Chapter 2

Two hours later I too had boarded the alien ship had reached what must have been the bridge. Our Tech-Stop and Paralysators have worked like a charm this time, everyone was asleep and none of the alien ship’s equipment worked.

Har-Hi stood beside me and said. “Don’t you think they look like Terran cattle?” He pushed a sleeping alien aside who was still floating, as there was no Artificial gravitation either.”

Now as he mentioned it I had to agree, and I remembered the large feedlots on Wichita Planet and the endless herds of cows.

“Yes, there is a resemblance.”

Shea pointing at a large alien strapped to the command chair. He was wearing some sort of colorful harness with lots of gold and a cape-like mantle. Otherwise, he was his furry self and she said.

“At least we can be certain he is male.”

I gave her a side look and said. “And you noticed that huge thing right away.”

“A pure scientific observation and conclusion of evaluating a visual examination.”

“Yes, I would have put it exactly the same way. I think they haven’t invented pants or modesty.”

Narth appeared next to me and also looked at the being in the central chair and then at Shea. “How can you determine he is male by visual inspection alone? This being is not registered on GalNet.”

Shea pointed at the being. “They appear to be carbon-based lifeforms and have physiological similarities to other mammalian species. The appendix like organic feature so dominantly featured between the being’s legs makes me confident that he is indeed male.”

Har-Hi had a strange grin on his face as he said. “You identify as a male Narth, right? Don’t you have something like that under that shroud of yours as well?”

I held up my hands. “Here we are on the bridge of an alien species we just boarded, and what is it my senior staff discussing?”

I shook my head in an overacting theatrical manner then said.

“Mr. Narth make sure we contain all Kermac before they have a chance to come around. Mr. Hi coordinates with our marines and confines and secures the crew of this vessel, and you Ms. Schwartz. I like to read a detailed assessment of their technology.”

They confirmed my orders, but I had a hard time keeping my amusement out of my voice as I saw Narth look down on himself saying.

“Yes, I was supposed to emulate a human male and accessing physiological data I just realized that the corporal shell I was given, is faulty and inadequate equipped.”

Har-Hi put his hand on Narth’s shoulder as they walked out. “Next time you go to your Narth place, that is something they need to fix.”

Sadly, I missed Narth’s reply as Circuit who was working on the ship’s systems turned and said. “Sorry Captain their tech is very primitive, simple binary circuits, digital stuff, and not well shielded. Our Tech stop melted most of it.”

“Can we hook up something of ours? If life support does not come back on soon, they won’t survive.” I said to him and pulled a floating Kermac on his foot down so I could examine him closer.”

“I am replicating nanites as fast as I can, so we can restore basic life support. In terms of Computronics, they are not Tech Level seven, more like five at most. Quite interesting solutions but...”

“Do we have to evacuate them before life support conditions deteriorate and become life-threatening to them?”

Circuit shrugged his shoulders. “Hard to say, but we have maybe three to four hours before temperatures drop too far. Their hull has a sufficient layer of lead to reduce radiation, but not completely opaque to ionizing radiation like Union hulls.”

“Well, it gives me a little time to think about what I should do with them.”

Ak Pure, the Attikan, and my friend appeared from one of the access doors and floated agile with the skill and grace of a real Union Marine in his heavy camouflaged battle suit across the deck.

“Captain, Lt. Neugruber and the Golden have completed the survey of the remaining pirate ship. we secured nineteen survivors including Juka Yi Shogi, one of the Terrible Twins. Goshi Tmakay did not survive the explosion of her ship. We secured the survivors in Stasis boxes and a few boxes of loot.”

Elfi who had begged to be part of the pirate ship raiding party was right behind the Attikan with the amused face behind her helmet faceplate. “Now there are ladies that wear even skimpier outfits doing the pirate thing than you.”

I gave her a withering look and tried to ignore her and Shea giggling. To the marine I said.

“Thank you, Lt. Fective. “Now please get every available hand over here and help Mr. Narth and Mr. Hi and fine-tooth comb this ship. I want every Kermac in PSI shielded zero stasis with Marine guards and robots watching them, if they are so much as twitch, you have the authority to eliminate. I really don’t trust them.”

Pure nodded inside his suit. “We don’t have much exposure to the Kermac at the LMC, but I went to Union school of course and I never heard much good about them.”

