A Matter of Intelligence
By
(UCSBdad)

Disclaimer: Once again, profitlessly stolen from Henson, et al, David Drake and anyone else I need to borrow from. Rating: K+ Time: Some twenty five cycles after PKW and a bit after my Warriors for the Working Day.

"The damned planet is inhabited."

That, of course, was the gunnery officer, Commander Larteguy, a master of stating the obvious.

"Of course." shot back our sensor officer, Commander Marchand, "We picked up a huge communications spike just as we entered this damned system. And we picked up two small ships dropping out of orbit from their moons. Plus, the drones have picked up signs of life on the planet itself."

"And since then we've gotten absolutely nothing." Put in Captain Darlan. Our captain leaned over the table and stared down at the junior officers clustered at its end. "What can Intelligence tell us, de Gautier?"

I stared back. Darlan looked like he should have been a Sergeant of Grenadiers in the Garde Imperiale instead of a ship's captain. He had a thick and muscular body topped with a craggy face that was split by a truly gargantuan mustache. Below the mustache was a strong chin and above it a large nose, once badly broken and never properly repaired. Unlike everyone else on the ship, who had regulation haircuts of no more than a quarter inch in length, his hair hung over his forehead and over his collar.

Well, I thought, I could tell them that going to an entirely new and different Universe had pretty much put paid to everything I had learned in our old Universe. That would hardly be politic for the second most junior division head on the ship.

I cleared my throat. "Sir, we know there was a colony of religious cultists here some twenty- plus years ago but no one's heard anything from them since. Allegedly they're plant based life and somewhat pacifist. They did hire a tribe of people called Luxans to protect them, though."

"That is intelligence we picked up in a damned bar." The most junior division officer on the ship added acidly. That was Lieutenant Julia Boisferaus, in command of our detachment of Naval Infantry. To look at her, you would have thought she was younger than I, but having been re-habed three times, she was the oldest person on the ship. The third time she had been re-habed, she had done the whole thing. Not just the cleaning out of arteries, lungs, liver and such that you usually get, but her skin was returned to the suppleness of youth, her hair made a thick and lustrous auburn, plus she had some work done on her face to make her a classically aristocratic beauty. I always wondered how she had paid for it.

Julia had commanded a brigade group in her day, and having to settle for commanding a handful of "porpoises" on a lone warship was definitely not to her liking.

I gave her a pleasant smile that I knew she'd hate and went on. "The planet, we now find, is surrounded by twenty four moons. Each is some thirty-two miles in diameter and are in such precise orbits that anyone approaching would be covered by guns on at least four moons."

"Guns that…" Julia began.

"Guns that we haven't actually seen, I know. But," I tapped on my computer control, " we have six of what can only be gun pits on each moon." The computer showed a close- up of one of the moons with a deep circular tunnel surrounded by a protective berm.

I shrugged. "We could send a recon drone in closer, of course…."

"And give some gun crew a perfect target." snorted Captain Darlan. "We have too few drones. Too few of everything."

Commander du Glatigny, the executive officer, interrupted. "Have reviews of the data shown any reason why all of those moons have been terraformed?"

I slowly shook my head. There was absolutely no reason for anyone building an orbital fort to add artificial gravity, an atmosphere and plant life.

"Commander, the moons were obviously moved here from the outer solar system and cut down to the same size. I would suggest they were built for some reason we do not yet know and only later used as forts."

Boisferaus snorted derisively.

Captain Darlan glared briefly at her. "Well, can anyone think why no one on the planet has bothered to respond to a warship that's been broadcasting continuously for three days now."

I checked quickly to make sure that none of my seniors was about to answer that one and then spoke. "This is the edge of what they call the Uncharted Territories, sir. Although there is a peace of sorts between the Scarrens and Peacekeepers, there have always been pirates and raiders loose in the Uncharted Territories. Everyone we've met here agrees with that. It's why we came to this planet, after all."

I gave the command team a quick look to make sure that I wasn't putting anyone to sleep and went on. "While there is a peace between the two major powers, there isn't perfect peace yet. Renegade Peacekeepers, Scarrens and Charrids have headed off to raid and set up their own little kingdoms. Lesser powers, such as the Sheyangs, Tavleks, Halosians, and even the Luxans that allegedly protect this world, all have taken the opportunity to raise hell while they can."

"Then why won't they answer the comms of a friendly warship." Du Glatigny growled. "We've made it clear we mean them no harm. Quite the opposite actually."

