Mistaken identity, p.23
Mistaken Identity, page 23
“And what are those?” Maks Sobol asked, much like Dan would have stepped in were she here. Or how Haydar and Ethir were doing.
“I’m taking Khile Heavy with me,” Uly said. “Then selling it on Z’Gosza to someone who will use it. I think that Wereshark might be repairable if someone cared. Or maybe someone could build something like it to defend Lacium. I will use this as a base from time to time, but I’m also planning to operate out of Z’Gosza.”
“What are you planning?” Maks asked, still not seeing it.
“I’m ending piracy,” Uly told him simply.
“Ending?” Maks asked, incredulous.
“That’s right,” Uly said. “If Compass Rose has decided that they need to be on my side, that means that you’re also going to end piracy. I’m not going to demand that you immediately renounce your past, though, Conductor.”
“No?” Chayka asked.
“No,” Uly nodded. “Haydar and Ethir have a list of all the boxes of personal effects that we inherited when we stole this vessel from the Auga. The crew were entirely Ononguli, as you expected. I have no use for most of it, but haven’t done anything about jettisoning it to burn up on some atmosphere somewhere. Instead, I’d like to make arrangements to have you haul it, or as much of it as possible, back to the Ononguli Sphere, so that the relatives at least have it, in case the men and women incarcerated never return. Or if they do.”
“How much gear are we talking?” Chayka asked sharply. “We’re limited in the cargo space Compass Rose can haul. In the past, most of our space in the argosy was on Legend of Ymnan.”
Uly looked at Haydar.
“Roughly the volume of the shuttle that carried you here,” Haydar said. “Not the cargo capacity, but the absolute size itself.”
“Then there is no way I can pack all that and travel any distance,” Chayka said.
“What if I sold you a small cargo carrier cheap?” Uly asked.
“If you what?” Chayka asked.
“The ships that have surrendered here thought that they were dealing with pirates, Chayka,” Uly said. “Using your notes, I have emptied a few of the vessels of crews entirely, assuming that to be the fastest way to short-circuit somebody trying to start another revolution or irritate me. I have hulls available. I plan to hire some folks to supplement my crews to help sail them as prizes to Z’Gosza, where a court of law will declare them to be my property for disposal as I wish. That includes Scavenger Angel, which is a Probe with a large cargo capacity, as well as armaments. I can sell it to you instead of the locals when we get there.”
“That’s going to cause problems, Fortier,” Chayka replied.
“Not if I break all the pirates I can find, Chayka,” Uly said. “I am given to understand that the former Iron Wasp was one of the most heavily armed pirate vessels most of the people I’ve asked have ever seen. Since I have taken Khile Heavy as well, there are not that many others left that are capable of being a threat to me. And once the larger systems and governments realize what I’m up to, I expect more support from them.”
“Shit, you’re serious,” Chayka reacted
“He’s deadly serious, bucko,” Ethir replied in that cruel voice. “Folks around here either shape up or start running. And it’s only going to get worse.”
Uly watched both Ononguli men absorb that. Chayka spoke first.
“Scavenger Angel?” he asked.
Uly nodded slowly.
“How cheap?” Chayka asked.
Uly considered a myriad of responses.
“Have you got the crew to sail it to Z’Gosza for me?” he asked.
“I do,” Chayka replied. “As long as I don’t have to fight or anything. Plus, we might be able to recruit some folks from around here, as long as we mix the crews up some, rather than taking any single block from one ship. I think there ought to be enough Ononguli for my needs. Don’t imagine strangers would want to sail that long of a distance with me, clear over to Sector Twenty-One.”
“Tell you what, Conductor Chayka,” Uly offered. “I’ll sell it to you for one Imperial Guilder after it’s mine, plus you providing the crew to get it to Z’Gosza, then haul a certain cargo back to the Ononguli Sphere for me.”
“All those personal effects,” Chayka said.
Uly nodded.
Chayka blew out a heavy breath.
“I have a related question before I answer, Fortier,” he said, pausing.
