepower on call, why bother with the pirates at all?

“We are proud of our fresh food,” <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Barrington</st1lace></st1:City> explained, waving towards the tables as the council and its unwanted guests sat down to dine. They’d cooked beef, turkey and chicken for their guests, following a long debate over if it was permissible to serve pork to Theocrats. In truth, the sources seemed to differ; the Theocracy had grown out of religions that forbade pork, but the first Theocrats had always seemed to be more practical than their ancestors. “I trust that you will enjoy it as a change from shipboard rations.”

Philip barely touched his plate, watching carefully as the Theocrats declined wine and beer, choosing to drink fresh water instead. Their conversation was confusing; at times, they seemed to be threatening and at other times they seemed to be merely making harmless conversation. He did manage to pull out a few useful nuggets from the conversation; <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Jordan</st1lace></st1:country-region> had held an election, a pro-Theocracy party had taken power, and then they’d invited the Theocracy in. Philip knew that it had all been planned in advance. It would have taken at least two months – perhaps longer – for the Theocracy to send any reinforcements to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Jordan</st1lace></st1:country-region>, even if one of their senior officials had acted without referring the question to the Sultan. They had to have planned it in advance.

“I understand that not all of the planet’s population agreed with the new regime,” he said, smoothly. “Can we provide transport for them to depart?”

“Of course,” Captain Rican said, with equal smoothness. He knew what he was doing, all right. Philip found himself wanting to challenge the bastard to a duel, perhaps pistols at dawn. “The Theocracy has long held it to be true that an unwilling conversion is a sin – and to force people to convert is a sinful act.”

And that was a lie, Philip knew. But it was an important detail, all the same. Having the chance to pull refugees from <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Jordan</st1lace></st1:country-region> would allow them a glimpse at what – if anything – the Theocracy was doing in that system. If they’d detailed an entire heavy cruiser to Jordan, who knew what else they might have attached to the mission? A handful of outdated starships would be useless on the main war front, but they’d be able to dominate the entire sector.

“But we do fear the Commonwealth’s involvement in this sector,” the Cleric added, roughly. “A Commonwealth Navy starship kidnapped the Princess Jasmine, sister to the Sultan himself. We have grounds to worry about the aims of a power that annexed <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Cadiz</st1lace></st1:City> despite the will of its people.”

Philip bit down the response that came to mind. The Theocracy wouldn’t have tried to help the people of <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Cadiz</st1lace></st1:City>; they’d crush all resistance and start redesigning their society from the ground up. They’d done it before and it was the fate they had in mind for Avalon if they won the war. Philip knew that he would die before allowing it to happen.

“But the Commonwealth is not involved in this sector,” <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Barrington</st1lace></st1:City> said, flatly. “We merely bought starships and hired some of their former naval personnel to operate them.”

”But they have ambitions and designs on your planets,” Captain Rican said. “You really ought to watch your backs.”

***​

“Curious,” Philip said, two days later. The Theocrats had been wandering around the planet, but they hadn’t caused any trouble. It was almost too good to be true. “What do they think they’re doing?”

“Hammering away at your reputation,” Tanya said. “Greg Farnham has been asking about your loyalties; can we really trust a person we pay to fight for us?

Philip snorted. He could see their point, but really…where else could he hope to command a navy of his own? “I think he’d be better off authorising me to recruit more cadets,” he said. “Ten years and…”

He broke off as his wristcom buzzed. “Commodore,” Marie’s voice said, “we’ve got a problem. The **** has just hit the fan.”

 

OK lets hear it why the drop !!
Very good so far !!

 

Chapter Twenty-Nine<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />

The two girls lay on the bed, their bodies decently covered with sheets that didn’t – quite – hide the bloodstains. They made a pitiful sight; one barely old enough to develop breasts, the other older, wiser and – apparently – engaged to a farmhand near the city. Both of them had had their lives in front of them.

Philip looked away, cursing his weakness. He’d seen death before – and he’d seen the residue left behind by pirate attacks – but this was different. The girls had been raped and murdered on his watch, when they were supposed to be under his protection. And he’d failed them. They’d all failed them.

“We know who did it,” Marie said. There was a bitter tone to her voice, a grim awareness that events could spiral out of control – that in fact they might already be out of control. “Two of the Theocracy’s visitors were caught near the bodies by the locals – we’re damn lucky they weren’t lynched on the spot. We checked their DNA against the remains and confirmed their guilt.”

Philip looked down at his hands, trying to think. The Theocracy might have ordered its own people to carry out the atrocity, hoping that the locals would execute or lynch the two suspects and give them an excuse to invade Asher Dales. Or it might have been against the express orders of the Theocracy…not that it would matter, in the end. The Theocracy wouldn’t be too keen on allowing a piss-ante little planet any rights over its own people, whatever the Albion Conventions might say. And the Albion Conventions forbade the use of truth drugs and lie detectors without permission from the suspects’ superior officers. There was no way to know if it was a deliberate provocation or merely something the Theocracy could turn to their advantage?

“I’m afraid the word is already out,” Marie said, softly. “The people who caught them will have been calling their friends, who will have been calling their friends…”

She didn’t have to spell it out for him. Asher Dales might have had thousands of armed men on the grounds, but none of them could prevent a heavy cruiser from dropping Kinetic Energy Weapons on Asher Dales until whatever remained of the planet surrendered unconditionally. Or the Theocracy might launch a number of armoured soldiers to crush opposition; there was nothing on Asher Dales, apart from the Marines that were part of Philip’s squadron, who could stand up to them. And a heavy cruiser could carry hundreds of Marines. Given how attractive the Theocracy was to its own people, Philip wouldn’t have been surprised to discover that half of the ship’s personnel were made up of Janissaries or other security troops.

“So the council will want them to be tried here and the Theocracy will refuse to allow them to be tried here,” Philip said, bitterly. There was no way to avoid confronting the elephant in the room. They couldn’t stand off the heavy cruiser long enough for help to arrive, even if anyone was interested in sending help. “What the hell do we do?”

Marie beckoned to him and nodded towards a one-way window, looking into a prison cell. Both Theocrats were sitting on the bench, looking as if they’d been badly beaten by the men who’d captured them. Philip cursed again. The Theocracy couldn’t have asked for a better excuse to carry out punitive strikes if they’d organised it personally. Under the Albion Conventions, mistreatment of foreign nationals was strictly prohibited. The Theocracy itself paid no attention to such rules, but Asher Dales was not in a strong position. Philip was starting to think that it had been deliberate provocation after all.

He lifted his wristcom to his lips. “Code Blue,” he said, shortly. “I say again, Code Blue.”


The signal would be flashed to the remainder of the squadron within seconds, following a contingency plan Philip had hoped never to have to use. Dasher, her two sister ships and the captured pirate ships would go to battle stations, without revealing any hint of their changed status to the Theocracy cruiser. It probably wouldn’t matter – sitting in orbit as they were, they were alarmingly within missile range of the Theocracy ship – but at least it might allow some of his squadron the chance to land striking blows on the enemy vessel. Indeed, if they were lucky, they might just cripple her…unless, of course, the Theocracy had a whole secret shipyard out in the Einstein Sector. If they’d thought so far ahead, everything Philip could or would do would have been anticipated and countermeasures planned and prepared.

“We could simply execute them now and dare the Theocracy to do anything about it,” Marie said, thoughtfully. “Perhaps they wouldn’t make a fuss if we acted without consulting anyone else.”

Philip shook his head. “They’d never allow the precedent to stand,” he said. RAN commanders had wide latitude to safeguard their personnel from foreign law enforcement officers. They even had permission to commit acts of war to recover or protect their own personnel, if they believed the person to be innocent. Even if guilty, Commonwealth law was supposed to hold sway – and to hell with the Albion Conventions. “They’d demand the council’s heads, at the very least – more likely, they’d want heavy concessions that would turn Asher Dales into one of their puppet states. A few hundred thousand colonists from the Theocracy and they’d go the same way as <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Jordan</st1lace></st1:country-region>.”

“Assuming that <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Jordan</st1lace></st1:country-region> did go that way,” Marie reminded him. “We only have their word for it, sir.”

“True,” Philip agreed. He looked down at the broken bodies, shaking his head. “Does it strike you that the weak must always feel ashamed of their own weakness?”

“I believe the last time a state believed it could push everyone else around ended in the Breakaway Wars,” Marie said, briskly. “There has to be some way to deal with this without provoking further trouble…”

Philip scowled at her, and then started to smile as an idea occurred to him. “I want you to invite Captain Rican down to the surface,” he said. “Tell him I’ve something I’d like him to see.”

***​

Somewhat to Philip’s surprise, Captain Rican had come with only one escort, the ever-present Cleric who ensured that he wasn't harbouring any blasphemous – or treasonous, as the two were intermingled according to the Theocracy – thoughts. Philip had expected him to bring a bodyguard or two, particularly if he knew that the rapists had been caught and held for trial. Captain Rican must have considered the possibility that Philip would take him hostage, although with the heavy cruiser in orbit, it would have been an immensely risky stunt.

“I want you to see this,” Philip said. He pulled back the curtains, exposing the two broken bodies. The Cleric started to splutter in the mixture of English, Arabic and Farsi that comprised the Theocracy’s official language, while Captain Rican looked unmoved. His face was impassive – but then, being able to conceal one’s innermost thoughts would be a blessing in the Theocracy. Someone with enough intelligence to command a starship would understand the atrocities the Theocracy tolerated in the name of God, to say nothing of how their duel command structure impeded military operations. “We found them two hours ago.”

He’d used the time to make some other preparations. One of the smaller pirate vessels had been given a new crew and directed to a position where it could slip into hyperspace and evade the Theocracy cruiser if necessary. Tracking a small fast vessel though hyperspace wasn't particularly easy – even if the pursuing ship followed the target directly into hyperspace instead of being delayed by enemy action. A few minutes between the two vortexes and hunting down the target would become impossible. And the Theocracy would have seen his preparations.

“They were…raped and murdered by two of your personnel,” Philip continued, watching Captain Rican carefully. There was no sign of an overt reaction, but he thought he detected a flicker of…disgust behind his dark eyes. “We have those two in custody.”

“How dare you?” The Cleric demanded, angrily. His English was badly accented, his anger pushing his sophistication to the side. “How dare you accuse noble warriors of the Theocracy of forcing themselves upon chaste young women?” His eyes narrowed, sharply. “I have no doubt that the sluts exposed themselves and lured the warriors into a state of sin…”

“…Whereupon they committed suicide using your men’s fists to beat themselves to death?” Philip asked, dryly. “While we have refrained from using any form of coercive interrogations, as laid down by the Albion Conventions, we have taken genetic samples from them and compared the samples against the wounds and…sperm residue on the bodies. They are guilty, your holiness, and the wounds suggest that they forced themselves on the girls.”

“I refuse to believe it,” the Cleric snapped. “I demand that you hand the two men over to us at once, so we can safeguard them from the mob gathering outside this building.”

Philip scowled. Word had indeed spread – and they hadn’t been able to discourage the increasingly angry crowd from massing outside. He’d deliberately not involved the council, giving them a fig leaf to disown him if necessary, but that meant that the councillors couldn’t try to convince the crowd to disperse. Privately, Philip doubted that they could convince the crowd to go, not when it clearly wanted blood. But was the blood of two guilty men worth more than the lives of their families?

“Under the Albion Conventions, we have the right to try those men for crimes against the civilian population,” Philip pointed out, evenly. He was growing confused by the relationship between Captain Rican and his Cleric. Surely the Cleric was in charge…and yet, Captain Rican seemed happy to allow him to embarrass himself, while watching from the sidelines. “You have the right to supply observers, but…”

“The Commonwealth did not honour that requirement at <st1:City w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Cadiz</st1lace></st1:City>,” the Cleric said, coldly. “We will not honour it here. Show us these men, so that we may check that they are alive and well in your custody, so that we may pray for their safe return…”

Philip nodded slowly and led them over to the one-way window. The Cleric let out a shriek of horror as soon as he saw their injuries, spluttering away again in the Theocracy’s language. He wasn't to know that Philip had taken the precaution of recording everything that happened in the chamber and would have it translated later – if there was a later. Captain Rican seemed more amused than annoyed, although it was hard to tell. His superiors were even less forgiving than Admiral Morrison…

…Who, if there was any truth to the Theocracy’s claims, had kidnapped a Theocratic princess and taken her to the Commonwealth. Philip privately didn’t believe a word of it; Admiral Morrison couldn’t have found his own cock without help from a navigation officer, let alone carry out a snatch-and-grab mission on Abdullah itself. It was far more likely that the Theocracy was trying to create an excuse for war – and someone on Abdullah had dreamed up the whole story as part of a plan to ‘prove’ that the Commonwealth had started the fighting. No one in their right mind would believe that such a story was true.

Philip took a breath and gambled, praying that his suspicions and instincts were correct. “Let’s stop talking around the issue, shall we?” He asked Captain Rican, who seemed inclined to agree. “We have checked and re-checked the DNA residue and we are confident that we have the guilty men. If you wish, you may send down one of your own doctors to confirm our results – which, you should know, the Albion Conventions permit. However, because their crimes were against the civilians on this planet, we have a right to try them on this planet.”

