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Piracy, Karega had said piracy. When Alwen asked him about the weapons he had said piracy. He said that they were for piracy…she didn’t think he meant they were all pirates! She thought they were for fighting off pirates. By the goddess, he had even said that Terra’s reputation as a pirate haven was well earned. He had told her the truth the whole fucking time and she was too stupid to see it!
Thinking back over her time aboard too many weird things all started to make sense. The weapons, the insane physical conditioning, the armories, the armor, and swords, and even the marreens. It must be a Terran word for pirate or raider. Oh Ashendra, she ate and laughed with a group of alien space pirates. She had shouted at a massive pirate bosun. A pirate chef had made a move on her.
She really wanted to break down in tears, the only thing that stopped that was the fact that she would be crying in the halls of a pirate ship!
When she arrived at the med bay a group of men had brought a screaming man in on stretcher, blood and burnt flesh assaulted her nose. They brought him up to the operating table and rolled him off gently before standing back.
“You have work to do, LEAVE!” the fanged Ursiloid growled, the pirate Ursiloid. “Djani get over here!”
Startled out of her stupor she rushed forward; the other men looked back once more before reluctantly leaving.
“Coolant pipe burst in engineering, the steam melted his thumb, first, and second digits clean off, the rest are too badly burned to save. We have to amputate.” He said while pushing the man back onto the table, at the word amputate the injured man began to struggle harder. “Help me with the straps and get ready to operate”
“But-“
“But what” Bachir growled, all his fearsome teeth on display.
“But he’s a Pirate!” she exclaimed.
His anger deepened “doesn’t fucking matter, you’re a doctor and he’s hurt! His health and well being is your responsibility, pirate or not! And I’m offended at your disgust!” he roared at her from over the man, who struggled a little less at Bachir’s fierce display. “Now scrub up and prepare to operate, just for that I’m making you do the cutting. Grab that bone saw on your left, today is your first real day aboard.”
Alwen was to stunned by his outburst and simply did what he said, she scrubbed and sanitized faster than she ever had before and grabbed the bone saw, an old-fashioned hand one. Her heart was pumping, and she was terrified of making a mistake with the blade. Back on Torwen she had only just got out of university and thanks to her older sister’s jealous meddling she was really just an overeducated nurse.
But she moved past that and helped Doctor Bachir strap the engineer down and she began to soothe him, just like she had a hundred times before on Torwen. “It’s alright, its alright, tell me your name” she crooned and brushed back his hair.
“Em, em, em kay Douglas” he stuttered out through the pain.
“Alright Douglas, I’m going to give you something for the pain.” She said slipping the needle easily into the bulging vein of his undamaged arm.
“m,m,my hand, is gone” he cried.
“Don’t say that boy” the doctor said, picking up on Alwen’s gentle tone, all anger long forgotten. “We have to remove the damaged part and fit it with a cuff. We’ll make a cybernetic one for you once you’re. It will be hard for a few months, but you’re a tough lad you can make it.” Doctor Bachir said as they fell into a comfortable working rhythm
And like that she didn’t really think about piracy until the day was over.
~~~*~~~
“Move us to condition four” Captain Astarte ordered.
The command deck was a buzz with activity. During the ambush they had been a calm predator waiting for their prey to come to them. That was all speed and power. This was different. They would be plowing headfirst into defensive satellites, fire from all sides as two stealth dropships, Incubus and Succubus, snuck onto the planetoid the mine had dug into. The dropships would deploy two teams of hardened space marines, Sin and Virtue. From there the marines would move to clear the equipment storage and the loading docks, they were expecting to receive heavy return fire from a company of slavers turned mercenaries that the mining consortium had hired.
While both objectives were being achieved by the marine teams, Astaroth would begin to really hammer down on the enemy defense grids to allow Tartarus and them an entrance point. From then on it was a smash a grab.
~~~*~~~
“Wrath to Ghost, check in”
“I read you Wrath” Alice/Ghost responded. The crew almost all had nicknames, but for the two marine teams their cllsigns were like a whole different persona. Was the leader of Temperance team, named for one of the seven virtues. Temperance, like many of the virtue teams, were covert infiltrators. Sussuro and Sombra were true to their names and could sneak past any surveillance and eliminate any obstacles without giving away their presence. Wraith was their digital infiltration specialist, and could hold his own in CQC. Alice as a ghost leopard had ingrained instincts for stealth and camouflage, but her real contribution to Temperance team was as a heavy hitter for when things got dicey.
