The Pirates of Deneb 1&2

 This is a science fiction story from Simon. He's used the 'Traveller' [TM] universe in which to set it, though all characters and details of places are original. He plans to 'file off the serial numbers' in due course, which isn't much.  It's a long short story, broken into short chapters. As they are short, I'll post 2 at once.  He makes no money from Traveller, and he is only playing in Marc Miller's sandbox until he does mess with the few copyright bits. So that's the necessary disclaimer.

Chapter 1

Sometimes I feel like a spider sitting in the middle of my web; not that I've ever seen a spider, but that phrase was part of the heritage of every person of Solomani descent. I often feel like a spider when sitting in the small transparent-walled chamber in the data centre. Computer banks surround me, banks made by different races, different species, even one transported at hideous expense from the other side of the Imperium. Made by that most enigmatic of aliens the Hivers, whose home-world lay beyond the rimward-trailing frontier of imperial space. All these computers using their differing circuits and architecture to answer in their different ways the vital question; what is different, what is unusual, what is a threat?

That's my job. I spend my time checking on things the computers flag up as anomalies, categorising potential threats to this sector of the Imperium using a very slow, unreliable but useful computer; a sentient brain. A sentient brain can have intuition, insights, in short – hunches; and the Imperium relies on people like me getting them right. The hunches I was trying, and failing, to get at the moment, concerned the worst pirate menace to hit the Deneb Sector since the Civil War half a millennium ago.

It was worrying.

I work for the Office of Calendar Compliance, Statistical Division; I'm a civil servant, grade seven. The importance of the job is not reflected in the pay grade, but then people who want to get rich don't enter Imperial service, even the navy who still get prize money. The job does entail being the recipient of a lot of pressure but rarely as much as at present. I was getting pressure from five merchants associations, Tukera Lines, the Imperial Navy, Duke Peter from the planet below and even Archduke Norris himself! The nastiest pressure was coming from Tukera Lines; the most icily polite, and scariest, from His Grace the Duke.

The vid-phone chimed.

I turned to answer and the screen lit up with the image of Bwephulp my secretary.

"Yes?" I asked

"The shuttle carrying the Naval Liaison Officer for your meeting is on final approach, Mr. Beecher" she said, "would you like me to meet him?"

I thought for a moment, Bwephulp wasn't wearing her microtube clothing to keep her skin damp, so she must be at her home in the part of the complex with 85% plus humidity where Bwaps like her feel most comfortable.

"No" I replied, "don't bother to get suited up, I'll go" I said.

"Don't forget your pill" chided Bwephulp gently.

"I won't" I replied. It was a pity that my gopher hadn't returned yet from seeing her third uncle twice decayed or whatever, or she could have met the Liaison Officer and taken him to the briefing room.

oOoOo

I got to the docking bay just as the shuttle was docking. I had checked the file of the officer I was to meet earlier, Flag Lieutenant the Honourable Vincent Igadushta and met him as he came out of the docking bay airlock.

I stuck out my hand; "Thank you for coming Flag Lieutenant."

"You're welcome, Mr Beecher," he replied. If there was the slightest stress on the Mr., I didn't take offence; the navy was smarting badly over their failure to deal with the pirates.

"Please come this way," I gestured, leading the Lieutenant to the transit tube. As the Honourable Vincent didn't want to make small talk I whiled away the journey to the secure briefing room reserved for our meeting by studying him, I hoped, unobtrusively.

He was a tall man, taller than I with the typical bronzed skin tone of mixed Vilani-Solomani ancestry hinted at by his name. Handsome and athletic looking enough that I doubt he had any trouble finding willing partners in whatever liberty port he stopped at. The immaculate naval uniform the Lieutenant wore looked to be made of more luxurious fabric than a strict interpretation of the regulations would allow. The uncompromising solidity of the naval issue secure-comp he was carrying brought me back to the purpose of our meeting.

oOoOo

As soon as the briefing room door closed Lt. Igadushta and I, with almost identical movements, took out our security scanners. After a shared wry grin we studied our respective displays until we were both satisfied that the room was secure.

