BORN OF HEROES

— by Jeff Karamales

Chapter 13
 

A little under seven hours later, the Lucky Star and Guiding Angel were both docked with the converted Terran built battleship that had been sold to the SPF and was now named the Mother’s Arms and served as a hospital and rescue ship. The crew and passengers had been transferred to the large vessel, believing that their salvation from slavers had come at the hands of a brave and decent freighter crew. The exceptions to that were the Captain and his First Officer of the Hestran liner that had been plundered, and a human that bore a smile and letter. Elias saw them off at the air lock as the rest of his crew returned onboard.

  “Thank you again, Captain Elias,” Rafe Black, the Captain of the Hestran ship said, shaking hands with the white furred fox.

  “Not a problem. The Captain of the Mother’s Arms will keep your ship docked and transport it back to Joplin with you, so it shouldn’t be too hard to get her back into space worthy condition,” Elias told the other fox.

  “We’ll see. Right now I’m giving serious thought to selling her as salvage and buying a fishing boat!”

  Both laughed and then parted.

  The human, Chuck Palance, was next at the airlock. “Hopefully I’ll be seeing you again soon, Captain.”

  Elias shook his hand and nodded. “You may very well. Good luck.”

  “You too, Captain.” Then the human was gone.

  Last to leave was the First Officer of the SS Mintaka. Callie Parsons was deep in subdued conversation with Cerise and the two embraced quickly, both smiling. She stopped before Elias and gave him a warm smile that was tinged with a touch of sadness. “Take care of yourself, Captain, and again, thank you for everything.”

  “Good luck, Callie. We’re glad we were able to help.”

  With a nod, the vixen left. An SPF officer stepped across briefly to hand Elias a data stick, saluted and retreated back aboard the other vessel.

  “Alright,” Elias called to Randal who was back at his station in the armored cubicle. “Seal it and disconnect and let’s get back to work.”

  Once on the bridge, Elias slid into the pilot’s seat and gave his displays a quick glance. Saul was in the navigator’s position, and the rest of the bridge crew, Odette and Cerise were in their positions. Uncoupling from the huge battleship was done quickly and efficiently. Seeming to fall away, Elias spun the vessel on its axis before engaging the drives and setting a course back in the general direction of the Faya system’s sun.

  “Go ahead and set a course for Brandt by way of Quet, Saul,” the fox said, crossing his arms and looking out of the forward viewports.

  The jaguar looked over at his Captain. “Something up?” he asked, his brows knitting together.

  Elias shook his head. “Nothing in particular. This system is known for brigands, though. While we’re here, we might as well go trawling to see if anything pops up.”

  “Shouldn’t take me more than a few minutes,” Saul told him as he bent over his console. “Hmmm. We could run a wide elliptical through the system. It’ll take us about three days to get to Brandt doing that, but it’s also through areas that have reported heavy pirate activity and it’ll make it look like we’re pulling the most economical course to save fuel.”

  “Do it,” Elias said with a nod. “You have first watch, unless you feel too tired.”

  Saul shook his head. “I’m good, Captain. I’m still zinging after that. Too much adrenaline.”

  “’Zinging?’” Elias asked with an amused smile.

  The jaguar shrugged. “It’s the best word I could come up with. I feel like I’m vibrating!”

  “I suppose that description fits as well. Call me if you feel you’re getting too tired, though. And let the rest of the crew know that they are on stand down for now, but normal duty shifts will resume in three hours.”

  “Copy that, Cap’n.”

  Elias stood up and rubbed the top of his head. His scalp felt tight with the beginnings of a headache. He paused by Cerise’s station and waited for her to set the controls for the sensors and communications to automatic, making sure that it was tied in to her DataCom and the other stations of the bridge and yawned.

  “Busy day,” she commented dryly.

  “That’s for sure,” Elias agreed. Then he leaned forward and whispered just loud enough for her to hear him. “Did you want to talk to me about something?” he asked.

  The look that she directed up to him was fairly hard and he cringed a little. “Wait for me in the cabin. I’ll be there in a few minutes.”

