Give No Quarter (Privateer Tales Book 10) Read online

  GIVE NO QUARTER

  JAMIE McFARLANE

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, brands, media, and incidents are either the product of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. The author acknowledges the trademarked status and trademark owners of various products referenced in this work of fiction, which have been used without permission. The publication / use of these trademarks is not authorized, associated with, or sponsored by the trademark owners.

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.

  Cover Artwork: Elias T. Stern

  Copyright © 2016 Jamie McFarlane

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1-943792-10-0

  ISBN-13: 978-1-943792-10-8

  CONTENTS

  GIVE NO QUARTER

  CONTENTS

  FORWARD

  PREPARATION MEET OPPORTUNITY

  BELIRAND MENACE

  A PIRATE’S LIFE

  DESCARTES CO-OP

  SCRUFFY LOOKING

  TRAINEES

  PRIDE GOES BEFORE FALL

  RELOCATION

  BANDIT FIELDS

  FREEDOM STATION

  RED SHIRT

  SHANGHAI

  STOWAWAY

  THREE STEPS FORWARD

  PLANET K-A0223B

  KNUCKLE SANDWICH

  DIGNITY

  DONE PLAYING

  LIVESTOCK

  TRIAGE

  GIVE NO QUARTER

  LIBERTAS

  HORSE TRADING

  CARDS ON THE TABLE

  HARD BALL

  TIME TO GET ROWDY

  FIRE IN THE HOLE

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  CONTACT JAMIE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  FORWARD

  One of the great joys I have as an author is the privilege of meeting and talking with members of our armed services. One in particular, Coast Guard Boatswain's Mate Class 2, Matthew Strjbak has respectfully stepped forward and requested, in the kindest way possible, that I clean up my ship class designations.

  Upon review, I discovered that indeed I'd broken well-established conventions and as a result, made it difficult for those who are knowledgeable about such things to make reasonable assumptions based on these classifications.

  To that end, I've made the following modifications going forward:

  Class

  Tonnes

  LOA - Meters

  Examples

  Dart

  < 10

  Cutter

  180

  30

  Sterra’s Gift

  Tug

  350

  40

  Adela Chen

  Sloop

  450

  40

  Hotspur

  Light Frigate

  1,200-1,800

  50

  Banny Hill, Cape of Good Hope, Strumpet, Dulcinea del Toboso

  Frigate

  4,500

  120

  Justice Bringer, Peace Bringer, Intrepid

  Justice Class Frigate

  5,500

  80

  Fist of Justice, Hammer of Justice, Stark Justice

  Destroyer

  8,500

  140

  Light Cruiser

  10,000

  160

  Hipparchus

  Cruiser

  12,000

  180

  Walter Sydney Adams, Theodore Dunham

  Battle Cruiser

  16,000

  220

  George Ellery Hale, Messier

  Battleship

  18,500

  250

  PREPARATION MEET OPPORTUNITY

  "We've got trouble, Cap." Ada's face appeared on Hotspur's forward holo display. A beautiful, ebony skinned woman, Ada, had sailed with us since darn near the beginning of our adventures. Originally a tug-pilot, she was one of the finest heavy-ship pilots I'd met and currently sailing five hundred meters off the starboard side in our recently captured Belirand light frigate, Strumpet.

  We'd split the crew between the two ships – Silver, Ada, Jonathan, Nick and Marny on the light frigate with Tabby, Moonie and me on Hotspur. We were at least ten short from having comfortable crew complements for the two ships, but trusted crew was hard to come by.

  "I see it," I responded.

  We'd just emerged from fold-space five hundred kilometers from a Belirand supply cache. According to our newest crew member, engineer Moon Rastof, Belirand had unmanned and largely undefended supply caches sprinkled throughout all four of the settled star systems. According to Moonie, the locations were highly guarded corporate secrets and each cache was only used for a few stans. As a former engineer aboard Belirand's Cape of Good Hope, he’d recorded the locations of those his ship had visited. An action quite against corporate policy.

  The trouble Ada was referring to was the frigate Peace Bringer, currently docked at the supply cache. Frigates were a particular brand of trouble for us - heavier weaponry by a factor of five than the light frigate Strumpet, and every bit as fast as Hotspur on a dead run. At a hundred twenty meters LOA (length overall) and a narrow beam, frigates were blisteringly fast and deadly to most ships smaller than themselves. The only advantage Hotspur had in combat against Peace Bringer was in maneuverability. We'd gambled on the cache being deserted and we’d lost in the most spectacular way possible. On a list of our mistakes, this might just be our biggest one - ever.

  "We're being hailed," Ada said.

  The one sensible precaution we'd taken was to approach with Hotspur in nearly full blackout mode. Its light absorptive armor made us nearly invisible to most ships unless they were actively scanning.

  "Patching them through." That was Nick, my quick-talking business partner and childhood friend.

  Our plan, in case we had any unexpected interactions with Belirand, was to switch on Strumpet's original transponder. She'd show up as Cape of Good Hope and might get us past automated systems. In the event of actual human contact, well… I guess we were hoping word hadn’t gotten around yet about the loss of the ship. No question about it, we might have done some hand-waving in that part of the plan as there was no possibility of someone in the Belirand fleet not having heard about the loss of Cape.

