NASTRAGULL: Pirates (4 page)

Hughes opened his mouth as if to say something, then intelligently thought better of it when he saw the way the Captain was looking at him. He started to tremble, but the Captain only motioned for him to continue.

"Captain. Sir. Umm, to calculate the velocity and match trajectory while closing in on a ship while both ships are firing is extremely hazardous and difficult." Voice wavering slightly, Hughes said, "Again, sir, I must recommend that we stop ramming our intended targets and go back to the old method, where we used infiltrators and hijacked the ships. The slightest error when calibrating the shields on a target ship while traveling at superluminal speeds..."

Zuzack gave his lieutenant a warning look. "Whatever, Mr. Hughes. We will stick to the ramming-and-boarding method. All that infiltration crap takes too long, and time is something we don't have." He walked over to a large crystal viewport on the far wall of the suite and looked out into space and down at his own ship, the
Bitch.
"This tour has taken too much time, and we must hurry back to my brother—or there will be hell to pay." Oddly enough, a tear trickled down Zuzack's hairy dark face when he mentioned his brother. He kept looking out into space, making sure Hughes wouldn't notice the tear. With his back still turned, he motioned with one of his large muscular arms for Hughes to move on.
Brother, I miss you so,
Zuzack thought, while peering into the Big Dark.

Chapter 2

The girls hobbled along the large balcony that encircled the ballroom. "Look! Look at this shit, Alexa!" Nina held up her left hand, displaying only three complete digits. She looked more pissed than hurt, which made sense, since Alexa could see an emergency pain-block bracelet wrapped round her wrist.

Alexa smirked. "You always put your fingers where they don't belong. That's why you keep losing them." She shook her head when Nina thrust her hand toward her.

"They grow back. Eventually."

Alexa rolled her eyes. "Yeah, and what if they didn't? What if the Ancestors hadn't fixed that before they first headed into the Big Dark?"

"Then I'd be in deep shit, wouldn't I?" Nina muttered around a couple of pain pills. An emergency p-block never lasted more than a few minutes. "Now, are you gonna fix 'em up, or not?" She waggled the stumps at Alexa.

Shaking her head, Alexa removed a first aid pack from a pocket on Nina's right leg and began to wrap the damaged hand. Nina winced, and Alexa commented, "Be cool, it's only a few fingers. Have Doc do a cloning stim later."

Nina sniffed, "Well, actually, the right term would be
regenerate
, because cloning is only when you...
Fuck
, that hurt, bitch!" Alexa ignored Nina as she administrated the first aid. When she'd finished she looked at her friend with pride. "All done. And damned well, if I say so myself."

Nina sighed. "Thanks. You know, if I keep this up, I'll have more regenerated parts than originals."

"And what's your point? As long as you have your original head and brain you're fine, right?" Alexa smiled at her friend—but she still looked sad.

Nina was biting down hard, obviously trying to ignore the pain from her hand; and in her eyes, Alexa could see the shadows of a sadness that mirrored her own. But all she said was, "Right."

Nodding, Alexa injected Nina with a hypo from the pack, then dosed herself with the same drug. Both shivered and smiled, their eyes glassy, as the drug hit their systems. Once they felt they could go on, they continued out onto a second level above the ballroom, and smiled as they headed toward a very wide spiral staircase. By then, the sounds of fighting had more or less ceased, and someone had silenced the alarms, too. The lights kept flickering on and off, like distant heat lightning, but at least it was normal-spectrum; someone had turned off the yellow warning lights.

As they swept out onto a landing, Nina glanced at her companion and said, "Where's your blaster?"

Alexa's cheeks turned red, and she frowned. "Um, don't ask. I'll get a new one later. By the way, Nina, do you have any more charger mags? All of mine are useless...must have charged them wrong or something." Nina nodded and tossed Alexa a couple of power charge magazines with her good hand. 

