by Bruce Marcom
The other fighter reacquires his target and fires energy weapons at the ship’s starboard side. Che hooks right and upward and yells, “Crazy Ivan!” Python actually knows which way Che will turn next and aims his guns where the fighter should be after the next maneuver. He rotates in his chair and aims up and the left as the ship turns to the right. The fighter follows their ship and turns right into a hail of rail gunfire just as the fighter releases another missile. The fighter is hit badly, the engine is on fire, and the fighter disengages combat, limping off toward the planet. The missiles slams into the cargo area of their ship, blowing a huge hole in the back.
Mcloud shouts, “Cargo bay is open to space! All of our supplies are gone!”
Che says, “Jumping.” The ship enters light speed.
Meek says, “Status?” as he walks in, feeling itchy in his groin area.
Mcloud informs, “Cargo bay is gone along with supplies in there. Checking other systems now.”
Meek grumbles, “Figures. I have been taking it in the ass all day today, so why not the ship, too.”
“I had just restocked the galley, so we had about two weeks of food,” Chad says.
Che says, “We lost about half of our supplies. The rest was restocked in the appropriate areas of the ship, depending on what it was.”
Meek says, “Head to Laughing Skull. We need to restock and see about repairs,” Meek orders.
“Roger that.”
Mcloud’s leg pops off and hits the ground.
Meek sighs.
Chapter 6
As the jolly band of misfits head toward Laugh Skull at light speed, they take a much-needed break and settle in to the mundane routine of ship life. After a few days, Capt. Meek’s rash goes away, but not until he becomes the victim of unending jokes from the crew. It will take another week to get to their destination. Focusing on the ship’s maintenance to make sure no other problem will pop up this consumes most of the crew’s time.
Four days out from Laugh Skull while they still in Reptilian space, they drop out of light speed to check out an area that had multiple distress signals coming from it. They move closer to investigate.
Che says, “In range now; looks like a bloody battlefield.”
The crew looks out the window and sees about a dozen warships floating in space. Parts of ships are floating around. A few of the ships have entire sections of their hull missing. There are some battleships, destroyers, and fighters scattered about.
Mcloud says, “Reptilian Navy and some other unknown ships. The unknown ships are not in our database.”
“Hmm... it is not like we can salvage anything because we don’t have a cargo hold,” Meek says a loud while thinking to himself.
Just as they slowly maneuver through debris, they notice a small ship with lights on parked in one to the landing bays of a battleship with huge craters in its side.
Mcloud says, “Sir, that small ship is the ship Ullas stole from us.”
Meek says, “There is justice in the world. Have they spotted us yet?”
“Unlikely. We are just floating among the debris.”
“They are probably filling up their cargo hold with loot from the battleship. Can we maneuver around and land inside the landing bay without them knowing?”
“No way, but I can scan to see how many are on board. There is one person currently on board, and the others are probably in the battleship looking for loot,” Mcloud says.
“I could sneak aboard and kill the wanker who is there. I will signal you when he is taken care of so you can land and bring the rest of the crew on board. The ship needs two people to pilot. We can just leave the junker here,” Che says.
“Sounds like a plan. Move us to where we are just above the landing bay entrance, but go around the backside over the top. We will just wait there until you signal,” Meek instructs.
“Roger that.”
Che moves the ship around the back and over the top to position the vessel just about the landing bay entrance. She changes into spider form and goes outside the ship into the vacuum of space, which is an arachnid’s natural habitat. She turns invisible and climbs down and into the landing bay. She slides down a spider web after scurrying across the ceiling of the landing bay on to the little ship. She drops on the loading ramp and goes into her former ship. She hears someone playing “We Will Rock You” over the intercom, probably from Meek’s collection.
She heads up to the bridge were she finds a human male sitting at the sensor station with his legs propped up on the display board while eating a piece of fruit. She sneaks up on her prey slowly as she makes a thin wire-like web and comes up behind the unsuspecting human. With amazing speed, she grabs the human by the throat with the wire and pulls back with both hands as hard as she can while he flails about for a few moments until he goes limp and lifeless.
“He is dead.”
She begins activating the engines. Meek moves the other ship into the landing bay and sets it down next to the loading ramp of the passenger ship. He hits a button that dumps the fuel to the ship. Then he runs out of this ship along with his mates wearing environment suits and up the ramp into his new ship. They close the cargo bay and the ship begins to lift off. They crew looks through the window just in time to see Capt. Ullas and his crew running across the bay. Meek, joined by the rest of his crew, all salute Capt. Ullas and his with the middle finger as they fly away. Still on the same channel, the intercom activates and Ullas says, “You wanker!”
Meek adds insult to injury, “Thanks for loading it up for us. Good help is hard to find nowadays.”
“Bastard! I’m going to get you, Meek!” Capt. Ullas threatens.
Che informs, “Jumping to light speed and heading to Laughing Skull.”
“Excellent. Chad and Sean, let’s go see what they loaded in the cargo bays. Cogg, put lock-out codes on this ship, so no one can steal it without knowing the command codes,” Meek says, not wanting that to happen again.
“Yes, Boss,” they say in unison.
They go down to check the cargo decks below. They look into several of the cargo areas.
“Looks like we’re only half full. Got marine weapons, armor suits, grenades, computer parts, fuel cells, medical equipment, and some ship parts. That is still quite a haul. Fill out our own armory with some of the marine weapons, armor, and grenades. We sell the rest. Keep some of the other stuff for spare parts and fuel cells. The rest I can sell easy. I still have the diamonds from the drug smugglers. Will probably upgrade the weapons and shields on this beast and split the rest with everyone,” Meek says.
Chad agrees, “Would be nice to have some real weapons and shields, not those lame ones that came with the ship.”