Once more I shrugged. "Sir, I suppose they assume any warship to be hostile. They'll ignore us if they can and kill us if they get the chance. And I doubt that our statement of good intentions means anything here about. I doubt if anyone shows up and openly announces their intention to pillage and loot."

I was saved from a nasty crack from Boisferaus when the intercom broke in.

"Captain, we have something coming out of null space."

Captain Darlan rose without ceremony and headed for the bridge. By the time I got to the cramped cubbyhole that served as the intel station on the bridge, we had identified the newcomer.

"It looks like a message drone, sir." called the duty sensor officer after checking quickly with a senior petty officer. "There it is, sir. It's squawking Chacal's IFF code."

The tension drained out of the bridge. Chacal was our one and only escort. The captain had detached her to check out a planet called Karraid, where it was alleged, all manner of things were for sale with no questions asked.

"All right," said Captain Darlan, "start recovery. We'll see what Chacal has found for us."

Four hours later we were back in the ship's conference room with a much better idea of how to proceed.

Six hours after that, Captain Darlan stood in front of the comms unit in full dress blue uniform, rather than the utilitarian grey coveralls usually worn by everyone. One of the comms personnel fussed over him. "You might want to turn slightly, Sir, so they can see the wide red stripe on your trousers."

The captain snorted. "Nobody on that planet knows what that means, or cares. Nor do they know or care about my medals or my command sash. Now let's start broadcasting."

The comms tech backed away and after a few seconds, I could hear the slight hum that meant that the people on the planet could now see and hear Captain Darlan, if they cared to.

"Greetings to Pa'u Kilota Civa, First Guide of the Seek for the planet Forests of Bazil. I am Captain Francois Darlan, commanding the French Imperial Ship Austerlitz, 32, and other Imperial forces. I am broadcasting on the frequency that I know you monitor for the Ilanic cruiser Okrana. I assure you that I wish you no harm, but I do wish to talk to you. Perhaps I should attract your attention in the same way as the Ilanics did? We don't use the plasma weapons you refer to as frag cannons, but I could fire a thermo-nuclear tipped missile and explode the warhead over your planet. Would that attract your attention?"

Suddenly words appeared on my computer screen "Carrier wave from planet detected. Comms being established."

In a second the image of a woman appeared on the bridge.

"Please tell us what you wish and then go away." She said briskly.

"I do not wish to go away." The captain replied lightly.

As she stared at us, I looked her over. She appeared to be a lovely human woman except that she was blue with what might be called golden freckles on her face. Her hair was a silver-white and she appeared to have the appropriate secondary sex characteristics for a female. Considering that her race was alleged to be plant based, I wondered if that was mere coincidence.

A very loud growling filled the bridge and the view widened to show a second being standing beside her. This one appeared to be large, male and in a bad mood. From the facial tattoos and odd tentacles on his head, I decided he was one of the Luxans we'd heard about.

Pa'u Civa smiled and lightly stroked the back of the Luxan's hand. In a minute or so he quieted down.

"I assume that your translator microbes didn't translate that, Captain. My friend General Karajorj was promising to inflict certain Luxan tortures on specific parts of your bodies. However, since you Peacekeepers have different body types than Luxans, that doesn't really translate." She paused and smiled at us. Not a nice smile. "I can give you an approximation of what he said if you'd like."

Captain Darlan returned the smile. "It wouldn't mean anything since we're humans and not Sebaceans."

"Lying fekkik." snarled the Luxan general.

"Really, Captain," Pa'u Civa said quietly, "do you think we don't know what Sebaceans look like? Or that heavily armed Sebaceans are therefore Peacekeepers? Please refrain from lying to us."

Captain Darlan let the insult lie there for a minute or two. Finally, he spoke. "Perhaps we should dispense with the diplomatic niceties, Guide? I'll start by telling you what we know of this planet. Then I'll tell you about us."

Diplomatic niceties? I'd have to remember that one.

Taking silence for consent, Captain Darlan went on. "You settled this planet some six hundred years, that is, cycles ago. Delvians are renowned for their knowledge of natural pharmaceuticals. You moved twenty-four moonlets into orbit and turned each one into a garden for certain kinds of pharmaceuticals. Each moonlet has a slightly different atmosphere, different gravity, different temperature, different humidity, and so on. Each moon was perfect for raising certain classes of plants. The drugs you manufactured from them were quite valuable and sought after."