"Please sit down Lieutenant," I gestured to a chair while sitting down across the table from him.

"Tell me Mr. Beecher," he said "what do you know about piracy?"

"I know that it isn't like the tri-vids." I replied. I knew more than that, of course, but I reckoned that I'd get more cooperation from Lt. Igadushta if I let him feel superior to me.

"I'll begin by running through the basics" said the Lieutenant in a rather patronising tone I thought.

"As you know," the Lieutenant continued, "starships enter jump-space and can travel one to six parsecs* in 168 hours plus or minus 10%."

I remembered my first venture into jump-space on my way to scout training after induction. I was scared, exhilarated and downright curious as to what would happen. Nothing happened. The ship entered jump-space smoothly and indetectably; so much for youthful enthusiasm. My attention continued to wander as Igadushta droned on. I didn't bother to tell him that I'd served more than twenty years in the scouts before being invalided out after my last mission. I took out and polished some of the choicer memories of that time while the Lieutenant continued his lecture . . .

Occasional phrases of his interrupted my reverie. Yes I knew that safe jumps had to be done at greater than 100 diameters from any object with significant mass and hence gravity. Only sometimes Lieutenant the Honourable Igadushta, you have to jump when you can, even if you are within 100 diameters, particularly when you are plunging towards a gas giant planet and your manoeuvre drive has failed. Oh yes, Lieutenant sometimes a star's 100 diameter limit can intersect the path your ship takes through that weird mathematical conundrum that is jump space. And if a solar flare distorts a star's 100 diameter bubble your ship can fall out of jump-space unexpectedly with such a shock that the gravity dampers can fail, you get a broken arm and your best friend gets a broken neck! Be careful by all means Lieutenant.

"So you see, Mr Beecher" continued Lt. Igadushta "with all the uncertainties of arrival it's relatively simple for a pirate to lie in wait for a merchantman to arrive, threaten with his superior weaponry, board and seize the cargo."

Ah, you're getting to the gist of the matter now Lieutenant.

*A/N A parsec is approximately 3¼ light-years. Jump one travels one parsec, jump two two parsecs and so on up to six parsecs.

 

Chapter 2

I thought it was about time I indicated some glimmer of intellect before Lt. Igadushta patted me on the head and gave me a dog biscuit. I briefly wondered if he did that to deserving Vargr* ratings? Breaking into the Lieutenants monologue I said,

"I assume that unless the pirates have stolen something to order for immediate delivery, they have to then take their loot somewhere safe and store it until they find a buyer."

"Ah, yes, quite." Lt. Igadushta replied, slightly flummoxed I thought, grinning to myself.

"And that is the problem" he continued, "just where do they store their er loot; where do they repair damage to their ships, we have confirmed at least twelve of them?"

"The Imperial Navy hasn't been able to discover the pirate base." I made it a comment, not a question.

"No" said the Lieutenant, and stopped. Good grief! A monosyllable, the navy must be smarting.

"Nor have the colonial navy squadrons, nor the huscarle ships of the local nobles." He continued, spreading the blame around pretty evenly, I thought. "Even the scouts drew a blank." Thanks, I thought, leaving us till last, typical navy man.

"Refuelling isn't a problem for the pirates. Pirate ships are invariably streamlined and they can skim the atmospheres of gas-giant planets for hydrogen fuel." Lt. Igadusha was lecturing again.

"It is confirmed then that it's one group of pirates causing all the trouble?" I queried.

"Yes," Lt. Igadushta replied. "They call themselves the Flayer Fleet"

"Rather melodramatic." I said.

"It's a reference to a notorious pirate on pre-spaceflight Vland." Said the Lieutenant. "He was known as Gukiimersugin which translates roughly into Galanglic as The Flayer. Several reports speak of the old Vilani pirate symbol the Flaming Eye displayed on the pirate ships." Now that I didn't know.

The Lieutenant manipulated the holo panel on his secure-comp and the meeting room table projected a holo-image of the Domain of Deneb.

