Explore "Space Viking" by H. Beam Piper on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
As might be expected, the Beowulfers finished their hypership first. They had started with everything but a little know-how which had been quickly learned. Amaterasu had had to begin by creating the industry they needed to create the industry they needed to build a ship. The Beowulf ship -- she was named _Viking's Gift_ -- came in on Tanith five and a half years after the _Nemesis_ and the _Space Scourge_ had raided Beowulf; her skipper had fought a normal-drive ship in that battle. Beside plutonium and radioactive isotopes, she carried a general cargo of the sort of luxury-goods unique to Beowulf which could always find a market in interstellar trade.
After selling the cargo and depositing the money in the Bank of Tanith, the skipper of the _Viking's Gift_ wanted to know where he could find a good planet to raid. They gave him a list, none too tough but all slightly above the chicken-stealing level, and another list of planets he was _not_ to raid; planets with which Tanith was trading.