Version 2006 - Ch 47

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Har-Hi came into my office and said:" The Battle group is here and we can leave, but you might want to check out B Hangar." I followed my Dai friend to the IST. " What did they do?" "It's really better you see it for yourself." He said with an strange tone to his voice. We left the Inter Ship transport a few seconds later, and a big Marine loaded with boxes so he could barely see almost bumped us. He obviously did not see who he almost ran into and said." Sorry mate, just coming on through!" He went past us and disappeared behind the massive double doors to hangar Deck B. From the other side of the corridor were the big freight elevator was, came Hans and the massive Y'All and they both struggled with a huge crate. Har-Hi nodded."That is going on like this for two days now. What they could not buy they liberated. I doubt there is much left in that Bazaar." So I too stepped through that door and stopped dead in my tracks as I looked around. The Tigershark had four Main hangars meant for the Thor Gun Boats we did not get, two one each side of the Equatorial deck corridor. Each hangar measured 50 meters long and 40 deep and the ceiling was 15 meters up. It used to be stark empty with hexagonal armor plating and x shaped support frames. Now the walls were draped with heavy crimson and black velvet curtains. As a center piece was a massive round Table of at least 18 meters in diameter. The round table was richly decorated with artwork and looked like a big old fashioned wagon wheel made of Platinum, the stylized spokes golden. Around it placed matching high backed arm chairs richly upholstered. One of the chairs was bigger and featured a carved skull on the top of the back rest. Braziers of dark metal 3 meters tall, could have been designed by a depressed gothic artist with sharp hooks and spines; stood in equal distances all around the walls. Above the table hung a chandelier matching the table in design. to the left a huge stack with transport chests, some of them open spilling over with Polonium and Gold Coins. Stacks of Saresii Silk bales next to it. Racks of Steel and Dark wood with spears, sabers and strange Weapons. Huge Saran Floor Vases made of gold and Alabaster ,a Seth Statue. Paintings and Art objects from every corner of the Galaxy. Cirruit directed the little furry Crew member who was pushing on an exceptionally ugly statue of some headless female and very fat Shiss. Cirruit noticed me and even though his face was as expressionless as always I knew he was smiling with deep satisfaction. He stemmed his fists into his hips." Captain this is the famous Venus of Milo! A very expensive Terran Art object!" "I don't know it sure looks like a pregnant Shiss without a head to me!" "It was very expensive and it is art! The dealer insisted it was Terran!" Har-Hi rubbed his chin." You know I have this perfectly barley used Terran River bridge. I let you have it for a spot!" "Really? How much?" I slowly turned." This is really some work you put in here!" The little old man, the golden Merchant, wearing only a pair of pants and a shirt, with dirt in his face crawled from under the table holding a polishing brush smiled with satisfaction and wiped sweat from his brow." This table is over half a million years old and was made for the council room of a once mighty but now forgotten king. It's nine tons of pure Platinum, eight tons of Gold. the Spokes and Chairs are made of Rhodium. So is the Chandelier. I doubt even famous Schwartz Industries has a more expensive and impressive Table!" He held up his polishing brush." You see once I get it all shiny how pretty it will look!" Cirruit shrugged:" I told him we could Nanites do the cleaning but he insists that an antique like that needs to be hand polished!" The old Merchant said." So what do you think Captain?" Everyone stopped working and looked at me. I noticed that little Holdian actually had a tale and it twitched while he looked at me with anticipation from big black button eyes. " I think it is marvelous, beyond anything I imagined. Do we owe someone a huge bill for all this?" Sobody looked insulted." Captain, with all due respect you cannot even begin what wealth I have amassed in 18,000 of your years. it is but a small token of my gratitude that you are so readily accepted me." He then glanced to Cirruit." But I must teach this X101 a thing or two about haggling and the honesty of bazaar merchants." I laughed. "You all did a tremendous job. We will use this room from now on as Conference and mess hall. We will have our daily dinner here whenever possible. Someone needs to work out a rotating schedule so all Crewmembers can eat here." Holdian said." You mean Crew eats with officers at the same table?" "That's right. We eat here, all of us. There are 360 of us, counting Officers, Crew and Marines. We got eight Watches and they rotate so everyone has a the same chance to eat the Dinner meal. Elfi came running:" Captain, the Red Dragon has just attacked 25 minutes ago. Seventy light years from here." "Har-Hi see that everyone is aboard. Cirruit get your engines hot and get Muhammad on the bridge." The Janus Device was active and the Tigershark looked once more like the Kartanian Battle Merchant. Krabbel said:"It's official now, Captain. We are in Free Space." "Maintain course to Sin 4, steady as she goes. Mr. Muhammad." "Aye Captain. Keeping it well within the limits for a Kartanian." "Elfi keep your ears open and record all comm. traffic. Ship help her please." "Already on it, Captain. Search patterns for Pirate name activity, Mil tech offers in effect." "Narth and Shea make sure you don't use any active scanner beams we are not supposed to have." "We adjusted our active Sensors to match our Disguise." Har-Hi handed me an E Board." That is the CID report of the Raid on the Danny Huston, the ship the Red Spider had attacked." At first I read and watched it silently. Then I pushed Ship wide