"Alas, things in the Uncharted Territories became more dangerous. So dangerous that you hired a group of Luxans to protect you."

"Luxans are not hired, Peacekeeper." The Luxan general roared. "We fight for honor. Not mere money."

Darlan waited for the Luxan to cool down. Then he went on.

"Your…friends…the Luxans, then set up frag cannon installations on your moons, which served very well as forts."

"This served to keep the general run of predators away, but not the Ilanic cruiser Okrana under Captain Cheka. The seemingly endless Ilanic-Scorvian war was putting quite a strain on the Ilanics. They apparently authorized Captain Cheka to collect what they term as "taxes" in return for protecting you from the Scorvians, even though there appears to be no record of any Scorvian threats anywhere in the Uncharted Territories, and certainly there have been no threats to you."

Captain Darlan stopped for a few seconds while General Karajorj snarled and roared in his own language. Then he continued.

"The Okrana showed up one day and shot the few interstellar ships you had out of the sky. Then they threatened to shoot up your planet. You could have fought them, and I would imagine your Luxan friends would have preferred that."

General Karajorj snarled, but it was Civa that replied, in cool, measured tones. "We suffer from being at the bottom of a planetary gravity well. Gravity slows down our plasma bursts and speeds up those of the Okrana."

"And," added Captain Darlan," all the Okrana had to do was hit your planet to inflict damage on you. You had to hit a vastly smaller, maneuvering ship."

"So you chose to pay the taxes." Darlan went on. "It wasn't a great deal of money, after all. What you hadn't counted on was that the Okrana would hang around your solar system capturing the merchantmen that served your planet as prizes of war and announcing that as Forests of Bazil was now under the protection of the Ilanics, anyone who traded here would have to buy a very expensive license and pay very steep taxes as well. That pretty much made the Okrana the sole source of pharmaceuticals from Forest of Bazil. They're very expensive on Karraid, where the Okrana sells them."

And, I should add, those on Karraid and elsewhere that were in on this little scam weren't about to enlighten a human intelligence officer when asked. I made a mental note to talk to a few people again in the future.

"Very good, Captain." Civa said coolly. "Is that all? I sincerely hope it is."

Darlan shook his head. "Remember, I promised to tell you about humans. What do you know the rest of the galaxy over the last twenty five cycles or so?"

"We have learned all we need to know about Peacekeepers." General Karajorj bellowed. "And we do not…"

Civa gently put her hand on his arm and he stopped.

"We have had virtually no contact with the outside, Captain. There was a smuggler about twelve cycles ago that agreed to take a cargo of ours to Garden of Galil. We never heard from him after he left our solar system. And he provided no news."

Darlan nodded and began telling the tale of the famous John and Aeryn. How a lone human from a backward world had made himself a power in this Universe and brought peace, of a sorts, to the galaxy.

"Now I know you're lying." General Karajorj scoffed. "A Peacekeeper Commando becoming emotionally attached? Do you think we're idiots? Do you expect us to believe such a story?"

Darlan smiled. "You might wish to consider that a man with a large and powerful warship under his command is telling you that story, general."

Karajorj looked like he was going to explode, but once again, Pa'u Civa calmed him down.

Darlan continued with his story, telling of how John and Aeryn, and some friends, had been chased by a Peacekeeper task force past what was thought to be a long dead planet. However, the "planet" was an enormous, incredibly ancient machine that existed in two different universes, long referred to locally as the Anomaly. Once close enough, that machine had shot the Crichtons and the Peacekeepers into our universe.

Civa nodded. "Our sciences tell us that there are indeed other universes besides our own. Some say they are few and others that they are infinite. Are you an expert in this science, Captain?"

Darlan shook his head. "I fear not. I'm not sure there are any such experts."

Darlan continued his tale. Once out of the universe we were now in, John and Aeryn found themselves in our old universe. A universe where none of the races common here, the Sebaceans, Delvians, Luxans, and such existed. A universe where humans were the dominant race. And a universe where humans battled other humans endlessly.

"The Crichtons ended up on a world called K'hiff which was garrisoned by a large human mercenary force. The two Peacekeeper ships followed them to our universe, in spite of having had their engines destroyed. The Peacekeepers landed on K'hiff and fought the humans, unsuccessfully. Only a handful of Peacekeepers survived."

"You expect us to believe that your kind destroyed a Peacekeeper Command Carrier and its escort." General Karajorj snorted. "Bah! Your lies grow tiresome."