"You're welcome," Nina mumbled back as she checked her own weapon for any damage. She glanced up and let out a snort of amusement. "Look. The Twins from Hell." She gestured toward two female aliens who appeared, at first glance, to be identical to each other. Both wore battle fatigues like Alexa and Nina, and carried enormous magma rifles. Their purple skins were stippled with small yellow dots, and they both had long, prehensile tails. At the moment, those tails secured a young prisoner between them.

"Mohama and Miska, what do you have there?" Alexa called.

"Just a young brat," Miska replied haughtily. "Thinks it is Oman like the two of you, but it has a pale skin."

"We figure we could kill some time until General Assembly," Mohama added happily. "Care to join us as we ravish him over there?" She nodded towards a secluded area.

"Sure!" Nina grinned. She moved close to the prisoner and yanked up his head. "He's just a boy," she exclaimed. She started to fumble between his legs. When she found his private parts she looked at him, impressed. "I'm in." She glanced at Alexa. "What about you?"

Alexa rolled her eyes and said firmly, "I like my men past puberty, thanks." The boy looked at her pleadingly for help, but Alexa deliberately misinterpreted his look and said, "In your dreams, kid, in your dreams." Wasn't her responsibility to protect little lost boys.

"Still waiting for your knight in shining armor?" Nina smirked.

Suddenly irritated, Alexa stopped and turned around. She walked back to her friends and glared at the prisoner. "How old is he?"

"Who cares? He's as tall as we are, and check
this
out." Miska sliced through the boy's trunks with her razor-sharp nails, exposing his privates. Alexa raised her eyebrows but failed to whistle, given her missing front tooth. "Hell, he's still too young. He'll explode before we can have any fun with him."

"Not if you do that nerve thing you so happily brag about," Nina mused, while looking over the boy and licking her lips.

Alexa shook her head and said, "It's just waste of time. Besides, he's obviously an Orchid Oman, since he's been circumcised. His end nerves are ruined, and that would block the impulses from his sexual nerve."

Nina insisted, "But you could give it a try?"

"He better be worth it, girl, or you'll be out of power batteries for the next galactic year."

Everyone but Nina started to laugh, including the victim. The victim! Nina stuck out her tongue at Alexa and the twins.

The girls went wild around their young trophy, and hurried him away toward a small, secluded area behind a staircase while they danced around him and tore off his clothes. The boy's eyes grow larger and larger as the four girls informed him what each one of them would do to him. He didn't really look that scared; it was obvious, in fact, that he was quite excited. They hurried towards a hatch near the staircase, leaving a long trail of equipment and clothing behind them.

But their fun wasn't to be. Suddenly, unexpected, the bulkhead erupted with a deafening roar right beside them, tossing them all head-over-heels from the pressure wave and filling the air with debris and billowing smoke. The boy's body acted as a shield, protecting the girls; Miska and Mohama fell back, with the boy on top of them. Nina fell down the stairs and Alexa slammed hard, head first, into a bulkhead, losing another tooth.

After a dizzying moment she looked up, holding her head in both hands as she cursed with a bloody mouth. She was disoriented, and she could feel blood oozing out of  her ears. She tried to get back on her feet and into the fight, and then time stopped.

She looked up into a pair of dark blue eyes staring down at her. There he was. The knight—
her
knight.

Ever since Alexa had been sold to the pirates at the age of ten, she'd had only one dream: To be rescued by a knight in shining armor. That dream was silly, and it hadn't really lasted long. Once she'd turned fifteen she'd been adopted by the Captain as his daughter, and automatically received second crew shares. Now she was looting for her freedom, to get enough credits to manumit herself. She hated piracy with a passion, but she had no choice in the matter: so she dove into the life with a vengeance. Still, every time a shot was fired, her heart clenched and her soul was forever scarred. She knew she had to leave this horrible life, or she would end it herself.

Alexa stared, paralyzed, at the most handsome young man she had ever seen—and she let her guard down in the process. An iron-hard fist struck her in the face, followed by another in the gut. She went down like a poleaxed sheep, crashing into the bulkhead she'd just crawled up from and breaking her third tooth of the day. She hit the deck in a still heap, dead to the world.

