Chapter 7

Captain Chytrazan had been the owner of the second ship. I also got his wife, Mylla, when I called, or I should say his widow. He had killed himself a month ago rather than continue trying to meet all of his financial obligations. That left his wife and infant son destitute. Naturally, my women all insisted that I help her. She was wary as to why I would offer to help her, but had no other real alternatives so she accepted my offer. I sent ten androids to help her pack, and the Faraway to load everything aboard. Xaviera and Lourdes also went, both to help reassure her and to pay off any outstanding debts.

As soon as she came aboard, she hugged me and didn’t let go for more than a minute. When she finally collected herself, she insisted that I give her a job so she could pay back the money I had spent on her. I agreed, but neither of us knew what she could do. For the week that the two cargo ships were being retrofitted, plenty of extra drones were manufactured to open a shortcut through the Backwater.

We actually made two shortcuts, each wide enough for two ships like the Kra’afkikort to pass each other. Realizing that the shortcut would be a good place for a pirate attack, any ship that stopped along the way would unknowingly be shielded to prevent it from attacking another ship. If it tried to attack, it would be captured. We also created two entrances at each end of the two shortcuts, each headed in a different direction to reduce the transit time even more. By having two entrances, ships wouldn’t have to travel so far to reach one.

When the Serendipity was finished, I sent it with an android crew to pick up Captain Curry and his family. When it returned to the Kra’afkikort, he and his family were flabbergasted. “This ship is fucking huge,” he commented, looking around inside the Kra’afkikort’s hangar. Mylla joined them to commiserate about the pirates capturing their ship. They were all glad that I had captured the pirates.

Before leaving for Ahnjuk, we took the Faraway and stopped at the naval base on Dahrcolani so Chief Petty Officer C’sahn’Bo could report in. Before we arrived, he had asked if I would consider hiring him to captain one of the frigates. That would give us additional firepower against any pirates we found. I agreed, and after he reported that we were no threat except to pirates and arrogant, overbearing naval captains, he arranged to have the next several weeks of duty count as his accrued leave, and to be discharged at the end of his leave. He also warned me that his brother would probably want to do the same thing. I gave my approval to pass on to his brother the next time they talked.

The AIs of the pirate ships had provided us no new information about pirate bases so Chief Petty Officer C’sahn’Bo got all the information available about pirate attacks in the sector for the last month. After eliminating attacks committed by the pirates we had just captured, we were left with six attacks, all in an area no more than a two, or three-hour sprint to the Backwater for a normal ship. Chief Petty Officer C’sahn’Bo grinned viciously. “Can I do this one?” he asked eagerly.

We were preparing to leave when we got a com from Governor Zezar Peyxgharo’s assistant. He explained that the governor had taken a sudden turn for the worse and the doctors told him he had less than six weeks to live. Then he asked if our offer was still open. I told him it was, and which berth we were in at the naval base. Chief Petty Officer C’sahn’Bo answered when the assistant wondered how long the treatment would take. “I’ve been told it will take from four to eight days, but that was before his condition worsened,” he answered. Sighing, the assistant promised they would be here within the hour.

“What is your first name?” I asked him. “Calling you Chief Petty Officer C’sahn’Bo all the time is going to eventually become annoying, and confusing if your brother joins us,” I explained.

Laughing, he said it was Budiyka. His brother was Audiyka since he had been born first. His brother was definitely eager to join us the next time we got to Ahnjuk, and immediately began the process to muster out of the Navy. With twenty-four years of service, both brothers were ready for something else. They had joined the Navy to see action. Both were made MAs because they were so large and were able to hold their own in a fight. The recent limited action against the pirates had been the first real action they’d been around other than fighting a few drunken sailors.

Forty-three minutes later, the governor’s shuttle arrived in our hangar bay.

Half an hour after that, we docked with the Kra’afkikort and the governor gawked. “What is this ship?” he asked in awe, even though he wasn’t even able to stand on his own. Taking him aside, I promised to tell him everything once he was healed, but he had to promise never to tell anyone else. He promised, and we tucked him into one of the Banu-Sintäa medical pods. The rest were being used to optimize the health of the pirates I now owned as slaves so they would bring a better price.

While the governor healed, I bought more mining pods. Loading them aboard the Serendipity and the Be Back Soon for Captain Curry to drop off at the various sites for which I gave him coordinates. He had plenty of androids to set up the pods and I instructed him to leave two androids at each location.

I sent Calysta and the D1 to pick up Chief Petty Officer Audiyka C’sahn’Bo at the Navy base on Ahnjuk. The AI and androids were capable of operating each of our ships, but I didn’t want that information to get out. The AI aboard the destroyer had a complete tutorial for Audiyka, including an explanation of how I had come into possession of the ships. It started with a video clip of his brother telling him to make sure he was sitting down.

