Chapter 16 - The pirates are due a final reckoning and now it's time!

John stretched and then sat up, leaving the girls curled around him in bed.

“You ladies have a rest then come and join me in the officers’ lounge in 30 minutes” he said “I owe you girls that celebratory dinner!”

He manoeuvred his way out of the bed, being careful not to accidentally lean his weight on Calara as he climbed over her. The girls snuggled up together, watching him get dressed before waving him goodbye with smiles on their beautiful young faces.

John strolled down the corridor to the Kitchen, whistling happily to himself. He remembered the blood soaked armour down in the hangar that desperately needed a good clean, but he shrugged nonchalantly.

“I’ll clean it up later.” he thought, eager to go and get started on the cooking.

He stopped suddenly, surprised by his own thoughts. For years he had been obsessed with cleanliness, scrubbing the Fool’s Gold until it shined, a slave to his obsessive need to keep things clean and well ordered. He was no longer troubled by those concerns and thinking back on it, he hadn’t been for at least a month or so. Prior to that, the idea of leaving a messy chaotic jumble like that in his domain would have been like a nagging splinter in his mind, leaving him unable to focus on anything else until he restored order to his ship.

Shrugging it off, he carried on walking to the kitchen, figuring that he had enough on his plate with keeping the girls entertained, to be worrying about such trivialities. He entered the well stocked kitchen and grabbed sheets of pasta, white sauce, herbs and the ingredients for a tasty homemade Bolognese sauce that his grandmother had taught him decades ago.

30 minutes later, the girls walked into the officers’ lounge and gathered around the table. John came out of the kitchen with a big dish of lasagne that he had just cooked up for them, the cheese on the top piping hot.

“Here you go girls, try this!” he said enthusiastically. “Have any of you had lasagne before?” he asked curiously.

None of the girls had and it smelled so delicious they couldn’t wait to try it. John walked around the table holding the chairs out for each girl in turn, waiting for them to sit down. Alyssa and Sparks wondered what he was doing for a moment, but Calara had seen this kind of old fashioned chivalry before and therefore knew how to respond. Alyssa just followed the Latina’s lead, waiting to be seated. He reached Sparks last, expecting her to have a hugely swollen belly after their passionate love making earlier, but her stomach was slim and toned. He stood behind her as she waited to be seated and reached around, running his hand over the smooth toned skin of her midriff.

“Where did it all go?” he asked curiously, enjoying the feel of her supple teenage flesh beneath his fingers.

“We fancied a starter!” Alyssa grinned at him impishly, rubbing her own stomach contentedly. Calara smiled up at him coyly.

John laughed and then turned Sparks around to kiss her soundly. The sultry redhead put her arms around his neck and returned his lovely greeting. They smiled at each other happily and then he held out the chair for her, so she could sit too.

The four of them tucked into dinner like they were starving, enjoying the food and a bottle of wine. It was a nice relaxing evening and just what they all needed after the mayhem and excitement of the day. After clearing up they returned to bed, eager to get a good night’s sleep so that they would be well rested before they caught up with the pirates tomorrow.

The three girls each took turns going down on him until he couldn’t hold back any longer and Calara ended up being the one to provide a nice warm home in her belly for his load.

“It was wonderful to see you change Sparks” she sighed contentedly, rubbing her full stomach “but I can’t tell you how good it feels to be swallowing down John’s cum again”.

They drifted off into a deep restful sleep and awoke the next morning feeling completely refreshed. After a shower they had breakfast and then went their separate ways; Calara going up to the Command deck to further familiarise herself with their target, the Heavy Cruiser Stalingrad, whilst the others went down to the cargo deck to clean up the combat gear.

John and Alyssa set to work cleaning their armour, while Sparks hosed out all the viscous green Kirrix blood from the dropship they had captured. She was intrigued by the alien technology and soon had a maintenance panel removed from the small yellow-brown craft to have a look at the dropship’s innards. She glanced over to see John and Alyssa had finished cleaning up their gear and were now wondering what to do about the pile of Kirrix corpses stacked to the side of the hangar bay. Closing the maintenance panel behind her with a pressurised click, Sparks strode over to join the other two.

“What are you going to do with all these bodies?” she asked curiously.

“I was thinking we could just space them out the airlock” John said.