"I expect you to believe, eventually, general, that I am here with a large and powerful warship and that you should begin taking me very seriously."

"Please continue, Captain." Pa'u Civa said quickly.

The rest of the tale was quickly told. John and Aeryn went home to their own universe. The news of a path to another universe was lost in the constant warfare that was starting to consume human society. For decades humans fought each other: War to the knife and knife to the hilt. Finally the exhausted human powers had managed to make peace.

"I fear that our Empire had to be counted as one of the losers in this war." Darlan said sadly.

Well, we hadn't fared as badly as those planets that had been nuked right down to the bedrock, but we had done badly enough. The Council of Regency that had ruled in young Emperor Charles' name had done an abysmal job of fighting the war. They had made peace and made war based solely on our own short range interests. What had le Comte de Barras said? "The Empire has no friends and no enemies, only interests."

Regrettably, the Council had a gift for disaster. They had joined the Pact of Djilas at just the moment the Pact's overstretched forces were crushed by the Spinward Alliance. Once having made a disastrous peace with the Alliance, they had joined the Seventh Coalition. They withdrew from the Coalition just before the Coalition secured a very favorable peace, depriving our Empire of the spoils of that war.

And so the Council had bumbled and bungled its way through the wars for year after year and decade after decade, even after the Emperor reached maturity. When the great powers of humanity had finally banded together to enforce a peace, the Empire had been shorn of its colonies and interests outside of our home solar system.

"The citizens of the Empire were not happy with those who had led them so disastrously into war." Captain Darlan pronounced.

There was an understatement! Those who were "not happy" had resorted to assassinations, terror bombings, riots, strikes and general, mindless violence against the Council, now renamed the Council of State, in honor of the Emperor's reaching his majority. Although I doubt that our fat-headed Emperor appreciated the honor.

Virtually every faction in the Empire had at one point or another been opposed to the Council. And, now that the Council was clinging desperately to power, it seemed equally incapable of rationally selecting allies and standing by them. The Council would make an alliance with, say, the United Empire Loyalists, and then double cross them in favor of the Rally for Union and Progress. No sooner would that piece of idiocy be completed that the Council would drop the Rally and try to mend fences with the Loyalists. And so on and so on and so on.

Naturally, and quite sensibly, all factions were incapable of trusting the Council.

I had been assigned to doing direct action work on a rather distant front. It had taken quite a bit of time to extract me and return me to Nouvelle Paris. I had not realized how badly things were back home and had offered my services to the Council as soon as I had arrived home. Obviously, I should have waited to see which way the wind was blowing.

Darlan went on presenting our sugar-coated history to Pa'u Civa. "The victors, who now call themselves the Great Powers of Humanity, insisted on peace. They insisted to the point that they would exterminate any planet or faction that threatened their hard won peace."

"There were, as you might understand, many who knew no life other than war. I am one such person. Another was a mercenary commander, Marshal Edmund Burke O'Donnell. O'Donnell was quite powerful, and as a mercenary, had no home planet to return to, as did many of his troops. O'Donnell proposed that he lead his troops through the Anomaly and into this universe, and never return. Many others, mercenaries or not, wished to go to as well and find a new life in your universe."

"Marshal O'Donnell himself has since made an arrangement with Dominar Rygel XVI and is now the governor of the Hynerian planets that lie along the junction of the Scarren Empire and the Uncharted Territories. Marshal O'Donnell also rules a few planets that have pledged fealty to him directly as the head of Human Forces Command. The most important is his base world, a previously uninhabited planet he calls Arsenal."

"Dominar Rygel?" interrupted Pa'u Civa. "It was our understanding that he has been dead for many cycles and that Dominar Bishan rules the Hynerian Empire."

Darlan smiled. "Rygel is very much alive. Bishan is widely believed to be dead, and there is a head said to be his by Dominar Rygel's throne. There are, however, at least two rebels at large in the Empire who claim to be Bishan, and another one who has apparently fled the Empire."

"Are you under the authority of this Marshal O'Donnell?" That was General Karajorj.

Darlan shrugged and then smiled. "No, but we do have friendly relations with him."

Karajorj laughed nastily. "Doubtlessly the master of a single ship will be friendly to one who is master over many planets, and the master of many planets will be friendly to one who can do him no harm. At least until he needs to crush you underfoot, Captain."

Well, yes. I had to admit that was true. There were a number of reasons for our actual non-relationship with Marshal O'Donnell, including an intelligence bungle that thankfully I had no part in.

