The Next Morning

Blackstone Guards’ Facility

“Where is your other base at?” John said to the pirate, threatening to zap him with the shock collar he was now wearing. The two of them were seated in what was essentially a windowless metal closet turned into an interrogation room, a small table separating them. From what he could tell, this one was the most senior pirate left alive and should have the most information to share with him.

“Fuck you, old man! If there was such a place and one of us squealed, we wouldn’t be safe even in the damn mining camps. The Syndicate is everywhere out here, and snitches get more than stitches from those sadistic fuckers.” The pirate spat, not seeming to care that John had the controller to his collar in his hand. Not that John was going to use it, he had other means of getting answers.

If I stay quiet and don’t let him know it is up in the mountains, they might come spring us from that blasted Rim world slavery camp they call a mine. Wouldn’t be the first time they’ve done it. Just hope the other boys keep their traps shut! 

Getting information from the pirates was stupid easy when using his Scouter skill, the eroge ability going well beyond what DEN had actually intended it for. It almost made John feel sorry for the pirates, until he learned through it that they had a bunch of free citizens captured up there, getting ready to be transported off world to be slaves in a nearby nation. Not that most people in the Oberon Confederation were squeaky clean, but with the reforms over the last two decades, most had been pardoned for past crimes and were trying to clean up their act.

When John had come into the Guards’ office that morning, his boss was out at a doctor’s appointment. So instead of waiting around for the man, he went down to the holding cells instead and started questioning the pirates. He cycled through the six of them, learning more about their operations. That led him to question them about the other bases, and the man in front of him was the third pirate to confirm that there was one up in the mountains somewhere. 

The Syndicate they referred to was just a loosely knit network of pirates funded by a nearby pirate nation, Greater Valkyrate. There was a ton of political intrigue in the past, when two parts of the Oberon Confederation broke away to form their own micronations due to King Hendrick III’s policy changes. The King wanted to improve his nation by legitimate means, rather than the pirate kingdom his father and grandfather had allowed it to fall into, and began imposing strict anti-piracy guidelines. Those two micronations eventually became one nation when their rulers married.

It was honestly more than John cared to think about, and didn’t normally affect Blackstone’s day to day operations. Their tiny population was only a small cog in the confederation compared to the other nine more populated worlds. 

John decided it was time to step up his bad cop game. Violence was the only thing these pirates seemed to respond to.

“You are worried about what the Syndicate might do to you? Pirate, that is the least of your concerns. You need to be worried about what I’m going to do to you right fucking now!” John shouted, slamming his hand down on the metal table between them. Whether it was cheap materials or the anger that was flowing through him and the sword right then, he didn’t know, but the 1/8 inch thick plate bent in half as his left palm slammed into it, folding the table nearly in half. 

John recovered from his surprise quickly and grabbed the pirate by the throat, sending the remnants of the table flying to the side as he slammed the pirate up against the side of the cell. “Now, I want their numbers, defences, and any other little detail you can think of. If you cooperate, I won’t start breaking every bone in your body!” John threw a punch into the man’s kidney to prove his point. 

“Don’t… *gurk, gurgle* hurt me… I’ll…*gurk*…Talk! Fuck! I’ll talk! *grawk* Damnit… Fuck, fuck, fuck.” The pirate said, struggling in John’s iron grasp. 

Another sound caught his attention, and he looked down. The pirate had pissed himself and was dripping down his leg to the floor. John tossed the man to the ground in disgust. “Figures, another piss pirate. Start talking.”

“You say you dragged information out of the pirates on another base? Hot damn. You keep this up, and I will be able to retire again sooner than I planned.” Captain James Kearney said, listening to John’s report. The two of them were sitting in his office, sharing a drink while John filled him in on the previous day’s mission and the subsequent investigation.

“Don’t put that evil on me yet, James. I only got out of that position a couple of years back. I wasn’t expecting when I accepted this job that I would be getting lined up to do it again.” John replied with a smile. He was actually one of the youngest Mechwarriors in the Blackstone Guards, so they wanted him to take over as the CO when James finally threw in the towel. The ancient man in front of him was nearing his centennial birthday, and while his mind was still sharp, his lungs were no longer keeping up with the rest of his body.  Medical science could only do so much to keep him running. 

“Ah… well, sorry to do this to you then, but by the end of the year, the unit will be yours. Today’s checkup was the last straw.” James said, leaning back in his chair. “The doc gave me an ultimatum: retire from piloting willingly, or he was going to suspend me. Apparently, if I keep doing this, I’ll be dead before my next birthday.”

“Well, shit. Sorry to hear that.”

