Capt. Clair Ignacio Vs The Mysterious Cosmic Jizz (Part 3)
Capt. Clair Ignacio and his alien harem fuck their way across time and space.
Clair switched on the ship-wide alert. All the interior lights of the ship switched to full illumination and a warning siren blared. A voice boomed over the loudspeaker:
This is not a drill. All hands to emergency stations. All hands to emergency stations. This is not a drill.
The lizard rolled out of the bed with her captain right behind. Clair grabbed his shorts, jammed his legs through, and yanked them up. Zenais was clasping her skirt around her waist.
“They must have used the comet to hide themselves." The Onati speculated, the last bit of yellow draining away from her color. “That means they're practically on top of us already. We won't be able to run."
“I know." Clair said. The holographic panel was keyed onto the captain, therefore it shifted around the room to remain in front of him until he switched it off. He looked at the proximity scans and noticed four distinct signatures had appeared. Three small ones and a large one. Despite the futility of it he altered the ships heading to put them behind. He wasn't sure what else he could do.
“We need to get to the cab." Clair said. “I can't run everything from the control page."
This is not a drill. All hands to emergency stations. All hands to emergency stations. This is not a drill.
Clair closed the panel before opening the door to his quarters. He stepped out into the passageway wearing nothing but his underwear. Zenais followed closely, leaving behind the top of her clothing. She had to duck low to squeeze through the small doorway.
The main corridor of the ship was a cluttered and claustrophobic space. Stacks and stacks of tightly secured canned, powdered, and freeze dried food lined most of the wall, interspersed with a number of large water drums. There was a narrow path against one wall that Clair could walk down without trouble but could barely be navigated by Zenais. The whole ship was like that. Anything that could be used as storage was. Concerns such as living space were secondary.
To highlight that a half dressed crew member hopped down from a tall stack of flour that had a makeshift bed on top. She rubbed her eyes, unconcerned that her three sets of breasts were exposed.
“Izit 'nother drill?" The short woman asked sleepily.
This is not a drill. All hands to emergency stations. All hands to emergency stations. This is not a drill.
The crew member stared blankly at Clair with her large brown eyes, clearly expecting him to answer. She had a red fur covering her body and an impossibly fluffy, white ringed tail that was as long as she was tall. There was furry, round ears on top of her head and a set of bucked toothed incisors that were always displayed even when her mouth was closed.
Clair snagged the Tabbitian squirrel girl by the arm as he walked by, dragging her along with him. She stumbled and her tail flicked around to regain her balance.
“Hey! What gives?" She complained, her many perky boobs jiggling about as her captain dragged her with him.
“Farren, I really need you to be on the ball right now." Clair said.
“We're about to be attacked." Zenais told her as she lumbered behind the two barely dressed smaller bipeds.
“Attacked?" Farren squeaked. “By who?"
“That's what I'm going to find out right now." Clair told her as he pressed himself and the Tabbitian against the side of the corridor to allow the shifting shape of a blob-like creature going the opposite direction to pass. “I need you on the port side turret. Don't provoke them, but if they shoot at us, shoot back. I don't think they'll waste missiles on us, but if they do, shoot them down."
Clair stopped at a cross corridor of the ship and turned to the furry woman. A many legged creature skittered along the conduits of the ceiling to get past them. “Can you handle that?" He asked.
The seriousness of the situation sunk in for her. “Yes, Captain." She replied before bounding down the port passage on all fours, her furry tail waving behind her.
Clair opened a storage locker on the wall to access his weapons cache. There wasn't much there, certainly not enough to repel a boarding party, but it would have to do. He grabbed a concussion rod, loaded it with a twelve charge cartridge, and handed it over to Zenais. “Go with her." He said as he stuck two additional cartridges in her other hand.
The lizard woman took the rod from him and nodded. Her captain couldn't help notice how white her chromaemotional skin was.
“Wait." He said as he pulled a belt from the locker. “Take body armor too."
“We only have two of those." She noted as he clasped it around her waist.
“And you have one of them." He said as he switched it on. He looked her in the eyes, he didn't need to see the hue of her skin to know she was getting scared. “Stay safe and don't do anything stupid."
As the lizard turned to follow the squirrel, Clair noticed Melody coming up the passage with Manjeet and Lulu in tow. He grabbed the second shield belt and tossed it to the cyborg, who deftly snagged it out of the air.
“We only have two of these." She also informed him.
“And you have one of them." He said as he turned to the Vask sisters. “I need you two in the cab. Give Bennie as much help as you can."
“Yes, sir!"
“Sure, Cap!"
As they rushed past him he pulled a pistol belt out of the locker. While he fastened it around his hips he brought his attention back to Melody. “Jewls and Torra were heading to the aft hatch and they should have that covered. Farren and Zenais are on the port side hatch. Zenais is pretty spooked, but I think she can handle it. That leaves the center, belly, and starboard side hatches undefended. We have four ships coming in. I'm going to do my best to convince them we aren't worth the effort, but if they do board expect them to try and access four hatches simultaneously. Grab up the rest of the crew get them prepared, and get somebody on the starboard turret immediately."
