Privateer

We bounced the Sarsun freighter five jumps out of Westminster. The Sarsun didn’t put up a fight. Obran put a shot across the bow, and the Sarsun captain hove to. I brought Persephone within a klik of the freighter, then Marn and I took one of the boats across and boarded our prize.

The Sarsun captain was named Parveen. Her navigator was named Daeleen, and the engineer, Daveen. Captain Parveen agreed to terms, and she said she and her crew would help transfer cargo to Persephone. It took three shuttle trips to move the cargo – paintings, sculpture and other artifacts looted from museums and private collections.
We didn’t have the crew to take the Sarsun ship as a prize, so after the cargo transfer, we backed off ten kliks and Obran cut the freighter into a couple dozen pieces. Two pieces would have been enough, I told her, but Obran is still young enough she likes to take things apart.

“Besides,” she said, “the more pieces, the harder to put it back together, if the Sarsun salvage ships come out here.”

I said she was acting like a grunt, which she had been for four years in a Frontier regiment. Obran just grinned.

Brinn, first officer and engineer, was on the flight deck at the time. She said, “You can take the girl out of the army, but you can’t take the army out of the girl.”

“You’re just jealous,” I said.

“Yeah,” she said. “Keep believing that.”

“Really,” I countered. “You’ve got a piece of paper that says you sat in classrooms for three years, learning all about ships. Reality is what you’ve learned out here.”

Brinn laughed. “Just because you two learned your reality in dirt, doesn’t mean everybody else has to.” She finished logging in the ship’s needs for next groundside.

Right then, Marn called on intercom from the cargo bay. “Captain, I think you might want to come down here and talk to the Sarsun. They’re talking to each other.”

“Who else would they talk to?”

Marn said, “They’re getting kind of antsy.”

“What kind of antsy?”

“I think they’re concerned about what we’ll do with them.”

I said, “If you’ve got your touchy-feely antenna out today, I suggest you pull it back.” Marn is a good slinger; give him a target, he takes the shot. But thinking is not his strong suit. However, if he believed the Sarsun might make trouble ... “Okay. I’m on my way.”

We had set up a brig in the cargo bay, plastic mesh inside steel bars, a molded plastic table with bench seats and bolted to the deck, three bunks with blankets, a head with shower and toilet. When I got to the area, the three Sarsun stood up from the bench seats. I stopped two steps from the bars.

“Here’s the deal,” I said to Captain Parveen. “You make any trouble, we vent the hold. When we reseal, we toss your bodies out an airlock.”

Parveen blinked her eyes three times, fast. “That is a bad way to die.”

“There is no good way to die,” I said. “There is only bad and worse. Besides, what would you have done if we were your captives?” Parveen didn’t reply; she only blinked her eyes again. I knew the answer -- If she and her crew had captured my crew and me, she would have splatted us and then airlocked us out. I knew it, she knew it.

We were dealing with Sarsun, a species that killed every human on every planet and asteroid and station it captured. Young, old, in between -- Didn’t make a difference. The Sarsun killed them. I had long ago decided to bring justice to any Sarsun that fell into my hands, but right then ancient rules of legal privateering applied. And one of the rules was, you don’t kill your captives simply for the killing. If captives try to escape or take your ship ... That’s a different set of circumstances, and a captor is justified in using whatever force necessary to restore order or take back his ship.

I said to Parveen, “When we reach groundside or the next station, we’ll turn you over to the proper authorities. Until then, we’ll feed you, make sure you don’t freeze or fry in the hold. If you have any special dietary needs, tough shit. You eat what we eat. Fair enough?”

“Your ways are strange,” she said.

I could feel it coming up, the loss of control, the red anger that built and built and would soon fall across my eyes like a crimson curtain. I wanted to shout out, Our ways are strange? You invaded our territory, you captured worlds settled by humans! You kill humans with the same emotion as when you take a breath! I needed to get away, I had to leave the hold, get the Sarsun out of my sight. But not before a parting shot. “Look,” I said. “We had just as soon shove you -- all of you -- out the airlock now. Hell, maybe we should have done it already. But we didn’t. And now you are under our protection, the protection of my entire crew. But if you screw up ...” I stormed from the hold, up the ladder and into a passageway.