  Nodding, the fox went to the cabin he shared and while waiting, decided that he was in dire need of a shower. It wasn’t a long affair, and once finished rinsing the soap out of his fur under the blast of hot water from the shower cubicle’s three nozzles, he stepped under the dryer unit that blew the moisture out of his coat with multiple jets of hot air. Not sure what was going to happen, Elias lay on the bed to wait for his mate. The hours that had passed had been long, and he unintentionally dozed off.

  Despite being in a rather deep sleep, Elias’s eyes snapped open at the sound of the hatch to the cabin opening. Even as he blinked his eyes clear and sat up, he caught the smell of steaks and seafood. As he turned his head he saw Cerise carrying in a tray. He forgot all about the smells that teased his nose as he saw her, though.

  His wife was dressed in a diaphanous silk gown and chemise in pearl gray. It was possible to see the very feminine, and extremely scanty, apparel that she wore underneath. Her hair was down and fell over her left shoulder in a cascade of soft curls and ringlets. On her feet were simple slip-on open toe high heels that gave her a few more inches of height and made her legs look long and lean.

  Put simply, she was a stunning sight and Elias realized that he was actually holding his breath.

  Cerise moved slowly in to the cabin, her hips and tail swaying enticingly with each step, knowing what effect it had on Elias, and smiled to herself. She placed the tray next her side of the bed and climbed up, still moving slowly. The look in her emerald green eyes was soft and affectionate, but there was also a predatory gleam in them as well. It almost seemed as if she was stalking Elias, and she growled with pleasure as she saw his throat work in an involuntary swallow.

  With surprising strength, she pushed her mate down so that he had to look up at her.

  “I can’t say that I’m too thrilled to have seen you kissing another female,” she whispered huskily. Elias tried to speak but she put her hand over his mouth. “I know that you had nothing to do with it, but it was still something that didn’t sit well with me, and it still rankles a bit. So I am here to claim what is mine.” She nipped playfully at his nose. “And if you ever do it again…”

  She let the threat hang in the air.

***

  The Guiding Angel was only a day out from the rendezvous with the SPF hospital ship when the alarm on the sensor proximity alarm went off, the alert being repeated on the DataComs that Elias, Cerise, Saul and Odette carried.

  Elias was on bridge watch along with Cerise and they were already at their stations. Treena was covering the weapons station for her duty cycle as Saul and Odette had been off duty, and the jaguar leapt onto the bridge deck as soon as the hatch cycled open, making it to the navigation position within two bounds and slid into the seat. His fur was rumpled on the left side of his head and he wore a pair of wrinkled pajama bottoms, though his chest was bare.

  Odette was wearing far less as the bear took her place at weapons, replacing Treena who used the reprieve to ogle the ship’s First Officer.

  “Contact is coming up from below aft,” Cerise said, pasting the data onto the forward viewport. “183 degrees from axial, 17 degrees declination at 8023 miles and closing fast. Intercept in approximately 13 minutes,” she continued to read out. With a few touches of the controls at her station, Cerise narrowed the sensor’s target area to get more information from her tools. “Looks like a Maelstrom class patrol boat. No IFF signal and the markings are not of any recognized government or agency.”

  “That’s a fairly expensive ship,” Saul said, locking the incoming vessel’s position and course into navigation.

  “Roughly, 1.2 million credits for a stripped down hull. It’s still a fairly impressive ship, though. Four OPU 95 engines in port and starboard clusters makes her fast,” Elias said, slipping the safety restraints of his seat over his shoulders and buckling them together. “Can you get anything else, Cerise?”

  It was a moment before she answered. “They’re powering up weapons,” she said, her voice seemingly flat, though her husband could hear the tense brittleness under her words.  “Looks like pulse cannon, total of three. No other indications of armaments.”

  “Got it,” Elias said with a sense of resolution stealing over him. He toggled his headset and ran through the various departments after issuing a general call to stations. Then he called to the stations that he needed the most.

  “Engineering,” Rutger’s voice said over his headset.

  “What’s our status down there?” Elias asked, looking at the small display picture that came up on the forward viewports of the approaching ship.

  “Shield output is 100 percent, Captain,” the feline said. “Engines are running smooth and true with plenty of spare power for whatever you need. Stram is double checking all of the systems down here as well to make sure you have what you need and we’re already suited up for damage control.”

