“We’ll send your handcuffs back across as soon as we get these… people properly brigged, Captain,” the Andy oberleutnantder Sterne in charge of the Marine detail promised him.

“I appreciate that, Oberleutnant.” Bachfisch’s tenor voice was just a bit on the nasal side, and its clipped Manticoran enunciation contrasted sharply with the Andermani officer’s harsher accent.

“Believe me, Sir, the pleasure is all ours.” The oberleutnant finished his count as the last prisoner marched droopingly past him. “I make that thirty-seven, Kapitän,” he announced, and Bachfisch nodded.

The oberleutnant punched an entry into his memo board, then shook his head and gave the blue-coated man beside him a much more admiring look than naval officers were wont to waste on mere merchant captains.

“I hope you’ll pardon me for asking, Kapitän,” he said with a marked air of diffidence, “but just how did you manage to capture them?” Bachfisch cocked his head at him, and the oberleutnant shook his own head quickly. “That may not have sounded exactly the way I meant it, Sir. It’s just that, usually, pirates are more likely to capture merchant crews than the other way around. It’s always a pleasant surprise when someone manages to turn the tables on them, instead. And I have to admit that when the Kapitän told me to come across and take them off your hands I did a little research. This isn’t the first time you’ve handed us a batch of pirates.”

Bachfisch regarded the youthful officer, the equivalent of an RMN lieutenant (junior grade), thoughtfully for a moment. He’d already transmitted his complete report to Todfeind’s captain, and the cruiser’s legal officer had taken sworn statements from all of his officers and most of his senior ratings. That was SOP here in the Confederacy, where witnesses to acts of piracy were frequently unable to attend the eventual trials of the pirates in question. But it was obvious from the oberleutnant’s earnest expression that his seniors hadn’t chosen to share that information with him… and that curiosity was eating him alive.

“I prefer handing any batch of pirates over to you rather than to the Sillies,” Bachfisch said after a moment. “At least when I hand them over to the Empire, I can be reasonably certain I won’t be seeing them again. They know it, too. They were an unhappy lot when I told them who’d be taking them into custody from us.”

“As to how we came to turn the tables on them…” He shrugged. “The Bane may not look it, Oberleutnant, but she’s as heavily armed as a lot of heavy cruisers. Most merchies can’t afford the tonnage penalty and structural modifications to mount a worthwhile armament, but the Bane isn’t like most merchies.” He chuckled dryly. “As a matter of fact, she started life as a Vogel-class armed collier for your own Navy something like seventy T-years ago. I picked her up cheap when she was finally listed for disposal about ten T-years ago because her inertial compensator was pretty much shot. Aside from that, she was in fairly good shape, though, so it wasn’t too hard to get her back on-line. I replaced and updated her original armament at the same time, and I put a good bit of thought into how to camouflage the weapon ports while I was at it.” Another shrug. “So most pirates don’t have a clue that the ‘helpless merchant ship’ they’re about to close with and board is actually several times as heavily armed as they are.”