"It's made of solid gold!" C'Mat repeated, widening his eyes for emphasis. Apparently my initial reaction hadn't been sufficiently impressed. Unk Three nodded his agreement and said, "Gold!" in a solemn voice.
"No," I said reasonably. "It's not. I sent you two to the bars in Vairport to pick up news about plump easy targets, not ridiculous rumors about some mythical Perinian ship made out of gold."
C'Mat looked offended and sat down sidewise in the helmsman's chair. "Fine, Cap'n," he said. "You don't want to hear what I've got, that's just fine. Let's just fly around blind, then, and hope someone sends out a message, 'Here we are, plump bird for the plucking, come get us.'" He popped the claws on his right paw and began examining them, pretending not to be interested in me any longer. Unk Three looked sad and shook his head, casting a reproving look at me.
I sighed and looked to Number One for some sympathy at the lack of respect I was getting. But she was leaning against the powered down scanning console, with a thoughtful expression.
"Actually," she said slowly, "Considering Perinian shield technology, it could make sense."
"What makes sense?"
"Building a ship of gold. Perinian shields increase in field strength based on the mass inside the field, and decrease based on the amount of space they have to cover. So increase the mass of the ship itself…"
"Ha!" C'Mat bounded out of the chair, balancing on his toes. "See? She says I'm right!"
"She didn't say that," I corrected him. "She just said that maybe you're right."
"A whole starship made out of gold!" C'Mat exclaimed, ignoring me. He broke into song, dancing lightly around the bridge. "Gold, gold, beautiful gold, shiny, pretty, shiny gold!" Unk Three clapped his hands in something approaching rhythm.
I sighed. "Fine," I conceded. "We'll look into it."
Five weeks later found the Star Axe floating in the red and black chaos of hyperspace. I stared through the main window, watching the ever-changing clouds of red and black swirl around the ship, wondering exactly what the rest of the crew saw when they looked out. Everyone described the experience differently. Number One talked about ribbons of fire burning their way through a midnight sky, C'Mat claimed that he saw an infinity of empty black eyes staring at him from a sea of fire, and every other person I'd ever talked to described something else that I couldn't see. Red and black clouds, swirling endlessly, that's what hyperspace was to me. I glanced at the viewscreen, showing nothing but grey emptiness, the same thing every mechanical viewing device always showed. We used to have a robot on board, he claimed he didn’t see anything at all.
"Have anything yet?" I asked Number One.
She shook her head, not looking up from her readouts. "A few blips, probably asteroids or comets passing a few lightyears away in realspace. Other than that, nothing."
I nodded, and went back to staring at chaos. None of the stories about being a pirate ever acknowledge the fact that it consisted to a large amount of just waiting around. For the thousandth time I wondered whether an honest career might be more interesting.
But that thought passed, as it always did.
"Gravwave!" Number One called out, some unknown number of hours later. "Big one. They're either really massive, or they're moving really fast."
I was at her side in an instant, the rest of the bridge crew watching us, the lethargy of waiting over in the rush of potential action. "Coming our way?" I asked, looking over her shoulder as the scanning instruments continued their reports. "How's our position?"
"Good, good," she answered, most of her concentration still on the console. "Looks like the snitches were right, Morgan. Direct shot from Ultivair to Old Red, moving as fast as possible. At these speeds she won't notice us till she's almost on top of us, but her gravwave is huge. We've got a couple hours to get into position."
"Let's do it!" I headed back to my command chair, giving orders as I went. "Unk Two, standard attack on this. Put us in front of her, we'll redirect the gravitonics just before she hits us, and push her back into realspace. Then we jump down the same hole she made. Cat Matias, we're going to skim past her as close as possible once we’re in realspace. Coordinate with Number One on when we drop shields. I don't expect they'll have any weapons extending past their shields, that's not a typical Perinian trick, but if they do then hit them with the plasma cannon the second we drop shields and burn them away. Then hit their engine with everything we've got, see if we can burn through their shielding with concentrated fire. We do one pass, see how it works, and then we come about for boarding."
I clicked on the ship's com as I sat down. "We've located the target," I broadcast throughout the ship, "and we're moving into position. I'll let you know when we're about to do the gravshoot, but everyone should be in position for zero-G well before then. Boarding parties, we’re using force swords and stunners only. Her hull sounds like it's thick, but I don't want any accidents."
"If you've got any questions, it's too late to ask them. See you all on the other side."