and read it aloud so everyone could hear it." On February 5th, 5017 the Passenger Clipper Danny Houston on its way from Seven-Skies to Fairfield Planet was attacked and heavily damaged. Fourteen Passengers and seven Engineering Crewmembers lost their lives due to the initial attack. The Master of the Danny signaled full cooperation and asked for mercy for his passengers. He assured the attacker to be a completely unarmed civilian vessel. The Danny was boarded by Pirates. Seventy Passengers were taken captive, Every Crew member was killed, the Ship Master was spaced without suit. Four female passengers were brutally raped and two afterwards killed! The remaining passengers of children and the Old they packed in escape pods and ejected to space. Where the Pirates made it a sport to shoot the escape capsules. Aboard were Saresii, Humans, Klack and several Shiss. One of the passengers a Stellaris managed to survive in space clinging to the outside of the stripped wreck. The Pirate identified himself as the Red Dragon and was the one doing the raping himself." Along I transmitted the images and clips of the report. Some clips taken directly form Security Cam footage was quite graphic. I realized I had my hands cramped into fists and said." Crew of the Tigershark. I wanted to show you why we are here and who we are hunting! Are you with me?" There was no delay. 362 voices responded " We are with you!" Shea sighed as the Tigershark slid back into Planck Space."I hoped never to have to return to this place." I agreed with her on that." Well maybe we can do some good this time." As usual we entered the System outside the orbit of the furthest planet. The system had six rocky planets and three gas giants. I turned to Shea and said:" I am sorry about that, but this time it's only a visit. As soon as we locate Red Dragon and dealt with him, we're gone." She made a gesture encompassing the bridge." Don't worry Captain. This is my home and I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. It's just the realization we be soon on Sin 4 made me think about my childhood there and along with it many memories." To give her something other to think about I said:" We are the first Federation ship in this system and while we're here we might as well collect some data to upgrade the catalogs. " "Captain, we are supposed to be pirates!" Complained the Golden One." Pirates don't survey, measure and explore." "Not to worry Ancient Merchant. We won't launch any probes or send survey teams to the other planets." I said. Har Hi, who stood with crossed arms next to my seat turned to the Golden one and smiled." Even you might be surprised at the data we can collect just with our sensors. I doubt there is another species that made scientific sensor analysis to such a science." Shea looked at her readouts and said:" None of the other planets are used or occupied and I can't detect any energy activity. The Sun is a Spectral Type O2 and.." She stopped in mid sentence and kept looking at her read outs. "Lt Schwartz, is there anything I should know?" I asked. She turned." It is my home system Captain but I never had the chance to scan our sun. This star is unstable and I am running a simulation through SHIP right now. " SHIP heard her name and said." I completed the Simulation and I confirm Shea's findings. The star will go Supernova in approximately 45 standard years." "It won't affect our mission then." I said, and added."There is not much we can do about it. SIN 4 and this system is in Free space. If it would be Federation I am sure the Wurgus Sun Engineers could stabilize it." Mao interrupted." Captain there is a lot of traffic in this system and I am detecting weapon fire on nine different locations within the system and two within scanner range outside the actual system." "That is normal." Said Shea." There is only one law here. The law of the stronger. There are always quarrels and fights." I leaned back." Har Hi sound Battle stations anyway. I like to be ready ." "Aye Captain! General Quarters!" We reached the Planet without any incident and Muhammad took us into a standard orbit around the Garden world that was known as SIN4. It had only two continent and several large islands. The rest was Ocean. Even from space the upper continent didn't look very inviting. It was gray and looked dirty. There was visible pollution oozing from one of the large islands building a large gray trace far into the ocean. "So how do we land?" I asked."Did anyone hail us?" this question I directed to Elfi. The beautiful Saran woman answered." There is lots of activity on all channels, but no one is taking any interest in us, Sir." "We simply land." Said Wetmouth." There are a few space ports but there is no active landing control. I suggest we land at the Gorotolah expand if it is still there. It is the largest space port on the southern most edge of the Continent." Muhammad already wore his Virtu Helmet and with its Ship vision he said."I can see it. There are other ships but there is plenty of room." I gave Har Hi a look and then turned to make sure Narth was there as well and said." The sooner we get it over with the sooner we can go. Muhammad take us down. Put us as far away from the other ships as possible. Mao keep our shields on and doubled check the Janus system." We landed on a cracked, crumbling duro-crete field. There were burned out and partially molten ship wrecks , heaps of scrap metal and trash everywhere, nothing had changed since I was here last time. To our left about 500 meters away where the remnants of what looked like a Poodle III Spaceship and it was still burning, thick black smoke oozed from a huge hole in its main body and there was the characteristic green shine of a Plasma fire. "We are being hailed Captain!" Said Elfi. "Put it on." "We are calling the Silver Streak. We know it is you Captain Velvet. So respond or we going to blow you to bits." Elfi gave me the sign that I could speak and I said."This is indeed Captain Black