PIRATE TRANSPORT SHIP GRAYSON

PORT BARROW SYSTEM (INBOUND)

THUNDERING HORDE ENCLAVE

25 APRIL 2775

Captain Adrienne Cleary wasn’t a pirate queen. Hell, she wasn’t even a pirate princess. But she certainly was a pirate, and that was what had brought her to the world of Port Barrow. The thrill of the chase, the scent of the loot, was nearly maddening to her as she stood on the bridge of her ship, the Grayson as it burned toward the planet at a neutral one-gee of acceleration. There was no point going for a harder burn, time was not of the essence at this stage of the operation. What she sought had been there for decades, it could wait a few days more to be unearthed.

She wasn’t even sure what it was, just that it was some kind of weapons cache, and that meant plunder and loot if she could make it off-world with her head attached. Piracy was frowned on by the Thundering Horde. Piracy is frowned upon by most of the big states these days. But a girl had to earn a living somehow, and growing up in the unaligned worlds had taught Adrienne that stealing was as good of a way of making a living as any in the Galaxy, and she had proven so far that she was damn good at it.

“Why can’t the haul ever be on a nice, unguarded planet?” Her second in command Murray Mitchell asked from across the bridge. He was an old pirate, probably around forty if she had to guess, and he was always interjecting with these kinds of musings. He was tall and lean, and handsome if you liked men, which she didn’t. She had picked him up nearly four years ago in the unaligned worlds back when she was first setting up her crew. One would have thought that after twenty or thirty years as a pirate, some of these questions would have gotten old to him, but he was always the one to ask them at the most annoying time.

“Because if it was that easy, some other stupid fuck would have stolen it long before we got here. No good haul is ever easy, you should know that by now, old man.” She quipped back at him. She walked to the front of the bridge, directly in front of the main viewport, and crossed her hands over her voluptuous chest. Half of being a pirate was dressing the part, and she certainly did that, with a tight corset and knee-high black boots. She swiped a curl of her deep red hair out of her face before she addressed the assembled crew.

“Listen up, people. We’re nearly planetside now. Anyone who doesn’t want to run the dangers of raiding a Horde planet is free to hide down below until we crack this cache, but know that you won’t have any part of the loot if you do. Understood?”

There was a chorus of chuckles from the assembled crew, but nobody backed out.

“This is a simple smash-and-grab operation. We’re going to land close to the target area because we don’t know exactly what kind of weapons we’re going to be hauling out of this place, give us a chance to load as much as we can onto the Grayson before we burn for the jump gate. Any questions?”

“Do we have any idea what’s being stored in this old cache? Is it weapons? CAMs? Ammo?” Cayla Christou, her friend and on-again-off-again lover leaned on a console at the back of the room. Cayla was around Adrienne’s age of twenty-five and was slightly smaller framed than she was. She was another of the old-timers that Adrienne had picked up at the start of her career, picking her out of a brothel on a Shogunate world for her skills as a CAM pilot as well as in the bed. CAM was short for Combat Assault Mecha, the primary method of warfare in the colonized human galaxy.

“No idea, Cayla. The contact that we bought this info from was vague, kept hinting at some kind of old research facility that had been shut down for decades and forgotten about. Maybe some hot new tech in there, we’ll just have to bust our way in and find out.”

“Any idea what kind of garrison The Horde has here on this rock?” piped in Warren Doyle, the accountant and another member of her crew. He was short and unremarkable, with brown hair and brown eyes, and tended to blend into a crowd wherever he went. But he had a knack for numbers, and bookkeeping was never Adrienne’s strong suit.

Adrienne nodded. “Scuttlebut is that one of their premier units, the Eleventh Mechanized Division, has part of its force stationed on-planet, I don’t have to tell you how mean and nasty the Horde are likely to be to entrepreneurs of our persuasion, so let's try to not get caught. With any luck, we won't have to fight them at all. This cache is on the opposite side of the planet from the capital city, so with luck, we’ll catch them with their pants down and be gone before they even know we were there.”