  Elias allowed himself a small smile of satisfaction. “Copy that, Rutger. Bridge out.” The fox then toggled over to the cargo bay channel. “What’s your status, Randy?”

  “We’re suited and ready, Captain The boarding team is a go and the Cherub is ready for launch and Lena is raring to go.”

  “Good. We’ll keep you in the loop. Bridge out.”

  The last to report his readiness was Doctor Anders. He informed the bridge that he was well and ready to receive casualties, though he was hoping otherwise.

  Elias signaled his acknowledgement and turned to the task at hand. It would be the crew’s first actual spaceborne engagement together, but the fox had faith in all of the individuals under his command. Cerise had already switched the rest of the ship’s sections over so that they could hear what was going on and get visual feeds from her station. It was something that Elias’s last Captain had done, and the fox had found that it helped the crew of the Scimitar to function better if everyone knew what was going on.

  “Cerise, jam their communications once they’re within 500 miles. Odette, keep the weapons on stand-by until we know they’re hostile. I don’t want to have to chase them if we scare them off,” Elias instructed. Both females signaled understanding with clipped ‘ayes’.

  As soon as the incoming ship was within the 500 mile sphere, Cerise activated the electronic countermeasures that would jam the other vessel’s interstellar and long range communication capabilities, save very short range line-of-sight radio, though it wouldn’t know that it was being jammed unless they performed a looping ping that would contact the nearest navigation satellite and return the signal, something very few individuals knew how to do, and even fewer ever did. With the capabilities of Cerise’s sophisticated equipment, any communication wave they tried to send would show up as simple white noise to anything beyond a three hundred mile sphere. The coyote could have even used her console to melt the other ship’s antennae if she’d wanted.

  “Incoming transmission, Captain,” Cerise said, already transferring it to the bridge’s speakers so everyone could hear it.

  “Put it on,” her mate said.

  “Okami freighter, this is the Incubus. Stand to and prepare to be boarded and no one will get hurt. You have one minute to comply. Incubus out,” a rich baritone voice said. There was no visual accompanying the transmission.

  “Not really giving us a lot of time are they?” Odette said with some surprise.

  “They’re still five minutes away from being able to dock. Normally a warning is enough to make most freighter captains comply. Makes stealing their cargoes a lot easier,” Elias said as he toggled his headset to broadcast to the other vessel. “Incubus, this is the SS Guiding Angel. We are armed and will defend ourselves if attacked. I say again, hostile actions will be met with retaliatory force. Do you understand?”

  The entire encounter was being recorded, and if there ever came a time when the actions of Elias and his crew came under legal scrutiny, the declaration of meeting a hostile action with force would release them from legal culpability if there was any loss of life involved in the incident.

  Laughter sounded over the speaker as the voice from the Maelstrom class vessel replied. “Is this the Captain of the Okami that I am speaking to?”

  “I am Captain Tivnan of the Guiding Angel,” Elias replied.

  “Captain Tivnan, I am Captain Nolan Rackam of the Incubus. Please don’t make this anymore difficult for you than it has to be. This is a warship that is more than a match for your little H model freighter. Do us all a favor and stand –to.”

  “I refuse to stand-to, Captain Rackam,” Elias said. “And I say again that I will fire upon you if you persist to act in a hostile manner.”

  “So be it, Captain Tivnan,” the voice said over the speaker, all hints of anything remotely resembling humor or good nature gone from the words that were transmitted. “On your head be it!”

  “They’re firing!” Cerise said, her voice shrill and brittle.

  Even as the words left her mouth, the aft ventral shields coruscated with dispersed energy as they absorbed and dissipated the green white pulse cannon blast.

  Elias’s mouth set into a stony frown. “Weapons free, Odette.” Then with hardly a moment’s hesitation to switch to intercom, “Launch, launch, launch,” he called down to the cargo bay.

  The Raptor class fighter shot out of the cargo bay like a bullet and was just outside the safe area when its engines flared to life. Almost as soon as the fighter was loosed, Elias brought the Guiding Angel about, altering attitude as he did so that his ship faced the other head on. “I have pulse cannon and shock threads,” he called out loud. He lined the other ship up in the targeting reticule of the forward viewports and triggered a blast as soon as the other vessel, magnified by the hair fine circuitry of the glassteel panels, glowed with a blue nimbus.