They were loaded into Incubus along with Charity, and Patience teams who had their own goals to achieve. The ship only had enough marines to field seven squads of either Virtue or Sin squad. During this mission the Virtues were in charge of the softer side of the attack, covert infiltration, sabotage, hacking, and demolitions. The Sins who were loaded into Succubus were Wrath, Greed, and Gluttony. Both squads had the training for explosive power and speed, but the Sins drilled it until they had made swift murder into a fine art. Both had the same goal, push back the mercs, take objectives Alpha and Beta, and if possible deactivate a few orbital defenses to let Astaroth and Tartarus in. but they would be splitting off to accomplish their missions separately. The Virtues was unlikely to see direct fire this mission since the Sins would be taking on the brunt of the attack.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
“Armor secured and sealed?” Wrath asked, a huge black jaguar man who claimed his name was Gato, Gato Negrito. Which was more an insult than a proper name, but the stubborn man refused to be called anything else. As far as he was concerned it was as good a name as any other.
“All good, and you?” she responded coolly.
“Estamos bien, stay safe out there Ghost”
She scowled; he always did this. She had been a marine longer than him, but he always treated her as if she were some damsel in distress. She was a Hellworlder marine, her adoptive parents were the last remnants of old-world marines left on north America. Semper fi, do or die were the first words she and her twin had sister learned when they were just cubs. If she could get tattoos then she would have the eagle, globe, and anchor etched into her back, stupid fur.
She cut the com in anger, and Sussuro placed a hand on her back. “Cálmate”
She took a breath and entered her zone, a place where only the mission existed. And none of Gato’s unwarranted concern could affect her.
~~~*~~~
Chairman Tch’ceck was making his rounds through the mining base, as he always did at galactic standard midday. He had nearly bankrupted his own personal assets and those of his investors to get this base built, but every shipment it delivered was paying off. In less than two standard years he will have earned enough to take on more loans and expand his operations. Within five they would rival the largest mining consortium in the Femeri sector, and maybe overtake the old giant.
He had entered the station’s control tower, the nerve center that monitored the open space around the planetoid, when an alarm began its shrill mechanical call. He clicked his beak in annoyance and moved to the head terminal. Shrill sounds were especially painful for his Cék’ek ear holes, and whatever made that noise would need to have its sound changed.
He began to click angrily at the Icutoo station tech, obviously from the look on his face it took him a minute to decode the rhythmic clicks into common, so he repeated what he said slower “What is that infernal alarm?”
“A ship sir; it just passed our observation outposts.”
“Is it the lane runner?” he clicked, his chirps slowly growing a little higher.
“I don’t think so, this ship is coming straight for us, and it’s far too fast.”
“Call the lane runner” he ordered.
“Just did sir” a fellow Cék’ek chirped “the Comets tail is not responding, wake coms are trying to reach the others”
A wave of anxiety washed over Chairman Tch’ceck and vestigial bumps were feathers used to be rose across his leathery skin “We’re under attack” he cried, clicking so fast the idiot Icutoo lost count of his clicks. The chairman leveled his eyes on the fool “Sound the alarm, sound the alarm, sound the alarm” he was screeching now, but the idiot couldn’t make wing from tail. The chairman shoved him aside and hit the button himself.
This new alarm wasn’t as grating on his ears but its cacophonous noise still filled the station tower.
~~~*~~~
“Brace for impact in 5, 4, 3, 2,…1” Astarte called over the ships PA as a wave of ice-cold calm washed over her.
~~~*~~~
“…1” Alwen heard as a shudder and screech roared through the ship, not too dissimilar from bahgpiepss. She rocked on her feet but managed to stay up right through the turmoil. When the captain called brace for impact the brown furred doctor had removed his tools and stepped back, and Alwen had copied him. Now that the shaking was over he returned to his station like nothing happened and Alwen followed. A small part of her knew that the ship had just entered into battle, but the rest of her was too focused on the job at hand.
~~~*~~~
They all watched in a stunned horror as the pirate vessel roared out of warp space in a flurry of pulse fire. The advanced station sensors got a one nano second look at it before the signals were all obstructed. The computers compiled what little it had and spit out some statistics, it was approximately a little more the 700 standard meters, narrow along the keel and widened a bit towards the weapons deck, the sensors also picked up three pulse cannon mounts, and maybe a few rail guns. And that was it, that was it. It wasn’t even the size of a Union destroyer, and his defense platforms were rated to handle the much larger Union Cruisers.
Tch’ceck let out a soft trill “Such a small ship wants to take on my station, stupid pirates, that ship doesn’t even out mass our defense platforms” he laughed a little more “We’re fine” he said.
