Ships at sublight velocity within a star system are more vulnerable but may be much nearer help. Ships slowing down for orbit are ideal targets. With landfall looming before them, a crew will not necessarily be watching behind them, and a pirate may close to boarding range before it is detected. With drives already shut down and without maneuvering room, a ship becomes easy plucking.

A pirate never wishes to exchange fire, which tends to eat hull sheathing and damages valuable cargo. The best tactic is to appear suddenly, close and bristling with guns, to intimidate the victim. Out in space, this means either to sneak up from the stern or to make an oblique and rapid approach with weapons charged and shields up in front of an intended victim-much scarier, but also much harder to do.

Near a planet, an armed approach or the sudden display of a ship's weapons may be counterproductive, especially if there are planetside, orbital, or warship defenses close at hand. Then, the best approach is unnoticed and unannounced, or a deception to allow the pirate within beaming range of the victim. As soon as possible, a team must transport aboard the targeted ship to cut off the shields, permitting a much larger force to board swiftly and overpower the crew.

Tactics at close range are highly inventive and unpredictable. If a victim puts up shields before a boarding party is away, then a pirate must decide whether to break off, announce his intention and open fire, or just open fire without further ado. At low speeds, ramming might not only upset and unnerve the victim, but also may damage the shield mechanisms, permitting beam-in.

However, once the ship is approached and boarded, disengagement poses an often overlooked problem. A cowed crew need not stay cowed once the pirates are gone, and pirates are as vulnerable as anyone else to fire up the stern. First and foremost, communications should be smashed as completely as possible to prevent the crew from alerting the authorities. Weapons should be disabled by destroying the fire control computer, but remember that many ships mount weapons that have independent fire control. A comon mistake many pirates make is to shatter the defensive shield mechanism and let the fear of a reprisal shot forestall their firing weapons. Such tactics are just not effective. Trashing the shields or any other large and complicated mechanism takes too long and produces too many technical problems. Smashing bridge navigational displays, however, takes little time or effort, yet paralyzes a vessel and hinders their reporting the pirates true position.

Pirates escape in open space by leaving in a random directin to prevent giving away a critical bearing. Evasive actions are not necessary, unless pursuit is already within sensor range. Near a planet, the options are not as open. There is alway sthe possibility of putting the planet between the pirate and the victim. They skim the atmosphere to mislead the victim and any pursuit into thinking that the pirates are going to land on the planet. Going to warp speed while in atmosphere can be hair-raising but very effective in throwing off a search. Remember however, that entering warp in a thick planetary atmosphere could well overload a pirates shield generators, incinerating the pirate and his ship. This tactic is recommended for planetary bodies with relatively thin or nonexistent atmospheres.

Once away from the victim, space should be clear of all hostile communications and sensor scans before a vessel assumes a heading for home. It is a good idea to travel by a circular route with an ever-changing bearing to confuse sensors trying to track the ship.

Unless there is a pressing strategic reason, like a direct order from an acknowledged higher authority, a pirate vessel should never engage any vessel of higher speed or greater armament, or a warship of any size. Even the least such vessel will get away if they cannot cripple their attacker and will report the incident in full detail. Even if destroyed, they can still send word to their higher authorities. Friends and relatives of the victims often mark such pirate ships for special attention.

However, most stations carry adequate weaponry to deal with brigands, reliable communications gear to call for help, and usually a known and listed position with whatever power controls the space they are located in. A pirate raid that does not produce swift and complete capitulation is guaranteed to be bloody or impossible. Pirates do not often attack outposts, because of the difficulties of direct assault and the lack of information regarding their cargo.

Without the option of flight, outpost personnel can be counted on to fight with any weapons they possess and to send out a distress signal calling for help. Their sensors reach farther than thouse belonging to most ships, and any approach will bring a challenge, whether the ship is armed or not. Even with maximum-speed approach and deceleration, a pirate cannot overwhelm the defenses before a call ofr help goes out.

The only way to attack such an outpost is by making a perfectly normal, unarmed approach and to dock there. When docked, a pirate vessel is invulnerable to any station-mounted weapons (usually, depending on station design), and has successfully boarded without firing a shot.

Seizure of the outpost can then proceed as with any vessel. Defenders may put up concerted resistance, particularly if the complement of the outpost exceeds the attacker's force. Knowledge of the outpost's layout is invaluable to enable the pirates to cut communications and seize any center of security and/or command and control.

Instead of taking oer the entire station, a pirate may take over only a loading dock and warehouse area for as long as it takes to load the booty. This option is especially valid if layout information is incomplete or lacking. If properly done, a limited raid may achieve complete suprise and prevent the outpost from knowing it has been robbed until after the pirate flees. It depends on the proximity of cargo to the dock, the number of guards and their alertness, and whether or not the pirates can disguise their purpose long enough to make good their escape. Otherwise, they may have to make a fighting withdrawal, with the chance for losses running exceptionally high.

