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? Nova Wars Chapter 2: New Contract? By Draconicon

Commodore Klim Hexclaw was balls-deep in his quartermaster when the beeping of someone's console finally interrupted him. He hadn't noticed it at first, considering that everyone involved in the celebratory orgy had been moaning their lungs out, but as he got used to it, he realized that it had probably been going for the last five minutes. Groaning, the velociraptor pulled himself out, his cock still dripping with the mare's juices, and stepped back. Maggie groaned under him, reaching back with a fumbling hand, but he was already out of reach.

"Alright, everyone, quiet. There's someone calling."

"Really? Are we putting on a show, then?" his security officer called out.

"Maybe. Depends on who's calling, Ryker. Everyone, freeze."

The humping and thrusting stopped as he called out, and the whole mass of messy, slippery, dripping crew members maneuvered themselves to a space just off-camera. It was like watching a giant mess of interconnected parts tiptoeing away, and the velociraptor chuckled as he pulled his pants back on. It was a little bit tricky, considering the very sharp claws on his feet, but he'd done it enough times in the dark to do it right.

Now, let's see who's been willing to stay on hold for five minutes...

Klim hit the connect button, and a viewscreen popped up in front of him. As usual, the aspecting was wrong, and it was portrait style rather than landscape, but he could live with it. Particularly considering the man on the other end.

"Ah, Admiral Fedembar. It's been some time."

The rest of the crew perked up, one head after another rising out of the interconnected mess just off-screen. He hid his chuckle as the robin on the other side shook his head.

"It's Admiral Fedem-Bar, not Fedembar."

"It's all the same to my ears. What do you want?"

"A salute wouldn't go amiss."

"Send me a paycheck and a commission, and I'll give you one. Hell, just send a paycheck."

"I might have an offer for one, if you're interested."

"...Keep talking."

He could already see Ryker drawing a finger across his neck, the folf telling him to cut the call, and Maggie was groaning under her breath, the mare shaking her ass back and forth. Both looked more eager to get back to the orgy than they were to get paid, but he wasn't one to let the coffers run dry. Even if the mare quartermaster had forgotten her earlier annoyance with him from the rather masterful humping he'd given her - if he did say so himself - he knew that she'd be right back on his case if he didn't find some sort of money.

The robin on the other end of the communication gestured to the side, apparently to someone that should have been in view if the aspecting was right. Klim looked sideways, and then back at the admiral.

"Am I supposed to be seeing someone?"

"...Yes, primitive communications equipment aside, this..."

The robin sighed, stepping to the right and pulling someone else into view. As soon as he did, Klim's eyes widened quite a bit.

"Ah, I see. I apologize for my mistake."

The eagle on the other end nodded in return, his feathers along the top of his head flared upwards in obvious annoyance. It wasn't surprising. The Feathered Federation was big on their hierarchies, and he always ruffled both metaphorical and literal feathers by being outside of their little tiered system. However, when one was dealing with the Crest, essentially their highest governors and lawmakers, even he knew that he had to be on his best behavior.

Klim bowed at the waist, the crinkling of his own uniform catching his ears for the first time in some time, and he stood up with a bit more of a hurry than usual. The eagle looked down at him from the viewscreen with his arms behind his back, feathers pressed flat by some sort of grooming.

"You are the pirate captain that Fedem-Bar has recommended?"

"The, uh, Commodore, sir."

"Hmmph. Is that the case, Admiral?" the eagle asked.

"He is in possession of precisely one ship, sir."

"Then Captain you shall be, Hexclaw."

The velociraptor didn't argue, though he could feel a part of his face twitching in annoyance. It wasn't as if he hadn't tried, after all. It wasn't like it was his fault that half of the ships that he'd managed to capture over his career had gone rogue or run off with some impatient second in command at the helm.

He didn't say that, though. There was a contract here, and he didn't want to mess it up by correcting the eagle. After another couple of seconds, the Crest member continued.

"We have a...situation in the Purple Talon system. Do you know where that is?"

"I have a vague knowledge of it. Not too far from our current position, one of those just inside your border, isn't it?"

"Correct. We've been attacked by the Hierarchy of Scales."

He wasn't too surprised about that. The Feathered Federation and the Hierarchy of Scales were almost always at each other's throats. The border systems between them, lacking the major population centers further in, were rich with resources and had more open shipping lanes than the established, heavily populated sectors further in. It allowed for more massive shipments of fuel and energy throughout the galaxy.

