Star Kitten Page 20

  Of course, ship’s computers did all the actual work of detecting approaching craft, or obstacles to the flight path of the Anarchy, but it gave a ship’s captain much comfort in knowing he could “see” around the outside of his ship. It’s just that he didn’t need to. The crew took care of reporting to him nearby ships or calculating distances to destinations. It was just force of habit. Made him feel like he was actually doing something.

  What Snout was referring to humorously was that “deep space” is a relative term anyway; given the sheer vastness of space to begin with. When he made the comment, it was more of an attempt to humor his bored and yet quite apprehensive crew on the ship’s bridge that day. They’d been cruising slowly back and forth across commonly traveled shipping routes leading between planets and space colonies; hoping to catch a lone vessel they could raid and use as a bait ship to land on Star Pussy. This was the old “false flag” ruse used by Pirates for centuries. But it was taking too long, Snout thought. After all, he had eight ships in his fleet counting the Anarchy. He had a fleet which could simply blast away any of Star Pussy’s defenses and scoop up a thousand prisoners in a matter of a few hours. They’d be on their way in no time. That’s what Snout believed.

  But this? Waiting two days (or had it been three now) in commonly traveled shipping routes looking for a ship they could pounce on? This was absurd. He had a brigade of hardened warriors languishing in the ship’s hold. He had seven other warships drifting in space several thousand miles away which he could call in for support and just devastate Star Pussy easily. Why bother with this silly ruse? But he trusted Kscheeech implicitly. His first mate usually knew exactly what he was doing.

  And actually Kscheeech was right again. If Star Pussy detected a fleet of ships approaching and no explanation as to why… they’d send a distress call to Star Fleet and within a day Star Fleet forces would be chasing the Naustie fleet all over the galaxy. Many would never make it home. New Australia might even be identified as the source of all the raids. And Star Fleet could soon be directing a massive attack on the Naustie’s home base. No, this was much better… sneak in under a false flag just to get the first brigade safely landed. Then they could scramble communications coming from the area.

  But… the waiting was aggravating. Snout knew his crew were getting agitated. Something needed to break the monotony. And still they had to remain at their posts for 12 hours at a time; on high alert for any passing craft.

  The hours ground along. They just travelled back and forth across a thousand mile expanse of space, turning around every few hours and repeating the route as Snout and the Nausties waited. And waited. And waited some more.

  Then finally, in the silence, with thirty Zorg, Porko and Earther crewmen on the ship’s bridge just sitting or standing there… nothing left to talk about or shoot the breeze about… it finally happened. A beeping sound and notification light went off on the display panel in front of the Navigation Officer, a Porko named Frilbriliram (the other crewmen actually just called him Brilly). He startled to attention, having drifted off in a mindless personal daydream about wallowing around in the cool mud of his pigsty back on Porkonji when he was a little piglet. Only a moment before, he’d been counting down the last two hours of his duty shift… looking forward to a game of cards or a pint of ale at the officer’s club… but not anymore. Now he and five other crewmen monitoring the control panel were excitedly springing into action.

  “Admiral, sir!” snorted Brilly. Snout instantly reacted, knowing instinctively what the sound meant and what Brilly was referring to. Coolly he commanded in a gruff but calm voice, “Main screen, Mr. Brilly, please.”

  Within a few seconds, the main screen showed a magnified image of a small cruiser, with Earth markings and design, growing like a little white dot… gradually nearing Anarchy maybe a few thousand miles off the Port side of the pirate flagship. Perfect… this was what they’d been waiting for. Snout ordered Brilly to send the message they’d crafted and been waiting to send for days whenever they finally found a good target:

  “Hailing Earth craft with course bearing Alpha-Zulu-Tango-niner-eight-three-six Pumalar system. Requesting passage for civilian passengers returning to Pumalar wishing to a attend funeral for their family Patriarch. Price negotiable. Request docking.”