"Anything get through?" I asked Number Once as the golden ship passed behind us. Her shields were still flaring with dissipated energy from our attack. C'Mat had done himself proud. As far as I could tell every weapon that could be brought to bear on the Perinian ship had hit within a five meter area. If that hadn't overpowered their shielding, then nothing less than an Imperial battlecruiser could do the job.
I waited with ill-controlled impatience as my first officer ran the numbers, then ran them again. She looked up at me and shook her head. "Far as I can tell," she said, "We might just as well have shouted at them. No damage."
I swore imaginatively, using some words I didn't even know the meaning of. Mom had said they were really bad, though, and a few universes away they could get a fellow into a duel. I felt like a duel right about then.
I thumbed open the com switch again. "OK, children," I told the crew. "We weren't able to touch their sweet golden arse. That means we only have a limited amount of time before they can get their hyperspace field up again, so we have to go in now, and hit them hard. Everyone be ready."
I sat back and composed myself, then nodded to C'Mat. "Ready to broadcast," I told him. Back in my early days in command, the Star Axe had an official communications officer, just like a commercial ship or a military crew, but over the years I'd realized that it really wasn't necessary. We were either talking or shooting, we seldom did both at once. So now I let my weapons officer handle both duties. It kept him out of trouble when we weren’t fighting.
He nodded at me. "You're on, Cap'n...," he said, lifting a paw, then bringing it down sharply, "Now!"
I stared straight ahead, at the vid pickup, putting on my sternest expression. "Perinian ship!" I thundered. "This is Captain Morgan, of the Star Axe broadcasting to Hranimair’s Golden Shield. Prepare to be boarded. Surrender, and no harm will come to you or your crew. We will take possession of your ship, and drop you off at a starport with enough creds to get you home. Resist, and we will show no mercy. Anyone not killed will be sold in an Imperial slave market. Respond!"
I waited. Sometimes having a reputation works to our advantage. Word gets around that we really do let surrendering crews go free, and there have even been a couple of occasions where captains refused to surrender, and their crew mutinied and turned the ship over to us.
We let the captains go, too, in those cases. I always preferred shame to death as a punishment, when I could afford it.
This time, alas, it seemed we wouldn't be doing things the easy way. I waited for a response for several minutes, but nothing came. Finally I sighed, and put on my sad but resolute face. "Have it your own way, then," I said heavily. "May your gods have mercy on your souls."
C'Mat cut the connection. "Didn't even have the courtesy to say, 'No,' he said angrily. I hate rude people."
I laughed. "You can tell them that in person," I told him.
He popped his claws again and smiled, showing his fangs. "And I can ask them what kind of stupid name Rainmar’s Gold Shield is, too," he said.
"Hranimair’s Golden Shield," I corrected. "Typical Perinian name, really. They’re a methodical people. Hranimar is the current Merchanteer General, so they named it in his honor, hoping he’ll notice and look kindly on them. Then there’s a descriptive name, describing something about the ship. Golden, because, well, it is. And Shield, I assume, because she’s probably got the strongest shields in the entire Perinian merchant fleet. They want people to remember that, it’s going to take a lot of expensive cargoes to pay for building her."
I turned back to my first officer. "Number One, you have the bridge," I told her. "I'm heading down to lead the boarding. How's our acceleration match theirs?"
"She handles like a bucket full of sand," she answered disdainfully. "Increased mass may be great for the shields, but it makes realspace maneuvering a joke. We won't have any trouble closing."
"Good. They shouldn't have anything on that ship that can punch through our shields, but if they spring a surprise on us while we're closing get us away and clear. Anything out of the ordinary happen once we’re on it, get away and clear. Your priority is the ship. C'Mat, you're with me, turn weapons over to Orchid. Unk Two, I want us to go in like we're planning on cutting through their main hatch. At the last minute swing us away and into the side of the ship and clamp on with the gravitonics. We'll blow a hole through their wall, and if we go through something important, too bad. We'll haul her as a dead load, if we can't fly her home."
More waiting. Have I ever mentioned the waiting?
We were crowded together in the airlock, while Number One and Unk Two dove us towards the prey. I watched it growing larger through the windows of the massive airlock doors, two golden orbs connected by three long golden veins, which came together into the hyperspace drive unit in the center of the ship. Typical Perinian design, really, but so much more lovely in gold. It occurred to me that I hadn't really thought about what I was going to do once the ship was mine. Cut it up for the gold? Seemed such a waste. Keep it? For what? We relied on speed and stealth. A slow moving ship like that wouldn't be of any use to us. But she was beautiful and expensive and one of a kind. So she had to be mine. Ah, well, as weaknesses go, it's an acceptable one.
