Privateers Commission 2 -ch 5-

Chapter 5

“Purchase a prisoner,” replied the speaker on the other end. It was a woman’s voice, but there was no video display that popped up, which meant whoever was speaking, didn’t have a camera. That or they didn’t want to transmit the video on purpose. “Prisoners aren’t sold. Prisoners are people. You don’t just… buy people.”

“Sure you do!” Xas countered immediately with a warm laugh. “In this case, I know the prisoner, they’re a pilot, and they even know I’m here to buy them!

“I’ll pay off their restitution, pay you what you think is a reasonable amount in fines for their crimes, you keep their name on the books and get paid for them for the duration of their sentence, and when it’s time for them to be released, they just get released.”

Ralph knew for a fact that this wasn’t something unheard of. It happened often, though almost exclusively for those with non-violent crimes, or crimes without living victims, or families of victims.

Or more accurately, people who don’t have anyone to show up for a parole hearing to make sure people stay in jail.

“I’m afraid what you’re describing isn’t possible,” drawled the woman over the intercom. “That sounds like something that would happen in the corridor, or maybe an outworld family’s prison.

“This is a TCP, though I can definitely understand what you meant. For the sake of preserving the peace, and not wanting to… cause issues… I’ll pretend we never had this conversation. Or that your transponder is clearly illegally modified. Good day.”

The communication line was broken and there was nothing more.

Xas’ video feed was still on and she turned and looked to the camer

Ralph blew out a breath and leaned back in his seat. He turned to look at Delilah behind him, who still had her hands on his shoulders.

“Well. Your friend is in a Terran Confederation Prison and one that’s being run above board and on the books,” Ralph mused. “I didn’t ask but… what’s your friend guilty of? This is as close to a super-max prison as you get without actually being a super-max.”

“Her names Janey,” Delilah began, then blew out a little huff. “She’s here because she stole… a lot… of ships. I’m talking upwards of thirty or forty of them. It’s one of the reasons she’s as good a pilot as she is.

“Whenever she’d crash one, get it blown up, or get boarded, she’d just steal another. Then do it all again. Though before you ask, she hasn’t crashed a ship in a while. The crashes were more at the start of her criminal career.”

“Janey,” Winnie muttered and shook her head. “Sounds like she’s almost as much of a problem as I am. What’s her sentence?”

“Six-hundred and forty-two years. She’s got about Six-hundred and forty to go,” Delilah said with a smirk. “Even if we did buy her out of her prison sentence, we were going to have to have her die and get her a new persona. There’s no way she could keep being who she was before.”

Ralph only nodded at that. He’d heard that part of it already from Delilah and they’d already spoken to Liseth about it. The plan had been to burn off her fingerprints into a thin layer of scar tissue, then give her a new set of fingerprints with skin-branding.

It’d fuck up some of the sensitivity in her fingers, but it’d eliminate her finger-prints outright.

Remodeling her face was as simple as going to a plastic surgeon and pairing it with some rejuvination treatments. It’d take a little for recovery but it wouldn’t be terrible either.

The biggest issue would be her genetics. Her DNA.

Which of course would be on file and not something you could change, which meant any check that ever needed a DNA scan would immediately reveal her.

None of that would be Ralph’s problem because once they finished their contract with Mirkil he would’ve just eliminated her own contract with him and sent her off on her way.

“Well, sounds like we’ll need to go to the others on your list,” stated Ralph with some finality. He reached up and patted Delilah’s hand as he spoke. While this individual had the best skills, which even Ralph had been able to verify by watching police footage, they were beyond their reach. “Who else responded?”

“A few. They’re terribly far away though,” Delilah admitted. “Far further away than I thought they’d be. Right on the edge of where we could reach two of them and hurry back to the taskforce. So long as one of them agreed immediately.”

Ralph blew out a slow breath. It wasn’t what he wanted to hear, but it was certainly not unexpected either. When he’d looked to the delivery route that the communication had taken, and what came back, he’d seen they were from multiple relays.

He hadn’t broken Delilah’s confidence and read her emails, but he’d certainly checked the comms logs.

“Haha, well, I have bad news for you,” Xas said from the monitor. She was no longer in a ship, but standing in front of a black screen. Still the Dashi woman though. “We just got a new communique from the Rear-Admiral. He wants everyone to be there two weeks early.

