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Part 4

"You think you'll be able to stop--" Aydia interrupted her retort as she realized the captain of the Proud Mary had cut off communications.

"Fucker." She muttered in annoyance as she leaned back in her chair and crossed her legs. She left the communication band open for when her prey came to his senses on exactly how screwed he was. When Captain Ignacio decided he was better off begging than threatening his tone would change, and she would relish making him squirm.

"How long?" She asked the navigator.

"Six minutes until maximum beam weapon range, ma'am." He said. "We are well inside of trans missile range though."

Aydia shook her head. "I doubt that old ship can handle a hit from a missile." She said. "I want to take it, not destroy it." She had reason to take the ship beyond simply embarrassing the captain with its loss, and it certainly wasn't to give it to her lothsome nephew. The Hi-Ball's towing coupler had been damaged irreparably. Since Captain Clair had thoughtlessly dropped his cargo box the Proud Mary was the best option she had to safely retrieve the container. Not to mention it would be nice to have fully functional cargo tug again, even a small one.

She tapped at her communication screen and multiple visual feeds of crew arriving at access hatches on the ships appeared. They were busying themselves tightening armor straps and loading weapons in preparation for the coming raid. Pressing a button she opened up communications.

"How are we looking down there?" She asked.

A Shan-Toru male stepped up to one of the screens, looking into the camera. "We have forty-six crew members ready to go, ma'am."

Aydia nodded. "Good." That's four times more than what is probably necessary, but there's nothing better than overwhelming force in a fight. She thought for a moment, considering what Captain Ignacio had warned her about.

"Enok, I want you to make sure everyone is wearing a helmet and has fresh filters in their respirators." She told him. "There's a possibility of some kind of infection on this ship. I'm certain it's nothing, but there's no sense in taking the risk."

"Yes ma'am."

Commander Aydia switched off the view screens and leaned on the armrest of her chair. She looked up at the large screen at front of the ship's bridge. It was currently displaying a vast swath of stars that lay ahead. Despite their excessive speed the position of the stars don't move in a way that can be perceived by the naked eye unless they're extremely close. They were currently several light years outside the nearest solar system. The only evidence that they were moving at all was the shifting glow at the edge of the screen caused by the light doppler effect. In the center of the screen a dot of intense light did move occasionally as their quarry made corrections in their heading. Without the aid of computer visual reconstruction a ship at FTL speeds can't be seen, but the flare of the radient light bunching up in front of it before shedding around and getting violently dispersed could be.

"You don't suppose they have any good food?" Aydia speculated aloud.

"That would be a first, ma'am." The navigator said.

Aydia grinned. Shipping crews had notoriously poor eating habits. A lot of cheap, barely edible, overly preserved crap that even prisons don't dare serve inmates out of fear that it be considered cruel and unusual punishment. Still, her own crew was getting fairly sick of durl roots and powdered shalto no matter how creatively the chefs served them. She couldn't help but indulge a minor fantasy about the possibility that they might have something that could broaden their diet. Maybe, dare she even dream, some honest to goodness meat?

"Five minutes." The navigator chimed in helpfully.

Aydia dug into her pocket for a stick of bubble gum, unwrapped the pink treat and popped it in her mouth. It wasn't real food, but it did satisfy an urge for something to chew on. Plus the sweetness combined with the unusual flavor wasn't altogether unpleasant.

The navigator watched his monitors and his brow furrowed. "Ma'am, they're starting to move erratically."

The commander looked at the main viewer to see the light start to sway back and forth, altering direction randomly. Up, down, port, starboard, as if the pilot had suddenly become intoxicated.

"He's trying to throw the scrambler." Aydia observed, knowing that was a hopeless attempt. Even if he could manage that the only thing it would gain him was the ability to call out for help. The chances that anyone would be near enough, not to mention willing enough, to be of any assistance was remote. The nearest galactic port that could claim any authority over this region of space was nearly three days away. Anything closer would likely also be a cargo ship with little to gain and much to lose by intervening in her business.

Suddenly her prey made a sharp dive. Her ship pitched downward automatically to follow.

"It's useless, captain," she said to the light on the screen, knowing he was acting out of panicked desperation, "but try all you like to break my leash."