She looked around the room for any other questions, but there were none, so she continued. “Alright people, we are about two hours from making landfall, so smoke ‘em if you’ve got ‘em, I want everyone ready to go the minute we touch down. Understood?”

The assembled crew nodded. “Alright then, let’s go get us some loot!”

DRAEGER FOREST

PORT BARROW

THUNDERING HORDE ENCLAVE

25 APRIL 2775

 

Even through the filtration system of her CAM’s life support system, the stench of this particular forest wafted up into Adrienne’s nostrils and put her in a foul mood. They had been searching for over an hour, and there had been no sign of a gate or portal of any kind that would lead into the facility that had been described to her by an information dealer back on Atlas Station.

Atlas Station was the hub for mercenaries and even some pirates like herself, and the information that one could buy from people there was often invaluable. She had sunk a pretty penny into this particular raid, and she was counting on a big haul to recoup her losses. But damned if she could find the place.

The information had come with a data crystal that contained a holo map of the planet, complete with the location of the long-lost weapons research facility that she was now in search of. Unfortunately, the information as to the entrance of the facility was somewhat vague, and there was only a general area for them to begin their search.

“Boss, I think I’ve got something.” It was Cayla calling over the comms.

“Can you be more vague? Something good, something bad, talk to me Cayla.” she quipped back.

“Bad. Possible enemy contacts. My targeting computer is reading fusion reactors, five of them, about two klicks east of my position. And they’re moving fast.”

“Okay people, let’s assume this shit just went sideways and we’ve been made. Everyone form up on Cayla’s position. There’s five of them and five of us, so hopefully they didn’t bring anything too heavy or mean.” she called out to her compatriots. 

“That will be the day,” Murray said loud enough for everyone to hear over the comms.

Adrienne checked her nav map and locked in Cayla’s position. She began the lumbering haul for her own Woodsman-class CAM towards the rendezvous. It wouldn’t take long to get there, but she didn’t like the thought of leaving Cayla hanging out in the wind. While they were an on-again-off-again couple, they were currently on, and Adrienne would miss her if she lost her.

Adrienne’s five CAM unit was something of a mishmash, some light machines, some heavy. It was whatever they could get. Her Woodsman was about in the middle of the pack in terms of weight and she had a good mixture of mobility and armor. Murray’s Kingmaker was the heaviest of the lot, and accordingly, the slowest as well, although he boasted the heaviest guns and armor of the entire crew. He might be the last one to a given fight, but he could turn the tide of battle in the Kingmaker. 

She was nearing Cayla’s Quasimodo when her tactical computer lit up with several blips on the minimap. All told there were five fusion reactor contacts, but that was all the information that sensors could glean at this distance. The other two CAMs of her patrol rallied on them, leaving only Murray to catch up with them. Four out of five was not bad, but it all hinged on what kind of CAMs the Horde had brought to the field.

Strangely, one of the contacts began moving towards them, while the other four held their ground. Perhaps it was some kind of scout. That was fine by her, she could pick them off one by one all day.

“Look alive people, something is heading our way, I want it dead as soon as we see it.” She got a chorus of responses.

About thirty seconds later, something came crashing through the woods in front of them. It was a Horde CAM alright, a seventy-five-ton Rabid Dog.

“Cayla, see if you can shut that one down, that would be a hell of a haul if we could salvage it.”

“Roger that,” Cayla replied.

The enemy machine leveled its boxy arms at Warren’s Pikeman and let loose with a torrent of lasers that cut deep into his armor protection. He tried to dodge off into the woods and snapped off a quick shot with his autocannon, which missed its mark.

She lowered her own crosshairs onto the target and pulled into her triggers. Her left arm heavy laser slashed out at the enemy machine, carving a line through its torso armor. Her six-pack of missiles launched, corkscrewing onto the target and plastering damage all over its frame. Ordinarily, she would try to close with the enemy CAM to bring her right arm hatchet into play as a deadly melee weapon, but she was trying for a more spectacular kill this particular time. 

