Lords of Space (Starship Blackbeard Book 2) by Wallace Michael

Author:Wallace, Michael [Wallace, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Publisher: Balsalom Publishing
Published: 2015-02-09T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Thirteen

Drake didn’t answer the question right away. He took several puffs on his pipe before he was ready to respond.

“I am still loyal to Albion,” he said at last, “and as soon as she offers the olive branch, I will return to service.”

“Pretty words, but I hear a caveat in your tone,” Catarina said.

“I do not see anything in Albion’s behavior that would indicate such an offer will be made. And I find myself at odds with the current lord admiral, who I believe to be corrupt and wicked. I harbor some hope that the crown may intervene, or perhaps old friends in the navy may assert themselves on my behalf, but those hopes are fading. Do you have some specific proposal to make?”

“Two proposals, actually.”

“I’m listening.”

“There’s a shipment of tyrillium ore on its way to the Hroom world of Res II. The empire is trying to rebuild its fleet and needs the tyrillium for armor. It’s a Ladino ship out of Peruano, all perfectly legal. But this particular operation is planning to do some slaving on its way back out. Don’t ask how I know, but it’s true. The inbound cargo is extremely valuable, and the ship is armed and escorted.”

“You want me to help you seize the tyrillium as loot,” he surmised, “and are using as justification that the merchants are engaged in the slave trade. Why would that matter to me?”

“You attacked a merchant ship to retrieve your pilot, who had been enslaved.”

“A mission which largely went awry, and most of the slaves were killed in the fight.”

“So you are not against the slave trade?”

“It is a pernicious evil,” he said, “but I have not made it my particular mission in life.”

“Oh? And what was it you retrieved from Hot Barsa?”

“Yes, let’s talk about that. You claim to have bugged my ship, but it’s a curious device that sends back not just my location, but my motives for moving to that location.”

“The device is on your bridge and records your conversations,” she said.

“So your device is large enough to open a subspace channel and send through a stream of audio data? That beggars the imagination. In fact, I’ll wager that you have no such device on board.”

“Tell your engineers to look again.”

“Let’s not insult each other by dancing around what we both know to be true. There is no device. You have a spy, plain and simple.”

“Supposing I do. Does that materially change the facts of the situation?” Catarina set aside her pipe to let it smolder and die. “This proposal benefits the both of us. We’ll work together to seize the tyrillium ship. You have more muscle, but I have located the target, and I will fence the goods once taken. I think a 50/50 split is a more than generous offer on my part.”

Drake couldn’t believe that simple piracy was her entire motive. Orient Tiger may not be the match of either Blackbeard or her father’s old ship, but it was certainly capable of ranging about space preying on lesser prizes.

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