Privateer's Commission -ch 14- (Patreon)

Ralph had his hand to his face.

Or more accurately, covering his mouth.

Turlan’s Toll was a ship-of-the-line from another time.

It just didn’t fit in with today’s military equivalents.

A standard Corvette often had a compliment of thirty missile bays. Fifteen to each “side”, given that they had a top and a bottom given they had a gravity plate.

Gunboats would scale upward to twenty to thirty a side, and were really just a bigger Corvette.

Destroyers had twenty to thirty a side as well but often had laser emplacements as well as a higher crew compliment. They were often sent out for deep space missions as they could handle their own.

Cruisers came next, both light and heavy versions of them.

The light version had thirty to forty bays and laser emplacements.

Heavy had up to fifty bays, laser, and ballistic compliments. They existed to lay out punishment on nearly anything out there.

A battleship was the only thing that could outclass them in weapon count and it went up to seventy on a side, ballistic, laser, and a number of other weapons that were often thrown on it.

Only a cruiser would be bigger than a battleship, but they didn’t quite count as they didn’t have offensive weapon installations.

Turlan’s Toll was a Ship-Of-The-Line and it fit somewhere between the Destroyers and Gunboats.

Twenty missiles to a side, multiple laser emplacements, and engines that belonged on a Cruiser. Perhaps even a Battleship, in fact.

Built for long runs with a low crew compliment, it wasn’t made to operate on patrols or stand up fights.

This ship was to get somewhere fast, get away in a direction fast, or lay in a single spot for extremely long periods of time in wait.

Then use it’s extreme armaments to threaten someone into surrender or breaching their hull and spacing them. Only to pick through the remains afterwards.

As he’d gone through the systems reports given to him, Ralph had been shocked. Everything that had been done was extensive and somewhat over-board.

Yet all of it were things that had nothing to do with the computer, the system, or the operations of the ship.

The ability to access that, and use the ship, were beyond them.

An angry, hostile, and short tempered AI was on-board the ship and responded with only a single question to any attempt to communicate, access it, or the ship.

“Where’s Turlan?” Ralph murmured, reading the inquiry the AI would ask every time.

All attempts to replace the computer, the hard-drives, or any other component, resulted in the AI coming back no sooner than things were booted up, angrier than ever.

Going so far as to have killed an engineer attempting to replace a hard drive for the seventh time with an electrical burst.

Setting the report down Ralph finally let his hand fall away from his mouth.

The grin that had been plastered across it for the last ten minutes as he read through everything now visible.

Of the defenses installed, the vast majority of them were all extreme things that would cost him more than he could ever make in his life.

This ship, his family’s ship, was a nasty monster that would cause terror across space. In this, he could actually go after a Light Cruiser and have a fifty-fifty shot at winning.

That was if it was a stand up fight.

If he did what a pirate did best, it wouldn’t even be an issue.

Walking toward the entry ramp at the rear of the ship, he found himself feeling almost at home.

The layout of it, the buttons, and even the look of it, reminded him immediately of his Smiling Siren.

I wonder if they made the Siren to compliment the Toll.

To be fair, the Siren could be used to shuttle about while leaving the Toll in space.

Though it still doesn’t feel right.

As if there should be something more.

The designation for the Toll was zero-zero-one, not three, though.

It isn’t as if there’s a missing number.

Walking up the ramp Ralph walked down a long corridor.

In the same moment he realized the layout was the same as the Siren.

The only difference was a stairwell that led to a lower deck.

Likely another deck below that as well to access the second layer of missiles and systems.

Up here on the top deck though, it was a mirror of the Siren.

“Yeah, this is obvious now,” he muttered to himself as he walked toward the cockpit.

Though he did stop halfway along the hall.

There were a number of bedrooms here that were certainly crew quarters.

As well as a larger living room and a gymnasium type of room as well.

While similar, there were certainly distinct differences.

Reaching the cockpit, Ralph flung himself down into it.

Looking at the layout of the dash, he couldn’t recognize any of it. Everything had been updated, overhauled, and rebuilt in the newest fashion and tech.

Really, it might as well have been made out of tree-bark and would require him to read tree-rings to understand it.

