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“All hands to action stations,” the call came over the speaker.
Conductor Ulysses Fortier—Uly—was in his office, mostly reviewing paperwork. He exploded into motion, slipping around his desk and opening the hatch to the bridge before pausing to see who had been on duty at the moment.
He hadn’t been paying attention—autopilot was like that—but the voice had been Haydar Ramezani, the ship’s Data Officer and somewhere between Second- and Fourth-In-Command, depending on the day and the mission. He was Mazhin, so all his tentacles were currently in motion, seething like a ball of seaweed that locked on Uly as he entered.
“Someone thinks they are being sneaky,” Haydar said without turning eyes to look, instead focused on his screens. “They have just launched a raid on a ship in harbor. Figured I’d interrupt them and maybe get a little rude in the process.”
Uly nodded and moved to the conductor’s chair as Haydar stood up and slid over to where he normally preferred. Off to one side and handling data duties instead of at the center of things. More than sensors, because he had a particular genius for extracting information from raw output.
Sometimes, the little things that made the difference between victory and defeat.
Uly buckled himself in.
Bad day for pirates to attack, no two ways about it. Sterling Huff was aboard the Watchtower, supervising crews assembling and completing the new station. And learning how to be an officer without Uly or anyone else close by. But he was nineteen years old now, and had been with Uly for four years of intense training.
And had the makings of a fantastic commanding officer one of these days. He’d just needed seasoning.
Similarly, Drew Roscoe was elsewhere, currently working with some of the civilian vessels that had accumulated at this moorage and organizing them into a small surveying force that would follow the courses Drew plotted in order to see what was out there.
That left Uly without his primary Gunner and his favorite Pilot, but he had Yuriy Kovalchuk on Guns today, an Ononguli pirate who had broken out of an Auga prison with him, and Yaqub Zobo, a Khet pilot who had helped steal the Watchtower at Ixtin.
And, as usual, Yaqub was technically out of uniform, today with a purple headband above his eyes and below his headcrest. His surname was derived from a type of plant with purple flowers, and no amount of discussion would get him to not have something purple on, so Uly had suggested the headband.
And it let you always know who he was from the back, given the large number of Khet crew that Uly had also accumulated.
“Data Officer, give me a sky view of the moorage on the main screen,” Uly said, even as Haydar did so.
He had named the system and the planet Bastion, the ancient French word for a stronghold, just as his own surname, Fortier, meant someone who had lived in or near such a place. It was a pleasant world in many ways. Uninhabited when he arrived, but it showed indications that
someone had lived there at some point, but left long enough ago that any investigations would be archaeological in nature.
Two moons, a larger one and a smaller one, like a cat and a mouse. More ocean than land.
Perfect for him to establish a new star nation, drawing folks from everywhere else, rather than forcing locals to adapt to his needs.
Uly was already at war with the Auga Empire over their intended goal of eventually conquering the entire galaxy.
Watchtower Bastion was the name of the almost complete station nearby, with the ship that held all the parts also being the Watchtower, though Uly intended to sell the vessel or trade for something more useful once it was completely empty. The other immense-though-smaller transport Wren was close to the Watchtower, as was the chartered Ononguli cruise ship that held most of the workers assembling the station.
Beyond that immediate zone, a number of signals indicated smaller ships. Almost all were armed to some degree, but none of them were anywhere close to as large or dangerous as the Corsac Fox, his heavy Interceptor ex-pirate gendarme vessel.
Haydar had highlighted four ships with blue rings on the screen.
“These four are up to no good,” he announced, voice turning professorial as it did when Haydar got going on the topic. “They have, like most folks, absolutely no understanding of signals encryption, so I have been listening to what they thought were private conversations between conductors. At the moment, they are working themselves up to launching an attack to cut out the freighter Hansa by sneaking over boarding parties.”
Uly absorbed all that, then turned to look at the man. Mazhin. Something. Ex-pirate scientist.
“And you were going to tell me when?” Uly asked.
“They haven’t committed any crimes yet, Uly,” Haydar nodded. “Yet. They have, however, launched their shuttles with boarders and are about to engage in overt piracy.”