  In sequence, four green-white bolts of silent, sizzling energy spat forth from the concealed weapon muzzles, splashing across the bow shields of the oncoming ship, the energy playing out over the vessel in brilliant lightening-like arcs. Then as if to add punctuation to the heavy firepower that already soaked the Maelstrom class vessel, Odette triggered two sustained beams from the dorsal laser turret. The white hot fingers of light played over the nose of the patrol ship turned marauder, further degrading the protective energy shell that encapsulated the alloyed hull.

  Even as the Incubus returned fire with all three of its own pulse cannon, the bolts being harmlessly absorbed by the Okami freighter’s modified shields, Elias triggered another series of bolts. The first erupted in an even greater light show than the previous volley, the second bolt ‘shattered’ the attacking ship’s shields in an electric storm that caused the viewports on the Guiding Angel to darken automatically, saving the vision of the entire bridge crew from being temporarily blinded. The last two bolts vaporized huge divots of hull alloy from the bow section, leaving glowing craters in the hull almost two feet wide and as deep.

  As soon as the shields of the patrol boat dropped, Lena made a strafing run in the Cherub, her blasts aimed at the port engine cluster. While still powerful, the smaller weapons systems of the interceptor only caused minor damage and dropped the efficiency of the cluster by a fraction, but it was still a help. The rabbit shot past before the other ship could target her, then Lena began her braking and turn to bring her back around for another pass.

  Without thinking, Elias nudged the throttles forward and charged the other vessel, veering slightly at the last moment and fired the shock thread emitters as Odette used both laser turrets to shear away substantial portions of the Incubus’s port engine pods, continuing the work her ship mate in the fighter had begun. The shock threads lashed out, their discharges overloading the power systems of the Maelstrom class vessel, turning the ship into a lump of inert mass. Even as electrical discharges played over the hull, their flashing dampened by a thin cloud of vaporized hull metal from the previous hits that floated in the vacuum around the hull in small, perfectly polished spheroids, the running lights and internal illumination from the ports flickered and failed.

  Slowing drastically enough so that the crew felt the lurch despite the inertial dampeners, Elias swung the Guiding Angel around to link up with the stricken Incubus.

  “Boarding team, get ready for docking,” the fox instructed over the intercom, his blue eyes intent on the readings as he lined up for hard seal to the Maelstrom patrol boat.

  Using the video feeds from the receptors scattered all over the hull, Elias watched as the armored boarding tube, unlike the flimsy tube on most freighters, extended from his ship and latched on to the pirate vessel, the magnetic seal ensuring that the two vessels wouldn’t drift apart. There was a muffled clang, transmitted through the Guiding Angel’s hull.

  “We’re locked, Captain,” Randy’s voice said in Elias’s headset and over the bridge speakers.

  Cerise controlled all communications, and seemed to instinctively know what to broadcast to the rest of the crew and when.

  Elias toggled his headset. “Affirmative, Randy. I’m on my way.” Elias knew that his boarding team was capable of capturing the crew of the Incubus, but something within him refused to let him sit safely on the bridge when the individuals under his command had something dangerous to do. He hit the release on his safety harness and stood, all in one motion, and started for the bridge hatch. “Saul, you have the con. Keep Lena in overwatch and let me know if anything pops.”

  Saul nodded even as he took the pilot’s seat. “I’m on it, Boss. Watch your tail.”

  Elias bolted past Cerise’s station, their fingers touching for a moment as he passed, all the sign of love and affection that they could spare until the capture of the enemy ship and crew were complete.

  As the lift doors parted, Elias strode out, catching the thick vest of battledress armor that Sonja tossed him, slipping it on and closing the fastener strips even as Melise held out a stunner carbine and sub machinegun. He checked both with precision and no wasted movements even as Odette, who had taken the lift with her Captain, suited up and checked her own weapons.

  “We have positive air pressure, Captain,” Randal said as he looked over the gauges of the console that controlled the boarding tube and airlock. “Ready when you are.”