  Such a message was sure to get attention. Everyone in the galaxy knew the strict Pumalar tradition of attending a family member’s funeral, especially when the leading eldest male of the breed passed away. That Patriarch, or “Tom”, was the senior member of one’s family lineage, and commanded the most respect among the males in the family. Not attending his funeral meant bringing shame to your family; and no matter where a Pumalar was on the planet or even within the galaxy, when receiving word of the death of their Patriarch they had to drop everything and travel home for the ceremony.

  What’s more, a Pumalar would pay anything and do anything to get home in time for the ceremony. A Pumalar could not miss it. It was simply not acceptable. He had to get home in time; or forever lose face with his family. It was just that important to them. So this meant a wonderful opportunity for the Earth craft approaching them. Fifty, or even a hundred Pumalars traveling home? Oh, they’d pay every Dinar they had just to get back to Pumalar. The Earthers could charge almost anything they wanted; and the Pumalars would give it to them with no hesitation. The Earthers on that ship would have known that.

  And it worked. Within five minutes, a message came in on Brilly’s computer saying, “Acknowledged. Requesting number of passengers to accommodate….”

  Snout snickered when Brilly read the message. The Earthers were buying it. And why wouldn’t they anyway? The Earth craft would have scanned the Anarchy by now and found that it had very little cargo and over 1500 beings on board. This must be a large freighter full of passengers! If the ship required 600 to operate, up to 900 of them could be Pumalars trying to get back home for their Patriarch’s funeral. The Earthers could make a fortune off this opportunity!

  Snout muttered, “They probably just figure we’ve carried the Pumalars this far…picked them up somewhere out in space… and now we want to get back with our voyage. Or maybe they figure we want to stop at Star Pussy for shore leave, and dump the Pumalars onto another freighter heading their way toward Pumalar. That’s probably it right there….” He could only chuckle at the genius of his first mate. The crewmen nearby him laughed along with him. Once again, he had to hand it to Kscheeech. So many years as a pirate before being sentenced to New Australia… he sure knew what he was doing. Greed for money and wealth. Lust for sex. Compassion for someone’s apparent distress. There were just so many ways to tempt or fool an unsuspecting victim.

  Within an hour the Earth ship approached and via public interspace communication channels, a deal was struck for taking on five hundred and forty six Pumalars in exchange for a quarter ton of assorted precious gemstones “from the family treasury”. Wow, thought the Captain of the earth freighter. This must have been a very wealthy breed-line back on Pumalar, to be holding so much wealth. And, of course the whole exchange of messages was being listened to by the rest of the Naustie pirate fleet posted a few thousand miles off in silence waiting all this time for an ambush.

  The two ships backed into each other and docked so that their two holding bays could be opened and allow movement between the two craft. The Anarchy crew was to first drive in a dump hauler pulling a massive bin loaded with quartz, diamonds, rubies, and sapphires (which had been mined from New Australia, of course). The gems were all put in Pumalar style sacks as if they’d been gathered up and stored together as family fortunes to be spent on this voyage home. It all looked completely legitimate to the gullible greedy Earthmen. Looked just like they’d imagined it would too—at least until the Pumalars walking in behind the vehicle a few minutes later suddenly cast off their “mourning robes”, lunged forward, and slaughtered the poor terrified humans. The rest of the brigade followed right behind; and swept through the craft k
illing or capturing the entire crew of over five hundred Earthers (including fifty quite well-fed women).

  The earth freighter never even got off a distress call. The Anarchy’s assault brigade, under General Bengal, knew exactly where to go within the ship and how to get to its command bridge before any call could be made. The captain had been one of the first killed anyway, as he’d foolishly gone down to the cargo holding bay to greet the Pumalar “mourners” as they entered. So after he’d fallen, the rest of the ship’s crew were never able to organize into any form of resistance.

  Within two hours, the earth freighter, named ironically Chengshi (which is Chinese for honesty), was cleaned out of all dead bodies, and the surviving female captives were moved into the Anarchy to be distributed later to the crew for entertainment—starting with the Admiral of course. Snout simply loved human females. Especially really large ones (he really had a thing for big women). But for now, the females were kept in a holding cell. All fifty of them. There was still a massive raid to perform; and there was no time for ravaging the poor terrified women. They would have to wait for the voyage home to enjoy the companionship of their new captives.

