Commander (12 page)

First Officer Parker was in on the secret, of course; he
had
to be. Everything depended on his long years of experience as a merchant captain. Besides, I had Nestor fitting him out with uniform after uniform— green for Imperial Cargo Lines, gray for New Geneva Expeditors, sky-blue for Yan Interstellar Logistic Services… Soon he had more changes of costumes than there was room for in his cabin, and we dedicated the corner of a hold just to storing them all. But I didn’t say a word to Uncle Robert, as I wanted to use him as a sort of barometer. If he didn’t tumble to it then perhaps it wouldn’t seem so obvious to the Imperials, either.

Getting the gear ready in time was difficult enough, but our biggest problem was the Imperial corvette waiting for us at Point Three. No, she hadn’t a prayer of outfighting us. But she was far faster than we were, and could easily follow us wherever we went broadcasting warnings and appealing for any Imperial-navy consorts that might be about to come finish us off. It was certainly what I’d have done in their place. Instead, while we were still a week out, they ducked through the point for a few hours. Then they returned and maneuvered to rejoin the destroyers, who also broke off pursuit. Why, I’d never know—the destroyers might’ve considered their merchantman-bagging operation to be more important to their overall war-effort than chasing us down, or perhaps the corvette was having engine problems or was short on fuel or stores or something. Or maybe there was a huge fleet sitting on the other end of the Jump waiting to ambush us, so that they didn’t need to bother. I could think of a thousand reasons why they might’ve done what they did, and as likely as not all of my guesses would be wrong ones.

At any rate, the Jump proved totally uneventful. “Clear skies, Captain,” First Officer Parker reported after a minutes-long scan.

I nodded as my heart slowed down to its normal rate. We were lucky, lucky, lucky! Doubly so, given that there were no settlements at this node. So, we truly had space to ourselves. “Thank you, Mr. Parker.” Then I turned to my astrogator. “Set a course for Point Seven,” I ordered. “Flank speed.”

He blinked, clearly taken by surprise. If we traversed Point Seven, it’d take at least fifteen Jumps for us to get back into Royal space, instead of the minimal eleven at Point Four. “Aye-aye, sir!” he replied. “Let me calculate—“

“It’ll take us nineteen days,” I replied, having worked it out long since in my cabin. “Or it would if we remained under full power. Which we’re not going to be able to do, unfortunately. I’m afraid that’s not going to make your job any easier.”

Wu’s brow wrinkled. “Sir?”

“We’ll have to power down the Field to work on the hull. Which’ll take days.” I sighed and pressed the little button that connected me with engineering. “Chief,” I ordered. “We’ll begin repainting the ship at oh-eight-hundred hours. Make your plans accordingly. Birkenhead out.”

21

No ship ever heads out into deep space without a little of this and a little of that aboard. This is especially true of warships, which might easily find themselves forced to repair extensive battle-damage light-years from anywhere. It was a good thing for us that this was so; our new cargo-containers, for example, were made largely of hull-patches, and the crane from spare structural members. We carried a fair amount of powder-paint as well, though not even my purser seemed to know exactly why. It took almost three days for my mostly-Rabbit able-spacer crew to first strip off our Royal markings, then paint green stylized Imperial Line “I’s” where they’d once been. Next we unfolded our cargo containers and arranged them in a hollow rectangle over our gunports, cabling them together in the process so that if we had to drop them in a hurry they’d all remain clustered together for an easy pickup. We mounted the crane well aft, in imitation of the usual Imperial practice. The final step was to drape superconducting tarps over the lot, so that the Field would flow easily over the new surface. Yes, the less-efficient shape would slow us down a bit and consume more precious energy. But that was how most merchies did things, after all—for them the extra capacity was well worth the loss. Besides, we could dump the whole mess on thirty-seconds notice and be in full fighting trim once more. Until then, however, it’d take a close examination indeed to perceive us as anything but the Imperial Lines cargo vessel we now seemed to be.