At the exact moment he said they were fine a grizzled voice behind him said “We’re screwed”
Chairman Tch’ceck turned to the captain of the mercenary company Gaw’s host, Gaw himself.
The intimidating gray Ceshix male stepped through and scanned the monitors “That is likely one of three pirate ships I know of, they have never been caught or identified, but when they come it always means death” he said as the orbital platform computers tried to get a weapons lock and failed “Turn the tuning algorithms down, you wont ever get an exact lock on that ship, just fill the space around it with as much pulse fire as you can and hope you hit.” Gaw ordered at the exact same time as a barrage of enemy weapons fire barreled through platform seven, severely damaging it.
System techs obeyed his orders, and the platforms began to fire unguided shots at the little ship, some even hit. As the ship moved closer to the planetoid more platforms got firing solutions and rained death upon the ship.
“That is either the Gray fury, the Gray death, or White hunter. Figuring out which depends on what the captain does next.” Gaw said calmly stepping up next to Tch’ceck. The ship launched a volley of missiles at the station itself, they arrived at the shield an instant before concentrated pulse fire temporarily broke the shield and let the missiles pass through unobstructed. The hail of missiles split apart and hit sensor arrays, wake-com arrays, and the station’s telescopes used for evaluating asteroids and incoming ships visually. Only now did the chairman realize that he could have ordered tower techs to train the telescopes on the ship to get a better idea of what they were facing.
“The Gray Death then” Gaw said.
“How do you know?” the chairman asked.
“I’ve encountered Gray Death and Gray Fury before. Similar ships from what I can tell, but the captain of the Gray Death is a much more cautious and thorough opponent. Fury is a reckless and foolhardy foe. Of the two Death is the more cunning and effective foe. On our last job that ship hit me and my crew hard, boarded my ship, Gaw’s pride, and stole my cargo. The boarders killed half the crew within ten minutes of breaching, crippled the ship, and left the rest of us to die in space. We were found and rescued by a lane runner days later. The captain of the Gray Death likely has those impressive boarders already within the shield, we should see a pressure loss soon” Gaw explained calmly stroking arm spines, or was that nerves? Tch’ceck could never read these Ceshix.
A new shrill alarm began, and the Gray Death moved back outside the defense platforms kill zone and began to fire on seven again.
“Where at?” Gaw asked a sensor tech.
“A little outside of the warehouse” the idiot Icutoo tech said, his limbs now shaking with fear at having pirates aboard the station. From Gaw’s description it was obvious that these boarders must have been deathworlders. Tch’ceck hoped they were just Balikstro and not those awful Terrans.
“They will be after the alloys and mining equipment” Gaw sighed, “Mister chairman my men are completely outmatched, I recommend a retreat to cut casualties”
“If they steal that equipment we’ll be done for” the chairman squawked “I pay you to defend this base and equipment and you can’t even do that against mere pirates”
Gaw grinned that awful toothy smile of his people “We might be able to, but we will have to commandeer some mining mechs”
“Done”
“And I want quadruple our normal rate”
“Done”
“Then I’ll be off chairman, please try to hold off the Gray Death for us, if we can take out the boarders then it will have to leave. But if it gets in to assist them then it’s all over” Gaw lectured before turning to leave “Oh and start running firewalls and debugging programs, they like to hack as they go” he called over his shoulder.
~~~*~~~
Gaw had waited a long time for his revenge. He had studied the attacks and behavior of these three ships, and several similar smaller ships, for a long time and deduced this station would be a likely target of theirs. He had turned his crew of slavers into a mercenary company for this one goal.
Those ships had disrupted his business again and again, every time they hit a deathworld ship for cargo and slaves those ships soon followed. Gaw watched as his empire collapsed around him, until one day they came for his own ship, his crown jewel. It was ostensibly comparable to a heavy cruiser, and out massed the enemy four times over. And yet they dealt with him like a simple freighter, and didn’t even bother to kill them all off. Those bastards had left him and his crew to starve, or suffocate, or whatever life support system failed first.
When they were rescued by a Union lane runner, he, and his crew vowed revenge.
He suspected that the dreaded Gray Death was a Hellworld vessel named the ‘Astaroth’ named for Terran deity of pain, torture, death, and strangely enough knowledge. Backwards savages!
He passed along his solid suspicions to the Station security chief and used that good will to get a job on this mining operation and waited for captain Astarte, another Terran deity of love, sex, and war, to come to him.
“Astarte is here, you know the plan.” Gaw said into his coms-bracelet.
“BLOOD FOR KRELL” the bracelet roared back. Krell was a proper deity, he was god of war, pain, and vengeance. Pacts made by his name must be fulfilled with blood, one way or another.