  "Jonathan, I need you to back me up on this."

  "We will," he replied simply. Jonathan, also aboard Strumpet, was an artificial life-form living in a manufactured human body. To be more specific, Jonathan was one of fourteen hundred thirty-eight individual sentient beings taking up residence in that body. It was Jonathan who had been nominated to interface with its human counterparts. The rest of the sentients preferred not to interact with the slow-moving world of humanity.

  "This is Cape of Good Hope, Grossman speaking." I answered the outstanding hail Cape had received. Grossman was the name of the first officer of Cape, information I knew anyone from Belirand would have access to. "I wasn't expecting competition today." I hoped Jonathan could manufacture a response to what I knew would be an automated identification verification from Belirand. It was a lot to ask in such a short space of time.

  A delay of several seconds followed, but he finally answered. "Where the hell have you been, Grossman? The whole damn corporation's been out looking for you. Where’s your captain?"

  The forward holo projector popped to life showing a grey-bearded man in a poorly maintained vac-suit. The identification showed him as Kaeth Bru
nkow, a maintenance technician with Belirand. The vid panel in front of me started streaming Brunkow's private Belirand personnel files. I blanched, partially at how easily Jonathan had discovered the details, but also at the maintenance worker's rocky history.

  "Captain LeGrande is dead, as is more than half my crew. I'm declaring an emergency, Brunkow. I need all available personnel to help when we dock up. You need to get that ship out of our way," I said.

  "No can do. Nobody here with the certification to sail this thing," he said. "I ain't losing my job over this."

  "I'll have your job if you don't," I barked. "I've twenty-five people on the verge of dying here and if any of them do because of your negligence, I'll see you hanged!"

  Tabby, my fiancé and co-pilot muted the conversation and looked at me with raised eye-brows. "Laying it on a little thick, don't you think? Hanged?"

  I shrugged. Brunkow's admission of no nearby crew was the best news we'd heard so far.

  "That’s bullshit," he pushed back. "You're not in my chain of command and I have specific orders that under no circumstance am I to move this ship. You're not shoving this crap on me."

  I unmuted and sighed audibly, mostly for show. "You're right, Kaeth. I can't order you to do anything. It's just, things over here are pretty dire. How many people do you have who can help?"

  He looked into the display thoughtfully and finally responded. "I've called in your emergency. It's just me and the kid, Rowser. Just set in close to Peace Bringer. We can ferry your people over through the starboard cargo bay. You’re better off docking with Peace Bringer than this piss-ant station anyway."

  "Copy that. Grossman out," I said.

  "What are you doing?" Moon Rastof asked once I'd cut the comm.

  I ignored him. "You get that, Marny?" Marny, a heavily muscled former Marine from Earth, was our security officer and Nick's girlfriend.

  "Aye, Cap. Jonathan and I are headed to the armory as we speak. Bring Moonie just in case we have system problems," she said.

  "No frakking way are you doing an incursion without me." Tabby jumped ahead of me onto the short flight of stairs that led from Hotspur's cockpit to the deck of the bridge.

  I shook my head. I might be in charge of the expedition, but “Captain” felt like more of an honorary title some days. That said, she was right. Tabby and Marny were both physically superior to any of our crew by a considerable margin. Where Tabby was lean, brutal, and fast as a whip, Marny was powerful and extraordinarily strategic in her thinking. But with most of her limbs and spine replaced after receiving horrific injuries, Tabby had a significant advantage when it came to strength, endurance and speed. She’d been training with Marny and had recently become the dominant fighter. To Marny's credit, she accepted the change, recognizing the value to the team more than the loss of status.

  Nick, always one step ahead of the team, anticipated Tabby's response and the fact that Hotspur would be empty if the three of us joined the quickly forming incursion force. "Liam, Silver will take command of Hotspur. She'll EVA as soon as both ships are zero delta-v with Peace Bringer."

  We were taking some risk communicating while sailing so close to the much bigger frigate. If Peace Bringer had full-strength sensors running, they might pick up our line-of-sight communications. While a narrow laser beam focused on a single receiver was hard to detect, it wasn't impossible. When Hotspur went completely dark, we didn't even allow for vid-screens in the cockpit, much less tiny flashes of laser light.

  "Suit up, Rastof," I said as we brought Hotspur to zero delta-v with Strumpet.

  It didn’t take a moment for him to complain. "I'm not tactically trained." Moon Rastof was a good ship's engineer and had a quick wit, but he lacked anything resembling a spine.

  "We either take the ship or Brunkow figures out we're not on the same side and uses that frigate to blow us up," I said.

  "There are only two of them. How would they mount an assault?" Moonie argued.

  "Automated systems would most likely do it. The blasters on that frigate would shred Hotspur in forty seconds. And you're making my point for me. I doubt Brunkow will even be armed while you'll be in an armored vac-suit," I said.

  "You shouldn't get greedy," he said. "We should just get out of here."

  "Or what? They'll hunt us down and threaten our families?" I asked.

  "Yes!"