Sparks knelt down to take a closer look at their armoured carapaces and she lifted up one of the corpses to study its chitinous body plating.

“I’d like to study their armour if that’s alright?” she asked tentatively.

“Sure, but why?” John replied bemused.

“Their armour seems strong and resilient, but it’s much less bulky than your armour and very light weight.” she explained. “Once I have my workshop, I’d like to see if I could reproduce something similar with a synthetic polymer.”

“Be my guest.” John smiled indulgently.

“Thanks!” she grinned exuberantly.

They left the hangar with John and Alyssa carrying their armour and weapons to take up to their room. After packing the gear away neatly, they headed up to the bridge to prepare for the fight with the pirates.

“Hey Calara, everything ok up here?” John asked the gorgeous brunette as he climbed the steps to the command podium and settled in his chair.

“Sure John.” she replied, smiling at him warmly. “We’ve got just over an hour until we catch up with the Stalingrad. I checked the system where we should be able to ambush them and it’s a binary star system called Irinis-gemini.”

Calara turned to her console and pressed a couple of buttons bringing up the system map. The map blinked into existence in the middle of the bridge, casting a pale blue illumination over the command deck. It showed them their current location, travelling through a system called Iota-Carinae and then under Calara’s skilled hands the map glided through the sector, passing system after system until she brought up the Irinis-gemini system.

John leaned forward to look at the map. There was a single Gas giant, an asteroid belt that was being heavily mined and one other planetoid, a habitable world called Winnesh, all orbiting the primary star in the system.

“Can you show me the exact place we’ll catch...” he began.

“BWOOOP!” “BWOOOP!” “BWOOOP!”

An obnoxiously loud siren sounded through the bridge and the Invictus began to vibrate alarmingly.

“What the fuck’s going on?!” John asked in alarm.

“We’re being pulled out of Hyper-warp!” Alyssa exclaimed, staring at her Navigation overview intensely.

“Get our shields up and weapons ready Lieutenant!” he ordered the Latina, who was already springing into action, her hands a flurry of activity over the tactical controls.

The weapons loadout hologram hovering above her tactical station showed the armoured panels in the Invictus’ hull peeling away to expose their weaponry.

“They’re using an Interdictor against us John!” Sparks called out in alarm.

“Put our current star system on the map Sparks” he asked her brusquely, having no time for pleasantries.

The sultry redhead nodded determinedly and the System map snapped back to Iota-Carinae. They were on the outskirts of the system, the huge A-type star bathing the system in a white glow. The tactical map showed that they had been pulled out of hyper-warp and dragged close to Iota-Carinae Alpha, the only planetary body in the system. It was a freezing world of sub-zero temperatures, surrounded by a wide band of frozen ice chunks in concentric rings.

Their focus was dragged away from the system map for the moment when Sparks reported they were receiving incoming fire.

“Shields at 62% Commander!” she cried out in alarm “We’re being attacked by multiple targets”.

“Boost shields and engine power, divert all energy from weapons.” John said.

Sparks swiped her hand over the power distribution hologram to obey his commands. The shields on the damage control overlay began to pulse in a light green, showing that they were recharging and the massive engines groaned as they trembled with power, the Invictus leaping forward eagerly.

“Alyssa, evasive manoeuvres, we’ve got to get out of their killing ground!” he said curtly.

“On it John!” the beautiful blonde said in reply, rolling the Invictus and pulled the nose of the ship around to point at the Ice planet.

“Calara, show me the tactical map!” he ordered the Latina.

The tactical map appeared, replacing the system map in the middle of the bridge and icons quickly sprung into place as they were picked up by the sensors. Their dark grey hulled assault cruiser was centred in the map, surrounded by a destroyer, a frigate, four corvettes and the heavy cruiser. It was the pirates from the Chendar system and the hacking Sparks had done on their transponders, allowed the crew to see the full order of battle arrayed against them.

“Those fleeing picket ships must have regrouped with the other pirate ships that jumped out!” Calara said, as she recognised the ship configurations.

