Frozen Soul, and other works: Chapter 181

(Consortium Naval Vessel Cormac’s Hammer, Star’s Reach Gateway, Star’s Reach System)

“Transition complete. We’re now in the Star’s Reach system.”

Captain Girgroir Beryldelver nodded to his helmsman at the report. “Very well. Send the standard greeting. Let us see how these mercenaries handle the sight of a real warship.”

The CNV Cormac’s Hammer was only a light cruiser, but the superior technology the Consortium had available to it meant that it could easily go toe to toe with battlecruisers from the less advanced fleets belonging to the Terran Empire or the Confederacy. While the Consortium’s navy was smaller than the other star nations’, they didn’t need the numbers that the less advanced nations needed. Having ships that were at least two generations ahead of their rivals meant that they could save more money over time by having more advanced, more reliable ships that required fewer crewmembers and fewer maintenance cycles.

Of course, that was for dealing with other star nations. Piracy and smuggling had always been a problem. There wasn’t a single star nation that had managed to stop that completely, but the Consortium took a different tack on things, fitting their business model. Namely, they had large numbers of corvettes that were used as revenue ships and pirate hunters. It was the most efficient use of money and manpower available.

Unfortunately, that efficiency meant that they were not prepared for the sudden increase of incidents in one of the more isolated areas of the Consortium. The Grathdan Sector had been a fairly affluent sector originally, with one of the Gateways allowing for fast travel to the region, but when a group of Chimeras took over Thazdum and renamed it Shadowgate, before sealing the system off from ‘outsiders’, the entire sector had suffered a severe economic downturn. The Consortium had tried to retake Thazdum several times, but each attempt was rebuffed.

The Board of Directors had been unwilling to simply allow Shadowgate, with the fleet they must have, unrestricted access to even a backwater sector, so there was actually a fleet base in the Coldana system. However, the rise of incidents meant that the fleet base was going to have to be reinforced. And, unfortunately, that meant that those reinforcements would have to come from units primarily tasked to hunting pirates and doing other internal security tasks.

That meant that the Consortium needed to hire on mercenaries to do the work temporarily. Unfortunately, with the recent surge in piracy all through Known Space, and the Kul’tirans being thrown into disgrace, most of the mercenary groups who had the ships to do the job and could be trusted not to simply turn to piracy themselves were already engaged in other areas, either on anti-piracy patrols or as escorts for corporate ships. The rise of these Nomads in certain quarters had made things even worse, since their loyalties were always suspect.

Unfortunately, the only mercenary group that had the size and capability to do what they needed was a Nomad-owned outfit, that had been making a name for themselves. They had some decent stealth technology, but from the news he’d heard none of the rest of their tech was all that impressive. They had scored some wins, sure, but that was going up against the Imperials and pirates. Hardly a match for the Consortium Navy. And the ‘Second Battle of Nuevo Edo’? Clearly blowing the numbers out of proportion as propaganda to increase their standing, and that of their new ally.

Still, this group was large enough and influential enough that they couldn’t have just a low-level bureaucrat commission their services for anti-piracy patrols, which was why Sector Administrator Woldmane was going to try and hire these Black Stars. And a Sector Administrator didn’t just go around on civilian transports for missions like this, which is why his Hammer was here. And the sooner they left and could join the fleet looking to break through to Coldana, the better.

“Cormac’s Hammer, this is Star’s Reach System Control. You are authorized to approach the planet. Course and orbital slot included in this transmission. Deviation from either will not be tolerated.”

Captain Beryldelver frowned, and muttered to himself. “System Control? The only ships on screen are in orbit. Who the hell do these jumped up Nomads think they’re fooling?”

“Captain! A ship just appeared on sensors, dead astern. Range… one thousand kilometers!”

“WHAT?” He checked the information his sensor officer was displaying on the main screen. There was a corvette, one of the Assassin-class, according to the intelligence brief, sitting where there’d been nothing but a hole in space before. Despite himself, Beryldelver had to give that ship, the Shadowdancer, and her captain credit. Their main weapons might be crude, being the equivalent of throwing rocks at people, but the laws of physics were rather harsh on what happened when an object of a certain mass achieved relativistic speeds before striking another object. If that ship wanted his Hammer dead, they’d never know it until the ship was becoming a cloud of swiftly spreading debris.

Maybe the intelligence briefs on their technology were slightly understated? Beryldelver shook his head. No sense worrying about that, now. “Acknowledge transmission. Helm, keep to the course and orbital slot provided to us.”

Commander Kegdancer shook her head from her station next to his command chair. She spoke softly, so only he could hear. “I suppose that was the Black Star version of a ‘subtle warning’?”

“Yes, I am thinking so. To get into position like that, so soon after we entered the system, that corvette must have been lying in wait, and began maneuvering as soon as the gateway opened. Apparently, the intelligence analysts were drastically underestimating their stealth capabilities.”

He sighed, and said, “I better go and alert the Sector Administrator. I just hope she is in a good mood. She was not happy having to come all this way to speak to a mercenary leader instead of having him come to her.”

“Will they be useful to us? I mean, even if their stealth is good, that doesn’t mean anything once a fight starts.”