To begin with, O'Donnell had little use for the Empire or its troops, regarding them as untrustworthy. Well, our government had certainly been untrustworthy, that I would admit.

Secondly, Captain Darlan had spent most of his career on assignments to the most distant parts of the Empire's sphere of influence. He had become accustomed to making his own decisions without reference to distant senior officers whose orders would probably be completely outdated by the time they arrived, assuming they ever did.

Lastly, we had rather badly underestimated Marshal O'Donnell. There were other major political and military figures leaving our old universe for this new one. O'Donnell just happened to be the one that had found a powerful ally. No one else had managed that.

And, O'Donnell had been the one to originally suggest that the vast excess of soldiery in our universe should be sent to this one. The powers-that-were cleaned out their arsenals to make sure that those who went had the best weapons possible to allow them to stay here. And, they had, more often than not, simply sent those weapons on to Marshal O'Donnell at Arsenal.

When we had reached Arsenal, I had thankfully been detached to have a look around on Chacal. No one could blame me for what had happened. Arsenal had looked like a vast construction site, overlaid with a trash heap. Everywhere in orbit were shot-up ships, waiting for undermanned orbital mining ships to find and mine the raw materials that would be sent to the idle orbital factories and onto the shipyards to turn near scrap warships into lethal machines once again.

On the planet itself, shattered divisions were fleshed out with God-knows what odds and sods recently rescued from prison planets. Although the troops were well enough armed, nothing else had been done to turn the planet Arsenal into an actual arsenal. There were no barracks, no hospitals, no transportation system, no communications system, no factories, no training facilities and no farms. There was nothing that would allow O'Donnell to properly support his command.

Everywhere there seemed to be vast confusion, and no progress. We misread the situation entirely.

"So," summarized Pa'u Civa, "you come here as the commander of a single warship, admitting that you have no relationship with the powerful figures you claim lie beyond our solar system."

Was there a slight emphasis on the word "claim"?

"Thank you, Captain Darlan, for the very interesting story. Now please leave our solar system."

"Ah, Guide, I cannot." Darlan replied. "I'm not done yet."

Darlan stopped, as if to gather his thoughts, although we all knew that this part of his speech had been carefully planned.

"The Ilanics come and collect taxes and give nothing in return. I am prepared to sell your pharmaceuticals at Garden of Galil for you. In return, I expect seventy percent of the profits."

"Only seventy percent?" Pa'u Civa said with a smile. "Why not take it all?"

"Because I am not a thief!" Darlan shot back. "But I do take all the risk. I have to get my ship and our cargo to Garden of Galil and return here. All you need do is sit here and do nothing as you have done for the past twenty cycles."

Pa'u Civa shook her head. "Captain Cheka will fight you if you try that, and his ship is three times your size. And when he finds out we allowed this he will attack us. Either alone or with more Ilanic ships."

"No." Darlan said quietly. "He will do none of these things."

Darlan allowed Civa and Karajorj to stare at him for long seconds and then continued.

"His ship's mass is two and three-quarters that of my ship. But my ship is half again as fast as his ship ever was and our weapons have twice the range of his and are a great deal more lethal."

"His ship is in poor physical condition. His crew is in worse condition. Whether he actually came to the Uncharted Territories twenty cycles ago as part of the Ilanic Fleet I cannot say. But today he's nothing but a pirate. He hasn't been back in Ilanic space in over a dozen cycles. Instead, he has a regular circuit. When he leaves here, he goes to a mining colony called Gonndarr and extorts refined metals from them. And he's careful not to extort enough to make it worthwhile for the colony to build defenses or hire another ship to destroy the Okrana. "

"After Gonndarr, he's off to a place called Orpa-Glazzo. It's nothing but a second rate agricultural planet, but it provides food that has all of the nutrients that Ilanics need. And it's defenseless."

"From there he goes to a colony that orbits a super-Jovian, a gas giant. They extract rare gases from the planet and the Okrana extracts the gases from them."

"Then it's onto…..Well, you get the idea, don't you?"

"And most importantly," our Captain said, raising his voice slightly, "he gets no logistical support from the Ilanic Navy. After twenty cycles out here, you can almost hear his engines wheeze as they try to drag his ship across the gulf between the stars. His weapons are sure to be a greater threat to anyone firing them than anyone being fired at. Nearly half his original crew is dead or has deserted him. The replacements are the scum of the universe."