I held up my hand showing two fingers. “I like Shiss, Perthanians, Klack, and even Y’All. I am the most unbiased Norse ever to step of Nilfeheim. I have Elly friends, got squiggled by Garbinis, get hugs from Archa, and trust our Shail. I even did the spooky thing with a Narth, but there are two species my spotted friend I do not trust: Kermac and Thaurans. We are deep in Freespace and what do we find Kermac’s agitating a species of cows and large squirrels. They have no business here in Freespace in the first place.”

Shea looked up and smirked.

“Well technically we don’t either, but I agree with you on the rest.”

With an elegant move Warner, the Holdian pushed himself off a panel he was working at and floated before me.

“Those are not squirrels, Captain. I don’t know who those big things are but what you call squirrels are Dolbarians. They have evolved from a lost Diobane colony and had the distinct fortune that their three planets and two-star system expanse were too close to the Galactic Council during the last treaty conference. They had no choice in the Kermac decision to make them part of the GC.”

“I stand corrected then Mr. Warner. I must confess I am not an expert, as we don’t have any Squirrels on Nilfeheim, but I remember seeing a similar kind in the forests of Green Eden, but how are we doing on this ship’s systems?

If we can get their life support going, or we may have to move the entire crew of this big ship.”

The little Holdian sighed. “As Lt. Circuit said before, our tech stop fried whatever electronic systems they had, and having a micro load of AM detonate in their computer core made a real mess of their mainframe.” The little Holdian re-enacted the explosion with a big gesture and was quite successful. “Give us three weeks and the original construction manuals and we might get them working again.”

I sighed with a smile. “Then I better don’t keep you from your work.”

He chirped something and moved back to the open panel.

Shea said. “I think we need another Paralysator sweep, I can detect their neural activity picking up.”

I blinked at my Comm link symbol. “Har-Hi how far along are we containing the crew?”

“This bucket they call a spaceship had more than 600 crew members, thankfully our biosensors have no problem finding them. Narth thinks we got them all except for the ones on the bridge, confined in a cargo hold. We also found 85 terminal casualties.”

“All right then, now all that is left to do is talk to them and figure out what to do.”

To Shea I said. “Let them come around, I need more information so I can decide.”

It didn’t take long and what I assumed was the leader of the aliens recovered from the Paralysator effect. He was still strapped into his command chair. His first impulse was to reach for a weapon as he saw us, but he stopped as he stared into four TKU muzzles at the same time. I am sure however it wasn’t the guns but TheOther holding them that made him think otherwise and freeze in his move. He said something with a loud voluminous voice I did not understand. Shea spoke to him in Kermac and he nodded but said something in a language I did not understand.

She began with First Contact procedures and her PDD projected simple dots. First, one then two then three.

The bovine looking alien understood and responded with guttural sounds. She made fast progress. He made a snorting surprised and somewhat frightening sound as Narth appeared next to me and I felt sorry for the Alien leader. He had his ship invaded saw a real Y’All with guns and now a shrouded Narth appear from thin air. Narth spoke to me on our silent mental connection. “The Kermac are stripped of all devices and sleep in Zero Stasis and the being before you are a Xandrao. They know of the Togar and the Jooltar but have never heard of the Union, the Shiss, or the Nul. From what I gather they are on their way to visit Kermac Prime to discuss Galactic Council membership.”

“Why aren’t they using their usual Psi tricks on them?”

“I do not know for certain, but since I had to probe quite forcefully to get into the Xandrao mind, a certain natural resistance to Psionics might be the reason.”

Shea said. “He understands some Kermac, but they used translators of their now-defunct shipboard systems. I started Language analysis but SHIP was faster, she downloaded the language data from one of the Kermac Beards. You should now be able to talk to them.”

I turned to address the alien leader. “I am Captain Black Velvet of the Silver Streak; we are an independent group of beings seeking opportunities. Your ship was severely damaged in the altercation and lost all electronics. While my Chief Engineer tries to patch rudimentary life support functions, we still might have to evacuate your vessel. Your crew is for the moment secured but relatively safe.”

He listened to me and I was sure he understood so I continued. “I wanted to spare you, newcomers, to this side of the galaxy, but once learned you are sympathizers and thralls of the cursed Kermac, I am no longer so inclined. From you, I want to know what your plans were and what kind of scheme you and the Kermac have cooked up to cause mischief and mayhem.”

The Xandrao snorted angrily but tried to keep his dignity and said with his loud booming voice.

“I am Shipmaster Noldra Dorrx and this is the First Ship of the Emperor. We are on a mission of diplomatic importance. I will not declare anything else to a stinking pirate, who from the looks of it seems to be a disgusting female. Not that your race seems to have many redeeming features.

