Jack “The Dragon” Draegan stood facing the transparent osmium viewport; his hands clasped behind his back, watching the shifting colors of gas and dust, as well as the occasional electrical discharge. Sitting just inside the Celindi Nebula, the Thunderchild was making repairs; her recent encounter with a Solarian heavy destroyer having knocked her about after her last raid. But it had been a profitable haul so far. Three prize crews were on their way back to Cinder Station, with transports loaded with precious works of art from the home of the Solarian Entente, much needed supplies from the Ceti Empire, and the random merchantman who refused to sail in convoy. Some wag on Terra was once heard remarking that the Acamar Sector belonged only to the Dragon...and the dead.
“Captain,” one of the bridge crewmen interrupted Jack’s musings. “Sensor drone’s picked up a shadow in hyperlight approaching.”
Moving back to his station, Jack hit the intercom stud. “Engine room. Padraig, what’s our status?”
The Irishman’s burr was thick as he replied. “Hyper and sublight engines are online. Portside turret’s jammed but good; that damned destroyer managed to cripple the power conduits during their attack but the other two cannons and torpedo bay are operating at one hundred percent. Energy shields and inertial compensators are stable.”
“Bring us to action stations and plot an intercept course.” Jack settled into his seat, as the klaxon sounded throughout the ship, the blast door behind him hissing open with helmsman Malaerys Taelennis and tactical officer Tarleton Clemens jogging through, relieving their junior watchstanders. “Mala, bring us to the nebula boundary.”
Thunderchild’s main and two secondary engines ignited, driving the cruiser into the shallows of the nebula. Tarleton began calling out sensor data, “Sensor probe’s reporting tachyon emission increase. Hyperspace shadow closing on probe position. Bremsstrahlung radiation release. Target is subluminal and cruising to next transit point.”
“Intercept, and roll the ship relative so that the dorsal and starboard batteries are in engagement.”
The ship broke through the nebula boundary, phased plasma cannons firing on the ambushed target, pummeling her shields. The targeted vessel returned fire, peppering the Thunderchild’s shields into the visible spectrum, while trying to run on her sublight engines, her navigator throwing the freighter through an evasive pattern.
“Captain, target’s silhouette matches that of a Seidran slave transport, her IFF squawking an ident for Rhapsody, a free trader out of Breshan. Target’s returning fire, and attempting evade. Her engine output’s approaching known danger limits,” Tarleton reported, almost as an afterthought. “They’re attempting a distress call.”
“That’s clearly no free trader. No, they’re slavers, but this is far from their usual stomping grounds,” Jack mused. “We’re at least 40 light years from Alzirr. Of course, they could be headed to the Novus Imperium Romanum. Gods know they always need slaves for their pleasure centers. And, well, we’re just going to take that away from them with this ship…” Jack was interrupted by Tarelton.
“They’ve suffered an engineering casualty. Sublight engines are down, ship’s spinning out of control.”
“Bring the grapplers online, stand by boarders.” Jack stood, tucking his sword into his belt, before hitting the communications stud. “Rhapsody, this is the Dragon, aboard Thunderchild. Surrender your vessel and prepare to be boarded. Your engines are disabled, and you’ve no way to escape.”
“Grapplers online, matching rotation and velocity.” The stars outside the viewport began to tumble as the ship matched the slaver’s spin. There was a reverberating THUMP from behind the bridge as the airlocks mated. “We have hard dock.”
“Alu lu'vith biu cretok, Tagnik'zur!” The Seidran slaver replied over the communications link.
Jack shrugged and switched channels. “JB, we have a hard seal, hack their controls. I’ll be with you presently.” Moving to the blast doors at the rear of the bridge, he called back. “Mala, the ship is yours. Keep us hard docked, and keep an eye out for any patrols. I know we’re far from the normal trade routes, but remember that Arachnid-class destroyer we stumbled upon during our last raid.” The pinkette former Solarian clone acknowledged as Jack stepped through the blast doors.
The light whine of a plasma pistol could be heard coming through the mated airlocks, as Jack approached them, followed by several heavier barks from plasma rifles. Crossing the threshold, his nose was assaulted by the exotic, spicy perfumes that the Seidran women favored. Motioning to the squad of heavily armed troops that entered the Rhapsody with him to follow, he moved towards the bridge of the ship, his sword in hand. Sounds of combat echoed through the corridors of the slaver- blaster fire ricocheting down the corridors, the clash of sword against sword.