  "What do you think they're doing now?" I walked down the flight of stairs and placed my hand on his back, helping him stand up from the engineering station he'd become glued to.

  "It'll get worse," he said, reluctantly coming to his feet before moving toward the lift that would take us to the berth deck where the armory and entry hatch were located.

  "Not for me, pal. They murdered my father and attempted to murder my mother. Perhaps you don't get it, but Belirand has gone unchecked so long they believe their shite has lost its stink. Remember, not so long ago they abandoned you and your crew in the deep dark to starve to death."

  "I still think this is a bad idea," he grumbled.

  "Good thing it's not a democracy. If you want off after this mission, I'm sure the good people of Ophir will take you in. No doubt your skills would be in high demand. Today, however, you need to follow orders. The lives of my friends depend on us working together as a team. Once we step through that airlock, we're done arguing. Savvy?" I wasn't pleased I had to lay it on so thick.

  He sighed heavily into the comms and accepted the armored vac-suit I handed him. My peripheral vision caught sight of Mom’s thin frame entering the deck through the aft-airlock. My HUD (heads up display) had alerted me that she'd boarded.

  Transfer helm to Silver Hoffen, I instructed the ship's A.I.

  As Mom brushed past us in the narrow hallway, she patted me on the shoulder and we exchanged a look. She'd no doubt heard my argument with Moonie and was concerned I was taking a reluctant, relatively unknown crewmember into a hostile situation. We both knew it was necessary, but I saw the concern in her face.

  "Godspeed, Liam," she said before disappearing into the ceiling on the lift to the bridge.

  "On my six, Moonie. Let's go." I handed him AGBs (arc-jet boots and gloves) that would give him maneuverability in zero-g outside the ship.

  "Aren't you wearing an armored suit?"

  "These are armored," I said, gesturing at the experimental grav-suits my original crew had received from the now-deceased Thomas Phillipe Anino. The suits were slightly thicker than ordinary vac-suits but had the armor characteristics of the much bulkier armored vac-suit Moonie wore. Even more impressively, our grav-suits had their own propulsion that utilized magnetic and gravitational fields instead of AGBs. To be honest, I didn't understand the physics, but I did know the suits were a serious upgrade.

  I jumped through the exterior hatch into space. We'd come alongside Strumpet, keeping it between us and Peace Bringer with Hotspur's hatch on the space-side. For many, having nothing between you and the emptiness of the universe was overwhelming and caused feelings of panic. I monitored Moonie as he exited to make sure he'd be okay, then winced as he fired his arc-jets way too hard for the easy turn toward Strumpet where we'd join the no-doubt already formed incursion party.

  "Take it easy, Moonie. Lighter on the arc-jets," I said as soothingly as I could.

  "I've got it," he replied, the calm in his voice at odds with his jerky space flight.

  "Liam, I'm getting a hail from Brunkow again," she said. "I think he's picking up on your EVA."

  "Shit. Kill your suit, Moonie." I watched helplessly as he continued to flail.

  Override Moon Rastof's suit, turn off arc-jets. As tactical leader, I was able to override many of my team's suit functions. I'd never had to exercise that control for a conscious member, however.

  "Grossman, here," I replied to Brunkow's hail as I grabbed Moonie from behind to level out his flight.

  "We're picking up on an EVA on the starboard side of your ship. Are you reading that?" he asked.

  "Copy that,"
I said. "I sent a tech out to look at our starboard engine. We nearly lost it on the way in."

  "I'm also picking up extra mass," he said. "I'm firing up the sensor package. Something isn't right."

  "Frak! My sensors just picked up another ship. We have company, Brunkow. Open that hold door, I'm sending a fire team over. We're sitting ducks out here," I said.

  "I don't know," he stalled.

  I didn't blame him. We were pushing the limits of credibility.

  My HUD showed Hotspur drop out of silent running and fire up her main engines. The blue glow of the engines intensified as Silver raked the side of Peace Bringer with a light salvo of blaster fire.

  "Damn it, man. We're in the open. Get that hold open! It's coming around again and we're defenseless out here," I screamed.

  Hotspur snapped around and rolled on her side, opening up with all three blasters, stitching a line of fire along Peace Bringer's hull.

  "Hold is open. Go, go, go!" Brunkow screamed into the comm. "I'm warming up the defensive systems, they're almost online."

  Moonie’s extra mass slowed me enough that I was the last to land in the bay of Peace Bringer. I let him slide along the deck to arrest his own momentum. Marny, Tabby, and Jonathan were already waiting, stacked up against the forward bulkhead. It was my job to take point, with Marny as number two and Tabby bringing up the tail. Our cargo, Jonathan, and Moonie were supposed to be between Marny and Tabby. I wasn't sure if Moonie was going to make it and could hardly blame him. He'd never drilled with us.

  "Brunkow, come get us. We need access to the bridge so we can run this bastard off," I said, taking my position. "He's really laying into us. I hope you have a suit on - we could breach."

  The cargo bay's doors had already started closing and I watched as blaster fire neatly pinged off the heavy armor around the bay. Mom had reduced the intensity of the blaster rounds and I'd have been surprised if she was even making a dent in the warship's skin.