“No matter.  I knew this time was coming, so I plan on enjoying what time I have left in the cockpit. Hitting another pirate base sounds like a great cap to my career, so I need to thank you for that. I’ll send a recon flight out there and set up a time for the Leopards to fly us out as soon as your lance is operational again. Now, you are here for your pay, not to hear me bellyaching. Six pirates for the mines will be 60000 C-Bills, decent enough bonus for your team.” James said, handing John a fat stack of bills to hand out to his lance. C-Bills were both electronic and paper in this world, and without a Hyperpulse communications array on the planet, they did almost everything in cash.

“Six? There were seven pirates.” John replied, confused. Injured or not, Lucy should have been in that total. He wasn’t sure what to do with the surface thoughts he read from her. She wouldn’t speak again after that conversation, and he didn’t see her downstairs earlier when questioning the other pirates.

“Well, that brings us to the next thing,” James said with a grimace. “First, she will have months of recovery time. Second, you know they won’t take women to the mines; they always cause problems with the other slaves. Or the guards and legit miners might just squirl her away somewhere to be a free hole for them to use, or pimp her out themselves. The companies don’t want that happening on their property. With her scarring, we can’t even sell her to the brothels here in town. Honestly, you should have just finished her off out in the field.”

“Ahh, what?” John said, becoming even more confused. Surely they had other jobs they could use a female pirate slave for.  

“What I am saying is we don’t have the resources to keep her alive out here, nor a way for her to earn her keep. So, unless you want your own pet pirate that you will need to take care of for the next few months as she recovers, go down to the infirmary and put her out of her misery. You caused this problem, so you now get to solve it.”

“You can’t be serious? She surrendered James. Since when do we execute…” John started to say, then stopped. They executed a lot of people here if they couldn’t be repurposed for the mines. Life was cheap out on the periphery, and one who chose to be a pirate was next to worthless.

Except I don’t think she chose that life. I just wish I had some proof.

“Fine. I will go… deal with the problem. Anything else?” John said, standing up.

“No, that should be it. Oh! The parts for your Hunchback should be here in two weeks. The jumpship should be entering the system today, with a couple of Union dropships full of supplies for the colony. Once Maggie’s Jenner is fixed up, try not to break it again.”

“Right. Talk to you in a few days.”

James watched John leave, shaking his head a bit. He felt bad for the man, but he had to get used to making hard decisions if he was going to find success at this job out here. This wasn’t the Federated Commonwealth; it was the periphery. You couldn’t afford to show weakness out here, else it would eat you alive. 

Blackstone System

Nadir Jump Point

A ship flashed into existence in the dark void of the Blackstone’s system, signaling another successful FTL jump for the crew of the Invader-class Jumpship. The crew was calmly seated at their stations; the fact that they just jumped nearly 25 light years in distance was just another day at the office for them.   

“We have arrived in Blackstone, Captain. K-F Drive is spooling down. No errors reported in the systems.” A technician called out to his captain as he went through the checklist step by step. He had been a spacer for nearly thirty years; the entire operation had been almost hardwired into his brain at this point.

“Very good. Signal the dropships. They are free to detach immediately. Once they are clear, bring our aft in line with the star and begin to deploy the JumpSail.” The captain replied, relaying his orders to the crew. Deploying their JumpSail was always a tricky job, but they would wait until the dropships had gotten underway, as any damage to the sail could strand them here in this system until another JumpShip could arrive with a replacement. And that could take over a year for a system this far away from the innersphere. 

“Sir, I am reading another Emergence Signature. Assessing mass now. Sir, it… I have no idea what it is, other than it is massive.” Another technician said, this one a junior member of the crew. He had only been with them for a couple of years, not even twenty jumps under his belt yet. The Captain unbuckled himself from his seat and floated over to the man’s console to see the readings for himself.

“Stay calm, let me take a look.” He said, placing his hand on the tech’s shoulder. His crew was like family to him; in fact, several of them were actual family. They didn’t get to go planetside very often, so they tended to bring their families with them. The life of a spacer was very different from that of most in the Innersphere, as they spent most of their lives onboard these ships. Or in some cases, all of their lives onboard. Some ships actually became multigenerational, keeping it in the family, so to speak. Thankfully, his ship wasn’t that way; he forced the crew to go planetside at least once a year. 

He looked over the data, and… he couldn’t make sense of it either. The incoming mass was well beyond what any JumpShip that operated out here would carry, or even multiple JumpShips. It was almost like-

“Sir! Off the port side! It’s…It’s a warship!” The first tech called out.

“What? A Warship? Out here?” The Captain said, not understanding. There were so few of them left that it was impossible that one would be out here in the Blackstone system. It didn’t make sense. He looked out the window, and a few kilometres away was a massive tubular shaped warship around 750 meters long, just floating in space. “What flag is it flying?”

“Unknown. Sir! It’s doing something… IT’S FIRING ON US!” The tech shouted.

“What? We are a JumpShip?!? Why would they-” The captain started to say, but a barrage of Naval Autocannon fire ended his thought and his life as it tore his nearly unarmoured JumpShip to shreds. 

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