"And the Ilanic Navy won't be coming to reinforce him if he gets in trouble. He's been declared a pirate. I believe the exact term used is alfarazz."

Karajorj growled. "The Ilanics are racial cousins to the Luxans. They do not permit outsiders to bandy that term about. You should be careful how you use it, Peacekeeper."

Before Darlan could remind General Karajorj that we were not Peacekeepers, Pa'u Civa interrupted.

"An interesting tale, Captain. I admit that your presence here provides some support to your story. However, I will need to consult with my advisers. This will take a long time, Captain, so do not interrupt us. However, I will contact you again."

The transmission from the planet abruptly ended.

And so we began to wait. The Captain used the time to drill us. We snuck up on inoffensive gas clouds. We made mock attacks on cruiser sized asteroids. We practiced escorting non-existent convoys. Then we practiced attacking the same convoys.

I made use of our maneuvers to place reconnaissance drones where they'd do the most good. I set them to use only passive sensors until ordered to use active sensors, and I was sure no one in this universe would find them.

At the end of our first month in the Forests of Bazil solar system, we left to rendezvous with our other ships.

The Great Powers had badly wanted their excess soldiers and spacemen to leave their universe and go elsewhere. They had insisted that only the best equipment be lavished on those who left. Oh, that left them in no danger, you can be sure. Even the weakest of the Great Powers was immeasurably stronger than Marshal O'Donnell's command. Even if every man and ship that had crossed to this universe had sworn fealty to O'Donnell, the Great Powers could have crushed him easily. Well, perhaps not easily, but crushed he would have been.

And so Captain Darlan had received the brand new cruiser Austerlitz. She was faster, longer ranged, had better sensors, and better armor and weapons than any previous cruiser the Empire had built. We managed to convince the captain and crew of the destroyer Chacal, 12, to join us. Alas, most Imperial officers intended to submit to O'Donnell and live the familiar life that they had lived in the Empire: A life of order and chains of command and regulations for every occasion. A few bold souls chose to strike out on their own and found their own empires. More fools they.

We had been fortunate to learn of the Wessex Lady. The Lady had been a prize of war, rebuilt as an auxiliary. She had been intended to be a support ship for Austerlitz class cruisers on distant stations. Her two million ton hull was crammed full of enough weapon reloads, spare parts and repair bays to keep a cruiser squadron operating for at least a year.

The Empire had no more distant stations to man, of course. The Lady was to be sold to a firm of merchants who would return her to the peaceful ways of commerce. I had made a point of becoming very friendly with the skeleton crew the Imperial Navy had left aboard. We quietly installed our own full crew, added in family members and a few hundred assorted naval personnel who wished to leave the Empire and quietly left our shrunken Empire. By the time anyone realized the Wessex Lady was missing, we were in another universe.

We kept the Lady in relatively nearby interstellar space where no local pirate would find her. We kept Chacal away from the Delvian solar system in case we needed a surprise.

The Lady was a curse of sorts, as well as a blessing. She could keep our lone cruiser running for a half a dozen years or so. But, she kept us from thinking at once of what we would do when that half dozen years was gone. A half a dozen years was not much in the life time of a man.

We could see what had happened to the Okrana. Other human ships had suffered from the folly of forgetting about logistics. We had run across an ex-Imperial cruiser that had set up a little empire for themselves. They had fired off half of their missiles taking their empire, though. What would they do if someone tried to take their empire away from them? What would they do the time after that?

If we weren't careful, in ten years we'd be unable to outrun or outfight any raider out here.

After three months, we got our decision from Pa'u Civa.

"Incoming from null space, Captain." announced the sensor duty officer. "It's big."

Darlan smiled tightly. "I can guess who it is. Captain Cheka has come calling."

It took another ten seconds for the sensors to confirm the Captain's guess. In another ten seconds, we got a comm from Cheka.

"You fekkiks have ten microns to leave this solar system! Do you hear me? No one carries Forest of Bazil's pharmaceuticals but me! Or those who pay me! Do you understand, you frelling thieves? Leave or be destroyed!"

Cheka stood there glaring at us from the comm screen. He was a bulky humanoid, who looked to be about as broad as he was tall. He had tentacles on his head as the Luxans do, but only two of them. Ribbons were tied to his tentacles, which we were told were symbols of his naval rank and his accomplishments. His bulky form was otherwise encased in a plain blue coverall.