I did a last check of my weapons as the moment of truth grew nearer. Force sword handle in my right hand, ready to go on as soon as I had some swinging room. Neural whip in my left. It took a lot of practice to use one of those effectively in a wild melee, and I forbade it to anyone else in the crew, but it was an old favourite of mine. Stunner pistol in a holster on my right thigh. And, despite what I'd told the crew, my blaster in a holster on my left thigh. You never knew.
Beside me Unk Three was watching, nodding his head and checking his own weapons as I checked mine. I grinned at him, and he grinned back.
Light suddenly flared, a brilliant rainbow of eye-searing energy, as our shields met and melded. Then we were through, and there was an instant's blindness as the light was gone. I knew Number One would have cut power to the shields once we were through, there was no point to them now, we were too close for ships' weapons to be used by anyone who wasn’t suicidal. Too much danger of accidentally bringing down the containment field on the singularity that powers a hyperspace drive unit. This close together, that would almost certainly spell doom for both ships.
And then we hit. There was a crunch as the two ships met, and I wondered if Unk Two had misjudged his speed, or if the other ship had shifted vector at the last second. We were suddenly weightless as the gravitonics shifted from providing artificial gravity to holding us against the prey. There was another flare of light, as the lasers on the outside of the airlock began cutting their way through the ship's hull, and a clang as the boarding ring moved into place outside the airlock.
And then the doors slid open. "We're through!" Number One shouted over the com. And we pushed off, and were in.
Gravity was still on in their ship, and the hallway we found ourselves in was empty. We split the boarding party into two groups as we hit, as we had planned beforehand, one charging for the engine room, the other for the bridge. Perinian ships were fairly standardized, they're a methodical people, and we didn't expect any surprises. And there weren't any surprises, as far as the ship design went.
The surprise was the crew.
I was in the lead of the party charging for the bridge, force sword glowing red and spitting sparks when it hit the wall as I ran. The rest of the crew had spread out behind me, to leave room for force blades to swing without accidentally taking off a comrade’s arm. Most of them hadn’t bothered turning their force swords on yet, they had their stunners in hand and were counting on firing at any opposition before we were close enough to go hand-to-hand. We came up against an inner airlock door, which we were well prepared for. A shaped charge, a fallback, an explosion, and through.
Into a company of Imperial marines in full battle armor.
Our stunner fire washed off the chrome of their armor like gentle raindrops off a granite mountainside. I was able to turn two stun bolts with my force sword before a third one caught me in the shoulder, and the hilt fell from my hand, the safety engaging and the glowing blade vanishing as the hilt fell, hit the floor, and bounced. Around me my crew were falling, never even coming near enough to the enemy to close with their force swords. Fury took me, and I screamed wordlessly, and leapt. More stun bolts flared around me, but somehow I made it through the hail of fire and into the mass of armored Imperials, screaming my rage at this turn of events, my fury at the universe for failing to go along with my plans.
Battle armor crumpled under the force of my blows as I hit them, and men fell before me. Then the blaster was in my left hand somehow, and I was firing at point blank range. Death was all around me as I whirled and fired, kicked and screamed, fought for my life and the lives of my crew.
But it was a hopeless battle. There were simply too many of them. And the ones who were not in close combat with me could freely fire into the melee, confidant that their weapons wouldn't harm their comrades. Stun bolt after stun bolt struck me, and finally, the darkness came. My last thought was annoyance that none of my crew were still awake, to see the glory of my heroic last stand.
I woke, which surprised me a little bit. My head was woozy and my gut tied in knots from stunner hangover, and my vision was blurry. I was tied into a chair, and as I looked around I saw that the room I was in was utilitarian and empty, with blank featureless walls and a single table built right into the floor. It was all made out of gold, though, which improved the look of the place a good deal.
There was another chair in the room, and a man sat in it, wearing the uniform of an Imperial officer, with a folder on the table in front of him. My picture was on the front of the folder. I looked good.
"The Dread Captain Morgan, I take it?" he asked, with a smirk that he might have thought came across as suave and sophisticated.
"Usually it's just Captain Morgan, or else Dread Morgan," I answered. "The latter more often in songs." I tested the ropes. High strength polyfibers, it seemed, and well tied. While I might be able to break them, it wouldn't be without enough damage to myself that it would by a Pyrrhic victory. "Dread Captain Morgan just seems to be laying it on too thick, don't you think?"
