Captain's Captive

by C. F. Harris

  Captain’s Captive

  C.F. Harris

  Contents

  Captain’s Captive

  1. Flin

  2. Melissa

  3. Flin

  4. Melissa

  5. Flin

  6. Melissa

  7. Flin

  8. Melissa

  9. Flin

  10. Melissa

  11. Flin

  12. Melissa

  13. Flin

  14. Melissa

  15. Flin

  16. Melissa

  17. Flin

  18. Melissa

  More from C.F. Harris

  Royalien

  1. Stacy

  2. Jiorj

  3. Jiorj

  4. Stacy

  5. Jiorj

  6. Stacy

  7. Jiorj

  8. Stacy

  Get Royalien!

  More from C.F. Harris

  Captain’s Captive

  Captain’s Captive

  C.F. Harris

  Copyright 2016 C.F. Harris

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

  Individuals pictured on the cover are models and used for illustrative purposes only.

  First digital edition electronically published by C.F. Harris, January 2017

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  Created with Vellum

  1

  Flin

  A spear flew through the air and landed in a tree next to me. I shuddered to think of what that might’ve done if it landed in me instead.

  That was one of the things about primitive technology that a lot of people in the Fleet didn’t respect. A spear or a knife could kill you just as dead as a laser weapon or a disintegrator ray.

  Too many captains had met their untimely end because they didn’t have a proper respect for the simpler things in life.

  Koiana screamed. Sure all the toys I had at my disposal looked like the work of the gods themselves. Sure all the stuff that damned Imperium captain was throwing our way looked like those gods were angry and out to get me in particular.

  Still, there was something primal about seeing the sort of weapon she’d grown up with nearly stabbing into one of us that really got the old windpipes working.

  “Come on love,” I said. “They missed us. Now we need to get under cover.”

  Koiana let out a whimper as more men from her father’s personal guard shouted at us. I didn’t think they’d try throwing another spear at us. That first one had probably been the primitive hominid equivalent of a warning shot. They didn’t want to risk hitting the chief’s daughter, after all.

  Then again, some of those guys were scary accurate with those things.

  “Someone remind me why I’m on this gods-forsaken planet traipsing through a forest that hasn’t seen proper civilization in thousands of years?”

  Branches flew out at me. Literally they flew out at me. I’m not talking about the kind of branches that smacked into your face while running through a forest playing a friendly game of hide and seek back on the home world. No, the greenery on this world was ambulatory and angry.

  It wasn’t even green. More of a dull pinkish color with shades of brown. The locals seemed to think it was beautiful. I thought it looked like something my cat puked up.

  Cats. Now there was a galactic oddity. I’d traveled to hundreds of worlds where splinters of the ancient galactic human civilization lived at various levels of technology, and the one thing all those worlds held in common, aside from the humans of course, was cats.

  The furry bastards had somehow managed to hitch a ride on every outgoing spacecraft humanity had even as galactic civilization was collapsing around them tens of thousands of years ago.

  “You here rescue me?” Koiana said.

  I stopped. Turned to regard her. The regarding quickly turned into pulling her in for a kiss. That was another delicious bit of fun that had been common to just about every human culture we’d discovered. Regardless of where divergent evolution had taken their society and their biology in the tens of thousands of years in between.

  And I’d been sure to introduce the practice on the worlds where it wasn’t already a thing. That was fun.

  “Right baby,” I said. “How could I forget?”

  She was breathless. I wasn’t sure if that was because of the kiss or because of the whole running through a forest that was doing its best to beat the ever loving crap out of us. I decided to think it was because of the kiss.

  I turned and went crashing though the forest again. I contemplated pulling out my blaster and cutting a path through the forest. Lets see how all those moving tree things dealt with a disintegrator ray. Only that would also paint a picture for the Imperium ship that was no doubt hovering somewhere in the vicinity waiting for me to do just that.

  Not that it mattered. A moment later we ran into a clearing where I found myself face to face with an Imperium captain. At least I assumed he was an Imperium captain. He had the blue skin that seemed to shimmer in the light filtering down through the tree… things. He wasn’t in the ridiculous armored monkey suit they usually wore, though. Those things seemed terribly impractical for just about anything but taking a direct shot to the chest.

  What he was wearing was the traditional religious garb of a high priest for this tribe. It looked absolutely ridiculous on him, and the shimmering blue skin wasn’t doing anything for the overall look. The only difference between his flowing robes and ridiculous hat and the stuff the high priests on this world wore was that his hat bore the mark of the gods descended from heaven, or whatever the closest literal on-world translation of the home of the gods was.

  The classic smash and grab while pretending to be a god using off-world technology. I was so delighted to see someone actually trying to pull off the oldest one in the book that I almost wasn’t mad when I had to track these guys down and put a stop to their operation.

  “Captain Flin,” he said with a smile that wasn’t at all pleasant.

  “I’m sorry, but I don’t think we’ve met before,” I said.

