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At War With Space Pirates!
BACK COVER
The space industry is self sufficient, meaning that there is no more necessity for supplies to be shipped from the surface of the Earth. Centrifugal gravity is the norm for spacefarers, with ships designed to rotate by themselves or to tether together. Rotating stations in orbit of the sun or of the Earth, moon, and Mars house crews and form the backbone of interplanetary agriculture. Non-rotating stations are used as manufacturing plants, shipyards, and laboratories in space. Mars is being developed as is, with underground bunkers and tunnel systems for habitation, the surface above having photovoltaic panels to supply electricity for the cities below. The moon was the first base, having mining complexes and electromagnetic slingshots to fire materials into lunar orbit for processing facilities to utilize in zero gravity.

The outer solar system is still uninhabited, although there are a few mining bases on the edge of the inner solar system, that is, within the asteroid belt. Some asteroids which have been depleted are still useful as habitats, a type of space station, and some have low enough mass to be converted into spacecraft. Miners prefer to mine the larger asteroids, since they have more potential wealth to be obtained and require slightly more than walking to reach escape velocity. However, others are interested in the smaller asteroids for their potential for earning wealth… and not by the sale of the minerals within….

This is a story of the Interplanetary Police Force and the war with space pirates.










PROLOGUE
CERES COLONY, orbital commerce station, November 9th, 2134 AD.

“Okay I.C.F. Solitude, you are cleared to leave Ceres Commerce Station. Disengaging docking clamps now. Have a nice journey back to Phobos Station.”
“Aye aye, Ceres station, thanks. Solitude departing now.”
The Interplanetary Commerce Freighter Solitude had a few weeks of travel ahead of it, even with plasma thrusters. The intended destination was the Martian satellite Phobos which had been converted into an orbital spaceport. However, the ICF Solitude was not alone after their departure from Ceres station. What appeared to be a small asteroid was on an intercept trajectory.
“Captain, we have what may be an L.A.V. approaching”, said the First Officer.
“Alright, bring weapon systems online and prepare for evasive maneuvers. Scan the rock, and let’s see if it’s glowing”, said the Captain.
“Thermal imaging confirms heat signatures; also passive radiation scans indicate that it may use nuclear pulse propulsion.”
“Dang! They might have a few spare tactical nukes to use on us too then… Open hailing frequencies.”
“Communication channels active, sir.”
“Unknown L.A.V., this is the ICF Solitude, what is the nature of your interception of our ship? Are you in need of supplies?”
After a moment’s delay, “No, we are not in need of supplies but rather in want of your cargo. Do you wish to surrender your cargo peacefully or would you like to rest in pieces?” responded the captain of the light asteroid vehicle.
“If you insist… the cargo holds are yours”, acquiesced the Solitude’s captain.
In a few moments, the LAV sent a pair of shuttlecraft over to the freighter. The brigands unloaded the goods purchased at Ceres station and anything else that was movable. In a few trips, they had lightened the ICF Solitude of almost everything of value and then sent one final message to the freighter’s captain.
“You may have not heard it before if you weren’t into reading books, but dead men tell no tales!”
With that said, the Interplanetary Commerce Freighter momentarily became brighter than the sun before becoming darker than the depths of space.

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Chapter I: Bad News
INTERPLANETARY POLICE FORCE STATION ALPHA, Mars orbit, 20:30 hours.