"Here" Lt. Igadushta said, brightening a number of points in the display "are the locations of confirmed Flaming Fleet attacks. These" he said, brightening others, "are the locations of suspected Flaming Fleet attacks. Making an irregular bulge pointing at the heart of Deneb sector." That confirmed my existing data. A pity there isn't a faster than light equivalent of radio; information from another sector is weeks out of date, even travelling by fast ship. Hell, messages from the other side of the Imperium could be years out of date.

"There's no obvious centre to the attacks" I observed.

"No" replied Lt. Igadushta "And they extend to the edge of the Great Rift¹."

"The base could be anywhere in that area" I said, "that's more than three dozen systems."

"It could equally be outside that area" the Lieutenant pointed out. "Even inside the area there are more than 200 planets and moons, many of them not adequately surveyed. That's excluding large asteroids and Kuiper Belt Objects²."

"It's utterly impossible to search all that." I said.

"Quite." The Lieutenant said, with a rather tight smile.

"It's also rather fruitless to chase individual pirate ships" continued Lt. Igadushta, "As they can microjump to the outer system, refuel from a Kuiper Belt Object with fuel processors and jump elsewhere. Unless the chasing ship gets a lucky hit and puts the pirate's jump drive out of commission."

"Jumping into the outer system is pretty chancy unless the pirates have a rutter." I pointed out

"A rutter?" the Lieutenant looked puzzled.

"It's a slang term Lieutenant." I said. "Naval and scout ships have huge data-banks with all known astrogational information for their operational area in them; it's one reason we use such huge and expensive computers."

"Yes, I know that" said Lt. Igadushta sounding somewhat snippy. There, how do you like being lectured at, you bastard.

"But merchant ships don't." I replied. "They either purchase a pre-calculated jump course to the next starport, only valid for a certain time or they use a cut-down astrogational programme using limited data. That's why merchant ships plot such time consuming courses, they have to play it safe. A rutter is a computer programme with precise data on planetary movements enabling much more efficient course plotting. There's a black market for them, but canny skippers, or pirates, keep them secret."

"Unfortunately the Flayer Fleet appears to have a most comprehensive rutter." Snapped the Lieutenant.

"Have any of the Flayer Fleet been captured?" I thought it time to change the subject.

"Yes, the report arrived by the last courier ship" said Lt. Igadushta. "A naval Q-ship disguised as an ordinary merchant captured the pirate boarding party. The pirate ship managed to escape though."

"What did the interrogation reveal?" I asked. This could be a breakthrough.

"First of all, it revealed that the pirates, hardened scum though they are, are more afraid of their leader, he's called Admiral Gukiimersugin, than they are of us." Said the Lieutenant. "It seems that the Admiral takes after his namesake, one unfortunate who tried to betray the group was flayed alive and then shoved out of the airlock!"

"Pleasant chap" I replied.

"All of the captured pirates had been to the base, but none of them knew where it was," Lt. Igadushta continued. "After intensive chemical interrogation all we could discover was that the base was underground on an airless world, with gravity substantially less than standard. The group itself is mixed; mostly human and Vargr with a scattering of others, about 200 in total. We did get a full listing of the pirate fleet."

"Excellent!" This would give me a chance of checking the estimates my department had come up with.

Lt. Igadushta projected the pirate fleet list above the table.

"Ah, good. We were certain of the identities of eight ships and estimated that there might be about a dozen." I said. The Lieutenant looked chagrined, the eight were bang on the nose and there were a total of twelve ships.

A/N* Vargr are uplifted Terran canines who were genetically manipulated in the far distant past by the mysterious and extinct race the Ancients.

A/N¹ The Great Rift is an area of very few stars cutting off the Domain of Deneb from the rest of the Third Imperium. Spinward Marches sector and Deneb sector are both part of the Domain of Deneb.

A/N² Our solar system's Kuiper Belt lies outside the orbit of Neptune. Pluto and Eris are among the unknown number of objects to be found there. I'm assuming that just about all systems will have something similar.