“Well, Ralph Turlan is here,” Ralph remarked, leaned back in the captain’s chair, and stuck his boots out in front of himself. “Current owner of the Silent Siren and last living member of the family.

“My Uncle fucked it all up and my dad died young. Who’re you? How can I address you?”

Given what he’d read about the AI, it was most certainly all throughout the ship.

Watching him.

Listening.

“You are the Turlan?” asked a strange robotic voice.

“I mean, I’m probably the last one,” Ralph answered with a shrug of his shoulders. He put his hands behind his head and got comfortable.

The chair smelt brand new and the lumbar support was as stiff as it would ever be. This was the peak of how comfortable it’d be.

“Not sure how you’re gonna tell or anything,” Ralph concluded, sighed, and closed his eyes. Easing into the chair.

The back and forth contract negotiation with the Calesat had gone well but it’d taken some time.

Hours.

He was tired and mentally worn out, but he’d gotten everything he wanted out of it. The right pay, the right shares, and the right salvage.

All he had to do was destroy ships from the Blood of Vanah and anyone supporting them in the war effort.

Going to need some crew though.

A few people, at least.

Especially someone who can handle the armaments.

There’s no way I can keep all this running myself.

I need to figure out where Xas went. See if he can hire me people to handle it all.

“I’ve successfully reintegrated with the Smiling Siren,” reported the AI. “I’ve confirmed that you are indeed the last successor of the Turlan.

“Transferring all command as well as access to you. Shifting Programming from defensive hostile, to defensive passive.

“All settings transferred and updated. All information successfully transferred.

“The Toll is ready to be taken.”

Ralph cracked open an eye and glanced down to the monitor in front of him.

It’d opened up in the exact same way it always did on the Siren.

Even the “dark mode” scheme that he’d downloaded and installed.

“Well, well, “Ralph said to himself and leaned forward, tapping at the screen. “Alright. What’s your name, then?”

There was a crackled response that sounded like words spoken through noise and static.

“Uh… pretty sure I can’t pronounce that. You got a human name I could use with my very not so limber tongue?” asked Ralph as he quickly tapped through multiple screens and systems.

In not much under twenty minutes he’d already familiarized himself with the entirety of the Toll.

Because it was identical to the Siren.

Even the weapons load-out and the communications array had moved to his customized preferences.

There had been other screens and other settings to go through since it was all brand new, but nothing truly out of the ordinary either.

However, the AI never did respond at all to his second inquiry. Or repeated inquires after that.

“Alright. Sounds like I need to hire a tech-deck worker,” Ralph mumbled, then sighed. “I guess it isn’t surprising considering how much you went through to keep the ship from becoming owned by another.”

“Ralph?” called Marionette distantly.

“In here,” Ralph called back over his shoulder, not taking his eyes away from the monitor.

Moving away from the systems now that he felt there wasn’t any issues, he went into the logs.

Navigating to the communications, he found that it was wiped out completely.

In fact, every log was blank.

There was no manifest, no charts, no communications, no shipping-manifests.

“It’s only missing that new car smell I guess,” he growled and stabbed a finger at the screen. Shifting it back out to the previous system. He tapped at it several more times and got to the communications screen.

“Oh goodness. It feels like we made the Siren bigger,” Marionette purred, coming up behind him.

Glancing over his shoulder, he saw she was dressed in her every day clothes.

After dinner she’d returned to the Siren while he negotiated their contract. Likely to finish that maintenance she’d mentioned.

“Right?” Ralph replied with a laugh. “There’s other decks though that’ll have to be explored. Pretty sure one is an entire weapons deck though.”

“As well as a medical bay, storage, and a communal laundry above an engine. The rest is indeed weapons,” Marionette advised. “The Siren received a number of communications from the Toll. There was a camera system that I couldn’t access but there was a map that was available.

“It’ll be nice to not do the laundry in the sink and hang it in the shower anymore. Though please make sure the camera which is likely in our bedroom is turned off.

“I really would prefer our bedroom activities not be made into home-movies.”

Ralph laughed at that, turned his chair around, and faced Marionette head on.

