Darklight Pirates
Chapter Twenty-four

“Their back is broken.” Commander in Chief Armed Forces Riddle leaned back in his chair, laced his fingers behind his head and let out a long, raucous laugh. It felt damned good winning. He reached to his left breast and ran his fingers over the ribbons there. He needed two more to fill out the top row, displaying what medals he had won.

“There is much to be done still.”

Rocking forward, he placed his hands palms down on the desk. He glared at the ten-centimeter-tall column of mist swirling there. A sweep of his hand through it caused a momentary fog. It reformed quickly into the gray mist with its indistinct form.

“Calm yourself.”

“If I’d used the full force of this garrison three months ago, half the cities wouldn’t be in ruins.”

“They would all be reduced to rubble. You met force with force repeatedly, and failed every time.”

“Not in Eastminster. I crushed the resistance there almost immediately.”

“Almost,” mocked the small avatar. “Your tanks fought well against crowds, but the resistance cells cannot be destroyed by force of arms. Even you ought to have learned that.”

“Infiltration took too long. That’s why--”

“Victory is yours because of my plans. Without a perfect strategy, your troop movements would have been worthless. Fire into thin air. That’s what happened until the cells began to provide us with leads to other cells. Within another few weeks, you will have enough power to dislodge Weir and become--what? Have you selected a title?”

Riddle again rocked back and felt in control. Did civilians wear uniforms? Weir didn’t and Donal Tomlins hadn’t. A pity. He felt more powerful wearing his uniform, with or without medals dangling on his chest. His unseen ally would replace that being the power behind the throne was a precarious existence. His attempts had failed to tap into this comlink and trace back to the sender. So far. With the full power of the military in his grasp now, a different style of war would be waged. This time he would prevent his benefactor from communicating with anyone. Then he would eliminate him—her?—after Weir no longer proved an obstacle.

“King. At first. Emperor when the rest of Ballymore surrenders. The skirmishes along the Uller border go well.”

“Their commander agreed to my terms?”

“He agreed to my terms and now works for Burran.” Irritation flared. Every success mattered, and not every one originated within that dancing amorphous gray mote. “To betray his country required less persuasion than I expected.”

“It was power he sought.”

“No,” snapped Riddle. “It was money. He will receive a lucrative off-world trading license and a few monopolies within Ullerian borders. When the time is right, his forces will turn their weapons inward.”

“You will stab him in the back when he turns from you?”

“No! He is a valuable commander and will secure the border while I tend to Weir. The Programmer General might have given up power over the military, but he still holds the supply reins. My computer cadre is close to breaking through Weir’s firewalls and insinuating us into the Blarney Stone. When they do, he loses his only hold over us. Until then, attacking him is dangerous. Never try to assassinate the king unless you are sure to succeed.”

“He was a fool to yield such complete control to you.” The holographic pillar thickened and grew in height.

Riddle glanced at the readouts flush with his desktop, showing that an attempt to break his electronic security mounted in intensity. Every time the comlink solidified he noticed increased surveillance, usually on Weir’s part. This attack came from a different server. Trying to trace it back took too much effort for the small gain in information.

“She tries to intrude.”

“Who?” Riddle thought Weir attempted to spy on him. His benefactor had taken him in a different, unexpected direction.

“Bella. Bella Tomlins. Hr attacks are growing in sophistication. If you don’t depose Weir soon, she will take over the Blarney Stone and become a power to be reckoned with.”

“You don’t relish such a fight? You enjoy the skirmishes with Weir. But not with the Programmer General’s little girl?”

“He’s not Programmer General any longer. And her skills are not great enough to run this country. Weir is inept. Bella Tomlins would bring disaster down on everyone within days if she meddles with the basic control algorithms.”

Riddle had argued with his benefactor on this point too many times. As astute as some planning had been, father and daughter were his ally’s blind spots. He accepted Kori Tomlins as organizer of the resistance against Weir. That made sense. She would use her daughter the best she could, and from what Riddle had seen of the jumbled transportation and supply lines, it worked well enough. It just wasn’t enough to take over Burran. When he had figured out how the mismatched orders were issued, he set his own programmers to working around the ersatz directives. As a military commander he expected--anticipated--fouled up supply lines. He had trained to get what he needed in spite of power packs being sent to the far corner of the country and repair parts of the increasingly automated tanks diverted from maintenance depots.

Such screwups irritated him. They did not debilitate him or his soldiers. He had planned. Workarounds avoided the trap of depending heavily on a resource allocator not under his control--an allocator determined to control him.

“What have you done about the increasing pirate activity?” The misty column began to sway, as if an unseen wind blew across the desk. Riddle imagined the person behind the image stamping a foot in annoyance. He shared that exasperation. In the past three weeks, three cargo ships had been attacked.

