(Main Control Room, Booty Bay, The Badlands)
The recent failed raid on the Black Star Shipyards was the talk of the station. It had been a huge raid, with over twenty ships! The fact that the raid failed, with only twelve ships returning (and the Mercer’s Folly was apparently not worth repairing after the beating she’d taken), was causing rumors to fly that some of the ‘subordinate’ captains might stage a mutiny and challenge ‘Temptation’ to her title of Pirate Queen. In the week since the raiders returned, two captains had already made a play, and their bodies were strung up just outside the airlock, so everyone could see what happened to traitors.
Of course, the Black Star ships were also being talked about. Those weren’t like any civvie ships they’d seen, even with merc groups. After all, who the hell decides to put a fucking battleship gun on a ship barely large enough to hold it, and then sends swarms of the things at people? And the whole part where they’d been able to respond to the attack so quickly… the whole point of the raid had been to attack after they’d had a few hours in dock, so that the ships would be on skeleton crews after a long voyage.
“Cap’n Temptation’s gonna have her hands full with the Wynmaer Brothers. They’ve been looking for a chance to take ‘er down since the Cap’n stomped Ivran’s berries when she took over.”
“Well, five of the ships lost belonged to the Wynmaer clan. They only got, what, three ships left? And the others, they were all Pagellas. Arbane was leading their ships himself, since he was wanting a chance to grab one of those stealth ships for himself. They’re no threat to her, now.”
“True that. But Sarkas and Fenrora just got back onto the station. Either one of them has as many ships as Temptation. They get it in their heads to start working together…”
“Bah! That’ll never happen. Those two hate eachother, ever since—”
Alarms cut short the discussion, as the pirates raced to figure out what was going on. Not being particularly well trained, and not having heard this particular alarm before, it took a moment before one of them realized what was going on.
“Shit, that’s the invasion alarm! You, go wake Cap’n Temptation! We’ve got trouble!”
They could only see two of the ships at the moment. One was an Imperial Corvette, and the other was an Imperial Carrier. But the IFF loudly announced that they were the BSN Jubilee and the BSN Dykhaniye Smerti.
There were twelve installations in the Badlands, not counting Booty Bay. Ten of those decided to take this moment to explode into a multitude of tiny pieces of shrapnel and debris. The two survivors were the stations belonging to the Rose Dragon clan and the Crystal Fang Syndicate, both crime families based out of Dimiya. Both crime families had warned the Pirate Queen that she was better off not picking a fight with the Black Stars. Temptation hadn’t listened, and had instead worked to get some support and trade favors with the other groups in the system.
“What the bloody hell is going on?” ‘Temptation’ Savant herself strode into the room like an angry hurricane, her eyes going to the screens as she spoke.
“Cap’n, we’re only reading two ships, but most of the other bases in the system went and blew up! Never seen the like before!”
“Cap’n! Tarpits just went active!”
Temptation scowled. “Raise shields! We’re under attack, you idiots!” Her mood did not get any better when the extent of her problems became clear. In addition to the two ships that had not bothered hiding when they came out of warp, more ships were now dropping their cloaks…
“By all the stars…”
“There’s so many of them!”
“Stop your lollygagging, you stupid fucks! How many ships are we facing? And get all the boys to their ships. Anything that can fight, I want it manned and ready, now!” The crew started jumping as Temptation barked orders, but in her mind, there was just a single thought running through her head. What in the infinite abyss have I stepped in?
“Shit, they’re launching fighters!”
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“Well launch our own!” Temptation shook her head. If the computer was counting right, there were eight bloody squadrons of fighters out there… no, make that seven of fighters, and one the computer thought were probably bombers. When her two squadrons of fighters launched, she got a good appreciation of just how truly fucked they were. Especially when the enemy fighters mowed through hers like they were a blowtorch through tissue paper.
By now, the pirate ships were starting to come online, and move into a rough battle line. Almost thirty pirate ships, against what was clearly over fifty enemies. The reality of it sunk in to the pirate captain. This was the entire Black Star fleet. Only the superdreadnought they were refitting wasn’t present. But why go to so much trouble when they had the weapons to blow them away in an instant, like they’d done to all the other stations in the system?
The bombers struck first, two missiles speeding across the space between them and the Wolf’s Fang. Only two missiles, but merciful god, what missiles! The first actually crashed the Fang’s shields, and god knew what kind of damage it had done to the systems on her baby. The second… Well, the Wolf’s Fang would never fly again. The rear half of the ship was simply GONE. She’d be surprised if the ship had anything except battery power right now, given the way it started spinning slowly in space.
Then the two ‘fleets’ were in range of eachother. It was not a battle. The only word that could describe it was ‘massacre’, but even that didn’t seem to fit, as the Black Star ships went out of their way to try and disable the pirates, rather than destroying them outright.
They want prisoners. Oh hell, most of his people are slaves.
