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“That’s what pirates call a base they control.” Blade hesitated. “You said that other shuttle repeatedly attempted to contact you, correct?”
“Yes. Every six hours, at least while we were hidden inside my retreat. Why?” Fig scowled. “What does that matter?”
“Pirates have communication buoys they drop through space to pick up distress signals or other communications. It’s possible they might have realized a ship was out here and mistaken the repeated calls to you for a damaged vessel seeking help. That would make it an easy target for them to attack and raid from.”
“That was a week ago. Wouldn’t they have come after it before now?”
“No, Fig. Some of those monitoring buoys conserve power by only sending signals every ten days or so. It’s possible the pirate hub was only recently made aware of communication activity in this sector.”
“That’s not good.”
Anna silently agreed with Fig.
“It could be much worse. Two pirate teams are better than five or six. No more of them are showing up on my sensors. I doubt they wanted to waste the manpower to go after one or two vessels that they may believe are still here.” Blade paused. “You responded to the hails at some point, correct?”
“Yes,” Fig admitted. “We kept it short and coded.”
“It won’t matter. One of those buoys would have registered both shuttles if you transmitted anything to each other unless you were as close as we are now and sending extremely weak signals. It looks like we will have a battle to fight unless they decide three on two aren’t good odds.”
“Three? There’s four ships, including us, who aren’t pirates.”
Fig met Anna’s gaze. “We’re currently registering on sensors as one shuttle instead of two. There’s no way anyone on the shuttle we spoke to before is working with pirates. No one but Blade can hear us, but it’s too risky now that they are so close to say any names. Don’t.”
She nodded.
“You are correct, Anna. It’s four on two because three of us are certainly working together, and that shuttle we came to meet with can’t risk being captured,” Blade softly explained. “For obvious reasons. Let’s go silent and pick up our speed. I see that Free has done that. He must have come to the same conclusion: the two unexpected shuttles belong to pirates.”
Fig cut comms. “There’s no way that Marisol could trust any pirate, no matter how many credits she offered to bribe them with to leave her alone. They would capture her, keep her a prisoner at one of their hubs, and attempt to keep blackmailing her grandfather for as long as he lived. By then, they’d have tried to break her spirit until they could strip her of her wealth and ownership of Clone World.”
“That’s terrible.”
“You’re forgetting what I told you about Rico Florigo. Marisol knows how heartless her grandfather can be. He’d allow her to die before he let pirates siphon money from him. She’ll fight them right alongside us to keep from being captured. Four shuttles against two pirate ones.”
“Are we sure they are pirates?”
“Blade knows them well and the locations of their hubs. I can tell you that the direction they are coming from isn’t a used travel path. I chose this area because the only traffic coming near this system is transports to and from Clone World. Pirates aren’t interested in our plasma, medical supplies geared for our kind, or the merchandise sold to tourists. Not unless they really need items with the Clone World’s logo printed on them.”
“What about food?”
“Those transports are heavily guarded. Pirates aren’t stupid enough to attack them.”
“I see.” Anna was learning.
The console dinged with an incoming transmission. Fig’s features harshened. “What is she doing?”
“Who? Marisol?”
He nodded at Anna. “That’s coming from her shuttle.”
There was a softer ding. Fig answered it, speaking directly to Blade. “I don’t think she’s aware those are pirates.”
“That was my thought as well. How do you want to handle this? She’s not moving away from them. The pirates will reach her before we get there. Is it possible that she believes they are with us?”
“Yes,” Fig decided. “I’m alerting her.”
“Be careful of your words,” Blade warned.
“Obviously.” Fig answered the transmission from Marisol’s shuttle, speaking first. “Alpha, Roger form, line six. The two incomings are slightly spaced apart. Do you understand?”
