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Barrett's Privateers

Anderson Gentry

Barrett's Privateers

Anderson Gentry

Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in Canada by Double Dragon eBooks, a division of

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Double Dragon Publishing Inc. This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents

are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or

locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Double Dragon eBooks PO Box 54016

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Canadahttp://double-dragon-ebooks.comhttp://double-dragon-publishing.com Layout and Cover

Illustration by Deron Douglaswww.derondouglas.comISBN-10: 1-55404-531-2ISBN-13:

978-1-55404-531-0First Edition January 11, 2008 Also Available as a Large Type Paperback

Now Available as paperback and hard cover A Celebration of Cover Art: 2001 to 2006 Five

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Part One

Plague Ship

Prologue

The post-war years

While the end of the First Galactic War ushered in a boom of exploration and trade, it also marked the

beginning of an economic slump for the Confederacy. The loss of defense contracts and the sharp drop in

spending by the Confederate government caused many corporate executives, shipbuilders and small

business owners to find new markets for their products.

At war's end, twelve privateer ships were serving under letters of commission from the Confederate

Navy department. The end of hostilities also meant the end of the employment of these privately owned

ships. While most of the ships disarmed and disbanded, some did not. While the libertarian laws of the

Confederacy did not prohibit privately owned ships carrying armament, the few privateers that retained

their wartime arms were regarded with considerable and increasing suspicion by the Navy and the

Confederate government as time went on. This suspicion was reciprocated by the privateers, aware as

they were of the increased and, from their perspective, undeserved scrutiny.

It was also during this period of enhanced exploration that many new sources of mineral resources were

uncovered, including some in systems lacking habitable planets. Exploitation of these resources frequently

fell to a new class of independent, "wildcat" miners, who were accustomed to operating at the very edges

of settled space - and sometimes beyond the reach of established legal authorities.

- Morris/Handel, "A History of the First Galactic Confederacy," University Publications, 2804CE

One

2255CE: A wildcat mining station

Around an unnamed star, in an unnamed system, with no habitable planets, there was an asteroid belt

between the star's two small rocky planets and the three Saturn-sized gas giants.

The asteroids were unaccountably rich in power metals, iron, tin, and even diamonds - especially

diamonds. This, and the possibility of getting to them without the trouble of hauling the metals back up a

planetary gravity well, made the system a hot spot for wildcat miners.

Over the last two years since the end of the Grugell War, a small city had grown on one of the larger

asteroids, one large enough to have almost one-sixth gee, although much of the city now walked firmly

under a one-gee artificial gravity generator.

Six thousand people lived under the transparent domes of the city that sat perched on the edge of

nowhere. Four thousand of them were miners; the balance was composed of storekeepers, support staff,

processing machinery technicians, cooks, medical staff, and management - even a few family members.

Under the city's four domes, the city's activities and housing was housed in nineteen great towers, called

kraals, with small plots of truck gardens and artificially lit forest in between to help with the oxygen

budget. Power was readily available from collector panels outside the domes aimed at the nearby red

giant star, but oxygen, water, and other volatiles were in short supply. The city had two good sources of

volatiles; a Confederate world, New Albion, lay six parsecs away, and a Grugell world, Gorazant, lay

two parsecs in the opposite direction. This led to some interesting exercises in logistics.

Adam Bolin was the prospector who found the belt, now known as Adam's Belt; he was the prospector

who founded the mining city, now called Adamstown. Five years had passed since Bolin had stumbled

across the mineral-rich belt in his tiny, one-man scout ship. He sat now in an expansive office in the

highest level of the central kraal under the largest pressure dome of Adamstown, watching idly as the

shuttles moved back and forth during shift change.

A freighter loomed overhead. Bolin looked up; it was the freighter Cape Fortune, back on its regular

run. Any kind of small industrial operation requires supplies; besides volatiles, the city needed food,

medical supplies, repair parts, equipment, and even liquor to keep the miners happy on off days - almost

everything had to be brought in, and only the mineral wealth of this belt made the effort worthwhile.

"Boss," a voice came from behind him, from the elevator door.

"Yeah." Bolin stood up, turned to face his assistant, Remy Brichot. "What is it?"

"Another order from Mr. K," Brichot said.

