Paravoid (Rust Bucket Universe)

by Atk. Butterfly

  Captain Vincent asked, "You really believe that?"

  Maria said, "Yes, I do. I've known Admiral Oden for a long time now. He's not the kind to go about searching for someone to blame, especially if everyone is doing their best to do the right thing. Just continue doing the fine job you've been doing up to now. You'll find that everything is going to be fine. Besides, you just gave the squadron a chance to practice some more of its abilities. I'll bet you anything that Admiral Oden is far more interested in seeing how everyone else handles this situation than he is in finding out about who is at fault, if anyone."

  "I still feel responsible," Captain Vincent responded.

  "That goes with the territory of being in charge," said Sergeant Delgado. "I think that as long as you feel responsible, you'll continue to put forth your very best effort. That's what this training is meant to do. It's meant to give you and everyone else a chance to show what you can accomplish under difficult circumstances. You have all performed as well as anyone could under the situations, so far. I can see a number of you having very distinguished careers after you leave the Academy."

  "Captain to the bridge. Captain to the bridge."

  Captain Vincent stood up quickly from his chair across from Sergeant Delgado. He left his quarters and hurried down the passageway to the bridge. As soon as he reached it, his First Officer was pointing to the hologram imaging display in the center of the bridge. "We think we can establish an orbit around that planet and make it easier for the rest of the squadron to catch up with us hours sooner."

  "I see. What will we have to do in order to accomplish that? It does not appear to be on our direct course," said Brut.

  "We'll need to use the engines for about one second of firing time. Skip thinks he can time it just right with the undamaged engines in order to accomplish it. He doesn't plan on using the damaged engine at all, so there's no real risk," the First Officer said.

  "How soon must we do this?" asked the Captain.

  "The sooner the better. Skip will have to use the engines for a longer period as we get closer, if we don't try it real soon."

  "Only undamaged engines?" asked Captain Vincent.

  "That's right. Only the undamaged engines, sir."

  "Do it," Brut said. "Communications, notify squadron of our intention."

  A few moments later, the undamaged engines sprang into life as the helmsman coaxed them into providing just the right amount of thrust at the right time to turn the ship so that it would reach the nearby planet and establish an orbit.

  ***

  Admiral Oden listened to the report from the Dust Bunny and nodded thoughtfully. His cadets were living up to more than he expected from them. Finding a way to stop a ship with damaged engines was quite an accomplishment. Additionally, they were shortening the time interval required for the rest of the squadron to catch up and make repairs.

  About the only thing that bothered Dave was the fact that he would have to schedule a few more chats just to let some of the key individuals involved know how well they were doing. Dave knew just how much the right words of encouragement and praise could influence most people to strive for even better results in everything they did. Even so, he was falling behind on his schedule and there was really nothing he could do about it.

  ***

  The pirate ship and captured liner settled down on the surface of an small, uncharted moon with an atmosphere. The pirate captain was unaware of the nearness of the Academy Squadron. He was aware, however, that they were responsible for taking out the pirates who caused him to suspend his own operations for awhile. Had he known that the Academy Squadron was near, he likely would have left the liner and fled after taking what he could from the passengers and crew. Since he didn't know of the Academy Squadron's presence, he felt that he was free and clear of the Navy. That was partly because of the distance they would have to travel just to reach the coordinates where he grabbed the liner. Then the Navy would have to know exactly which direction he took the liner after grabbing it.

  With the liner on the ground, the passengers were allowed to move about in a limited fashion. Gunners on board the pirate ship provided protection against wild animals, though the moon was barely beginning to establish sufficient lifeforms of its own to make it worth settling. It was also a way for the pirates to ensure that none of the passengers wandered off and became injured or killed, lessening the amount of ransom they would otherwise demand. The gunners could easily see the area where the passengers were allowed to roam and fire a warning shot if anyone attempted to stray out of it.