  “Oh but we have met before, Captain Flin,” he said. He had that same condescending imperious tone that every officer from the Imperium seemed to cultivate. They must’ve had classes on arrogant asshole elocution or something.

  “Right. I’m afraid I don’t remember,” I said, stalling for time.

  I could pull up my gun, but there was the little problem of him already having his gun pointed at me. I wouldn’t be able to get off a shot before he vaporized me. That would be an unpleasant end to what already wasn’t one of my best days.

  “I am Commander Rethvar,” he said.

  Commander Rethvar paused and looked at me expectantly. I guess I was supposed to recognize his name, but it was pulling up a blank.

  “I’m really sorry, but I’ve destroyed a lot of Imperium ships in my time in space,” I said. “Were you the guy who I outsmarted by going FTL and making my ship seem like it was in two places at once?”

  “No,” he said in a clipped voice. “That was Admiral Tothar. Now deceased as a result of his failure in that battle.”

  “Right. Were you the one who got all prissy when we teleported all those Tetvorian metal rats into your engine room?”

  “No! And that infestation ended up resulting in the Imperium having to write off an entire spaceyard and all the ships in it!”

  “I’ve got it! I killed your father in some big impressive space battle a decade ago and now you’re out here seeking revenge?”

  “Why in the hundred worlds would you think that?”

  I shrugged. “You’d be surprised how often I get that one. It seemed as good a guess as anything else.”

&nbs
p; Commander Rethvar put his gun to his head and squeezed his eyes shut, but only for a moment. I only had my gun halfway up to target him when he brought his back down and smiled a knowing half smile. The front of his weapon glowed. I knew from hard won experience that meant he’d pulled the trigger on his weapon halfway.

  The Imperium liked showing off that they were about to kill you like that with their weapons.

  “Give me the girl, Captain Flin. I promise that if you do your end will be quick and relatively painless.”

  I frowned. “You mean you aren’t even going to tell me how we know each other?”

  “No! You will die curious!”

  “Aw, and we seemed to have a good thing going for a minute there. So you’re telling me that I’m dead no matter what I do? It’s just a matter of how quickly you kill me?”

  “Exactly, Captain Flin. And I will go down in Imperium history as the man who finally took down the great Flin! I will be the greatest hero our people have ever known!”

  “Right, but you have to catch me first,” I said.

  Then I did something stupid. If he was going to fire on me no matter what then I figured I might as well do something bold and stupid. To be honest I probably would’ve done something bold and potentially life-threateningly stupid even if he hadn’t said he was going to kill me. Bold and potentially life-threateningly stupid had worked out more often than not for me.

  It was also surprisingly simple. I did a roll on the ground and came up with my gun pointed directly at Commander Rethvar. I fired a quick shot to knock his weapon out of his hand. A weapon he wasn’t able to bring to bear on me fast enough because those ridiculous robes made it difficult for him to move.

  “Damn you Flin!” he shouted.

  “I aim to please,” I said. “Sorry that you’re not going to get to be the hero of the Imperium today. Maybe some other time?”

  “Give us the girl Flin! You can’t defy local laws!”

  I saluted him with my gun. “That whole non-interference rule you’re breaking whenever it’s convenient is an Imperium rule. I’ll continue putting my nose in where it isn’t wanted thank you very much.”

  I grabbed Koiana’s hand and we were going through the forest again. Almost I’d considered vaporizing Commander Rethvar. Given their predilection for executing their commanders for failure it seemed almost a mercy, but at the same time the Fleet tended to look down on potential acts of war like that. Never mind that Rethvar had instituted the first potential act of war by being on this world in the first place.

  I’m sure the political pukes who wagged their tongues about these missions without ever going into space themselves would have plenty to say about that. Damn them. Best to avoid that sort of attention in the first place.

  Blasts of high energy exploded around us. A few of the trees, or whatever the hell the creepily moving equivalent was on this world, screamed as they were disintegrated. That almost brought me up short. Talk about weird. Trees weren’t supposed to scream.

  Apparently the good Commander had regained the use of his weapon.

  “We no make it!” Koiana screamed.

  “Sure we will,” I said, trying to make my voice sound breezy. It was difficult. I’d been in scrapes before, but this one was really giving me trouble.

  I paused to listen. There were no more blasts forthcoming from the trees. I didn’t hear the sound of anyone crashing through what passed for underbrush on this strange world. I didn’t hear the underbrush grabbing at anyone crashing through it, for that matter. Weird. I figured he would’ve chased after us, but then again I wouldn’t relish going after someone if I was in those robes.

  All we had to do was get back to the city. Though it really wasn’t a city by the standards I was used to. Just by the standards of this backwater planet out in the uncharted territories. A planet I never would’ve gotten involved in if not for some crazy idea at the Admiralty that had me chasing all over…

  I skidded to a halt as we made our way out of the strangely living forest and faced a crowd of the chief’s personal guard. All of them had their spears raised. All of them were pointed at me.