 

 

Książ castle

 because it's pretty, I pulled these images off the net which are copyright to Wikipedia, thanks Wiki

and the gardens and inside

So now  you can picture Jaromka wandering around thinking 'Decadent!' to himself. My first thought was 'who cleans all those windows?'

bonus post, poem

 

Jurij was a mariner, a wanderer, a wayfarer

He travelled far o’er land and sea, his destiny a venturer

He battled foes upon his way, to free poor souls from slavery

And never paused in righteous cause to ply his sword with bravery.

 

Jurij built a fleet of ships for reaving in, to buccaneer

With sun and sextant by the day, at night the stars to help him steer;

To fall upon  his foes with fire, and featly force them to obey

When he called on them to surrender, for his fleet had won the day.

 

He built a web of waterways, to sail the land as readily

As ever on the open seas, and brought his soldiers steadily

By speed and stealth in conquering his foes struck down by sabre bright,

To save his realm from piracy, and brigandage, and traitor’s blight.

 

Jurij was a Cossack and a mariner notorious

He fell upon the Ottomans and wrought his vict’ry glorious

He steered his fire-stricken ship defiantly at foeman’s fleet

And gave his life for all he loved, directing the inferno’s heat.

 

Jurij was a warrior, a father and a husband true

A son he was, his father’s pride, a family man, and loyal too

Beloved by all who knew him, his memory will never die

A merry man who lived his life in full, with mischief in his eye.

korybut spinoff 3 cliffie bonus

 

Chapter 3

 

It amazed Janina how easily Dąbek gave in to these bully-boys. Surely he could ask a group of regulars to stay over, and beat them to a pulp?  He seemed unable to make decisions.

Janina forgot that she had been being trained for the last ten years to be a warrior, and not just a warrior, but a leader of warriors, learning purely by association with her husband and his friends, and her friends, who all went to war with their husbands as a matter of course. She did not like the odds of facing four men, even those who would be considered a soft target by most Cossacks for being overweight, and used only to terrorising peasants.

And she heard a sound in the kitchen, and suppressed a wimper of fear as she realised that Lezek had sent some of his men to come in the back as well.

If he had sent them all, she had very little hope of surviving.

“Oh, Onufry!” she whispered. “I will die well, I won’t let you down. Queen of Poland, be with a mother this day.”

She was angry, however. Angry that Dąbek let them walk all over him; angry that nobody had reported these terrors within the very city walls, angry that such men existed, and angry that she would be selling her life dearly for a fight which should never have happened, against a foe which should never have existed.

 

 

oOoOo

 

Onufry Zagłoba missed his wife. Even a day without her was a day which seemed dull and wasted. The little birds sang their hearts out as they built their nests in the bright spring sunshine, and Zagłoba thought of one or two borderline smutty comments he would have liked to have made to Janina regarding nests and springtime urges. It had been a long, severe winter, so although Easter had been late, Spring was still catching up with the long snows. Zagłoba and Janina had enjoyed sleigh rides through the long winter, but had also driven them out to see if any peasants wanted for anything, carrying sacks of oats and vegetables for far-flung villages, away from any canal or highway.

Zagłoba was as restless as any bird in spring, and slipped along the river path to sneak into the back of the inn, and surprise Janina in the kitchen, and perhaps steal a kiss or two. He apostrophised himself as a fool, his heart beating with excitement at the thought, as if he was a teen-aged lad hoping to surprise a girl he admired at the washing, her shift wet and transparent.

He hurried.

And frowned to see four very disreputable men slip into the kitchen door of the inn.

Janina was in danger! He speeded his steps to be running, silently, on his toes, loosening his sabre from its sheath.

 

oOoOo

 

Janina waited for the door into the inn from the kitchen to open; she would have time to take down a couple of men, perhaps, before Lezek reached, opened, and entered the front door of the inn. She took a knife in her right hand, the cleaver in her left. Tumbling underhand, it was easier to throw, so she chose to keep that in her off hand.

