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  Sometimes, the bait fights back.

  With their ship disguised as a tramp freighter, Captain Nick Steele, Astrogator Cai and the crew of Laughing Owl serve as bait to catch a pirate preying on the ships traveling the silk road. Their orders are to disable and capture the pirates so that admiralty can interrogate them. Both the pirate ship and the Laughing Owl soon realize they’ve bitten off more than they can chew. Will the pirates succeed in their attempts to take over Laughing Owl? Or will Nick and Cai manage to defeat their foe despite an unexpected betrayal?

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  Not A Prison Ship

  Copyright © 2016 A.C. Ellas

  ISBN: 978-1-4874-0341-6

  Cover art by Carmen Waters

  All rights reserved. Except for use in any review, the reproduction or utilization of this work in whole or in part in any form by any electronic, mechanical or other means, now known or hereafter invented, is forbidden without the written permission of the publisher.

  Published by eXtasy Books Inc or

  Devine Destinies, an imprint of eXtasy Books Inc

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  Not A Prison Ship

  Astrogator Book Six

  By

  A.C. Ellas

  Chapter One

  Time stood on its head as Cai stretched seconds into long minutes, the number storm surrounding him in a dazzling display of symbolic logic and n-dimensional arrays. Half his mind, supported by the augmentation of his adjuncts, concentrated on the complex calculations of jump mechanics. A sliver of his mind paid attention to external sensors and the internal jump alarms and the voice insisting that everyone be in their couches now, now, now.

  The rest of him was turned inward, reaching mental hands into the heart of the Laughing Owl, finding that space beyond knowing, beyond space-time, a quantum gap where all was in flux, everything was in potential, a cloud of the possible and the impossible, light and dark, left and right, positive and negative. Here, Cai touched, and in touching, effected. Time and space twisted in upon itself, the impossible shift of matter to energy to matter without change in form or function. Cai was still Cai, but Cai was no longer Cai. Laughing Owl impossibly soared down the sloping membrane of subspace, space inverted, in a flux state of physics gone mad.

  Cai leaped the chasm yawning at his metaphoric feet, the gap between stars, avoiding the beckoning siren call of the distant quasar, the ominous basso rumble of the nearby black hole, and he grabbed the edge of the system he wanted and by force of will pulled himself up the slope toward the white heart of the star in the center. Stabilized, he reached into the heart of himself a second time and untwisted what he had impossibly twisted, and once more, Laughing Owl broke free, bursting forth from subspace like a bird taking flight as all about him streamers of scintillating energy disbursed across the electromagnetic spectrum—the calling card of a jump, a flaring beacon of energy that said someone passed this way.

  Some of the more subtle perturbations would take months to dissipate below the threshold of most sensors, and Cai had heard that there were sensors able to detect the traces of a jump years later—so long as no other jumps had occurred since, since a new jump tended to obliterate the traces of the old. Cai pushed his errant thoughts aside and ran through his checks, starting with navigation—was he where he thought he was? He took a virtual snapshot of the star at the center of the system, matched its spectroscopic fingerprint against what was expected, and once that test was passed, he triangulated based on the position of certain globular clusters and other stable galactic signposts.

  With his position off the outer marker for Eridani confirmed, Cai did a quick systems check. The more thorough check would occur later; for now, Cai just needed to know that all his parts and systems were in the green. He set a course for the system’s outermost asteroid belt as he double checked his disguise. To all appearances—electronic, psychic, and physical—he wasn’t a Space Corps warship at all but a slightly shabby freighter.

  Pirates were a growing problem along the silk road—a twisted figure-eight route comprising at least a dozen systems centered on Sol. Since the pirates seemed to know where the Corps was strong and where it was safe to strike, admiralty was working under the assumption that the pirates had a mole in the regular chain of command, and therefore, the entire mission had been handed over, still sealed, to the Fourth Fleet.

  Admiral Nbuntu knew all his people to a degree not possible in the larger fleets of the rest of the Corps, so it wasn’t as likely that the pirates had a spy in his command. Even so, everything about the mission was classified top secret, the admiral assuring Nick that only he knew which ships were being turned into, essentially, bait ships. Fourth Fleet, never large, would be spread thin on this mission, but that also was normal for them. Each ship was accustomed to independent operation. Recon was rarely successful in flotillas.

  Cai was in full disguise down to patches on his hull and a fake ID stenciled on. He was no longer Laughing Owl but the tramp freighter Rumpleteazer. “But where’s Mungojerrie?” he’d asked, only to get a blank stare from the junior-grade flunky telling them about the details of this mission—for security reasons, they’d been briefed in person after leaving Hevetich Orbit Control. At least Nick had laughed.

  As they approached the mining station, Nick opened a channel and said, “This is Rumpleteazer, outbound from Tau-Ceti with fresh food and medical supplies. Requesting docking berth for trade.”

  Cai scanned the station again. It appeared to be an ordinary mining platform. The miners were independent workers, each with their own gear and method for knocking asteroids out of the field into their nets. They went months between trader visits and, as a result, had plenty of hard credit and nowhere to spend it. They eagerly assigned Cai a berth and magnanimously waived the docking fee.