Ever since he'd been in the business, first among the Hierarchy, and then as a freelancer, the greatest treasures of the galaxy had been fuel. Whether it was the rare dark matter gems found on the edges of space, or the more common - but barely less valuable - plasma fuel pulled out of the hearts of stars, energy was the biggest and most needed resource across inhabited space. Anyone that ran even a small business at least kept an eye on the energy trade, participating in it if they could.

"How much damage?"

"Four cruisers and a dreadnought lost."

Klim winced, and more than a few of his crew whistled. Not a small fleet, and not a small amount of losses, either, considering how heavily the Federation staffed their ships.

"And the Hierarchy?"

"We don't know," the admiral admitted from off-screen. "We haven't been able to get back in-system to check the damage."

"...Pardon?"

"He's right," the eagle Crest said. "The situation is...difficult to admit. But they've managed to take sufficient hostages to keep us out of the Purple Talon system completely."

"How? Who's that valuable?"

"Not who, Captain. What. They took -"

"Uh, Captain?"

The interruption of his communications officer took precedence over the call, and the velociraptor turned his head. The naked blue dragon pointed to his screen, pulling it up and showing the incoming red dots on the sensors. It only took a quick glance for Klim to realize that they were probably pirates, and less than that for him to know that it was a threat that they needed to deal with now, and without an audience.

"We'll resume this call in a moment, sir. I'll be in touch."

He ended the call.

"Places, everyone! Lorkos, get the turrets online. Ailsa, I don't want to hear any missile tones. Got it?"

"Understood, captain," the stingray said as she took the wheel.

Half the crew were still naked as they got into position, but that was hardly the first time that it had happened. Klim threw himself into the gunnery seats on the far edge of the bridge with Lorkos and Ryker, the velociraptor taking the second, central gun while the other two officers got themselves situated.

"Lorkos, do we have anything that we need to worry about? Any power problems this time?"

"Shouldn't be an issue, captain," the wolf grunted. "Checked it all before we took off."

"Alright. Let's do this."

It was only a few seconds before the first fighters of the pirate armada came skimming past the bridge. Narrow-nosed things with a circular battery of weapons on the tip, they screamed by with a barrage of laser fire, some of which splattered on the shield before the glass, and some of which hit the center of the Breakaway.

The engines fired, pulsing in quick maneuvers as the little bulbs of the jets went rushing around the hull. He could hear them rattling through the framework as they went from one place to another, bumping the ship up and down and side to side. The worst of the lasers went by, but he could feel the rattling shaking them.

In the distance, he could just make out some black dots against the starry void. That would be where the bigger ships were, right at the edge of their scanner range and outside of missile trajectory and locking capability. He shook his head, hitting one of the buttons on his console. His chair jumped out of its locked position, hopping into a ring further up, and he kicked to the side.

As his chair spun around the rim of the circular bridge, so did the gun his console was attached to. He spun around until he caught sight of one of the fighters again, and tracked it until -

Squeeze, shoot, splatter.

The bursts of green light turned red as the ship had a brief explosion before the void of space smothered it. The velociraptor nodded to himself. One down...

"Dresnath, how many?"

"23 fighters, sir. Was 24."

"Fuck...Maggie, got any bait?"

"Some, not sure it'll work, but gimme a second."

The mare left the bridge, and he knew she was running down the halls towards the storage holds. There was a reason that they kept the loot in different little packets. If nothing else...

Lorkos and Ryker were spinning around the bridge with him, the three of them ducking and stopping in place to allow different firing solutions. Each time that they passed by each other, they exchanged a high-five for a recent kill, or a smack to the head for a stupid mistake.

It was taking a toll on the enemy, but not fast enough. The twenty-plus force dropped to fifteen, but the laser bolts were still coming. Klim knew that the ship couldn't take too many more of those, particularly with the shields already fading.

"Ailsa, I said keep away from the lasers!"

"You said keep away from the missiles. We're lucky they haven't gotten a lock yet."

"Do both!"

He pulled the triggers, but he missed the next ship. The stingray pilot had already dropped them down by a good few feet, so his shot went right under the target. Groaning in frustration, he spun his seat around, only to slam into Ryker's at the same time. They almost fell out of their seats, and only just stopped it by grabbing onto each other.

"Watch where you're going, Captain!"

"Same to you, Officer!"

They kicked off each other, spinning in opposite directions. He went flying over Lorkos's head, picking off another fighter's wing, but not taking it out of action. Pressing a button on his seat, he opened the ship intercom.

"Maggie, I need some bait out there! This is getting crazy!"

"Almost ready. Just give me a second or two."

