The Princess & The Privateer by Peter Rhodan

Author:Peter Rhodan [Rhodan, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2021-06-29T22:00:00+00:00

Chapter 16

To the back of beyond

At 0450 hours SST or Space Standard Time, the Thister pulled out of the dock on Krestar Station. Gizel was not on the duty watch as they headed for the warp point that was furthest from the station, trailing the G-type star by nearly 5AU. The Captain had set the departure time so that getting out of the station and through the busy shipping lanes of the Kobar system was the responsibility of the A watch. As compensation, and because of the travel time involved, her B watch would be the ones on the bridge when the ship was timed to jump out of the system.

Four hours after leaving dock Gizel was called to the State Room where the officers ate and found herself surrounded by the rest of the ship’s officers, apart from the XO. The Captain strode in and someone called out “Attention on deck!” and on this command, they all arose from the table and stood at attention.

“At ease,” Deltron ordered, and moved to the head of the table as everyone sat down again.

Deltron reached the head of the table and paused until all his officers were settled, then a star map sprang into view just behind him.

“Okay people, here is our patrol ground for the next twelve weeks. It appears there have been some pirate sightings in the area out toward the rim, and two ships have disappeared there recently. One in the Bamma system here” and he pointed at a system that was now lit up in red. “And the other over here in the Jersey system.” The system he was now pointing to also turned red. He paused for a moment.

“On top of that, there have been a couple of other disappearances in that area with several ships failing to arrive at their destination. Whatever happened to them occurred out of sight of any observers, so they may or may not be related, but my guess is that they were pirate fodder as well”

He let everyone consider this and study the map for a moment. The jump lines between the systems were clear enough and Gizel quickly saw that although the two systems were many systems apart in direct light-years, they were only two jumps apart.

“The Bamma system government has requested aid from Brython, but as their system is actually in our zone the Brythons are happy for us to tackle the problem from that end. They are, however, sending a corvette, probably one of those new very fast Lancer class ships, into the area from the other side and we intend to meet up here.” He pointed at the system that fell between the two afflicted systems. “If no pirates have been found by either of our ships at that point, we may jointly explore several of the officially empty systems in that general area looking for the bad guys.”

Lieutenant Tremaine raised a hand then spoke at the Captain’s nod.

“No word on the ship type or weapons?”

The Captain shook his head.

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