Also going to Ahnjuk were Mylla and her son, and Mrs. Curry and their two children, where they would be neighbors of Captain Rhekkyr’s family.

With the reward money and what I sold the pirate ships for, I was rich ... well, richer. I bought more mining pods, ending up spending almost two-thirds of what I just received on mining pods and androids. The pods were nearly a third cheaper on Dahrcolani, one of the places where they were manufactured.

True to my word, eleven days later, when he emerged from the healing pod, I told Governor Peyxgharo how I had acquired the Kra’afkikort. He was stunned and agreed with my assessment of how quickly the Class V laser technology had gotten into the hands of the pirates. I did promise to make armor for the Marine boarding parties to use. Kasi’yah ran a cost analysis on the materials required and calculated that we could make a substantial profit selling them our new armor for the same cost as the armor they used now.

By the time the governor was healed, we had completed the repair and retrofit of both frigates. Again, I wasted no brain energy naming the ships and simply named them the F1 and the F2. We then concentrated on the production of androids, drones, and probes. Although we were almost out of raw materials, I wasn’t about to buy any when I had tons of it waiting to be picked up.

We set out for the area where the pirate attacks were still taking place, spending a day dropping sensors along the edge of the Backwater to let us know when a ship passed one of them. We also dropped sensors near every intersection of shipping lanes in the area. Then we surrounded the area, both frigates at 120-degree angles from the Kra’afkikort, and two-thirds of the way across the sector. Many of the freed girls that we rescued had chosen to stay with us and eagerly went with Budiyka “to keep him company.” Both frigates had a dozen shuttles loaded with android boarding parties.

Two days later four ships came out of the Backwater. They separated and cloaked near four different intersections, while remaining close enough to rush to the aid of each other. While the two frigates closed in, cloaked and watching, I found where the ships had exited from the Backwater and followed the opening. Probes rushed ahead to widen the path and to cloak the pirate base so they couldn’t warn the four pirate ships lying in wait.

“Where do they find these things? At Pirates R Us?” I grumbled quietly when I saw yet another identical log lodge. I learned later that the captain of one of the four pirate ships from here had been an officer aboard a ship from the last group. His dislike of the captain he had been forced to serve under led him and several other men to steal one of the captured ships and set out on their own. At first, they hid the ship just inside the Backwater while they continued looking for another path like the one his last group had used.

The path into the Backwater that he found had a chunk of rock nearly a kilometer long and flat enough to build on. The logs were cut on a nearby planet that was too young geologically to support a population. Like the other groups of pirates, he couldn’t go to one of the inhabited planets to buy lumber and building supplies because his ship would be noticed and reported as stolen.

There were only four pirates inside, all injured and recuperating. The cell holding the captives was larger than the last three, and there were more captives, thirty-seven of them. We rescued them just like we had previous captives. Our attack here ended up with the troops simply entering the lodge. Only one of the pirates was ambulatory, and she was so busy taking care of the other three that she didn’t even realize we were there until it was too late.

Two hours later, Budiyka radioed. The four pirate ships had finally found a target and moved against it. As soon as the first shot was fired, they took over the AIs of the four pirate ships, and then told the target vessel it was safe. The target had only sustained minor damage. Boarding parties made quick work of capturing the crews aboard the pirate ships while Budiyka radioed the Navy.

Leaving two more shuttles with their assigned boarding parties to search the pirate base, I took the girls we had just rescued and our four captives, arriving at the scene of the pirate attack eight hours before the Navy. I transferred the four pirates aboard the F1. By the time the Navy arrived and got things sorted out and got over finding a female slave as the captain of a ship larger than their own, the pirates had all been convinced to give us their account numbers and passcodes, and the money was again in one of my accounts.

I had to laugh seeing the same Navy ship arrive that we had the run-in with last time. This time, though, there was a different captain, and he was very professional. He obviously knew Budiyka, as well as the events that had precipitated his predecessor’s retirement. I was surprised when he wanted to look around the pirates’ hideout, like should have been done the last time. When he was done, he rode back to the Navy base aboard the F1, although we left his ship far behind. I even told him about the new shortcuts we had just created through the Backwater. I had set them up to warn each ship and then electronically charge them half the cost of fuel for two day’s travel each time they used the shortcut. Navy ships would be allowed free passage. Within hours, most of the ships in the sector knew about the shortcuts.

The trial two days later was short and sweet. One hundred ninety-four pirates were sentenced to slavery and banishment. The thirty-seven captives from their home base were freed. I had hired the same lawyer for the girls again. She was surprised to see several of the last group of freed captives still with me. The ₢19,400 cost for the pirates’ slave papers was deducted from the ₢194,000 reward. When I told the Navy captain that I thought this was the last of the pirates in this sector, he jokingly suggested trying the neighboring Quemgengo Sector.