Velvet of the Silver Streak. Whom do I have the dubious honor to talk with?" The answer came right away, but audio only no visual transmission. The voice sounded rough and somewhat high pitched and I could hear other voices in the background." Captain Velvet, you are talking to the Gorotolah Spaceport Protection Agency. We heard of you and your ship and we know you are a successful pirate. We are very happy you choose to land on our port. However this is a dangerous place and we can only guarantee your safety for 20,000 Polo coins, or goods of similar value. If you decide not to pay or to leave we are forced to use our DE guns on you. We have two large DE turrets aimed directly at you. You have exactly 20 minutes to comply. A group of our associates will approach in a floater and expect payment to be transferred." Mao manipulated the main viewer and magnified a set of buildings across the landing field. Indeed there was a bunker like building with a force field surrounding it and a set of DE turrets on top aiming at us." Captain, those pea shooters won't even dent our armor without shields. They don't have anything big enough to put us in any real danger." Har Hi agreed." They are bluffing and hope we don't know, but there aren't any weapons big enough on a planet that could seriously harm a ship of our size. Even if we really would be a Kartanian Freighter with original shields. Any weapon big enough they could bring to bear that could crack our shields would seriously damage a huge area around us. This isn't a Poodle." I nodded and said."Elfi can you pinpoint the location of the transmission?" She moved her hands over her console and responded." Yes Captain I have localized it to that transmitter array over there." "Mao, fire our simulated turret at them and at the same time send them a 100 g Translocator bomb. First target their turrets then the transmitter." From the outside it looked as if our DE turret fired, the Translocator load was invisible and undetectable. The result was more than I expected. Two 1oo gram bombs antimatter exploded and obliterated not only the bunker and the building with the transmitter but the entire building complex with a tremendous fire cloud." Har-Hi coughed into his fist and rubbed his fingernails on his jacket." It seems this spaceport needs new Security." Shea said." It won't hardly be noticed and there will be plenty ready to take their place." Then she said." Captain I just identified seven ships here, all notorious Pirates:" Elfi got up and walked first to Narth and showed him something then she came over." Captain, I think I just cracked the coded transmission of one of the pirate ships. The Intruder Terror under Captain Meateater. According to this he is expecting to meet the Captain of the Red Dragon in three days. He will be here to attend the Pirates Market." Narth nodded." I concur, the message was correctly decoded." Hans stomped onto the bridge and said." Do you mind if I use the time and get some Intel on that weapon dealer?" "How would you want to do that?" I asked. "I have been on this Planet before. I even have sort of a reputation here." "Would you explain?" "Before I joined the Fleet I was fighting for money in one of the big Arenas here. Nothing to be proud of but back then I was a young punk with no brain and an expensive taste." "You?" Was all I could say. Hans was always so correct and straight. He grinned sheepishly." Yeah, me. I was known as the Terror Hammer and fought in the top league. I still have some connections here. Golden said he would come along as well." "I can't simply allow you go outside Mr. Merchant. It is very dangerous out there and how would they react to the Merchant of Merchants to be here?" "You worry too much Captain. We Golden's have a hard time keeping ourselves apart. To outsiders we truly look alike. I have been here many times and never openly as the Merchant of Merchants. I will of course accept your command but I feel I could be of help and besides your Security Chief would be with me." I sighed." You know how to make your point." Shea said." I would like to go to the temple and get a few things. " "How will you get there safely?" "I call the temple and have me picked up." "Alright. I guess we can't do much till the Red Dragon shows up and we localized that merchant, but keep in contact and be back tomorrow." "I will." Now it was Narth who came over to me and I said." Don't tell me you have been here before as well." "Not in a corporal sense no, but I did share some of your experiences while you have been here. I actually have a request from Ensign Dien Tallow." I tried to remember who he was but failed." I remember the name but I forgot much else. Is he from Sin 4?" "No, Captain. He is in our Science Department. Quite a brilliant scientist with Sociology, Xeno archeology as main fields. He has an interesting proposal." Narth waved the man over. He was human and one of those who would not stand out in a crowd of one. He looked older than most Ensigns but then he went the Science Corps route and they often tended to be older. He saluted and I indicated to him that he could simply tell me what he had in mind. So he said." Captain, we are the first Union ship on Sin 4 and I heard we have a few days before we can commence our actual mission. I propose we survey the planet and I would like to do a survey of the southern Continent and some of the islands, especially Trash Island." "I am not opposed to your idea, but we are supposed to be Pirates we should not do any scientific work to openly." "Ma'am. Lt. Cirruit has modified one of our Armadillos so it looks like something unidentifiable. I studied as much about SIN 4 as possible since it was clear we come here and it is significant to point out no one wants to stick their noses to much in other folks business. No one but Skaakh and Stiks live on Trash Island, the place I really want to visit." "I think we could risk it but I am going along, just in case I need to stop it."