The Pilots and the Frontier
By
UCSBdad
Disclaimer: After all this time, you know what this means, right? Rating: K Time: About three years after my story the Pilots and the Passengers.
The Kzin ship was faster than the Pannonian and soon caught up with it. The Kzin captain didn't seem to be one of those who charged ahead with no plan or thought other than to attack his enemy at close range. A bit of sparring showed that the Kzin's missiles outranged those of the Pannonian, and that their defenses were better as well. The Kzin ship fought at long range, slowly but surely wearing down his opponent.
"I think they got a hit on the Pannonian's engine room." Simone said, having taken over from Lindane so that the girl could get some rest.
"That's the way we should fight!" Spotty cried out happily. "Use our strengths against their weaknesses. Oh, but I would love to serve under the Death in the Dark's commander." Realizing he might have overstepped a bit, he quickly added. "I'm perfectly happy serving under you, Skipper."
"Breath in the park, until the trees undulate." The Quinncunx said.
"You're young yet, Spotty. Perhaps you will serve under him." Rick said.
"They got another hit on…" Simone stopped. "No. That's not a hit. A small ship just launched from the Pannonian. Small and fast."
"It might be important. Can we catch it?" Rick asked.
"You bet. They're pretty fast for a Pannonian ship, but nowhere as fast as we are."
"Call the Death in the Dark and tell them that we're going after the ship."
Kate did so and got a growl that sounded like a laugh from the Kzin ship.
"Go ahead. Anyone trying to escape may be important or have important information. We'll try to get along without you, Pika-Don. Death in the Dark out."
The Pika-Don took off after the fleeing Pannonian ship, and it was soon overtaken.
"Spotty, can you disable the engines?"
"I can, Skipper, but it'd probably cause the ship to explode. I'd be better off trying to take out the bridge."
"Okay, aim for the bridge."
The hit caused air to gush out from the ruptured hull, along with debris and at least one body. The ship coasted to a stop.
"Does anyone see any guns or missile mounts on it?" Rick asked.
No one did.
"Okay, Moecious, Spotty and I'll go take a look and see if we can salvage any useful intel."
"I should go as well." Lindane spoke up. "I know more about Pannonian systems than anyone here."
"If she goes, I go. End of discussion." That was Andine.
"If my husband goes, I go." Kate sounded very determined.
"No!" Rick said. "We can't leave the ship short of crew if something goes wrong. Kate, you're our backup pilot and Simone and Jane are your crew. I don't want to have to depend on the Quinncunx if things go wrong over there. You stay here. That's an order."
Kate grumped, but obeyed.
The five suited up and got into the airlock.
"I think that's the first time I've won an argument with Kate in years."
Moecious grinned.
"Don't be so sure you won the argument until you get in bed with her."
The bridge was open to space and they were able to enter the ship easily. The corpses of two crewmen were still aboard, strapped into their seats. They hadn't put their spacesuits on. Castle realized he had never seen a Pannonian or even a picture of one. He examined the two corpses. They were tall, some seven feet, but much slenderer than a Kzin or a Vorlag. Their skins were mottled green and their feet were very large, broad as well as long. He remembered they were a semi-aquatic race. He decided they did resemble very large bipedal frogs.
"This is their only computer." Lindane said. "We should take it back to ship. We'll probably need someone from intelligence to decrypt whatever's in it,"
"First we should make sure that there are no booby traps attached to it." Spotty said. "I've been trained in explosive ordnance disposal. Stand back, please."
While Spotty examined the computer, Moecious looked around the bridge.
"This looks like a safe if some sort. I'll just pop it open." He took a tool from his pocket and began examining the safe.
"Do you always carry a tool for popping open safes?" Rick asked.
"The advantages of a misspent youth. I wasn't always a bartender and an intelligence agent, you know." He manipulated to tool and after a second, the safe did pop open. Inside were a number of files. Moecious looked at them.
"Anyone read Pannonian?"
No one did.
They returned to their ship and headed back to the combat between the Kzin ship and the Pannonian. The Pannonian ship floated in a cloud of debris in three large, separate sections.
"Ah, Pika-Don. There you are. Thank you for pointing out this fellow to us. It was a most enjoyable fight. I'll buy you all a drink when next we meet."
"Death in the Dark, we'll buy you one as well." Rick replied.
"Spoken like a true Kzin nobleman, Captain Sir Richard Castle. Now we should hurry back. There might be more fighting. Death in the Dark out.
There was no more fighting as the remaining Pannonian ships had either been destroyed or had made a successful escape.
They turned their intelligence over to naval intelligence on the Kzin home world and began planning their next mission. Then they got a call asking them to report to intelligence headquarters. There they found both Admiral Zek and Martha.
"You did a wonderful job, Castle. I always knew you had a real flair for intelligence work."
Martha sniffed, but did not openly disagree, Zek pretended not to notice. Castle suppressed a shudder. He was a pilot, not a spy.
Zek went on.
