Engaging the Enemy (17 page)

“Another hour, then yes, Captain Vatta.”

“Very good. Put me on the list, please.” She glanced around; the bar was jammed—clearly no seats there.

“Captain Vatta!” There, across the reception area, she caught sight of Captain Argelos. “A word, if you please.”

She noticed as she moved toward him that a convenient lane opened up for her. No one else spoke to her, but they were obviously aware of her presence. No wonder: he had called aloud.

“You've heard about the
Philomena,
of course…,” he began.

“Yes. The whole Bissonet system attacked, the government falling…”

“What you said before…you were serious?”

“About privateers combining to make common cause? Yes, completely.” Around them, conversations had muted; she was aware of that, as if she could see ears elongating and waving in the breeze.

“Captain Bisdin says the pirates had a whole fleet. Fourteen ships at least. There's no way one of us could meet that alone and survive.”

“Ummm.” Ky made the noise just to encourage him to keep talking.

“It'd take more of us…more than just you and me.”

“Yes, it would,” Ky said.

“I don't see how…we don't even know where the others are. And I don't know how to fight a fleet action.”

“I do,” Ky said.

His eyes widened. “You—? You expect to command?”

Now a circle of silence surrounded them; she could hear faint shushing noises toward the edges of the room. This was not the best moment to publicize her plan.

“Perhaps we should discuss this somewhere else,” Ky said.

Argelos flushed and his mouth tightened. Then he said, “All right. Where?”

“I'm dining here, when a table opens up. After that, you'd be welcome to visit my ship.”

“We could share a table,” he suggested.

Was that too eager? Was he perhaps more than another privateer captain? She smiled at him anyway. “I make it a rule not to discuss business during meals,” she said. “But aside from that, we could indeed share a table.”

“Excuse me,” said a woman who'd been a few feet away. “You're one of the Vatta family?”

“Yes,” Ky said, glad of the interruption.

“Was your ship attacked like other Vatta ships?”

“Yes,” Ky said. “More than once—but unsuccessfully.”

“She claimed Osman Vatta's ship as a prize,” Argelos put in.

“Osman was the family black sheep,” Ky said, answering the question not yet asked. “Apparently he joined the same group that attacked Bissonet, and we suspect he's the one who made the Vatta family their first target, in revenge for being kicked out.” Heads nodded. Family conflict and vengeance were familiar experiences. “So he attacked me, and I managed to defeat him and take his ship.”

“What about the ship you had before?” someone asked from the back of the circle.

“My cousin took it over,” Ky said. “She had a contract to complete elsewhere.”

“Do you think Vatta's no longer the target?” the woman asked.

“I think everyone's the target,” Ky said. “All of us. These pirates want to run things for themselves, have everyone paying tribute to them. Our system governments wouldn't cooperate and fund a real space navy, so there's no interstellar force to deal with them.”

“So it's hopeless.” That was a stout older man. “We can't fight 'em; we might just as well pay what they demand.”

“I didn't say it was hopeless,” Ky said. This was not how she'd planned to launch her proposal, but it was a moment to seize.

“I say it is,” the man said. Heads turned to watch him. He shrugged. “They have more ships, more weapons. Bad enough when we met them only out in deep space, a long way from our ports. But if they can replace governments, destroy the little protection we had insystem, then there's no way we can move cargo without being seized and plundered.”

“One government isn't the whole sector,” Ky said. “The same thing that's kept us from having a real interstellar space navy makes it hard for them—they have to overthrow each system separately—”

“That won't be a problem,” the man said. “My government was already worried just by the attacks on Vatta. Now, hearing that a whole system was overthrown, they'll be looking for ways to ‘reach an accommodation' as soon as possible.”

“Not my government,” said the woman who had spoken first. “Kessel-Tinian doesn't cut deals with anybody.” She glared at the man, who glared back.

“Are you saying my government—”

“Enough,” Ky said. Somewhat to her surprise, they all fell silent and looked at her. “We won't solve this by bragging or by giving up—or by waiting for our governments to do it for us. They can't even communicate with one another while the ansibles are down.”

“Well, you surely don't think
we
can do anything, do you?” asked a tall man. “We're just civilians; our ships don't have any weapons—”

“There are merchanters with armed ships,” Ky said. “Think about it.”

“Privateers!” the man said. “As bad as the pirates, the way I see it. Probably in league with them.”

“Not all of them,” Ky said. “I'm a privateer, and I'm not on their side.”