  Elias saw that Odette had swung the small infantry pulse gun into position and was covering the airlock and that Sonja, Melise and Randal had the solid look of being prepared for the task at hand and he nodded, moving to the side of the armored hatch. “Pop the seal.”

  With a hiss, the thick panel of the airlock cycled open, recessing in several inches before disappearing into the hull. The boarding tube was well lit, and on the other side was the airlock hatch of the Incubus, the red and black paint scratched and scarred with pitting and abrasions from the abuse the ship had just received. Randal moved into the tube first, taking the small flat box of his induction speaker and placing it on the thick metal. He dropped into a crouch even as Sonja moved in on the other side of the tube, her carbine at the ready and Melise covered him from above and behind.

  “This is the Spatial Police Force. Stand down and prepare to be boarded!” the large wolf said, the induction speaker ensuring that his commands would be heard by the entire crew of the pirate ship. The device would use the ship’s own internal structure to carry his words to the interior compartment. There was no indication that the pirates were going to comply, and Randal motioned Sonja forward to override the airlock controls.

  It took the spaniel female a few moments to open the access plate, then get at the internal circuitry. She attached several leads from a small device that she removed from a pocket, activated it, then let it hang from its wires before stepping back and raising her weapon.

  They all waited for several tense moments before there was a loud thunk! from the Incubus’s side of the airlock, then it began to open accompanied by the high pitched whine of electric servos. There was no light on the other side of the thick hatch, and Randy, Melise and Sonja activated the small but extremely powerful, lights in the fore grips of their carbines.

  Even as the three veteran SPF officers hit their lights, the stuttering sound of sub machinegun sounded from inside the pirate ship and several rounds sparked and whanged! off the interior structure of the boarding tube. Without hesitating, and dropping a little lower, both canines answered with rapid discharges from their stunners. Firing one handed, Randal removed a small red cylinder from his battle harness and thumbed the top before tossing it into the black maw of the other ship.

  “Fire in the hole!” the wolf yelled, even as the object left his hand.

  There was a tiny Clang! as it bounced off the deck plates inside the Incubus before bursting in a flash of brilliant white illumination and thunderous clap that caused Elias’ ears to ring slightly despite the protection of his helmet.

  No sooner had the stun grenade detonated then Randal and Sonja were moving rapidly into the other ship in a crouch with Melise covering them from the edge of the airlock hatch. Elias followed and reached the threshold of the airlock in time to see each of the others fire their stunners at targets that the fox couldn’t see.

  “Clear!” Sonja called, answered by Randy’s “Clear!” a moment later.

  The trio fanned out, each one tossing a glo-stick into different areas. The chemical filled tubes would stay illuminated for several hours, providing as much light as a small lantern. The sticks provided enough illumination to make sure there were no other individuals hiding in the airlock/cargo area.

  “These ships only have two decks,” Elias said, identifying the hatch that would lead to the engineering section and most of the crew’s cabins. “The typical crew compliment for one of these is fourteen, but I’d feel better if we anticipated more.” He looked at the two supine forms on the deck. “The layout is fairly linear, so the sweep should be fairly easy in and of itself, but the cabin layout is what provides the challenge.”

  “What do you mean?” Sonja asked, her eyes bright with adrenaline.

  Her designs on her Captain had been put to rest fairly quickly, and the spaniel had integrated herself into the crew with ease. She had even taken to hanging out with Cerise and Lena on her off hours and the trio could often be found sitting together on the rec deck in a knot, trading stories and laughing wickedly.

  “Each of the eight hatches for the cabins on this deck are laid out in a chevron pattern so that each can function as a firing position. It makes the entire deck fairly defensible,” Elias told the others.

  “Let’s get Stram over here. I have an idea,” Randy said, pulling another cylinder from his harness.

  Elias and the others clearly saw the dual green and red bands that denoted this grenade as a gas weapon. The fox smiled at the resourcefulness of the large wolf.

***

  “There’ll be no overriding this,” the gruff badger said as he crawled out from underneath the primary air recycler and wiped his hands reflexively on his smeared and stained jumpsuit. “I think three, nah, let’s make it four, of those stink bombs of yours will do the trick for the volume of atmosphere on board. Then within…oh, say ten minutes or so, and it’ll have hit everyone.”