Go away female and find me a male and I might talk to him.”

I got closer and put my finger on his wide snout. “You talk to me, or you talk to no one ever again.”

He snorted and made a sound like I heard Fangsnappers make, then he added:

“You are only tough because I am restrained, and you hide behind the guns of your four-armed terror. You would never stand a chance against a Xandrao male, no one does. Not even that four-armed beast.”

Just then Artificial gravitation came back on and some of the ship’s own lights came on.

“Go ahead Xandrao chose the weapons. Right here and now!”

“You are a weak female, hiding in armor and behind the muscle of your male slaves. You are a cowardly pirate. Go ahead tell your males to kill me.”

Har-Hi sighed loudly. “Captain, this is not...”

But I had already given the suit the Emergency release command and the battle disintegrated into assembly parts and basically spit me out.

The Xandrao slapped on the restrain release that now worked again and lunged forward. He was almost as big as Hans and had his hands immediately on me. Instead of evading him, I grabbed him by the wrist and tried to execute an Aikido move that served me so well against the lumbering Y’All. It did not work as I hoped, the Xandrao was I had to realize, a trained fighter and not a brawler. His other fist grabbed me by the throat. And yes, once again I was in trouble and it was trouble, I could have easily avoided, I certainly did not act like a Union Captain should act, and this was not how ‘First Contact’ was made.

He was squeezing the very life out of me and yet I found enough air to gargle.

“Stay where you are!” To Har Hi.

I got angry, not so much about the Xandrao but about myself, but the bovine like alien was really starting to piss me off. He had lifted me of the ground, I was holding to his massive arm with one hand and stabbed my fingers into his right eye. He screamed in pain and as I attempted a second stab against his other he instinctively raised his arms to deflect, to do that he had to let me go and I dropped, ignoring the throbbing pain of my squeezed neck and kicked upward as hard as I could and kicked him at exactly that exposed feature of his anatomy we had talked about earlier. He was as it appeared quite sensitive and groaned in an ear-shattering volume, He wiped his big arm through the air, a powerful swing, but far from the target. An ax handle blow of mine across his wide snout however found its target.

All my attacks had been done with all my strength but had done little more than perhaps dazzle the alien.

He lowered his head and swiped his sharp horns through the air, a perfectly natural move if you had horns like that, but unexpected for me. I managed to avoid his grabbing arms and the head swing that brought his horns into play, by perhaps a hair’s width. In all this, I could have ended it easily. Narth was here and so was Har Hi, not to mention TheOther all would have taken was a call for help.

A blow of my fist against his forehead, made me realize just how hard his skull was. It felt like punching a battleship hull.

Yet I had to end this somehow on my own.

The head swung the other side while the Xandrao drove me backward as I tried to avoid his horn attacks and his fast grabbing attempts. He was fast, fast enough to prevent me from really getting away. He was mad and full of frustration and it was apparent that his kind trained hand to hand combat, perhaps almost as religiously as the Union Marines did. There was not much room left to back up, the head swung again ... his big hands swinging with powerful blows. The only thing saving me was the wonderful agility my altered body seemed to have. Then I acted on instinct, grabbed the swinging horns just as his neck was at the outmost swing and I added all my body weight to twist it further. I heard a crunching sound and the big alien groaned, even the big Xandrao had to follow physics and his big body had to follow the momentum and he crashed hard on the deck plating almost burying me, I let go and rolled away in the last moment.

The big alien was making strange gurgling sounds and did not try to get up. I came shaking to my feet and with a hoarse, laboring voice I rasped.

“Get up!”

Har-Hi rushed by.

“Captain let it be, you broke the Xandrao’s neck. He is dying.”

I wiped the sweat of my brow and tried to straighten myself into a more dignified position.

“Call Cateria...”

Only now I noticed the bleeding cut along my left arm.”

Har Hi shook his head.

“Narth get the Captain to sickbay.”

I did not remember the teleportation and realized I must have passed out. The next thing I remembered was seeing the face of my CMO and she wasn’t pleased at all.

“That was a close one, Captain. I don’t even know how you kept fighting with a severely bruised larynx, the subsequent swelling caused asphyxia and Lt. Narth brought you in with not much time to spare.”

I did not feel proud and as I sat up, I saw Har Hi, Shea, and Narth standing there.

Har-Hi had his arms crossed and said.