“Go on.”
“In the safe in your room, was it empty when you took over?”
“It was,” Uly nodded. “Cleaned and locked open, with the security combination written on a piece of tape for the next owners, once the Auga got around to selling it.”
Chayka nodded.
“Okay, that explains a lot,” he said, then he turned to his partner. “Maks, I’m promoting you to provisional Conductor, in command of Scavenger Angel once the Corsac Fox turns it over to us. I’ll need to make two copies of the packet in my safe, for you and the Fox here, so you understand what is implied when you are an Ononguli conductor.”
“What if I’m not interested?” Uly asked.
Chayka and Sobol both blinked at him, flinching in surprise.
Uly watched them with a hard smile that Haydar, Ethir, Piruz, and even Nasrin matched.
“I’m not sure that you’re allowed, Fortier, if I can be a little rude,” Chayka said. “Ononguli crew. Ononguli vessel. More importantly, though, if you are one of us that means that the Ononguli Sphere is your ally. And you can recruit more ships and crew from over there if you wanted. It feels like you are on a mission far bigger than just one system. Maybe big enough to be a threat to the Auga themselves, which I and mine would enjoy, because they’re intending to conquer or absorb the entire galaxy, one of these days.”
“And does that require that I become an ally of the Ononguli Sphere, sight unseen?” Uly asked. “Required, like you, to answer the call of any other Ononguli ship in distress?”
Again, shock on those two faces.
Chayka finally nodded and blew out a sigh.
“That’s one of those secrets that most folks don’t know about,” he offered. “I would appreciate it not being general news, even if we don’t come to an agreement. But yes, any and all Ononguli ships are supposed to help each other, friendly or not. That’s part of the reason I took Compass Rose this far around the curve of Imperial space. Not a lot of those folks make it out here to bother me, and I don’t have to put up with some of the bozos that remained behind.”
Uly nodded. Smiled even.
“You send me a packet to review, Compass Rose,” he said. “But you haven’t answered my question.”
Chayka twitched a little.
“Uhm?”
“Scavenger Angel,” Uly said. “Maks. Admiralty Court. Cargo run to the Sphere.”
“Oh, that,” Chayka said. “Assuming the state of the hull, that’s a given.”
“A given?”
“You’re Ononguli at that point, Corsac Fox,” Chayka smiled. “That’s what we do.”
Uly nodded.
He could work with this. He just wasn’t sure how.
KHILE HEAVY
SIXTY-SEVEN
Dan watched the main screen on Corsac Fox’s bridge as the many ships of the argosy assembled at the final waypoint.
That had been Lukyan Chayka’s term for the group. Corsac Fox. Compass Rose. Scavenger Angel. Khile Heavy. Swift Passage.
One additional captured cargo carrier a little bigger than Corsac Fox that had been emptied of crew. Two smaller ones. Two other big cargo vessels had still had owners or at least original crew and officers aboard from before they had been captured when taken at Lacium, so Uly had set them free to carry the news home.
Lacium itself had required a week of meetings, negotiations, and occasional heads bopped together, but they’d come around. Then two weeks of arguing before Uly imposed a Citizens Council on the civilians, with instructions to sort out their own governance.
Uly had allowed them to confiscate a few of the smaller armed vessels as the core of a local defensive fleet. Not enough to threaten anyone, but enough to keep pirates from coming back, once the colonists at Lacium had gotten the upper hand.
Dan didn’t know how long they’d hold it, but with so many pirates in jail there, they looked to be certain to try.
The Khet conductor off Khile Heavy, one Elemér Petőfi, had been rounded up with about two dozen others like him, once it had become clear that they would try to overthrow the good citizens of Lacium after Uly left.
She had them aft in separate cells, for the folks at Z’Gosza to sort out. Or sell to somewhere else that wanted to request extradition.
As she and Uly had concluded, the best they’d been able to do was show everyone that there was a door none of them had ever seen before. It was up to each of them to decide to kick it in and move beyond the life they’d previously known.