He didn't answer, just waited for a moment, as though expecting me to say something else, and then said, "No doubt you're wondering who I am?"
I shook my head. "Not really," I answered. "Some Imperial flunky. You're all interchangeable."
He flushed. "I am Major Steirn," he said. And then he waited again.
"Bully for you. So what?"
He tapped the folder. "I have been assigned to bring an end to your depredations," he announced. "And I have been on your trail for several years. Surely you were aware of this? The Imperial Cruiser that nearly had you when you raided the mining camp of Ironbelt?"
"Oh, right. The one that showed up after we had a full hold, and never came close enough for us even to get a good look at it? That was you, huh? Fancy that."
He flushed again, darker this time. "We came much closer during your visit to the colony at Imperium XII," he said. "We had you under our guns there!"
"Oh, right," I answered. "I do remember that. How did that slave revolt turn out, anyway? Funny, that coming just at that time, wasn't it?"
He stood, then, and breathed deeply once, twice, and three times.
Then he smiled, and laughed. "Be that as it may," he said. "This time I have you. When I heard of this Perinian project I knew that you couldn't resist the idea of a ship made of gold. The Empire took over the project, and we made sure the maiden flight would be near enough the Unicorn Nebula that you would be sure to hear of it. And now, you will be brought before the Emperor, to answer for your crimes. And quite a feather in my cap it will be, too."
I was working on a clever response (something about 'Don't count your feathers before they are hatched' or something OK, I said I was working on it) when there was an annoying chirping sound, and a voice interrupted us.
"Major? I'm afraid that we have a problem?" The voice ended in a question, as though asking whether it was permitted for anything to have gone wrong.
Apparently it wasn't, for the major's face grew even darker. "WHAT?" he demanded.
"The cat man, sir. He's still in the engine room, and he says he's going to free the singularity unless we let him speak to his captain."
I laughed. Probably I shouldn't have. The major's fist crashing into my face certainly didn't do anything to help the headache I had from being stunned. But I'd probably do it again, in the same situation.
The major stood there, staring at me, breathing heavily again. I looked up at him, blood from my broken nose running down my face and dripping onto my chest, and I smiled.
"He'll do it," I told him with a smile. "He was born and raised in an Imperial slave camp. Part of your Imperial genetic experiments. He hates you and everything you stand for. And he's none too stable, to begin with."
"You'll die, too," he answered harshly. "You and all the rest of your crew."
"Those on this ship," I admitted. "But the Star Axe got away, didn't she? If you'd managed to get marines on her, and take her, you'd have let me know by now, and you'd have some of the crew from the ship here to show me, to break my spirit. No, the majority of my crew are safe and away. While you're stuck on an ungainly slow civilian vessel, with your engines in the hands of the enemy. No wonder they gave you a thankless job like capturing me. They wanted a screw-up like you as far from the Empire as they could arrange."
The major, it appeared, had a serious problem with his temper. When I came to I was lying on a medical table, with a Perinian in a surgeon's smock hovering nervously over me. Everything hurt. The beating had been thorough. I suspected I had a couple of cracked ribs, and there was a nasty sense that something had come loose somewhere in my chest. On the positive side, the headache and nausea from the stunners didn’t seem nearly as bad now.
"Can you hear me?" the Perinian asked. His soft blue eyes stared down from a grey face full of wrinkles. He looked like he was really concerned about me. I like that in a doctor. In the background I heard Major Steirn arguing with someone, in what sounded like increasing desperation.
"Is he awake?" he demanded, stepping up to the other side of the table and glaring down at me.
"Why, sweetheart," I answered. "I didn't know you cared." I reached up and touched my jaw gingerly. "You only hurt the ones you love, I guess." Untied, I noticed. An injured man was a helpless man to the major, it seemed. And if he had noticed the dented battle armor that revealed I was stronger than I had any right to be, he hadn’t drawn the logical conclusion that I was also tougher than I appeared. Good.
"Here he is!" Steirn said loudly.
"Cap'n?" I heard C'Mat's voice ask.
"It's me, Cat Matias," I answered. "How're you doing?"
I raised my head a trifle, wincing as though the pain were overwhelming. It didn’t take much acting. Four marines in the room, but only in standard guard armor, fairly light, and without helmets. Stunner rifles, with what looked to be blasters strapped to their sided. Even better.