"You got one!"

"Alright, done."

He nodded, looking over his shoulder. The stingray pilot nodded back, and she wrenched the ship into a horrible spin.

Everyone on the bridge grabbed onto something, barely holding on as the g-forces grew too great for the compensators to match. Anything that wasn't bolted down went flying, from datapads to blasters, and several shots went out, ricocheting around the bridge before dying off.

As they spun, he saw the little metal boxes from the cargo bay go flying out around them. Some of them were right in the path of the fighters, shredding them into pieces from colliding with them the wrong way, but others kept going, flying off into the distance. They popped up on his screen as targets, their transponders labeling them as goods, and high value goods, at that.

Come on, come on, take the bait...

Suddenly, more than half the fighters broke off from the rest, chasing down the containers before they could be lost to their short-range scanners. Those that remained, less than seven, were suddenly much more hesitant to attack a larger craft without back-up, particularly one that had already shredded through a good portion of their numbers.

Lorkos reminded them of that with a sudden burst of green light, the wolf's battery taking down another ship. The pirates scattered.

"Alright, Ailsa, get us the fuck out of here."

"On it, captain."

The too-calm, twisted voice of the modulator that the stingray wore seemed oddly appropriate as a sudden burst of speed sent them flying what felt like left, away from the bigger ships at the edge of the battle. Looking out at them in the distance, he saw the flare of their engines as they realized that their prey had an escape route, but it would be too late for them, now. The Breakaway had too big a lead, and there was no way that they'd close in time.

He lowered the gunnery chair down into a slot, and stepped out of it, rubbing his back and popping his spine as he stood up. As the bridge door opened, the near-naked Maggie O'Mare stepping inside, the velociraptor looked over at her.

"What's the damage?"

"You know that tiny haul you managed to get from that dragon?"

"Yeah?"

"Well, about half of it is flying among the stars, now."

"Well, fuck..."

"Yeah, tell me about it. I was planning on running the ship and paying for meals for two weeks with that haul."

"I know, I know. Okay." He shook his head. "We'll deal with that problem when we come to it. Everyone else alright?"

The crew sounded off. Ryker and Lorkos were fine, if a bit hopped-up on adrenaline. Ailsa was good, though he was never sure if she was just bored or the modulator was one of those that took every bit of emotion out of her voice. Dresnath had a slight burn on the back of his leg from the blaster pistol going off but was otherwise fine. Sollon, who'd come down as soon as the attack started, was unscathed.

"Alright...someone, keep an eye on the scanners during this next call, and warn me before they get that close. Dresnath?"

"Yes, sir?"

"Get to the infirmary. I think we still have enough medicine for a burn."

"Thank you, sir."

The blue dragon saluted slightly before heading out. He walked over to the communications panel again, saw that it was lit up with the call again.

"What do you wanna bet our paycheck just dropped a 0 at the end of the number?"

He answered the call before anyone could respond. This time, the aspecting was right, and he could see both the embarrassed robin admiral and the pissed-off eagle Crest. He brushed off his uniform before standing up as straight and dignified as possible.

"My apologies for the interruption, sirs. We were under attack by pirates, and I deemed it more suitable to defend my ship than continue to talk."

"...Acceptable reasoning, captain," the eagle said. "But in the future, tell us before cutting off the call."

"I'll try. What was this about a hostage?"

"They've taken the sun of the Purple Talon system, as well as the mining operation there. Starwing Station is in enemy hands."

"...Okay, that's not good, but it still doesn't explain why you haven't gone in to get it back. What, did they threaten to blow up the mining station if you came close?"

"They threatened to blow up the sun."

"..."

He couldn't respond to that. His jaw had dropped too hard to even consider a response.

Blowing up a sun was something that had been bandied about as a threat by various energy mining corporations for decades. They'd said that it would be the quickest way to cut down on competitive sources for energy, to remove the source of it from one of their rivals. It had never been seriously considered, as the damage from destroying a star would be enough to rid the system of any life it had.

Even on the border, he knew that would mean more than thousands dead, more than millions. It would be a body count that would surpass any war for the last three hundred years, if not longer.

"They have the capability; they have proven that much," the eagle continued. "They've stated that any sign of Federation starships or other military vessels anywhere within 5,000,000 kilometers of the system border will be met with the complete and total destruction of the star and the system around it."

"I'm getting a really bad feeling I know what you're going to ask."

"You aren't part of the Federation military -"

"I knew it."

"- and neither is your crew."

"Wait, wait, just...hold on."