“Another freighter destroyed en route from the asteroid belt, travelling a course between Ceres and Mars. The ICF Solitude detonated less than a day from their scheduled departure time”, stated the admiral to himself. Admiral Benjamin Bowditch had been reading reports like this for the better part of two months. It seemed like a coincidence at first, that freighters loaded with cargo from Ceres seemed to have accidents with their propulsion system, life support, reactor, etc. This one had, however, detonated with a heat flash indicative of a nuclear device rather than a meltdown or other convenient accident, bringing the other incidents into more consideration. Whoever these pirates were, they now were getting careless… or worse, they might actually consider it unnecessary now to make their work look accidental. Perhaps they might not have known that the use of a nuclear device would be able to be seen and recognized practically everywhere in line of sight within the solar system in a matter of a few hours… either way, it had now become apparent that ships leaving Ceres station were not safe.
Admiral Bowditch sighed, wondering how any movement of even the lightest frigate would be painted by the media… but then again they’d paint any action made or not made as the most horrible thing in the universe. Transportation of cargo needs to remain safe though, regardless of how some news anchor or another can make it look like an “imperialist aggression” or any other nonsense they might come up with. The duty of the Interplanetary Police Force is to keep space travel safe, and that is what matters.
What’s truly bothersome is the possibility of the complicity of the denizens of the Ceres station. Although it was becoming increasingly more certain that transportation of goods from Ceres orbital spaceport was unsafe, there was not yet any evidence to directly link the activity of the pirates to anyone in particular aboard the station. An investigation would need to be in order to determine if anyone there was involved and their identity, but in the meantime the cargo vessels would need to be protected.
Cargo ships were already permitted to carry armaments to defend themselves with, but they were light on armor so as to reduce the cost of fuel necessary. The Solitude had practically been armed to the teeth compared to most other cargo vessels, but the light armor and thin lead plating for protection from the comparatively minor amount of radiation from the sun at radii between the belt and Mars would not have been enough to stop the neutron bombardment from an external nuclear blast. The signature of the explosion indicated that oxygen and carbon dioxide had been superheated, implying that the detonation was from onboard the vessel. They let themselves be boarded and then were killed afterwards.
A longer term solution to encouraging commercial crews to defend themselves would be to allow for thicker armor and thicker lead plating, but, aside from that requiring so many political hoops to pass through, it would also increase the cost of goods rather immensely. Manned commerce ships designed to travel to Mercury’s orbital refinery wouldn’t be as affected since they already have rather thick lead plating anyway, but private commerce vessels designed to travel the belt or even between Earth and Mars would require a lot of added weight in lead to protect them from the radiation of nuclear devices detonated externally. The piracy starting in the asteroid belt and now apparently both able and willing to use nuclear weaponry was going to be costly to counter, whether by the fiat of a parliament requiring private commerce firms to retrofit their ships with extra lead plating and armor or by military action to directly counter the pirates. The admiral had no say over what politicians would require of businesses, but the actions of his fleets were another matter entirely.
It would still be necessary to receive approval from the parliaments to either provide individual escorts or to require travel in convoys, and that could very well take forever, but with the piracy currently centered around Ceres station it would be within guidelines to place a small fleet in guard of Ceres station. A cruiser class interceptor-fighter carrier and escort of a frigates and corvettes would be at least some measure of protection for cargo vessels. Of course, the pirates are not required by any law to remain at Ceres, but since it seems to be their current area of operation it would be best to make the pirates’ business difficult for them.
Unfortunately, thought the admiral, what may make my duty difficult to carry out is that blasted circus known as “public opinion”. Even declaring the precise reasons for any action is not enough to dissuade the news outlets from their idle speculations. Even if only a single lightly armed gunship were sent to guard the Ceres port it would be called an “occupation force” by some loony or another. Having a carrier with escort ships is probably going to be deemed some sort of “armada”… whatever though, a carrier is necessary since prior to authorization to escort civilian vessels the interceptor-fighters may be the only spacecraft able to reach the cargo ships in time. Those busybodies complain about the mere existence of military spacecraft, so I can only imagine how vitriolic they’ll get should my fleet intercept the pirates…. The trade ships need to travel in safety though, and that’s what is necessary and my duty whether it is popular or not.
“Attention all captains, briefing at 21:00 hours.”






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Chapter II: In the Den of Thieves
CERES MINING COLONY, in a tunnel network of an abandoned uranium mine.

“Do you think they’ll actually take the bait this time, it’s been over two months of pillaging ships with no attention, so why should they act now?” asked one of the cutthroats in the assembly.
“They’re going to act now because there is little room for doubt that the last ship was intentionally destroyed. The IPF isn’t willing to risk charges of the use of excessive force, so they are overly cautious. Our use of a nuclear device however is rather unmistakable to anyone who knows what spectra are emitted, but to those that don’t – such as most civilians – a story about reactor failure will fly farther and the IPF will look as though it has little or no reason to be policing this sector” said the leader of the assembly of pirates.
“Could you tell me why, again, you wanted IPF attention? We were getting by fairly well with just robbing ships and sabotaging them to make them look like an accident and we could have just continued that - perhaps indefinitely” challenged another.
To which the assembly’s leader responded, “It’s rather complex, you may not understand, but here goes the plan again: we get the IPF’s attention and bring them here to secure the commerce lanes so that it’s safe for the ships like we’ve begun to plunder. While they’re loitering here in Ceres’ space, probably waiting for the never arriving permission to escort private transports, we’ll pick fights with them using civilian vessels. The reporters will capture imagery of the IPF destroying civilian vessels and it will cause a ruckus Earthside where the parliaments who can issue orders to disband the IPF will have to take flak from their own media outlets. After the IPF is disbanded, we’ll secure Earth’s space and blast any military vessel attempting to leave the atmosphere. Then we’ll have free reign of the solar system to plunder as we like!”
“Arrrgh!! !” went the crowd.





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Chapter III: In Transit

CARRIER CRUISER IMPAVIDUS & ESCORT, en route to guard Ceres’ station.