And the Corsac Fox would remain in the area, so it wasn’t like backsliders wouldn’t have other difficulties.
She caught Uly absently staring at her. Dan smiled. He returned it a moment later, then flexed his shoulders once and nodded.
Dan watched him open a comm line to the argosy.
“All vessels, this is the Corsac Fox,” he announced.
Dan liked that. He’d given up resisting, and just embraced the fact that folks were calling him the Corsac Fox, instead of the ship.
They might need to find a new name for the hull. Not Iron Wasp, though. Or maybe so. There were going to be ongoing cases of mistaken identity, considering how famous Adrian Sobol’s ship had gotten in some regions.
“Compass Rose, you and Khile Heavy remain on our flanks when we arrive at Z’Gosza,” Uly continued. “As planned out, they might still flip out a little at this much firepower suddenly arriving on their doorstep, regardless of the fact that we sent a courier home ahead of us. We’ll come out high and then drop down into closer orbit once everyone over there is happy. Any questions?”
“I’m assuming dinner is on you, Corsac Fox,” Lukyan replied.
That one had gone all in on being an ally, as near as Dan could tell. Even more than the Khet of Z’Gosza, though Rabiu could probably be considered crew at this point. She turned to the Khet, caught his nod.
As a species, they tended to be broad. The troopers she’d taken with her had shown Dan how squishy and out of shape Rabiu and his bosses were, but she’d seen a change come over that fish over the last month. Eating better, but that was Vahid. Walking and climbing stairs more. Hitting the machines in the gym.
He wasn’t ready to storm a station with her. However, he was looking far better than he had when she’d met him.
“Affirmative, Compass Rose,” Uly replied. “I’ll have Trade Factors to introduce you to, and I’m hoping that they’ll pick up the tab.”
That got a round of laughter from all the conductors. Even Drew was acting like a conductor while flying Khile Heavy, but he’d made it clear in no uncertain terms that he would be returning to Corsac Fox to fly as soon as he could.
They still needed crew. Not as badly as before, since they’d taken Chayka’s apparent advice and recruited folks from various ships, putting them under Human, Mazhin, or Ononguli officers for now.
Shortly, it would all be Factor Bitrus’s problem, and Dan found herself looking forward to working with Uly to see what their next adventure was. She couldn’t imagine that he’d be satisfied merely sailing around and capturing small-time pirates. And other pirate dens like Lacium would wake up to the shitty state of their defenses and probably do something about it.
Or not. They were pirates, after all.
Dan shared a smile with Uly, then he turned to the Khet in their midst.
“Rabiu, you’re on,” Uly said. “Sterling, take us into warp.”
SIXTY-EIGHT
Rabiu swallowed heavily and wondered what Director Bukra or Factor Bitrus would say when he announced his resignation. Sure as shit would likely be a surprise, but he’d spent two months around the Corsac Fox and that Human’s crew.
Z’Gosza paled badly by comparison.
Uly got shit done. So did Dan. So did all of them, come to think of it. Without filings in triplicate, each requiring different chops from different departments or directors in order to finalize interim details.
Point at a problem. Identify it. Assign someone to come up with solutions. Implement.
He’d been expecting the merchants of Lacium, all of them really just fences dealing in stolen goods, one way or another, to spend half a year sorting themselves out. Bitrus had thought that was overly ambitious, and that a year or more would be necessary, with Uly gone all that time.
There’d been a few times he’d wished that he could be a minnow, swimming quietly in the shadow of some shark, when that courier arrived to announce that the Corsac Fox planned to return, triumphant and commanding a small fleet of warships. In a month.
Talk about piranha in the water…
Rabiu grinned and glanced over at Shehu Okorie, noting that he’d finally convinced the camerakhet to film him from his good side.
Rabiu had lost a lot of weight over the last month. Fewer heavy meals. More exercise. WAY LESS stress.
