Evelyn

"Shit." Evelyn, Evie to her friends, sisters, and new husband, curses from her post on the bridge of the UCV Crimson Tear. Two hectic months had passed since she got married. Two months and seeing her husband was far from as frequent as she would have liked.

Some of that had been her own choices of course. She’d stuck her hand up and taken the Oath of the Undaunted, volunteered to join humanity’s armed forces in the galaxy. Which meant she had needed to go into training. With her prior background she’d gone through an abbreviated Officer Candidate School, and then into aggressive training to serve as the Crimson Tear’s senior sensor operator and the head of that department.

She’d eaten, slept and breathed nothing but the Crimson Tear’s sensor equipment

Now though, it was time to put that training to use.

The Volpir woman runs through a few different scans, switching between various forms of sensors to confirm the information on her screen. The sensor systems on this beast of a ship were beyond what you'd find even on a modern capital ship. The Captain had been very serious about upgrading them along with all the other modifications made to the Tear in her overhaul and modification to prepare her for Undaunted service.

The Tear's sensors could track space junk on the other side of a star system, never mind a fast moving combat vessel. Just one more trick up their sleeve. Their class of mass conveyor would normally have a third the detection range and nowhere near the resolution.

"Captain! That corvette we were tracking just started a hard burn, scans are showing they're moving at flank speed for a ship that size, maybe a bit faster. They probably have a larger engine mounted in that death trap like some of the EFL's pirate corvettes."

Captain Jeremiah Bridger steeples his fingers in the extremely comfortable captain's chair on the bridge of his new star ship and her heart skips a bit. She knew he felt like a bit of a stereotype, sitting there with one leg up like he was lounging on a throne. Still, having watched some Star Trek with her husband and sisters, considering the sheer number of alien women he was married to, Evie thought he did have a bit of a right to a little of the Captain Kirk swagger.

That it was downright enticing didn’t hurt either.

"Right... put it on the main screen... Do we have a visual yet?"

"No Dar-Captain."

Evie resists smacking herself across the mouth for that slip. She was a professional soldier dammit! She could be professional, even if her new CO was her husband.

"They're coming up quick though, by the time they hit visual range we should have a response waiting for them."

Jerry considers the screen for a moment, watching the ship close as potentially precious seconds slip away.

"Comms, try and hail the bandit once they hit normal sensor range for our class of ship. Sensors label the contact as Bandit One. All hands to battle stations. Run out the guns Ms. Wichen, and get civilians and dependents to the Redoubt. Ship's company not otherwise engaged are to arm themselves. Mech suit and power armor teams to their preassigned rally points. Helm keep your course and speed on our current heading, we need to clear this gravity well so we can jump clear, but we don’t want to give away that we’ve noticed them."

The red flashing lights that trigger and the loud alert klaxon immediately send the occupants of the heavily modified mass conveyor scrambling through its maze-like confines. There's rumbles as vacuum tight doors seal themselves, and even more firm rumbles as the armored blisters that hide the ship's turret mounts smoothly retract. Save for one. Triggering an alert at Wichen's Gunnery station.

"Plasma turret Alpha's cover isn't retracting completely, drones are responding externally, maintenance teams are suiting up in case something exposes them to vacuum and will respond once they're ready... repair ETA... five minutes. And that's Mrs. Wichen thank you."

Jerry shot Wichen a look. Evie knew he'd explained the differences of the two English honorifics, and also explained "Ms." could be used differently in the naval context. It didn't stop the playful Feli from needling him about it at every turn though, even in a crisis situation it seemed.

"Sensors, how long till they reach us?"

"Four minutes."

"Tell your crew they better have that turret unmasked in three minutes or we're all peddling vacuum. Comm, any response to our hails?"

"No response Skipper! Bandit is not emitting on any known frequency."

The human comm officer was apparently an old friend of her husband, Lieutenant Commander Sharon "Zombie" Graves, and at last someone on Jerry's bridge crew that he wasn't married to.