“You have no rights over our men,” the Cleric thundered, angrily. “You will hand them over or we will bombard your planet back into the Stone Age!”

“Except then the entire galaxy would know what you tried to pull,” Philip said. He was still looking at Captain Rican. “I believe that these two thugs were ordered to create an incident that could be used to justify annexing this world. You haven’t sent down any other ‘ordinary crewmen’ so I suspect that they are really working for one of your secret services. And the reports – everything from their capture to the DNA results, and everything that happens in this chamber – are being broadcast to a ship ready to slip into hyperspace and escape.”

He kept his eyes fixed on the Captain. “That ship will go directly to Hsu, where it will download the reports to the courier ships based there, and then it will head onwards to the nearest StarCom unit,” he continued. “Everyone who has an interest in this sector will know that you tried to create an incident on Asher Dales – and you know that there are at least four other major interstellar powers that have interests on their own in this sector. Do you really wish to convince them to send more ships here, or to support the Commonwealth if war does break out?”

“They would not believe you,” the Cleric said, flatly. “Do you really expect that your cowardly evasions would save you from just punishment for your crimes against true believers?”

Philip smiled back. “Can you afford to take the chance of getting more interstellar powers alarmed about your intentions?” He countered. “Do you really want to win here and lose elsewhere?”

Captain Rican held up a hand before the Cleric could say another word. “I take your point, Commodore,” he said, firmly. “Perhaps I could have a few words with my…errant personnel?”

“Of course you may,” Philip said. He opened the door. Both men looked up, and then cringed away when they saw their commanding officer. They’d failed – and the Theocracy tended to regard failure as punishment from God. The converse of ‘God helps those who help themselves’ was ‘God doesn’t help those who expect Him to do all the work.’ “I’m sorry about their injuries, but…”

Captain Rican ignored him, striding up to the first captive and drawing a curved blade from his belt. Philip watched, shocked, as he sliced the captive’s throat wide open and left him bleeding out on the table. The second captive started to plead frantically with Captain Rican, but his former commanding officer ignored him too, executing him in the same manner. There had to have been something on the blade, part of Philip’s mind noted dispassionately; the blood seemed to be flowing freely, without congealing at all. The former captives gasped helplessly as they bled out and died, the Cleric murmuring something under his breath as they breathed their last. Captain Rican studied the bloodstained blade for a long moment, and then wiped it slowly and painstakingly on a cloth he’d produced from a small pouch on his belt. As soon as it was clean, he returned the blade to its concealed scabbard.

“The Theocracy does not permit such scrum to enlist within its ranks and remain sinners,” Captain Rican said. His tone was almost conversational, but Philip had the odd impression that he was addressing the Cleric as much as he was Philip and Marie. “It is the duty of their commanding officer to purify them and – should they fail to meet the high standards expected of them – to purge them from the Theocracy. I trust that you will consider the guilty parties to have been punished for their crimes?”

Philip nodded, still shocked. A Commonwealth Captain did – as a final resort – have the authority to order a member of his crew executed, but it was rarely used – Philip had certainly never had to invoke that particular authority. Captain Rican had cut the Gordian knot rather nicely, he had to admit. The rapists had been punished and whatever they might have told their Commonwealth interrogators had been lost with them.

“I will, for which I think you,” Philip said, finally. Something had passed between Captain Rican and his Cleric, but what? A power struggle or something much more serious, perhaps something that would impact on the oncoming war? “Do you wish the bodies to be returned to you?”

“I think not,” Captain Rican said. He didn’t sound concerned. “As unbelievers, the proof of their apostasy found in their deeds, they have no place in the walls of honour, no hope of rising among the honoured dead. Bury them here or burn their bodies or throw them into the primary star – we do not care. We will be leaving your world shortly.”

With that, he swept out majestically, his Cleric following in his wake. Philip watched him go, and then breathed a long sigh of relief. They’d won – or had they? He’d known that they couldn’t have won if Captain Rican had attacked Asher Dales, rather than talking – and killing two of his own crew. It simply didn’t make sense; the rapists might have been part of a deliberate provocation, or they might have simply decided to have some fun. And their own commanding officer had murdered – executed – them in cold blood.

He shook his head. It simply didn’t make sense.

***​

Three hours later, he stood on Dasher’s bridge as the Warrior of the Lord opened a vortex and vanished into hyperspace. He’d expected something – an attack, demands of some kind – but instead they’d just left. Thwarted, or…what? There was no way to know for sure.

“They’re gone, sir,” Harmon reported. He hesitated. “We could send Dancer to shadow her…”

“Not a good idea,” Philip said, reluctantly. It was a good idea – and, if he’d had more ships, he would have adopted it. “General signal; I want all commanding officers to meet with me via holographic communications network, one hour from now.”

“Aye, sir,” Harmon said.

Philip nodded and returned to his own thoughts.

 

OK, that's enough time off

 

Quite right.


Chapter Thirty<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />



“I think we all know why we are here,” Philip said. The holographic conference was as secure asthe latest (obtainable) security gear had been able to make it. No one from Asher Dales had been invited tothe conference. “There is a very definiteTheocracy presence in this sector. If wedidn’t know that before the heavy cruiser showed up, we sure as hell donow. And that raises a question.”



His gaze swept from image to image. “What the hell do we do now?”



He held up a hand before anyone could speak. “As I see it, the Theocracy is backingpirates in this sector with two separate objectives; weaken the interest of theoutside universe in this sector and running arms to dissident groups on variouscolony worlds. God knows there’s alwayssomeone dissatisfied with the status quo, even on Avalon. The Theocrats wouldn’t have any problemsfinding and supporting such a group. Wehave to assume that that’s what they did on <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comffice:smarttags" /><st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Jordan</st1lace></st1:country-region>.”



“<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Jordan</st1lace></st1:country-region>did have a large population ofrefugees from the Theocracy,” Captain Schifrin reminded him. “Chances are that the version of events weheard from the Theocrat bastard is largely accurate. They’ve certainly had a fair amount ofpractice at subverting political systems and then abolishing them.”



Philip nodded. “Ican’t disagree with that,” he agreed. “Furthermore, we have this absurd claim that the Commonwealth kidnappeda Theocracy princess…”



“You’d think they could come up with something a bit moreplausible if they’re laying the groundwork for a war,” Marie sneered. “Even a person who knows almost nothing aboutthe Holy Joes will know that they have a very limited idea of a woman’splace. Barefoot, pregnant and in thekitchen – not serving on starships, not like civilised planets. They have to have come up with the mostoutrageous story possible.”



“Unless they counted on the very unlikelihood of the storyas a way to convince people sitting on the fence,” Nonagon pointed out,mildly. “It’s such an absurd story thatit pretty much has to be true.”



“It doesn’t matter,” Philip said. He frowned down at the display, which wasshowing transit times from Avalon to Asher Dales – and transit times betweenseveral other stars where they might pick up news from the Commonwealth. “We have to assume that war is imminent – infact, that it might already have been declared. It will be at least three weeks before we hear anything from theCommonwealth, or any of the other independent colonies in the direction of thewar front. The war may have startedalready and we wouldn’t know anything about it.”



“They won’t know anything about it either,” Nonagon pointedout. “They wouldn’t have risked settingup an FTL communications station out here, not where they couldn’t defend itwithout a major – and detectable – commitment. Chances are that they’re just as much in the dark as we are.”



“Which may be why they backed down from pressing the issueof the two rapists,” Philip said, flatly. “Does anyone have any reason for assuming that that wasn't a put-upjob?”



“Just one,” Marie said. “Why use two men in such an operation when they won’t be able to repeatit? I was expecting them to press theissue and bully Asher Dales into granting them basing rights in exchange fornot blasting the settlement back into orbit. Why didn’t they push the issue?”



“The war may not have begun,” Philip said. “They may have felt that if we provedresistant to their bullying, they might as well write the two men off andforget the issue, rather than risk involving other interstellar powers in thissector.”



“Charming way of dealing with it,” Nonagon commented,dryly. “Do you think the two bastardsknew that they were going to be executed by their own commander?”



“I think they might have suspected something,” Philipagreed. “But then…they wouldn’t wantthem talking to us, would they? Whoknows what they might tell us?”



He cleared his throat. “But we’re getting away from the issue at hand,” he continued. “They have effectively invited us to visit <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Jordan</st1lace></st1:country-region>; Iintend to take them up on their offer. We’ll take the heavy colonist-carrier we liberated from the pirate baseand use it to transport anyone who wants to leave <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Jordan</st1lace></st1:country-region>, rather than experience thejoys of the Theocratic paradise. And…we’re also going to be taking along one of the smaller scoutships. I want someone watching thesystem that cannot be silenced in a hurry.”



Marie’s image leaned forward. “I would like to address another issue,” shesaid, firmly. “I was informed thatthis…whole outfit would be operating as an independent force, rather than partof the RAN. Commodore – are we doing theCommonwealth’s dirty work out here?”



Philip shook his head. “As far as I know, all of us are working directly for Asher Dales, firstand foremost,” he said. “I have noconnection with any Commonwealth intelligence service – and, to the best of myknowledge, no one else within the squadron has any active connectioneither. However, if the Theocracy is intent on annexing this sector, I donot intend to leave the Commonwealth uninformed of this danger.”



“But that assumes they can do anything about it,” Nonagonsaid, grimly. “They’re not likely tospare a squadron of heavy cruisers with support ships – and that’s what we’llneed if we have to fight their big bastard. Our three ships will be shot to pieces before they can get into energyweapons range of the brute.”



“True,” Philip agreed. In fact, he had a series of ideas that might allow the squadron – oncethe pirate ships were refitted and crews trained from the captured merchant spacers– to at least hold its own. But Nonagonwas right. They were going to get theirasses soundly kicked even if they won. “Butwe do have to warn them. In the longterm, a strong Theocratic presence in this sector means that the Commonwealthwill be threatened from two different borders. And that will be disastrous.”



“Not if they can’t hold their new territories,” Mariepointed out. “We could certainly makelife miserable for any would-be Theocratic settlers on Asher Dales.”



“They’d only need to drop a hundred thousand or so settlersand they’d have an unbeatable demographic advantage,” Philip countered. “There simply isn’t a high average populationwithin this sector. A few millionsettlers all armed and trained according to Theocratic doctrine would be ableto hold every planet in the sector – and that would give them a claim thatwould probably be accepted by the other powers.”



“Not if they’re invading entire star systems,” Nonagondisagreed. “The rest of the Human Spherewouldn’t stand for it.”



“Perhaps,” Philip said. “But they’ve shown a certain reluctance to confront the Theocracy sofar, haven’t they?” He shook hishead. “I think we have to assume thatwe’re on our own – and in that case, we have to get ready for the day when theTheocracy takes off the gloves and moves in by force.”



He held up his fingers and started to count off points, oneby one. “Their plan appears to be tofund dissident groups on the various colony worlds to allow them to take overthe government,” he said. “<st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Jordan</st1lace></st1:country-region> mighthave just been a warm-up exercise to allow them to test the concept, or theymight have been unable to control events from Abdullah as precisely as theyhoped. They probably have the sameproblems with Admirals who think they can micromanage events from hundreds oflight years away as we do.”



“Let’s hope so,” Marie commented. “They’re doing damn well so far.”



“Once they take over the governments, the dissidents invitethe Theocracy in and allow them to establish bases within their systems,” Philipcontinued. “The Theocracy moves in a fewthousand new settlers, shoots the previous governments for gross stupidity andthen takes over openly – all nice and legal. That gives us two separate problems; their naval presence within thesector and their dissident groups. Wehave to assume that one such group is active on Asher Dales.”



There was a long silence. Philip wasn’t too surprised. Spacers liked thinking of their home ports as friendly, even when eventssuggested otherwise. Asher Dales didn’thave anything like the military or civil police forces on Avalon; a handful ofwell-armed dissidents could take the single large city, execute the council anddeclare itself the ruler of the planet before anyone could prevent it. And the squadron’s ability to influenceevents on the ground was limited. Philipsuspected that launching armoured Marines down to the city wouldn’t bewell-received, even if they did save the council from an illegal coup.



“But we don’t know that,” Nonagon protested. “They might have chosen to leave Asher Dalesalone.”



“Absence of proof is not proof of absence,” Marie countered,darkly. “The Commodore’s right, sir;it’s precisely how the Theocracy has been known to operate in the past.”



“But I’ve been in orbit for most of three months,” Nonagonsaid. “My sensor techs have beenexpanding our traffic control network ever since we pulled components out ofcaptured vessels that could be turned into makeshift satellites. We’ve picked up no trace of any shuttlelandings outside the main city or communications between their ship and theground…”



“They might have moved the weapons to Asher Dales before wearrived,” Philip pointed out. Nonagonhad a point, but he didn’t dare believe him. Given a certain amount of luck, even a civilian-grade stealth systemwould allow the pirates to get close to Asher Dales wouldn’t being detected –and if they managed to drop their cargo into the atmosphere, it wouldn’t beclassified as anything other than a random meteor shower. “And if they used communications lasers, wewouldn’t be able to pick up any transmissions shared between their heavycruiser and the ground. We have toassume the worst.