Persephone was a privateer because the Sarsun had more ships than the Republics had sailors. Simply put, there were not enough Navy ships to defend all of human space, nor to intercept Sarsun ships.

Someone in one of the governments picked up the idea of privateers. Thousands of civilian ships traveled in the galaxy, some could be modified to carry weapons. Why not use those ships against the Sarsun? So, governments issued letters of marque, giving captains and/or owners permission to capture Sarsun ships, goods and personnel, “anywhere such ships, goods and personnel may be encountered.” Armed civilian ships could have gone out and taken on the Sarsun without letters of marque, but the governments required official papers before allowing sale of captured ships and goods. After all, governments have to have some control over markets. Otherwise, of what use is the authority to make rules?

The Sarsun war, though, changed the rules of privateering. At first, governments held to time-honored traditions of privateer laws from Earth.

After a couple of years of profitable sales by privateers, insurance companies started to complain. Goods for which the companies had paid claim were showing up on markets within the Republics. Why, the insurance companies said, should we pay billions in claims when those same insured items were not transported to the Sarsun worlds, but were available in our own markets? That’s where the governments changed the rules, effectively shutting down markets for recovered goods, unless sellers could prove the goods were not insured or that no inheritors of previous owners existed. To allay privateer protests, the governments offered ten percent of market value for recovered ships and goods, with the governments then responsible for research on and disposal of the goods. Of course, the governments were not absolutely magnanimous, but charged fifteen percent of assessed value to insurance companies or to inheritors.

I broached the idea at supper that night, that we take the ten percent guaranteed by the governments.

“Sounds good to me,” Marn said. “I’d rather have a definite ten percent of a whole bunch than a maybe on a whole bunch more.” Obran agreed.

“Okay,” I said. “Next station or groundside, we let the appointed or elected officials handle everything.”

Brinn said, “A rough estimate of what we got off the Sarsun ship ...” She grinned.

“What?” I said.

“Eighty million.”

We other three just sat, silent.

I said, “Are you sure?”

“Rough estimate,” Brinn said.

“On the low end?”

“You know me,” she said.

Obran asked what I wanted to know. “What’s the high end?”

“One hundred million, maybe a hundred and five,” Brinn said.

“For planning purposes,” I said, “can we safely split the difference at ninety?”

Nodding, Brinn said, “I think that’s a safe split.”

“Nine million for us,” Marn said.

“Assuming,” I said, “the spoils people figure accurately.”

Marn said, “Times my fifteen percent of the ten percent, that’s ... That’s a whole bunch.”

“One million three hundred fifty thousand,” Obran said.

Marn nodded slowly. Then: “I could retire.”

“And do what?” Obran said.

“I don’t know,” Marn shrugged. “Buy a place. A place with woods and a lake. I could hunt and fish and grow corn.”

“And wait for the Sarsun to invade?” Obran said.

“Hey,” I interjected. “Marn, you’re too young to retire. Besides, growing corn and those other things, that’s a lot like work. Here, on Persephone, you’ve got ... Well, you’ve got a lot of time.” I shrugged. “Besides, if you retire, who’s going to train the two new hands?”

Obran said, “You’re going to hire two more crew?”

“Probably,” I said. “I thought about taking some of the load off you. You’re pilot, navigator and gunner. Maybe we can find a gunner.”

Obran said, “He’d do other stuff, too, wouldn’t he? Like ... I don’t know, maybe navigate and do deck work?”

“Everybody does deck work,” Brinn said.

“I was thinking about getting a second deck hand,” I said. “Take some of the work off Marn.”

Marn said, “Our percentages would go down.”