“I'm on it." She said as Clair rushed toward the cab. Melody gathered the rest of the locker's contents. One more concussion rod and two bolt stunner rifles. In order to minimize conflict with the countless governmental regulations throughout the universe, the captain limited self-defense choices to less-lethal. It didn't make her feel any better to know that whoever was attacking them was unlikely to share that philosophy.
Two crew members quickly approached her. One a tall, thin, green skinned sentient plant species and the other an orange, five foot tall bipedal frog-like creature with glossy skin and large feet. Like all the crew they were both female. Melody handed the rod to the plant.
The plant triggered a switch on the rod and it telescoped out to six feet. “Are we going to have to use these?" She asked, her voice a soft hum. Her head was without a mouth, but there was a hard structure inside of it that created varied oscillations that could mimic speech.
“I hope not." The cyborg replied as she handed a rifle to the frog. “Either one of you know where Cora is?"
The frog girl was bouncing in place and handling the weapon nervously. Her large breasts bobbing with her underneath her blouse, seemingly taunting nature with their presence on a non-mammalian species. “She went down to the engine core, and I think Dez went to the turret." She pointed toward the starboard.
“Good." Melody said. “April, go down and give Cora some backup. Keep the core safe and cover the belly hatch." She handed the second rifle over to the plant woman. “And give this to her." April took the weapon before gliding down the passageway, small root-like fingers pulling her along. She entered and access tube and climbed down to the lower deck.
The cyborg handed the belt over to the frog. “Go help Dez." She told her.
The orange amphibian took the armor but looked at the empty locker in puzzlement. “What about you?"
“Don't worry about me, just go."
The frog alien hesitated for a second, but obeyed. She hopped away with a worried backward glance. The cyborg went back to the locker, picking out a leftover concussion cartridge on the bottom. A panel just below her right elbow whirred and opened up. She snapped the cartridge into her arm and the panel closed. As she flexed her fingers there was a click of a charge locking in place inside. Satisfied, she went to the access tube and climbed up to the top level.
* * *
When Clair made it to the ship's cab it was already a crowded place. Manjeet and Lulu were side by side at a panel frantically clicking away at the buttons with all of their arms. Sprawled across the floor were long coils and loops of leopard-spotted tentacles that writhed and slithered around as they poked away and different controls. The owner of said tentacles was his co-pilot, a female Snytheling. Her vaguely human shaped main body was engrossed in a panel display showing a graphic of several ships even as her long appendages attended other duties. When her captain arrived she turned toward him.
“What's the situation, Bobbie?" Clair asked.
“Three unregistered ships, Captain," she said, “and one registered ship that has been classified as 'missing, presumed lost'. Two Barracuda light transport fighters, one Slipline cruiser, and a Hound type class B freighter. The freighter's transponder signature indicates it's the Hi-Ball, which was reported missing almost two years ago."
“So it's pirates." Captain Clair assumed. “How long until they're in weapon's range?"
“Two minutes." She said. “Sir, we might be able to knock out a Barracuda, possibly even two if we got super lucky... but the cruiser--"
“I know." Clair cut her off. He was well aware that they could spend all day shooting at a Slipline and barely scratch the paint.
“Have you sent out a distress call?" He asked.
“No, sir." She said, her short, squirming tentacles that made up the hair on her head writhed in frustration. “They've hit us with a scramble pattern coming from the Hi-Ball. We've lost sensors and communications, I barely managed to get a surface scan of them before they employed it. All we have is optical sensors and trans drive distortion readings. I've got those two working on decrypting the pattern to see if we can break it." She indicated to the Vask sisters.
“Manjeet, how long is that going to take?"
“Hard to say, Cap," The little wasp girl answered, “scramble devices like this are illegal almost everywhere so they're usually piecemeal black market parts with varying levels of sophistication. Five minutes if it's crap, twenty minutes if it's good."
“Keep working on it." Clair said. He stood in the middle of the cab trying to look confident for the benefit of his crew. Of course, the fact that he was wearing nothing but his underwear did little to bolster that image. “Open command panel." He ordered.
The holographic display popped up in front of him. He glanced around at it and it responded by opening a ship wide hail.
“Attention all hands." He spoke and his voice was echoed throughout the ship. “We are about to disengage the towing clamps for the cargo container. Ten second and counting. Brace yourselves." He set the timer and grabbed an overhead bar. When the time expired the engines shut down and the ship lurched severely as over one hundred thousand tons of weight was dropped. The Proud Mary's outdrive arms, which hold the engines outside of the huge container's span, folded in and nestled the engines into the rear of the ship proper. The engines kicked back on at full power, lurching the ship again. Her spacial wake buffeted the container and set it spinning wildly as it was left behind.