* * *

Clair leaned over Bobbie with a hand on her shoulder. He watched her work the flight controls of the ship with the nimble, multi-fingered tips of her tentacles.

"Good, good." He praised her as the ship rolled and weaved. "Keep it random so they don't catch on to what we're doing. I want to look desperate."

"We are desperate, sir." She told him. "This plan is crazy. You're asking me to thread a needle blindfolded at sixty million kilometers a second while someone else holds the needle and the thread."

"I have faith in you." He said, but decided to sweeten the pot for her. "When you pull this off you won't have to sleep alone for a week."

"Seriously?" The Snytheling brightened visibly at the promise.

"What?" Manjeet piped up irritably. "You told us we would get our private night!"

"You two keep doing... whatever that is you're doing." Clair rebuked her. "In case you forgot, you both have to hold up your end of the bargain first. If you can do that we'll figure something out. A foursome or something."

"But... but that's the opposite of a private night!" The wasp girl complained.

"We'll talk about it later." He told the Vask, who harumphed but turned back to her work. Clair's attention returned to his co-pilot. He leaned in close to the Snytheling and kissed her on the neck. She shuddered in response.

"Anything you want." He whispered to her, making sure she was aware of exactly what he was offering.

Bobbie grinned. "You're going to regret that." She said as one tenticle wrapped around his leg, the fingers brushing lightly on the inside of his thigh.

"I know."

* * *

"We're in range, ma'am."

Aydia leaned forward in her chair. All that fancy maneuvering had gained Captain Ignacio nothing outside of allowing her fleet to catch up to him faster. She touched her communication panel.

"Attention all ships." She announced, chewing the bubble gum noisily as she did so. "interruptor bolts only, full salvo on my signal." A dozen crosshairs appeared on the main screen in front of her to indicate readied weapons. They wandered around the light given off by their evading target before finally locking down on it.

"Fire!" She ordered. In the view screen a flurry of lights suddenly lit up the cosmos as the ships flanking her own touched off a round from each of their numerous cannons. Aydia looked at her screens expectantly as the plasma projectiles reached their target range and burst. The attack triggered a barrage of small cutting bolts to start firing back in response. Hitting the shields with a consistent "thrum, thrum, thrum", but they were so weak as to be inconsequential.

"Um..." The navigator looked at his own screens. "We missed. Their trans field is still active.

"The hell?" The commander looked at her own readings to find it was true. "All ships ready another salvo," she barked into her communicator, "dispersion spread point zero, zero, three." Once again the crosshairs appeared on her screen.

"Fire!"

The seconds passed and the navigator shook his head. "Another miss, ma'am."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" She fumed.

* * *

Bobbie watched the only sensor reading she had intently, the trans distortions of the swiftly pursuing ships. There was a sudden almost imperceptible variance in the reading caused by the energy surge of the weapons. She quickly rolled the ship into hard course correction, stressing the hull and the inertia stabilizers as she did. The ship trembled as plasma explosions detonated off the stern.

"That one was closer." She said. "They widened the spread again. Pretty soon they'll simply get lucky."

"How much time do you need?" Clair asked.

"One-hundred thirty-six seconds." She replied.

"I'm on it." He said as he took the command position on the cab. His holo interface opened up and he was relieved to see that the communication feed was still active. He cut the power to the two turret cannons. It his position would look more dire if he wasn't still shooting at them. Almost instantly Farren's bucked toothed face popped up on the screen.

"What gives?" She squeaked. "My guns aren't working!"

At almost the same time a second face appeared. "Captain, there is no power at the starboard turret." The narrow, gray skinned, black eyed face of Dez affirmed, looking as unconcerned as usual.

"I know, just stay calm." He told them before swiping away their communication pages. He attempted to hail the pirate ship, hoping she was still willing to talk.

A moment passed and Bobbie pulled another evasive maneuver and a fourth volley of explosions rocked the ship. Red warnings suddenly popped up as the computer indicated the danger of the trans field failure. The warning blinked off again as the field reestablished itself.

Clair tried the hail again. "C'mon, pick up you fucking bitch!" It was right at "bitch" when Aydia's face suddenly appeared on screen. She looked irritated but was trying to put on a display of nonchalance, chewing indifferently on something pink. Clair couldn't imagine where she happened to get bubble gum.