He felt like a new fish. And had had to dig into the ship’s stores for a new wardrobe. Even getting home wasn’t about to help, because nothing he’d owned since university would likely fit, unless tents were in fashion.
Definitely a new fish.
Shehu nodded back and grinned. He’d been filming since they approached that last check-in point with everyone, catching the casual humor and sharp professionalism that was so unlike Z’Gosza society. Or business.
“All hands, stand by to emerge from warp,” Sterling announced.
Rabiu finally had understood how thin Uly was for crew when they’d told him how old Sterling Huff and Solomon Wyndham were. He’d thought that Humans just had that much more variation in size, rather than some of them were still basically kids.
Sharp kids. Even Uly wasn’t much older than Sterling.
Just how dangerous could Humans be, when they got out into the wider galaxy in significant numbers?
Corsac Fox joined up with the rest of the universe and all the stars were back.
Uly pointed a finger at him.
“Z’Gosza Station, this is Rabiu Khadijan, aboard Corsac Fox,” he announced. “Please contact Factor Bitrus and let him know that we have arrived.”
Three days was long enough warning, right?
Rabiu held his public face perfectly bland, but let his eyes stray to the readout of local space. All the usual stations, each of them armed enough to threaten any pirate wanting to attack. And he’d already transmitted home the stack of mistakes that Lacium had made.
How had they managed to stay in business as long as they had? That had been the surprise.
Anybody could have attacked, any time they wanted, and taken the place. Hell, a Striker-class warship could have crushed everything in orbit of Lacium, then blown the station up without getting his scales out of alignment.
Why hadn’t anybody ever tried?
But Rabiu knew the answer to that.
Factor Bitrus had made an example of Lacium because his organization—and his allies—didn’t trade with those pirates.
Those pirates.
Rabiu hadn’t been senior enough to know which pirates Bitrus’s other departments did trade with. And he was utterly certain that they did, just from the number of Khet from Z’Gosza that had been swept up in Uly’s net. Granted, this region of space tended to be heavily Khet already, but still…
Factor Bitrus appeared on the main screen. Rabiu assumed that his former boss—Former? Already?—would see the bridge as it had been before, since Drew was on Khile Heavy and Solomon Wyndham and the two Emro women were on each of the cargo carriers with their security teams.
“Good afternoon, sir,” Rabiu said cheerily. “As noted, and as assigned, we have been successful at Lacium and the Corsac Fox has returned with several vessels that need to be processed by the Admiralty Court. I hope that you have had time to review all of my various reports?”
He’d sent a couple of sets over the last month. It had been the most recent one that he’d considered a bombshell. The one where he told them that Uly was coming.
Bitrus looked old, there on the screen. Rabiu didn’t have a better way to phrase it, and certainly would never say it to the Khet’s face, but he’d spent a lot of time around Khet troopers who were used to excessive physical activity on a daily basis.
And even then, Dan and her folks had raised the bar on the mercenaries. In a good way.
“We have,” Bitrus said in a careful voice. “How quickly were you intending to move?”
“We’re still on the schedule I transmitted in my executive summary, sir,” Rabiu said, smiling but unbending. “Scavenger Angel and the other vessels have prize crews aboard. Compass Rose is an ally, an Ononguli vessel that is under hire by the Corsac Fox at present. We’d like to place the argosy into orbit, then file our claims. Scavenger Angel has a new owner already lined up, and he is intending to take possession as-is, but the others will need to go through full maritime inspections before they can be properly valued subsequent for sale on the open market.”
Khile Heavy, though Rabiu knew that Uly would be careful who he sold that one to. One Striker-sized cargo vessel excellent for delivering goods to any medium-sized world, plus a couple of tramps that could make high-speed runs to various destinations, or do deliveries to mining colonies or small places that didn’t have much cash to import most goods.
Something changed in Bitrus’s face. It went from contained to closed, though Rabiu guessed that nobody but a corporate Khet might have noticed.
He’d spent his entire career after university working for this Khet’s organization. Working his way up. And he was about to chuck it all out the window?