"All right."

"He wants twenty percent more this run," Brichot added.

Bolin yawned. "We're going to need more miners at this rate."

"Probably so, Boss."

"Mister K, my ass," Bolin muttered. He knew the identity of 'Mr. K' as well as he knew his own face -

'Mister K' was Group Commander Kestakrickell IV, of the Grugell Imperial Navy. "He thinks he's so

damn smart."

"Better he go on thinking that, Boss."

"I suppose. Not like it's so hard to figure out - guy insists on never meeting face to face, and here we are

only a parsec from the border, with the Grugell out there on the outside of the arm with no metal-heavy

planets. I'm not sure I'd risk it, but we're getting volatiles from that big moon of the gas giant in the

Gorazant system; as long as I keep selling them diamonds, they'll keep renewing our license to harvest

volatiles." Bolin owned the three small ships that were employed in moving huge rafts of water ice and

massive tanks of other volatiles from the ice moon to Adamstown.

"He's paying in gold," Brichot pointed out.

"Yeah. Wonder where he's getting that. They aren't exactly heavy on metals out there - that's why they

want the diamonds." Fueled by the belt's mineral wealth, Adamstown had a state-of-the-art Signals

station, operated by a former Confederate Navy Signals Officer - an expert at back-tracing and

decrypting signal traffic.

"I suppose it doesn't make any difference," Bolin said. "Long as he keeps paying half again the going rate

for diamonds and power metals - and as long as the Confeds don't find out."

"I hear rumors, Boss," Brichot began.

"Tell me some other time. Last shipment went out all right?"

"As usual. We should try to tie the Orlando down to a regular run."

"I'll talk to them about it, next time they're around. Their Captain's an enterprising sort; he might not want

to tie down to a regular run."

"He's also an ex-Navy type, too, Boss. He's not too comfortable with our setup here. He's been talking

about it when he's been ashore here."

"So I've heard," Bolin said. "Nothing more dangerous than an idealist, Remy."

"Could be trouble if he ever gets any more pangs of conscience, Boss," Brichot observed. "He knows

our whole operation."

"Trouble for him, but only if he says no to a regular run."

"What if he does?"

"Well, then," Bolin picked up a tiny ceramic vial from his desk top, "something bad might happen to his

crew. You know how it is, when something gets into a starship's air system, some little bug or something

- goes right through the crew like wildfire. 'Mr. K' won't mind boarding to get one shipment off the

Orlando, and stuff that makes us sick won't scratch his crew."

Brichot laughed. "You're always on top of it, Boss."

"Something you need to learn, Remy, if you ever want to boss a station like this of your own."

Remy smiled and nodded. He entertained just such thoughts himself.

The privateer starship Shade Tree - somewhere near the Grugell frontier

The Bridge was well and truly wrecked. One major panel had exploded, and the compartment was

strewn with shards and splinters of metal and plastic, splashes of blood, and worse. The Bridge crew

was cut to pieces.

Just then, a low moan came from the floor behind a fallen ceiling panel. Barrett stepped over the panel to

find a burned, blasted figure in the remnants of a Navy uniform; the one side of his collar that remained

bore the silver leaf of a Commander.

She knelt beside the man as his eyes fluttered open. "Can you hear me?"

He looked at her, squinting. "Who are you? Not Navy…"

"No. I'm Captain Jean Barrett of the privateer starship Shade Tree . I'm sorry we didn't get here

sooner."

"Nothing… you could have done," he gasped. "There must have been a dozen ships… I'm

Commander James McAllister, commanding the Giles D ."

"What were a dozen Grugell ships doing at Fortune? We thought they'd given up on this system."

"It looked like a rally point." McAllister spoke with great difficulty and his face was growing paler by the

moment. Beneath him, a pool of sticky red was growing, puddling on the deck.

"Doc," Barrett barked into her mike, "Get up here to the Bridge."

"Give me two minutes," the reply came back.

"No time," McAllister breathed. "We caught a frigate scouting the rally point yesterday before their main

body showed up, boarded it, took eight prisoners, and hacked their main computer before blowing it

up." He reached into a pocket, produced a tiny object, and held it out. "This is a Phoebe," Captain

McAllister explained. "It's got thirty terabytes of data encoded in it."