  A new crew was installed to run the Chengshi, and in practically no time, the hold was filled with General Bengal’s brigade and it was off to Star Pussy. Anarchy stayed behind as a scout to watch out for any following ships. Then finally, to signal the rest of the Naustie fleet waiting thousands of miles away, the newly captured Chengshi sent an interspace communication across public Star Fleet channels hailing Star Pussy space station.

  The other pirate ships would intercept this message; and based on its content; would now finally know when it was time to begin traveling to the space station for the battle. No other ship to ship communication would be attempted. Far too dangerous. They’d already heard Anarchy’s message that was intended to lure the Earth ship to dock with it. Hearing nothing else, they could only assume the ambush had worked. Up to now they’d been listening for just a distress call indicating that the Anarchy had found a ship to engage. But there’d been none. Instead, they got even better news! It was clearly their own fellow Nausties hailing Star Pussy using a captured ship’s communication system.

  Chengshi, with its new pirate crew at the controls, and Kscheeech taking personal command, sent the cryptic but effective message, “Hailing Star Pussy space station. Hailing Star Pussy space station. Request docking for earth freighter Chengshi. Arriving in seventeen earth hours. One thousand five hundred passengers and crew for vacation and shore leave. Please acknowledge with available port information and terms.”

  To everyone’s delight, a female Star Pussy communications officer replied fifteen earth minutes later with, “Acknowledged, earth ship Chengshi. Stand-by for docking information… welcome to Star Pussy….”

  Over the next seventeen hours, the newly captured Chengshi travelled the last few light years to Star Pussy with its hold filled with General Bengal and his assault brigade. They knew when they approached the station that Star Pussy sensors would verify not only their transponder identity, but also the number of bodies on board, as their biological heat readings would indicate the ship indeed had about 1500 humanoid beings on board. Reality was it was a brigade of about 1263 bloodthirsty warriors and a small skeleton crew of about two hundred and twenty manning the controls. But that was plenty. Kscheeech could have run the ship with half that many.

  The remaining fleet was cruising behind Chengshi, several million miles back, waiting for a distress call from Star Pussy; indicating an attack was underway, or even a communication from Chengshi with Star Pussy customs authorities announcing they were clear to offload passengers. That too would be good enough to signal the attack. And once the message was received, the rest of the fleet was to appear right in time to dock in any newly captured ports on Star Pussy to further the assault and reinforce the attack where necessary. As it turned out, the Nausties would end up being rather glad they brought along such a large force…!

  Docking in the port near the Pumalar Environ on Star Pussy seventeen hours later, the captured earth freighter Chengshi was able to secure itself easily and connect its cargo bay to the port’s receiving deck by merely backing into the giant moorings which latched onto the craft and held it firmly in place while customs officials prepared to receive the Chengshi’s “passengers”. With Kscheeech now at the helm of the Chengshi, he proceeded to carry on a very polite and information-filled conversation about events, attractions, and accommodations available on Star Pussy… with a very polite and professional Port Authority officer named Meerah.

  A still image of the officer appeared on-screen. This female Pumalar was not an Empath at all, but actually an aging female who’d been employed by Star Pussy to greet landing space craft in a feminine sounding voice so to make visiting crewmen and their ship’s captains feel welcome… and relaxed. Her voice was soothing and warm. And her training was thorough. She knew EVERYTHING about the facility and she didn’t mind—in fact Meerah downright relished the opportunity—to tell Kscheeech all about what was going on the next few nights on Star Pussy. Best of all, her answers were packed full of information that Kscheeech really needed. He also knew the ship captains of the other seven pirate attack ships could intercept their transmissions and listen in as well.

  “Oh yes, we’ve got plenty of room for your passengers and crew, Captain,” purred the sweet and kind old she-cat. “You know, frankly we haven’t seen ships coming from Earth in several weeks now. Those rumors about space pirates. Reporters on the news scaring everyone. Must’ve frightened them off… back on Earth I mean. That’s my theory anyway. But our sensors are telling us you’ve got nearly 1500 on board. Shall I book some rooms for you all—I assume you’ll want to stay together, right? Might be easier to find everyone when it’s time to depart, (giggle).”