“There is that,” I said. “The other side is, with a couple more people, we could take in prizes, not cut them into pieces.”

“I don’t know,” Obran said. “Leaving nothing but pieces floating around, the next Sarsun that comes along has to wonder who the badasses were captured the ship and then just cut it up. They’d wonder what happened to the crew, too.”

“They wouldn’t care,” I said.

“Probably not,” Obran said. “But they’d wonder.”

“Yeah, they would,” I agreed. I pushed back from the table. “Speaking of Sarsun, I’ll take supper to them.”

Marn said, “I can do it.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “I’ve got some questions for them.”

Brinn said, “Do you want me to go along? The Sarsun are dangerous.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’ve got it. Behind bars and mesh, I don’t think there’s much they can do.”

I took three container meals from storage, not checking or caring what was inside. A meat, two vegetables, dessert and a fruit drink--Same as we ate when fresh and refrigerated food ran out.

The Sarsun stood when I entered the cargo bay. I stopped a meter from the cage. “Here are the rules,” I said. “You step back against the far wall. I slide the food containers beneath the bars. I step away, you take the meals. When you’re done, you slide the empty containers beneath the bars, then step back. If you try to hide anything from the containers, I will shoot you. Understood?” The Sarsun nodded.

I told them to stand against the far wall. They obeyed. I slid each container beneath the bars, then stepped back. Without a word from me, the Sarsun walked to the bars, took the containers and then went to the bench table. They opened the containers, took out the cups of fruit drink and entree trays and began eating with stiff cardboard forks.

I said, “I would like to ask questions while you eat.” The three Sarsun looked at each other. Parveen nodded at me. I said, “Why do you attack our worlds?”

Parveen swallowed, then said, “We require them.”

“For what?”

“For the things they have.”

“Minerals, food, manufactured products?”

“Yes,” she nodded.

“But why attack? Why not trade?”

She shrugged. “We require the things they have.”

“And why do you kill the people?”

Again the shrug. “They are there. If they were not there, we would not have to kill them.”

“You kill women and children, old people.”

“Only sometimes all.”

“Because they are there.”

“Yes.”

I said, “This ship -- my ship -- is named Persephone. The ship is named after an agricultural world many jumps from here, on the edge of the frontier. You attacked Persephone last year. You killed everyone on the planet. Your invasion and your murders were broadcast throughout all the worlds. We saw what you did. Among the people you murdered were my uncle, my aunt and three of my cousins. They were girls, my cousins. They were thirteen, fourteen and fifteen.”

Parveen said, “I doubt our vanguard killed everyone. Generally, captured females of an age to breed are transported to special facilities. Females not yet of an age to breed are placed with selected families and educated in our ways until they reach the proper age.”

“Where are the special facilities?”

“On worlds previously taken.”

“I see.”
“Females of breeding age are well cared for,” Parveen said. “They receive proper nourishment and housing.”

“And good medical care.”

“Yes,” she said.

“Well. Enjoy your meal.”

I walked through the bay, not really looking at anything, absentmindedly checking tiedowns on containers. By the time I got back to the cage, the Sarsun had finished supper. When I neared, all three stepped back to the far wall. The three meal containers were pushed beneath the bars. I checked the containers, ensuring all utensils and cups were as I stated.

Without a word to the Sarsun, I walked from the bay. When in the walkway, I set the containers on the deck, then accessed a flipdown computer recessed in a bulkhead. Klaxons sounded when I entered the code to close all interior airtight hatches.

Brinn’s voice came from the intercom. “Captain?”

“Yes?”

“All readouts are green.”

“Affirmative,” I said. “There is no hull breach.”

“Do we have a malfunction in sensors?”

“No,” I said. “I’m just running a special test. Don’t worry about it.”

I entered the code to open the main cargo hatch. The computer asked for verification. I entered that code, then picked up the food containers and walked to the galley and dropped the containers into the recycle bin. I did not watch the Sarsun die. I had other things to do.