Silence again. Then, “You?”

“Me.”

“So…Slotter Key is standing up to the pirates? Then how come you Vattas were attacked?”

“Slotter Key sends out privateers—you all know that. That may be why a Slotter Key family was attacked. Bissonet doesn't license privateers, so we don't know whether the pirates would have insisted on taking them over.”

“But how do you think we can fight back? Without weapons, without our governments supporting us?”

“Yes—is there really any hope?”

Ky looked around. It was absurd, the way they were watching her, as if some miraculous answer would appear on her forehead. “Of course there's hope,” she said. “But it won't be easy…”

“You have a plan?”

“I have ideas,” Ky said. “I'm not going to tell you everything about them here. One or more of you may be working with the pirates, after all.”

A hiss of indrawn breath, and the crowd around her shifted, faces turning to eye their neighbors.

“You think one of us would help them?” That was the angry bald man.

Ky shrugged. “Someone who's been threatened, then offered immunity for spying on other captains…where better than the Captains' Guild, after all, for picking up all the gossip? We're not all saints, are we?” A chuckle at that. “So I'll tell you I think there's hope—the pirates aren't that strong yet, though if we wait until they've coerced a lot of systems into helping them they will be. I won't tell you more about my plans, not in an open gathering like this. But if you want to know more, talk to me quietly.” She smiled at them, then said, “Excuse me, please.”

The next morning, she was called to the stationmaster's offices.

“Captain Vatta, we have concerns.” The stationmaster, two other men in civilian dress, and a woman in the uniform of the station police sat around the table of a small conference room. “Sit down, please.” The chair indicated put her in bad light, but Ky sat down anyway.

“Concerns?”

“Yes. We understand that you are talking to ship captains about forming a fighting force.”

Ky said nothing, but raised her brows.

“These rumors about pirate fleets—I'm sure they're exaggerated,” the stationmaster said.

“You have contrary evidence?” Ky said.

“Well…we've never seen a pirate force larger than two ships, maybe three. Our local patrol ships are more than a match for them. We haven't had a successful pirate attack in decades.”

“Do you think
Princess Philomena
's captain is lying? He seems a very honest person to me,” Ky said.

“Not lying,” the stationmaster said. “But he doesn't have your background of military training. Whatever happened there, I'm sure he magnified it in his fear. Don't you find that happens more often than not?”

“Underestimating a threat causes as much trouble,” Ky said. “Have you looked at Captain Bisdin's scan data?”

“No. It's only a civilian tradeship; the scan isn't as detailed and accurate—”

“I have,” Ky said. Silence. They looked at each other. “There were indeed fourteen ships involved in the attack. Five others were insystem at the time. Three of those innocent ships were destroyed while Bisdin was in scan range. Captain Bisdin made it here; he doesn't know what happened to the fifth ship.” She looked around the table. They were all a shade paler.

“But…but maybe that's all they wanted, a secure base—” That was one of the men.

The police officer turned on him. “All they wanted? Of course it's not all they wanted. You can't think they'll stop—”

“We can hope so,” the man said. “I mean, it's too bad for Bissonet, but why would they need more than one system?”

Ky and the police officer locked gazes a moment; Ky shook her head. “You could ask that about humans in general. But more specifically, if their goal is control of interstellar shipping—an enormously profitable business—then interdicting one system at a time, while communications are down, would be the way to go about it. With the resources from such trade, they could rule the known universe.”

“But surely—” the man began. The stationmaster held up his hand, and the man subsided.

“Captain Vatta, even if you're correct and there is evidence for concerted pirate activity…these are criminals. They won't hold together for long. There's no need for civilians to take on unauthorized military functions—”

“There's every need,” Ky said. “Interstellar trade depends on secure ports of call, good communications, and minimal piracy in deep space. We are out of communication for days to weeks at a time in FTL flight, so that even when the ansible net is working, we need to know that the space we're coming to is secure from piracy. You don't know—none of us knows—where this pirate fleet will attack next. We don't know how many agents they may have on various worlds, who might cooperate with them. If they pick off the busiest ports, gain control of those governments, interstellar trade will collapse—and if it does, pirates will control your supply lines. When they control your supply lines, they control you.”

“That's a scary scenario,” the stationmaster said. “I still think it's unlikely. And I have concerns about civilians trying to take on military functions. It's too dangerous, a lot of untrained civilians putting weapons on their ships and going out to hunt pirates. Stirring up trouble, it seems to me, and the perfect way to get a lot of innocent people killed. Speaking as chair of the council, I want it stopped.”