"Why, Captain Ignacio," she said, "I was just thinking about you."

"Alright, Commander, you win." He told her. "I want to discuss conditions of surrender."

Her brows furrow. "Conditions of surrender?" She echoes as if it were a joke. "You think you have any say in this? I've already stated what happens when I take your ship, not to mention you have been quite rude to me. So unless you think you can dodge my shots forever you need to drop down to a safe boarding speed and hope doing so improves my mood."

Clair presses his lips together tightly. "Fine." He grumbles.

Commander Aydia leans in closer on the screen. "I'm sorry, what?" She said, putting a furry hand behind one ear. "Did you say: 'I surrender my ship, ma'am, and thank you for the privilege'?"

Captain Clair's eyes narrowed. "Are you kidding me?"

She raised her eyebrows at him. "Do I look like I'm kidding?"

Clair glanced over at Bobbie, who gave him a signal. He gritted his teeth. "I surrender my ship, ma'am," he spit out with irritation, "and thank you for the privilege."

The Shan-Toru woman leaned back and smiled. "That's better. See? There's no reason for us to be uncivil toward one another."

"No, not at all." He said. "But it seems you managed to damage my inertia stabilizers, so unless you want a hell of a mess to clean up I can't drop directly out of trans. It's going to take a minute to slow down."

This time it was Aydia's turn to narrow her eyes. "Very well." She said suspiciously. "But no funny stuff."

"Can't say I'm feeling particularly comical at the moment." He told her as he cuts off the feed. "Can you work with that?" Clair asked as he walked back over to lean over Bobbie.

"As long as they don't start shooting again." She replied. "It's going to adjust our time frame but I should be able to get them into position."

"Just make sure you get the big one."

* * *

"They're slowing down, ma'am" The navigator piped up.

"Good boy." Aydia said to nobody in particular. The part about damaged inertia stabilizers had been an obvious ploy to buy time, but she couldn't see what it would gain him beyond a few more moments with his ship. On the off chance it actually had been damaged she certainly didn't want him to drop right out of trans speed, that would splatter the crew into jelly. The smell is almost impossible to get out of a ship when that happens.

She opened a hail to the other ships as they quickly bore down on the Proud Mary. "Take flanking positions on the target and keep all cannons primed. I don't want them to think they have a chance to run again."

As her fleet settled in to match the slowly decelerating tug, something was starting to nag at her, but she wasn't quite sure what it was. There was an itch in the back of her mind that was trying to insist that something was very wrong. She glanced around at her monitors and everything seemed fine. Still, there was a strange sensation that something was off.

The Proud Mary increased its rate of deceleration and her ships gunned their reverse engines to match. Slowing down in that manner as opposed to simply dropping the trans field and slamming into regular space burned a significant amount of fuel. Maybe his plan was to try and drain their fuel tanks, but her fleet had been sitting in space and doing nothing for weeks with their trans matter collectors running the whole time. The fuel reserves were fine.

And yet that itch in her mind persisted.

The trans fields on the ships dropped away as the ships finally entered normal space. Safe boarding speed was at point four three light speed, and Captain Ignacio was taking his sweet time getting there. The Proud Mary's course wandered slightly, forcing the Cimmerian Star _to alter her own course to keep safe distance. A pointless and childish move. The _Proud Mary wasn't nearly large enough to pose a ram threat to her battle cruiser.

On her monitor there was a communication blip. Captain Ignacio was attempting to hail her again. Seeing no harm in it she answered.

"What can I do for you, captain?" Aydia asked wearily. She was growing bored of his delaying tactics.

"Remember how you said my cargo wasn't going anywhere?" He asked.

Aydia's neck fur suddenly stood on end and she could feel the blood drain from her face as Clair's remark spurred that nagging in her mind to puzzle out exactly what was wrong. She looked at her readings and realized that all of his zigzagging had managed to put them on a heading going back on nearly the exact path they had come from. What's more, having five ships running their reverse engines had created a blind spot for their sensors due to all the spacial distortion.

"You were wrong." He told her while wearing a smug grin.

"MA'AM!" The navigator exclaimed as he picked up the gravity well of an incoming object.

Aydia quickly opened hailing channels and screamed. "ALL SHIPS, EVASI--"

But it was too late.