Frozen Soul, and other works: Chapter 63

“…and that’s the lay of it. Seems the intel types want to tip the scales in their favor when it finally comes to war, but they don’t want to start the war early, so they’re hiring us to do a few jobs and cause chaos.”

I looked at the fourteen people here, all my subordinates, either because they were slaves, or because they had decided that joining Black Star was a good move. Raven and Sheila were here from the Raven, and Nyna was here along with Jackie from the Valkyries to represent Shadowdancer. The other ten people here belonged to the other ships of the Black Star Fleet.

From the Simo Hayha was Risto Suominen, a human, and the only Nomad captain in my squadron. He’d found his way to me after Jagloth. Apparently, he was one of the ones who had been trapped on the surface when the final attacks came that forced the Confeds to glass the planet. He’d been reset into a new avatar, but the Finnish man had decided to come see me about a job. Turns out he was retired Finnish navy, so I hired him as a captain. Man just about broke down and cried when I showed him his ship, and told her its name.

The leader of the Hayha’s tactical team was a knelfi woman who was named Sera, but for some reason was called Red Jenny. No clue about that one. She was a prankster and generally keen on keeping authority figures from getting too full of themselves, which is what had landed her in my company. She pissed off the wrong guy, and had gotten a judicially imposed slave collar for her troubles. The noble she’d pissed off tried to buy her as a sex slave, but I got there first. Our deal was simple. So long as she kept her pranks inside the company, and didn’t endanger the ships or people, then she was safe from the noble and his friends. She was still a slave, but then most of Black Star were slaves, and I made a point of treating them like people instead of property. Mostly. She seemed fine with that, for now.

Wisteria’s Slave Captain was Elisven Beirona, a knelfi woman who had fifteen years in the Confed Navy before getting kicked out for insubordination. She’d tried her hand at smuggling since then, but never had the money for the really good ships designed for the task. She’d been on one of the stations orbiting Jagloth conducting business when one of the other stations (the one that her ship was on) got blown up for having the Legion come on board. Being my slave meant she didn’t need to face her debtors who would love to have a discussion with her that, if she was lucky, would only involve a solid object in earnest ‘debate’ with her kneecaps as they talked about how she should be paying her loans. There was no bankruptcy under Confed law, but someone who went into debt slavery had their debts erased.

Xexzir was a Felisan male, and the leader of Wisteria’s strike group. He was a part of the Jagloth planetary Militia, but had sold himself to pay for getting his family to Dimiya. His wife now operated a bar in the residential part of the Yards, and he got to spend time with her and his kids whenever Wisteria was in port, so he was very happy, considering the alternatives.

The Slave Captain of the Artemis was Turfeg Stormdelver, a gauz who had a history of ‘storm racing’, taking small, unshielded craft into the middle of storms in gas giants, and racing against other pilots. He had lived long enough to retire, but his fortune was lost when Jagloth went up in smoke, so here he was. At the ‘old’ age of forty-five (gauz may live to 200, but he still had two decades on most storm racers), he had settled down somewhat, and was happy to have a new challenge to keep him on his toes.

Next to him was Jiex Razortooth, an Ihm female and head of Artemis’s tactical team. Unlike the bulky males, Ihm females were quite svelte. They tended to be smarter than the males, though less physically imposing. Jiex, however, was trained as both a sex slave and gladiator by her former Master in the Empire. Said master had apparently been vacationing on Jagloth, and caught an unfortunate case of dead while Jiex had been running an errand for him. Now she had moved up in the world, leading a team and not having to sleep with anyone she didn’t want to.

Vicious Return, my little pocket carrier, was captained by Sofia Gisbert, the wife of an unfortunate man who had tried to steal from me just after I’d gotten my big score in the Arena. He died in the attempt, and Sofia got her Latin blood up about it and things got heated. Long story short, she was my slave due to the judicial system, and I had spent a good deal of time breaking her defiance to reasonable levels. She had her position because, despite her fiery nature, she was a damn good ship handler.

The fifth (and last) nomad in the room was Logan Chavez, Commander of the Return’s fighter squadron. He and his men were all fighter pilots in real life, though they were all retired from active service now. The Raptors were the first all-Nomad fighter squadron in-game, and they were happy so long as they got plenty of stick time. With the war coming, they were probably going to get all they wanted, and more.