“I want all of our boys and girls on the ground to goarmed,” he continued. “Remind them thatAsher Dales is friendly, but it may become a great deal less so. Marie – talk to the Sheriff and see if youcan convince him to separate the spaceport from the rest of the city, as wellas beefing up their internal protections. Right now, a simple kinetic strike will wipe out their entiregovernment. We need to avoid giving thema chance to take over without a fight.



“In orbit, I want us to remain on alert. No one gets onto the ships without permission– it’s a pity we can’t vet the former captives, so I want them escorted if theyhappen to board one of the destroyers. Keep moving supplies from the <st1:city w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Nancy</st1lace></st1:city>and scattering them in hiding placesall over the system. The last thing weneed is to lose our ability to rearm our ships when the **** hits the fan. Keep an eye on the local recruits as well –take note of anyone who seems more curious about our security than anythingelse.”



“Most of them are curious about everything,” Nonagonadmitted, grudgingly. “They’re goodkids, sir, but they sure do know how to get everywhere. I’ve had to send shuttles after severalFlying Dutchmen – it’s sheer blind luck that no one was killed. Give them a proper run through Piker’s Peakor the Trade Centres and they’d make great spacers – as it is, we’re trainingthem with more hands-on experience than I’d prefer. Some of them have even started talking aboutsigning on for apprentices if they wash out of the defence force. They feel that they could trade their serviceon a merchant ship in exchange for experience and an adventure.”



“Kids,” Philip agreed. He shook his head. He’d never hador wanted kids, but there was something about such infectious enthusiasm thatmade him smile. Perhaps Tanya wantedkids…they’d never talked about such things; hell, he didn’t even know how shefelt about him. Or he felt about her,for that matter. The lust was there, butwas he truly in love…he pushed the thought aside, angrily. There was no time for such silliness. “That leads neatly to the third point. How many of the captured ships could you getonline within three weeks?”



Nonagon paused, considering. As the commander of recovery efforts, he’d supervised the liberatedcaptives and helped them find niches within the defence force or down on thesurface. Many of them had experiencethat could come in useful, although too many of them wanted to forget thatthey’d ever been pirate captives. Philipcouldn’t blame them for that, but still…he needed those men. Their experience might make the differencebetween victory or death for his squadron.



“Roughly fifteen,” Nonagon said, finally. “It depends on how you define online; they’llfly and they’ll fight, but God alone knows how well they’ll hold together oncewe take them to full military power. Their weapons systems aren’t particularly modern either; one ship, aformer UN-designed scout, can only fire one missile at a time. I’ll have to give you a fuller report oncewe’ve actually started working them up.”



He paused, just for a moment. “The people who inhabited the asteroids beforethe pirates arrived are wizards,” he added. “They had a whole string of ideas for improving the ships; they justnever handed them over to the pirates. One of them involves bolting missile pods to the side of commercialhulls – a one-shot weapon, but one that would give their target a nastysurprise. There are several ships thatare fit only for the breakers, yet they’re insistent that they could give themsome real punch. I think that we shouldtake the chance, sir. We need every edgewe can get, but we also need a real shipyard.”



“We may be getting one soon,” Philip said. How long had it been since he’d dispatched ateam to blackmail <st1:city w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Quincy</st1lace></st1:city>into moving himself and his operation out to Asher Dales? They should be on their way back now, unless <st1:city w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Quincy</st1lace></st1:city> had decided totake the easy way out and put a bullet through his head. His heirs would have to fight over theownership of the yard, assuming it wasn’t simply confiscated by the lawenforcement agencies as being funded by pirates or enemy agents. “But for the moment we’ll have to make dowith what we’ve got.”



He smiled. “Dasher will be proceeding alone to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Jordan</st1lace></st1:country-region>, whichleaves Dancer escorting twofreighters to Hsu,” he continued. Helooked over at Schifrin, who scowled. “Iknow; you’ve been there once already, but they do have an embassy there that wecan use to pass on a message to the Commonwealth. Repatriating some of their spacers should winus some goodwill as well. Don’t wait around though; if there’s no one headingtowards Asher Dales, come back alone.”



“Aye, sir,” Schifrin said. “I can be ready to depart in one hour, once I recall some of my crewfrom leave.”



“Take your time,” Philip said. “I’ll take Dasher out in five hours; you can escort us into hyperspace andthen alter course once we’re outside the system. We may as well try to confuse any watchingeyes nearby.”



The thought made him scowl. It was quite likely that the Warriorof the Lord had dropped stealthy sensor platforms – or even a smallstarship – somewhere within the Asher Dales System, where they could beaccessed by incoming starships without arousing suspicions on the planet’ssurface. There was no way to find them,however, even with the latest sensor detection gear produced by theCommonwealth. The systems they had beenable to obtain wouldn’t be able to track first-rank Commonwealth or Theocraticstealth systems.



“Apart from that,” he concluded, “is there any otherbusiness?” He waited, but no onespoke. “Just remember – we may be at warsoon and if that happens, the Theocracy may regard Asher Dales as a legitimatetarget. Watch your backs; don’t goanywhere unarmed and keep a sharp eye out for trouble. Good luck to us all.”



He tapped a key, shutting down the secure communicationlinks, and watched as the holographic images faded out of existence. It was easy to feel alone again, hundreds oflight years from the Commonwealth; hundreds of light years from the supportingsafety net he’d known and trusted back when he’d been a serving officer in theRoyal Avalon Navy. Now…he was alone,with only a makeshift squadron and a large number of untrained or inexperiencedcrewmen…



“You wanted independent command,” he told himself savagely,as he stood up. The display wasindicating that someone – Tanya – had sent him a message. “So stop bitching and get on with the job.”

***​

“Take us out of here,” Philip ordered.



The vortex flared to life in front of Dasher, allowing the massive colonist-carrier to precede her escortinto hyperspace. It was a ship out ofthe early days of interstellar settlement, built by the UN to serve as atransport for hundreds of thousands of – sometimes unwilling – settlers. Watching her gave Philip a chill, knowingjust how bulky and slow she was compared to the average Commonwealth – or Theocratic– starship. She would be an easy targetif it came down to a fight.



He felt his stomach lurch as Dasher followed the colonist-carrier into hyperspace, followedrapidly by two freighters and Dancer. Philip hoped – prayed – that she would reachHsu and then return swiftly, before the war began. He could feel it pressing down on him, theawareness that peace was fading away. The Theocracy might have invaded <st1:city w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Cadiz</st1lace></st1:city>by now…



“Vortex closing,” Raphael Kuntz reported. He’d been tapped for command of one of thecaptured pirate ships, but Philip had borrowed him for the flight to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Jordan</st1lace></st1:country-region>. There was almost no data on hyperspaceconditions between Asher Dales and Jordan, something that worried him – or washe just jumping at shadows. “Sir?”



“Take us to <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Jordan</st1lace></st1:country-region>,”Philip ordered. At least they knew that the Theocracy had a starshipwithin the sector. But was the heavycruiser the only starship at <st1:country-region w:st="on"><st1lace w:st="on">Jordan</st1lace></st1:country-region>? “And signal goodbye to Dancer. We’ll see them againsoon.”



And he hoped to God that he was right.

 

Chapter Thirty-One<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />



“You may find this distressing,” Philip warned. “I’m rather surprised that you wanted tocome.”



Tanya shrugged. “Myfather wants a report,” she said, “and besides, I wanted to be somewhere elsefor a while.”



Philip didn't blame her. The arrival of the Theocracy had upset a great many people on AsherDales – including people who had been already upset because of the duel betweenPhilip and Tam Farnham. Philip hadn't seenanything of Tam after he’d left the hospital, but it was clear that thewhispering had only been growing louder. Tanya had effectively moved her quarters to Nancy and started handling her business from the freighter, eventhrough Philip had tried to talk her out of it. And she’d insisted on accompanying him to Jordan.



The flight from Asher Dales to Jordan should have taken onlytwo days, but Philip had chosen to follow a slightly skewed route that hadadded an extra day onto their flight time. He’d hoped that it would give them a chance to scope out the level ofTheocratic activity in hyperspace near Jordan, but it had been a long shot atbest and they’d detected nothing. Thosewho didn't understand the realities of travel through hyperspace would probablyhave questioned his decision, yet another reason to be grateful that he was –effectively – the CO for the entire squadron. There would be few beancounters disturbing his men with pointlessquestions that only showed their ignorance.



He led her back to the bridge, resuming command of hisship. Tanya had no formal training forservice on a starship, but the Asher Dales Council had given her permission toserve as an Ambassador to the Theocracy and that granted her the right to remainon the bridge during the arrival at Jordan. The RAN attempted to prevent most ambassadors from actually invokingthose rights – ambassadors tended to expect bridge crew to jump at their merestwhim – but Tanya would be sensible. He’dwarned her not to disturb his crew on the approach to Jordan. Besides, having her there felt right.



“Vortex generator online,” Harmon reported. Philip nodded and braced himself. “Vortex opening...now.”



Hyperspace twisted into a funnel of light that faded intothe darkness of normal space. Philip haddeliberately selected an exit point some distance from Jordan itself, closeenough for him to deploy a handful of makeshift stealth sensor platforms of hisown. The Theocracy would have problemsdetecting them, he’d been assured, but he still wasn't going to deploy them anycloser to Jordan than absolutely necessary. There was too much at stake to risk causing an interstellar incident.



“Vortex closing,” Harmon reported, as the colonist-carrierfollowed Dasher out of hyperspace. There was something ungainly about themassive – and largely automated – ship, something that reminded Philip that shewas a sitting duck. “I am picking uplong-range sensor pulses from Jordan’s orbit, sir. They’re not trying to hide.”



Philip nodded, slowly. Jordan would have been a marginal system in the Commonwealth, althoughthey could probably have been assured of a reasonable lifestyle if they’dworked to develop their new homeworld. It lacked the gas giant that made many star systems profitable,suggesting that the settlers would have to import HE3 from other star systemsto power their fusion reactors and space-based industry. The absence of such a gas giant had probablypleased the settlers no end, once they’d worked out that it meant that theirsystem would always be a backwater. Theywouldn't be forced to have any contact with the outside universe.



The files hadn't been too clear – even the CIS hadn't takenmuch interest in Jordan until it had become clear that the Theocratic refugeeson the planet’s surface might constitute a majority – but they had suggestedthat most of the original settlers belonged to an obscure sect that believedthat humanity had abused Earth and that the only true way to live was toabandon technology and return to the soil. It wasn't an uncommon delusion – Philip knew several other planets thathad started out with the same idea – yet Jordan had a particularly nasty stingin the tail. When the settlers returnedto technology, there would always be limits on their growth. If they’d been within the Commonwealth, orany other high-tech society, they’d probably see a steady stream of youngsters leavingas the benefits of modern technology became apparent to those forced toscrabble in the soil to survive. Thattoo was not an uncommon pattern. Anumber of such governments had been toppled because they’d tried to placebarriers in the way of emigrants choosing to leave their homes.



He studied the display as the sensor readings came in,slowly and gradually. Jordan had had nospace presence at all – which rather surprised him when he remembered that they’dbeen one of the planets that had supported the squadron’s establishment – and theonly orbiting starships were clearly from the Theocracy. Two were bulk freighters of a design that hadbeen in the public domain for centuries; the third was the heavy cruiser thathad visited Asher Dales. Philip scowledat the red icon as it pulsed in orbit around a planet that had closed its eyesand ears to the outside universe. Theoutside universe hadn’t taken the hint.



“They just swept us,” Harmon reported. Philip shrugged. The Theocracy would have detected theirarrival, unless their sensor tech was several decades behind the Commonwealth’scivilian-grade gear. He would have beenastonished if they hadn't been detected the moment they’d returned to normalspace. “Formal challenge; they want toknow who we are and what we’re doing here.”



“Transmit our IFF and inform them that we are coming tovisit Jordan, as invited,” Philip said. Despite himself, he was concerned; theinvitation could have been a trap. Itwas hard to see how the Theocracy benefited from isolating and destroying Dasher, but they might have a plan thatcalled for crippling the squadron. “Andask them if we could speak with a representative of the planetary government.”



That was a gamble,but there was no other choice. Under theAlbion Conventions, visiting warships were expected to obey orders from theplanetary government – even if the government had no way of enforcing itsposition. Jordan’s exact legal statuswould be in some dispute, Philip suspected, particularly if he was watching anendgame slowly unfolding. Would theTheocracy choose to honour the conventions in a ploy to ensure that they gainedthe same advantages when they visited other systems, or would they insist onnaked force?



He shook his head as the reply flickered up on thescenes. All interstellar relationshipswere based on naked force. The interstellarconventions existed merely to try to prevent the more powerful states fromoverawing their weaker neighbours. They weren'tsuccessful, not in any case that actually mattered...



“They’ve given us a parking orbit,” Harmon said. “Apparently – and I quote – the planetarygovernment of Jordan has assigned responsibility for system command and controlto the Theocracy’s warship.”



“That’s absurd,” Tanya said. “I know – I knew – Elder Davis. He would never have sold his beliefs out so...so blatantly.”



“Maybe the new Elders have different ideas,” Philip said,mildly. “Why did Davis cooperate with fundingthe squadron?”



