Chapter 20: Fighting All

The Dragon stood in his cargo bay and his eyes glowed as his pirates dumped loads of Iridium and other highly valuable goods only to return to get more. He cursed himself for not remembering the right planet. He was so sure he had been here before and now he could not remember any details. He was so certain the suit told him these coordinates. Of course, he had not kept any files on the coordinates but his suit knew where it was and now it was silent and did not respond to anything. All there was were ghosts. Taking over his men and defying all shields and weapon fire went right through them but then the green things left and attacked the Silver Streak.

He had not wasted this opportunity and left in a hurry leaving several men behind.

This armada of primitives loaded with treasures was a sheer stroke of luck. Enough to fill the holds of all ships and return very wealthy.

Then the alarms went off and he hurried to the I.S.T. waiting for the next car. Cursing the slowness of the system and yelled. “Computronic get me the Bridge!”

He stomped into the I.S.T. car and dialed for the Bridge. Zwenacdri, the Kermac and his second in Command responded to his inquiry about the alarms.

“There is a Union ship, Dragon.”

He made on his bridge and felt weak and sick for a moment as he plunged in his seat.

“What are you talking about? There are no Union ships out here.”

But then he saw the ship on his main screen had centered on.

He had spent many years in the Union Navy. He had seen or knew about every Union Ship class, what he saw on his screen somehow looked Union but like nothing, he had ever seen before.

No ISAH pods, the shape was all wrong and not Uni standard. But the extended Exo load Cannon on top of the hull he recognized instantly. The ship was almost black not Union white or gray, but it had the name USS Tigershark written along its sides, and the Union flag painted on the sides. That strange ship also was surrounded by a barely visible purplish cocoon, TransDim shields.

The Togar scanner operator gnarled in his guttural cat voice. “This ship replaced the Silver Streak. One moment the Silver Streak was there, and the next moment this thing. It has an official Union transponder signature and is under full TransDim Shields.”

Again he felt dizzy and his throat felt dry and thick. As he looked down, he noticed his hands had the same brown spots he had seen on the aliens from the primitive ships. He needed to think about that later.

“Where did the Silver Streak go?”

“I can’t find her within scanner range.”

The Kermac looking over his console. “They just hailed us all and demanded immediate surrender. No word from the others yet.”

Swybar was confused but he was a Union officer once. “Call the Jammer, the Hontu and the Bloody Mary. If we combine our fire and concentrate it, we might crack those shields. That ship is no Match for the four of us.”

The Togar said. “They wait on your signal. I have relayed target coordinates so we hit the same spot.” “Give that Union scum hell, Fire!”

Shaka immediately took action and went into evasive maneuvers. All four Pirate ships fired at the same time. Especially the Jammer and the Dragon peppered us with several Faster than Light High Energy beams.

Har-Hi said. “That response was somewhat expected. Primary shields at 90%, secondary shields not affected. No Damage no Casualties.”

“Mao target all enemy ships drives and take them out, then pull their teeth.”

The Translocator rotary guns spat small Anti matter loads at the point of explosion. The destructive explosive force was instantly transferred past shields and armor directly into the Engine rooms of three ships. The shields flickered and went out on the Hontu and a gaping hole in her aft section was the result of several anti matter explosions micro seconds before.

The Bloody Mary lost her gun turrets and was rocked by a secondary explosion as the enegies of her drive pods turned them into clouds of twisted metal.

The Jammer didn’t fare much better as the propulsion enticers were instantly transformed into glowing twisted metal.

The most damage was done to the Red Dragon. As her shields prevented Translocator locks inside, Mao had fired all of our 12 Quark-Gluon Plasma casters. The QGPs The quark–gluon plasma or quark soup was a phase of quantum chromodynamics which existed at extremely high temperature and density.

The ability to carry force and reach temperatures of 5.5 trillion degrees Celcius was realized as a weapon potential back in 4500 and was steadily developed by Terran engineers into a unique Terran weapon. No matter, not even Neutronium was able to withstand these kinds of temperatures, delivered with a hefty kinetic impact.

The shields of the Dragon collapsed and the QGp pulses perforated the experimental ship’s hull.

Her secondary hull was ripped to shreds and opened to the vacuum of space.

“Elfi hail them all.”

She nodded giving me a thumbs up gesture and I said.”I am Captain Olafson of the United Stars Starship Tigershark. You are all identified and known pirates. Standing warrants permit immediate destruction. You have five seconds to completely surrender. No additional calls will be made.”

I had Elfi cut the transmission.

Har-Hi interrupted. “Captain there is a fleet of twenty unknown alien space ships approaching fast. Tech level seven, at least.”

Still, in Tactical View I saw them too. “Twenty ships in shape very similar to the primitive rocket ships. Long cylindrical, with cone shaped bows, but with smaller Drive Pods, powerful looking shields and studded with weapon towers. Each about 800 meters long.

“Elfi hail them and start first contact procedures.”

“I am on it, Captain. They established similar procedures and it won’t take long.”

After about five minutes Shea nodded. “Communications possible now.”

I waited for Elfi’s signal indicating open comm channels.

“This is the United Stars Ship Tigershark. I am Captain Olafson and we are engaged in bringing Pirate criminals to justice.”

An ape like being appeared, it looked brutish, covered with brown fur, pronounced eye brows and a very ape like maw exposing sharp incisors. He wore a brown leather like uniform with copper colored metal shoulder pads.