And the door burst open, and they came in, daggers in hand. The knife left her hand, and then the cleaver, and then she had the arapnik in her hand, ready for the chief brigand as he came in the front door, and to make sure that she cracked the iron hard on his head.

Her aim was not entirely true; the weapon was not as finely balanced as a properly made bullhide bolus arapnik. Nevertheless, the brigand chief went down, caught on the jaw, and his three aides were bursting through the door behind him.

And two more men were behind the two she had taken down as they came from the kitchen.

But suddenly, they were crumpling, as their heads briefly seemed to float whilst their bodies crumpled.

And there was her husband, sabre out.

“Oh, Onufry!” Janina almost wept.

Zagłoba stalked forward like a predator. Many discounted him as a fat old man; his barrel chest made him look fat in clothes, even though he had shed the excess weight he had once carried.  Janina moved out of her cover to put her back to his; one at least of the first pair was not dead, her knife having embedded in his upper arm, though the cleaver had done its vicious work in opening up the belly of the other.

Zagłoba was whirling death. The three men with Lezek died before they had a chance to register that the fat old man was every inch, around or up and down, a warrior, a szlachcic trained to kill from the moment he was old enough to hold a sword. One lost his head and the next sat down with a gasp to bleed out as the follow-up blow from moulinet split open his belly. The third tried to slip out of the door, and Zagłoba kicked his legs out from under him, spitting him as he fell.

The one who was not dead made a body charge in despair, his dagger parrying Janina’s blade, and Zagłoba swayed out of the way, and somehow the man was flying out through the window, glass, frame and all.

“Nice little fight,” said Zagłoba, kicking Lezek into unconsciousness as the man tried to move. “Care to tell me what it was about?”

“One-eye is the leader,” said Janina. “Oh, Onufry! I prayed for courage and for Mother of God to be with me, but it was uncommonly good of her to send you as well!”

“Hush, little girl, you’re babbling,” said Zagłoba.  “Let me tie up your fellow... washing line? Splendid. An iron as a weight? Excellent improvisation. What a good wife you are,  but I want to know why, when I came to steal kisses I find unexpected entertainment instead.”

Janina gave a sound which was halfway between a laugh and a sob, and explained it all.

Zagłoba frowned.

“That means that someone in the watch is being paid off,” he said. “Or remarkably lax. I will find out, as you have been good enough to capture the leader.”

 

Dąbek came in the door cautiously at this point, blanching at what he had to step over.

“Ah, ale-draper,” said Zagłoba. “I’ll soon get the mess sorted out, so you can be open as usual. Or maybe,” he indicated the broken window, “a little more open than usual.”

Dąbek crossed himself.

“Dear God, you killed them all?” he gasped.

“Hardly worth working up a sweat over,” said Zagłoba. “Nice little bit of fun; they were trying to menace your cook. I fancy she’s a Cossack, though; she accounted for three of them.

“You... you killed more of them?” Dąbek regarded Janina with horrified fascination.

“I did tell you I was a Cossack,” said Janina. “Perchance you did not take me seriously. But I was glad of my lord’s intervention. I would have been hard pressed against eight. That means two left in the gang,” she said.

“Not for long,” said Zagłoba. “Here, you!” he turned to Dąbek, “Run to the palace and ask for Lord Jan Skrzetuski; he’s a colonel.”

“He went to warn them that I had killed the two who had come to demand money,” said Janina.

“You did what?” Zagłoba’s voice hissed in velvet menace.

“I... I wanted to beg pardon for his men being harmed and offer to pay more!” whimpered Dąbek. “That wench would bring trouble on my roof, killing hard men who do not forgive!”

“I am much less forgiving than a bunch of hopeless bandits,” said Zagłoba. “You shall be impaled as one of their number!”

“Please my lord, I did not know they would come in numbers to kill her! I only wanted to pay a blood price for them, to keep them from taking retribution!”

Zagłoba regarded him levelly.

It would inconvenience the plan to spy on Zabiełło if the man were arrested.