The Invictus rocketed past the destroyer, leaving it facing the wrong direction, as Alyssa made a beeline for the belt of razor sharp chunks of ice. The corvettes and the frigate gave chase, firing their laser cannons at the fleeing ship. The carefully controlled erratic dodging that Alyssa was employing was allowing the slower ships to keep up, but making it extremely hard for them to hit the Invictus with any degree of accuracy. One of the corvettes managed to hit them with a few blasts from its laser cannons but the rest of the pirates’ shots went comfortably wide.

“Shields at 60% John.” Sparks called out, the shields regenerating almost as quickly as the pirates could knock them down with their inaccurate shooting.

“Incoming broadside from the Stalingrad!” Calara warned, as the bulky pirate command ship opened up with its starboard batteries.

Alyssa had dipped the Invictus and was yawing to the right to avoid fire from the pursuing corvettes, which meant that the enormous shells from the Heavy cannons sailed wide, eventually detonating harmlessly a few thousand metres away from their hull with colossal explosive force. Unfortunately the beam laser battery fire was much more accurate, with four of the six lasers scything across the shields over the rear of the dodging assault cruiser.

“Shields down to 28%!” the redhead cried in alarm.

“Twenty second until we reach the Ice field.” Alyssa said distractedly, as she focused nearly all her attention on trying to anticipate where the pirates would aim and making wild evasive manoeuvres to make sure the Invictus wasn’t near that spot.

A relentless cascade of laser cannon fire sailed around the Invictus, as the pirates sprayed shots all over the place, giving up on trying to aim and just hoping a mass of firepower would let them hit by blind luck if not by skill. It worked to a degree, with the Invictus taking a few more hits, although the shields comfortably absorbed and dissipated the energy.

The tactical map zoomed in to show the looming formations of ice hanging motionless and trapped in orbit around the frozen planet. The Invictus dived into the ice belt, leaving a frosty trail behind them as their shields pushed aside the tiny ice crystals that shrouded the whole belt in a white mist.

Alyssa pulled the ship around in a smooth arc and put a colossal hunk of crystallised water between them and the heavy cruiser. Now they were no longer in direct line of sight to the pirates, she was able to put more distance between them and their pursuers, making use of the superior top speed of the Invictus.

“What’s the plan John?” she asked him curiously.

“We’ll regenerate our shields under cover of the ice field and then hit the pirates if they come in after us.” he said decisively.

Alyssa grinned at him and nodded eagerly.

“Fantastic job reacting so fast to that ambush ladies” he said delightedly, never ceasing to be surprised at just how capable his women were.

They beamed up at him happily, loving hearing the pride in his voice.

“Shields at 22%.” Sparks said. “That was a close one!” she sighed with relief.

Behind them, the titanic lump of ice shuddered as it was hit by the beam lasers from the Stalingrad, melting huge gouges out of the sheer ice surface facing the Heavy Cruiser. The stubborn ice block stayed together though, refusing to yield to the energy weapons. That stubbornness was abruptly overwhelmed when the Stalingrad opened up with its eight heavy cannons. The shells punched their way into the icy asteroid and caused great fractured splits, until the shells detonated moments later and razor sharp ice fragments exploded in all directions, the huge object blasted into smithereens.

Fortunately for the crew of the Invictus, that was but one massive hunk of ice amongst thousands and Alyssa simply followed the Ice belt around the planet, putting more distance and more Ice between them and the marauding pirates. They sailed past huge formations of ice that reflected the bright glare from the sun, spreading multi hued prisms of light in front of them.

“You know this would actually be quite beautiful if we weren’t running for our lives” Alyssa said, smiling appreciatively at the natural wonders the galaxy had to share.

The other girls nodded appreciatively and John looked at her fondly.

“Perhaps we’ll do some sightseeing sometime,” he said. “but for now we better focus on the job at hand. Sparks, how are the shields?”

“We’re back up to 47%.” She said with relief.

“Calara, what about the pirates?” he asked the brunette.

“The destroyer is hanging back with the heavy cruiser. The four corvettes and the frigate are in pursuit.” Calara said, highlighting the enemy ships on the tactical map.

“That’s right, split your forces you dumb bastards.” John said, with a predatory grin. “Sparks, let me know when we’re above 90% shields and it’s going to be payback time.”

“Will do John.” she told him, grinning.

Alyssa kept the ship on an even keel, but reduced their speed slightly so they wouldn’t get too far ahead of the pursuing pirate ships. By the time the shields had regenerated, they were around on the other side of the planet from the initial ambush site.