  The inside of his ship was as scruffy as the outside with exposed wiring and dirt on the bulkhead. Frankly, Cai thought they were taking verisimilitude too far, from the produce and sundries stuffed into his holds to the patched singlesuits and leather jackets the crew was sporting. Nick hadn’t shaved in three days and was looking downright disreputable. Cai docked them smoothly, however, then turned over the helm to the crew.

  Their precautions turned out to be well founded. Two of the station officials came aboard and gave him a thorough looking over during the obligatory tour before settling in the captain’s office to talk terms for the upcoming trades. Neither man seemed to think there was anything unusual about the ship. They were quick to partake of the alcohol Nick offered them by way of refreshments as they cracked knuckles and got down to the business of trading.

  Bored, Cai exited the Chamber and padded into his bedroom. Ships such as the one he was pretending to be weren’t that uncommon. Astrogators who lacked the talent to command anything larger, who stayed on the same ship they were first commissioned with, often ended up like this, in the back of beyond with a patched hull because the company which owned that hull couldn’t afford proper repairs. Not every Astrogator-
flown ship was the elegant cruise liner of the holos, and if Cai was an example of one end of the Astrogation spectrum, a tramp freighter’s Gator was an example of the other end. They should have given me a fake name to go with the fake ID, Cai realized.

  A snatch of conversation caught his attention. “That was some fine handling we saw during docking,” said one of the station officials.

  “Our Gator Kyle’s a deft hand at the helm,” Nick replied smoothly, “but he never leaves his chambers. Keep him supplied with Synde wine, chocolate and cigars and he’ll fly you to hell and back with no questions asked.”

  Cai chuckled softly, pleased with his husband’s quickness. He made note of his fake name. As far as he knew, there was no Kyle currently in service.

  They stayed at the mining platform for two days. Half the fresh food and medical supplies were offloaded; rare ores and minerals were loaded in turn, making Rumpleteazer an even more tempting target than before. If the pirates had a mole at the station, they’d know Cai was carrying a rich haul. Once clear of the station, Cai set an inbound course appropriate for a freighter, flying at a mere point-one-two-five c, the fastest an old boat like he was supposed to be could manage. There were more mining stations further in-system, plus the colonies on both moon and planet. Eridani boasted two planets in the habitable zone and three moons around gas giants suitable for terraforming as well as the two ore-rich asteroid belts.

  Cai kept his attention on the radio chatter that filled the system between the five colonies and six orbital mining stations, but nothing he heard gave any indication of trouble. Where were the pirates coming from? Where did they go after they struck? How were they attacking in so many different systems along the silk road? Cai shared admiralty’s desire to know the answer to these questions.

  * * * *

  They were four days out from the mining station when Cai detected an approaching ship. The first thing he noticed was the lack of a broadcast ID. The second thing he noticed was that it was on a collision course and traveling much faster than the Rumpleteazer could manage at his maximum acceleration. Captain, he sent over the net, the fish has taken the bait.

  Excellent, Nick replied. “Battle stations,” he announced ship wide, sending those who weren’t already occupied at their stations scurrying. One by one, the sections reported their readiness, and the tense waiting and watching began.

  Cai sent the usual maydays then let out an electronic screech when they were jammed. He turned sluggishly on an evasion course, as if trying to reach the safety of the asteroid belt they’d exited almost ten hours ago. As predicted, the pirate turned to keep their intercept course and continued to close the distance. Cai sent a message directly to the pirate demanding to speak to the other Astrogator. This, too, was ignored.

  The pirate closed with them less than an hour after the chase began, and Cai shuddered as the magnetic grapples slammed against his hull, catching on the steel framing. The pirate hauled him in like a fish on a hook. Cai’s struggles, as Rumpleteazer, were completely ineffectual, but his analysis of the other ship’s capabilities told him that as Laughing Owl, he would be able to break away at need. As a ship of the line, he could out-boost, out-maneuver and plain out-perform this pirate by a factor of three at least.

  Once the pirate ship had Rumpleteazer alongside, a docking tube slapped over his forward airlock. His computers came under attack as the pirate’s AI tried to take control of his shipnet. Cai had been prepared for this—his real network was shielded, hidden behind a false, civilian-style network that the pirate AI ravaged and seized while Cai made all the right noises of protest and dismay. Laughing Owl’s real shipnet was never even endangered.

  You might as well give up, the pirate Gator told him once Rumpleteazer’s computers had been subverted. Fighting won’t do you any good now.

  What will happen to me? Cai asked, faking fear but intensely curious. There had been some debate, he’d heard, as to how it was the pirates had jump-capable ships. Had the Astrogators been coerced? Subverted? Or just well paid? It was one of the questions Cai needed an answer to.

  You’ll learn to obey, the other Gator said. If you cooperate, you’ll be refit as a fighter and join our fleet.