Ky bit back the angry words she wanted to say and tried instead to gauge the reactions of the rest.

“We have insystem patrol,” the police officer said slowly. “We haven't had problems with pirates, and they'd find us a tough nut to crack. I admit a fleet of fourteen might stretch our resources, but I'm confident that we could handle it.”

“If the system ansibles are still down, you'll be limited to lightspeed ship-to-ship communications,” Ky said. “The pirates have shipboard ansibles.”

“That's another thing,” the stationmaster said. “You've told people this, but no one's ever heard of such things. What makes you think they're real?”

“The ship I captured has one,” Ky said. “Complete with operating manual. Osman was a pirate, and in his data files I found evidence that he was working with—or for—a group headed by the same man Bisdin reported as the leader of the pirate fleet.”

“It's absurd,” one of the men said. “Ansibles are huge—massive—there's no way to fit one on a ship. The power supply alone—”

“Nevertheless,” Ky said. “There's one on my ship.”

“I don't care,” the stationmaster said, putting both hands flat on the table. “This disruptive behavior has to stop, Captain Vatta. Even if the pirate threat is real, your course of action is not the right way to meet it. You're panicking people on this station; we're swamped with complaints and demands. We can strengthen our local force; we can hire mercenaries. We do not need—and will not put up with—a bunch of rogue traders trying to pretend they're a military force. If you persist in your attempt to persuade and organize the other captains, I will insist that you leave this system—or you will be arrested.”

“I see,” Ky said.

“No more meetings, no more clandestine visits to your ship—”

“Clandestine?” Ky let her voice express surprise. “There was no secrecy because there was no rule against such visits—”

“All right…but from now on they would be clandestine. Unless you are actively trading merchandise—nonmilitary merchandise—I want you off this station in forty-eight hours. And in that forty-eight hours I want no more of your rabble-rousing, is that clear?”

“Quite clear,” Ky said. Anger roiled her stomach. How could they be so stupid? How could they not understand the traders' point of view, when they depended so on trade?

“You will be accompanied by a member of the station police, to ensure that you obey these strictures.” The stationmaster glanced at the police officer, who looked less happy than before but nodded.

The meeting ended on that note; Ky managed to keep her temper in check until she was out the door.

T
he police spy—as Ky thought of him—assigned to her was a stolid young man who said very little. He followed her closely on her way back to dockside. When she turned into the Captains' Guild entrance, though, he put a hand on her arm.

“You're not supposed to talk to them.”

“I have bills to pay in here, since we're leaving,” Ky said. “Come with me and see.”

“If you talk to the other captains—”

“I'm not forbidden to talk to them,” Ky said, with waning patience. “Just to talk about certain things.”

She stopped at the desk, checked her balance, and paid it. “Any other charges, I'll authorize payment by my bank,” she said.

“That's fine,” the clerk said. “You have a stack of messages—” He rummaged in the pigeonholes and pulled out a mix of data cubes and hardcopy messages.

“I'll take those,” the policeman said, reaching out.

“No, you won't,” Ky said, keeping a firm grip on them. “The stationmaster said nothing about interdicting my mail.”

“I'll have to ask—”

“Ask away.” Ky put the messages into her case and locked it. The policeman looked blank: accessing his skullphone, she assumed. She decided to make her own call, and reached the stationmaster's office assistant. “I need to speak to the stationmaster.”

“Who is this—oh. Captain Vatta. Is there a problem?”

“My escort tried to take my mail. I don't believe that's appropriate or necessary.”

The stationmaster's voice replaced his assistant's. “You're not supposed to communicate with other captains—”

“About the topic you named, yes. You didn't say I couldn't pick up my mail, something other people sent me.”

“About the conspiracy…”

“It's not a conspiracy, and I expect the mail has more to do with trade. I had deals pending with several onstation merchants.”

“I'd like to be sure of that.”

“Sir.” Ky squeezed her eyes shut for a moment. “I am trying to comply with your request that I leave this station. That means closing accounts, finalizing pending deals, and so on. I agreed not to continue organizing a useful resistance to the pirates, but I did not agree to not doing business with my customers. Let your man do his job but let me do mine.”

“As long as it is just business…”

“It's just business.”