“Jordan got hit with a pirate raid three years ago,” Tanyasaid. “The bastards abducted a couple ofhundred girls from a school and took them into space – we may have liberated afew when we hit their base. Elder Davisrefused to provide any manpower or material support, but he did manage to giveus access to some bank accounts the Elders had put in storage for a rainy day.”



“And then he lost his world to the Theocrats,” Philip said,shaking his head. “Why did they agree totake them in the first place?”



“They have a tradition of taking everyone who was willing toworship Mother Nature,” Tanya explained. “They don’t get many takers, so...when a few refugees signalled thatthey would be willing to worship, the Elders were delighted. It wasn't until after the refugees landedthat they realised that they might have made a mistake, but what could they doabout it? Commit genocide byslaughtering every refugee who ever escaped the Theocracy?”



“They might not have had any choice,” Philip said. One thing that humanity should have learnedfrom its own history was that putting different ethnic, national or religious groupsin confined quarters – and then refusing to force them to blend into one group –was a very bad idea. There were severalplanets which had developed nations shortly after the UN or the foundingcorporation withdrew from political life. They tended to end up fighting old wars time and time again, rather thanpeacefully developing their prosperity. “Andnow they’ve lost everything.”



He looked up at the helmsman. “Take us into orbit,” he ordered. “Let’s see what they have to show us that wasso important they specifically invited us here to see it.”

***​

The shuttle tore its way through the planetary atmosphere, headingdown towards Happy Valley. According toTanya, the Elders had created a network of smaller villages and farms ratherthan attempting to develop larger communities, believing that largercommunities led to social disintegration. It reminded Philip of Asher Dales, but unlike Asher Dales the Elders hadbeen intent on removing all technology from their world. They only maintained the systems in HappyValley with the help of off-planet technicians who served for one year beforebeing replaced. It didn’t sound like a goodplace to live.



Surprisingly, Happy Valley didn't look all that bad fromabove. It had been made by old-fashionedmethods, using human and animal labour rather than cranes and antigravityplatforms, but most of the homes looked happy and contented. The only glaring omission became clearer thelower the shuttle flew; there were only a handful of humans within view. There were colossal herds of sheep, cattleand horses – enough that Philip suspected that the Elders had bought gene-modifiedanimals, a staple on many newly-settled worlds – but very few actualhumans. The town looked deserted.



Tanya let out a cry as the shuttle came to a hover over thelanding beacon. “They blew up the statues,”she said. “I loved those statues!”



Philip looked up at her, surprised. “They used to have a statue of the Good Godand Goddess – the Lord of the Sky and Mother of the Land – right there, rightin the heart of their community,” Tanya said, bitterly. “I used to admire them because they’d beencarved with nothing more complex than hand tools and a great deal of sweat andblood – but they’re gone.”



“The Theocracy would probably have considered them blasphemous,”Philip said, as the shuttle touched down on the single landing pad. “They have a habit of destroying religious infrastructureon planets they control – anything that isn’t part of the True Faith getsdestroyed, if they can't incorporate it into their own structure. Churches, temples and mosques get convertedinto places of worship...and to hell with the feelings of the locals. They don’t count as long as they refuse toaccept the true faith.”



The shuttle hatch opened, allowing the first breath of airto come drifting into the cabin. It waswarm and fresh, although there was a hint of something in the air that Philip didn'tparticularly like. There had been acolony world, back in the days before the Breakaway Wars, that had hosted aform of life that had propagated by means of airborne pollen. It had rapidly colonised the settlers bodiesand killed them before new nanotechnology had been used to counter the threat,but eventually the world had been abandoned and quarantined. There were even some people who believed thatthe pollen-based lifeform had been intelligent and possessing people was itsway to communicate. It was notable thatthose people had never visited the planet and never would.



He stepped outside into the open air. On the ground, the buildings looked much moreimpressive than he had expected, although they were clearly primitive. This was not a culture that placed much valueon private property, he deduced; few of the buildings seemed to have any locks,or even complete doors. A simple half-doorseemed to define a line beyond which no one could cross, at least withoutpermission. He could imagine housewivessitting by the door, chatting to their neighbours – or young boys being separatedfrom the girls by a partition that existed more in their minds than inreality. It might have made a decentcommunity if its inhabitants had chosen to live there freely, but Philip wouldhave never been content in such a place. He had been born to stand on the bridge of a starship, commanding thevessel as she moved between the stars.



“It’s really quite impressive, is it not?” A voice asked. Philip turned to see Captain Rican standingbeside one of the abandoned houses. There was another man beside him, a younger man whose face bore thescars of a lifetime’s fighting. Philipguessed, from his homespun clothing, that he’d been one of the refugees who’dserved as a Trojan Horse. “Given thelimitations on their technology, they were really quite determined to build asmuch as they did.”



Tanya stepped forward, her thin frame trembling withanger. “What have you done to them?” She demanded. Philip put a hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off, unwilling toback down to the Theocrats. “Where arethey?”



“Most of them refused to accept that their world had becomea province of the True Faith through a honest election,” the younger mansaid. His voice was gruff; he eyed Tanyaas if he expected her to faint at any moment. If he’d been raised among the Theocracy, he would probably have absorbedthe idea of a woman’s proper place – at least according to the True Faith. Any woman who didn't know her place would beconsidered a harlot, or someone who had to be beaten into her place until shelearned her lesson. “We were forced toremove them from their homes and confine them until you arrived to take themaway from our world. They seemed veryreluctant to accept that the rules had changed...”



“You took their world,” Tanya snapped. “How did you expect them to react to you?”



“The opinion of an infidel – or a state of infidels – is ofno account to us,” the man said, flatly. “They were not making good use of the planet God gave them, so we hadthe right to take it from them and redevelop it according to our lights. We offered them a place among the elect andthey refused to accept it; instead, they chose to leave rather than fight. They have no fire to make their own place inthe universe.”



The hell of it, Philip knew, was that the Theocracy had beensincere when it had offered Jordan’s settlers a place among them, provided thatthey accepted the True Faith. They didn'tseem to hold birth against any of the converts, often allowing a convert torise as high as someone who had been born to the faith. But they would have punished apostasy harshlyand anyone who tried to fake a conversion would have been lucky only to bebeaten to death. They didn't stand forregression once someone had accepted the faith.



But then, the Theocracy wasn't a decent place to live. The True Faith might provide a distractionfor the masses, who might otherwise realise just how badly they were beingscrewed by their lords and masters. Philip had seen classified intelligence documents that suggested thatthe previous Caliph had had tastes for little boys and girls – and that thecurrent Caliph was a young man with a young man’s lust for glory. Dangerous enough in any position, but utterlydisastrous when the young man was the absolute master of an interstellar empire. There was nothing fake about the Caliph’sposition. He was the ruler of all he surveyed.



“But we didn't come here to discuss that,” Captain Ricansaid, before the argument could grow any worse. “We wish to discuss, perhaps over dinner, the status of the squadronbased on Asher Dales. As the newgovernment of Jordan, we do have a stake in your squadron.”



Philip controlled his face with an effort. “The squadron may operate according to ageneralised directive,” he said, “but it has been established that operationalcontrol resides firmly with its officers and men. We do not follow orders from hideboundplanetary governments who do not understand the realities of operations inspace.”



For a moment, he felt a sense of kinship with Captain Rican,who seemed to understand perfectly. Theyounger man spluttered with rage, as if he hadn't even considered thepossibility that Philip would reject their claim on the squadron., In truth, Philip wasn't sure if the Theocracyhad seriously expected Philip to just hand over the squadron – only a verystupid Theocrat could believe anything of the sort – or if they were merelyplaying psychological warfare games with his mind. The war, presumably, hadn't been declared –at least as far as they knew.



“We paid for your ships,” the younger man said,finally. “You owe us...”



“Nothing,” Philip said. “I can have my accountants run it up for you if you like, but Jordan’s contributionto the squadron came out of bank accounts that were created prior to thearrival of the Theocracy on Jordan. Ifyou wish to claim ownership of the bank accounts, I’m afraid that that willhave to be sorted out with the Bank of Mars...”



Captain Rican held up a hand. “Very good, Captain,” he said,seriously. “Perhaps I could invite youto share dinner with us? You welcomed usto Asher Dales and I would like to return the invitation. And perhaps we can discuss politics over thefood?”



“Of course,” Philip agreed. “I’m sure that we have much to discuss.”

 

Chapter Thirty-Two<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />



Dinner was a depressingly surreal affair.



The Theocracy’s male servants had laid a small table withbowls and five flat plates. Each of thebowls contained a different kind of meat, marinated in a different kind ofsauce and surrounded by lettuce and cucumber. The meal was eaten with bread and water, rather than rice or anythingmore common to the Commonwealth. It wasenjoyable, Philip reluctantly concluded, but only in small doses. One particular sauce was so spicy that hecould barely swallow more than a tiny spoonful of it, even with the meat. The salad helped to cool the fires somewhatafterwards, thankfully. They hadn’tbothered to provide yogurt or something else that might have quelled the spice,although he couldn’t decide if it was simple absent-mindedness or deliberateinsult.



“Rather an odd selection of foods,” Tanya said, after themale servants had withdrawn. She soundedbrittle, as if she was trying to irritate the Theocrats. “I would expect something more akin to Ramadan’sfavourite foods.”



“The Theocracy prides itself on assimilating all mannerof useful information from all over the Human Sphere,” Captain Rican said. He seemed more amused than offended by hercomment. “We never considered ourselvesto be restricted to one particular source of ideas – if all religions holdfragments of the truth, how can we refuse to admit the value of other ideasfrom the outside universe? Food ismerely a minor way of creating a harmonious union of humanity under the TrueFaith.”



He picked up a piece of meat with his fingers – nocutlery had been provided – and pressed it into a piece of bread. “We may have originated in Old Earth’s MiddleEast – the home of all major religions – but we’re hardly bound by theirrules. The Founder saw himself chargedwith creating a religion that absorbed all of the fragments of truth into onesingle community. We didn’t start thewars that forced us to fight for our very existence.”



“But the other religions found you a threat,” Philippointed out, mildly. “They unitedagainst you.”



“And we fought back,” Captain Rican agreed. “Eventually, we realised that we couldn’tlive in peace with religions and societies that regarded us as a threat. We would have to teach them to submit to usand then join us…do you know why Islam spread so rapidly into Ancient India?”



Philip shook his head. “The Indians had a caste system that ensured that no one could riseabove their predetermined position in life,” Captain Rican said,dispassionately. Philip wassurprised. The last he’d heard, theTheocracy had never encouraged the study of history – he made a mental note tolook it up once he was back on his ship. “The ones who happened to be born with darker skins found themselvespermanently in thrall to their lighter-skinned counterparts. Islam offered them a community that didn’tjudge by skin colour – and so many of them chose to convert…”



“Sparking off a whole series of religious conflicts thatcontinued until Old Earth was devastated,” Philip said.



“Quite,” Captain Rican agreed. “But we drew our early converts from allhuman religions. Former Christians,Muslims and Jews – or Hindus – could accept the True Faith and join a communitythat replaced their degraded communities. We never sought to force ourselves on anyone until they tried to crushus – we would have united the Earth in the True Faith if the UN hadn’t exiledus to Abdullah. And there is no reasonwhy we cannot absorb good ideas from the Commonwealth, or the Sol System, oreven the Freehold.”



Philip had to smile. The Freehold was a single-star political system, neutral in all of thegalactic power struggles that ebbed and flowed around it. It was also a byword for loose living becausethere were no restraints on individual pleasures, as long as non-consentingadults and children didn’t get hurt. Avalon had a similar moral bent – or lack thereof – but there wereplenty of unspoken taboos. The Freeholdhad no such obstacles to indulging one’s self with unspeakable pleasures. It was commonly believed that the Theocracywould probably destroy the Freehold from orbit if it ever reached their starsystem.



“We believe that success is proof of God’s approval,”Captain Rican continued. “If someonesucceeds, even if that person lives outside the Theocracy, why should we notwelcome him into our fold? Why should werefuse to use ideas merely because they come from outside the purified worldsof the Theocracy?”



Philip gave the question serious consideration. “I used to be on patrol near the border,” hesaid. It was rather flattering toconsider that the Theocracy might have kept a file on him and his activities,but it struck him as unlikely. He’d beena mere starship commander back when he’d been in the RAN, always subordinatethe higher authority. “We were told thatyou banned the import of all kinds of material – that freighter crews whovisited your planets never got permission to visit the surface, or wereharassed by your customs and inspection crews. You even took crewmen off their ships for possessing material that youfound offensive.”



“Importing such material into the Theocracy does suggesta certain…lack of respect,” Captain Rican said, dryly.



“Respect is earned,” Philip countered. “It isn’t given,certainly not to people who spend most of their time demanding respect.”



“We were deposited on Abdullah with little more than theclothes on our backs and a standard UN-issue colonisation package,” CaptainRican responded. “Since then, we havereturned to the stars, absorbed over twenty other inhabited star systems andbuilt a formidable military machine. What have we done that does not deserve respect?”



Philip smiled. “Doyou want a truly honest answer to that one?”



Captain Rican nodded. “Why not?”



“You make choices for your own people,” Philip said. “You assume unto yourselves the power todecide what people can and cannot do, even in the privacy of their homes. What right do you have to make such decisionsfor your own people?”