“I am ‘The A’ of this Strike force. You will address me as ‘A the Mighty’and lower your gaze. You are in our space, this is the Dominion of the Furze. Do not aide or contact the outcasts in any way. Those pirates you are hunting already made contact and are doomed. Have you made any attempts to contact the Cursed?”

“If you mean the fleet of cone shaped ships, no. Should you mean the criminal element, they are doomed, perhaps curse we are done talking to them.”

“Then you may live. Now leave this space as it is now ours. The Cursed Outcasts cannot be allowed to reach any other civilization. They carry a disease that caused wars and mayhem.”

“How far does your sphere of influence reach?”

“As far as we want it. And where ever I am.”

“We might be able to assist and see if there is a way we can help.”

“If you remain you will be destroyed. No help no contact.”

Mao said with a sigh.”Can you believe it, there is yet another fleet of ships approaching. Also with activated weapons and shields, at least TL 7.”

The other ships dropping out of Quasi in an arrow head attack formation, were elegant almost birdlike and white.

There were thirty six of them and all of the same size, about 800 meters each as well.

They interrupted the conversation by hailing us all. The being appearing on our viewers was beautiful and had the grace and characteristics of a Terran swan. It was white, thin and was covered in long feathers. The only item of clothing or equipment was a wide golden sash across his body.

“We are the Down, stand down brutish Furze. Your own kind seeks help and we will not deny it. Mercy and compassion must be rendered. You know well, we will not hesitate to defend those who are helpless.”

Mao said. “Both sides energizing weapons.”´

The ape like beings responded. “We will not fight over this scum, you may have them. But be assured all contact to the Down ends today and we will shoot at any Down ship we see in our sphere of influence.” With this, the twenty ships of the Furze reversed course and left. The Dawn now addressed us. “We heard your exchange with the Furze. We will not allow you to commence violence and disperse your law. Those who you call pirates might just have been misguided by the Furze to attack these poor sick outcasts.

We will invite you all to a nearby planet of ours. You avoided destruction by offering help to the afflicted, that shows you understand the concept of mercy. Now you must proof it to us.”

“Let me get this straight, you Down want us to help these sick ones?”

“No we require and if neccessary force you to help. You offered it first. By our holy laws, you are now required to do so and we will only interfere if you do not, if you flee or if you fail to help.”

“You are forcing us to help?”

“Indeed. I see our communication works well.”

I cut them off. “Tactical analysis?”

Mao responded. “We can destroy seventy percent of their force but sustain battle damage from the remaining 30 percent before we can destroy the rest. And that is only an estimate since we do not know all their weapon capability. If we add Suits shields and cloaking ability to the equation we will be able to emerge victoriously and escape at any time.”

“I don’t want to start a shooting war and open fire first. We openly identified ourselves as Union and chances are they are known by the Golden of this region. This is the first contact and who knows if they have allies or a bigger fleet. They can reach Union space just as we can reach theirs.”

Fivcheer, sitting at a multi task console in the Command and Control part of the bridge, raised his hand and said. “Their understanding and definition of morals and ethics are complicated and appear to be the base of their entire culture and religious believes.”

Elfi said.”The Red Dragon is hailing the Down.”

“Put it on.”

“Mighty Down I am Red Dragon and it is true we are pirates and we have attacked the afflicted Furze but we are infected ourselves and show the same symptoms of the disease. We too need your help.”

“And whoever asks for help due to pain, suffering or disease shall receive it. You must also follow us.”

“We can not, the evil and brutal Union captain from his dictatortial regime disabled and damaged our ships.”

This surprised me and Fivecheer confirmed it. “It is quite true. Whatever inflicts the Outcasts has now spread on all four pirate ships.”

Many more Down ships appeared dropping out of Quasi and begun towing the slow rocket shaped ships and the damaged pirate ships.

A cordon of twelve ships escorded us to a GIII type star and a system with eight planets.

The sizeable fleet went straight for the second planet, apparently a Garden world.

They made us land.

The Planet turned out to be uninhabited. The valley we touched down had tundra like character, framed in the distance by gray, mist shrouded mountains. The vegetation appeared to be grass or lichen like, smooth humps of rock broke the pale green surface here and there.

The rocket shaped space ships of the inflicted Furze were set down in a neat circle all around us. The damaged pirate ships in a little distance with six Down ships settling nearby.

I addressed my crew via Shipwide.

“Just so you know, while I don’t like to be bullied, we are now Union on the outside as well.

I went along to show good will and as long as they don’t shoot we don’t. This is a first contact situation with a new species, it is the declared core value and purpose of our society and fleet to render help when it is needed and make efforts to establish peaceful relations.”

Har-Hi actually sat in his chair for a change said.”I don’t think you find a soul aboard questioning your command decissions. We played pirates but we never ceased to be Union citizens.”

I gave him a smile and said. “We still need to return to Peppermint after that to check on the Seenian depot, that is supposed to be there before we can go home.”

Mao said. “No one really wants to go home. Sure some R&R on a friendly port be nice but the crew morale could not be better.”

“That is good to hear. Now I think it is high time we contact the sick, see what the trouble is and maybe find a solution.”

As we established standard electromagnetic radio wave contact with the other sips, Elfi worked with something she called a UHF Video signal, whatever that was and managed to get a grainy two dimensional image on the main screen.

I almost jumped out of my seat. There on the screen was something like a rotting corpse staring at us. It clearly showed kinship to the Ape like furze but half of his face was swollen the other eaten to the bone, partially covered with blood and puss soaked bandages.

While he spoke his breath rattled labored and only one eye was halfway open, the other was milky white. The being had oozing ulcers all over his partially exposed body and I wondered what kept it alive.