They were still experiencing severe growing pains, even worse than the Hawnalt sector had been. The government and infrastructure were young enough that the Wild West Syndrome was rampant, with the emphasis on wild. There, might made right. I thought about it, deciding first to finish setting up the mining pods that I had for the area the Kra’afkikort had mapped over twelve years. Many of the pods would be mining something other than the minerals I usually sought, mining the necessary minerals for us to use to make body armor, androids, probes, and sensors. In addition, the Kra’afkikort would be getting a gradual retrofit like the other ships, adding the hybrid armor, engines, and shields.

Nine of the most recently freed girls decided to stay with Budiyka for now. I paid for first class passenger berths home for the others. Before we could leave, though, my women insisted on buying new clothes for the former captives and suggested buying more food for us. The replicators were fine but knowing that our meals were made with fresh fruits, vegetables, and meats made them taste better. I made a call to have the food delivered while the women went looking for clothes.

Looking at a navigation chart and the new shortcut, I suddenly realized that the Backwater had never been mined. The outer few kilometers had been surveyed and mined, but beyond that, it was too congested for any ship to travel safely.

“Kasi’yah, how deep into the Backwater can you scan for minerals, possible pirate ships, and bases?” I asked.

“Active ships I can read at a hundred thousand km. Mineral deposits and parked ships I can read at one thousand km; wooden structures no more than twenty kilometers,” she answered.

With that pronouncement, the surplus of probes we had been building were released into the Backwater to search it using a grid pattern. With five thousand probes to start with, it would take decades, but we would be adding to that number when we could. We would know if there were other ships or bases, and what minerals were available in quantities warranting mining pods or manual mining.

Previous attempts to map the Backwater had been a failure. The size of anything entering the Backwater was limited to something much smaller than the smallest fighter. Before the arrival of the Kra’afkikort, technology wasn’t advanced enough for probes to be able to go any distance into the Backwater without constantly returning to refuel. The fuel issue limited the depth they could effectively penetrate to scan. According to reports, the wreckage of more than a hundred of those survey ships still remained in the Backwater.

Only the first hundred or so kilometers of the Backwater’s periphery had been scanned for minerals with any accuracy. When mineral deposits worth working were found, most were beyond the capability of current technology to take advantage of them. Humongous amounts of matter in many types and sizes had to be physically removed to create a path to the site of a deposit. Then, the path had to be checked daily to keep it open.

The cost to create the pathway to a mine and to keep it open was too high for all but the most lucrative mines and attempts to mine the Backwater ended once those lucrative mines had played out enough that the returns were no longer worth the expenditure.

The Kra’afkikort’s probes were small, yet powerful enough to scan one-tenth as far as the Kra’afkikort could scan. Their power source would last for ten years, and their shielding was now strong enough that it should protect them from any collisions.

With the probes released, we were ready to leave for the Quemgengo sector, the area beyond the Ngarundu Sector. However, first, we needed to meet up with our four ships to see how they were doing. We also needed to collect different ores for the Kra’afkikort to use for manufacturing the armor for the Navy and for her own retrofit. On our way, we even set out nine mining pods for minerals not usually mined by pod. It would have been more cost-effective to mine high-paying ore and buy the other ores we needed, but I didn’t want anyone else to know what materials we used or to wonder what we were using them for.

I noted a large spike in my bank balance before we left; Captain Rhekkyr had just dropped off his first load of ore to the consortium, one including Rhodium.

When we met up with the Yuwuda, Captain Rhekkyr couldn’t stop bragging about his ship. We took it aboard and did a minor retrofit, giving it the new weapons package. His family was accompanying him, with the children taking classes online. The ship’s AI made sure the children didn’t reveal anything online that was supposed to remain secret.

I stopped by the consortium to personally verify the video message I had sent them telling about the three ships that would be delivering ore for me. I knew they were going to ask why I suddenly had partners, but seeing the Faraway filled with gorgeous, scantily clad young women answered their question before it was even asked. They were excited about the increased deliveries, even though I was now providing my own mining pods.

By the time we rendezvoused with the D1, the Serendipity, and the Be Back Soon, we had more than enough ore to retrofit the Kra’afkikort, and then to start manufacturing body armor for the Navy. The three ships set out the new batch of mining pods while the retrofit to the Kra’afkikort continued.

Within a month, both tasks were complete, and we picked up another supply of the materials we needed for our manufacturing.