“Donal Tomlins is responsible. He has to be the one. The appearance of such coordinated pirate activity a few months after the Shillelagh vanished is too much of a coincidence.”

“The pirate ship has a different configuration. You’ve seen the power readouts.”

“It’s Tomlins.” Riddle wasn’t sure of his motives baiting his ally, but he had a gut feeling that he was right. “We never found enough wreckage when the High Guard cruiser blew up to account for the Shillelagh as well.”

“Explain the weapons.”

“The warheads show some residual radiation, but they aren’t fission or fusion bombs. The lasers are higher power than those on our warships, but not that much more. So far, we haven’t been lucky enough to get a heavy cruiser or dreadnought into action fast enough to escort the cargo ships. The only real data has come from a dartabout that escaped an encounter. You know how little instrumentation there is on one of those ships.”

“The power drain for such long duration lasers far exceeds anything in our navy.”

“True.” Riddle shifted to study new reports from orbit. The High Guard patrols could not protect every cargo ship Dropping in, and that made trade increasingly difficult with many worlds unused to dealing with pirates. They simply stopped shipments, replaceing other markets.

Riddle let his staff worry about vital off-world supplies. Ballymore provided most of what was necessary to keep the war effort running against the guerrillas and protesters. Against Kori Tomlins’ protestors and Bella Tomlins’ cyber guerrillas. There had been almost a hundred years after the Great Farewell where Ballymore had relied only on its own resources. The infrastructure supplying that level of world had decayed as off-world trade grew. It had taken a couple centuries for other worlds to settle in on comfortable trade, many requiring extensive terraforming, before a real trading hegemony formed. If necessary, Ballymore would revert to self-sufficiency in the face of pirate attacks. It would take time, but the planet could be self-sufficient again, unlike many other worlds.

With enough funding, he could build out the High Guard and engage in asteroid mining.

“There are only a pair of pirate ships.”

“How do you know that?” Riddle snapped to full attention. The High Guard had never come up with a definitive number. Some captains claimed a single ship preyed on the cargo ships, another had placed the pirate fleet at ten.

Riddle had demoted him for such a wild flight of fantasy. Still, he found it difficult to believe only a single ship, even an advanced dreadnought, accounted for such piracy and domination of the trade routes.

“You need to draw back your fleet, such as it is, and concentrate on protecting those traders Dropping closer to the planet.”

“It’s dangerous to Drop within a few planetary diameters. Too many of those trade captains are incompetent. If they miss and Drop inside the atmosphere, there would be hell to pay.”

“If you don’t require it, the pirates will cut off this world from all trade.”

“We can deal with that.”

“Your fleet building is not going well. The rare earths required for Lift engines are only available on a few other planets. The Ballymore mines are long since exhausted.”

“I know that.” Riddle held his anger in check. “If we have to, scrapping older ships and using recycled materials will get us through this.”

“Can you maintain martial law in Burran and fight the pirates at the same time?”

“If Weir continues to cooperate, yes. Any hint that he is cutting off supplies to the troops on the ground or support for the High Guard would cause more rioting.”

“In the cities, rioting,” agreed his benefactor. “The High Guard cannot afford to lose another ship.”

“Another?”

“Your officers are not reporting accurately. Two cruisers have been severely disabled by the pirates.”

Riddle swept his hand across his desktop. No damage reports. He changed his search criteria. His lips thinned in anger when he saw that two cruisers that should have been on patrol were docked at the space station. He forced himself to relax the tension in his shoulders. Showing emotion over information hidden from him served no purpose. A quick glance at the whirling column of mist made him vow to redouble his efforts to trace whoever was responsible for sending that taunt.

“Routine servicing,” he said. The lie tasted bitter on his tongue.

“Yes, of course. You can use those damaged ships to put an end to the piracy.”

“Decoys?”

“Booby trapped.”

“Burran can’t afford to lose a heavy cruiser.”

“Burran cannot afford to have its trade cut off. Weir fights misallocation internally and is not doing well. With off-world trade goods becoming scarcer, that misallocation will only become more apparent. This is war, Commander in Chief. Losses are to be expected in even the greatest victory.”

“But blowing up even one cruiser ...”

“One is not enough. Look.”

All the readouts on Riddle’s desk swirled about and vanished, replaced by a single battle plan not of his design. His gut tightened as he stared at the charts, the tables, the details for the scheme to destroy the pirates. It wasn’t his plan, but he saw that the probability of success was high enough to attempt.

After several hours of analysis, Riddle hesitantly reached out, then pressed his palm flat to authorize the destruction of two ships of the line. And their crews.