Uly nodded. Technically correct was still the best way to do it, and he was intending to build up an entire star nation built on laws and order. On universal citizenship, regardless of species, if you were willing to work for the common good of all beings.
Even if he had taken
to referring to himself as Warlord of the Spinward Reaches in the meantime.
Nobody lived out here. Or rather, individual planets existed, but no larger nations. Mostly folks hiding in the galactic darkness.
Not necessarily primitive, as galactic technology had been around for millennia at this point, but civilizations rose, spanned, and fell. He was trying to create something that would live long after he died of old age, though at age twenty-seven he hopefully had most of a century in front of him yet.
“Understood,” Uly agreed with Haydar. “Have you notified anyone else?”
“Dan and her team are on the Bastion itself,” Haydar replied. “Not immediately available because I hadn’t expected to need communications that secured at the moment.”
Uly nodded. He already knew what Haydar would likely stay up all night tonight doing. Either inventing exactly what he should have had available, or adapting something, so that he could put it into Uly’s hands in the morning. He was like that.
Haydar and Roshan had originally been Mazhin slaves of the Combined Crowns of Danumash. Technicals, using their term for scientists, just as most of the rest of the Mazhin prisoners had been Mechanicals, tasked with building the things designed.
If Haydar had largely given up the competition with Roshan to invent new control systems, he still dabbled. And had a much more focused intent.
It would get done. Uly only had to step back so he didn’t lose fingers or get pulled under by that tide.
It was good.
Uly studied the plot. Noted the vectors of over one hundred ships, most of them at rest to one another and the shell that would become Uly’s new…base? Palace? Hall of Government?
Something.
The core of that thing he intended to build, such that it would outlive every person in this system and be handed down to their grandchildren if he could make it work.
First, however, he had to deal with some pirates.
“Mr. Kovalchuk, arm your systems and prepare your teams for combat,” Uly ordered, turning himself back into that young Batyr officer he’d been, once upon a forever ago. “Mr. Zobo, engage Electroshield Array and plot me this course and stand by to engage the Variable Pulse Spatial Generators.”
“Sir?” Yaqub Zobo
asked, looking back over his shoulder.
Uly had sent him a rough line. The distance was hardly anything, as it went, but Uly wanted surprise.
“Just a blip, Zobo,” Uly nodded. “Then they’re trapped in here with us.”
“Oh, right, sir,” Yaqub nodded, clicking buttons. “Course laid in and ready, sir.”
Uly missed Drew and Sterling. They’d have already plotted something even bigger, meaner, and better, just waiting for Uly to approve it.
But his current crew were shaping up nicely. And Uly knew how to fly and fight a ship himself.
“All hands, stand by for combat,” Uly announced on the intercom. “Mr. Zobo, charge.”
Uly barely had time to register the Variable Pulse Spatial Generators ramping up and creating a bubble around Corsac Fox before they were gone again. To the naked eye, it might have looked like the ship teleported across the orbital distance, but the Bastion wasn’t complete enough to have its own such generators turned on and running at a low, background hum to keep other ships nearby from doing such a thing.
Yet one more project that probably needed to be accelerated. There was never enough time, enough people, enough anything, even though they had completed more work in the last six months than he’d originally planned for his first year out here.
And now, some punks had decided to try their luck. And his wrath.
He supposed that not everyone this far off the beaten path might have heard what he’d done in Imperial Sector Fifteen, between Z’Gosza and Taeli Station, to clean up piracy.
This was, according to almost every map he’d inherited, the middle of nowhere. The place where all the big trade routes turned into side alleys before petering out into nothingness in the wilderness.
Uly would have to remind them. Or educate them.
Lessons would be learned. Hopefully, these four ships and crews would survive. If not, the word would get out some other way.
Hansa was a medium-sized cargo vessel. Built on a hull roughly comparable to Corsac Fox in size, but with a small crew and large cargo bays. Many of those bays were filled with supplies to be sold to various folks shortly.
A bright, shiny bauble for pirates to pounce on like kittens.
