Free Poor Man's Fight by Elliott Kay Page A

the freighters and the like that are hit by pirates simply don’t see them coming in time and can’t run away fast enough once they do,” Yeoh explained. “In this case, though, the pirates apparently put up a good disguise as a derelict ship. Legally, Aphrodite was obligated to go investigate. By the time she recognized the danger it was too late. She couldn’t get away.
    “From what the survivors and the lifeboat sensors gathered before the pirates jumped away, this was done with a single ship. She’s most likely a second-generation Centurion-class destroyer, which makes her old but easily upgraded. The construction fundamentals on those ships were excellent. She could be a hundred years old and would still stand up well to the destroyers we have today.”
    “How do pirates get a ship like that?”
    Yeoh shrugged. “I could come up with plausible explanations all day long. She could have been part of any number of system navies or corporate security forces. She could’ve been purchased as surplus last year or maybe her crew mutinied decades ago. But someone has put in enough money to modernize her.”
    “So what are our prospects for running these bastards down?”
    “At the moment, not good,” Yeoh admitted. “They could be operating out of the other side of Union space, or even the far side of Krokinthian territory for all we know.”
    Aguirre turned his attention to Kiribati, wordlessly repeating his question. The spymaster also shrugged. “We’ll try to follow up on the ransom transaction and hostage handover, but I don’t know how far that’ll get us. NorthStar will play it very tight because they won’t want to jeopardize their ability to cut such deals in the future. If Aphrodite turns up on the surplus market, we’ll have a lead, but that could be months down the road.
    “Our best bet is to keep our eyes and ears open and hope that one or more of the crew does something stupid with his share of the loot or gets too drunk and brags too much in the right place.”
    “Aren’t you the one who’s saying that the galaxy is too big to watch everywhere at once?” Aguirre snorted. He tapped the table lightly. “Is that it for the bad news?” Yeoh and Kiribati glanced at one another. Aguirre groaned again. “What?”
    “The Kingdom of Hashem—“ Kiribati began.
    “Oh, Christ…”
    “—has lodged demands through diplomatic and military channels that Archangel enhance security facing the Hashemite frontier. They asked whether or not we plan to provide compensation for their subjects lost amid the passengers of the Aphrodite , which, given that her point of origin was in Hashemite space, made up a considerable portion of those missing and dead.”
    “Are they serious?” Aguirre fumed. It was a rhetorical question, of course—the Kingdom was always serious—but his exasperation was sincere. “Their ‘frontier’ is twice the size of ours and their navy outmatches us four to one.”
    “Three point five, sir,” Admiral Yeoh corrected quietly.
    “Still. This is ridiculous. If anyone should be responsible for preventing violence on the Kingdom’s frontier, it should be them, not us.”
    “They have stated that they intend to shift their fleet’s strength toward us, but that we should not see this as an act of war.”
    “Is this what you were handling while I was giving that speech just now? Why didn’t anyone tell me this before?” Aguirre tapped his fingers on the table. “That’s just what we need. The Hashemites deciding it’s time for our once-every-century shooting wars again. Is that everything?”
    “At the moment, yes, sir,” Yeoh said. Kiribati concurred with a nod.
    Aguirre looked around at the other ministers and advisors present. “I want to talk about the long term. Does anyone have anything else they need covered before we can move on?”
    Andrea sat up straighter. “Admiral, I got a question at the media briefing about children among the dead. Do you have anything