Cayla jumped her Ikarus into the middle of the fight and leveled both her arms at the target. With a flash of light, twin Electromagnetic Pulse Cannons fired off their burst of energy at the target, hoping to interfere with its electronics and shut it down. It was a nasty weapon, particularly to have on a pirate raid, as it let you capture the target more or less intact. It was tailor-made for salvage, and Adrienne wanted that Rabid Dog as salvage, badly.

The initial shot did not have the desired effect, while the enemy CAM wobbled slightly, it stayed active and turned to fire its shoulder-mounted missile racks at Cayla. She managed to evade some of them by triggering her jump jets just in time but still took significant damage.

Adrienne snapped off another shot with her heavy laser, again slicing into the torso armor of the enemy CAM but still not penetrating. She ran her Woodsman forward, trying to draw some of the fire from the larger beast until Cayla could recharge her EMP cannons. 

The Rabid Dog took the bait, firing its arm-mounted lasers at her, connecting with most of them and savaging armor from her leg and arms. It was nothing that her machine couldn’t handle. She fired off another shot from her heavy laser, and the heat in her cockpit began to rise. The shot rang true, coring more armor plate from the enemy torso. 

She juked her machine to the left, just in time to avoid the double volley of shoulder mounted missiles from the Rabid Dog. A few stray shots caught her, but most errantly smashed into the forest behind her.

“Guns up! Stand clear!” Cayla called over the comms, signaling that her EMP cannons were recharged and ready for another shot. Adrienne jumped back on jets of flame just as Cayla jetted forward. The two crossed in midair with practiced ease, and as they landed, Cayla blasted the enemy with another double helping of electromagnetic pulse weaponry.

This time the shot took, and the enemy machine shook violently before crashing into the ground, shutting down in a heap.

“Yes! That should keep him down for a good few minutes. Swarm him, let's make it clear he has no options.”

The four CAMs stood around the fallen enemy machine, and just as Murray’s machine came lumbering into the fight from behind, the enemy pilot cracked open their canopy and crawled out, hands in the air signaling surrender.

It took her only a few minutes to extract herself from her own Woodsman cockpit and jump down to meet the enemy pilot. The man had a haggard look on his face, and looked to be older than the average Horde pilot, who tended to be on the younger side of things. The rest of her crew dismounted and they all surrounded the captured enemy pilot. 

“I’m Adrienne Cleary. You’re my prisoner. If you help us out, we might just let you run back to your people, albeit without that fancy machine of yours.” she stood with her hands on her hips close to her gunbelt.

“I am Trainer Navid, of the Thundering Horde, and you are a fool, pirate.” he smiled as he spoke.

“Don’t take this the wrong way, but from where I’m standing, there’s five of us who just bested the one of you. So who’s the fool here?” she retorted.

He scoffed at her. “You think you have won, but you will be dead within twenty-four hours. As you all fought me like disgraceful dogs, did you not pay attention to my fledglings? I sent them back to report on our position. We were out here training when you stumbled into us. They will bring back many times your number of real warriors and you will be wiped out. We do not take pirates prisoner.

“Well Navid, today is your lucky day, because we do take prisoners, so I’m not going to shoot you. Maybe we can ransom you back to them for something.” She said.

He laughed at her. “I am an aging trainer. They will not give a second thought to my life. But I will cherish living long enough to see you learn the depths of your mistake.”

She sighed. “Somebody tie him up. And gag him while you’re at it, I’m already sick of hearing from him.”

Murray spoke up. “Hey boss, he does have a point. If his buddies ran off for help, they could be on us quickly. We shouldn't waste any more time. Let’s grab our loot and get gone, fast.” 

She stood with her hand on her hips and wiped the sweat from her brow. “I’m all for the fast part, but we still don’t know where to look.”

Murray smiled. “Well now, while you guys were running off and having this fun little fight here, I happened to stumble onto a pretty big gate to an underground facility. It’s got to be the one we’re looking for.”