“Breaching charges,” Jack ordered, as he and his squad arrived at the sealed blast doors leading to the bridge. One explosion later, Jack and his team were storming the bridge, behind a hail of blaster fire. The overweight Seidran captain fell during the exchange of fire, a blaster bolt drilled through his forehead. Two of the more junior pirates dragged the corpse away, and threw it on the pile at the back of the bridge.
“Nindol zhah l'Tagnik'zur. Dosst venta'kyorl zhah elghinyrr. Fre'sla harl lu'vrine'winith malarin,” Jack said over the ship’s intercom. Crew of the Thunderchild, quarter will be given to any who surrender. Contact the bridge as practicable.” He looked at one of the team that accompanied him. “Secure the bridge; have a detail deal with the mess back there, and contact Padraig to get ship’s engines online. I’m going to check the captain’s suite.”
Jack made his way aft and down a companionway, his sword at the ready. Just because he’d called on the slaver crew to surrender didn’t mean that they’d automatically just drop their arms and give up. Indeed, sounds of sporadic combat still echoed through the corridors of the vessel. Although a pirate, Jack Draegan didn’t have a fine appreciation for slavers and had standing orders that the officers of any slave ship were to take a step out of an airlock and a long walk into eternity, should they be captured alive.
As he moved off the ladder, Jack raised his sword in a guard position as he was alerted to his right by a noise. A Seidran female, and not a bad looker the analytical portion of his mind appraised, was leaping through the air from a cross corridor at him, dagger held high in her left hand.
Jack pivoted; his sword arm coming up, blocking her dagger. Balling his left hand into a fist, Jack pivot into a cross, slugging the brunette flying towards him..
His assailant flew into the bulkhead and crumpled to the deck, the dagger dropping out of her limp hand.
“Captain, are you alright?” One of Thunderchild’s assault crew asked after rushing down the ladder.
“Yeah, I’m fine; she tried to stick me. Have her taken to a med bay,” Jack said, grounding the tip of his blade on the deck.
* * *
“What’s our status,” Jack asked as he reentered the bridge of Thunderchild.
“Padraig’s looked over the engineering section of the Rhapsody; he’s on the record stating that it’s pretty much scrap iron. Supercargo’s got his staff securing the plunder in the hold. Casualties have been evac’d to the med bays for treatment,” Mala said, as she moved out of Jack’s seat. “JB’s got the prisoners who surrendered secured.”
“For what it’s worth. I doubt there’ll be much ransom for them. Any response to the Rhapsody’s distress signal?”
“Nothing indicating in hyperspace at a range of 10 standard hours. Some distortion out to 20 hours, but not enough to discern if they’re coming this way or just traffic in the hyperlanes,” Tarelton reported.
Jack nodded. Whatever he was going to say was cut off by the ship’s intercom. “Bridge, this is Medbay. One of those ‘ladies’ from the ship bloody well won’t leave me alone. She insists that she needs to look…”
Another, more cultured and feminine voice interrupted. “Mr. Fuchs, you simply cannot treat a head injury with actemfenac meproprosyn, particularly on a Seidran. You’ll drive her blood pressure down to critical levels. Put away your leeches and butcher's’ knives, you drunkard. I’ve a patient to take care of.”
“Doctor Fuchs,” Jack said, “perhaps it would be best if you listened to her. Seems like she knows what she’s doing.” He closed the channel when he saw Mala signalling him.
“All boarding parties are aboard. Demolition charges have been set and primed. We’re ready to get back underway.”
“Good. Set course for Skjaldbaka. Let’s see what we can fetch for our booty and our prisoners. Standby jump engines.”
Mala quickly typed in the coordinates for the notorious pirates’ haven, then retrieved and inserted the jump key. “Coordinates laid in, jump engines standing by.”
“Execute.” As Mala twisted the key, a massive rip in local space-time opened a portal into a dimension of Escher space. The massive engines propelled the cruiser into this bedlam of energies, flipping off Dr. Einstein and sending the ship into a realm where time and distance aren’t necessarily relative in space.
As the Thunderchild’s jump portal closed with a metaphorical “POP”, friendly blinking red lights on the charges set throughout the Rhapsody looked at their timers and decided now was a perfectly good time to go get a nice cup of tea. The slave ship, however, became a massively actinic ball of white light and noise, leaving only tiny microfragments floating in the void.