“We don’t have to listen to him, obviously, but uh… he sent you an email in particular Ralph. Asking you to return within that time window. Their wording was pretty damn direct.

“I can’t tell if it’s a mission critical thing or they’re just trying to boss a Privateer around.”

“Shit,” Ralph mumbled to himself as he leaned back in his pilot’s seat and into Delilah’s hands.

Thinking on it, he had options available to him. Some of them were good, too.

He could ignore the Rear-Admiral and go pick up the pilot. It’d cause some long term issues he imagined, unless he could somehow make amends after the fact. Which wouldn’t be that hard, he figured.

Most military types were open to the idea of getting a bribe or a kickback or two. As long as it didn’t endanger their men. Especially if it was a bribe just to ‘not be an ass to me in the future’.

Another option was just to head back and recruit a military pilot which wouldn’t be that hard. There was no way that Mirkil wouldn’t let him just hire one of their own for the job.

To the contrary, they’d be more likely to jump at the opportunity.

Or just go to a nearby corridor station, hire someone on there, and head to the Taskforce meetup if he didn’t want a Mirkil pilot on board.

“How’re we going to break them out of prison!?” Marionette got out in what was nearly a gasp. Followed by a giggle. “That’s what we’re going to do, right? It sounds like she’s the best pilot ever, there’s no way we should do this without her!

“Because… because if we end up having to do actual Taskforce work we’ll need to be able to maneuver and dodge. Since people like Ralph would be lying in wait just to blow up the whole thing as they went past!”

Raising his eyebrows at that, Ralph couldn’t deny Marionette had a point.

If they ended up moving with the Taskforce, there was the distinct possibility that there would be someone like Ralph laying in wait. Multiple someones. All of them sitting there in some type of black-space, sensor dead zone, or ambush with electronic warfare, just waiting for them to waltaz right into it.

Only to spring the trap and try to kill them all before they could properly respond.

A pilot used to explosions, being shot at, and crashing, would likely be the best type of pilot in those situations.

“Well, their network and comms are hardened,” Xas answered before anyone else could. “So there won’t be an opportunity to get into any of their systems from the outside. Even their passive receivers are hardened and separated from their actual network.

“It’s like they’ve put an airlock between them and everything externally. There’s no way to get into any of it.”

“Definitely hardened,” Delilah agreed. “Though not physically. If I could get a drone or a droid close enough I could tap into it but… they’d likely notice it if we started beaming signals around. That ‘airlock’ Xas mentioned is also it’s own defense. Any type of signal at all would be picked up, since there isn’t any.

“If we can get into the facility though, it’d be harder for them to figure out where the signals are coming from.”

“In other words, there’s no way to go for electronic or system deception,” Winnie added. “Which leaves good ol’ weapons, feet, and hands.

“Do I even need to ask if you’ve already gotten a hold of their routines, Del? You’re our intelligence officer and the intelligent one. Other than Liseth but uh… she doesn’t count for this. Even if she’s more of a robot than a hot doc. Sorry, Doc.”

Liseth smiled at that, tilted her head to the side, and didn’t respond further. Her eyes had moved from Delilah, to Winnie, to Ralph. Only to move back to Winnie.

It seemed Ralph wasn’t the only one who had noted Liseth’s intense intelligence. To be fair, Liseth wasn’t exactly hiding her abilities either.

“There’s no routines at all. Nothing,” Delilah confessed. “Everything is by request of the prison. Nothing at all is done by schedule or routine. On top of that, this place is mostly self sufficient. There’s not much they have to request from the outside.

“Just about the only thing that they open those damn multi-foot thick armored plate is to receive prisoners. And before you think that’s our way in, it isn’t. Prisoners are coordinated months in advance and the transports arrive within a five month window. So they can’t be rescued on the way here.

“They’ve taken extreme precautions to prevent exactly what we’re thinking of doing.”

Ralph was thinking on all of that. Then sighed heavily.

He had an idea but it was somewhat stupid.

“They believe they’re more or less untouchable, right?” Ralph asked. “Because even if we got through the door, they’d lock down the prison?”

