Privateer's Commission 2 -ch 17-

Chapter 17

“I can’t find the flag ship,” Marionette reported in finally. “I’ve grabbed as many laser comms as I can, I’ve routed it all through Xas, thank you by the way dear, that was so very helpful. I hope you join us after this for our traditional victory nail painting.

“But anyways, there’s nothing that shows up one way or the other as to who is the flag ship. They’re being deliberately cautious and vague about it. Orders are coming down from more than a few ships as well, but I think they’re all command and control ships. Not the flag.”

Ralph blew out a breath and ran his thumb and fore-finger along his jaw. He needed to shave and until he did so, he’d probably end up playing with the scruff.

“Can I lick your stubble?” Xas asked suddenly. “I have a multitude of sensors in my tongue and I want to lick a lot of things. I imagine your dick would be much softer than your stubble? I don’t know! I’m eager to find out.”

WIth a sigh, Ralph could only force a grin.

“Thank you, Rio,” Ralph began. “If we can’t find the flag, let’s find the primary command and control ship. The comms platform that’s driving all this. Do you have where all the comms are coming and going from for the most part?”

“I definitely have that, Ralph,” Marionette just about purred. “They routed a few things a bit weirdly, but I traced that down at least. There’s one target in particular that’s getting more than eighty percent of all the comms traffic. The other four get some of the same, but nothing has the number of unique messages as this one.”

“Great. Delilah, how are you feeling about being a nasty intelligence officer? If I can get you on board, think you could get Xas a window to operate out of?” Ralph continued, a plan quickly forming in his mind.

“Easily. I’ll just put together a brute force protocol that’ll force open a back-door. If we can drag one of my small fiber-optic drones along, I could even do a wire connection so that there’s no signal leakage.”

“I’m sure he makes you leak a lot, huh? You get stuffed up almost daily now,” Winnie asked in the background. She sounded rather bitter to be honest. Delilah had apparently comited the same sin Marionette had. Keeping the transmit button depressed, or toggling it. Keeping the line open. “Do you have to change your panties often?”

There was a sigh from Delilah followed by a soft pop as the transmission was ended.

“Fascinating,” Xas said, turning to look at Ralph.

“It is, isn’t it? I can tell you that she does indeed leak,” Liseth murmured in an almost bored sounding way. “When I pulled my speculum out the other day, it carried forth a great deal of material with it. It was surprising.”

Opening his mouth, Ralph felt his brain turn off as he processed what Liseth said. His eyes then slid down to see the transmit button was on and open. Xas had kept it live.

“Get me to that comms ship,” he stated after his gaze left the transmit button, his cheeks feeling rather warm. “Let’s get in tight. Get in close. Right on an airlock. I’m sure Delilah and Xas can force it to cycle if we can get latched on.”

“I can definitely do that,” Xas agreed.

Ralph didn’t wait around to hear anything more. He went and got his sword ready as well as a bandoleer of laser-pistols. Cheap throwaways that he could utilize and dispose of without an issue.

As well as a full satchel of heavy explosives that were quite scary to be lugging around.

By the time he returned Winnie had come back up to the upper deck. She had an energy weapon in her hands that looked a great deal like an SMG. At her hip was a combat knife.

Behind her was Liseth, dressed in a similar way, though she had two pistols, one on each hip, and a medical kit strung across her shoulder.

Delilah was down on one knee to the side, tapping at a drone in front of herself. It had a long wire trailing out behind it and she was working on a panel on it’s top.

She had a laser rifle hung off her shoulder but behind her back.

There were also three military skeletal-drones armed in a similar fashion to Winnie as well.

He only noticed then that Winnie, Liseth, and the drones, were all wearing a type of body armor over their suit. One that looked like it was probably rated for small arms fire and laser-weapons.

“Your body armor is next to your foot, my captain,” Liseth offered with her ever present smile in place. “I made sure to requisition them while we had the opportunity. No sense in not wearing them given they’re military grade.”

“You’re mind is as brilliant and stunning as your looks,” Ralph immediately replied and grabbed the body armor. He hoped that maybe with a pointed compliment or two she might ease up on him in the future. “And yes, I suspect that your mind is terrifyingly brilliant. I imagine a lot of the time you’re waiting for the rest of us to get to the point we’re trying to make since you’ve already formulated a response.”

“Why thank you,” replied Liseth, her smile growing into something real. “And yes, that was true before I joined this crew. I’m pleasantly surprised daily and find myself enjoying my crewmates conversations.”

The doctor had closed the distance to Ralph as she spoke. She reached up and quickly began adjusting the body armor on him with practiced ease. Reminding him that she’d spent the majority of her adult life in the military as an actual officer.

She finished quickly, pushed at the center of it, then adjusted a strap.

Finally, she looked to him and gave him a smile. Her eyes peered into him as if she were slowly peeling away every layer of his thoughts to find the nougat center.

“You’re not afraid of me at all,” she murmured quietly. “You’re not even bothered by the fact that I’m likely smarter than you.”

“No?” Ralph replied and shook his head. “No. I’m not. Why? Want me to be?”

Liseth grinned at him, wrinkled her nose, and shook her head.

