In A Starship's Wake

Chapter 21: A Hopeless Errand

"Are you going to decelerate any?" Joseph was keeping an eye on the distance between them and the pirates, among the other things occupying his attention. "We're still drifting toward them pretty fast."

"I'll change our trajectory to start orbiting them once we close about two thirds of our current distance," Tyrone answered. "I think we'll still be fairly safe there. We'll be close enough to lend a hand when the Devastator gets here, and I don't really want to be standing still relative to the pirates."

That was fair, they still didn't know all that much about the pirate vessels. He would have liked to identify the models, but at least they were close enough for accurate images. Joseph was inspecting them, trying to learn anything he could about the ships.

The corvette was shaped like a short, squat tube. It tapered to a rounded point on the end that held the bridge and the main door to the cargo bay. The bottom half of the taper ended at a sixty foot wide clamshell door just like those down the sides of Garden Variety Animal. The top section containing the bridge overhung it, stretching out another thirty or forty feet. The rear of the ship bulged out slightly by the engines.

Joseph noted with curiosity that the corvette was only slightly longer than Garden Variety Animal's three hundred feet. It's total size was much bigger, about twice as wide and twice as tall. That accounted for the squat look of the thing. Perhaps it wasn't really a squat ship at all and he was just used to the long, thin look of his own.

The fighters were blocky-looking things, less than thirty feet long and must have been carried in by the corvette. Their two sub-light engines accounted for more than half the total mass of each ship. The rest was taken up by guns and cockpit.

"How dangerous do you think those little suckers are?" Tyrone was examining the same images.

"Not as much as the two Temorran Kindred fighters." At least, not individually. Together, they were as much or more of a threat. They also wouldn't be pulling punches; the Temorran Kindred needed to disable and board their ship, not blow it apart. The pirates had the same limitations with the Bolinscar Red Comet, but it wouldn't be an issue with Garden Variety Animal.

As they were working, the alert for an incoming hail sounded. Joseph craned his neck to see who it was, but it wasn't a known contact. He'd been expecting the Comet with their messages to retransmit.

Tyrone looked back at him and shrugged. "It's from inside the system. Must be the pirates."

"Might as well talk to them." Tyrone spun his chair around. "I doubt it will be productive, but we might learn something. Keep the camera zoomed on you. They don't need to know I'm studying their ships back here." Tyrone nodded and fingered the "accept" icon.

A window appeared on the windshield. The pirates were being as careful as Joseph about showing the rest of their bridge. The only thing visible on the video feed was a pale, male face. It wore a neutral expression, but it quickly shifted to a sneer when they answered.

"Another coward hiding behind a faceplate," the man spat. "Why don't you take off your helmet and look me in the eye."

Tyrone made no reply, but the pirate only glowered at him through the link. When it became clear he was going to wait for an answer, Tyrone spoke. "You called us. If you don't like what you see, you're welcome to hang up."

The pirate made a disgusted noise. "I've seen many Tetonites these past months. They all looked the same in those helmets, and maybe they thought that piece of armor made them invincible. But I saw all their faces in the end, when I removed the helmets from their corpses.