  And the good Commander Rethvar stood in the center with a huge smile on his face. Must’ve teleported over here when he realized where I was going and that he didn’t have a chance of running me down in that ridiculous getup.

  “Captain Flin. We meet again,” he said. “Now if you could please hand over the girl?”

  “Chief!” I shouted. He pointedly ignored me, one of the egotistical idiosyncrasies of the royalty on this planet. But I knew he had ears. He could hear me. “This man isn’t one of your gods!”

  “He’s not going to listen to you,” Rethvar said. “You see the women on this world are more a bargaining chip, a bit of property to be traded for advantage, than anything else. And I’ve given him a deal that he couldn’t refuse in exchange for the women we’re taking in our little expedition. Including his lovely daughter.”

  “Your business is disgusting, Rethvar,” I said.

  “That may be so, but business is good. Now hand over the girl.”

  Koiana shied away from Rethvar, but then he barked something in the native language. I could tell because there was a slight delay as the translator unit in my ear adjusted to his vocal patterns using a different language.

  “Come here, my dear. Make your father and your gods proud.”

  I rolled my eyes. I couldn’t help myself. He was really overacting and making this whole thing far more ridiculous than it needed to be.

  “You don’t have to do what he says, Koiana,” I said.

  “But I do,” she said in a quiet voice. “The gods demand it.”

  “Koiana, I’ve explained this. He’s a traveler from another world, just like me.”

  “My people demand it. I go,” she said.

  And before I could stop her she’d moved past me and was stepping over to Rethvar who waited with open arms. His grin grew even wider as he enveloped her in a hug and looked over to me. The familiar whine of a teleporter started up, though it was a little different than the teleporters we used on Fleet ships. Rethvar and Koiana were surrounded by an almost blinding glow and then they were gone, leaving me facing a very angry tribal chief and some of his best bodyguards who I knew were very skilled with tossing those spears.

  “Y’know, sometimes I think you backwater worlds aren’t even worth protecting,” I said. I made sure it was loud enough for all of them to hear. The chief’s eyes narrowed, a bit of body language that seemed universal on all human worlds, and he made a motion with his hand.

  I didn’t wait to find out what it meant. From the way his guards tensed up I could guess what that meant, and I didn’t want to stick around long enough for them to capture me. I pulled out my commlink.

  “Yeah, if you guys want to pick me up, any time would be good,” I said.

  “Acknowledged, captain,” a cool voice said.

  I felt the familiar tingle of a teleporter taking hold of my body and scrambling my molecules. So I wasn’t too terribly worried when a bunch of spears went flying my way. They moved right through me harmlessly, though I could swear I felt a slight tickle that seemed to come every time I felt something passing through me while I was in the middle of being teleported.

  A moment later I was back on the ship in the teleportation chamber. My first officer, Commander Trower, stood there with his usual dower look, the blue fur covering his otherwise humanoid body rippling in irritation.

  “I take it the expedition didn’t go as well as we’d hoped?” he asked.

  “Not at all. This isn’t the origin, so we can send back to the Admiralty that we still haven’t found any fairy tales.”

  “But?”

  “Imperium captain down there gave me some trouble. Pulling the gods gambit. We can probably expect them to attack us any moment now.”

  “Got it,” Trower said. He moved over to a wall commlink and hit a button. “Trower to bridge. Raise the forcefields aro
und the ship and prepare for attack!”

  No sooner had the power on the ship done its customary dip with lights dimming around us and the sound from the engines lowering for a moment than the ship was rocked with several hits from energy weapons. That would be Captain Rethvar out there trying to make sure we didn’t get word of this back to the Fleet.

  Well. We’d see about that. I might have lost the battle on the planet, but I could still disable his ship, steal those poor women back, and blow his craft out of the cosmos before they had a chance to leave uncharted space.

  “Shall we head to the bridge, Commander Trower?”

  “An excellent idea, captain.”

  2

  Melissa

  I felt a sense of excitement that couldn’t be dampened even by walking into work. Usually I got a profound sense of depression when I passed through those doors that lasted right until about 4:45 when it was almost time to go, but not today.

  No, I couldn’t help but think about all the fun that was in store later tonight. A night out with the ladies that would last the entire weekend if I had anything to do with it. This was going to be the best fucking bachelorette party Melissa ever had!

  Well, I suppose it would be better to hope that this was the only bachelorette party she ever had, but it was also going to be the best, damn it.

  I figured that a weekend of getting blackout drunk with the girls and not having to worry about pesky things like driving would also be just the thing to forget some other things that had been going down at the office lately. Things I’d rather forget.

  Things that came right up behind me as soon as I’d plopped my happy ass into the chair and started logging in. Damn it.

  “Well now. There’s my favorite part of walking in here every morning.”

  I squeezed my eyes shut and counted to ten. Otherwise I was in real danger of picking up my monitor and chucking it at the owner of that too-smooth smarmy voice. The company usually looked down on willful destruction of its property, after all, and I did still need this job even if I hated coming here every day.