It was truly entertaining, watching as the crew slowly figured it out. Where once they’d been pensive and nervous, soon humans and Rabbits alike were walking about with oversized grins on their faces. Nothing’s better for morale than a little hope, especially the sort flavored with the promise of fun and games. Hull work in deep space, especially painting, is both dangerous and exhausting work. Yet my little crew set to it with a will once the secret was out, completing the job almost half a day early and forcing poor Wu to perform his lengthy calculations all over again. We were just finishing up with the final tarp-stretching when Uncle Robert asked for a word in private. He didn’t look happy, and I thought I knew why. “David,” he began as soon as the cabin door closed behind him. “I know we’re in a tough spot. But… Do you really intend to resort to piracy?”

I blinked, pretending innocence. “I’m not a pirate, Uncle. I’m a legally-sworn, uniformed king’s officer, and this is a king’s ship.”

He scowled. “You know what I mean, David! You’re preparing to imitate a noncombatant. Sailing under a false flag is illegal, son! Forbidden under the laws of war!”

“Are we actually flying a false flag?” I asked him gently, raising my eyebrows.

“Well…” He sputtered for a moment.

“False colors have been illegal since the Concordat of Boston in 2384,” I replied with a smile, having done my homework long since. “Though I’ll mention in passing that before then they were considered an entirely legitimate and honorable
ruse de’ guerre
for centuries. And I’ll also point out that almost every other provision of the Concordat has fallen out of effect, mostly due to having been trampled by the Imperials.” I smiled, then stepped over to my desk and flipped on my datascreen. With the touch of a single key—I’d anticipated this conversation—I brought up the external camera view I wanted. “See, Uncle? We’re perfectly legal!”

He blinked, then leaned forward squinting at the display. It showed a closeup of our bridge and the ridiculous little mast we’d erected there for the ship’s colors. At the top was a teensy, tiny replica of the Royal flag, less than a square foot in area. “The Concordat,” I amplified, “speaks specifically of flags. Not of hull-markings or radio beacons. Nor does it specify a minimum size.”

Uncle Robert stiffened in rage. “David! How can you make such a deliberate mock—”

But I wasn’t having any of it. “What exactly are the Imperials going to do about it if they catch us, Uncle?” I interrupted. “Execute us, like they’re going to anyway? Or maybe use it as a pretext the
next
time they attack without warning?” I crossed my arms and faced the angry nobleman. “Sneak attacks and prisoner executions are against the Concordat too, the last I heard. Or would you rather keep your hands nice and clean, die with a pure heart, and let the Emperor set the agenda for everyone’s future?” 

“Laws in warfare are
important
, David!” my uncle replied, though I’d clearly taken the steam out of him. “We shouldn’t descend to the level of our enemy.”

I smiled and shook my head. “We’ve got a long, long way to go before we sink to the Imperial level, sir. Besides, you’re the one who insisted that we should try to put up an effective fight. Do you see any other way for us to do that? Right here and now, I mean, with what we have on-hand. Offer me a viable plan, and I promise I’ll consider it.”

My uncle winced, then scowled and stormed out of my cabin. But the next night he invited me to dine with him. We didn’t speak again of the issue until the meal was finished. Then he ordered a bottle of rum uncorked. “To piracy,” he said softly, lifting his glass.

“Ahrrr!” I agreed, clinking mine against his.

And that was all that was necessary.

22

We were about as ready as we could be by the time we made our next Jump. First Officer Parker had been wearing his Imperial Lines uniform for over a week, so that it wouldn’t have that stiff, brand new look if he had to go on camera. The marines were about as practiced as could be expected in the art of suddenly bursting through a hatchway, and Corporal Silk was well on his way to mastering the arcane art of plundering. Three times we’d dropped our cargo containers, manned the guns, and then recovered and redeployed our camouflage as quickly as possible. All that was left as we approached Point Seven was to reconfigure our beacon. “Alter the squawk,” I ordered as we closed in.