A dramatic sigh. Then, “Very well, Captain Vatta. I will not insist on monitoring all your incoming messages, but this does not mean you are free to continue as you were—”

“I understand,” Ky said.

“Good. I'll inform the police.”

Very shortly, the policeman turned back to Ky. “All right. They say you can keep your mail.”

“Thank you,” Ky said. Several captains she knew had come into the reception area in the meantime, but seeing the policeman they stayed at a distance. Ky made no effort to contact them. Instead she spoke to the clerk. “Post
Fair Kaleen
for departure in thirty-six to forty-eight hours, please.”

“Destination?”

“Haven't decided yet, but we've made all the profit we can here. I'll let you know when I've decided.”

“Any open cargo space?”

“Yes, four cubic meters. Go on and post that. I'd like to travel full, if I can.”

Back at the ship, Ky told the policeman to wait on the dockside.

“But they said—”

“They can monitor my communications with other ships,” Ky said. “I have no objection to that.” She did, but protesting would do no good, she knew. “My decks are foreign territory, however; you have no jurisdiction there.”

“I'll have to call.”

“Go ahead.” Ky went on in, told her security detail to shut the inner hatch, and went straight to the bridge, where she placed calls to Argelos and others who had shown interest. “I've been asked to leave the system,” she said. “I cannot discuss it with you. I'm deciding where to go next; that will be posted at the Captains' Guild. I do have four cubic meters of open cargo space, should anyone want to ship that amount to my destination.”

Her implant pinged her, warning of an incoming priority call. It would be the stationmaster, she was sure. It was. “I told you—” he began.

“I have told other captains that I'm leaving. I'm sure you monitored the transmissions—”

“You said you were asked to leave.”

“Yes, because I was. I told the truth.”

“You're trying to drum up sympathy—”

“No, I'm not. They'd figure out that much on their own; they're not stupid, Stationmaster. I was asked to leave; I'm leaving; I have some cargo space open if anyone has cargo going my way.”

“Which is?”

“I'll decide that in the next twenty-four hours. Probably less. I'll post it. Whatever you think, Stationmaster, I am not engaged in conspiracies.”

“So you say,” he said, and closed the connection.

“So…do I surmise that they're annoyed with you for telling the truth?” Rafe asked.

“Something like that,” Ky said. She was suddenly, ravenously hungry. “Lee, would you ask someone to bring me something from the galley?”

“Sure, Captain.”

“Which truth upset them?” Rafe asked.

“They'd rather not believe the pirate fleet is a real threat. They started out wanting to believe that the
Philomena
's captain just panicked and there weren't that many pirates. I pointed out that his scan data showed pretty clearly how many there were. Then they shifted to the hope that the pirates would be satisfied with gobbling up one system. Or maybe the pirate alliance will fall apart because everybody knows pirates can't cooperate. But it wasn't even the reality of the pirate menace that had them so upset. It was the thought of mere civilian traders daring to work together—form an armed merchant fleet—to fight off the pirates.”

“It is an untried theory,” Hugh said. Ky looked at him. “I'm not saying it won't work,” he said. “Just that I can understand why it makes them nervous.”

“Not just nervous. Hostile. I don't see why they can't understand that it's more dangerous to just sit and wait around. Unless they're all in league with the pirates—”

“Probably not,” Rafe said. “Or the pirates would be here, and we'd be dead. I'd guess they're just worried and don't know what to do about it.”

“So…how are we going to convince them?”

Rafe shrugged. “We can't. The pirates will, eventually.”

“Too late, though,” Ky said.

“Maybe. Maybe not. At any rate we've done what we can here. At least some of the other captains are thinking about the possibility. If enough do, what the local governments think won't matter. Of course, that's probably what the pirates thought, too. It's a copy of their strategy.”

“Puts us behind, doesn't that?”

“Not really. Lead time is their one real advantage; they're outnumbered—”

“We think.” Unwillingly, Ky found herself repeating Rafe's arguments back to him.

“Almost certainly. I'm willing to bet that at least half their fleet—probably almost all of it—was there in Bissonet. There are hundreds of merchant ships, several dozen privateers we know about, and that's not counting the mercenary forces.”

“Which would be very expensive,” Rafe said. “Who could afford to hire them?”

“Trying to do war on the cheap is what got us into this mess,” Ky said. “Cost is why we don't have the kind of interstellar force that could control, if not wipe out, piracy. But since our governments don't see it that way, we'll have to convert them.” She stretched. “But the first thing to do is pick a destination. I want to go back to Slotter Key and find out what is going on there.”