“They embraced the True Faith,” Captain Rican said.



“They could never have left the Theocracy,” Philip said,flatly. There had been hundreds ofrefugees leaving the more recently occupied star systems, but no one had everleft from Abdullah itself – unless there wassome truth in the crazy story about the Princess Jasmine. “You don’t even tell them that there areother choices they could make for themselves…”



He shrugged. “Youmentioned the Hindu caste system earlier,” he added. “You have your own version of it. Anyone unlucky enough to be born a womanwithin your society finds her choices restricted right from the start.”



“We have always protected women,” Captain Ricansaid. “When we first sprang intoexistence, it was always the women who were the first converts, who acceptedthat we meant what we said about protecting them and treating them withrespect.”



Tanya snorted. “And what would you do if one of your women chose to leave?”



Captain Rican smiled back. “And why would one of them choose to leave?”



He shrugged. “Wewere born in hope and shaped by violence – the violence directed against us byreligions that feared the hope we offered their followers. What we are now is a result of being borninto a hostile universe, one where we must destroy our competition or becrushed ourselves. You have neverunderstood how afraid we have become of the outside universe…”



“So you invaded other worlds and forced them under yourbanner,” Philip said, icily. “I heardthe recorded interviews with refugees – I know what you did to break theirpopulations and force them under the yoke.”



“Anyone would think that they didn’t have a reason tolie,” Captain Rican said. “We were invited into those systems, youknow.”



Philip chuckled. “I wonder how many of your dupes knew what Theocratic conquest meant forthem and their society.”



“More that you might expect,” Captain Rican said. “Some of them even chose to invite us ratherthan die struggling against a hostile world. The UN’s final days weren’t exactly covered in glory – how many colonypopulations died out because they couldn’t defeat their worlds? How many unrecorded tragedies haveexterminated entire settlements? We wereoften welcomed with open arms – we saved more lives that we took. That too is part of the True Faith – serveGod by helping those who need help.”



Philip nodded. “But pressing against the Commonwealth isn’t helping those who needhelp.”



“I think the population of Cadiz might disagree,” CaptainRican countered. He made a mock salutewith one hand. “You invaded their worldand took it from them, without even a fig leaf of respectability. How can you condemn us for doing the samething you did yourselves?”



“Interstellar diplomacy has always been conducted withthe maximum possible degree of hypocrisy,” Philip agreed. Captain Rican had a point – but then, no onehad expected that Cadiz would turn into a bloody mess that would be tying uphundreds of thousands of soldiers and marines for so long. They’d genuinely come to help the locals. “Let’s stop playing games, shall we? What do you want in this sector?”



“To spread the True Faith,” Captain Rican said. He smiled. “I don’t think that we have ever lied about our intentions, havewe? We exist to spread the True Faith,to ensure its supremacy so that it can never be threatened again. You know that as well as we do, Captain.”



Philip shrugged. “And so you intend to take over this sector,” he said. “What will you do to the local populations?”



“We were invited to Jordan,” Captain Rican said. It might even have been true, although Philipknew that no one would buy it unless they wanted to deceive themselves. “And those who wish to leave may do so, onthe ship you brought.” He must have madea signal through command implants, for the servants appeared and began removingthe dishes. “You may begin embarkingthem when you’re ready, but first…”



He leaned forward. “I think that war is very likely to break out soon,” he said. “The Commonwealth’s recent provocations…”



“As in kidnapping one of your princesses fromAbdullah?” Philip asked,sardonically. “Do you seriously expectpeople to believe such a cock and bull story?”



Captain Rican smiled. “Why would we tell such an absurd story when it would be easy to come upwith a more believable tale?” Hecountered. “That’s the story direct frommy government, Captain Larson. I do notbelieve that they would be foolish enough to commit themselves to such anabsurd lie.”



“Governments have been known to do stupid things,” Philipsaid, irritated. “It’s normally somebackroom idiot without a clue as to how the real universe functions.”



For a moment, they shared a look of silentunderstanding. “Regardless of the truthbehind the story,” Captain Rican said, “I want you to understand that I believethat war is very near. And when the waris finally fought – fought, not declared – I will not allow a potentiallyhostile naval force to operate in my sector. Consider this an official warning from us to your superiors – we willnot tolerate any attempt to threaten us when war breaks out.”



“You have far more firepower than we do,” Philip said,biting down hard on his anger. “Do youreally believe that we pose a threat to you?”



“Asher Dales will have to choose which side she’s on,”Captain Rican said, ignoring the question. “Tell your civilian superiors to choose wisely. We will be expecting them to supply us withfuel, among other things.”



He stood up as the servants left the room again. “And if you will come with me, I will takeyou to the locals,” he added. “They allwish to leave the planet behind them.”

***​

Once – several years ago – Philip had been on the surfaceof Cadiz during one of the nastier upswings in violence that swept through theplanet’s population on a regular basis. Local insurgents had occupied a small town, shot a number of people forcollaborating, shot a larger number of innocent civilians merely for looking atthem the wrong way and generally dared the occupation force to dig them out ofthe town. Philip had found himselfhelping to organise the evacuation of the town, moving the local population tosafer accommodation elsewhere. There hadbeen little in the way of actual organisation and he’d been forced to take overa number of fields and turn them into a refugee camp. He’d even had to organise the digging oflatrines and the distribution of pre-prepared meals for the refugees, whoseemed to have been totally abandoned by what was left of theirgovernment. It hadn’t been a prettysight.



The memory that had always stuck with him had been thehopelessness on the faces of the helpless townspeople. None of them had asked to be targeted by theinsurgents; none of them wanted to leave their homes, knowing that their liveswould be destroyed once the occupation force attacked the town. Their faces had been twisted withhelplessness and bitterness, directed at everyone from the insurgents to theoccupation force. And they’d beenlistless; Philip had had to resort to force to convince some of the younger mento help dig latrines for their families and friends.



He remembered it now as he stared down at what remainedof Jordan’s original population. A fewthousand – it couldn’t be more than five thousand at most, he calculated andhoped that he was wrong – people, sitting in a field, their faces wreathed bybleak hopelessness. The Theocracy hadhad to apply whips to force them out of their homes, he could tell from thescars; it was clear that the locals hadn’t been able to put up a real fight. Their Elders had denied their followersweapons…not that it would have made much difference. Standard colonial rifles and even assaultrifles wouldn’t have been any use against men in powered combat armour. Some of the women – the women had beenseparated from the men – looked as if they’d been molested. Somehow, Philip doubted that their tormentorshad had their throats cut by their superior officers.



“My God,” he found himself saying. He’d tried to help the refugees on Cadiz; itlooked as if the Theocracy hadn’t done anything more than shove them out of thetown and then ignore them. Several ofthe children looked to be on the verge of starvation. A number of people were almost certainlydead…dear God, hadn’t they even tried to bury or cremate the dead? “What have you done to them?”



It was the Cleric who answered. “There is no place on purified ground forthose who refuse to accept the True Faith,” he said. Tanya made a retching sound, as if she wasgoing to be sick. “They demanded that weleave this world. We told them that theywould have to move elsewhere.”



Philip stared at him. It took all of his willpower not to punch the Cleric in the face. How could a man of God be so blind to thetragedy in front of him? Had hedehumanised the unbelievers to a point where he could justify treating them asnothing more than monsters – or animals? How could the children be considered guilty of anything? How…



“This isn’t my doing,” Captain Rican admitted,quietly. Philip was the only one whocould hear him. “They insisted onresettling the locals as quickly as possible.”



“But you make it happen, you help it happen,” Philip hissed back, savagely. “You’re just as guilty as the rest of yourfoul kind.”



The Cleric looked up sharply. He must have heard at least part of Philip’sresponse. “Don’t waste your time grievingfor the infidels,” he said, sharply. “They chose to leave rather than embrace the True Faith. There is no place for the unclean in thekingdom of the pure…”



“My shuttles will start picking people up now,” Philipsnapped. “I don’t suppose you’d agree tohelp us transport these people to the ship?”



“We have no spare shuttles,” the Cleric blustered….


”There are four spare on the Warrior,”Captain Rican said, flatly. “I willassign them to assist your crews. We doGod’s work.”



He strode off, leaving Philip staring down at thehelpless mass of humanity. How could anyone do such a thing to anyone? He’d seen prisoners dropped onto penal worlds with more supplies thanthe locals of Jordan, the men and women who had come so far to escape theirtormentors and build a better life for their families. They’d just been abandoned to die.



Even with the help of the Theocracy’s shuttles, it stilltook nearly ten hours to load the refugees onto the colonist-carrier. The original stasis pods had been replaced sometimeduring the ship’s long history, but the refitting crew hadn’t bothered toreplace the fusion reactors, ensuring that only half of each personnel modulecould be operated at any one time. Philip supervised as best as he could, grimly aware that some of thelocals were likely to expire the moment the stasis pods were opened at AsherDales. They’d have to have medicalsupport on hand to greet them…



Tanya returned to Dasherand hadn’t left her cabin since her arrival, Philip discovered when hereturned to his ship. He didn’t blameher for being upset, or for ensuring that she had recordings of what theTheocracy had done to Jordan. AsherDales would have to do some thinking about what side it was on when the warbroke out…indeed, Philip had a nasty suspicion that the war had already broken out. But there was no way to know for sure.



“Take us out of here,” he ordered, once the final shuttlehad lifted from the surface and docked with Dasher. “It’s time to go home.”



The thought shocked him. When had Asher Dales become home?

 

<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><font size="3">Chapter Thirty-Three<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com


“Dear God in Heaven!”



Philip couldn’t blame Barrington for his shock. The modern galaxy had become inured toatrocity, but the pitiful remains of Jordan’s original settler population washorrifying. Four thousand, nine hundredand seventy had survived the flight from Jordan to Asher Dales; seventy-ninehad died almost as soon as they were removed from the stasis pods. An extra thirty-two had been left frozen inthe timeless fields until they could be moved to a proper hospital. They would die if they were removed from thefields without careful preparation.



“I rather doubt it,” he said, slowly. He’d never taken the concept of God tooseriously – and whatever the Theocracy said in public, he rather doubted that they believed in a God. The spectre of divine justice would surelyhave halted a god-fearing man before inflicting so much agony upon a helplesspopulation. “That’s what conquest by theTheocracy means, Councillor.”



Asher Dales had absorbed new immigrants before; former piratecrews, who had been moved to isolated islands and told to farm or starve, andformer pirate captives, who had been warmly welcomed and invited to settle onthe planet or join the growing space-based labour force. And yet nearly five thousand new immigrants,some of them with dangerous health problems caused by a combination of poordiet and abuse, would test the planet to its limit. Barrington had put out a general call for volunteersand Philip had been impressed by how many had stepped forward to help, but itwas nowhere near enough. Some of themhad even been cherry-picking; farmers adopting strong young men or theprettiest women, leaving the elderly and infirm to the refugee camp. It was far better than anything Philip hadseen on Cadiz or Jordan, yet it was still a refugee camp, when all was said anddone.



The only bright side was that most of the refugees werelaw-abiding folks, mostly still in a state of shock at how badly the universe hadturned against them. Philip couldcondemn their pacifist beliefs as much as he wanted – it was his experiencethat weakness invited attack – but that didn’t stop him feeling sorry forthem. The protection of innocent peoplewas what navies and ground-based armies were for and losing so badly galled him. Cold logic told him that he wouldn't have been able to do anything, evenif he’d had all three ships at Jordan when the Theocracy arrived, yet that wasno comfort. He felt as if he had failedthem.



Barrington shook his head, slowly. “There should be more of them,” he said. “There were thousands on Jordan, thousands...”



“They may have decided to convert rather than lose theirhomes,” Philip said. He had no difficultyin believing that many would convert,if only because living in a low-tech society seemed a better idea if one had noexperience of what living in a low-tech society actually meant. The Theocracy certainly wouldn't put anybarriers in the way of anyone who wanted to import some modern farming equipment. Hell, they’d probably encourage it. It would suit their long-term plans for thesector. “Or they may have simply gone toground and been abandoned.”



Barrington snorted. “Andthere’s nothing we can do about it?”



Philip hesitated. “Notwithout a great deal more firepower,” he admitted. Yes, he told himself silently; the weak didoften feel ashamed at their own weakness. “As long as they have that heavy cruiser in the sector, they can take onthe entire squadron and kick our ass all the way back to Avalon.”



“But that cruiser can’t be at Jordan all the time,”Barrington pointed out. “You could waituntil it leaves and then slip in and liberate the planet.”



Philip was mildly impressed. Most planet-bound government ministers wouldn't have been able to comeup with such a simple, yet effective plan. But it would only be effective in the short term. The cruiser would return and re-enslave theplanet, taking the opportunity to crush any opposition from the converted locals. They’d gain nothing apart from a few thousanddead on both sides.



“They’d regard that as a declaration of war,” he said. He had been considering a scheme for shippingweapons to Jordan, but without accurate data on conditions on the ground it washopeless. Any rebels would be in hiding,reluctant to expose themselves to soldiers in armoured combat suits or kineticbombardment from orbit. And they wouldhave very few weapons to turn against their oppressors. Jordan had never imported or distributedlarge amounts of weapons. “Do you want todeclare war on the Theocracy?”