Zombie had gotten her nickname for her love of classic human horror movies, and her preference for dark clothing and makeup, what Jerry had told Evie was called a ‘Goth aesthetic’.

"I've tried universal hails in eight hundred and seventy languages to include galactic trade. I've switched to a warning indicating if they break our perimeter they will be fired upon."

"Good... keep that broadcast up. We've warned them, they want to step on the snake, it's their own damn fault now."

Wichen chuckles. "Dumb bitches probably don't believe this beast has much in the way of fire power. I think they'll be very surprised... they're well within laser range, and they're almost at the edge of missile range. Shall we launch a surprise for our guests? Also gunships one, two, three, and four are reporting space flight ready."

"Hold the gunships. We might need to jump in a hurry and I'm not about to leave anyone behind. Save the lasers like we planned. Launch an anti-ship torpedo. One of the stealth models I think. We need to test them."

"Aye aye... one second... solution ready! Weapon ready!"

"Shoot!"

"Shoot, aye aye sir. Torpedo launching in five, four, three, two, one... launch!"

An external camera switches to the broad hull of the Crimson Tear, as a carefully concealed armored panel moves away, revealing a series of launch tubes that resembled footage of missile carrying submarines from Earth, though Evie thought that the sleek black weapon the hatch opened to reveal was a great deal meaner looking than the traditional ICBM from Earth.

The pointed nose was designed to better handle hypersonic flight in atmosphere, and to better pierce shields and armor to ensure its plasma based warhead chewed up something sensitive instead of just mucking around on the surface of an enemy vessel. In a flash, the weapon leaps from its launch tube and vanishes into the black.

"Torpedo away. Initial burn complete in three, two, one... we have primary booster separation. Weapon has gone dark. We're blind to it on sensors, so they should be too... it'll still show up on ultraviolet if we need to see it." Notes Wichen.

The stealth torpedo was an early innovation of the brilliant Feli and the rest of the Bridger family, along with some very creative men and women from the Dauntless who wanted to make sure humanity had some more party favors to share with any hostiles out there in the black.

The torpedo was simple in a certain sense. It got almost all of its velocity at launch, then jettisoned its primary engine along with its heat signature. It would make course corrections using small puffs of inert gas. It couldn't make violent maneuvers per se, but it was fairly agile in testing.

Guided by a warhead with a predictive simulated intelligence that made the weapons rather pricey even before its other modifications. Remove any form of communications to report its telemetry back to its mother ship, add a thick coat of radar reflective paint and suppressants to hide its electronic signals and you had a torpedo that most ships wouldn't see coming.

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At least till its second stage booster fired to begin its final acceleration, and by then it would be far too late.

"Plasma turret Alpha is unmasked, all weapons ready!" Wichen grins to herself. "Two minutes, forty five seconds repair time. All guns ready, calculating targeting solution for optimal range."

Evie leans in a bit unconsciously on her sensor screen. The optimal range to open fire with various weapons varied wildly based on numerous factors. What was in space around them for example. If there were foreign objects between them and the target for example. In this case however, they were engaging with pirates and not dueling with an enemy battleship. They didn't want to play their hand too early, or a theoretical pirate could hang off and, if properly equipped, swarm them with small, fast missiles mounting warheads ranging from explosives, to plasma, to medium sized axiom burst weapons, what Jerry had heard referred to as "pocket atomics".

They had good point defense weapons, but the Tear still wasn't a warship, it would only take one solid hit through their shields with a suitably heavy weapon to really put the hurt on them, even with all the armor the humans had added to the Fleet Auxiliary Cruiser Crimson Tear.

After some work with the fire control systems, a band marked itself out clearly on Evie's sensor screens. The pirate however was starting to maneuver. Ducking and weaving in general, throwing off easy firing solutions for the plasma weapons in particular and making things slightly more complicated for their laser weapons.

What it wasn't doing however, was making things complicated for the predictive targeting software of the stealth torpedo.

