Entrapment

Sidar and Sodar were unique planets because of their proximity.

They were far enough away to occupy properly separate orbits around Mummar, but they were still closer than any other pair of planets in the known cosmos. Despite orbiting the star at different distances, their orbital periods were nearly identical, just barely an hour apart.

For the next eight-hundred years or so, the two planets would remain close enough together to enable some unique orbital mechanics.

With careful math, ships flying to or from Lakandt or Mogh could bend their trajectories more or less however they wanted by dipping into one or both planets’ orbits.

Consequently, Sidar and Sodar saw a lot of traffic.

The two planets might have been on the smaller side, but they were still two entire planets.

So I hadn’t actually expected there to be just ‘one’ person to talk to.

Detective Loen Pin-Mun-Bar was the Adept heading the effort to hunt down the perpetrators of almost a dozen pirate raids on Sidar ports.

“We try to track groups like this,” Loen explained, “and we had this one on the run a few months ago—no traffic from Shirao really made it easy to keep track of their movements—but for the last three months, they’ve been invisible. I can’t explain it. They aren't contacting the few known associates we have eyes on, so if you have some brilliant insights, Captain, I’m more than prepared to hear them.”

“Not yet I don’t,” Serral said, “but this will be more about acquiring information than acting on it. Actually repelling an attack will be a formality so long as we know it’s coming.”

“I admire your optimism,” the detective said, “but these pirates are a different breed from anything I’ve seen. They don’t field any Adepts, and still haven’t hesitated to scrap in the few occasions we’ve come across them.”

“See those two?” Serral asked, nodding toward me and Nai.

“The sharp looking gal and your First Contact,” Loen nodded. “They’re your Adepts?”

“That’s the Warlock, and the Human won single-handed against three Red Sails headliners.”

Even from across the room, the detective’s surprise was obvious.

I grinned.

Nai and Nerin both rolled their eyes in a synchronized expression that only sisters could wear.

Nerin snorted.

I said.

Nai said.

She nudged me to pay attention because Serral and the detective were walking over.

“Warlock,” the detective said, offering Nai a handshake. She returned the gesture, clasping his wrist.

Nai didn’t visibly react to her epithet, but I still sensed a flicker in her mind. Annoyance maybe? It didn’t last long though. She was used to hearing it.

“When these pirates have attacked, they’ve come armed to the teeth,” Loen said. “I know you’re, well, you , but I’d rather hear it firsthand that rifles firing armor-piercing or high-explosive rounds aren’t going to be a problem.”

“Even Caleb could handle those,” Nai said, indicating me.

“Really?”

“Caleb Hane,” I introduced myself, “and no, not really.

Loen clasped my wrist and I found myself matching the action on reflex. Nai’s instincts kept sneaking up on me. I’d figured out the superconnector enough to prevent or control further bleedthrough, but whatever had already been shared between us wasn’t going anywhere.

Still, it was unnerving for it to crop up meeting new people like this.

“Captain Serralinitus said—” Loen began.

“There were some unique circumstances in that fight,” I said. “I’m skilled, but credit goes to Nai. She made it possible.”

“…I can’t tell if you’re just being humble or not,” the detective said.

“I’m a weird new alien,” I reassured him, “no one else can tell either.”

“Including yourself,” Nerin jabbed.

“Ouch,” I frowned. “What are you even doing here? You’re a medic. This is a pirate investigation.”

“Ouch,” Nerin replied, equally offended. “I didn’t realize I needed the excuse.”

“I won’t turn down help,” Loen said, “especially from the Coalition. I’ve been trying to get some aid from the system navy…”

The detective trailed off conspicuously.

“…But…?” Nerin prompted, a bit tactlessly.

We’d met Detective Loen in the headquarters his task force was operating out of. It was part of the Port Authority office for the colony we’d diverted to. It wasn’t quite as busy as the port we’d nearly been detained at, but there were still people busying about everywhere we could see.

I told Nerin.

“How about you come check out our ship?” Nai suggested. “We have some unique technology and Adeptry that could be useful.”

That was good. If there was something Loen didn’t want to be overheard, the Jack was safe.

“And all we have to do in return is share information about these pirates?” Loen asked.

Nai nodded.

“Lead the way,” he agreed.

Nerin said while we walked.

I said.

·····

That was exactly what the detective confirmed once we were away from all the personnel around him.

Back at the Jack we finished briefing ourselves.

“They’ve hit five times across Sidar,” Loen said. “Every time they’ve gotten away without leaving anyone behind or leaving any clues to their identities. Once or twice I could understand, but after the third time, yes, the possibility of a leak was undeniable.”

“It sounds like looking into that didn’t yield anything though,” Nai observed.

“It didn’t,” Loen agreed. “The last two shipments they struck, we used almost a dozen decoys. Only I and one other investigator knew where the goods were. Even the crews moving the containers didn’t know. It didn’t matter.”