Beryldelver shook his head. “I wonder. But think, Commander. If Intelligence was wrong about their stealth capabilities, what else might they be wrong about?”

(Guest Quarters, CNV Cormac’s Hammer, Star’s Reach System)

Sector Administrator Yutreda Woldmane frowned as she looked at the viewscreen which the Captain had just disappeared from. She had hoped to impress these mercenaries with the sight of a Consortium warship, and help drive down the price of their aid in policing the Grathdan Sector while the Navy concentrated their efforts on breaking through whatever had happened to Coldana and relieving the forces there. But, as she watched the sensor readings in her quarters, it became clear that the Black Star Navy was just as impressive as she had heard.

Around the planet there were a few ships, including a fleet carrier, and a superdreadnought that intelligence had said some madman had converted into a mobile shipyard. There were a series of defense platforms, as well. Most of them looked to be weapons platforms, but there was what was clearly a civilian space station in orbit, and what looked like the start of an actual military space station being constructed as they watched. Other ships were already moving through the system on clearly defined routes, mostly freighters and armed merchantmen from the Alliance, Confederacy, Empire, and Imperium.

Representatives of several criminal syndicates appeared to be openly broadcasting their affiliations. She noticed two factions that were supposed to be at war with each other settled side by side in berths at the space station, without either attacking the other! Both even had their shields down and weapons offline! Even at the most dangerous dark ports, such a thing would be unheard of!

Clearly this Black Star Company had impressed upon the syndicates that behaving was in their best interests. Given the stealth abilities their ships had casually shown to the crew of the Cormac’s Hammer, that impression probably went somewhere along the lines of ‘play nice, or we kill you’, and no one knew where they were to know whether they were watching or not. And a free port outside of the known centers, with access to the Gateway network was too lucrative a deal to get excluded from for these outfits.

Oh, sure, that Nuevo Edo place was a free port, as well, but it was a planetary government, not a business. That kind of place was better for some smugglers, or freighter captains that wanted to get goods between star nations without paying tariffs or getting away from the fact that some nations didn’t like each other, on paper. They wouldn’t tolerate syndicates acting openly in their system, which is clearly something that the Black Star Company had no problem with, so long as people followed the rules.

And those rules were backed up by the Black Star Navy. The presence she saw in orbit would be enough for planetary defense against pretty much any pirate raider or ‘normal’ attack. It wouldn’t stand up to a full-scale invasion, of course. But the Assassin that had dropped cloak behind the Hammer showed that they had assets in place to ensure that an invasion through the Gateway would be doomed to fail. And an attack staging out of Nuevo Edo or the Amazon system would take at least a month to arrive at the fastest speeds warships could achieve. A month in which time the Black Stars would have plenty of time to recall their ships, or get reinforcements from one of their bases near other nodes of the Gateway network. Until the local area was explored and colonized, the Black Stars were too well-defended to take on for anyone except the X’thari to have a chance of driving them back in this system.

That fact had several implications for her mission here. The fact that the system had essentially combined the two concepts of holding a bottleneck and defense in depth to allow them to hold off any threat that might be heading their way (save the most dangerous enemies) meant that they were definitely capable of assisting her in keeping the damage from the Fleet redeploying to rescue Coldana down to a minimum. On the other hand, the military mind that could arrange for a defense of this kind would surely realize the situation the Consortium was in. The Consortium’s efficiency-based model of defense was well known in the galaxy, after all. And the Nomad information networks likely already had some reports from the Sector running across the galaxy by now.

That meant that he could play hardball with her if he wished, and there was not much she could do about it. The normal tools she might have used in negotiations wouldn’t apply here. Black Star didn’t need the Consortium’s technology, clearly. And while they had several small businesses in the consumer markets, they primarily made their money off of shipping, protection, and, now, providing a security for other parties to do business. They would not be hurting for credits, that is certain. That also meant that promise of access to Consortium markets might not sway them, either. With access to the Gateway, and the assistance of syndicates, they could likely get to any marketplace they wanted, regardless.

So, if the typical enticements to drive the price down weren’t going to work, that left trying to deal with the leader. But that was another problem. The leader now owned an entire star system outright. The idea that he would respond to a typical bribe was outrageous. And the intelligence group had quickly determined that his vices, while well known, were of absolutely no use as blackmail. The one time someone had tried, he released the information himself, with extra camera angles, and then released all the blackmailer’s personal information, and continuing with the information of their employers, as well. And his main vice, women, was something he had no problem satisfying on his own.

Political leverage was out of the question, as well. The Black Star Company had moved into multiple star nations, and had contacts at the highest levels of some of those star nations. And, even if someone forced them out of one of those nations, they still had their own star system, with access to the Gateway. And, according to Intelligence, they had at least two weapon systems that could be counted as Weapons of Mass Destruction on a planetary scale. Militarily, they would not be able to overcome the full might of a star nation if it were brought to bear, due to simple numbers, but they would make the victory costly as hell, and the nation may very well end up losing many of their most prosperous planets before the fighting was done. If the response to the pirates and other attackers was any clue, Black Star responded to any attack with utter devastation. If they were pushed into a corner? Who knew what they would do?

Woldmane sighed. This was going to be a long negotiation.

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