Klim held up one hand, rubbing the other across his pebbly snout. He took a deep breath, and then another, trying to focus himself again before looking at the screen.

"You're telling me...you want me and my crew to go in, find some way to make this a non-issue, and...what, hand the station back over to you?"

"We want you to go in and remove their capability of destroying the star. A simple theft, as far as we're aware, and something you are well-practiced at."

"..."

It was not entirely inaccurate, but this was an operation beyond anything that he had ever planned for one crew before. Usually, they were stealing money or goods. On rare occasions, they had stolen ships, weapon shipments, and on one shining heist, he'd managed to steal a whole fleet. Best and worst decision he'd ever made, in all honesty.

But to steal a doomsday weapon from the heart of a Hierarchy installation, when they were on high alert for anyone that might be out of place...

"You better be offering something good for this," he muttered automatically.

"We are."

The eagle gestured at the admiral, and the robin pressed a button. A file popped up underneath the viewscreen, a contract, no doubt. Klim resisted the instinct to open it and read it while he was talking, knowing it would be both rude and distracting.

Besides, the eagle was more than happy to give him the highlights.

"Should this succeed, you and your crew will be awarded pardons for the entirety of the Feathered Federation. In addition, you will each be paid a sum of two million credits, plus a moderate favor of the government of your choice."

It was a rich reward, Klim had to admit. Most years, he was lucky to pull in four million credits in total for the whole crew, and a good bit of that went towards the bribes that he needed to pay to keep the whole operation functioning. To have a payout like that for everyone, and to have the various watchdogs pulled off his ass for the whole of the Federation - which stretched out over more than twenty planetary systems - would be an enormous boon.

The risk, though...

"I'll have to talk this over with my crew, sirs. I can't make a decision like this without their consent."

"Part of the price of working outside the Federation," the eagle said with a tone of both annoyance and acceptance. "Respond within the hour. We don't have time to delay for long."

The communication channel cut out, and he was left staring into empty space. Not for long, though, as he waved his hand. The crew gathered in front of him, even Ailsa, as she left the ship on auto-pilot.

"So, what do you think?" he asked.

They looked at each other, though nobody spoke just yet. They'd been working together long enough that their expressions said enough for them to communicate with each other. Fear, greed, excitement, and more played out over their faces, everyone having one reason or another to jump in on this. It was just a matter of whether they were more interested in the pay-off or the more altruistic reasons.

One by one, their faces steeled with determination. He saw it spread from one crew member to another, until -

"There is just one thing I'd like to bring up, sir."

Klim blinked, turning to the rat at the far edge of the group. Sollon stood with his hands behind his back, at attention as ever, and he nodded towards himself and most of the other crew, only excepting Klim and Dresnath from his gesture.

"There is the slight issue of the Hierarchy slave trade."

"...Yes?"

"If we are to infiltrate a place held entirely by them, then I doubt that we will be able to send just two members of the crew. And as all non-scaled species are considered either owned slaves or slaves waiting to be claimed..."

The previously determined faces started to shift, and Klim groaned under his breath. He didn't let his frustration show, but he wished that Sollon had kept his mouth shut. It was one of the big things that the rat hadn't learned yet. There was always a time and place for honesty, and this was not the time for that particular bit of honesty.

As expected, Ryker was the first to protest.

"Are you telling me I'd be a fucking slave down there? What, like, like those little bitches that we saw back on Racthurus?"

"It would be something approximating that, yes," Klim acknowledged.

"I am NOT letting you, or anybody else, bend me over just because they feel like it!"

"Would you prefer to let them blow up a system, then?"

"Well, no, but I am not taking it up the ass!"

"If you listen to me, rather than just freak out, you won't have to."

The velociraptor looked at his crew again, and under his gaze, they slowly calmed down once more. He waited until they stopped fidgeting to continue.

"The Hierarchy of Scales does see any mammal, or other species, as a potential slave. Sollon is right, in that. But there are ways to disguise it. Dresnath is aware of some of the customs, and - having served in their fleet - I am aware of the others. Between now and infiltration, we'll be going through them with you. All risk of capture, true slavery, and that sort of 'service' will be minimized.

"But there is little point in going if you're not willing. So be honest with me. Do you want to go in and risk slavery to steal a superweapon...or do you want to just wait until those star-busters are common enough to be the next great war toy?"

There was no real answer to that. One by one, the crew nodded, falling in line with the operation. In less than ten minutes, he was able to call the Crest back with a signed contract, every single member of his crew putting their name down on it, and him largest of all at the end.

The End