Then she saw one ship in particular on the screen, as it made a high speed pass of one of the pirate frigates, turrets blasting away at the larger ship. Once it passed the frigate, the pilot managed to flip the ship on its axis, in a maneuver that had to have put the crew under some serious Gs, even with dampeners, and unloaded particle cannons directly into the frigate’s engines, taking them out of the fight. Sensors told her it was the BSS Starlight Raven. That bastard was here himself!
Seeing her chance, she pointed out the Starlight Raven in the tactical plot. “All guns, all ships, fire on that freighter! That’s the fucking owner’s ship, and he has to be on board her! Take that ship out, and we still have a chance of living through this!”
That provided the men with some motivation. Nothing like the prospect of imminent death to make them shut up and do their jobs. Unfortunately, it seemed that the damn ‘armed freighter’ that was practically a smuggler’s dream was better than her gunners, who soon had other things to occupy their time.
“Captain! We got that big ship moving in, past the other ships!”
Looking at the screens again, she cursed. That was a fucking marine assault ship! “Pass the word, boys, we’re about to have company. Prepare to repel boarders!”
At that moment, several blasts from the little gunboats struck the station’s shields. Thirty-two battleship cannons striking the shields, one after another. No pirate base’s shields could take that kind of punishment for long. Soon, the shields began coming down, and ion cannons began playing hell with station systems.
Temptation was screaming into her commlink to the engineer. “Keep power to the guns, whatever you do! I don’t care if you have to turn off life support! We’ll either be able to turn it back on or will be dead long before we run out of air!”
(BSN Thunderfury, approaching Booty Bay)
“Captain Am’Rica, the gunboats have taken down the shields, and the cruisers and Assassins should have the station disabled momentarily, while the Ravens are mopping up the last of the pirate ships. Ship-board tactical teams will be doing ship-to-ship searches for prisoners and spoils, so I want you to focus on getting the Marines to that station.”
The Ihm female’s tail moved excitedly at the prospect of assaulting a pirate outpost. No one liked pirates, after all. It wasn’t quite as good as being able to shoot the Imperials, but it was still a chance she didn’t want to pass up. “Understood, Commodore. We are targeting the enemy weapon systems with more forceful methods than ion cannons. I expect to start landing the Marines in ten minutes.”
“Very good, Captain. Just take care not to destroy too much of the station. We’re here to take prisoners and spoils in return for the attack on our people. The other stations in the system were simply a message about the consequences of collusion with Black Star’s enemies. The fact that there were several bounties we just cashed in is a bonus. I want that station intact, so we can loot it, and hopefully parade the bitch who ordered the attack across Dimiya as an example of why attacking us is a horrible idea.”
“It will be done, Commodore.”
“Major, are your people ready?”
“You’re asking if a group of Marines are ready to kick some pirate ass? The answer is ‘Always’, sir!”
“Hah! Good enough. Remember, use stunners unless there’s no alternative. I leave authority for lethal force to your discretion. But I’d like to have prisoners to add to our workforce, even if they don’t have any skills we can use. The coming expedition is going to need some people to do mining work and other unpleasant jobs, after all.”
“Can do, Commodore. The prospect of putting these assholes to work at something suitably terrible will take the edge off not shooting to kill, if only a little. Reports we’ve been getting say this is the same group of pirates that’s been causing all kinds of trouble across this sector.”
“Yeah, our Assassins have taken out several of their ships when the Ravens decide to play bait. Took them almost a year before they learned that one of our Ravens had a good chance of having an Assassin nearby. A few others learned that the Ravens aren’t exactly toothless, either. Piracy’s been up all across the Confederation after Jagloth, as you can expect. That many refugees… well, desperate people tend to be either easy targets, or easy recruits. Either way, pirates take advantage. We take the so-called Pirate Queen, though, and that will take the wind out of their sails, for a while.”
“Fair enough. What are our rules of engagement on prisoners and surrender? These are pirates, and no doubt they expect to be spaced, but they’re cowards at heart, so there will be some who want to surrender.”
“Accept surrender when it is offered. Anyone who gets stunned gets collared, so we don’t have to worry about them. Anyone who surrenders can avoid the collar, so long as they behave. Let them know that, once this is over, they will have the option of accepting a collar, or being turned over to the Confeds for trial. Any slaves you encounter are to be treated well, but assume that they’re going to be brainwashed to be loyal to their captors, if they don’t have Stepfords on. When in doubt, stun them. We can sort out who is who later on.”
Major Khan nodded. “That won’t set right with some of the troops. I’ll let them know the score, but stunning slaves of pirates for convenience is a crap gig.”
“Getting killed because the person you were trying to save goes crazy when their captors tell them to kill you so they have a chance to escape is worse. And if any of those pirates are really nasty, they’ll use human shields or suicide bombers. Best to just stun everything that isn’t in Black Star uniforms, just to be sure.”
“Understood. We’ll get the job done.”