“88... 89... 90% John!” Sparks called out as their shields grew stronger in power. Alyssa didn’t need to be told what to do, as she pulled up the nose on the Invictus, executing an Immelmann turn and putting them on a direct course towards the pursuing corvettes and frigate.

“20 seconds until we’re in range.” she called out.

Sparks powered up the weapons, diverting away power from the engines, but kept the shields regenerating.

Calara narrowed her eyes as she sighted the vicious pirates and gently depressed the trigger, firing the assault cruiser’s beam lasers. The six bright shafts of energy scorched the tiny ice crystals in their path before searing into the frigate. The pirate ship’s shields were no match for the mighty power of the beam lasers and winked out in an instant, allowing the beams to blast right through the ship, leaving it a hollowed out ruined shell.

The Invictus trembled a second later as the rail guns fired, the hyper warp shells slamming into two of the corvettes. Normally ineffective against shielded targets, the shells still had sufficient momentum to send the tiny corvettes spiralling out of control, each one colliding with massive chunks of Ice that were drifting nearby. The shells detonated seconds later and the explosions ripped apart the badly damaged ships. Finally closing to laser cannon range, the two remaining corvettes fired back with turreted lasers as they turned to try and escape from the vengeful wrath of the Invictus. Alyssa dodged their poorly aimed shots with deceptive ease and then Calara eviscerated both small ships with broadsides from their own batteries of laser cannons.

“Shields up to 100% John.” Sparks said informatively.

“Now it’s your turn.” John said, staring at the representation of the Heavy cruiser as it circled the planet, staying well clear of the Ice belt.

“Ok full power to engines, we want to close as fast as we can to execute Alyssa’s plan.” John ordered.

“We’ll take out the destroyer as soon as it’s in range and then it’s just us and that cruiser” he continued.

Nodding their understanding, the girls followed his commands eagerly. Alyssa swung the ship about, putting them on a direct intercept course with the Heavy Cruiser. Calara pressed some buttons on her tactical console and weapon fire arcs and ranges for the Stalingrad appeared, overlaid on the bulky command ship.

“They’ll fire as soon as we get in range” the astute brunette told Alyssa. “I’d get ready with evasive manoeuvres the second we hit their maximum field of fire”.

The blonde nodded her head, appreciative of Calara’s tactical knowledge.

“I’m diverting all power to engines at the moment, but I’ll bring the weapons back online just before we close on the destroyer.” Sparks warned the Latina.

All prepared, they watched the tactical map as the Invictus closed inexorably on their target. The Stalingrad was cruising along at a right angle to them, keeping them directly facing the full might of its broadsides. The accompanying destroyer pivoted and began to move forward to engage.

As predicted, the Stalingrad opened up with everything it had the second the Invictus closed within beam and heavy cannon range. Forewarned, Alyssa executed a sharp dive with perfect split second timing and the assault cruiser ducked below the blistering hail of energy beams and heavy shells. Explosions ripped through space behind them, but the shells had overshot and caused no damage. Sparks powered up the weapons, just as Alyssa brought up the front of the Invictus to face the incoming destroyer.

The Destroyer fired their own two beam lasers, both of them striking the Invictus as it flew directly at them, causing the shields to glow brightly as the arcing lances of laser energy slashed across the front of the charging assault cruiser. Calara fired back and the Destroyer’s shields flickered out, overwhelmed by the mighty power of the beam lasers, as five of the six beams carved glowing furrows into the thick armour on the blocky front of the ship. The beams had done their job however, knocking out the shields and leaving the target vulnerable to the Mass drivers. The four enormous magnetic rails launched their shells at incredible velocity and all four struck the front of the pirate vessel at the same time. The tremendous impact knocked the ship upwards as though reeling from an uppercut and when the shells detonated a second later, the explosions vaporised the front of the doomed ship.

The massed ranks of laser cannon turrets on the Stalingrad opened up as the Invictus closed with them relentlessly, lighting up the tactical map as they sent a curtain of red laser bolts in the assault cruiser’s direction. Alyssa rolled the Invictus and yawed to port, heading towards the rear of the enemy cruiser and causing roughly half of the incoming fire to sail wide. Calara returned fire with the twelve laser cannons on their starboard side, all shots causing rippling energy cascades as they struck the side of the slowly moving Heavy Cruiser.