  Kscheeech chuckled. What a nice sweet old cat. He could pump information out of her easily, and fully intended to. “Yes, that would be fabulous-sss,” he hissed—then hesitated for a moment. Woops. He almost gave away his Zorg accent; and he feared Meerah might detect he was actually not human. That could be problematic: this was supposedly an Earth freighter traveling from their home planet. Kscheeech realized his mistake and corrected himself by saying quickly, “Sss-end us s-sssome Porters-sss to handle our luggage… I’m s-sssure my crew and passengers-sss will wanna head right for the Pumalar Environ. Grab the first available Empath they can find. It’s been a long voyage, Officer, uh….?”

  Meerah just laughed, saying “Oh just (giggle) call me Meerah. Everyone does. No need for titles around here. I’m just an old she-cat, long past my prime you know (hahahah).”

  Kscheeech knew that all Meerah could see on her end was just a camera view of the ship as it was docking and hear the audio of his voice, so he tried to suppress his hissing Zorg accent. “Very well then… Meerah… you can call me Keech,” replied Kscheeech. That was actually the nickname Snout had given him a year before; because pronouncing his name correctly with a Zorg accent just sounded ridiculous. Most Zorg names were like that. Their names were all very ancient and went back to their barbaric days as cold-blooded lizards. Each name sounded like a noise that a lizard would make.

  “Sss-o tell me Meerah, are you able to access information on perhaps booking some time with the S-ssstar Kitten… the one called Felina?” Once again, he winced at his accent slipping; but Meerah still apparently hadn’t picked up on it. She replied back quickly, “Ah, stand by while I check. Good choice, Keech. I assume this is for you personally and if so may I say, you’ll be very satisfied with Felina. She’s truly the very best we have.” Kscheeech grinned and waited for several moments—meanwhile the stevedores were linking up to the hull of the Chengshi and a telescopic access tunnel was extending out from the space station to the Chengshi’s cargo bay. “Oh, I see her schedule now…. Well Keech, I’m afraid she’s off work in about ten minutes. Oh pooh,” said Meerah. “But hey, if you want to… just go to her favorite restau
rant Star Fish and meet her tonight in person. She goes there after work every night. The chef there is amazing. Have dinner and stop by her table to say hi. She’s very nice. Just tell her Meerah sent you (giggle).”

  Meanwhile, as the access tunnel was sealing itself to the Chengshi’s cargo bay, Kscheeech was signing off with his newly-made friend Meerah. At that very moment General Bengal’s Smilodon Brigade were all standing at the ready, purring softly and snarling with anticipation. They’d waited patiently while Kscheeech and his crew steered the ship into its moorings. And when they heard the access tunnel linking to the cargo bay, all the Pumalars, Earthers, and Zorgs braced themselves to burst through the doorway. A big THUD was followed by some motorized sounds which indicated a vacuum seal was being created. Soon the door would open….

  The Smilodon Brigade was made up of five companies of troops. Three companies of Pumalar warriors carrying hand-held Electrical Impulse Cannons made up the brunt of the vanguard of shock troops. These units could fan out quickly and gun down defenders fighting out in the open. Then there were two artillery companies of humans (further broken down into fire teams of five to ten men) which operated mobile large-size EIC’s. These human units would carry the components of these cumbersome weapons out to a secured position and assemble them. Once done, they could spray the enemy with .50 caliber projectiles, rather than the smaller .30 caliber projectiles in the Pumalar’s hand-held EIC’s.

  Enemy infantry would stand no chance against these .50 caliber weapons. And it would keep the enemy cowered behind barricades when under fire from them. Walls were no good against them either. The large caliber EIC’s could rip apart bricks, aluminum, and even reinforced glass. They also carried satchel charges and grenades which could be hurled at fixed enemy positions when necessary. And while the enemy held on for dear life to fortified positions, Pumalar assault troops could move around and outflank or jump from cover to cover until they could overwhelm and eliminate most defenders quite easily.