Pirate Rage snippet 1

Act 1

Chapter 1

Rear Admiral Linneaus Von Berk stood on his flagship Apache and stared down at the blue, green, and white marble below. He wasn't much of an imposing man, but was given command of Fourth Fleet by the Horathian Emperor and so his very notice was life or death for those below.

Just when he thought his time was wasted, something came up to change that. He'd almost given up on the planet. Oh sure, bombing the cities was fun, but he only had so many KEW strikes in his inventory. Pushing rocks sometimes worked, but that was hit or miss too, some blew up when ice of one form or another superheated during reentry and blew the rock apart.

He'd destroyed the so called Federation Naval hospital, blasted it into a molten crater after his Marines had raided it. He wasn't too happy about the casualties the grounders had inflicted. Fortunately for him the hospital had doctors and nurses, not Marines so they hadn't put up much opposition.

He shook his head. They hadn't left much for his people to grab though. A couple tons of medical supplies, most of it replaceable. A few prisoners, though two had committed suicide upon capture, so they had learned little from them. The others had been fresh recruits. They would soon see the error of their ways.

His four cruisers, the heavy cruisers, Apache and medium cruiser Adventure Galley, the light cruisers, Calico Jack, and Jean Lafitte, the escort carrier Lingchi and four tin cans had to cover the ten support ships under his command. Ten, though he'd started out with nine. He'd captured 3 ships and his people had picked them over thoroughly. Two hadn't been worth keeping, they were too far gone, too slow to keep up. He'd been tempted to send them back with prize crews, but he didn't want to lose the personnel so he'd abandoned them... with a suitable booby trap for any unwary person who attempted to board to claim them. He'd also marked their locations in case the admiralty wished to salvage them at a later date.

He doubted it though. Tarzed had been a Cygnus class, very old and slow. Gahira had been an even more ancient Moth class. Both had practically fallen into his lap. Their crews and databases had given his intelligence people a better more recent picture of the sector and their AO however.

And the crew had been a source of labor and entertainment for the crews, he mused.

By stripping both ships he'd managed to make a dent in Miratch's litany of woes and deferred maintenance. Honestly, he didn't understand how any crew would go out into space with such haphazard slipshod repairs.

Miratch was the real find, an old but still useable Lagroose bulk freighter. Old she might be, but she'd had the best hyperdrive of the lot. He'd put the slaves and prize crew to work on her systems while other crews had stripped the other ships of anything useable. He had disciplined a few of the marines for shooting up some of the passageways, it had been a stupid waste and a danger to themselves and others.

He shook his head. The existing cargo on the ships had been used by his crew to great relief. They had run out of fresh fruit and other foodstuffs in the enlisted mess decks long ago. Miratch's cornucopia tree was highly prized by everyone in his fleet task force. He thought of the apple he'd had after breakfast then turned his attention to the plot.

His hands clenched and unclenched behind him. He had to be patient he reminded himself again. Such things took time. His people were checking the coastlines, but this tip might pay off.

The news his intelligence people had passed on was troubling. He'd ordered further interrogations but they hadn't turned up much for the effort. What the crew knew was second or third hand, but it didn't bode well for him or his fleet's mission.

According to the reports, Admiral Irons had passed through the region on a solo mission. He wasn't concerned as to why, it didn't make sense but it had been confirmed, but he was more concerned with the other reports of Federation warships. Warships stooging through the area. News that they had a shipyard online and were building more warships.

His orders were to avoid contact if possible. He had every intention of following those orders, at least the spirit if not the letter of the orders. But if his people could bag a singleton, he planned on doing it. Every ship they picked off helped to blood his crew and might give them more information while also hurting their enemies.

Besides, it kept his people on their toes to know that there really were forces out there that were hell bent on stopping them.

“Still checking the coast lines sir. Is the intelligence accurate?” the tactical officer asked.

“For the mayor's sake it'd better be.”