The last two people were a pair of knelfi women, Aurae and Nimue Inatumal. The twin sisters were slaves, also recently of Jagloth. I hadn’t mentioned it to the intel types, since they knew far too much about my business already, but the Black Star Fleet was about to get its first stealth cruiser, and her landing bay was easily large enough to hold the Raven, in addition to her shuttles. When the Shinokage became operational, these two would be her captain and strike force commander. Well, when I wasn’t on board, of course.

“So, here’s the game plan. First, we have to sneak into Imperial space without being detected. Chavez, I know a couple of your guys are non-human. Make sure they know that any non-human in Imperial space is supposed to get enslaved automatically, and sold at auction if they don’t have a clear owner. I haven’t pushed it, but I’m making suicide implants available to your guys. If you’re shot down…”

“Understood, boss. Quick reset as opposed to getting collared by the enemy and endangering the unit by having them have to come rescue us. I’ll pass the word around.”

“Thanks. Fighter jocks being what they are, I’m sure they’ll refuse, but let them know I’m also offering to collar any of them that want a second level of protection beyond the suicide implants. If they’re captured, a slave doing their master’s bidding has a little more leeway than a freeman acting against the Empire. Especially a non-human one.” I chuckled at the look on his face. “Yeah, I know. They won’t go for that at all. But I’d be an asshole not to make the offer if it might help keep my people from… well, some truly unpleasant outcomes.”

I took a breath, and then looked to the others, continuing on with the plan. “All right, once we’re inside Imperial space, we have several tasks we have to complete. First is a trip to Sol system. Nomads are officially banned from Sol System, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t any there, or that we can’t find a way in and out if we’re quiet. We’re supposed to pick up the Confed Ambassador and his family and staff, and get them out of the way before the fighting starts. There’s also a post on the Nomad communication networks that there’s someone looking to get the hell out of Sol, and they may have more info on what the hell is up with this new cult the Emperor is leading. So extracting her will be our secondary objective in Sol.”

Jiex clacked her teeth. “How has she managed to stay alive in Sol all this time after the ban? And how’d she learn info about this cult that no one else has managed to figure out?”

“Seems she was a slave on Choson Ring. With the local Yaks out of commission due to a wealth of sudden vacancies in their org chart, that’s left a vacuum for smaller operators to start up protection rackets and the like. Her former master was one of those little fish who thought he was bigger than he was. He tried to put pressure on the new station admin, one of those cult guys, and it turned ugly. This girl escaped in the chaos, and has been on the run since, shielding her collar to keep the tracking signal from betraying her position.”

Jiex nodded. “Resourceful, and resilient. I like this female already.”

“Once we’re clear of Sol space, we have Letters of Marque issued by the Confederates to all ships under the Black Star flag, giving us permission to raid Imperial shipping. We’ll capture or destroy enemy transports to deny them their use in the coming war. Without a supply train, the Imperials will be in bad shape before the fighting even begins. The only stipulation is that any ships captured rather than destroyed must be sold to elements who are not aligned with the Emperor. So, crooks or the ‘Loyalist’ forces. Any captured cargo can be disbursed as we see fit. This is about denying the Empire their fleet train, rather than causing colony worlds to start starving or whatever. Understand?” There were nods, though not everyone liked the idea of being privateers.

“Our other job is to cross imperial lines again, and make contact with Empress Merida’s forces. If it looks like those forces are about to be overwhelmed, then I am authorized to offer them Sanctuary in the Confederacy if they can make it there. If the ‘Usurper’ faction brings enough force to cut us off from Confed space entirely, we have an alternative exit strategy, but it would be best not to use it if we can help it.”

“Questions?” There were none.

“All right. Shore leaves are canceled, I want us moving out as soon as the stores are topped off. The Raven will be leading, as she’s a commercial transport, and will draw less attention. The rest of the fleet will remain in stealth following us and ‘troubleshooting’ problems as they make themselves known. We’ll be taking the Kitad gate to Meridian, just outside Imperial space, in Alliance territory. Then we go to hyperspace to cross the border and make our way to Sol. We’ll stay off the common transitways, just in case.”

“We will likely be spending most of the next couple months under stealth, so make sure your engineers do an eval on the stealth mode, and make sure no components are getting near failure, and that we have spares. A ship suddenly appearing out of nowhere raises questions.”

Raven snorted next to me. “Raises weapons, more like.”

“Yes, well, we will try to avoid both, yes? Now, Captains, see to your crews. We launch at 08:00, day after tomorrow.”

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