However, a bobcat had just arrived.
A shuttle had docked with Hansa. A second had docked with the shuttle in a chain, presumable to feed a mob of boarders in to overwhelm the crew.
Hopefully, they’d been armed with stun weapons, or Uly would tack a lot of ugliness onto their punishment. The terminal kind, if necessary.
Lessons would be learned.
Four pirate ships. All small. Seeker class, but it was hard to distinguish them as Cargo Lighters, Ultra-Bombers, or Probes. None currently had wavebolts mounted externally to fire in a hurry. All had at least one turret pointed at Hansa.
Corsac Fox had appeared behind them, as it were.
Uly didn’t even bother with names. Haydar had them available if he cared, but on the screen they were numbered from the left, one to four.
Number three slewed a wavebolt turret about and fired.
“I have a 2dm bolt
incoming,” Yuriy called. “Gunners, put a 1dm into it. Neutron Omnipulsar teams, stand by to receive more fire.”
Uly nodded. Two decimeters in diameter when leaving the tube. A ball of plasma wrapped up in a small electromagnetic bubble by a control system, it bled some of the energy off for speed.
The farther they traveled, the weaker they got. Plus, you could damage them defensively with various weapons. A 1dm would kill it dead, long before it got close.
“Sir, do we return fire?” Yuriy asked, fingers poised.
The Ononguli were almost as savage and violent as Humans. Almost.
Plus, he and Sterling had trained the crew to use violence like a jeweler’s tools, rather than a big hammer to crush anything before them. Neither the Ononguli Confederation nor the Auga Empire were known for subtlety.
“Give the one who fired first a six,” Uly replied.
“More fire inbound,” Haydar interrupted as the other three unleashed bolts as well.
“Yuriy, break them,” Uly said simply.
Yuriy Kovalchuk gulped once and nodded, his horns only wavering a moment as he turned back.
“Gun team, give me the second bolt here,” he said. “Lance this time, because I want that ship shattered.”
Uly almost stopped him, but held back. A 6dm set to lance mode might punch starlight through number three if it hit. It would certainly get their attention.
“Defensive teams, engage on your usual vectors and let me know if you risk overload,” Yuriy continued, his voice only rising a little.
But he’d been on the bridge several times when Sterling had fought this vessel against worse odds. And had been taught by Sterling Huff to do it right. Professionally.
Corsac Fox spewed defensive wavebolts at incoming torpedoes. 1dm was sufficient to shatter anything inbound. The Omnipulsar beams would weaken any until someone else could help.
“I’ve got a runner,” Yaqub called, highlighting number one.
It had fired one 3dm, turned, and was accelerating away, obviously trying to get out of the sphere of space interdicted by the Spatial Generators so they could escape.
“Keep with him,” Uly ordered.
Sterling would have already pounced, but he had a killer instinct that Yuriy was only slowly discovering.
“Gun teams report a kill,” Yuriy announced.
Uly looked. Number three had taken that lance. It had penetrated their shields with
enough energy left over to blacken the hull. No lights remained, and plasma and atmosphere were venting through the holes on both sides.
“Uly, we’re getting surrenders from two of the ships,” Haydar announced.
“Ignore them,” Uly ordered, turning to look at the Mazhin to make his point.
You didn’t get to start something like this, then step back and say sorry when it turned against you. Lessons needed to be learned, as taught by the Corsac Fox. The man, and not just the ship.
The Warlord of the Spinward Reaches.
“Yuriy, kill number four,” Uly ordered. “Yaqub, keep number one from getting away.”
There was a moment of stunned faces looking back, then everyone sobered and went to work.
The forward turret was a twin-barreled 6dm. Far heavier than a ship like Corsac Fox needed, and even exceptional for pirates, which it had used to great advantage when the ship was the Ononguli raider Iron Wasp.
Uly watched the Gunner and his teams coordinate. A 6dm to distract the defenders, while a pair of 1dms raced in right behind it. It was the sort of thing that was becoming a signature Sterling Huff move. The pirates had to choose between stopping the one that might rupture their vessel entirely and the two smaller ones that might do the same thing in smaller bites.
