Disgraced
Copyright© 2025 by Ogreface
Chapter 15: Another Pirate Base
After checking all the equipment, and rechecking the air supply containers and fuel levels on both sleds, the twelve rangers, dressed in their new bullet-proof black space suits, settled inside the sleds and moved out of the two cargo pods. Then the sleds used the improved grapples, they had two mounted midships with articulated arms long enough to reach way past the front or rear of the sled, to clamp onto the Pig’s frame. After double-checking each crew member, the Pig slowly drifted through the last jump gate.
“Clear, no targets, ” the Pig’s skipper said over the narrowband directional radio. Each crew member of the individual sleds had a wired intercom so they could talk all they want at all times, provided they were inside the very short range. For ranges past fifty meters from the sled, they had to use the directional radio.
“Detach and move away from the gate.” The major’s voice came over the radio. “Stay safe, see you guys in a week’s time. 7/5, your general readiness state is now on medium. That means each marine will be in his space suit and have a spike on his person at all times, and readiness state could go to high on short notice.” The plan was for the two sleds to stay together while searching for any human activities near that gate while the Pig would act as regular cargo ship transiting the empty system.
“The main problem with fighting in space is that you have limited peripheral vision, and you cannot hear when somebody sneaks up behind you,” Nick muttered.
“That is why we have three extra crew members as lookouts,” Gunny Baker said. He was the secondary lead or skipper for the second team while Dupre was the skipper and forward gunner for the first team with Dane and Nick being the pilot and rear gunner. Lieutenant Behr was the skipper and forward gunner for the other sled, with Sergeant Asher being the pilot and Corporal Atkins being the rear gunner. Each sled had a gunny, another sergeant, and a corporal as second crew. Rogers was a bit upset about not being one of the crew members, but the major just ignored him after making that decision.
The jump gate was just outside the asteroid ring of the system, meaning the nearest rocks were around fifty thousand kilos sunward. Traveling that distance in a ship was a matter of an hour or two depending on the starting velocity of the ship. It took half a day of accelerating at one G, and then decelerate at one G with the two sleds. The plan was not to make the Pig a juicy target but for the sleds to find and follow a pirate ship to its base.
Dane suddenly figured out why the navy showed interest in the sleds. Even a cruiser with four platoons onboard could not defend itself against the two sleds. There were any number of heavy lasers on a cruiser, but none were mounted on the outside. The sleds could sneak up on any ship and burn holes through it with the laser.
The Pig planned to travel above the plane of the system to the other jump gate, which was a weeks counter-clockwise travel, like a regular freighter of frigate would do. The two sleds planned to search near the gate they just came though, hoping to encounter a pirate ship to follow to its base. They were thus traveling in the same general direction but with the sleds heading for the plane and the asteroid belt.
“Hey, I just picked up a ship’s beacon,” Gunny Baker said.
“Not the Pig?” Dupre asked.
“No, I had the Pig on the scanner all along but this new..., wait, now there are two beacons. They just popped up. Two frigates,” the gunny said.
“Weird,” Dupre said. “I don’t know how ships’ beacons work, but I always thought they are wired to always transmit their ID and cannot be changed.” The scanner was one of the last gadgets added and was the primary responsibility of the off-duty crew as part of their on-watch duties.
“Behr, try to contact Gallagher on the laser beam,” Dupre said.
“Will do, we also picked up the two frigates on the scanner,” Behr said. “Not names I have ever heard of.”
The scanners were small and passive, meaning they didn’t send out any signals. They also gave directional data, so the sleds could follow the signal to its source. While staying just in visible range from each other, the two sleds headed for the two mystery frigates.
“Flying Pig, Flying Pig, this is the imperial navy frigate Emperor’s Dream, ” a voice came over the broad band ship radio. “Navy orders, stop accelerating and prepare for a quick inspection. The quicker you obey, the quicker you will be on your way again.”
“Damn, we should have been briefed by the navy to figure out when this is legit or not,” Behr muttered.
“We are on official business for the duke of Arcadia, ” The Pig’s skipper responded. “We only have farming implements onboard.”
“That means the inspection will be even quicker, ” the fake frigate captain said.