She was currently leaning over the co-pilot seat and looking at the monitors.

Between the pilot seat and the co-pilot seat was the gunner’s seat.

“Ooh, it brought over the preferences I have for my seat,” she said and laughed, clapping her hands together excitedly. No sooner than she finished she sighed however and looked to Ralph. “Perhaps not my seat, though. Eun seems as if she wants very much to be involved.

“And that doesn’t even… well… we’ll have to hire a crew for this, won’t we? This is too much for just you, my dear Captain. You’re an amazing man but the Toll needs more than three hands, because I’m not truly a crew-mate.”

“You are most certainly a crew-mate, Lady Siren. My crew-mate,” Ralph argued. “But you’re not wrong in saying we need to hire people.

“We’ll need a ship’s engineer, a doc, a gunner, armorer, and a pilot. I can fill in for the gunner or pilot, but not the other at the same time.

“On top of that… well… we’ll probably need a few people who know how to handle a weapon. Soldier types.”

“The map said the crew-capacity was twenty, though it looked like we’d have to bunk up the crew quarters to make that happen,” Marionette offered up, her head slowly tilting to one side and causing her hair to slide a bit to one side.

As ever, she was beautiful.

“Twenty… alright. I assume the captain’s quarters was counted in that number?” Ralph asked to which Marionette nodded. “That means we need to pick up essentials first and make sure they’re satisfied.

“Assuming that I’m the pilot, that leaves doc, gunner, armorer, and the engineer position to be filled. After that we need those soldiers.

“Realistically I’ll just be trying to hire people who can do dual duty with someone else but also can be a boarder.

“Having boarders for the sake of boarders is… well… they take up space unless things go wrong. Especially as a Privateer.”

“Yes! Yes, that makes sense,” Marionette agreed.

She clicked her tongue, grinned, then sauntered over to him. Sitting down in his lap she leaned up against him and put her arm around his shoulders. Her right hand slid into his hair and then tilted his head till it landed in her chest.

“Before you ask, in the stories, it was always a big ship. With a lot of faceless extras in the background. I had a lot of friends who played those roles,” admitted Marionette with a chuckle.

“I mean, there’s been one thing so far true about those stories,” Ralph argued, unable to look Marionette in the eye since she had wrapped an arm around his head now.

“Oh?”

“The Captain has a beautiful ships-mistress, beautiful enough that he has to send people to black-space.”

Marionette laughed at that, kissed the top of his head, then let out a throaty satisfied noise.

“I think you need to give me a tour,” she said in a husky voice. “How’s our bed? Would you help me test it out?”

***

Leading Marionette along an outdoor mall’s walking path, arm in arm, Ralph felt somewhat odd.

He had never felt comfortable here on the Blood of Calesat’s home planet.

Let alone the capital of the world.

Despite being a citizen of the Blood, he was not of the Blood.

A citizenship extended to him through the efforts of another.

This was all the more obvious when just about every single person turned to look at him and Marionette as they walked along.

Which wasn’t surprising.

There weren’t many that didn’t look exactly like the Blood of Calesat here.

“Oh!” Marionette said and quickly pulled Ralph off to look through a store-glass window. “Look! It’s beautiful! My goodness… but… I could never fit into that. Could I?”

“I’m afraid not, my dear Lady. Not unless we poured you into it,” Ralph countered with a small nod of his head. Most of the clothes on Calesat weren’t designed to fit a build like Marionette’s.

“It’s fine, it’s fine. I’m sure you’ll buy me something similar soon,” Marionette said with a nod of her head. “Because you’re a very smart captain and I’ve already noticed you taking notes on my clothes, sizes, and things I like.”

Errr… I didn’t close that text file I was writing everything down in, did I?

Damn.

I can’t give her crap for leaving tabs open anymore can I.

“So good of you to notice I love Lunar leggings, by the way,” Marionette teased and then dragged him back into the walking path once more. “Now… you said we were looking for a house with… ah… I forget how you said it, but the word you showed me looked like that.

“Does that mean we turn there?”

Marionette had asked the last while pointing at a street sign.

Ralph saw it was the correct street.

“Indeed,” he mumbled.