  Randal pulled the recommended number of gas grenades from various places on his harness and pockets, and added one more to the small pile of green and red tagged devices with a chuckle. Then he, Elias, Stram, Melise and Sonja pulled gas masks on and sealed them. The grenades contained a concoction of tearing agents and regurgitates that were very potent. The grenades were so potent that not even the police forces of some worlds carried them as part of their arsenals.

  The idea was to detonate the grenades in the primary air recycler so that the gas would be pumped to all sections of the ship.

  Once everyone had their masks on, and Elias verified that the boarding tube hatch was sealed, he looked at his chief engineer and smiled cruelly, though the expression was concealed by his gas mask.

  “Do it, Stram,” the fox said.

  The five grenades went off with little pops that sounded small, no worse than children’s noise makers, though a little bit of white smoke escaped the intake for the recycler in a thin, wispy tendril. Stram monitored the progress of the gas from the engineering station and chuckled.

  “They’re trying to shut down the air flow from the bridge,” the badger said. He was playing with gold plated electrical connectors in his left hand. “I don’t think they’ll have much luck without these,” he said rattling the connectors for emphasis.

  It was less than five minutes when the ship’s intercom sounded. Between fits of coughing from several individuals and the sounds of violent retching, the boarding party heard a thick, phlegmy voice say, “We surrender!”

  There was a collective sigh of relief from Elias and his team. All of them, save Stram, had been on enough boarding operations to know that the whole thing could have gone badly. As it was, the fox clapped Randal on the shoulder, to which the wolf nodded and shrugged in response.

  “We had to board a Utopia class colony ship once. It was almost a mile long and the thought of having to check every cabin was daunting when you consider the passengers were from the Ganlin Legion. So we decided to gas the entire ship. I think it saved a lot of individuals on both sides that day.”

  Sonja looked at Randal with astonishment. “The Ganlin Legion? Really?”

  Randal nodded, though Stram had a puzzled look on his face. “I’ve heard of them,” he said, absently scratching and ear. “Aren’t they some sorta group of crazy isolationists?”

  “They’re more than that,” Elias said, slinging his carbine. “They’re anarchists of the worst sort. They hate humans, established governments of any kind, and take a perverse joy out of killing SPF personnel. That all of them are militant and believe that rule of strength is the natural order of things, well, let’s just say if it were me, I would have been tempted to have fired a spread of torpedoes and called it done.”

  Randal nodded slowly. “That thought had occurred to us as well. Fortunately we had an alternative.”

  It didn’t take the team long to round up the crew of the Incubus. There were ten individuals in all, and between rubbing at eyes and still suffering bouts of vomiting they were easy to subdue. The Incubus’s Captain, Nolan Rackam, was just as bad off as the rest of his crew. His clothing was a sodden mess, and looked at the white fox with an expression of extreme misery.

  “Good play, Gents and Ladies. Indeed, I wasn’t expecting…Wait. You’re SPF?” the bedraggled feline asked in a harsh voice.

  Nolan Rackam was a ginger colored tom with bronze colored eyes and was dressed in black leather boots and pants with a red silk shirt and darker red sash. He would have been rather distinguished looking at any other time, dressing as he thought a swashbuckler should, cutting a dashing figure, and giving Elias the impression that the cat was a vain creature. Now he looked far worse for the wear, with the remnants of his last meal drying on his shirt and leather pants, his whiskers dropping and raw looking eyes.

  Elias gave a mocking bow to the cat. “Captain Elias Tivnan of the SPF vessel Guiding Angel at your service, Captain Rackam.” The title was given in a sarcastic tone that spoke volumes of Elias’s contempt for the pirate. “Oh, and you’re under arrest, old boy. Hate to rain all over your day and all.”

  Nolan gave Elias a pleading look. “Please, Captain. You’ve won the day. There’s no reason to be so damnably trite about all of this.”

  “Oh, but there is,” Elias said with a growl. “I can’t stand pirates, you see. You’re a parasite and make your way preying on the honest work of others who are just trying to make ends meet in a job that’s already hazardous. You put innocent lives at risk. And I’ve lost too many friends to your kind. If I had my way, I’d space you right now. Not for being a pirate, mind you. That is something that I can deal with. No, what really irks me is the fact that you are treating this as some kind of game.”