No sooner had she registered a launch of what had to be boarding torpedoes from the corvette than the stealth weapon ‘went hot’ and raced forward on the sensor screen till its blip merged with the blip of the corvette.

"Incoming boarding torpedoes. Stealth weapon has impacted the bandit, beginning battle damage assessment"

Evie calmly announces before activating the internal public address system that her husband said was called a 1MC.

"Attention all hands, vampire, vampire, vampire! Boarding torpedoes inbound, stand by to repel boarders."

The code word could make any human crew member with a certain background's blood run cold, but Evie still hadn't found the right time to ask what a vampire was, and what it had to do with inbound missile weapons.

Instead of pondering the strangeness of human linguistics, she switched to another set of sensors and brought up a visual of the enemy for the first time. The ship was moving unevenly, it appeared the torpedo had slammed square into one of its propulsion mounts, leaving the smaller craft unsteady at best, even as it gamely started to spit out lasers.

"Bandit damaged but still active and hostile Captain. We scored a solid hit on her propulsion with our stealth torpedo."

"Excellent work people, seems our new toy works. Ms. Graves, if you could begin electronic warfare operations please. If one of those boarding torpedoes damages my hull I'm going to be very displeased, so do what you can to make them extra easy prey for Wichen's guns."

"Aye aye skipper, I'll start some protocols on the bandit as well, see if I can't mess up their shooting a bit."

Jerry turns his head to Wichen who's leaning over her console. The Feli is practically drooling; she's so eager. Then again, his darling wife hadn't had much of a chance to throw capital scale weapons around prior to marrying him, and she leaped at the chance whenever it presented itself to her.

"Ms. Wichen. You may fire when ready."

Wichen's smile is all fangs as her bright blue eyes gleam with what almost appeared to be plasma fire.

"Stand by. Firing pin cushion pattern."

Pin cushion pattern was a volley of naval grade plasma weapons that weren't actually aimed at the bandit, but around the bandit. They moved fast enough that the enemy vessel had to react to them, but they could be dodged. At close ranges like this, their reaction time was extremely limited, hence why they'd brought the corvette in relatively close in terms of naval engagements. It opened them up to being hit by boarding torpedoes, but it also meant they could box the bandit in with plasma fire.

Their helmsman was good, Evie thought to herself, but not that good, Wichen had their number. The plasma rain boxed them in just as intended, and a full volley of capital scale lasers slammed into the enemy vessel. What shields they had were torn through in seconds, and raw energy melted the hull, distorting it until the vessel's reactor went critical, briefly becoming a new star.

Wichen however doesn't have time to celebrate as part of the bridge's crew lets out a cheer. Her hands fly across her board, checking the status of her point defense weapons, and seeing if she had time to bring her capital scale weapons to bear on the boarding torpedoes. They were already too close, but even as she watched one of them veered wildly off course and slammed into another torpedo courtesy of Sharon's defensive EWAR efforts.

The rest of the flight was efficiently dispatched by their point defense weapons. The mix of high speed kinetic shells and rapid cycling laser and plasma weapons make for a wall of lead, light and star stuff to brutalize even the most heavily armored boarding torpedo.

Jerry stands up from his chair, a big grin plastered on his face.

"That's enough I think. All hands, end exercise, end exercise, end exercise. Comm, get me the Tiger."

Her husband’s smile was infectious. Evie knew it had cost an astronomical amount of money to arrange these long distance simulated engagements with various Earth Foreign Legion pirate ships, but the money for interstellar near instant communication had clearly been worth it to train his crew against something with a bit more teeth to them than high quality simulations.

This had been their second run against the EFL Tiger, or the Claw by its usual designation. They'd refrained from using some of their more experimental toys and tactics last round and the Tiger had managed to duck some more conventional maneuvers and land a full spread of boarding torpedoes, with the fight ending in something of a draw as simulated soldiers battled each other in fierce hand to hand combat in cyberspace.