“Damnit Murray, way to bury the lead on that one. Alright people, let’s haul ass and get to this bunker that Murray’s found. Get some of the infantry up here to guard this asshole while we break in.”

Forty-five minutes later, they were standing at a gargantuan set of doors, big enough to pilot a CAM through and buried into the side of a hillock. They quickly searched around the base of it for any signs of an entrance and found what appeared to be an abandoned guard shack. Much of it was overgrown with moss and leaves, but with a few minutes' effort, they had managed to clear away the debris enough to make out a console of some sort. She pushed the power button, and the console hummed to life. After a few seconds to boot, it displayed a login screen.

“I don’t suppose you know the password, do you boss?” Cayla asked.

Adrienne frowned and stared at the screen. Then a thought came to her. “Hey, the old smuggler I bought this info from gave me a data crystal that went along with the information. I plugged it into a data port, and all it did was give me a login error, I just figured it was encrypted or something. But what if it was just keyed for an old Republic terminal like this?”

She fumbled around in her pocket until she produced the data crystal, and eagerly plugged it into the open data port. With a beep, the login screen disappeared from the terminal display and a welcome message for a Lieutenant David Hanson appeared. “Well isn’t that just our lucky day? Looks like Lieutenant Hanson has come back to his old haunts.”

She quickly clicked through the welcome screen and was able to bring up a menu. This wasn't access to the whole network, but it was access to the local controls, which included the big-ass door that stood behind them. With a few clicks and key commands, she entered the procedure to open the doors, and outside a resounding crack could be heard as the door mechanism creaked to life for the first time in probably decades. They all scurried out of the guard shack and watched as the huge door slid open, revealing a dark corridor leading down into the hill at an angle. There was no telling how deep this facility went.

Guns at the ready, they crept into the large bay. They needed flashlights to cut through the darkness, but eventually, they managed to find a terminal. Once again, she input the data crystal and the login for Lt. David Hanson came up. This time, she was able to access the mainframe of the entire facility and brought up the controls. The first thing she did was activate the power, and after a few seconds, the entire facility lit up in bright light as the power was restored. 

With the lights on, they could tell they were in a large CAM bay, with gantries and bays for dozens of CAMs. All of them were empty except for one at the end, in which stood a pristine Republic Reaper class CAM, painted in bone white and staring at them lifeless.

There were shouts of joy. Murray slapped her on the back. “You did it, boss. We scored the big time here! That’s an intact Republic CAM. It’s got technology that even rivals the Horde. We could pilot her, or even sell her on the open market for a haul and a half.

Though she was happy, she was lost in concentration as she dug through the manifest and map of the facility. She read over reams of information.

“Boss, aren’t you seeing this?” Murray exclaimed. 

“Oh, I’m seeing it Murray, and a whole hell of a lot more,” she responded

He looked at her quizzically “What are you talking about?”

She pointed at the screen. “What I’m talking about is Republic Bio-weapons research facility Astrid-three-seven. Look at this map, Murray. This underground facility is huge. And a bio-weapons research facility, there’s no telling what kind of goodies we could find down there. Don’t you see, this could set us up for life? That CAM is worth a haul, but there could be something down there that’s worth a lifetime. We could have hit the jackpot here.

Every member of the crew’s eyes went wide with anticipation. If they could score some old Republic research information about bio-weapons, they could practically name their price on the open market as the various realms of the galaxy all tried to get an edge on the other. The defunct Terran Republic had fallen in the last century, but it had been the pinnacle of technology throughout human space. When the Republic collapsed, and Terra cut herself off from the rest of human space by destroying the Terran jump gate, all of that technology was lost. It wasn’t leaps and bounds above the various realms of the galaxy, but it was advanced enough that it could give any empire an edge over its adversaries.

“Alright, get as many people down here as we can from the ship, and let's go over every inch of this facility. There has to be something here we can use, and I want it before the Horde comes knocking on our door.”