"The information from the computer was interesting. It seems the Pannonians are planning a series of hit and run raids by small task forces all over their frontier with the Kzin. They're planning on disguising their ships as non-Pannonians so we'd have no excuse to retaliate. As if we'd fall for that. Thanks to your information, we now know where their forces are massing and we'll attack first. We're getting reinforcements from the rest of the Empire, but there are problems in the Spican Marches."
"There are always problems in the Spican Marches." Martha said. "You'd think the navy would put an end to that,"
Zek smiled coldly.
"I'm sure Admiralty House back on Earth is planning a campaign to overrun the entire galaxy as we speak." He said sarcastically. He turned back to Castle and his crew. "However, the papers you recovered were also important. One of them we have only been partly able to decipher. The message itself is in a code we've previously broken, but it has an attachment that we haven't. What we do know is that high level free-lance spy is expecting a courier from Pannonian intelligence to pick up a valuable document that concerns their spying within the Empire. The meeting is at a moon orbiting a planet called Gachon deep in the Spican Marches."
Castle frowned a bit.
"So, you need to send someone to pretend to be the courier. That's really not our specialty."
"Regrettably, the meeting is in four days. The only ship we have that could make it to the rendezvous is the Pika-Don."
"And?" Castle asked with a sinking feeling.
"There's no one in naval intelligence who fits the description of the courier."
Martha smiled broadly.
"Luckily, the ICIO has someone available. Moecious, are you ready for a mission?"
"Of course." Said the Vorlag. "What's the moon like? Sandy beaches, sunny weather? Soft, balmy breezes?"
"The moon has a nitrogen atmosphere, what there is of an atmosphere. There are either domed cities on the surface or tunnels underground for habitats,"
"Sounds like fun." Moecious said with a grimace.
"The spy expects to be paid, so you'll be carrying a large amount of Imperial currency with you. Odd, how our enemies use our money."
"Who'd want to be paid in Pannonian money?" Moecious asked." You could only spend it in Pannonia."
"How much currency?" Lindane asked,
"Two million Imperial crowns. All thousand crown notes. Two thousand od them."
"Is Moecious going to need a bodyguard carrying that kind of cash?" Spotty asked, doubtlessly imagining himself as one of the heroic intelligence agents seen in the entertainment media.
"They'd never believe a Kzin, or a human, bodyguard. Not even that pink thing that you still have with you."
Moecious was taken off to sign for the money, which he insisted on counting himself. Castle and his crew were given the coordinates of Gachon and all the information Zek and Martha had on the place.
As they waited for Moecious to come back, Spotty asked Rick a question.
"I have heard of the Spican Marches, but only a little bit. What are they?"
"They're border regions out past the sun called Spica. It's filled with all manner of barbarians, warlords, pirates, raiders and villains of every type."
"If they're barbarians, how difficult could it be to conquer them?"
"When the Commonwealth collapsed, tens of millions of people in hundreds of thousands of ships went scurrying for safety. Some headed for Earth, figuring they'd be safe there. Some fled the old Commonwealth, hoping to get as far from the violence and destruction as possible. Those who survived and prospered, as is often the case, were the strongest and most ruthless. For one reason or another, many ended up in the Spican Marches. Some refugees had only a few ships and a few thousand people. They usually made an alliance with the strongest power on whatever planet they landed on and sold their technology and skills in exchange for protection. More powerful groups, say a task force with a few divisions of troops could take over more advanced planets and become a ruling class. The stronger preyed upon the weaker and even raided into the old Commonwealth."
"They can't be a match for the Empire!" Spotty said.
"Probably not, but then again, no one really knows how far from the Empire the Marches go. There are rumors that some of the refugees went as far as a thousand light years and more from the Commonwealth. Supposedly an old Commonwealth Fleet went that far and founded a very large star empire."
"Still…." Spotty thought about what he'd been told.
"There are other things. The Empire has problems everywhere. None of them are dangerous to the existence of the Empire itself, but are still dangerous. That means that conquering and absorbing a bunch of barbarian planets that were never part of the Commonwealth has never been high on anyone's agenda. Too many more important things to do."
Spotty nodded. The Kzin weren't at all altruistic and could understand that.
"Plus, some of the planets out there are friendly to the Empire. They provide us with intelligence, local auxiliaries for punitive expeditions from the Empire, even troops and ships for use withing the Empire sometimes."
"The Empire needs help from barbarians?" Spotty was shocked.
Castle grinned.
"Do you know how big the Empire is?"
Spotty took offence. At least as far as a Kzin underling could take offence to his superior.
"Of course, I do."
"Let's see." Castle took out his pad and tapped it. A small hologram of the galaxy appeared. "See the small red dot in the middle of one spiral arm?"
"Yes, Skipper. That's the Empire."
Castle changed the settings.
"Now we see just the Empire as most people think of it. It's roughly egg shaped, okay, shaped like a lumpy egg. It's about four hundred light years across at the widest part and three hundred at the narrowest. Got that so far?"
"Of course."
TBC