“Okay, let’s try to make this quick, ” the Pig’s captain said after a few seconds.
The sleds were not far behind the Pig so when they finally came in visual range they watched as two regular freighters approached the Pig. One from either side, obviously intending to dock on both ends of the Pig.
“Got Gallagher on the narrowband,” Behr said. “He wants us to try to disable one of the ships before it docks with the Pig. They will take the other ship.”
“The nearest pirate ship is now designated as P1,” Dupre declared. “Galan, take the laser and damage P1. Try not to kill it.”
Gunny Baker took over piloting as Dane got behind the laser. The freighter was the same model as the Pig, as were most freighters. Dane aimed carefully and then burned a hole the size of his fist through the freighter’s rear airlock. If the inner hatch was open, it would now automatically close, if not, the pirates might not notice for a while, but either way they would not be able to use that airlock anymore.
“Gunny, try to get to the other end,” Dane said.
“P1 is still leaking air,” Behr commented. “Do you think they disabled the airlock safeties?”
“What are you planning, Galan?” Dupre asked.
“I’m going to try a low-power burn on the front airlock,” Dane said. “I want to see if I can weld the hatch closed.”
“Damn, you are dangerous,” Baker chuckled. “Even if you puncture the hatch, they will not be able to dock to the Pig.”
“Do it,” Dupre ordered.
The heavy laser had no way of controlling its output power, it was always firing at maximum power for a fixed tenth of a second, the time it took for the black crystal fragment to disintegrate. Since the crystals used by the weapon was all of a uniform size, the only way to limit the power was to use filters, meant for target practice.
Dane fitted the full set of filters and then made a series of shots aimed at where the hatch and frame met. He slowly moved the aiming point a centimeter at a time along the joint. From where they were nothing much could be seen. The only visible light from the exercise was when the filter tube started glowing pink.
“Move closer, I want to see the result,” Dupre said to Baker. “Yup, welded shut, good job,” He declared as the sled got withing tens of meters from P1.
“I told Gallagher about the pirate ship designation, and what Dane did,” Behr said. “I asked if he wants the same treatment for P2. He said negative, to leave P2 for them. It sounds as if the 7/5 are all amped up and eager for a fight.”
They watched from a fifty meters away as the damaged freighter tried to dock to the Pig but gave up quickly. Then it pulled away. That was when Dane’s attention got drawn to the freighter’s communications array. A quick burst of laser power and the array was a blob of molten metal. They listened as P2 tried to communicate with P1 using broad band radios, meaning everybody could listen in. They gave up after a while when they got no response.
“P1 is running,” Baker muttered when the freighter suddenly took off at ninety degrees away from the Pig and the P1, which was in the process of docking to the other end of the Pig.
“Behr, cover the Pig, make sure they actually win that fight,” Dupre said. “Once they are safe, join us, by tracking P1’s beacon.”
“Roger,” Behr said as Baker followed the damaged freighter deeper into the asteroid field.
The sled managed to stay in visual range of the pirate ship. At the same time, they also kept an eye on the ship’s beacon, expecting it to be turned off at any moment, but it stayed on. They were taking a bit of a chance since the sleds had limited resources and the pirate base could be many weeks away. They might locate the pirate base but then not have enough fuel or air to get back to the rendezvous point and not able to contact the Pig.
It took thirty-eight hours before something happened. During that time the pirate ship’s fake beacon stayed on. Gunny Baker also commented that he suspect the pirates were not as skilled in running a ship as one would expect. It was as if they were feeling their way home.
“We are approaching some object, according to the magnetometer?” Corporal Hank Pulford announced.
“Visually identified as a ship,” Sergeant Brand said, who was monitoring the scanners and broadband communications. “No beacon, they just started hailing P1..., which is not responding. I guess Galan did a good job on their communications system. Good thing the beacon antenna is separate from the other antennas.”
“Refer to the new ship as P3,” Dupre declared. “What is the other ship saying or asking?”
“Wait one...,” Brand responded and then stayed quiet for a while. “Okay, they are being ordered to shut down the beacon, and got no response. P3 just stated that they will be docking with P1. Still no response.”