  Somehow the moon was missed by Navy exploration teams, that tended to concentrate on planets. Perhaps it was hidden behind the planet at the time the Navy exploration teams went by and missed for that reason. The planet itself was a cauldron of acids and poisons that would probably defy attempts at terraforming for decades, if not centuries. It was also unlikely that anyone would try to terraform it because of its extreme gravity. That was slightly more than Beulah's and beyond what was considered comfortable.

  Regardless, the pirates had found the more hospitable moon orbiting the inhospitable planet and now used that moon as their base of operations. They maintained their own defenses, not that they would prove adequate against the Navy with its better ships and weapons. Still, the pirates knew well enough that they couldn't rely on no one ever finding them by accident, so they maintained their own warning sensors to give them a chance of escape. They might not stand a chance against the Navy's guns, but their ship was fast enough to stay out of range if they escaped soon enough.

  Now that they were safely hidden away at his base, the pirate captain went through the passenger list more thoroughly. A few prominent names were easy to recognize and verify as citizens for whom he could expect a reasonable ransom. Some others were obviously not rich and probably would be included in the deal for the liner and crew.

  For the most part, his pirates knew not to harm the passengers and crew. It was the only difference between a few years in prison and life in prison, if they were caught. Consequently, all of his pirate crew kept their weapons on stun settings on his orders. If they used those, they wouldn't be killing anyone as they had other ways to keep the passengers and liner crew in check. It was amazing what the threat of a little rape or sodomy could accomplish in making the passengers and liner crew behave. Usually, only one or two individuals had to be made examples of before everyone settled down to wait for the exchange to be set up. More than once, his pirates exchanged hostages in the past who included a few individuals who were abused repeatedly until the exchange was finally agreed upon. It helped to make the exchanges go off smoothly, if everyone knew who was in charge.

  ***

  Captain Vincent watched with apprehension as the helmsman coaxed the engines into the course correction. There was no real way to determine if the course was truly changed other than to watch the sensor panels.

  "Got it!" Skip hollered, "We're on our new course!"

  Captain Brut Vincent somehow managed a weak smile as he wiped some of the perspiration from his thick brow. He felt certain that Skip was a far better pilot than he would ever be.

  Skip said, "When we reach the planet, I might have to use the engines a bit more to make sure that we don't hit the atmosphere and bounce off on some other wild course. I'm fairly certain that I can do that part, too, if it comes to it."

  ***

  An hour later, Skip used the engines just a touch to slow down the Dust Bunny and settle her into a stable orbit around the planet. Again, Captain Vincent was relieved to see that everything went well despite the complicated maneuvers involved.

  ***

  Admiral Oden heard of the cruiser's success in establishing an orbit and radioed back his congratulations. He would rather give those in person, but he felt they needed to know now that he approved of what they did. He put in a personal word to Captain Vincent for making good decisions. He only knew how he might feel if he was in Brut's non-skids and having to wai
t for hours to find out if he did right or not. There was no need for anyone to wait for hours with anxiety and stress eating away at them. This would give them an opportunity to relax and bask in their success before they all knuckled back down to hard work in order to repair the cruiser.

  ***

  "Hey lady, show me your tits!" the pirate hollered out at one of the female passengers.

  "I don't have to!" she replied.

  "Yes, you do. You have to do whatever I say," he said.

  "Or what? You'll kill me? You do that and you'll be in prison forever," she said defiantly.

  "No, I'll just stun you, rip 'em off, and then rape you all I want. Now bare those tits," he said roughly.

  She looked at him, then reached up, and removed her upper garment.

  "That's right, lady. Bare 'em completely. I want to see how well built you are. I haven't had a woman in over two months," he said.

  She finished taking the upper garment off and held it loosely in her hand. "You satisfied?" she asked.

  "No, take the rest off, too, and leave 'em off. I don't like your attitude. You can go naked for awhile, lady," he said.

  Slowly she finished removing the rest of what she wore and dropped the garments on the ground. When he indicated with his hand for her to turn, she turned so that he could leer at her from all sides. He continued to look at her for several more minutes before he finally walked away, leaving her standing there naked.