The main screen lights up, revealing the Lopen Pirate queen Agenda Lilpaw and her husband, along with the Tiger's bridge crew, a motley mix of individuals even by pirate standards from what Evie had seen. The massive canine alien wasn’t so much sitting as she was lounging on a large command couch that had plenty of room for her and her spouse.

"Captain Bridger, it seems you've managed to kill us." Lilpaw grins ferociously, displaying a muzzle full of bright white teeth. "Best of four maybe? I'm sure the girls will be down to try and get a little payback for that sneaky, underhanded trick you beat us with." Her face softens. "I wish I'd thought of whatever it was. The damn thing slagged part of our propulsion and knocked a couple of our boarding torpedo launch tubes out of the fight. Considering speed's our primary defense it was pretty much over after that."

"Captain, no, Admiral isn't it? Lilpaw, Captain Brent, or do you prefer Duchess and Duke now?"

The Pirate queen indulgently waves a hand in a manner that Bridger found to be a dead ringer for some of the more arrogant nobility left on Earth. "Your Grace will suffice Captain."

"If Miles thinks I'm calling him that, he's got another thing coming. I don't care how badass his first wife is."

Both bridges break into giggles and even the man her husband called Miles can't keep a straight face despite his best efforts to keep up a piratical scowl.

Lilpaw silences her crew with a wave. "Seriously though Bridger, level with me. What the hell did you hit my ship with?"

"Stealth torpedo. Can't say much more than that, the designs are being transmitted by paper only to make life harder on spies. I'll see about transferring some to the EFL if you're interested... but it'll cost you. They're not cheap to make to say the least."

"If you can sell'em I'll buy'em. I’m not one for anything with ammunition most of the time, too much of a pain logistics wise when las and plas’ll go till your engine dies but that? Hell any pirate would sell her left tit to get her hand on that sort of tech. Stealth goddessdamn torpedoes. You nasty little monkeys and your clever tricks."

"You can smack your chief engineer for revenge by proxy on this one actually Duchess. Wichen, my weapons master, is Mabby's sister and an absolute mad genius when it comes to weapons systems ranging from personal to naval scale. The stealth torpedoes are her baby.”

Jerry consults his log for a second, making a quick note.

“Vucsa Five's our first port of call, we'll be sure to send you the specs on her smaller weapons too in case any of your girls are tempted to do some shopping. For example, we have some new auto cannons that can be rigged up for back mounts suitable for Cannidor or similarly strong women that are showing extreme promise. For us mere mortals, they come in a crew served variant."

"Emphasis on the "mad", I'm sure. Send the information along, some of the girls will almost certainly be happy to part with their ill gotten gains. Especially if they can make custom orders. Pirates get off on that sort of shit. We might also pick up some things to supply the local defense forces with depending on what you’ve got for kinetics. Make sure you mention your weapon services when you’re operating in areas with EFL ships, I bet you’ll make a small fortune over a year or so of cruising. I'd tease you for being a merchant, but then, so are pirates, and you've more than shown us you're a capable naval officer Bridger. I'll look forward to meeting you in person when the Tear is done fitting out. Speaking of which, we’ve sent you a little ship warming present. Enjoy the new toys. Claw out."

Captain Bridger rises from his command chair and stretches as the screen goes black and normal lighting returns to the room.

"Alright ladies and gentlemen, I think we've earned ourselves a celebration! The galley's done, we have staff down there... let's see if we can get enough pizza to feed everyone on board and get some beers, everyone not actively involved in construction or feeding the same is on a 24 hour pass starting now."

Evie beams warmly at her husband from her station, resisting the urge to go give him a celebratory hug even as Wichen launches herself at him like she was an artillery shell. Life was good. So damn good. She was back in uniform. Married, to a man in uniform even. She was reunited with her dear little sisters, and had worthy new sisters at that! She was getting to fight the good fight for a stellar nation that actually had some ideals worth fighting for. And she’d just helped beat a crew of very talented space pirates black and blue. Yes. Today was a very good day to be Evie Bridger.