“You’re a poltroon,” he said, in disgust.

“Please, my lord, I’ll go to the colonel as you order,” said Dąbek, sweating.

Zagłoba considered.

Now the bandits were almost all dead, the wretch would do as the strongest man around ordered; and that was Zagłoba.

“Very well; I will accept that you are a weak fool more than a crook. Go to Colonel Skrzetuski. Tell him what happened, and tell him to bring some men to sort things out. I’ll stay here in case the other two turn up. Well run man!”

Dąbek cast Zagłoba a look of dislike and set off at a trot.

He dared not disobey the szlachcic, and his reasons for not disobeying lay dismembered on his inn floor.

 

oOoOo

 

Jan Skrzetuski and a dozen men came to sort out bodies and bear away the wounded but living Lezek.  Zagłoba was drinking mead – he was not paying for it – and filled Jan in on what he suspected the innkeeper had not said.

“He should be hanged,” said Jan.

Zagłoba shrugged.

“For cowardice? It seems harsh, he’s only a peasant.”

Jan caught his eye, horrified, and read that his old friend had his reasons.

“Will you come and question this filth?” he asked.

“Oh, hell, yes,” said Zagłoba, who was not averse to enacting judicial torture on a man who had taken seven armed men against his beloved.

 

oOoOo

 

Lezek fell apart in the first throes of capture shock, damaged by a mere wench, and then that... fiend!  He had never faced a trained warrior before and he mumbled his confession through a broken jaw and cheekbone, implicating all of those he was paying off.

Arrests were rapid, and justice swift.

By the time Janina was telling the story for the fourth time of the magnificent hussar who had come to her aid, the bodies of a dozen members of the watch had been hoisted onto poles along the waterfront, along with Lezek and the two of his associates unfortunate enough not to have gone with him to meet a swift death at the hands of Janina or Zagłoba.

Their crimes were proclaimed; they were named traitors. Traitors against the people, for they had betrayed their positions of trust to serve and protect the people, and therefore were the worst of sinners, since there was no crime worse than betraying a sacred trust.

It would be a long time before any watchman in Warszawa took a bribe of any amount from anyone for anything.

Good King Remi, the people’s king, was easy-going, listened to  his people, and provided regular feasts. He forgave those who made genuine mistakes, like the man who had tried to kill him, believing that the king would make those in the more recently acquired territories of the Rzeczpospolita change their religion. That man was now a part of the king’s own bodyguard, and proud to be so.

But the king never forgave those who had sinned against his people, and his retribution was swift, and harsh.

Some said he could be cruel; others pointed out that there had been fewer executions under his reign than under almost any other king. It was just that when he did execute, he tended to make it one of the more extreme forms.

Thus the talk went around in the inn, as Janina served people.

And then Dawid Zabiełło came in with a few of his friends.

“Full, tonight,” he said.

“People marvelling over our excitement, my lord,” said Janina.

“You’re new, aren’t you?” asked Zabiełło.

“Yes, my lord.  I needed the job.”

“Well, bring us mead, and send Kuba to tell me why the window is broken and what your excitement is, and if it had anything to do with that murdering bastard having all those men impaled.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Janina.

Kuba Dąbek could be relied on to play down her part in the killing of bandits; by the time the evening was over, he would have been rescuing her from them, and killed them, and went running for aid, and fell in with a szlachcic. He would not advertise to anyone that he was scared of Janina.

It worked very well in their favour.

It also worked well that Zabiełło would not be likely to be discussing any plans when the place was so crowded, but now he had seen the new barmaid, he would likely forget her. And so she might overhear when he and his friends were alone in the bar.

No, the banditry had not spoiled things. 

Other than what might have been a nice time having Onufry steal kisses, and give her his roguish look as he murmured about how unruly his hands were as he let them wander up her bare legs, or down from caresses on  her face and neck.

Janina was very put out with the bandits, and had every sympathy with Prince Jurij for complaining how duties ate into Jurij’s shagging time.