“That reminds me, did you check and see if we still have that cloaking device on board this ship?” Meek asks.
Chad says, “I really don’t know. I can run and check.”
He runs off to the engineering room. A few moments later over the intercom, “Yes, it is still here, but not hooked up yet.”
Meek replies, “Good, if we get enough money, we might have that fixed and installed.”
“That would be good,” Chad says with excitement.
***
The week passes quickly as the crew enters orbit around Laughing Skull. They land on the platform on the space station above the planet.
“I think we can get more money for our stuff from the legit merchants up here on the space station rather than down on the surface using fences. Remember we have a salvage license for this ship, so all of this is considered salvage,” Meek explains, “Che come with me to sell this crap, and the rest of you just sit tight and watch the ship and cargo.
“Roger that.”
Meek and Che head down to the market exchange on the station. The station is full, as it is most days. The two make their way through the busting crowd and enter the main market area.
“Let’s find an arms dealer first.” They squeeze their way over to the weapons vendors. They
walk up to a Snakekin merchant who is standing in a booth with display screens and product examples lined up on the tables.
“Greetings. I am Otto. You buying or selling, Sir?”
“Selling. I have few tons of Reptilian Marine weapons and armor for sale.” Meek shows the picture of the items on his inventory pad. “They are all salvage, with the correct paperwork.”
“Hmm, how about 30% of retail?”
“I can get that much from the fences on the planet surface without any paperwork. I want 75% of the market value.”
“But this is used, not new: 45%”
“65%.”
“I can go 50% and that is my highest offer, I’ve got expenses, too”
Meek grumbles, “It is obvious we aren’t on the same page. Maybe we can do a trade. Do you have any ship weapons?”
“What type of a ship do you have and what size and type of weapons do you want?”
Meek shows him his trading pad.
“I want big guns,” Meek says.
“Well, the biggest guns I can mount on that ship are duel hybrid rail guns that shoot plasma projectile ammo. Can mount a pair in a swivel turret on top and one pair on bottom,” Otto says.
“How much?”
“I take your whole inventory, and toss in five tons of ammo to go with your guns. This includes the cost of mounting the guns.”
“Hmm, how long will it take to mount them?”
“A few days. Can do it here in the repair dock. That is a serious upgrade to what you’re using now.”
“Six tons of ammo and you got a deal.”
“Er...well, I guess I can do that. Put your hand on the scanner here to seal the deal,” Otto requests.
They trade pads and scan each other’s hand.
“Take your ship around to the repair dock and I will send my crew to get the merchandise and begin mounting your new guns,” Otto assures.
“Okay.”
Meek turns to Che and says, “You can deal with the gems. You’re better with diamonds than me.”
“You’ve got that right,” Che says. “The jewelry vendors are on the other side of the market.”
They begin making their way over to the other side of the market. Pushing through the crowd, they finally make it to the jewelry vendors. Che walks up to a female Arachnid vendor.
In Arachnid language, Che says, “I’ve got some diamonds that I’m looking to sell.” She pulls out a bag and puts a few on the table.
Jaksi, the vendor, says in Arachnid, “Happy to meet you. Let’s take a look at what you’ve got.” She pulls out a scanner: “91% flawless, nice. Give you 50% of market value. “
Che says in a shocked manner, “Are you trying to rob me? I want 80% of market.”
Jaksi counters with, “60%.”
“75%.”
“My final offer is 65%.”
Che says, “Nay, I want at least 70%.” She turns and starts to walk away to the next vendor.
Jaksi says, “Okay, 70%.”
Che turns back around and gives her the diamonds. Meek is just standing there looking around, not understanding a word they are saying. Jaksi counts out the platinum bars and puts them in the bag. Che takes some of the bars out and puts them in her purse when Meek is not paying attention.
“I got 65% of market value for them,” Che says, giving him the bag of bars.
“That is about 105,000 bars,” Meek adds in his head.
“Yup,” Che agrees with a smile and begins walking.
Meek wonders if he was scammed or not, and he will never know. They walk back to the ship and inform the crew to move the ship to the repair dock. After about an hour of unloading the cargo and helping move the guns to the ship, the crew gets ready to depart on a shuttle to the planet’s surface. They see the gun-mounting crew begin to mount the guns. Cogg stays behind with the ship, while the others go down to the surface.
“That’s 15,000 bars each and nice gun upgrades—awesome,” Python says with joy.
Chad agrees, “Yeah, we rocked this trip.”
Meek says, “Well, it wasn’t all cookies and cream. But we came out on top.”
Che asks, “Are we going to Deadeye for drinks and poker?”
“Are we still allowed in there? Seems like we get in bar fights every time we go in there,” Sean reminds them.
Meek says, “They have bar fights there every day—it’s nothing. Remember these are pirates and outlaws we are talking about.”
“Probably right. Maybe we won’t have a fight this time,” Sean hopes.
“Don’t hold your breath on that,” Che chides.
The joyous pirates ride down to the surface looking for some fun. When they reach the surface, they catch a cab to the bar and tavern known as Deadeye. They get to the bar and walk inside. It is full of people, drinking, gambling, dancing, and eating. There are female and male prostitutes of every race looking for business. This is one of the largest bars on the planet. The music blares, as the crew finds an open table and sits down. They are known as The Smoking Aces not because they are good pilots, but because of how well they cheat at cards.
Chad gets out a deck of cards. “Okay there is only 52 cards in a deck, so let’s not end up with 10 aces at the end of the night, you cheating bastards.”
They all laugh as they order drinks from a wench passing by their table. They deal the cards and begin playing. After about an hour, a fight breaks out between two ruffians a few tables a way. A cup comes flying over to their table and hits Python on the head.
“Oh, man, here we go again....”
To be continued in Episode 2
