And they haven’t seen the cloaked ships, he thought. All their missiles are targeted on the visible vessels.
“Point defense is to engage the enemy missiles as soon as they come into range,” he ordered, crisply. The enemy missiles didn’t stand a chance unless they’d been modified at some point. “And give me control of the platforms.”
“Aye, sir,” Patti said. “Transferring control to your console now.”
William smiled, grimly, as the enemy cruiser slid into engagement range. They clearly hadn’t seen the platforms, which was unusually careless of them. They weren’t making any attempt to hide, so why weren’t they watching for mines? Normally, mining space was a waste of time, but he’d deliberately lured the enemy onto the minefield. But would they see the mines in time to either evade or open fire . . .
“Firing . . . now,” he said.
The platforms were, in many ways, strikingly primitive, nothing more than a handful of single-shot bomb-pumped lasers, each one stabbing a ravening burst of energy straight into the enemy shields. One ship lost its shields completely, exploding into a ball of superheated plasma seconds later; the other staggered out of formation, atmosphere leaking from a gash in the hull. William felt his smile grow wider. Pirates, in his experience, rarely bothered to wear shipsuits. There was a very real chance that the enemy crew was already dead.
Just like the Theocracy, he thought. They’re nothing more than pirates.
He keyed his console. “Dispatch a boarding party,” he ordered. Thankfully the crew had time to prepare a proper boarding party. The local militiamen were nowhere near as heavily trained as the Royal Marines, but they knew what they were doing. “Communications, try to raise them. If they surrender, we’ll spare their lives.”
Which they probably won’t believe, he added, silently. The Royal Navy had standing orders to execute pirates upon capture. William had a little more leeway. The pirates could go to a work gang instead, if they wished. They can help to build Asher Dales instead of destroying it.
“Message sent,” the communications officer said. “No response.”
William wasn’t too surprised. Pirates were no better than Theocrats at maintaining their ships; indeed, arguably, pirates were worse. Their commanders found it harder to maintain discipline, even when the lives of everyone on the ship depended on keeping the hull intact and life support functional. He’d once boarded a pirate ship that had stunk so badly, far worse than a cesspit, that he couldn’t understand how the crew had survived.
“They may have lost their communications,” he said. The enemy ship was apparently harmless, but it was well to be wary. Pirates didn’t normally commit suicide, yet if they believed they’d be killed as soon as they were captured . . . they might just try to take the boarding party with them. “Order the boarding party to be extremely careful.”
“Aye, sir.”
William waited, feeling sweat trickling down his back, as the boarding party slowly entered the pirate ship. It felt . . . wrong, somehow, to be sitting on his bridge in perfect safety when his subordinates were putting their lives at risk, even though he knew that his bridge wouldn’t be safe when—if—a larger enemy warship turned up. He wondered, grimly, if he’d ever get used to sending people into danger that he couldn’t share with them.
“Captain Tomas is hailing us, sir,” the communications officer said.
“Put him through,” William ordered.
“We have secured the ship,” Tomas said. The militiaman’s voice was very composed. “We have also taken a dozen prisoners, including their captain. He wants to speak to you.”
“Scan him for surprises, then bring him back here,” William said. “And then shut down the entire ship.”
“Yes, sir.”
William looked at Patti. “When they return, have the enemy captain brought to my cabin,” he said. “I’ll be there to meet him.”
Captain Tomas was very efficient, William decided. It took him no less than ten minutes to transfer the pirate to the destroyer and push him into William’s cabin. The man was shaking with terror, sweating like a pig . . . William didn’t bother to keep the disgust off his face. He’d known Theocrats who’d been convinced they were going to hell who’d shown less terror than the piece of human waste in front of him. But then the pirate knew there was no point in being defiant. His ship was a burned-out hulk, his crew was either dead or captured, and he thought the gallows were in his future. How could he not be scared?
“You have two choices,” William said flatly. “You can cooperate with us, which means answering our questions as fully as possible, or you can refuse. In the case of the former, we’ll spare your life; in the case of the latter, you will rapidly come to regret it. Do you understand me?”
The pirate nodded, rapidly. “Yes . . .”
“Very good,” William said. “Where is your base?”
“They’ll kill me,” the pirate said. He blanched. “They’ll fucking kill me . . .”
“You are mere seconds away from being moved into an interrogation chamber,” William lied, smoothly. ONI and the other intelligence services did everything in their power to defeat secrecy implants or forced conditioning, but their success rate was low. The criminals often died on the operating table, taking their secrets to the grave. “But if you tell us the truth, you will live instead. You’ll spend the rest of your life on a reasonably nice penal island instead of having the techs poking and prodding at you in hopes of extracting your secrets.”
He eyed the pirate as the man stuttered and stammered. Did he have an implant? Had he been conditioned? The only way to find out was to test it . . . and that might easily kill him, if the implant thought he was being interrogated. William doubted the other pirates knew much of any real use, although they’d have to be questioned too.
