Free Ragamuffin by Tobias S. Buckell Page A

Jiang folded his arms and disappeared.
    Etsudo subvocalized his response while looking at a tired Brandon sip tea. The man did not look up or even realize Etsudo was multitasking. “Brandon has yet to finish his tour of the
Takara Bune
. If you’ve been worried about him not checking in, it’s because the ship is shielded. His personal communications have to route through the
Takara Bune
’s lamina first. We keep a low profile.”
    The message would get bounced out to the nearest buoy, shot through the wormhole back downstream. Even with Hongguo priority codes on it, Etsudo had maybe ten minutes before Deng received it, though he wasn’t sure where Deng was. Then the message had a ten-minute return. Could be a long twenty minutes.
    Brandon looked up. “Our Jiang’s strategies have changed.”
    “How?”
    “Four days ago the three Consuls were asked to make a trip to a habitat with a Satrap in it. When they came out, everything was different. New orders, new thoughts. Like the new initiative against the pirates.”
    “The pirates? That was for real?” Etsudo asked. And Jiang Deng appeared again. Etsudo frowned and held up his hand, and Brandon waited. That had been, what, a minute? Two at the most. That mean only a handful of wormholes lay between him and the
Shengfen Hao
. Deng’s ship was a lot faster than Etsudo’s unless the
Takara Bune
ditched all its cargo. So much for running away. Deng was catching up to him.
    Deng waved a hand. “I don’t care about Brandon. I need your direct assistance. “We have a problem.”
    Again, Etsudo wondered if he’d overreacted with Brandon. Maybe they’d genuinely thought he needed assistance running his ship. Maybe they were actually trying to eliminate the Ragamuffins.
    Maybe.
    Deng continued, “Jiang Wu and Jiang Li suffered damage to their ships while attacking pirates. They managed to destroy four ships, but a fifth escaped. I’m in pursuit, but I need your help.”
    Etsudo stared at the tiny figure of Deng. Attacks in space? In a hundred years maybe a few Hongguo ships had actually attacked others. Brandon was right, the Jiang’s strategies had changed.
    “What’s wrong?” Brandon had realized Etsudo was staring off into space. “Is it Jiang Deng?”
    “Don’t worry,” Etsudo whispered. “Just give me a second.”
    Jiang Deng’s message went on, “We didn’t get the identity of the fifth ship, but it leaves a recognizable gamma radiation trail our drones are following. Your message ping time indicates you are just upstream of us and close by. We’re jamming the ship to stop it from calling for help, but they may get ahead of us. We’re shutting communication buoys down. It begins at Thule and goes downstream from there. This whole downstream branch is being put under a blackout as we work to squeeze any pirate ships down towards their home base. We did not brief you because your ship isn’t involved.” And because Deng didn’t trust him. “But now I need you to run support for our mission. When the pirate ship overtakes you, blow your cargo and keep up with them, you have a faster ship than I do. Send confirmation you received this and are acting.”
    Etsudo gripped the table as hard as Brandon. Why attack them now?
    Spaceships cost immense sums, and the Hongguo had a lot invested in their fleet strung across the Satrapy. Some of the ships creaked along at almost a hundred years old, like the
Takara Bune
. Risking them in direct confrontation with other ships didn’t fly well with the captains. Better to hunt the pirates once they docked at a station somewhere.
    “Has it begun?” Brandon asked.
    Etsudo regarded the man. “What?”
    “Removing the Ragmuffins.” Brandon swallowed. “The Satraps ordered the destruction of the pirates. We’ve been keeping records and collating activity of all the ships coming out from where New Anegada used to be. We start upstream, begin working our way downstream. If they don’t allow boarding, we destroy