“Not that it matters. We'll bomb them eventually, right sir?” the tactical officer asked hopefully.

“I'll consider it,” the admiral grunted.

“We've got something sir. The last pass... patching you through now sir,” the shuttle's flight engineer said, sending a fresh signal to the flagship. The admiral frowned as the plot changed to a coastline. It narrowed down to one stretch of beach, then in further until he could see distinct buildings. He grimaced though, the rest was... no, he could see a few dots.

“Overlaying thermal imaging now. The shuttle's sensors aren't as good as we'd hoped sir,” the TACO said. The image changed as dots of various shades of red and yellow appeared on the plot. He frowned, then nodded as he saw a few out to sea. Some were coming in, and he was pretty sure they weren't on a dingy or other small craft.

They had found what they had been after, a surviving water population. One ripe for the picking if they played their cards right.

 The admiral touched the icon on the screen and grinned. His patience had been rewarded. “Jackpot.”

 “I was going to say bingo or honey hole myself sir,” Captain Eliza Bordou said, coming over to look at the image while standing beside him. The admiral glanced at the Captain and then back to the image on the screen. She was a good captain, a good leader which was why he tolerated her as his flagship captain. Apache needed the best and he'd gotten it in her he mused. She wasn't pretty though, something that occasionally bothered him. She put great pains into making herself look severe with the bun and cold expression of disdain. Sometimes he wondered if it would be worth the trouble to take her in private and wipe the sneer off her face.

“I know the feeling. We've been all over the sector and other forces have been combing adjoining sectors only to find them right here, right under our nose.” He now regretted sending a quarter of his command to Aquarius. They might get something, then again, they might not. How they were supposed to pull the aliens out of the water was still in doubt, even from him.

“At least we found them sir. Quite a feather in our cap I suppose,” the captain said.

Rear Admiral Linnaeus Von Berk eyed her before turning away. She was a bit of a suck up, but he had to grant her her elation. It would indeed mean good things for their potential future careers. “Yes. Now we have to round them up and get them up here, then to Horath. No easy task.”

“I'm open to ideas sir. If we just rush the beach they'll swim for deep water and we'll lose them,” Lieutenant Needlemier, the tactical officer advised. “We had the idea of hitting them from the sun or coming in over the water to drive them further up the beach but there is considerable doubt that it would work. It would most likely inflict losses in a strafing run.”

“Some might linger. The old, injured, and young,” the captain mused.

“The ones we don't need or want,” the XO replied with a grimace. The admiral nodded.

“Long term the young yes,” the admiral replied. He saw the XO's expression and shrugged it off. “Young can be sculpted and molded. Conditioned to obey. The old can be useful for a while.”

“If you say so sir,” the XO said dubiously.

“We could try gas sir. We don't have a lot, but riot gas might make them stall diving in order to breath.”

“True. And the air breathers we can pick off on the surface. We have the nets, though I'm not sure how effective they'll be,” the admiral said.

“Is going after them at all wise sir? We'll be wasting a lot of time and resources on what could be a net loss. And that doesn't include their survival chances on board sir. Or their compliance later.”

“It's in our mission brief. And we might get some of the adults in the bag if they wish to protect their young,” the admiral said. Catching them was actually one of his top 3 priorities.
“Why won't they take them with them sir? When they swim out to sea?” the TACO asked, wrinkling his nose.

“The very young can't swim,” the captain replied, eying the tactical officer with a slight sneer for not doing his homework as thoroughly as he should have. “They lack the lung capacity to dive deep and don't have the fat reserves to endure the cold sea for long.”

“Oh.” The TACO caught his skipper's look and looked away in embarrassment.

“So, we can work that to our advantage I suppose. We can also enlist the natives to help out. If we provide the right incentives,” he smiled with a shark like toothy grin. “Then they will fall all over themselves to help. Especially if we promise to leave them alone.”

“Yes sir, I suppose they will.”

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