“To a degree, yes,” Xas stated. “Why? Did you figure something out? Haha, did Ralph put together a plan on how to break into the prison and raid it? Own it and take what you want from it? Should we call it Marionette?”

“Xas,” Marionette chided, though she grinned from ear to ear. “Be nice to me, you gassed up background character. I’m the leading lady here, and I’ll have you know, I can do a lot with that.

“Haha, sure, sure, Rio. So long as you have time to bounce in place in front of the captain, right?” Xas shot back.

“My plan,” Ralph put in before the two of them could get into it. “Is to lean into their expectation. I’m sure my beautiful weapons officer can figure out a way to blow up their damn entry way. She’s a genius in her field.”

Ralph said it and reached over to put a hand on Winnie’s head. Right between her mechanical ears.

He ruffled her hair gently and rubbed her head at the same time.

“Winona Guthrie is an amazing woman and I’ll put my faith in her,” Ralph continued even as Winnie looked at him with wide startled eyes. “I want that door obliterated. Blown right off it’s hinges. Destroyed. I want you to make that entry gate for transports to look like what you want me to do to you, Winnie. Got it?

“You’re allowed to use whatever of our armaments you see fit. I don’t mind spending on it to get this pilot. Though she better be worth it Delilah.”

Delilah had caught her breath as soon as Ralph had turned the conversation back to her. After a long pause, she let it out in a sigh.

“Yeah… Janey… Janey’s amazing. She’s also younger than me. She’s about twenty. She literally stole her first space ship at ten,” Delilah explained as Ralph pulled his hand back from Winnie’s head.

“She’s also hot, haha. You’re all fucked,” Xas said cheerfully. “She’s even better looking than Marionette! One of the reasons they sent her here is because of that. This place has all female guards and female prisoners. No men at all. Bit eccentric though.

“Her psych profile in the systems reads like a high IQ multi-function disorder with a sprinkling of trauma. Here’s a great quote from her last interaction with a psychologist, ‘so I ripped the cord out of the wall, stripped it with my fucking teeth, plugged it into a socket, and used it to set fire to my house. I wasn’t going to make the payments on it and I was cold’.

“Isn’t that great? Haha. She sounds like a handful!”

Well.

She’ll fit right in, I guess.

We’ve got a bit of a rag-tag group here.

“Oh my gosh… we have another pirate!” Marionette gushed and clapped her hands together several times quickly. “Another pirate who fits us! And-and-and-oh my goodness! She can be a Ship’s Mistress, too!

“Ah… what… we need another ship. We need another ship and we can stick the Mirkil Privateer’s Commission on it! Then it’s an all Ship’s Mistress crew!

“This is amazing! We have such an amazing Privateer’s story. This would make an amazing tv-show!”

“If we’re talking about getting a new ship, I’d like to see if we could purchase a large carrier type,” Delilah interjected. “I’d be more than happy to pitch in some of my own money to make it happen. If we had a carrier, we could bring all our ships into one place for refit, rearm, and shore-leave. A place for us to call home.”

“I really like that idea,” Liseth put in firmly. It was said with such absolute conviction that it actually gave Ralph pause. “I’ll contribute as well.”

“I don’t have any coin but I’ll gladly let Ralph has his way with me however he wants,” Winnie put in, her hand coming across to grab Ralph’s thigh. “He can have all he wants, however he wants. That’s the best I can contribute.”

“I’ll contribute, haha, but my sex-bot isn’t here yet. So it’ll be coin for now,” Xas offered cheerfully. “A carrier would be great. If I’m lucky, I can talk Ralph into pulling out the hard-drives from here, and put them there. Then I could be there, and push out to the Toll instead.”

Marionette only laughed, smiled, and just about gyrated in place.

Which for Ralph, was hard to look away from.

“Fucking hell, Rio. You need a tighter bra, or just more support,” complained Winnie. “You make me want to get a boob job.”

Marionette blushed and visibly stilled herself.

***

“It is truly diabolical how much shielding the Toll has,” Liseth remarked as she watched Winnie going through her firing plots one more time. “To be able to sit out here and plot as you do, yet the Toll gives up no presence to scanning, passive or active, is truly… terrifying.