Turning off the shopping plaza’s walk-ways they passed into a street with sidewalks on each side. There were houses that lined it as well.

Houses that looked better than many but not massive either.

Clearly they were all of upper middle class.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Marionette tried cheerfully. “He wouldn’t have done as much for you as he did if he didn’t care.”

Ralph nodded his head woodenly.

While they were doing final preparations on the Toll, a message had come in.

The very man who had saved Ralph from a dead-end, getting him off a planet where he would have died a miserable death, had reached out to him.

A man that Ralph hadn’t spoken with in many years.

After receiving his inheritance, Ralph had put his nose to the grindstone and done little other than work.

He had sent a few messages off but he had never gotten response, nor had he ever followed up on them.

Realistically, part of Ralph didn’t want to deal with his past.

His mistakes and what people had to pay for them.

A number of women had told him he had been running most of his life and it seemed like maybe he should settle down a bit.

Which of course prompted him to run.

“Ralph, it’ll be fine. If it isn’t, well, we’ll just go,” asserted Marionette soothingly. “Ah, if the first house was one on the left, than this should be twenty-three. Unless it’s numbered weird.

“Which, you know what, it’s always numbered weird back in Gin. I don’t know why I thought it’d start at one.”

Ralph looked to the house Marionette had indicated.

“Actually, it is the right house. They started with four-thousand and one, rather than one, but hey, still right,” confirmed Ralph. “If you’ve got luck on your side, always best to use it to your gains.”

Turning, he led Marionette up the walkway that led to the front door.

There were high fences along the sides of the house and there was a camera directly over the front door. Ralph had noted it and wouldn’t have been surprised if there were more cameras along the side and behind the house.

“I always thought I wasn’t very lucky,” Marionette murmured, turning to look at him.

“Guess you could see being forced to become a ships-mistress just to escape as being pretty unlucky, actually,” Ralph admitted as they stopped in front of the door.

“Oh, no, no, I consider that lucky. All things considered, what could’ve happened was much worse to me,” Marionette countered, laughed, then hit the doorbell before Ralph could turn and run.

Surprisingly, he had actually thought about it.

“You’re the turning point for me,” Marionette whispered, her arm tightening in his. “Up to this, I’ve just been living off my talents and assets. You were the first real lucky twist.

“Which means… you’re right. I should try to foster my luck.”

Ralph snorted at that and glanced to his side.

Marionette was grinning ear to ear.

She herself knew what she said was silly.

Luck was luck because you couldn’t do anything about it.

The door jerked open and standing there in the doorway wasn’t someone Ralph expected.

“Ah… Hae,” Ralph breathed, feeling frustrated already. The last meeting he’d had with her had been awkward as could be.

There’d been no confusing the fact that she had a bad case of puppy love for him. Except he could only ever see her as his saviors grand-daughter and little else.

Ralph had no feelings for her other than that of a distant relative.

The young girl was gone though and a young woman stood before him, though he wasn’t sure if she’d be old enough to drink on a Confed planet.

Hair that was bordering on a light-brown that stood out, and pale brown eyes. She was attractive but less so than Eun.

That or Ralph still didn’t see her as a woman, which was pretty likely.

“He’s expecting you. In living room,” Hae murmured in slightly accented Confed after her eyes went to Marionette. She was clearly speaking in Confed for Marionette’s benefit. Then Hae smiled slightly. “Sorry. My Confed bad.”

“Better than my Calesat!” Marionette blurted out quickly, offering a smile. Then her mouth screwed sideways and she looked frustrated.

“Hello,” Marionette finally got out in Calesat. “Thank you, seeing us.”

Hae’s smile became genuine at that and she nodded her head rapidly.

“Ahhh, yes. You wish to learn! Learning is good!” she said in her own language, then reached out and took Marionette by the arm and pulled her inside.

“Good, yes. Good. Smart. Pretty,” Hae said in Confed.

Ralph trailing along behind, not really wanting to go meet Park.

Park Gae was a Warrior just as Eun was.

A physical one that lived by the strength of his arms and what he could attain through combat prowress.

Or at least, till he’d lost part of his left arm saving Ralph from himself.