"Thirty terabytes? In this?" Barrett took the tiny device and examined it; it was a three-centimeter chip of

plastic with a tiny metal plug on one end for a standard data port.

"It will hold fifty," McAllister breathed. His life was hemorrhaging away along with the blood that puddled

on the deck beneath him, and the knowledge of the impending death showed in his eyes. "But this one

has the plans for the Grugell Fleet's plan to move on Earth. Co-ordinates, subspace jump points, rally

points, everything. Lots more, besides. We destroyed the frigate before the main body showed up; they

don't know we have this information. Get it to Admiral Gauss…"

"You bet I will," Barrett agreed. With this kind of info, we could hit the Grugell unawares at a rally

point. It's the perfect chance to hammer their fleet hard, maybe finish this thing for keeps… After almost

three years, what if we could actually finish this war? It would be worth anything.

Captain Barrett looked away from the tiny plastic Phoebe to where Commander McAllister lay bleeding

on the deck of his shattered ship, but his eyes stared back lifelessly.

Captain Jean Barrett woke suddenly, her bedclothes awash in sweat. Third time in a week. Two years

since the end of the Grugell War, and still, the nightmare came.

Her ship, her command, had fought as a privateer in that war under a letter of commission from the

Confederate Navy Department. The Shade Tree was small for a combat ship, but she was fast - and

with a state-of-the-art charcoal gray polymer hull, six ship-to-ship missile bays, particle beam emitters

above and below the bow and on the outlet end of the Gellar star drive, she was admirably equipped to

stand in harm's way. Viewed from the outside, the necessity of building the ship around the huge mass

tunnel of the Gellar drive made it look unwieldy, with the round cylinder of the drive surmounted by a

large superstructure that housed everything from the Bridge to cargo storage to crew's quarters. But the

Shade Tree was her ship, and she loved it - and the wandering life it made possible.

Most of Barrett's wartime crew had moved on to greener pastures. Only three had stayed; the balance of

the Shade Tree 's complement of five officers and twenty-five crew were new hires.

Through the haze of awakening, she finally heard the paging tone. Shaking her head, she hit the contact

on the panel over her head.

"What is it?"

The voice of her Executive Officer, Indira Krishnavarna, came tinnily through the speaker. A long way

from her Earthside home of New Delhi, Krishnavarna had served as Barrett's chief Scanning tech during

the war. She had turned down several lucrative offers from shipbuilding and design firms to stay on the

Shade Tree as second-in-command.

"We have a beacon signal coming in, Captain," the Exec said. "Looks like our rendezvous is here."

"I'll be up in a minute."

Barrett dragged herself off of her bunk. She looked wryly at the chronometer on the wall. I guess six

hours of sleep will do.

Seeing her face in the mirror brought a grimace. Her short red hair was tousled as usual when aboard

ship; she didn't bother with excessive grooming while space-side. A petite, trim woman with a dancer's

muscles, she knew that even now, at forty-three, she could hold her own gussied up and on the floor at

any planet-side nightclub - but on ship, it just wasn't worth the trouble.

She yawned, stretched, yawned again. Getting old, she mused. She picked up her toothbrush, stuck it in

her mouth, bit down, and closed her eyes against the buzzing as it scrubbed her mouth ruthlessly clean.

After a quick look at her static-jet shower, she shrugged and splashed half her tiny morning water ration

on her face before swallowing the rest. Her black fatigue pants lay on the deck where she had dropped

them before going to bed; she pulled them on, pulled her nightshirt off over her head and tossed it in the

bunk before pulling on a black t-shirt. It was only two steps across her stateroom to the entrance, where

she kicked her bare feet into her sandals before heading to the Bridge.

The second watch was alert when she walked into the Shade Tree 's claustrophobic Bridge. Indira

Krishnavarna got out of the command chair as Barrett came in.

"It's got to be our contact, Captain," she said. "The Cape Fortune. We should have visual contact in a

few minutes."

"Good. Scanning, get them on the main screen as soon as you can." Barrett sat down in the leather bridge

chair. "Signals, no contact until they hail us. Keep it on low power - short range radio comms only."

Anderson Gentry - Jean Barrett 01 - Barrett's Privateers.pdf

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