Darlan nodded to our comm tech to start broadcasting. "I have no intention of leaving, Captain. And none of being destroyed. In fact, your ship is neither fast enough to bring me to battle, nor strong enough to defeat me should I engage you. I suggest you leave."

Our translator microbes made little of Cheka's reply, except that he was furious. His ship began lumbering toward us.

Darlan shook his head ever so slightly. "All right then. As we planned, head for the green gas giant. We'll let him chase us for a while."

"Aye, sir." was the reply. "Course set for Paddy's Pub."

And so we ran from Okrana, easily outdistancing her.

But wait, you say. Didn't we just say that Okrana was a space going junk pile? One nearly incapable of running or fighting?

Yes, we did say that to Pa'u Civa. But a little exaggeration will be excused when dealing with a potential customer, or so I say. To be sure, Okrana was a slower ship than ours and our missiles had a greater reach than their frag cannons. And, Okrana probably hadn't had a proper overhaul in years. But it was still a warship and therefore dangerous.

We had war gamed the encounter with Okrana using the intel we had. Our computer said we had a fifty per cent chance of destroying Okrana with no damage to our ship. There was less than a one per cent chance that Okrana would destroy us. The other forty-nine plus per cent was that we would destroy Okrana with some, unknown, damage to ourselves.

Our plans to make a home for ourselves in this new universe required, at a minimum, one functional cruiser. If we were reduced to a damaged cruiser that we couldn't repair, along with Chacal and Wessex Lady, we might just as well go cap in hand to Marshall O'Donnell and take whatever terms he felt like offering us.

And so we ran.

We made it to the gas giant the crew had named Paddy's Pub well before Cheka and his ship. Once we shot over the planet's north pole, we put Austerlirz's nose down and dove past a small moon on the far side of the planet. With any luck, Okrana would follow us so closely that she'd slam right into the moon, ending our problems with her.

No such luck, by the time Okrana waddled up to the planet, the little moon was well above the horizon. Okrana missed it easily.

And so we lead Captain Cheka a merry chase all over the solar system. Once we hid behind a small airless planet while Okrana headed off in hot pursuit of where they thought we were. When we shot out from behind the little planet and headed off in the other direction, the rage in Cheka's comms became more pronounced.

"I think his sensors are even less efficient than we thought." Commander Marchand said quietly as we headed back towards Forests of Bazil.

We waited until Okrana had pulled to within about two hundred thousand kilometers of us before we contacted the ship again.

"Really, Captain Cheka." Captain Darlan said as politely as he could manage. "We have no desire to destroy your ship. Even though we do doubt you are a part of the Ilanic Navy any more, they might take offense at our destroying you."

Cheka's face filled our view screen. He was perspiring, as if he had personally been trying to coax a little more speed out of his ship.

"Welnitzs!" He snarled. "I haven't seen you do anything but run. Can you fight?"

Darlan glanced over at Commander Larteguy, our gunnery officer. After a half a minute, Larteguy nodded.

Darlan turned back to the image of Cheka. "Well, perhaps this will show you we can shoot."

We fired a single missile when Okrana was about a hundred and twenty thousand kilometers from us. That would normally be out of range for our missiles, but Okrana was headed straight for us, and had lousy sensors. The missile just might get to Okrana at its maximum range.

We watched our sensor readouts as the missile headed straight for the Ilanic ship. Suddenly, Okrana turned on her axis to head straight away from us. Energy weapons blossomed from the ship in a vain attempt to shoot down our missile. The missile exploded.

We waited expectantly to see what had happened. It took only a few seconds for the sensor operators to disappoint us.

"No joy, sir." One of the operators announced. "The missile ran out of fuel and self destructed about fifty-five kilometers from the target."

Being fifty five kilometers from a nuclear explosion in a modern spaceship would cause no problems at all. Okrana would have had a bad scare, but no more.

After a few seconds Okrana did fire a full broadside of her frag cannons at us. The plasma bolts fizzled out less than halfway to us.

Okrana headed away from us.

Captain Cheka's face reappeared on our view screen. "I will leave here and return with enough Ilanic ships to destroy you!" he bellowed. "I'll turn that plant infested planet into a radioactive ruin. See if I won't."

"You won't." Darlan said as we cut off communications.

And, if Okrana did return, even with other ships, we still had more tricks up our sleeve than the single shot with that missile would show.

No sooner had Okrana headed off than we got a comm from the planet. It was Pa'u Civa.