An hour later, she found herself deep in the bowels of the facility looking into a dimly lit chamber through a thick pane of glass. Within the chamber stood a cylinder, lit in dim green about the size of a coffee thermos. “What am I looking at?” she asked.

Cayla tapped on the glass. “According to this terminal, what you’re looking at is Necro-Alpha-17.”

Adrienne turned and looked at her friend. “That is a name, but it is less than explanatory. Help me out here.”

Cayla brought up the description on the screen. “According to this console Necro-Alpha-17, or NA17 for short, is a powerful bioweapon still in its early testing phases. From the dummy explanation, it looks like it attacks the nervous system and kills all kinds of life, human, animal, and even some plant life. It’s delivered as an aerosol and dispersed over a target, and everything dies within thirty minutes.”

Adrienne put her hands on her hips. “So it’s a super-plague? Exciting, but anyone could cook one up. Hell, I’m sure most of the more powerful realms probably have some strains of it sitting on a shelf somewhere. Why is this special?”

Cayla tapped the screen. “Because after twenty-four hours, it goes totally inert. Gone. You drop this on a city, everyone dies, and you walk in the next day like nothing ever happened. The city is all yours. It’s a relatively safe to deploy bio-weapon. This would be a game-changer for anyone that owned it. We could name our price.”

Adrienne patted Cayla on the back. “Perfect. And it’s all contained in that cylinder. All we have to do is book it the hell out of here, and our meal ticket is punched.”

There was a rumbling from outside. “What the hell was that?”

“Captain, this is the gate.” came a voice in her earpiece. “You better get up here. There’s a whole bunch of angry Horde troops up here, and they’re trying to break down the door.”

“Damnit for timing.” She smashed her hand on the console. “Alright everyone, let's head up to the gate. We’re going to have to see if we can bluff our way out of this one. I’ll meet you all up at the big door in five minutes. There’s something I want to check on here.”

 

Five minutes later, she strode up to the door, which was shaking violently under the guns of the Horde outside. She went to the soldier that she had manning the door control. “Do we have communications with them or did they just start pounding on the door?”

The woman looked up nervously at her “Oh they’re shouting at us alright. Said we’re all dead once they break down this door, curses upon us, that sort of thing.”

“Neat. Put me on with them.”

The woman tapped a few buttons and then pointed at Adrienne. Adrienne touched her earpiece and began to speak.

“Horde commander, this is Captain Adrienne Cleary of Cleary’s Cutthroats. I would advise you to stop beating on that door if you know what’s good for you.”

There was a brief pause, and then a woman’s voice came on the line. “I am Colonel Carrie Hayes of the Thundering Horde, Eleventh Mechanized division. Why should I listen to anything you have to say, pirate scum? We will breach this door and then you will all be dead.”

Adrienne smiled smugly, even though she knew the woman could not hear her. “Colonel, that’s probably right, but the problem is, that if we’re dead, then so are you. You see, I’m sitting on top of Republic Bio-weapons research facility Astrid-three-seven. And I just so happen to have a big canister of nasty under my arm. A canister that if opened or destroyed, will release a toxic bio-plague on this entire planet. So unless you want to be known as the girl who killed Port Barrow, I’d suggest you adjust your attitude a bit and get to talking with me.”

“You are bluffing. How do I know you are for real?” came the angry reply.

She raised an eyebrow. “You don’t. But are you willing to risk your life and the life of everyone on this planet on that chance? Or would you rather let us walk out of here like nothing ever happened? We go away, nobody gets hurt, everybody wins.”

There was silence for a moment on the other end. “What are your terms?”

She smiled. “My terms are this. I’m going to open that door and walk out of here in a shiny new Republic Reaper-series CAM. You will do nothing to stop me. You let my people get to their machines, and we walk back to our ship. Then we leave like nothing ever happened. Shit, I’ll even give you your prisoner that we captured back. It will be like we were never even here.”