The defenders tried their best, but their best was only sufficient to stop two wavebolts. A 1dm impacted, blasting their Electroshield Array into vapor trailing away like a comet’s corona.
The other 6dm raced after number one. That ship appeared to be nothing more than a Cargo Lighter, as it fired a single 1dm defensively, then focused their only Neutron Omnipulsar.
It wasn’t enough to stop a six, but it did weaken it enough that the ship merely tumbled out of control after taking the explosive impact.
Yuriy had hit them with a hammer instead of a shiv, but they were still done.
“Uly, number two is greatly sorry for causing you any problems and offers to make it right, if please you won’t kill them,” Haydar spoke up. “I gather that number three and four had the two conductors responsible
for everything.”
“Yuriy, cease fire,” Uly ordered, nodding. “Let them surrender. Haydar, contact Dan and ask her to send combat teams over to remove the crews of all four ships and put them under arrest on the station. Have Drew round up scratch crews to get the ships stabilized and moved to a safer orbit, assuming none of them explode at this point.”
Haydar nodded, already typing messages.
“Uly, what do you intend to do with the prisoners?” he asked.
Uly shrugged.
“That depends on Hansa,” he replied. “If everything was polite and safe, throw the raiders in prison for a while to rethink their life choices.”
“And if not?” Haydar asked, lips pulled tight.
“Hang them.”
Commander Sheridan Chastain was working. Had been. As Uly’s Chief of Staff and Second-in-Command, Dan had responsibilities far beyond the ship Corsac Fox, even as she was recruiting and training people to handle things. Just as Uly had done to her, back when she was a mere enlisted boarding grunt that had drawn the short straw to be sent with a young officer the others disliked.
Distrusted.
Mostly because Uly was better than any of them.
As Commander, she wasn’t supposed to lead teams into ground combat anymore, but she’d gotten the note from Haydar that Uly seemed exceptionally pissed at someone or something, so she’d dropped everything, asked Suka Kuri to take over for a while, and grabbed her team.
One Human. One Mazhin. Two Emro. One Ononguli. One Khet. One Guezal. At least in the order they had joined. All were equals today. Experts at close combat, boarding actions, weapons, tactics. All female.
Several somebodies apparently needed to have their heads cracked together. Dan was going to handle it personally.
Dan and her team were on a shuttle blasting madly across orbital space to take charge. Four ships, already lined up like ducklings, though two of them were apparently scrap iron at this point.
“Pilot, time to contact?” she called.
“Ninety seconds, Commander,” the man replied. “Corsac Fox wants us securing Hansa first, then moving on.”
“Understood,” Dan replied.
She’d grabbed boarding armor, weapons, and her women, running to the flight deck without bothering to get a full update from Haydar.
The situation was stable. Now, she needed to own it.
Dan turned back to the others. Nasrin. Yanouk. Anari. Katya. Ciah. Yeong-Suk.
Grim smiles greeted her. Like they’d all gotten that same vibe that something was wrong and needed to be dealt with by dropping overwhelming force on it up front.
“We going in hot?” Nasrin asked.
Her name meant Wild Rose. No longer the second best warrior of the group, but only because the others had mostly caught up with the Mazhin woman. They were all deadly.
“Ready for lethal, but we’ll keep it polite for now,” Dan replied. “I got the impression that the boarders were far more polite after Uly stomped their ships into the mud. Doubt they’ll give us trouble now, but we need to be ready for it.”
Nods. All of them studied close combat. Taught each other. Learned from one another.
“Seal it up,” Dan said, pulling her helmet on and checking everything.
For now, she’d leave the faceplate and louvers open, but both could shut in the blink of an eye.
Everyone did the same, then checked one another for green lights on the outsides of their boarding armor. Ready to go.
“Docking imminent,” the pilot called from up front.
Dan moved to the hatch and drew her Heavy Exoripper pistol. One of the few things she still had from her days on Marshal Castillon, a lifetime ago. New uniform. New rank. New everything.
New star nation in the process of being born, as much her work as Uly’s, ...
