Free Birthright: Battle for the Confederation- Pursuit by Ryan Krauter

the bare bunk, seeing that one side of the room was very obviously lived
in, and stored his few things on his side.  That accomplished, he left the
compartment and started the long walk to the main cargo control center in the
middle of the ship's spine.
    As he walked, he realized his first
impression of the ship was accurate.  The Solar Venturer was a worn but
cared-for ship, whose crew was for the most part professional and competent; at
least, that was the opinion he formed based on the behaviors and attitudes of
the various people he passed.
    Eventually, he found the cargo control
center.  He found a crewwoman who pointed him to the department head, and after
introductions Web was given a brief tour.  Crew normally turned over a bit at
major ports due to work rules, schedules, and contracts that were just signed
or expiring.  The tour was well rehearsed and gave Web the high points.  Most
of the cargo work was automated, and they were not expected to care for the
contents of the containers themselves, just decide how the pods would be
arranged and supervise loading and unloading.
    "The only thing I should tell you
that wasn't in the standard everything-is-wonderful employee handbook is the
pirate threat," finished the department head.
    "Pirates?" Web asked
curiously.  He'd dealt with the issue several times as a Confed officer and was
accustomed to the concept, though the senior crewman must have taken Web's tone
for mild fear.
    "Don't worry," he replied. 
"They haven't hit this company yet."  The man cleared his throat as
he stopped walking to inspect the readouts on a systems monitor mounted to the
bulkhead.  "There have been more sightings and a couple of attacks these
last few weeks," he continued.  "The problem is this damn civil war
among Confed.  Both sides are more worried about keeping an eye on each other
than holding up their end of the security we were promised in the Confed
charter, and system patrols are almost nonexistent.  So, the pirates have moved
in and they occasionally pick off a transport on the outskirts of a solar
system when we revert to real space to link up with inbound traffic
routes."
    Web just nodded, trying to go through
what he remembered of his briefing on this part of space.  There was no major
player here, no one big cartel that ran things, which made the threat more
unpredictable.  Were the players out there after ransoms, theft of merchandise,
recruiting?  "What about system security forces?" he asked.
    "They try, but most systems have
more than one arrival spacelane and to be honest, Confed usually dealt with
that.  They had destroyers all over the place scaring off the likes of them,
and most local systems just don't have the homegrown resources to cover that
need yet."
    "Are we vulnerable?"
    "No worse than anyone else,"
the department head replied.  "We have a pair of laser cannons, one on top
and one on the bottom.  A real warship probably wouldn't even raise shields if
they saw those things.  Hell, they'd probably be insulted.  But legally it's
all we can carry, and financially it's all we can manage.  We'll have to damn
near take them apart before we get to Callidor, too, or the Primans will blow
us away before we get past the first nav beacon.  But don't worry," he
said in closing, tapping the monitor and resuming his inspection, "there
are a lot of targets out there, and we're not even the biggest ship in the
sector."
     
     
    A Priman task force hung motionless in
space, drives silent, passive sensors straining to pick up anything of
interest.  The ships straddled a trade route, and while they could have cared
less about commercial traffic, they were always on the lookout for
Confederation warships to attack.  To that end, they'd seeded the area with
gravity-generating mines, designed to destabilize hyperspace fields and
forcibly yank ships into real-space.
    "The sector is still quiet,"
Captain Vol said to the woman sitting in the chair next to him.