Barrington looked down at the ground. “I would love to make them pay for this,” headmitted. “And I want them to burn for what they did to those two poorgirls. Do you know that their familieshave been stirring up trouble? They wanta comprehensive ban on Theocratic personnel getting shore leave on our planetand...”



“Not going to happen,” Philip said. “Our only defence – a very flimsy defence –are the Albion Conventions. We’re notallowed to refuse a request for shore leave – we can ban individuals, but wehave to show a good reason. And chancesare that the bastards are just looking for an excuse to get their hands on thissystem.”



“And why,” Barrington demanded, “are we so important?”



Philip smiled. “You’vegot a fully-functional gas giant mining station here,” he reminded him,dryly. “You and Hsu have the only mining stations in the entiresector – God knows, your station manager has been undercutting just abouteveryone else to keep the station turning a small profit. The Theocracy...well, if they got their handson the station, they’d have a powerful tool to economically strangle the restof the sector if they refuse to fall into line. It isn't particularly economical to ship HE3 outside a single starsystem...”



“So they’d have a near-monopoly,” Barrington agreed,drudgingly. “But...they won’t go afterHsu, will they?”



“I rather hope they will,” Philip said, although he agreedthat it was unlikely. The Theocracy wouldn'twant to draw the Manchu Dynasty into the war, the war that might already bebeing fought hundreds of light years away. “That would add a formidable interstellar power to the Commonwealth’sside. They certainly have the firepowerto cope with the Theocracy’s presence in this sector.”



“But then we’d have to worry about their ambitions as well,”Barrington said, sadly. “We came outhere to get away from interstellar power politics.”



Philip shrugged, expressively. “I think that they’ve come after you,” hesaid. “The only real choice you can makeis which side you embrace. I don’t thinkthat the Commonwealth has any ambitions on this sector – if you joined theCommonwealth as a full member system, you’d certainly have autonomy. The Theocracy would insist on reshaping yoursociety to suit themselves and God help anyone who gets in their way.”



“And you have an interest in convincing us to accept an alliancewith the Commonwealth,” Barrington observed. “Or so Greg Farnham has been muttering in the meetings. I think that quite a few people are beginningto wonder if you’ll pulling strings to get us involved in outside wars.”



Philip barked a laugh. “They need some sense of proportion,” he said. “The entire naval force in this sector – us,the Theocracy, the Manchu, everyone else – is a drop in the bucket compared tothe fleets gathering for the war. Thisplanet could be overwhelmed in an afternoon if any serious interstellar powerdecided they wanted to take it. AsherDales cannot contribute anything – willingly or otherwise – to the Commonwealth’swar effort that it couldn't get from elsewhere. What do you have that the Commonwealth might want?”



He shrugged. “Theonly thing you have is location,” he added, “but you’re not exactly a daggerpointed at the Theocracy’s heart. Thissector is likely to be marginalised for the remainder of the war even if you are formal members of theCommonwealth. Even the Theocracy wouldn’tcut loose a few squadrons of battlecruisers to put the fear of God into you,not when it might cost them the war.



“Whatever interest the Commonwealth will have in this sectorwill be long term,” he concluded. “You are in a good position to support colonyships settling out beyond the Rim. Sooner or later, the interstellar powers near the Core Worlds are goingto want to start sending their own colony ships through this sector – they’ve alreadystarted, really. You could dictate yourown terms then, perhaps, but not now. Asher Dales doesn't have anything the Commonwealth would actually wantwhen the Theocracy is breathing down our necks.”



Barrington chuckled. “Sowe should stop worrying?” He asked,dryly. “Asher Dales looks mighty big tosome folks out here.”



Philip couldn't blame them, not really. They werehundreds of light years from the looming war front, after all. And hundreds of light years was anunimaginable distance for most civilians in a universe where relatively few ofthem ever left their home systems. They’dplaced a mental barrier in their minds between their former homeworlds andAsher Dales, even though they knew intellectually that there was nothingstopping others from travelling to their new homeworld and invading theirplanet.



But they would be wrong. Asher Dales had nothing to attract the Commonwealth – nothing, exceptperhaps for a base to use against the Theocracy. And yet...once Jordan was liberated and theTheocracy’s presence in this sector wiped out, they’d simply be abandoned. What would it profit the Commonwealth togarrison the sector if they lost the older and more populated – and industrialised– Commonwealth planets?



“You might want to warn them to start thinking theunthinkable,” Philip said, finally. “Commonwealthmembership or...”



He waved a hand at the refugee camp. “Those people can tell you what the Theocracydid to their world,” he warned. “Youcould ask them to tell you what they went through before we took them away andlanded them here.”



It was something he returned to later, with Tanya. Tanya had set up a number of volunteer clinics,staffing them with girls from Asher Dales, where the refugees could bedebriefed and their tales recorded for posterity. Philip listened silently as refugee afterrefugee detailed what had happened to them, a string of stories that blurredtogether into a chilling sameness. TheTheocracy had taken over their world; the Theocracy had tufted them out oftheir houses; the Theocracy had roughed them up when they tried to complain. A handful of men had been crippled – forlife, on a world without high-tech medical equipment – and a number of womenhad been raped or molested. Philip wasn'tsurprised, but Tanya and the other women seemed to be almost in tears. Such things weren't supposed to happen in acivilised universe.



The issue became the core of a debate in the Town Hall andPhilip made certain to attend with Tanya. There was still no sign of Tam Farnham, but his father glared at thepair of them as they sat down among the throng of eager townspeople. Asher Dales hadn't yet developed a politicalclass, even though some settlers were clearly more equal than others, and politicalwas a noisy – and largely democratic – affair. The issue of what to do about the refugees was at stake, along with thequestion mark over what they could do about the Theocracy. Philip listened carefully, said nothing, andtook copious notes. There were so manymisunderstandings in so many speeches that part of him started to despair. If the population couldn’t decide what toorder for lunch, how could they be expected to stand up to the Theocracy?



“...These refugees are a blight on our lands,” one farmerwas proclaiming, loudly. He was greetedby a loud series of boos from the far side of the room. The Jordan refugees might not be popular, butthey clearly needed help – and Asher Dales had opened its arms wide to greetthem. “Should we tolerate their presencea moment longer, or should we return them to where they came from?”



“Shame,” an elderly woman bellowed, rising to her feet andwaving her walking stick about, angrily. “Have you not seen the plight of those poor people? How dare you stand here and whinge abouttheir presence? Their presence isnothing compared to what they’ve gone through on Jordan itself!”



There was a mixture of cheers and boos. By Philip’s rough estimate, about a third ofthe population seemed to worry about the presence of the refugees. It was easy to see their point – Jordan hadn'tbeen a very popular neighbour, and there was enough of them to make them an ethnicgroups within Asher Dales rather than them blurring into mainstream society – butthe refugees were hardly their first concern. The real danger was the Theocracy. Philip silently calculated, again, just how long it might have beensince the war had started. There was noway to know.



And if they find outfirst, he thought, silently, they’llcome after us with blood in their eyes.



“I know that,” the farmer bellowed. His face had gone red, like a bull. Philip was suddenly reminded of AdmiralMorrison. “I know that they’ve beenthrough hell and I feel for them. Butwhat are we going to do with them? I’mno having my farm turned into a slave labour camp without proper tools and equipment,understand? Jordan could barely feeditself!”



“There isn't enough of them to tip the balance in anelection,” another man thundered. Therewas a loud roar of approval from his side of the room. “Let them have some unclaimed land to slaveon if they like. We have an entire****ing planet and we’ve barely settled even a tenth of it! Give them farmsteads and see how they grow.”



There was a second, much louder, roar of approval. Philip had to smile, even though he was startingto wonder if he was going deaf. The ideaof direct democracy was strange to him, but he had to admit that it worked onAsher Dales. Avalon’s population was toolarge for such direct representation, yet there were datanet forums and referendumson issues that affected the general population. The Assembly disliked calling them, fearing that they would be pushed inone direction or another, but the King seemed to like them. And he had the power to order one at will.



A series of bangs from the council table brought uneasysilence, with a faint undertone of mass rebellion. “This is not particularly important at themoment,” one of the councillors said. Niles was an elderly man who had spoken little, at least to Philip. But he was respected throughout the planet asone of the original settlers. “We have afar more pressing problem on our hands.”



He ran through the entire sequence of events from the coupon Jordan to the Theocracy’s threats against Asher Dales. Philip saw a few faces go black with anger,remembering the murdered girls, and a few others go pale, as if they wanted toblock out the whole unpleasant affair.



“Our choice is simple,” Niles said, at the end. “When they come for us, do we fight orsurrender?”



“Fight,” one young man yelled. “I say we kill the bastards like varmints.”



Philip glanced at Tanya. She looked worried; the war party was clearly gathering support. But Asher Dales couldn't hope to fight offthe Theocracy on its own. Philip had afew plans, a few tricks he intended to unleash if – when – the Theocracyreturned to Asher Dales, yet none of them promised a victory. There was no way that anyone could guarantee the outcome, except that hundreds of peoplewould be killed.



“But can we fight?” Niles asked. “I call our honourableCommodore to speak on the matter.”



Tanya nudged Philip, who stood up, hastily organising his thoughts. No one had told him that he would be calledupon to speak, something that he suspected was deliberate. They wanted him to speak on the spur of themoment. At least he’d spent daysconsidering all the possibilities.



“There are several issues that need to be considered,”Philip said, without preamble. “TheTheocracy possesses significant firepower wrapped up in their cruiser.” And it’sthe only one we know about, he added, in the privacy of his own mind. “They may well defeat the squadron if theydecide to claim Asher Dales for their own. And that would allow them to bombard the planet at leisure beforelanding their troops. They could landanywhere, not just at the spaceport. That will give them an advantage you cannot match.



“I will tell you that, to the best of my knowledge, noinsurgency has ever managed to remove a Theocracy occupation force,” headded. “The Theocracy takes control ofthe entire planet – you have some advantages, but nothing that offsets theircontrol of space. You need to face the possibilitythat you need help.”



He sat back down as the debate raged around him. Farnham, unsurprisingly, was decrying all suggestionsof inviting the Commonwealth – or the Manchu Dynasty – to station warships atAsher Dales. He seemed to believe that aresolute insurgency could force the Theocracy to abandon Asher Dales. Philip knew that he was dreaming. And even if they succeeded, the Theocracy hadplenty of nasty tricks to depopulate the entire planet before landing newsettlers. Rumour had it that they hadexterminated at least two planetary populations, although no one knew for sure.



His wristcom buzzed and he stepped outside the meeting hallto answer it. “Commodore, we just receivedword from the mining station,” Marie’s voice said. She sounded grim, but at least she wouldn't becontacting him if the Theocracy had arrived in force. “We have a bit of a situation on our hands.”



Philip was almost relieved. “I understand,” he said. “I’m onmy way.”

 

between a rock and a hard place love it keep em coming

 

I'm new to your work, great writing. Please keep it coming and thank you.

 

ChapterThirty-Four<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-comfficeffice" />



The eerie lights of hyperspace gave way to the loomingpresence of the gas giant, with the mining station spinning sullenly in theforeground. Joe Buckley hung within easy weapons range of the station, backedup by a couple of the former pirate craft and a single armed freighter. An unexpected starship was linked to thefuelling station, its presence unwelcome, but impossible to avoid. They’d simply docked with the fuellingstation and taken over.



“I think we spooked them,” Captain Nonagon said, throughthe communications link. “They wereprobably pirates coming for a quick refuel and they panicked when we arrivedwith our charges. God alone knows whatthey’re thinking they can do now, except blow the station.”



Philip scowled. Theocratswould probably be quite happy to use suicide tactics, but pirates tended to bemore concerned with self-preservation. They couldn’t spend their ill-gotten gains when they were dead. If they blew the station, they’d die; therewas no way to escape into hyperspace without being destroyed by his ships. They might even have problems opening avortex so close to the gas giant. Thepirate ship might not have a modern vortex generator.



“Stalemate,” he commented. Marie nodded, grimly. The Marines could get over to the station andboard it, but the pirates would be able to see them coming and blow the station– or at the very least start murdering hostages. There was an entire family over on thestation, including some young girls. Thethought of what the pirates might do to them didn’t bear thinking about. “Have they even tried to negotiate?”



“No, sir,” Marie said. She was all business. “Theyprobably think that we’d never let them go anyway, so they might as well waitus out. The horse might learn to sing,after all.”



Philip nodded, grimly. Hostage situations were one thing he’d never trained for, not when mosthostage-takers knew better than to try to pick on the Commonwealth. The Marines and ground-based law enforcementagencies would be better trained, but there was no time to call for help. Losing the fuelling station would cripple hislong-term plans for developing the system – and the sector – into a workingeconomy. The commercial shipping thattended to the various new colonies would have to be withdrawn. No commercial skipper wanted to be trapped inan undeveloped sector without fuel.



“Then we have to seize the initiative,” he said. It was easy to say it out loud; harder tofigure out a way to dislodge the pirates without getting anyone killed. “Do they know I’m here?”



“I assume they can read our IFF,” Marie said. “They probably know you’re here, although Ihave no idea what they would make of you.”