  The pirate AI sent the signal to open the airlocks. All the airlocks. They wanted Cai to vent his atmosphere to space, which would be a death sentence for the crew of a civvie freighter like he was pretending to be. Cai’s interior hatches were already closed, except for those of his central corridor, which had been dogged open on purpose, and the marines were fully suited and ready. He allowed the airlocks to cycle as he sent a protest to the other Gator, This is murder!

  Silence, fool, a new voice snarled, and Cai immediately analyzed the owner as a hard, cruel man, the type one trifled with at the risk of one’s life. Not a man to cross, Cai knew, a leader among thugs, almost certainly the pirate captain.

  How dare you speak to me like that. Who are you? Cai demanded as arrogantly as a Gator on a holo show.

  Your master, the man replied. I am Captain Dread and you belong to me now.

  Cai rolled his eyes at the obviously fake name but made no reply. He watched the pirates storm his airlock, bursting out of the docking tube almost explosively, guns leveled and swiveling to cover all the corners, as if they expected an attack to be waiting for them right there in that vulnerable space between hulls. Cai thought them fools. He wasn’t about to risk damage to his outer hull or to the airlock itself. Meeting no resistance, the pirates quickly gained the central corridor. Cai checked on his first marine squad, for he had two of them for this mission. They had quietly exited the airlocks that Cai had been ordered so conveniently to open and were traveling swiftly along Cai’s hull, already halfway to their objective—the pirate vessel.

  Cai waited until no more pirates were crossing from the other ship before closing all the airlock doors as well as the sealed, hardened hatches in his central corridor. The pirates’ com units burst into angry life as the invaders reacted to finding their path blocked and themselves cut off from one another by hatches which slammed shut every ten feet whether the path was clear or not. Cai winced as he witnessed a limb amputation as well as the quick death of a pirate who simply didn’t react fast enough when the warning light flashed. Of course, he’d had less than a second’s warning, but Cai wasn’t disposed to feeling kindly toward the invaders. He just hoped that the dead pirate wasn’t the captain.

  You’ll pay for that, Gator scum, the captain snarled over the shipnet, relieving Cai of that worry, at least.

  Cai triggered the wall panels along the revamped central corridor, and they whooshed open to reveal the second marine squad, dressed in full mechanized armor. The fire fight was brief; the pirates’ arms were no match for heavy armor and stun guns. The first marine squad forced entry into the pirate ship, and ten minutes later, it was over. The pirate ship was theirs, the crew captured.

  The pirate was full of hidey holes, the marines reported, their sergeant opining that on no account should the crew be allowed back over, for they would be able to wreak all sorts of mischief. Kenison filled the Laughing Owl’s few cells with the men and bemoaned the lack of a real brig. Cai learned that the other Gator, Lin, was half-crazed, half-starved, forced into compliance through his addiction to Synde. He saw to it that the Gator was well supplied with food and Synde enough to survive the journey to Earth, which was closer than Hevetich.

  Cai took the pirate ship in tow and set his course. They formed an odd image—a tramp freighter towing the larger pirate ship, but it would take about a week’s worth of work in dock to reverse the changes that turned Laughing Owl into Rumpleteazer. Some of it, Cai meant to keep, like the concealed alcoves along the central corridor. They’d been designed to hold a marine’s mech suit, and as far as he was concerned, they could continue to do so.

  Chapter Two

  No duty was more important to Nick than taking care of his Gator. After checking to see that Kenison had the pirat
e crew well in hand, Nick went to Cai’s chambers and waited, as patiently as he could, for his husband to exit the Astrogation Chamber—the heart of any starship, even if the nomenclature could be confusing. The Astrogation Chamber was within the Astrogator’s chambers. Nick spent a few idle moments wondering why they called the place where the Gator lived his chambers rather than his quarters, his flat, his bunk or any other name that would work as well and have the benefit of not being confused with the Chamber.

  The Chamber door opened, and he dropped the matter as Cai stumbled out, shaking with exhaustion. This won’t do, he decided. Cai looks done in. He embraced his husband before the tall, reed-thin man stumbled another step then, quite literally, swept him off his feet. He grinned down at Cai and marched into the dining room where the Gator’s adjuncts were laying out the meal he’d prepared before the pirate ship had been sighted. Luckily, it was a meal which kept well and didn’t suffer from being reheated.

  Nick sat down, still cradling Cai, though he was able to shift the Gator to his lap and free up an arm, which he used to pick up a glass of Synde-laced tea. He offered the cool, sweet beverage to Cai, who drank it steadily, draining the glass in one go. There was plenty more of the tea; Nick had whipped up a huge batch of it two days ago, and they’d only gone through half of what he’d made. When they were close to running out, he’d make some more.

  “Love you,” Cai murmured, looking up at him with his large, intensely blue eyes. Nick loved Cai’s eyes; they were the exact shade of fine tanzanite, a blue so rich it had undertones of purple, backed by so much fire they outshone diamonds. Those eyes dominated the pale, chiseled features of Cai’s face, the high, angled cheekbones and sharp chin always put Nick in mind of a fox—an arctic fox—given Cai’s tousled platinum-blond hair that was in need of cutting once again.