Again there was silence for nervous moments. “Very well. You will leave the facility to us. And you will go immediately. You will take nothing but yourselves and flee this planet.”

She shook her head. “We take nothing but this nice little canister of insurance with us. You even try to blow us out of the sky and this will disperse all through the atmosphere, killing every man, woman, and child on this planet. Are we clear?”

“We are clear.”

“Good. We’ll be out in a few minutes. Cleary out.”

She tapped her earpiece to close the line before turning to Cayla. Her lover looked at her, stunned. “You’re really going to bluff our way out of here with that bio-germ in hand?”

Adrienne nodded. “That’s the beauty of it. They don’t know the details. If this went off, sure, it would spread. Hell, it might even kill all of us in this local area. But it would never make it to any of the population. But she doesn’t know that, so she has to play like we have the real McCoy here.”

Cayla walked up and planted a big kiss on her lips. “I knew there was a reason I signed on with you.”

“Now, we don’t have much time. I’m going to pilot the old Republic Reaper out of here, no sense in letting it go to waste. Have someone drive my Woodsman back to the ship. We have an escape to make!”

With that, she quickly darted off to the hangar and climbed the gantry to the cockpit of the Republic CAM that stood alone in the bay. She slid into the cockpit and sealed the hatch behind her, securing the precious canister in the locker beneath the command seat. She didn’t have her cooling jacket on, but she didn’t plan on doing any shooting today. Today was all about running. She donned the control helmet and plugged the data crystal into the empty port reader.

The startup sequence initiated, and within seconds, the machine had hummed to life. 

“Welcome Lieutenant David Hanson. Pax Republica Forever” came a voice in her ears.

“Pax Republica indeed, old boy.”

This must have been the persona ride of Lieutenant David Hanson, a Republic CAM pilot from the last century. There was even a picture of a woman and two kids taped to the console. Who knows what ever became of the Lieutenant or his family? The CAM was hers now.

She powered up and walked to the door, keying the command to open it as she approached. The door slid open with a great thud. She emerged to see a full ten Horde CAMs there surrounding the entrance, all of them mean-looking. There was no way they would have been able to fight their way out of this one.

“Alright Colonel, here I am. Now back the hell off, and we’ll be out of your hair in no time.”

“You will pay for this one day, pirate scum.” came the reply.

Adrienne closed the channel. “Perhaps, but not today.” 

PIRATE TRANSPORT SHIP GRAYSON

PORT BARROW SYSTEM (OUTBOUND)

THUNDERING HORDE ENCLAVE

25 APRIL 2775

 

Adrienne stood on the bridge and faced her crew once again. The deck plates seemed a little heavier as they were burning out at one-point-two-five gees of acceleration, all the better to make their escape to the local jump gate.

Things had worked out. The Horde had backed off and allowed them to load up and dust off without incident.

“So Captain, what now?” Cayla asked.

“Now we burn for the gate and jump to Greater Tortuga, to home. Then we stash this can of nasty somewhere nice and safe, and we make for Atlas Station to find ourselves a buyer. Then, my friends, we profit.”

“What’s to stop the Horde from looting that facility and possibly making more of the stuff? We left all the data intact. Once the Horde gets that technology, our bargaining chip will be all but useless.”

Adrienne tapped her hand on her thigh. “But you see, there’s the thing. We didn’t leave it intact. In about six hours, the self-destruct sequence of that base is going to go off and level the whole facility. The Republic was paranoid and built all sorts of failsafes into their facilities like that. All I had to do was activate it on a time delay, and boom, that place will go under, hopefully with a bunch of the Horde inside trying to figure it out. Little do they know, I’m the one with the key. Thank you, Lieutenant David Hanson. Thank you for your service.”

“And what do we do once we get the big score?” Murray asked.

“What you guys do with your cut is up to you. Me, I plan on styling myself as a nice little pirate queen. Carve out a nice little fiefdom somewhere and live the good life for a while. Yes, it’s good to be the Queen….”