“The word you’re looking for is illegal,” Winnie offered up with a chuckle. “It originally had military grade shielding from about… ten years ago from the Confed. At least that’s what the Calesat repair reports listed out.

“Then interwoven with all that Confed shielding, the Calesat put in their own shielding, and what they could buy from the Corridor, as well as updating the Confed shielding. Millions and millions of credits were dumped into it.

“If this wasn’t a Privateer’s vessel it’d already be impounded and probably turned over to a Defense Force or the Confed. It’s a damn military vessel, a man-of-war, wearing a damn dress.”

“I… yes, that’s a very good point,” Liseth said, her small smile appearing once more. “I find myself quite enamored with this ship. Hiding what it truly is all the while moving about without a concern.”

Ha.

You mean like you, you genetically over engineered biological computer.

As if knowing that Ralph understood her, Liseth’s smile grew as she held his gaze.

“Alright. And… I’m ready. I’ve got it all set up. You told me to make it look like my entrance after you’re done with me, right? I’m all set,” Winnie said and turned partially to look at Ralph. She gave him a grin. Only for the grin to falter slowly. Her brows twitched as she stared at him. “You told me you were proud of me. You’re… you like who I am. Right? You… want this? Want me as I am today?”

“Very much so,” Ralph said and nodded his head at Winnie. “Fire when ready.”

Weapons Officer Winona Guthrie of the Turlan’s Toll stared at him for several more seconds, before she turned, tapped at her console, then leaned back in her seat. She laughed to herself.

“Make it look like what I want you to do to me,” she repeated. “I’ll show you. I even got Xas to help me with it. As your weapons officer. As… as Winona Guthrie, Winnie, I’ll show you, Captain Turlan. Ralph.”

Smiling, Ralph watched the screen. A view granted to them by a drone Delilah and Xas set up and launched. It was on a long tether that was giving them visual feed by cable. It’d be undetectable by the prison.

The nearby star was providing a good amount of light at this moment as well, showing them the entry door to the prison perfectly.

Wired drones weren’t something that were normal as far as Ralph knew, but he now had plans. Plans to use them to commit to some future acts of warfare.

Even going so far as to use them as wired land-mines or waiting single rocket use launchers.

Because in the end, even old warfare can be new warfare if you use it right.

Too many frequency sensors, how about things with no frequencies at all, like wire guided drones.

It’s not like gravity is much of a thing in space.

Unless we’re near something it doesn’t matter at all. Low mass, decent tension strength, weight irrelevant, there we go.

If I get ugly with this, might change warfare.

I should… I should probably notify Mirkil and Calesat about what I’m doing. They might need to prep and they might pay me for the warning.

Though I really—

The door vanished in a bright white explosion of material and a microsecond of explosive light as the shaped charged of the heavy rocket slammed into the armored door. Then another went off.

And another.

Multiples continued to go off one after another. A flash of light, a brief fizzle of flamible materials going off before the vacuum of space claimed it all, then another.

When it finally ended, the armored door to the prison was partially melted. A massive gaping hole was bore right through the center of it. Large enough to fit a small craft through, in fact.

Then it started to drip large white drops from the top, to the bottom.

Only to start oozing at the bottom.

“That’s a bit much, Xas. Dial it back just a bit?” Winnie asked.

The oozing liquid at the bottom thinned out a bit and was now not as obvious.

“Okay, there. That’s what I want you to do to me,” Winnie said while looking at Ralph with a grin. “Drill me and fill me, captain. Or in Rio’s words… board me and sword me.”

Ralph’s eyes flicked to Winnie and he didn’t look away. Instead, he smiled at her.

Which caused Winnie’s face to immediately turn crimson, but she didn’t look away. Instead, she started breathing more deeply and her shoulders stiffened. He even noted her eyes widening slightly.

“Drones away,” Delilah murmured, her voice coming across a bit firm. “It should vanish in the wreckage easily enough until we need it next. Though… holy shit, their entire defense network just opened up.

“If we were actually trying to land something in there, we’d get lit up. Lit up and blowed up. That’s so much firepower.”

Uh huh.

And all we have to do is rely on their personal belief of safety.

They’ll remain like this in a defensive posture, watch, wait, and then… de-escalate after a while.

Then finally call for repairs and probably reinforcements.

Then we act.