The Pirate-Chasers
an excerpt

(Sadly, this is the first really interesting part of my novel, and it comes in well after the 20k mark. Commander Q only goes by Commander Q because he doesn't have a name yet.)
-------------------
Commander Q was waiting for them as they entered the briefing room, but this time they were the first ones.
“Eager to get started, are you?”
“Yes, sir!” Channer responded.
“Good.” The commander spread out his papers and data pads on the table, and gave a stack of papers to Daya. “Pass these out, Elzak, one to a seat. The rest will get here soon enough.”
Daya took the papers and passed them around the table. Channer picked his up and started reading immediately. The heading was Operating Procedures and Protocols, so Daya assumed that would be the topic of the meeting.
Commander Q saw him reading. “Don’t get too worried,” he said. “This is pretty much the same old stuff, just about our chain of command and how we’ll be operating alongside the regular scout and rescue teams. Mostly what you’d already expect. But of course they have to spell it out all nice and neat on paper. These are for your information, and of course you’ll have the data uploaded to your pads and terminals as well. Redundancy, that’s the key.” He smiled. “Mostly we’ll be going over assignments and schedules today.”
The other teams came in one by one, showing the same excitement as Daya’s team. The new ships, the new crews, the new assignments … it was all very exciting to them. They were really going to have a chance to make a difference.
“All here? Good.” The commander sat down at the head of the table. “Let’s get down to business. We’ll have six teams, and we’ll rotate who goes out on what day. You’ll be out for a couple days at a time. We’re going to divide the region into smaller sectors using this plan,” he unrolled a large map on the table as he spoke, “and search it bit by bit.” Daya and a couple of the others grabbed the corners to hold the map open as the commander pointed to different areas. “We’re looking for evidence of current or abandoned bases that the pirates might be using … these asteroid belts and worthless moons might have something, for example. We’re looking for possible overlooked resources that might explain where the pirates are getting their stuff from. They can’t be stealing all their food, so they must have a source. A planet we missed? A supplier that trades them food for ore? They’ve got something.” He gestured along the trade routes on the map.” We’ll be studying the locations of prior pirate attacks on the trade routes, to see if there’s any strategic importance to the locations or if it was random.”
“That’s an awful lot for us to cover,” said one of the other lieutenants dubiously.
“Yes, it is,” agreed the commander. “It will take time. We’ll have help, though. Obviously our regular scout and rescue and fighter ships are looking for these same things already. The Exploration Commission’s ships check for resources already. We’ll be duplicating some work. But we want to make sure nothing was missed. To aid in that work, all files relating to any pirate activity whatsoever will be sent to this office.”
One of the officers groaned.
“We’ll take it in turns to review the data and file it away in our own database. We’ll be looking for patterns in locations, in items stolen, damage inflicted, times, anything that might give us a clue. We’ll try to piece together the ship descriptions and see if we can’t tighten up the searches at the further ports of call. Some of those places don’t check ship IDs and manifests as well as they might.” He grimaced, and Daya felt sorry for whichever Patrol outposts would be coming under his scrutiny.
“In short, we’re declaring war on the pirates. And we intend to win.”
He studied each of the officers in turn.
“You, my fine recruits, are our first official Pirate-Chasers.”