“What size of forces do they field?” Nai asked.

“I honestly can’t say,” Loen said. “The swiftest attacks have been with only four or six Casti, but for the most recent they assaulted and stole the whole ship we were loading the cargo onto. They swept onto the launch pad with several dozen Casti, all armed with military-grade ordnance.”

“They’re that well equipped and the navy still hasn’t gotten involved?” Nai asked.

“They sent me a liaison officer, but it wasn’t hard to confirm they aren’t actually using military equipment, just arms of similar quality,” the detective said. “But really, you are who the military sent me. A Vice-Admiral messaged me this morning that I could expect support later today, and here you are.”

“Did the Vice-Admiral say anything specific?” Nai asked.

“Well he didn’t tell me we’d be getting the Warlock,” the detective snorted.

“What are the pirates actually taking?” I asked. “Is there a pattern to their targets?”

“Yes, complex organics,” Loen said. “We’ve actually become very good at predicting what they’ll attack next, just not when. They don’t attack every shipment, see? After the first two attacks, we got the Organic Authority involved in case they’re trying to make a bioweapon.”

“Is that a strong likelihood?” Nai asked.

“I can’t say,” Loen said grimly. “I’ve been a criminal investigator for forty years, and I can honestly tell you I’ve never seen anything like this in all that time. Normally with a group this organized, using equipment like this, there’s traces of who they are. Training like this doesn’t just show up everywhere, neither does the equipment. But these pirates? They seem to have come from nowhere. A group this size should be leaving some kind of trace, but I don’t have any clues to the group’s origin.”

“What about the hardware?” Tasser asked. “Adept-made, or conventionally manufactured?”

“We thought the latter for a while, but the slugs we collected as evidence dematerialized after a few weeks unexpectedly. That threw us for a loop.”

“Why was it that shocking?” he followed.

“They’re anti-Adept supremacists—at least they wear one of the patches known well for that. We were surprised they would be willing to use Adept-made gear.” Loen said. “Given that, we’re positive they’re connected to groups operating out of the Cammo-Caddo jungles, but without more information there’s no telling exactly who.”

“And by ‘anti-Adept’, I assume you mean Casti supremacists?” Tasser asked.

“Well we haven’t exactly been trading correspondence,” the detective said. “But, yes. When they’ve attacked, they’ve only used heavy weaponry and exceptional coordination, but no actual Adepts.”

“If you haven’t communicated, how do you know they’re even anti-Adept supremacists?” I asked.

“Their armor is emblazoned with a rather well-known symbol, and they went out of their way to kill Adept security,” Loen said. “Even when confronted with armed Casti opposition, they focused on escape. But when Adepts confronted them, the attackers used high-explosive munitions to overwhelm them before the Adeptry could matter.”

“And you have no idea where anti-Adept supremacists might be acquiring Adept hardware?” Nai asked.

Her tone betrayed something to Loen, and his eyes narrowed.

“…Do you?” he asked.

Nai spared me a glance, and I psionically gave a nod.

“We’re tracking these pirates because they might be associated with some alien abductees,” she explained. “Given what you’ve laid out, it’s possible these pirates could be holding them prisoner and coercing Adept weapons from them. Or they might be in contact with the ones who are.”

Loen’s eyes shifted to me, and I got the overwhelming impression that this Farnata thought just as quickly as he talked.

I could practically see a dozen different ideas go through his head in a second.

“…The First Contact mess in Shirao…I see…” he said. “But if you came here trying to track those abductees…you don’t have another way of locating them. We can’t use the abductees to locate the pirates because you’re only here to do the reverse.”

“That’s about right,” Tasser clicked.

“If it makes you feel any better though,” I said, “I’m pretty sure I can guess how your pirates have been getting the better of you.”

Loen gave me a curious gaze.

“Have you heard the word ‘psionics’ in the last few months?” I asked.

“Oh?”

·····

It seemed like there would be more to it, but with the Jack having its information, all that was left was to wait for the pirates to actually attack.

Loen’s crew had already done the legwork identifying the next port with the pirate’s chosen booty. It was why we’d been rerouted to this particular port in the first place.

Spaceports looked a lot like shipping ports back on Earth. Corrugated metal containers were stacked in huge rows spanning several square miles. Huge mechanized cranes moved all of the larger containers.

Anything smaller would be loaded onto ships by hand by dockworkers or the crew.

There was an organization to the port based on how soon the cargo would need to be moved to a ship, as well as how far away that ship would be.

The actual construction of the hangars was modular. The whole dock was several square miles of modular tarmac on two layers. Each square of surface was massive—hundreds of feet to a side. Most of them fit together to make the flat surface for the container storage and holding.

But any of those squares could be collapsed to make a lower level that could function as a landing pad and have hangars erected around or over them. They could be reraised just as quickly with massive hydraulics the size of redwoods.