Clair gave a command to the computer to calculate the the container's trajectory. Maybe, maybe, they would be able to retrieve it if they managed to somehow get out of this mess. In all likelihood it was lost. Best case scenario the pirates would pick it up and decide they weren't worth chasing after.
“At least we're insured for that." The Snytheling said. When Clair didn't respond to her she asked: “We are insured for that, right?"
“Are we outpacing them?" He asked, not trying to sound as panicked as he was starting to feel. Without the cargo and with the engines tucked in his ship was faster and more maneuverable, but she was still an old ship.
“No," she replied, “but it's now seven minutes until they can get into weapon range. Doesn't look like they're even slowing down to look at our cargo." She looked at her panel with a puzzled expression when noticing a flashing icon.
“Captain, we have a hail."
They shouldn't be able to receive any communications with the pattern hitting them, but when Clair opened the receiver panel he saw that there was indeed a transmission at his frequency. He opened it and a face appeared on the panel.
“This is Captain Clair Ignacio of the Proud Mary." He said. “Who do I have the pleasure of being pursued by?"
“Good day, captain." The face of a Shan-Toru greeted, a race that Clair always thought looked kinda like poodles. He wasn't sure if it was a male or a female, but he was thinking maybe it was the latter. “I am Captain Aydia of the Cimmerian Star." The image distorted a bit and there was static on the line for a second but the feed continued. “And you have the pleasure of being pursued by me." She said proudly. She looked at him and cocked her head when noticing that he was almost naked. “Did I come at a bad time?"
“Actually, yeah." He said. “Is there any way we could postpone this until tomorrow?"
“Hmm, no, I don't think so." She said. “Tomorrow is no good for me. We'll have to do this now and I'll just try to ignore your weird fur-less skin."
“Well, I'm sorry I offended you, but in case you hadn't noticed, I've already dumped my cargo." He said. “You're welcome to it with no hard feelings."
“That's so nice of you." She replied. “But here's what I'm thinking: my fleet has been out here for weeks with nothing to do, and your cargo isn't going anywhere. So if you could just keep running so we could chase you, overpower you, and take your ship, that would be nice too."
“I fear my ship isn't very valuable." He said. “Hardly seems worth your time."
“In that case you should just stop and give it to me." Aydia reasoned. “My crew will be disappointed, but I think I'll be able to convince them to drop you and your crew off on a nice moon. One where you can run and play as naked as you want. At least until the flesh-eating sand gruus find you. My nephew's birthday is coming up and he'd be thrilled if I gifted him an old clunker like that."
Clair tried not to bristle. “As much as I'd love for you to be the universe's number one aunt, I can't do that. I have a contagion on this ship. If anyone comes aboard they'll be infected."
The dog faced Shan-Toru paused for a moment, then she smiled. “Oh, that's a good one. I'll have to send that to Bullshit Illustrated."
“You're not coming aboard this ship." He finally told her flatly before cutting off the communication. The hailing indicator remained on but he just ignored it. No sense in letting her have the last word.
“Clunker?" Bennie huffed.
“Um, sir?" A meek voice spoke quietly.
“I know." The captain grumbled. “There's no way I'm letting that bitch have my ship."
“Do you have a plan?" The tentacle creature asked.
“Sir?" The voice tried again.
“I'm working on it." He said as he flicked pages around on his command panel. There had to be something there he could use. Some slight advantage he could use. Something that would give them a chance. Anything.
“Hey, Cap!" Manjeet said loudly, prompting Clair to look over at the wasp girl. “Lulu has something to say."
Lulu looked suddenly bashful as everyone turned their attention to her. She fidgeted with her fingers as she spoke. “I... um... I just thought that if she was... um... if she could communicate with us, than that means she must be using a narrow frequency pulse wave component for her scrambler."
Clair furrowed his brow. He wasn't sure what the significance of that was.
Lulu continued. “It's just that... um... to set up a field in narrow frequency that strong you would need a very large antenna. Um... I mean, like, as big as the ship. She must be using the hull itself as the antenna."
Clair shrugged. “So?"
“Uh... well... the pulse field would be very thin, like a beam, and since you would have to aim the ship to aim it, keeping us inside the field would be impossible to do manually."
Next to her Manjeet's eyes brightened as she realized the implication of her sister's idea. “And since information can travel both ways in a narrow frequency pulse wave-- Lulu, that's brilliant!" She practically squealed.
Lulu looked pleasantly surprised that she had received praise from her sister. “We still have to break the encryption, but..."
“No, no, we can totally do this!" Manjeet said as she turned back to the panel. Pleased that she had gotten such an enthusiastic reaction from her sister, Lulu returned to her work beside her.
“Okay... you two do that." Clair said. He looked at Bobbie, who just shrugged multiple tentacles. “Whatever the hell it is."
Having been left out of the technical loop the captain went back to scanning over something he did understand, his command panel. He happened to notice a page he had left open that was buried under several other pages. He brought it to the surface. A grin started to play on his face.
“That could work too." He said.