“Shields at 72%.” Sparks called out, the beams from the destroyer and the hits from the laser cannons taking their toll.

John nodded his understanding and watched as the duel unfolded.

Alyssa brought the Invictus around in a sharp turn, putting them directly behind the Heavy Cruiser, just as the cooling icon disappeared from the beam weapons on the weapon loadout display. Calara pulled the trigger and the beams cleaved into the shields, which flickered desperately as they tried to withstand the concentrated energy. The front mounted laser cannon turrets took over the work from the starboard facing ones and fired relentless fusillades of laser bolts into the back of the Stalingrad.

The Stalingrad pilot tried desperately to shift their stubborn pursuer, but they had neither the skill nor the manoeuvrability to shake them. The Stalingrad heavy cruiser returned fire, but now the Invictus was directly behind them and no longer in the broadside arcs of the beam lasers or heavy cannons, leaving only laser cannons able to attack. Still, the Stalingrad massed considerable banks of laser cannons in their rear arc and with not much room to dodge, a lot struck home.

“Shields at 46%!” Sparks replied, “They won’t stay up much longer against that much firepower.”

Alyssa dipped the nose of the Invictus so that the entire top deck could open up on the rear of the bigger ship. 16 laser cannons spat a steady stream of laser bolts into the back of the Heavy cruiser, causing the enemy shields to ripple with the repeated impacts. The Stalingrad opened up again and this time it was the front of the Invictus that was peppered with dozens of laser cannon blasts.

“Down to 15%!” Sparks cried out in alarm.

Calara kept her crosshairs squarely over the heavy cruiser as her relentless barrage of laser cannon blasts kept up the pressure on the Stalingrad’s shields.

“Nearly there...” she said softly, watching the tactical summary of the Stalingrad out of the corner of her eye and the predicted shield strength displayed next to the heavy cruiser.

Finally it was time.

“Pull up Alyssa!” Calara demanded and her friend brought the nose of the Invictus up to face the rear of the Stalingrad, just as the cooling icon disappeared from the beam lasers on her weapon loadout hologram.

Calara narrowed her eyes in concentration and targeted an upraised tower on the back of the heavy cruiser. She pulled the trigger and six beams of coruscating energy lanced out from her ship and punched into the enemy shields, finally overloading them at long last. The beams from the Invictus seared onwards and slashed through the tower with a 6 clawed swipe, shearing the entire structure off the back of the heavy cruiser.

“Oh yeah...” Calara said, grinning with satisfaction.

The enemies rear facing laser cannon turrets powered down, the enemy fire control tower eviscerated by the brunette’s precision shooting. The Stalingrad was now helpless and completely at their mercy.

“Incoming hail John” Alyssa said, putting the communication on the vid-screen when he glanced her way and nodded.

A swarthy looking figure wearing a tricorn hat filled the viewscreen.

“Everett Hitch, Pirate Lord at your service.” the man said with a sweeping flourish of his archaic looking hat.

“You seem to have me at somewhat of a disadvantage, may I ask for a parlay?” the Pirate Lord requested cordially.

“I don’t deal with slavers.” John snarled. “Especially not someone who sells people to the Kirrix!”

“At least tell me your name, good sir!” the Pirate Lord requested, surprisingly calm despite the desperate situation he found himself in.

“Commander John Blake and I’m here to end you!” John said, pointing at the man.

“Well Mr Blake, that’s as may be, but I think you might want to hear what I have to say before you shoot any more bits off my fine ship” the Pirate said a sardonic smile.

“Ok let’s hear it.” John said, his dislike of the Pirate Lord growing by the moment.

“I didn’t trade all our captives with the Kirrix. Let’s just say I kept a few behind for insurance purposes, so to speak” he elaborated with an evil glint in his eye.

The pirate lord glanced at a control panel to the side of him and pushed a button, the image of his face replaced by vid-feed of human prisoners locked in cells, before the image returned to his smug face once again.

“Now how about you turn your splendid ship around and let me be on my way, or who knows what terrible fate might befall them!” he said with mock lament.