“They’d know I have the power to talk to them,” Philipsaid. “Open a channel to the station.”



“Aye, sir,” Harmon said. “Channel open…”



Philip cleared his throat. “This is Commodore Larson of the Asher DalesNaval Service,” he said. “I wish to talkto the people holding the mining station.”



There was a long pause. “No answer, sir,” Harmon reported. “I’m not even sure that they’re picking up the signal. They’re not broadcasting anything I candetect.”



Philip nodded. “Reopen the channel,” he ordered. “Attention; if you do not open communications within five minutes, Iwill be forced to open fire.”



There was a second pause, broken by a screech of staticas the pirates opened communications. “You listen here, pig,” a voice snapped. There was no visual signal to show Philip who was speaking to him. “You get away from this ****ing station or westart slitting the bitches’ throats, you hear me?”



“It doesn’t sound like there’s much room to negotiate,”Marie commented, very quietly. “Hesounds desperate enough to carry out his threats…”



Philip nodded. “This is Commodore Larson,” he said, again. “To whom do I have the pleasure of speaking?”



“You know damn well who we are,” the voicethundered. “Move back right now or westart killing people!”



“That isn’t an option at the moment,” Philip said. He cursed his own short-sightedness. He’d never had the chance to study hostagenegotiations. Was he supposed to beconciliatory or take a hard line? “Youhave people and an installation we want back. What do you want in return for them?”



“We want you off our backs,” the voice said. “Pull your ****ing ships back, now!”



Philip shook his head. “I’m afraid we cannot do that,” he said. “We need to confirm that the hostages are alive and well before we doanything else.”



There was a pause, long enough for Philip to wonder ifhe’d screwed up. “Commodore,” a newvoice said, finally. Manager John Milton’svoice was weak and he was clearly terrified, but he managed to speakclearly. “They’ve told me to confirmthat we’re all alive, if not well. Noone has actually been killed.”



“I hope you’re telling the truth,” Philip said. Unless the pirates were complete fools,they’d never allow the Manager to tell Philip how many pirates there were, orif they had the station rigged to blow. “What do they want in exchange for you, your people, and yourinstallation?”



“We want you to back off and allow us to leave in peace,”the first voice demanded. “Do youunderstand me? If you don’t let us gopeacefully, we’ll kill the bastards and rape the bitches before we let you killus!”



“Right,” Philip said, keeping his voice calm andeven. “How do you propose to handle yourdeparture from this system?”



It was a long moment before the pirate replied. “You back off and we take our ship with thebitches,” the pirate said. “We slip intohyperspace and drop them off at the edge of the system. You can pick them up and recover the stationat will.”



Marie reached over and put a hand on Philip’s console,cutting the vocal link. “Captain,” shehissed, “if they slip away, they can just keep going with the hostages.”



Philip nodded. Intruth, he’d already drawn the same conclusion. The pirates would have hostages they could sell as slaves – or use fortheir own entertainment – and absolutely no incentive to return them. They were trapped at the station; murderingthe hostages would have allowed Philip to send his Marines to liberate theplatform and execute the remaining pirates. Letting them slip free would be disastrous.



He keyed his console, reopening the channel. “I’m afraid that wouldn’t work out so wellfor us,” he said. “We’d need someguarantees that you’d release the hostages once you reached the edge of thesystem.”



There was a loud, angry laugh. “And why should we provide any guaranteeswhen we don’t have anything to lose?” The pirate demanded. “You wantthis station, Mr Navy Man? You bargainwith us for it!”



Philip smiled. Aplan was slowly starting to come together in his mind. “You want out of the system and we want youout of the system,” he said. Actually,he wanted the pirates dead, but he was prepared to compromise that far. “It seems to me that the sticking point isthe fate of the hostages. I’m not goingto let you take them out of the system and you’re not likely to leave thembehind while you’re under our guns.”



“Of course not,” the voice sneered. There was a pause. “We could just wait, you know? There’s food, drink and women here. What more do we need? How long do you think we could make thelittle girl last if we decided to enjoy ourselves with her?”



Philip bit down the reaction that came to mind. “First, we need to verify that the hostagesare alive and well,” he continued, trying to keep his voice even. “I have a proposal for you.”



He took a breath. “You release your hostages now,” he said. “In exchange, I will board the stationpersonally – alone and unarmed. You willhave me as a hostage for your flight out of the system and if you decide to tryto hang on to me…well, I won’t be much use to any of your buyers.”



Marie pressed the mute key again. “Sir, with all due respect…”



“I’m not out of my mind,” Philip said. He could respect Captain Rican, who hadcertainly seemed to be a little ashamed of the Theocracy’s excesses, but he hadno respect for pirate commanders – certainly not ones who would threaten torape little girls. “I have a cunningplan.”



“That’s what Brigadier Stone said, the night before theair-drop on Basque,” Marie said, grimly. “You don’t want to know how many good Marines lost their lives becausesome moron at headquarters couldn’t count the insurgents on the ground.”



Philip shrugged, releasing the key. “I trust that I would be an acceptablehostage?”



There was a long pause. He could almost imagine the panic sweeping through the pirateranks. They were unused to discipline,unused to the thought that they might die while hunting the helpless andvulnerable. Their commander would be thetoughest of them all, but if he showed any signs of weakness, his subordinateswould jump on him. And if he seemed torefuse a chance to escape the death trap they’d fallen into, they’d put a knifein his back before allowing him to make a valiant, but futile last stand.



“I don’t trust you,” the pirate commander sneered,finally. “How do I know that this isn’ta trick?”



Philip shrugged. “I’ll fly myself over in a shuttle, which you can search as soon as itdocks,” he said. “You can search me; Iwon’t have anything apart from my wristcom and uniform. Once you are satisfied, you can release thehostages and they can take the shuttle back to my ship. And then you can just abandon me at the edgeof the system.”



He’d been careful not to specify how they’d be abandoning him. If he was lucky, they’d remain focused on the prospect of throwing himout of their airlock, rather than thinking about anything else. He didn’t expect them to keep their word,whatever they promised – but if his plan worked, he wouldn’t have to worryabout trying to breathe vacuum. Too muchelse could go badly wrong.



“We keep one of the bitches with us to ensure your goodbehaviour,” the pirate said, finally. “The rest of the ugly ducklings and their family can go on the shuttle.”



Philip shook his head firmly, trying to project vigorousresolve into his voice. “No,” hesaid. “All of the hostages leave in theshuttle, or there’s no deal. You canwait on the station until you rot, for all I care. I can wait.”



He waited, fighting down the sensation that he might haveoverplayed his hand. The pirates mighthave decided to kill their hostages and themselves, or maybe they’d startedfighting each other…



“Very well,” the pirate commander said. “Get your ass over here; the sooner you’rehere, the sooner you can get the bitches onto your shuttle.”



The connection broke. “You’re out of your mind,” Marie snapped, finally. It was a Marine officer’s right to tell hersuperior officer from the Navy when he was going crazy, a right that had oftenbeen invoked in the RAN. Marines wereeffectively a separate compartment onboard ship, with the only command linkbeing between their commander and the starship’s commander. “They won’t ****ing release you – unless theyrelease you without a suit.”



“Probably not,” Philip agreed. He stood up and checked the holstered pistolat his belt. He’d have to disarm himselfbefore boarding the shuttle, knowing that it would make him vulnerable…but hewas going to fly an unarmed cargo shuttle to the fuelling station. He was going to be vulnerable anyway. “What do you think the chances are thatthey’ll release the hostages once they have me over there?”



“Not very good,” Marie said. “They’d just have someone else to bargainwith, sir. Commodore Nonagon would haveto find a way to get you and the hostages out…”



“It’s not going to come down to that,” Philip assuredher. He’d been careful to give thepirates a chance to take him as another hostage – without having to free theother hostages first. If they werethinking straight, they’d probably try to take advantage of his gullibility byusing him as another hostage. They’dmake it impossible for Nonagon or anyone else to bargain with them, but he’dyet to see any pirates who had any genuine sense of the long term. Piracy wasn't exactly the safest career pathfor anyone. “I want you to find fivevolunteers from the Marines, men willing to risk everything on a single roll ofthe dice.”



Marie scowled at him. “I’ll volunteer, of course,” she said. She cocked her head to one side, using her communications implant toround up four more volunteers. Marinesrarely asked for volunteers; Philip suspected that she’d simply picked four menand volunteered them for duty. “Whatexactly do you want us to do?”



Philip took a breath and told her.

***​

The cargo shuttle was the largest in the system. It had originally been designed by the UNduring the later part of the era before the Breakaway Wars; although Philip hadbeen assured that the shuttle was actually no older than fifty-odd years. Judging from the removed black box and itscareful refurbishment ten years ago, Philip had a suspicion that it had beenproduced somewhere nearer Earth and had been on its fifth owner by the time itreached Asher Dales.



It was a boxy cumbersome machine, utterly unable to flywithin a planetary atmosphere without antigravity compensators. Philip eyed its control panels suspiciouslyas he ran through the pre-flight checks, wondering just how reliable theshuttle was, even after the refit. AsherDales had never been able to renovate it properly until Philip had brought asmall crew of technicians to the planetary surface and he was uneasily awarethat a single small fault could easily prove lethal in space. He’d taken the precaution of wearing auniform with a hood and mask – and inbuilt oxygen supply – but the piratesmight regard anything safer as a breach of their agreement. The armoured combat suits Marines wore boremore than a passing resemblance to industrial spacesuits.



He settled down in the pilot’s chair and ran his handdown the console, activating the shuttle’s onboard flight systems. Normally, he would have controlled theshuttle personally right from the start, but he was less familiar with thecenturies-old design and had reluctantly agreed to allow the automated systemsto take control. Besides, the automatedsystems could help compensate for his little surprise. He checked everything thoroughly before hekeyed in the final string of commands and felt the shuttle hum to life.



“This is Larson,” he said, keying his wristcom. “I formally request permission to undock.”



“Granted, sir,” Harmon said. Philip smiled, feeling his mind wandering,the way it always did before combat. Whywas it called undocking when the shuttle was nesting within Dasher’s main bay? “Good luck.”



The shuttle lurched to life, shaking madly, and thenstarted to crawl towards the opening hatch. Philip knew that there were researchers on Avalon – and probably onAbdullah as well – who claimed that it would be possible to develop a forcefield that would keep the atmosphere within a starship even when the hatcheswere open, allowing the crew to work within the shuttle bay at the same timewithout spacesuits.



He smiled as the shuttle slowly rotated in space and thegas giant came into view. It was a sightfew civilians – or spacers, for that matter – truly took time to comprehend. Humanity was so small compared to the vastness of the universes; he was tiny evencompared to the average asteroid. Look at you, the gas giant seemed tosay, as he stared up at the tiny station outlined by the orange glow. Youlittle thing, so puny and weak; you think yourself so significant. I will be here long after you are dust andless than dust.



A shiver ran down his spine. There were entire cults built around the ideathat planets and even stars were intelligent, their vast thoughts moving so slowlythat entire human civilisations rose and fell before the stars ever tooknotice. An intelligence built on thatscale wouldn’t be able to comprehend humanity. The thought of what it might do if it ever noticed that humanity existedwas chilling. He twisted the shuttle,watching through the armoured cockpit as the fuelling station slowly came intoview. It looked tiny compared to the gasgiant, the long tube falling down towards the HE3-rich atmosphere far below. If every single human starship in existenceused a single gas giant as a source of fuel, it would still be millions ofyears before the gas giant was mined out. No one knew what would happen then, but Philip knew that it wouldn’t bean issue until long after he was dead and gone.



He pressed his hands on the controls as the fuellingstation grew closer. They hadn’t openedtheir main bay for him, unsurprisingly. He’d counted on it. Instead,they’d lit off a beacon, inviting him to dock with their lower module. Philip wasn't too surprised. They’d be able to control him right from thestart, without introducing new factors. He smiled as the shuttle started to move into docking position. All his worries about the Theocracy werepushed aside; he’d either win, and defeat the pirates, or probably wind updead. And then he’d be remembered as theidiot who’d managed to get himself killed. Tam Farnham would probably die laughing.



Bracing himself, he directed the shuttle to dock with thestation. There was a dull clunk as thetwo airlocks mated. It wouldn’t be longnow.

 

<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><font size="3">Chapter Thirty-Five<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com
The airlock hissed open and two pirates pushed their wayinto the shuttle, both holding needle guns. Philip held his hands in plain sight and waited patiently for the piratesto check the interior of the shuttle, looking for any smuggled surprises orweapons. Their search wasn't veryeffective, he noted absently; they hadn't even bothered to check him forweapons. They moved from compartment tocompartment, one of them remaining within view at all times, pointing hisweapon directly at Philip’s head. Onemistake would be the end of him.

“Stand up,” one of the pirates barked, finally. Philip obeyed and endured it while the secondpirate patted him down with a rough thoroughness that proved that he’d beenright not to risk carrying a weapon. Heremoved his wristcom and a small box of mints Philip had placed in his beltpouch, knowing that they would have to find something or they might startwondering what was really going on. “Outthe hatch, now!”