Watching the spaceport over the next few days was mesmerizing. Any given section might be rebuilt or converted from container space to launch-pad to hangar back to container space. I’d gotten hints of this same kind of design back on Lakandt, but this was my first time truly getting to appreciate it in action.

With how many planets there were…ports moved so much cargo that expressing it in ‘tons’ actually felt inadequate.

There were so, so many people on any given planet…

I was beginning to see how a crew of dozens of armed Casti could just melt away after attacking.

For three days the whole dock operated without incident, and we just watched quietly. There weren’t too many quirks to our plan, so it was simple to execute. The downside being we had absolutely no way of knowing the timing of any of it in advance.

So Nai and I stayed ‘on call’, so to speak, waiting for the moment.

Tasser, Nerin, and Shinshay took turns keeping watch with us while one or both of us slept on the roof of the dock’s primary administrative building.

Nai and I were going back and forth in our hundredth game of huru to pass the time and keep us focused. But parallel to our game, we were psionically checking in with the rest of the crew, Loen, and the other Port Authority preparations.

Nerin asked.

Serralinitus confirmed.

“” Nai wondered. “"

she muttered.

“” I added. “”

Serral replied.

I asked.

Serral said.

“” Nai said next to me. “”

No, they were right entirely. The abductees and the pirates holding them demanded our full attention.

Best not to split one’s attention when waiting for a trap to be sprung.

Not knowing when the pirates would attack just meant we had to be ready for whenever they did decide to show up. We watched two shipments a day leave Sidar’s surface without incident. I got the feeling that might actually be a calculated move on the pirates’ part.

If they tried to attack too often, then shipments altogether would stop. Was that the case planet-wide? I couldn’t be sure. But so long as it was still viable for enough shipments to make it past them, those shipments would continue.

The commercial shipping and piracy equivalent of sustainable hunting…

But Detective Loen insisted it was only a matter of time.

And what do you know? He was right.

“” I reported. “”

I materialized another set of lenses in my binoculars to zoom closer, and Nai focused her attention there too.

Serral sent us.

“And you Caleb, just plain stay on the rooftop,” Tasser added next to us.

“Yeah, yeah, I got it,” I said, rolling my eyes.

"How’d you notice them?” Nai asked under her breath. “I can’t even sense them. That’s outside the radar’s range.”

“I was watching there already, trying to predict their approach,” I said.

“Did you just get lucky?”

“Southeast has the most container space and fewest hangars and launch pads,” I said. “In other words it has the sparsest personnel, and least frequent foot patrols. One of the biggest tactical advantages of psionics is that they make it easy to keep allies apprised of each other’s positions as well as enemy positions and your surroundings. Approaching from the southeast exploits those advantages the most…at least I think.”

“That’s more ordinary than I was expecting,” Nai admitted.

She was right. Even without psionics, that approach would have been stealthiest. But the real psionic advantage was enabling the whole group to know where the patrols were at any given time. Without psionics, they would just be who-knows-how-many thugs sneaking into a place. The more people they brought, the harder it would be to coordinate and go undetected. But even rudimentary psionics could let a large group operate tightly enough to go unseen by thinner patrols.

It was, perhaps, a rather ironic advantage. Everyone would admit tactical shooter video games didn’t accurately replicate real combat scenarios. Real life didn’t have a mini-map, or ammo counts, or any of the other quality-of-life features that made video games fun as opposed to frustrating.

But a great number of those features could be replicated or approximated with psionics. And so certain tactics might resemble those of video-games, not by virtue of the games ever being realistic, but because realism had caught up to the games’ bells and whistles.

“Covering that much ground would seem like a risk, wouldn’t it?” Nai said. “The north and west approaches require half the distance and only a few more people to…avoid…”

She trailed off because she’d made the same conclusion as me. If they were coming from a direction that advantaged a large group trying to move stealthily, and they were moving stealthily…

They were probably bringing a large group.

“” Nai sent out. Below us throughout the spaceport, dozens of Casti soldiers and Port Authority agents rustled into action. Nai was looking at a slightly different spot than I was, and she frowned. “”

I dialed back my binoculars and saw she was right. Across the stretching rows of containers, there was a faint glow where a torch seemed to be in use.

Serral realized.

“” Nai realized. “”

I smiled. Sighting the pirates for real was actually less stressful than waiting for them hours on end.

“Clever or not, their luck’s run out,” I said. “Ready to go to war?”

“I am,” Nai nodded. “But you aren’t.”

“It would be bad form for diplomats to participate in law enforcement operations,” Tasser agreed.

‘Participate’.

Hah. I could drive a truck through that loophole.

“Coalescence practically makes that null, just saying,” I said.

“No, he’s right. I’m going,” Nai said. “You just hang back, provide information, and support from a safe distance.”

“Oh, you know I’ll be along for the ride,” I said, bumping her fist. “But sure, it’s all you…”

The link between our minds roared to life once again, and the two of us Coalesced into a single mind.

They wouldn’t stand a chance.