“I don't think that's wise,” Rafe and Hugh said together; Martin nodded. They looked at each other, then at her.

“I need to know why I have this letter of marque,” Ky said. “And why the government cut off our family. Who was bribed?”

“Jealousy?” Rafe asked.

“I don't think so,” Ky said. “We were rich and powerful, yes, but not a threat to the government.”

“You are now,” Rafe said. “Seriously. They turned their backs on you; your family was nearly destroyed. Now you come back, and they see vengeance in your eyes.”

“I don't—” Ky stopped. “I suppose…I do want revenge for what they did. If they did anything themselves. Mostly I want answers. I want to know why.”

“With all due respect, Captain,” Martin began. Ky nodded. “Fight your war first, then ask questions. If you go back and they arrest you—or even if they just rescind the letter of marque, which I think they would—who's going to take the fight to the pirates?”

Rafe nodded. Ky stared at the table a long moment. “You really think I can…”

“I don't think anyone else can,” Rafe said. “If ISC had the capacity, the ansibles would be back up by now. And we—they—have always ignored everything but ISC property. That was partly to gain political support for maintaining the monopoly, sure, but it kept our costs in bounds. You not only saw what was needed—which a lot of people have done—but you've taken steps to start it.”

“Not very effectively, so far,” Ky said.

“Effective enough to get thrown out of a system,” Rafe said. “That's a start. Stay away from Slotter Key until you can go there in strength.”

“Where, then?” Ky said. She put the Traders' Directory in the cube reader and put it up on screen. “Where will the pirates go next and where should we go?” No one said anything, and after a few moments she answered her own questions. “If they can take over the backbone systems, they can interdict seventy percent of the trade…so I'd bet they won't leapfrog more than one of those systems…maybe just hit the next in line. Let's see…the jump-point index…” A complex graphic appeared onscreen, the tangle of lines representing mapped routes. “We don't have the resources to guard all the backbone systems—but they don't have the resources to attack them all, either. If we just knew where they were going next…” An idea hit her; she looked at Rafe. “Rafe, can we trace the other shipboard ansibles with ours? When they make contact, can we find out where they are?”

He pursed his lips. “We might…but not without letting them know where we are, and that we have the equipment.”

“Oh. That won't work, then.”

“It might, if we can figure out a way to fake the back-connection. Though of course they may have figured that out, too. They must know by now that Osman's dead and you have his ship. They'd know he had a shipboard ansible. They may or may not know about the others.”

“Not a good idea, then,” Ky said.

“Not unless I can figure out some way to protect our end. But I'll think about that.”

“Back to basics,” Ky said, staring at the graphic. “What will the enemy do next, and where, and what can we do to frustrate that?”

“If he has the resources to take more than one system at a time, I think he'd go for the big crossroads first. Cascadar. Moscoe Confederation. Blunt. Allray. Parry's World. All first-tier, all with multiple routes converging.”

“Let's be extravagant and assume he has a hundred ships,” Hugh said. “More than we think, but I'd rather overestimate him than underestimate him. Twenty ships per system…that's five. He needs to keep some at Bissonet. He might hit four…”

“What about ISC headquarters?” Ky said. “Nexus Two, isn't it?”

“They wouldn't—oh.” Rafe looked blank for a moment. “I suppose they might try. Nexus Two is really our trade center, and we—they—do have a very good insystem defense capability.”

“So did Bissonet,” Ky said. “And the prize is much bigger if they could get control of the ansible system at its source. They've already shown negative control—they can make it unusable—but if they can turn it back on, there'll be those who think it doesn't matter who controls it as long as they keep it working. ISC's lost a lot of respect in these past few months.”

Rafe nodded slowly. “Then I suppose I must agree that the interests of ISC now march with yours, Captain, and my duty to ISC is no longer in possible conflict. Though I don't think we should go charging off to Nexus Two, especially not if we're trailing a ragtag assembly of privateers. The ISC defense force is likely to shoot first and ask questions later.”

“So where can we go to communicate with them and not be shot to pieces?”

“I'm sure they've repaired the Nexus system ansibles, if those ever went down,” Rafe said. “Next over hubward would be Maricana.” He pointed it out on the graphic. “Four jumps from here. It's pretty much a dead-end system; its only mapped routes are to Moscoe Confederation, which is how we'll have to go in, and Nexus.”