Many pirates experienced in attacking outposts prefer to use captured ships for the initial approach. A ship with a known name and recognizable profile can be discarded after the raid, and sent in a random direction by autopilot to confuse pursuit. The major disadvantage to using captured merchant ships is their vulnerability. If pirates must flee under fire, merchant shields may not (and probably would not) protect them. This is why captured ships are rarely used in ship-to-ship actions.

More elaborate ruses, including ships with simulated damage, have a better chance against ships than against suspicious outposts. One of the Orions' favored ruses is to simulate a ship stricken by pirates and helpless against a second assault. Variations on this theme include hitting one ship and then hanging around to hit the next one that comes down the spacelane (risky if the area is patrolled at all), planting a fake disabled ship with explosives, tractor beams, or other hazards to entrap any investigating vessel, and playing dead next to a real or false fictim in hopes of making another ship think that both ships have exhausted each other in combat.

The reputed faked distress signal is a creation of romantic fiction writers. Merchants on tight schedules frequently ignore distress signals and simply relay the message more often than not to attract further investigation by patrol vessels. Besides, distress signals are most likely to attract inquisitive patrol vessels, or (ironically) other pirates seeking to make an easy score against a damaged ship.

Much more common are disguised 'official' transmissions of various types-faked buoys, bogus navigational markers, ersatz storm warnings, as well as plain old-fashioned open voice communications, sometimes with synthesized voices and background sounds. They need not be fancy to produce results. The numbers of vessels that will stop when told to is a pleasantly large one. Sometimes, it is all in the tone of voice.

In deep space, where the space lanes are wide and the chance of finding a particular vessel very small, pirates using fake merchant identification can chat with a merchant vessel and thus get the vessel's precise bearing, speed, and distance. With this information, a future intercept course can be plotted with great accuracy. Instead of using one ship and circling back to make intercept, some pirates employ a small scouter vessel that obtains the needed information and relays it to a lurking corsair for immediate action.

Pirate fleet actions are most commonly used against a warship, listening posts, and other military targets. Complications dealing with how the booty is split are thus avoided, and it is a great deal easier to unite pirates around a common threat. Obnoxious starship captains with dangerous anti-piracy inclinations are the usual recipients of a fleet action, but resupply stations for anti-piracy task forces may be struck to deprive the adversary of momentum, most likely in order to protect a nearby pirate base. Of course, the danger is in gauging the will of the major power so assaulted. If the operations smashes the base or ship, but causes the owner to rebuild, fortify, and send in more ships, troops, and materiel, then the pirate effort will be for naught.

Orion pirate fleets attacked entire planets during the Reverse, but they were more accidentsof circumstance and opportunity than any attempt at concerted organization. The fleets of the infamous Half-A-Man Sooris swelled as he went from planet to planet, looting and pillaging, until the largest pirate fleet in history fell on Troyius and all but wiped civilization from its surface. After that, there were no more targets of comparable size anywhere, and the fleets melted away to seek other, easier opportunities elsewhere.

There are some exceptions. If pirates take a known personage alive, they can make money by ransoming him or her back to their family or corporation. Businessmen-rhadamanen in particular-and their families are ideal targets. Unless under strange circumstances, Orion will not take a captive of another race or enslave them, wild holovids and news reports to the contrary.

When pirates inform their prisoners relatives or corporation of the ransom demand, they set a price on the captive and a time limit. If the ransom is not paid on time, either the price increases between a quarter and half, or the pirates execute the prisoner. Executions are rare, as Orions hate to destroy profits, but they must show that they mean business. Ransoms are never less than the cost of boarding the captive-around 20 credits a day for a minumum holding time of 90 days. For high-ranking archexecutives, the ransom asked is often much higher.

An even nastier trick is to set a ransom and a time limit, and when the time limit passes, decrease the amount of ransom asked. Eventually, the amount goes so low that it will be very easy for a corporation or family to pay it. However, paying too little is a mortal insult to the captive. Sometimes, pirates use this technique to increase the take per captive, be forcing the payers to hurry and pay up to avoid looking as if they valued the pirates prisoner so little. However if too high a value is initially stated, the would-be payers may simply ignore it. Too large a decrease and the effect can be lost. Successful use of this tactic as a moneymaker requires knowing the exact value of the captive, and the limits to the embarrassment of the people paying.

Orion pirates are careful with their captives and will not mistreat them. If for any reason a captive cannot be ransomed off, Orion pirates are likely to strand the captive on a strange world. Killing innocent people for a financial error fills Orions with horror, and other pirates might set a bounty on the offending pirates just to make sure such people are hunted down for the barbarians they are.

Occasionally, a pirate may take captives for other, more personal reasons. If the cargo happens to include Green Courtesans, they may be taken and sold like normal cargo-their contracts pass by right of conquest. For political reasons, Orions may even take prisoners of other races. This is extremely delicate matter, and is often dictated by much higher authorities than a ship captain; the expenses for such a captive can be quite high, and is usually paid by the contracting party.