  Elias’s hand dropped to his holster and his fingers twitched involuntarily as the fox seemed to struggle with the urge to draw his sidearm. Randal and Sonja saw this as they watched over the rest of the crew as they were being treated for residual effects from the gas grenades by Lemuel Anders with Melise covering the Doctor. Each moved closer to their Captain to intervene if necessary while still monitoring their prisoners.

  The impression that Elias had of Nolan Rackam was emphasized by the trappings of the feline’s cabin, which was well stocked on the exploits of other pirates, including something that was almost a shrine to the late Sagan, one of the most bloodthirsty and vile of brigands ever known on almost twenty worlds. Then there were the stacks of books and volumes on piratical exploits, both recent and historical accounts. Nolan even took his surname from a famous pirate from Earth’s ancient history, during the time of tall ships and sails. It was obvious that the cat had a certain point of view regarding freebooting, and didn’t see it for the crime it was.

  “Doctor!” Elias barked, seeing that his words were falling on deaf ears.

  “Yes?” the tiger said looking up from the third prisoner he was treating.

  “They will recover on their own, will they not?” The fox’s eyes didn’t waver from those of the ginger colored tom.

  “Yes, of course. But I don-“

  “Then that’s exactly what they can do. Randy, lock them up as they are. They can thank their Captain for lack of treatment.”

  The others moved to do as Elias commanded. There was a surprising lack of protest from the prisoners, mostly due to the stunners that were pointed their way, though there were some dark looks from the crew of the Incubus for their former Captain. In fact, the only one that actually protested was Nolan Rackam. He whined, shouted, cajoled and whined some more of his rights, and that withholding treatment wasn’t fair. At that point Randal and Sonja hustled the feline away before Elias really did shoot him.

  Elias was still putting his gear away and just finished unfastening the side latches of his body armor when Randal reappeared next to him. There was concern in the wolf’s eyes as he regarded his Captain.

  “Sir? May I speak candidly?”

  Elias paused and looked at the large wolf. “Sure. What’s up?”

  “I don’t know how to put this diplomatically, so I’ll be frank. Are you all right? You were fairly harsh to our prisoners. I didn’t know you felt that strongly about pirates.”

  Elias’s reaction was far from what Randal was expecting. He laughed.

  “Sorry about that. Mister Nolan Rackam is the son of a fairly wealthy family from Fyn. His real name is Norbert Douglas, of Douglas Industries. He used his inheritance from his grandfather to purchase the Incubus to pursue what he thought was an interesting lifestyle. I wanted him to know that his choices have certain ramifications.”

  “Then your behavior wasn’t…serious?” Randal asked, slightly perplexed.

  “Oh, no. I really can’t stand pirates, but I wasn’t going to shoot him, if that’s what you are asking. Though the thought has certain appeal. Cerise was able to identify him through the SPF database, and informed me of his actual identity just after they surrendered. He has squandered away almost ten years of his life, dropping out of school, going from one endeavor to another and never finishing anything. He has gotten out of more scrapes than I care to list and it’s high time that he realizes there are certain things that carry a price that his family can’t help him with.” Elias removed his armor with a sigh and scratched at his chest with certain relish.

  “By the Maker it feels good to get that off. Anyway, Cerise has already begun downloading the core of the Incubus and cataloguing the ships that they have plundered and other activities. Treena has found some other interesting information in his cabin that’s going to double the number of charges against him, and it looks as if we might be able to use that to also track down other privateers.” The fox stowed the armor before divesting his armaments into the cargo bay weapons locker after removing the magazines and ensuring there were no live rounds chambered or the possibility of accidental discharge. When Elias turned around, Randal had a full grin on his face instead of his usual half smile.

  “You are a devious individual, Captain,” the wolf said and started to chuckle.

  Elias began grinning himself. “I have to admit that I enjoyed the look on Mister Nolan ‘Rackam’s’ face when he thought I really would shoot him. His family can’t bail him out of this, and I have a feeling that a very long stint in a penal colony is in the future of our dashing, swashbuckler tom.”

— NEXT CHAPTER —

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