A dozen young men and women, all dressed in light blue formal uniforms, charged out of a hallway armed with slug-throwing handguns and blasters. They quickly removed the girls' weapons, and made sure they stayed unconscious for a while with their own version of the pirates' slave collars. Then they began to advance against the pirate positions in two-by-two formations. Unlike the pirates, who had been reveling in their victory and were shocked by the unexpected attack, the newcomers were very organized, very professional, and very well-disciplined. They fired short, controlled bursts and advanced fearlessly against their enemy, who substantially outnumbered them. Their facial expressions were invariably ironclad masks of hatred.

It was a suicide mission, and they all knew it. But they didn't let that stop them for a moment.

When Zuzack realized what was happening, he cursed and bellowed, "Alarm! Nastasturus!"

The word send cold chills down many of the pirates' spines, and confusion erupted among them.

Zuzack stood at the center of the ballroom shouting out orders to his pirates. "Get them, lads and tramps, give them all you got, and don't damage them too much! They're worth more alive than dead!"

Laser and magma bolts rained down like a hailstorm all around, but Zuzack just stood there as if he were immortal, displaying no sign of fear. The pirates advanced, unorganized, and several of them were killed or injured from the effective fire laid down by the cadets from the Nastasturus Federation. Lieutenant Hughes grabbed his weapon and aimed it at the oncoming threat, but Zuzack only laid his large hand on his lieutenant's shoulder and said calmly, "Fewer crew members means more spoil for the survivors. Remember, we're done in this sector and heading home." Hughes gave his Captain a strange and questioning look, and after a few moments he lowered his weapon and smiled uncertainly.

The fight was bloody but short, for the Nastasturus soldiers soon began to run out of ammunition. At that point, Zuzack ordered his troops to charge in and capture them alive. The pirates swarmed the cadets, and the hand-to-hand fighting was fierce.

One of the pirates aimed her rifle at one of the cadets' backs and was about to press the trigger when her head was separated messily from her body. Zuzack wiped his sword on her quivering form and snarled, "I told you, fools, I want them all alive!"

Zuzack gestured towards his third officer, Major Grotech, who snapped out an order through his helmet communicator.

A moment later, four huge lizard-like dogs charged from the boarding tube into the civilian ship. The Tilters rushed the young cadets before they noticed the new threat from behind, and it was all they could do to fend off the huge animals. Meanwhile, pirates approached with net-throwers, discharging the weapons when they got within range and capturing several of the cadets that way. The Tilter dogs themselves spat a web-like substance that immobilized the remaining cadets, and suddenly it was over. 

Alexa and Nina helped each other to their feet, and supported each other as they picked their way through the cadets. They stopped long enough to kick a couple, but not too hard, so they wouldn't piss off the Captain too much. The twins Miska and Mohama followed angrily, after they noticed the bloody emasculated mess their fun-toy had become. Along the way, they took back their weapons from the captured cadets.

"What a waste," Miska growled. "The poor thing could at least have been allowed to die with a smile on his face."

Alexa ignored her; her attention was elsewhere. There he was again: her Knight. No shining armor, though. He was a young man in his early twenties, with short dark brown hair, his face bruised up from the fight. Knight or not, he needed to be taught who was in charge. She smirked.
Time to break him in
. Then her gaze snagged on his deep blue eyes, and an odd weakness seemed to overcome her.
Dammit, knees, don't you mutiny on me now!

Alexa kicked towards his face, coming as close as she could without actually touching him, and lisped through her broken teeth, "Anybody ever told you it's not nice to hit a lady?"

"You are no lady. You are a whore and a pirate." He said it through clenched teeth, a menacing gleam in his eyes.

Alexa glared down at him, frustration and anger roiling inside her. Bastard. Her long-lost knight had made her feel weak, something no male was allowed to do. This was no way for a knight to treat his damsel in distress. She aimed another kick at the young soldier's pretty face, and her toes struck the wall hard when he jerked his head away. Pissed, her foot throbbing, Alexa lost her cool. Knight or not, it was time to kick some serious ass. Literally. She was about to kick him again when something snagged her ankle from behind and, to her horror, lifted her up in the air upside-down.