Project Charon 2 Patty Jansen (readict .TXT) 📖

at this.” He flicked his fingers at Jens, who changed the image. It was now in black-and-while, an infrared image of the station, possibly taken from an off-site satellite. How did he get access to this?

It showed the station as a bunch of grey circles floating in space. Each of the circles was marked with lighter mottling.

“I can’t see the difference between the two sections anymore,” Tina said. She could still see the docking structures, because some of the ships produced bright spots of extreme heat, especially the larger ones.

“That’s just the point. There is no difference in the occupation level. We know how crowded we are in here, so they have to keep an equal density of people in the restricted section, which means they’ve had to bring in extra people.”

“What with? I only saw a couple of small pirate ships in the docks. Nowhere near the capacity to move a serious number of people.”

“Large ships come every now and then. Like the massive troop carriers.”

She asked, “Not like the SS Stavanger?”

“Exactly like that.”

“Do people see those ships arrive?” Tina found it hard to believe.

“They usually close the docks when those ships are here. But I know about troop carriers. I can hear when they come to the station by the way the floor vibrates when a really big ship attaches.”

“They close the docks? Does that mean no one can leave or arrive?”

“Yeah, but if you’re afraid of getting stuck, they usually clear out everyone they can get rid of beforehand. A lot of the people who are waiting at the port authority or supply office suddenly get permission to leave and get supplies.”

Yes, people in the Ship Supply office had also been talking about this.

“So is that when they’re bringing in extra people?”

“Yeah. More likely they’re transporting prisoners. That’s the only way the population of the station would increase that much. That, and the ones who go missing.”

“Wait, people still go missing?”

“All the time. Not as many as before. Most of them are young kids, often when they’re seventeen, eighteen. That’s why I want you to take Jens. He’s getting to that age. I don’t know when we’ll next have the chance.”

“But you’re coming, too, Dad.”

“I’m not going to have this discussion again. You’re leaving with these people when they have permits and supplies to travel. I’ll join you later.”

A few moments of tense silence followed, in which Jens glared at his father, but one of the advantages of being blind was that Thor couldn’t see this, so he just cradled his cup in his hands, his face relaxed, oblivious to his son’s angry stare.

Tina asked, “Do you know much about the pirates? Do they have a leader? Where did they come from?”

“We don’t see much of them. They’re not that interested in the people they don’t want to use. We see them occasionally, but everything I know is from things I’ve heard. They don’t mingle with us. They don’t talk to us. Their leader is a man call Artan, who, according to some records, used to have a relationship with the Federacy.”

“Have you seen him?”

“No, but all kinds of stories go around about him, including that he looks like a walking toad. I don’t know what to believe. Artan is a man who used to be called Jackson Hirsh. He used to be the Federacy Assembly representative for one of the settled worlds. He was always very outspoken and had a lot of ideas, but most of the representatives weren’t too keen on him. They found him too radical. He wanted to put the bases and worlds under civilian control and wanted to install assemblies for each of them. He had lots of big ideas, but was always stifled by the Assembly. He got frustrated.”

“Why did he go to the pirates then?” Tina asked. “Has he always been a leader? I thought pirates didn’t have leaders.”

“Many still don’t. Many still live in their shipworld communities.”

“That’s actually still a thing?” Rex asked. “Not just something from the stories?”

“Yeah, it’s a real thing. They have a medium-sized ship, which houses thirty to fifty crew, and travel wherever they like and harvest, collect or steal whatever they can find.”

“And do they actually hijack other ships in mid-space?” Rex’s eyes were wide.

“Not as often as they used to. It’s risky business and there are much easier ways of stealing money, but it still happens.”

“Whoa.”

“I heard rumours about how the pirate communities changed a number of years ago,” Tina said. “Do you know anything about that?”

“Yeah. It must have been about ten years ago when the delegate Jackson Hirsch just disappeared from Olympus. No one knew where he had gone at the time. It was a big scandal. Don’t you remember it?”

“No. I’ve been out of touch for a long time.”

“It was a big thing. He disappeared and, after a while, they stopped looking for him. Later these pirate armies started to appear, where two or more shipworlds had come together and formed a larger group. They never used to work together and now they did. And doing so gave them better and longer-lasting victories. The pirates wanted worlds and stations to live on, for their families, because living in small ships was not very good for the health of their population. There were children born in those craft. Many of the ships are so old they don’t even have rotating habitats. Artificial gravity is only derived from constant acceleration or deceleration. Those conditions are terrible for adults, let alone growing children and developing babies. The Federacy wouldn’t let the Freerangers set up bases on worlds or stations, so they banded together and took them by force. But I thought all of it was quite well-known.”

“I only heard this recently.” Tina grew quite annoyed with herself. She had let herself drop out of connection with everyone, and in running her shop at Gandama, she had not kept up with the news from anywhere within the Federacy. If only she had done