Passing through the shortcut, we released five thousand more drones to help scan the Backwater, half in each direction. When we got to Dahrcolani, the Navy was ecstatic with the two thousand suits of body armor we delivered. Between the increased ore deliveries, the money we were making from the shortcut, and what we got for the body armor, I loaded fifty mining pods aboard the Kra’afkikort. The sale of the two largest pirate ships had fallen through, so we took them aboard the Kra’afkikort and began a retrofit. I figured that I could use one to transport mining pods from Dahrcolani to beyond the Hawnalt Sector where my other ships could pick them up and install them. The ships could also drop their cargo off aboard the large freighter, minimizing the number of trips necessary to the mining consortium.

I named the two large freighters the Yanet and the Freyja, and their retrofit continued when we reached the Quemgengo Sector. Knowing that I intended to hunt pirates here, both C’sahn’Bo brothers had joined me, each commanding one of our Gila’br’yya frigates.

Our first stop was the naval base on Keckalulla, the capital planet of the sector, although calling it a naval base was being overly generous. There were a few offices, as well as a communication center, barracks, and fuel depot. The maintenance facility looked to be inadequate, and the entire base looked as if it had been thrown together hurriedly and haphazardly. There were only two ships there, and three more out on patrol. Given that the Quemgengo Sector was currently the largest of all the sectors, having five ships patrol the whole sector was like having a hundred police officers patrolling a city of several million people. There should have been a minimum of twenty-five ships.

The Commodore greeted us eagerly. Word of what we had accomplished in the Hawnalt and Ngarundu Sectors preceded us, and he promised us all the support he could give us, acknowledging that it wasn’t much. The fact that a Commodore was the commanding officer in the sector instead of an admiral was telling. The sectoral government didn’t yet have the resources to marshal the necessary force to win the battle, a painful growing phase every other sector had gone through. Piracy was rampant in the sector. Nearly one ship in twenty was attacked and most ships had begun traveling in packs whenever possible.

The C’sahn’Bo brothers each took a frigate, tailing a slow-moving Faraway as she made her way away from Keckalulla towards the wilder part of the sector. The Faraway was moving slower than normal for a freighter her size, and completely uncloaked so she would be visible to any ship near enough to scan her. I took the Kra’afkikort and went in a different direction, to where many ships were being attacked. Completely cloaked, the Kra’afkikort was actively scanning everything that moved.

Two days later, we found a cloaked ship lying in ambush along a commonly used route. We moved closer and waited for the pirate ship to act. While we waited, Kasi’yah did a thorough scan of the ship Daratrea, and found nearly fifty pirates aboard, along with a dozen mostly female prisoners. Six of the prisoners were held in stasis pods, obviously for ransom. Only one of the pod prisoners was a man.

A second cloaked ship showed up the next day and there was a brief exchange of messages using drones, so the ships didn’t have to break radio silence. Kasi’yah managed to find the contents of the messages in the memory of the AI from the Daratrea. The first part was a warning from their inside contact in the Navy that the freighter Faraway was in the sector looking for pirates. Evidently, news of our exploits had preceded us here as well. A copy of the Faraway’s scan signature had been included, evidently obtained while we were at the Navy base on Keckalulla.

The second part of the message was a confirmation that their target was inbound to Ryunokh, the capital city, with a full load of precious metals. They obviously had a second insider, one working for the mining consortium in this sector.

Since our messages couldn’t be detected by current technology, I let the brothers C’sahn’Bo know what I’d learned. Two hours later, the target arrived and the two pirate ships attacked. As soon as the first shot was fired, Kasi’yah seized control of their AIs and stopped the attack. When we radioed the freighter to tell them they were safe, it was obvious that the female captain was a basket case. Kasi’yah used her tractor beams to maneuver the freighter into the landing bay after dispatching our shuttles with boarding parties for the two pirate ships.

Wearing my body armor, I had Kasi’yah open the freighter’s hatches and I went inside to check on the captain. She was curled in a ball on the floor of the bridge, sobbing. The medical android that I had called for sedated her and we took her aboard the Kra’afkikort to give her a chance to calm down. Calysta sat with her, talking quietly and soothingly about anything and everything hoping to calm her down.

Meanwhile, boarding parties had entered both pirate ships, unnoticed, and had taken the pirates captive. Kasi’yah had tried to make the ship’s AI load the remaining girls into stasis pods before our attack began, but the ship didn’t have more pods. Once both ships were secure, we headed for the Navy base. The girls in the stasis pods were released and allowed to contact their families to let them know they’d been rescued. I learned that the lone man in the pods and his older daughter had been captured while bringing in a load of ingots and were being held for ransom. The family wasn’t rich, but had two more ships they used to transport the ingots their mining pods manufactured. Their pods were all leased, and they were still in the process of paying them off, so they didn’t have a lot of money. Once the pods were paid off, which should be within a year, they would be very wealthy.