"It was a trap, Cap'n!" C'Mat informed me. "They're Imperials!"
"Imperials!" I heard Unk Three echo.
"Really? Fancy that. Thanks for letting me know."
A turn of the head, and I saw a miserable looking Perinian in a merchant captain’s uniform leaning against a wall. Things were rapidly approaching perfection.
"They took down most of the boarding party, Cap'n. But some of us got through them. Ummmm…" he hesitated, then added, "I'd kind of brought along a few plasma grenades, just in case."
"Plasma," Unk Three said. I thought I heard him giggle.
"Where are you now, C'Mat?'
"We took the engine room, sir, just as ordered. But they have us pinned down in here. I've got the containment field on the singularity ready to drop. On a deadman switch. I told them I'd let it go if they didn't let me talk to you. So, uh, Cap'n? What do I do now?"
The major glared at me. I smiled up at him.
"Now, my dear C'Mat, we bargain."
And as the major opened his mouth to reply I moved.
Ignoring the pain, and the feeling that the something loose inside me was ripping looser, I grabbed the major by the throat, lifting him and throwing him into two of the marines as I rolled off the table and dropped to the floor. Two stun bolts hummed through the air over my head, and I was up and moving at the two marines still on their feet. Behind me I heard shouts as the major and the marines went down in a pile, and then I was on top of the other two.
They were still trying to bring their stun rifles to bear on me as I reached them, ripped a blaster from a holster, fired point blank into the face of one while grabbing the barrel of the other one's stun rifle in my other hand, and pushing it into line with the tangle of major and marines. The barrel thrummed in my hand, and I whirled and fired once more with the blaster, taking half the face off the second marine.
The major was getting to his feet, his hand going to the holstered blaster at his side as I fired past him, killing marine number three. The last of the marines lay unmoving, victim of his comrade’s stun bolt. The two Perinians stood shaking, watching me with wide eyes.
I held the blaster centered on the major and smiled. His hand hesitated, not quite to his gun.
"Your choice whether you live or die," I told him. Then I smiled. "And now, as I said, it’s time to bargain. Only, not with you."
Number One sighed as she watched the golden ship growing smaller in the viewscreen. "I understand why the Perinians were willing to deal," she said. "They don’t like the Empire any more than we do, and the way Steirn came in and just lay claim to their ship must have been really upsetting. But I hate flying off without anything, after all this."
"Nonsense!" I said. "We have forty Imperial marines locked up in the hold, and all their armor and weapons safely stored away. I can already think of three jobs that we could never have pulled off before that will be a snap now that we have that equipment. And the Imperial marines accept only the strongest and toughest of recruits. Just the sort of men that the Imperial slave markets are always happy to buy for service in the nastiest of jobs. And Imperial slavers don’t ask any questions. So a load of slaves claim they were really Imperial marines, who’s going to believe a claim like that? And these fellows wanted to fight to uphold the Imperial way of life, after all. I think it’s time they got a good look at it. Up close and personal."
"And the major? Are you going to sell him, too?"
I grinned. "Oh, no. We strip him naked and leave him in the middle of a starport on one of the Imperial colony worlds, to make his way home and explain what happened. I always prefer shame to death for my enemies, when I can arrange it."
She laughed. "All right," she said. "But I’m still surprised you just flew off and left the ship behind. Solid gold, remember?’
I shook my head. "What would we have done with it? I took it, that’s enough for me. Then I let it go." I motioned to C’Mat to ready the com. "Oh," I added casually, "I did ask the captain for one favor. To rename the ship."
"What..." Number One began, but I waved her to silence. C’Mat signaled me that communications were open, and I smiled into the vid pickup.
"Captain Morgan here," I said.
The viewscreen came to life, and the Perinian captain stared back at me, a wide smile on his wrinkled grey face. "Captain Hrothar here, Captain Morgan. Thank you again for your graciousness."
"My pleasure, Captain Hrothar. We’re getting ready to jump to hyperspace, and I just wanted to take my leave."
Hrothgar bobbed his head up and down, which I assumed was a Perinian gesture of respect. He would have been a fool to do anything else, after all we’d been through. "May your voyages be safe and profitable, Captain Morgan," he said.
I laughed. "Profitable, I hope, but safe isn’t our way. But I wish it for you. May your shields hold, and your voyages be safe and profitable, captain. Star Axe, signing off."
"Thank you again, Captain Morgan," he said, "Morgan’s Golden Balls, signing off."