“Mmm, you’ll be coming by for that physical soon I hope,” she said and poked his helmet with a fingertip. “Maybe I’ll show you some of my measurements. Like my IQ, the length of my telomeres, that I have almost zero runs of homozygosity, or that my epigenome is as clean as it could be?”

“Honestly that just sounds like you’re trying to give me your breeding resume. Excedpt that you’re so highly breedable, such a perfect woman, that any child put in you by a man would be lesser than you,” Ralph offered up with a smirk.

Liseth blinked suddenly, her head tilted to the side, and her smile froze.

Then she grinned again, shrugged, and patted him on the shoulder.

“Sum of the parts, my captain. Sum of the parts,” she said, pulled on him, and moved him to the front of the airlock. He only realized now that the Toll’s side of the lock was open and multiple wires were already crammed into the hull of the enemy ship. “We’re ready Xas, Delilah.”

“Alright. Let’s pop this hatch and have you storm inside,” Xas said over the intercom. “Exactly what I want Ralphy to do to me! Pop my entrance wide, rush in with a bunch of seamen, or spacemen I suppose but that ruins the joke, and rummage around in my insides for a bit.”

“You kinda ruined it by explaining,” advised Winnie, looking up at a camera above them.

“Ralph,” Marionette cut through. “Bertson’s fleet and a number of Mirkil ships are all exchanging fire with one another. There’s a lot of ships going off in explosions on both sides. We’re not on a clock, but we are as well.

“If someone gets curious about a ship hanging off a comm ship, or puts a few rounds in it, we’re in trouble.”

“Got it, Rio. Thank you. We’ll board, sword, add to the horde, and get out,” Ralph confirmed then put a hand on the satchel of explosives, and shoved it partially behind his back.

“No prisoners, please,” Marionette added. “Unless they’re men. You can take men as a prisoner and put them in the smuggler’s hold under sedation.”

“To be fair, the last time you came back with a female prisoner, she joined the crew,” Winnie chimed in and nodded her head at Liseth. “Even if I like you Doc and think you’re amazing, it’s not like I was happy that the number of ‘available women’ on the ship increased.”

“I agree with your sentiment,” Liseth admitted, looking at Winnie. “No female prisoners. With any luck, we can disable the ship without blowing it up completely.”

Alright… well… command information center then.

We take the CIC.

“That’s the plan then. No prisoners and we rush,” Ralph advised. “We’re going to be trying to rush straight for the CIC. It’ll probably be guarded but… not by a lot. It’s not technically a military ship and even if it was boarded, the damage would be minimal.”

“Unless you took over the ship’s system,” said Xas from a drone beside Ralph. It didn’t quite sound like her, but it was close enough that he recognized her voice.

Ralph took in a breath, blew it out, and stood there waiting at the airlock.

“Got it,” Delilah growled and then huffed. “I had to do it in  way that wouldn’t alert them. I tricked it into a maintenance cycle, which happens almost randomly at times if we’re honest, and it’ll cycle the lock. We need to flood the Toll with atmosphere though so we don’t cause an explosive decompression.”

“Already done,” Liseth reported, glancing at her wrist. There was a small monitor on her left arm that spanned from the elbow to the wrist. Her right hand hovered above it. “I assumed that’d be the case and made the change.”

“Open it,” Ralph hissed, drew two laser pistols, and held them loosely in front of himself.

Going full damn pirate.

This is pretty damn wild.

Smuggler one day, merchant the next, then a full on Privateer spanning multiple wars.

Before Ralph could think further, the door swung lazily open. Beyond the frame there was a secure area that looked to be an airlock and decontamination zone.

The three military drones, which Ralph mentally called Juan, Chew, and Tyree, pushed forward ahead of Ralph, their weapons pulled up in front of themselves as they looked forward, left, and right at the same time. Each one taking a different direction.

Ralph followed them in quickly, his pistols ready.

There wasn’t anything in the immediate area, which was somewhat odd.

If there wasn’t anyone immediately here, then he would expect that there’d be at least a guard or two nearby for battle-stations. Because even the most lax military would still post guards at air-locks.

Just in case of something like this.

Though, will they be wearing helmets and suits?

The drones pushed out of the decontamination zone and into the hall beyond.

Chew was the first out the door, swung their weapon to the right, and fired immediately. Juan came out second, took the left and also started firing. Multiple laser shots zipping out in short order.

Ralph kept in close behind Tyree and turned right to move in behind Chew. There were two soldiers laid out on the ground, smoking holes in their space-suits the only sign of what had happened.

One more soldier had taken cover behind some type of pillar.

Ralph didn’t hesitate and pushed forward quickly. He neede dto make sure whoever this was didn’t report in anything that was happening.

Moving quickly he turned the corner and found a young man pressed up to the pillar, one hand pressed to their chest as if they were attempting to activate a comm system.

Ralph stuck the tip of his right hand weapon to their chest and fired multiple times. Right into the spot that their heart and lungs should be.

He didn’t look away as the young man’s eyes widened at Ralph’s sudden appearance. Or when the blood drained out of the man’s face and he became instantly pale.

Then slowly toppled to the side and hit the floor with a thump.