“Aye-aye, sir!” Parker replied—it was strange how well he still fit in with the rest of us despite the unconventional uniform. He looked far more comfortable in it than regular-issue navy gear. This was only to be expected, I supposed, given his many years of service as an actual merchant captain. “Now we’re the
Pennsdale Courier II
.”

I nodded and smiled. The original mining-service ship that
Richard
had once been was part of a class of twenty-eight. Three had been taken prize in the last war. Unfortunately the only squawk-code we had on file from any of these was that of the
Pennsdale Courier
. But one was plenty, or at least enough to get started. And in truth there were so many merchantmen roughly of
Richard
’s size and general appearance that we’d probably turn old and gray before we ran out of potential identities to assume. That was part of the fun of it all.

“Five,” Wu counted. “Four, three, two, one…”

…and instantly we were in the Nagus Three system, which was far busier than the one we’d left behind us. It was held by the Imperial House of Nagus, the second-largest of the breakaway Houses. Nagus Three was one of the centerpieces of their economy. The system contained a major industrialized colony world, an inhabited satellite that supported a significant vacuum-product industry, and an asteroid-mining network that extended all the way out into the Oort. One would expect at least a dozen ships to be flitting about local space at any given moment in such a busy place. And sure enough, our final count was fourteen. Sadly, however, that total included three Imperial light cruisers.

One of which was preparing to exit the system via the Point we’d just cleared, and was about to come uncomfortably close by.

“Prepare to render passing honors, Mr. Parker,” I ordered the moment the situation became clear.

“Aye-aye sir,” he replied, not shifting a millimeter. 

I scowled and drummed my fingers on the arm of the command chair. My first officer had warned me to expect deliberately slow reactions and slovenly spacemanship on his part whenever we were passing ourselves off as a merchie—cargo vessels carried crews a fraction the size of ours, and tended not to prioritize little tasks like scanning surrounding space nearly so highly as did a warship. Besides which, he’d specifically mentioned, passing honors were generally a considered a pointless pain in the butt among merchant spacers. Unless they actually needed something, a merchie would usually put them off as long as possible in the hope that maybe the other ship didn’t give a damn either.

But that wasn’t likely when said other ship was an Imperial cruiser. Her beacon blinked three times in the traditional underway greeting, then the radio crackled to life. “Hello,
Pennsdale Courier
!” her commander greeted us in a friendly fashion. “This is Captain Barkely, of His Imperial Majesty’s Ship
Lively Cannonade
. What’s it like on the other side?”

By that he meant the other side of the Jump point, of course. Parker waited, and waited, and waited, until I wanted to leap across the bridge and throttle him. Then, at long last, he hit the toggle and blinked our own beacon in return. “I’m Captain Kevin Turner,” he replied. “And space on the other side is as clear as can be, captain! Not a ship in sight. Sorry about the delay—you startled me.”

I blinked—was typical merchie spacemanship so bad that they wouldn’t yet have noticed an Imperial cruiser sitting virtually in their lap? If so, maybe this pirating business was going to be easier than I’d imagined!

“No worries, Captain,” the Imperial replied. Apparently he was accustomed to this sort of glacial progress. “Where are you bound, and what is your cargo?”

“Imperius Prime,” Parker replied. “With imports from Vorsage Secundus. Machine parts, mostly.”

“Ah!” Captain Barkely replied-you could almost hear the smile in his voice. “Goods from the Royal planets will be in short supply soon enough, I reckon. The word is that the Royals plan to attack again within weeks. Your owners are going to make a pretty penny indeed.”

“Not that I’ll be seeing any of it,” Parker replied with a very authentic sigh. “I’m just glad that I won’t be caught in the middle.”

“You won’t be,” the Imperial reassured us. “Space is secure all the way back home. That pirate
Javelin
is in drydock for a new engine installation. So you shouldn’t have anything to worry about.” There was a long pause. “Safe journeys, Captain Turner.” 

“Victory to the
Cannonade
,” my first officer replied, sounding as sincere as could be. “Long live the Emperor!”

“And the Empire,” the Imperial officer responded. Then he cut off the channel, and that was that.

23