“Captain I say it right out and in front of everyone, this isn’t working. You are the Captain and for the most part, you are doing a great job, but picking fights like that is anything but smart. You almost died and in a situation that was not even remotely necessary.” He spread his arms. “You know we follow you to hell and back, but I am the XO and I must say this.”

I lowered my head and felt a shameful frown creep into my face.

“I know, I can’t even say anything to defend myself. That was extremely foolish.”

“Captain, the warrior in me is full of awe of your fighting skills and I still can’t believe you almost killed that Xandrao, despite an almost lethal injury, but I am not just a Dai Than warrior anymore but a Union Officer and you are no longer just a Nilfeheim Viking, but our commanding officer. I know we do things differently than on other ships. Your instincts and your style are usually head on...”

He stopped looked at Narth for help then continued.

“I love you like a brother and I don’t really know how to say it or what to say. Just be a little more careful.”

Narth said, not using his mental voice but speaking aloud. “I tend to agree with Har-Hi, but once again these impulsive actions, guided by emotions and instinct all Narth find harder to fathom than the secrets of creation itself, has yielded surprising results.”

I got up after Cateria nodded and I said. “All I can say I know I acted wrong and I am sorry. I am aware that my actions were inappropriate and unnecessary.”

Har-Hi said. “The problem is your action was not as unnecessary as we would like it to be, so we could use it to persuade you to take a different approach next time. The Xandrao survived thanks to Shea putting him in stasis and Cateria saving his life. He hasn’t stopped talking about you and swears undying allegiance to you.”

I took his hand. “I promise I will listen to you and try to be less impulsive.”

He grinned.

“Well, it will help if you stop picking fights with the wildest, biggest opponents you can find.”

I noticed I was wearing just underwear and cleared my throat. “Enough of this unprofessional behavior and that includes first and foremost me and let us get back to the business at hand.”

A few moments later and back in my usual outfit I was still turning Har-Hi’s words in my head, knowing he was more than exactly right. I had reached the command chair of a Union ship much earlier than I could ever hope for. Men like Stahl and McElligott trusted me and more so my crew trusted me. I acted like a stupid Flicker fish. I could almost hear Egill’s dry voice in my head. I sighed and entered the Marine guarded room, where the Xandrian shipmaster was recuperating.

He sat on a vari-matic chair, as I entered, he dropped to his knees.

“I apologize, Captain Black Velvet, you have earned my deepest respect and I pledge my services to you. An apparent weaker female of an apparently weaker race has bested me, almost killed me without any weapons. You are indeed a mighty warrior. I will without reservation answer your questions and accept any fate you have decided upon me.”

“There is no need to kneel. Shipmaster Dorrx. I acted out of proportion. I am not out to learn your secrets, but what business do you have with the Kermac?”

“They are not the unchallenged masters as they claim to be. I laughed at the Dolbarians just hours ago as they told me about the Big Four. I could not believe that there are star empires as big as the Dolbarians claim the Nul, the Shiss, or these Unions control. We had a hard time to really comprehend what the Kermac claimed about the Galactic Council.”

“The Kermac are an old species and they made deception and controlling others to do their bidding into an art form. They do control a sizeable region, but they are far from being the unchallenged masters. They let others fight, work, and provide for them.”

“I begin to understand but we are a proud people, we see there are others who are stronger and who control technology superior to ours. We have reason to believe the Togar is preparing to conquer us. I have seen reports and know these cats love hunting and eating Xandrao. Our Emperor thinks that we could make it a costly endeavor for the Togar Queen, but we would still fall. We need an ally who is strong enough to make the Togar reconsider.”

He spread his big arms, the ones who had almost crushed me to death.

“Captain Black Velvet, I am aware of our boisterous nature and officially we like to see ourselves as strong and unbeatable. I do not know if you have already talked to the prince, but do not heed him. He is a good prince but will never be an Emperor.

Our liege is not as naïve as the Kermac thinks he is and neither am I, but we considered serving the Kermac as it would be better than losing it all and end up on Togar menus.”

“I am a fugitive, a criminal, and a pirate bound to Freespace, but you might find a viable alternative to proceed to the Union. There you would not need to be servants but could be equal partners. Of course, Union membership must be applied for and new members must accept to uphold Union Laws. However, it is better if you and your prince see for yourself and then provide your people and your emperor with the information you have gathered.”

“I was informed about the status of my ship. It is not able to return or move ahead. Even if your magnificent robot engineer will be able to patch things. If our encounter is any indication what this region holds for us, without weapons and energy fences covers we will fall prey to the next pirate that is less honorable than you.”