Juan and Tyree moved past Ralph and down the hall. Chew was at the other end, weapon held up, and keeping it pointed down the hall.

“Both sides are clear,” Xas remarked inside of Ralph’s helmet as Liseth, Winnie, and Delilah caught up to him. Delilah was at the rear, dragging along the drone behind herself.

With a nod of his head, Ralph moved to the end of the hall. There was a terminal here that looked like it interfaced with the decontamination zone.

No sooner than Delilah reached him than Ralph reached over and took the wire wound about the front of the drone. It had a port on it that could interact with the vast majority of current day systems.

Ralph found the input quickly and stuck it in.

“Xas, need a map, then the fastest route into the center,” Ralph ordered. “And don’t tell me you’ll just spread your thighs or something. Game face, Xas. Game face.”

“I’d prefer you to see my O-face,” Winnie interjected smoothly.

“Got the map and the route,” Xas answered. “Follow the drones. We’re taking the route least likely to have people on it. It’s four turns in. I’ll leave a drone at each turn.”

“I’ll take the fourth,” volunteered Winnie. “That way we hold open our retreat.”

Ralph nodded, pulled the wire out, rewound it around the drone, and moved to catch up to the moving drones. They were already prowling ahead at a fast but smooth walk. Weapons held up and ready for contact with anything.

“By the way,” began Xas in his helmet. “I pulled out some security codes, records, and some information while I got the map. This is the central command comms ship. The flag ship isn’t here.

“It’s not even in the fleet.

“It’s part of a secondary smaller fleet that’s moving around from a portion of black-space. Flanking the far side of the Bertson fleet. They’re attempting to obliterate some refineries on the planet and the space-station itself.”

Wait.

The actual space station?

“It seems they’re fully willing to escalate this,” continued Xas. “Because if those refineries go up, it’s entirely possible that a great deal of the planet below will just become uninhabitable. It’s a large scale processing planet for Combust-7.”

“Shit,” spat out Ralph, his mouth screwing up in a way that felt similar to him sucking on a lemon. “That’s definitely escalation. This isn’t just a skirmish or a lightweight battle anymore. This isn’t a war they expect to end without a decisive end.

“One side or the other will end up going for heavy knockout blows. This could end up reorganizing the entire sitting of the Houses. There could be a number that are shattered or consolidated after this. Damn. It really is becoming a Confed war.”

“Yes, I would expect so, haha. I wonder if the Blood might take this opportunity to expand their territory,” Xas mused aloud. Echoing where Ralph’s thoughts had gone next, in fact.

“It’s possible. There’s some Blood out there that are quick to go on the attack,” answered Ralph as they made the first turn and Tyree turned off to hold it. They hadn’t encountered anyone else so far. “The Calesat are normally somewhat reserved when it comes to dealing with the Confed. The Dashi were a bit of a wild-card though as an example.

“They moved on Mirkil and tried to keep land rather than just raid. If they’d timed their attack better, or just been luckier, they’d have tried to make a move during this stupid Confed war that’s starting.”

Another turn came and went, another drone peeled away and now the group only had Juan.

“To be certain, one could almost theoretically argue that this war kicked off because of the Dashi,” Liseth countered. “Among the Vannah, we thought the whole thing to be quite foolish. Attempting to take anything from the Confed would just draw their ire and cause them to get rather hot and bothered.

“The Blood are excellent warriors and soldiers. We excel at it and honestly, few can hold their ground against us. Even the weakest Blood produce great fighters.

“Where the Blood lack is competence in leadership and strategy. Our cultural beliefs and unwillingness to bend to the sands of time have kept us bottlenecked and trapped in our arrogance and pride.

“Admittedly some Blood have attempted to circumvent that with… interesting… means, but even then, it won’t work. One could birth an exceptional strategist and it wouldn’t matter unless the entirety of the culture changed to benefit that strategist.

“It’s enough to make said strategist give up, deliberately ignore all tactics, strategy, and battle intelligence, and forcibly eject themselves from the role. Because it would be doing nothing other than setting them up for failure.”

Ah, got it.

Liseth saw what they wanted, spoiled it, and did her best to get out from under that shadow.

Because even if she’s a genetic super-human, unless people want to listen to her, it wouldn’t matter.

And her belief is that until the culture changes, it won’t matter.

“You’re amazing. I’m glad I stole you,” observed Ralph. “You’re clearly the most expensive thing I’ve ever robbed from someone.

“Then again… actually, you could argue that you’re all the most expensive thing I’ve taken from someone. Somehow, you all ended up as ‘cargo’, and not through my own doing.”

“We’re not collector cards,” hissed Winnie. “Though, I’m glad to be considered amongst such a lovely group. I think. I’m having a hard time thinking because I’m just staring at your ass, Ralph while trying not to think about the fact that we might be in a fire fight.

“Cause the CIC is up ahead, and I’m staying here at this stupid corner I guess. Which way do they turn Xas?”

Ralph hadn’t realized it, but Juan had left the group and they were now at the final stretch.

“Right,” Xas ordered.

Ralph, Delilah, and Liseth turned to face the corner

Lifting his pistols, Ralph made himself ready.