The six rangers watched in awe and amusement from about a hundred meters away, off to one side, as P3 tried to dock to an uncooperative P1, which resulted in a non-fatal but jarring collision between the two ships. All spaceships had external cameras which they used for docking purposes. These cameras were usually fixed in place fixed focal and narrow angle settings to determine distances from objectives. Either P1 was not using the cameras, or they were not working. The collision resulted in P1 stop decelerating and just hung in space, which allowed P3 a second attempt.
“Grab onto that strut,” Dupre ordered. “Try not to make any noise doing it.” It took a while before the pirates decided that they could not enter P1, so P3 finally pulled P1 as they headed back where they came from. The sled was still piggybacking on P1 in a blind spot from the docking cameras on P3.
Fifteen hours later P3 started to maneuver. The rangers were bored and relaxed with some of them snoozing, but none were inside the space tents, they were too nervous and ready for action. Dane was the duty pilot, so he got ready to disengage if needed. Once they figured out their new heading, they finally managed to locate the pirate base. It was a bunch of derelict freighters anchored to a small asteroid.
“It looks as if that one freighter crashed into the asteroid, and then they just made it a base by adding more freighters.” Nick commented.
“We have a problem, lieutenant,” Gunny said. “The beacon went dead. Unless we use the broadband system, we cannot contact the Pig or the other sled.”
“Let’s detach and stand clear,” Dupre said. “Observation mode.”
Dane carefully matched velocity with the pirate base, making sure they never got between the pirate ships and any of the big Sister stars. The local brown dwarf star which was more of an orange color and nearly invisible from where they were was not an issue. They were about a kilometer from the pirate base watching the activity with cameras. Once the pirates figured out to dock to P1 using the rear airlock, there was no more activity outside the base.
“Two options,” Dupre said after six hours of no activity and no radio communication. “We can plant a remote trigger beacon and head for the rendezvous point, or we can sneak closer and try to listen through the metal hulls for more data before we leave. Ideas?”
“We already achieved our objective,” Gunny said. “I suggest we plant the remote trigger beacon before we do anything else.”
“Agreed,” Dupre said. “Anything else?”
“I like the idea of trying to listen through the hulls,” Dane said. “I volunteer to do that.”
“You would,” Sergeant Brand said with a chuckle. “Both you and Belton are crazy enough to try stunts like that, but I agree. We should find out how many people there are and if some of them are prisoners.”
Dupre divided the two team into three pairs. He and Hank stayed with the sled while Nick and Brand would take the remoter trigger beacon and go plant it on the pirate base, preferably where it would not be accidentally discovered. Gunny and Dane would go spy on the pirates. They left immediately while Brand and Nick dug the beacon out of the storage netting first.
“I know how I would do it but how were you planning on listening to them?” Gunny asked as they floated closer to the pirate base. They were tethered together by a lightweight dark-colored fifty-meter line and were about thirty meters apart. The black suits were so effective that even knowing where the gunny is, Dane could not see him.
“I know metal conduct sound very well,” Dane said. “Nick and I talked to each other the first time we used captured sleds using our spikes. We would just press the hilt of the spike to our helmets and the tip to the sled frame. Not good quality but good enough to make things out.”
“Good,” Gunny said. “The same way I would do it.”
They were careful not to bash into the freighter hulls when they reached them. Gunny showed Dane how to discharge any static electricity before making contact, explaining that static could build up over a long period of time and since space is an excellent insulator, the charge would stay around for a long time.
“I assume Brand would know about that,” Dane commented.
“I will kick his ass if he doesn’t,” Gunny said. “You are a sergeant like him, but he has six years more of experience than you do.” Dane was wondering what the other ranger sergeants and Gunny really thought of him.
Until that moment none of the rangers he encountered ever said anything negative towards him. While traversing the previous system, Gunny even caught Dane showing a few regular marines how to scrub a head, by doing one and then demanding they do it as good. It was how Dane always did corrective activities with marines, show them, watch them, correct them, watch them. Gunny just nodded his head and left them at it.
The freighter designated as P1 was silent, seemingly abandoned. They tested a few spots on the hull. It was easy since both hubs were stationary, indicating no need for gravity. They were not quite sure if they heard correctly but listening on the hull of P3, they listened in on a heated argument among two groups of pirates.
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