Philip obeyed, keeping his race carefully even. The two pirates didn't look like fine specimensof humanity – which was probably why they were being treated as expendabledecoys by their commander – but they were clearly armed and dangerous, capableof carrying out any atrocity to sate their greed. They wore shabby uniforms that might, once,have been from an interstellar navy, although Philip doubted it. Their faces were unshaven and their clothesstank. It was clear, from the looks theywere exchanging, that they felt trapped. Philip could only hope that their commander felt the same way.

The interior of the mining station felt more humid than thelast time Philip had visited, back when he’d assured the mining family that hewould do all he could to protect them from their enemies. He’d failed; the cold realisation tormentedhim, even as he allowed the pirates to push him through the crampedpassageways. They’d torn down thepaintings the children had produced, he noted, shaking his head at thedevastation. Why had they wreckedhavoc? There had been no need to destroyharmless paintings.

He shook his head as they passed a half-open door. It looked as if someone had forced it openusing a laser weapon, melting through the metal and leaving it to run instreams down the length of the deck. Theroom had probably been intended as a panic room for the children and the youngwomen, but it couldn't have stood up to a weapons-grade laser. God alone knew what the pirates might havedone to the helpless children. Philipknew too much about their habits to have any confidence that any of the station’screw were safe.

“Move,” his captor snapped, shoving him forwards. Philip obeyed, reminding himself thateverything was going perfectly. Ofcourse, the plan had seemed much more workable back when he’d been on Dasher. If Marie failed to pull off her part of the plan, Philip would be up avery unpleasant creek without a paddle. “Move,you ****ing...”

“Careful,” the second pirate said, quickly. “Boss said not to kill him.”

“Boss says a lot of things,” the first pirate snarledback. “Boss got us into this ****ingmess, didn't he? We’re going to besucking vacuum if we don’t get out of this place before they kick us in thenuts!”

“He’ll cut off your balls if he hears you talking like that,”the second pirate countered. “His wayout is the only way out.”

“But you could surrender to me,” Philip injected, wonderingif they would take his offer. He wouldn't have trusted himself – but then,he hadn't decided to take up piracy as a full-time career. “I can arrange for you both to avoid facingthe executioner.”

The first pirate slammed a punch into his chest. Philip saw it coming, but there was no way toavoid it without revealing that he was inclined to fight. The punch was partly absorbed by the uniform,yet it hurt enough to send him staggering backwards, grunting in pain. He played up the pain as much aspossible. They’d feel more confident ifthey believed he was broken, or unwilling to lift a finger to defend himself.

“No one sells out his mates, you hear me?” The first pirate demanded. “You’re going to keep your word with all ofus or we’ll cut off your ears and send them back to your ship to show them thatwe mean business!”

He caught hold of Philip’s arm and dragged him through thecorridor, into a set of compartments that had been devastated in a briefstruggle, and finally into a large airlock. The mining station’s original controlling node had been replaced andupgraded by the RockRats over the years, a requirement to keep the mine up andrunning even in the worst weather conditions on the planet below. Philip’s lips twitched in sly amusement. Very few groundhogs could have understood whythe weather on a gas giant was important to spacers. Jupiter’s Great Red Spot was little more thana pretty sight to them.

The compartment was crowded. Two women, both teenage girls, had been tied to chairs by the pirates. Their shirts had been removed, leaving onlybras covering their bare breasts. Themarks Philip could see on their skin suggested that the pirates had been takingthe chance to grope as much female flesh as possible, all the while holding themselvesback from rape. There was no way to tellif it was good discipline on their part – upheld by the threat of violence fromtheir commander – or simply a reflection of their fear. They had to know that escaping the miningstation would prove difficult, even with their hostages. Behind the girls, Manager John Milton waskneeling on the deck, his hands tied behind his back. A pirate stood behind him, a pistol pointedat the back of his neck. The pirates,clearly, suspected that he’d taken the opportunity to install Trojan Horsesoftware in the station’s computers. Itwas what they would have done.

Philip pulled himself up to his full height as he saw the piratecommander. He was a short man, with ashirt that revealed an impressive display of muscles – and a scowl that daredany man to cross him. There were thoseon planets who embraced the idea of the freebooters of space, men – and a fewwomen – who lived as they pleased, but Philip had never been able to see anyromance in the pirate lifestyle. He’dspent too long clearing up the messes pirates left behind. The pirate commander seemed desperate andtrying to hide it – and he hoped to God that he was right. A desperate man might be tempted to dosomething stupid, but he’d also want a way out and might not be inclined toquestion it too closely.

Up close, the pirate commander stank of sweat and fear. “So you came, you fool,” he hissed. Philip wanted to smile, but somehow managedto keep it off his face. The pirate wasposturing for the benefit of his men. “Andnow you will call your ships and tell them to let us go.”

Philip faced him squarely, despite the strong arms grippingeach of his arms. “I think not,” hesaid, as pleasantly as he could. “Youwill first release all of your hostages.”

He made a show of looking over at the hostages in thecompartment. None of them seemed to havebeen badly brutalised, although he could tell that both of the girls wereterrified and their father was worried sick. He’d been hit several times on the face, Philip decided, but he doubtedit had been that hard. The pirates wouldn'twant to kill such an important hostage.

The pirate commander started to speak, but Philip cut himoff. “And I would like to see theremaining hostages,” he continued, sharply. “I have to inform my ship that they are all alive and well, or else myship will reduce this station to a number of interestingly-shaped pieces ofdebris.”

He smiled as the pirate commander started to splutter. “You...you’re on this station too,” heprotested, finally. “You put your lifein our hands!”

“And your lives are in the palm of my hands,” Philipsaid. If he’d known that their search wouldbe so inefficient, he would have made certain to bring an implanted weaponalong to the party. “The only way youhave to leave this station alive is to honour the bargain we made. Send the hostages back to my ship and then –and then – you can depart. And you even have me as a hostage until youreach the edge of the system.”

There was a long moment as he watched the dark thoughtsworking their way through the pirate’s eyes, culminating in the realisationthat Philip would be at his mercy once their ship entered hyperspace and spedaway from any pursuit. His men wouldn't getthe girls, but at least they’d escape with their lives. The last thing he needed was a mutiny on hishands, not when the navy was breathing down their necks. Philip saw him come to the right conclusionand smiled to himself. The bait had beenwell and truly taken.

“Show me the other hostages,” he said, mildly. “And then we can send them away and you canleave.”

“Take him to see the bastards,” the pirate commanderordered, finally. He nodded to one ofhis senior pirates, an oversized man who was clearly a heavy-world genie. Philip eyed his muscles with some respect;heavy-worlders were rare in the Commonwealth, but there were a handful ofworlds with significantly stronger gravity than Earth near the Sol Sector. The chances were good that the pirate couldbreak him in two with one hand tied behind his back. “And then bring him straight back here.”

The thickset man caught Philip and frogmarched him out ofanother airlock, down a long tube that had probably been part of the original miningequipment. A trio of pirates werewaiting for them, one of them nursing a broken arm. Philip could only marvel at the kind ofmindset that would deny one of his own men medical care, and then he realisedthat the pirate had probably disobeyed orders. By the time he was sent to a proper doctor, or even placed in anautomated medical centre, the pain would have taught him a very harshlesson. No pirate commander couldtolerate disobedience. It would havemade them look weak.

Ahead of him, a thick airlock hissed open, revealing thechildren’s playroom. Inside, all of thekids seemed to have been gathered, along with the remaining adults. They looked frightened, even though the pirateshad locked them inside rather than force them to entertain some of the pirate crew,but Philip couldn't blame them. It was aterrible thing for a child to realise that mummy and daddy couldn't save themfrom everything. Life on the Rim causedchildren to grow up fast, if they were given the chance...

“You’ve seen them,” the heavy-world pirate grunted. “Now come back to the boss.”

“I need to check them,” Philip said, eying the pirate. He seemed to move like Tam Farnham, althoughTam hadn't had anything like the same level of experience in dirty fighting. The pirate could be taken down, given half achance. “Give me a couple of minutes.”

He spoke briefly to the adults and made a show of checkingthe children. They looked unharmed,apart from their fear. One young boy clungto his leg and had to be dislodged gently, but firmly. They seemed a healthy bunch of young childrenotherwise, Philip realised, silently cursing the pirates under his breath. The kids didn't deserve to suffer at thehands of the pirates.

“Good,” he said, finally. “You may now lead me back to the pirate lair.”

The heavy-world pirate showed no response to his mild sally,merely opening the airlock and ordering Philip back up to the controlcompartment. Philip watched the briefexchange of whispers between the two pirates, concentrating on meeting Milton’seyes and winking at him. The managerseemed reluctant to move, unsurprisingly. His minder threw Philip a dirty look as the two pirates finished theirconversation. The two pirates who hadmet him at the shuttle were nowhere to be seen.

“You’ve seen them,” the pirate commander said. “Now you can tell your ship that they’re allsafe.”

“Of course,” Philip agreed. “If you will kindly allow me to use your communications system...?”

The pirate waved a hand at one of the consoles, which Philipinspected before tapping two of the keys to open a channel to Dasher. “This is the Captain,” he said. “Ican confirm that the hostages are alive; I say again, the hostages are alive.”

“Understood, sir,” Harmon said. The tactical officer had been dubious aboutthe wisdom of Philip’s plan, but none of that showed in his voice. Philip would be sorry to lose him when hetook command of one of the refurbished vessels. “When will you be sending the shuttle back to the ship?”

“In five minutes,” Philip said. He closed the channel and looked up at the piratecommander. “Shall we go and start movingthe hostages to the shuttle?”

“Now look here,” the pirate said. “You cannot order us to...”

Philip allowed his eyes to narrow. “You’re stuck,” he said. “Do you want to get out of here with yourskins intact or do you want to die when my ship blows this platform apart? Your choice.”

“Fine,” the pirate snarled. He nodded towards the armed man. “You;follow that bastard” – he pointed at Philip – “and make damn sure he doesn't tryanything funny.”

He was halfway towards the airlock when the lights in thecompartment failed. Philip moved atonce, seeing a flash of light as the pirate fired – an instant too late. The only light in the compartment was theglow from the consoles, but his enhanced retinas were able to compensate,allowing him to see the three pirates clearly. He snapped out a punch towards the armed pirate and felt his victim’sthroat crack, just before he dropped the gun on the deck. Philip scooped it up as the emergencylighting flared into life, bringing it up to target the heavy-world pirate. His target let out a roar and lashed out withshocking speed, knocking the gun across the compartment, before drawing back afist to knock Philip’s lights out. Philip ducked the blow and slammed two fingers into the pirate’seyes. He howled as they squished, justbefore Philip brought his knee up and slammed it right into his ground. The pirate hit the ground, screaming in pain,and Philip took the opportunity to kick him in the head. It had probably come as something of arelief.

The pirate commander had fled, rather than try to join thefight – but it was already too late. Philip heard the sound of a fist hitting flesh and a body hit the deck. He scooped up the dropped weapon and held itat the ready, just before Marie came into view. Sneaking them over clinging to the shuttle’s hull had been risky, but ithad allowed them to get onto the station without being detected. Five Marines could wipe out any number of pirates;the only danger had been in losing some of the hostages.

“Everyone’s alive – well, all of the good guys,” Mariesaid. “Nine pirates dead; twelve moretaken prisoner. Your plan worked,Captain.”

Philip shook his head. That had been far too close.

“Get them over to the ship so we can have them interrogated,”he ordered. He looked at the two girlsand sighed inwardly. “And then they canbe escorted to the airlock, unless they have something interesting to tell us.”

Marie didn't argue. “Yes,sir,” she said. “And by the way...”

Philip lifted an eyebrow. “Yes?”

“Nice moves,” she added. “A Marine couldn't have done better.”

“A Marine would have had implanted weapons,” Philipcountered. His fist hurt. He’d killed men before while serving onstarships, but killing with his bare hands felt...different, somehow. “And maybe they wouldn't have invited himinto their nest.”

***​

“The good news, sir, is that Manager Milton is very gratefulto you,” Marie said, two hours later. Philip was back on Dasher,having transferred over, had a shower, and then returned to the bridge. “The bad news is that they probably weren't connectedto the Theocracy.”

“That’s not bad news,” Philip said. If he’d been in command of the Theocracy’soperations within the sector, he wouldhave sent a team of fanatics. They wouldhave blown the station and themselves without a second thought. “I take it they knew nothing of great use?”

“They did know about another pirate base,” Marieadmitted. “This one is actually nearly amonth away – well outside the Rim. I don’tthink we could deal with it so easily.”

“But we can send a scout around to check it out,” Philipsaid. They had a handful of ships thatcould serve as scouts; coming to think of it, they could even have the ship’screw visit the pirate base. It wasnormally straightforward to land at a pirate base, provided one had the rightcodes. “And then we can decide what todo about it.”

He pushed the matter aside. “But we’re going to need new security at the gas giant mine,” headded. “The next time we might be lesslucky and...”

His wristcom interrupted him. “Captain, this is the bridge,” Harmon’s voicesaid. “Four starships have just arrivedfrom Avalon – sir, the war has started. The Theocracy attacked Cadiz over a month ago.”

Philip met Marie’s eyes, sharing the same thought. They’d hoped to prepare Asher Dales for war,but now...

Their time had just run out.