“You bastard!” John exclaimed.

“Bye-bye Mr Blake, just accept you’ve been outplayed and everything will be just dandy!” Pirate Lord Everett Hitch said, waving farewell with a taunting smile and ending the communication.

“What now John?” Alyssa asked him, Calara and Sparks looking up and waiting with baited breath.

“I want that man dead” John grimaced, “but we can’t just carve up his ship with the Invictus. The vid-feed footage might be fake, but I don’t think it is”.

“Boarding action?” Alyssa suggested.

“Yeah, I think we have to.” John said.

“I’ll soften the ship up for you” Calara volunteered. “They won’t be going anywhere.”

Sparks had finished performing an active scan of the Stalingrad and she turned to face the command podium.

“It looks like the prisoners are been kept in the ships brig.” she said, hitting a button on her console to bring up the scan of the Stalingrad. It showed a group of 15 life readings in an area highlighted as the brig, on the detailed schematic overlay showing the floor layout of a Terran Federation heavy cruiser.

“Can you upload that data to the computer in my armour please.” John requested.

Sparks nodded eagerly and turned back to her console to make sure John had a detailed map to guide him in the pirate ship.

John rose to his feet and Alyssa joined him, as they prepared to get ready for an assault on the heavy cruiser. They took the elevator down to their quarters and hurried to put on their combat armour and collect their rifles and ammo. Alyssa looked at the ragged hole in the shoulderpad of her armour with a raised eyebrow.

“Yeah, I know.” John muttered, as he slammed in a magazine of hollow point caseless into his bullpup rifle.

“If I’d known I’d be doing this much combat, I would have bought a few dozen suits of armour just in case!” he said with irritation.

“The trials and tribulations of being a trader?” Alyssa said, smiling.

“I’ve seen more combat in the last month, than I saw in my last couple of years in the military!” John said in exasperation.

“If it’s any consolation, I’ve been in more combat in the last month, than my last 18 years!” Alyssa said, smiling wryly.

“Ok, that has me beat.” John said, grinning at her.

“Come on, let’s go say hello to Mr Everett Hitch.” he said with grim finality.

“Don’t you mean goodbye?” Alyssa said, smiling.

John nodded in agreement and they headed down to the Hangar bay. They boarded their captured Kirrix dropship and once John had opened the outer hull doors, Alyssa powered up the engines and carefully exited the Hangar. From outside, the two space leviathans loomed above them, the Invictus and the Stalingrad locked in a one sided melee. Calara was using the laser cannons to completely cripple the heavy cruiser, having firstly melted down the relays that powered the Stalingrad’s defence grid and now taking out the enemy ship’s engines with her uncannily accurate shooting.

“Escape pods leaving the Stalingrad.” Alyssa said, pointing to the small metallic spheres being jettisoned from the escape pod launch tubes along the flanks of the heavy cruiser.

“Rats deserting the sinking ship.” John muttered darkly.

Alyssa brought the Kirrix dropship around to the hangar bay positioned in the underbelly of the heavy cruiser. She flew directly underneath the pirate vessel and then used manoeuvring thrusters to lift their ugly looking dropship up into the open mouth of the Stalingrad’s hangar bay.

The dimly lit hangar bay looked to be deserted, so she brought their dropship forward and landed it on one of the empty pads. The two of them readied their rifles and then disembarked, sealing the door to the dropship behind them and covering the various doors into the hangar in case of surprise attacks.

“Where too?” Alyssa said.

John pressed a button on the computer built into the vambrace of his armour and a holographic map of the interior of the heavy cruiser sprung into existence.

“The brig is here.” John said, pointing to a location a few decks up from where they stood in the hangar.

“The Captain’s quarters are here.” John said grimly, pointing to a spot near the top decks of the Stalingrad.

“Ok prisoners first, then we pay a visit to the Captain?” Alyssa said enthusiastically.

“That’s the plan.” John said and led her out of the hangar.

They headed along a corridor and saw an elevator on their right, currently coming down to their level. John pressed the call button and then the two of them raised their assault rifles. The elevator door swung open and three scruffy pirates looked at them in open mouthed surprise.

“Going up?” John asked, before he and Alyssa filled the elevator with bursts of fire from their assault rifles, spraying the back wall with blood.