  She bent down to retrieve her clothes. One of the liner crew members said, "You better not. Some of these pirates like to walk away after giving instructions like he did and then come back to catch you wearing your clothes again. Then he'll have justification to stun you and rape you all he wants for disobeying his orders."

  "Uh, thanks, Mr. uh," she said.

  "Just call me Malcolm, ma'am," he said.

  "Okay, thank you, Malcolm, for the advice. I'm Ellie," she said.

  Malcolm suggested, "If you ask him later, he'll probably tell you that you can dress on the second or third time you ask. It gives them a feeling of power to do that."

  "You sound like you've studied pirates."

  Malcolm replied, "No, just had more than one kidnapping by them. It's a hazard of the job."

  "So, you've been kidnapped before, Malcolm. On this same ship?" she asked.

  "Uh, no, Ellie. I changed ships hoping to be on one that wouldn't be attacked. I guess my luck followed me."

  "What was the other kidnapping like?" she asked.

  "Which other? This is my fifth time in ten years," he replied.

  "You've been kidnapped five times now? And you're not worried or afraid?" she asked.

  He answered, "There's still plenty of worry and fear in me, but now I know a little more about what I'm dealing with. The idea is not to associate with them or get to feeling pity for them. If you do, you'll find yourself actually trying to help them. Just let yourself fade into the crowd and they'll ignore you for the most part."

  "Just fade into the crowd, huh, Malcolm? That might be a little difficult for me now since almost everyone is still dressed, except for some nudists."

  Malcolm replied, "Even naked, you can fade into the crowd. Just kind of will yourself to be invisible. It usually works. Oh, and don't argue with them over anything, even if they start handling your body. They usually won't do anything worse unless you give them a reason."

  ***

  "Boss, there's a Navy ship orbiting the planet! It's a big one, too!"

  "What?" the pirate boss exclaimed.

  "Yeah, it's there, but I don't think they know we're here," the pirate said.

  The pirate boss ordered, "All right, shut down everything. Then get those people under cover. Shut off the booze to the men. I don't want a bunch of drunks on my hands if we have to make a getaway."

  ***

  "Malcolm, something's going on," Ellie said.

  Malcolm replied, "It would seem so. From their looks, Ellie, I'm betting there's a Navy ship nearby. They're trying to hide everything, us included."

  "Can't we do anything to get the Navy's attention?" she asked.

  "You got a radio on you?" he asked.

  "Uh, I think you can very well see that I don't," she reminded him.

  Malcolm grinned and replied, "I didn't mean it quite like that. I just meant that there's nothing I know of that we can do."

  "Oh! Well, I wasn't trying to be mad at you, but I've just about had it with these pirates shoving us around," she said.

  He said, "Well, as long as they're the ones with the weapons, I think they're going to do whatever they decide they want to do and we're not going to have much say. About the only thing we can do right now is continue to behave and hope the Navy finds us on their own."

  ***

  "You don't have to shove me!" Ellie complained to one of the pirates. "I'm cooperating. You don't need your hand there, either, or should I complain to your boss?"

  "Shaddup lady! I'll put my hands wherever I want. In fact, you can just stand right here with me and comfort me while everyone else gets on board. I like having my hands on you," the pirate said.

  Malcolm said to the pirate, "What's the matter? Your boyfriend kick you out of bed?"

  The pirate kicked Malcolm in the ass. "Get moving or you'll have a boyfriend! You aren't gonna get me riled up with remarks like that. I'm been doing this much too long to worry about some bastard like you."

  Malcolm stumbled forward and scowled back at the pirate. There was nothing more he could do for Ellie who was being pawed by the pirate. Malcolm had seen that tactic a number of times before.

  None of her body was sacrosanct to the pirate. The pirate was pushing her to make her respond. Either way she responded, she was going to wind up under him. She'd either agree to be screwed or lash out and be raped. If she agreed, then she might only have to deal with him once or twice, but if she lashed out, she was fair game for every pirate who wanted a piece of ass. It would be a minor miracle if she could just put up with his pawing and not agree or fight with him.

  "I said get all the passengers back on board!" the pirate boss roared out at the pirate holding onto Ellie.

  "But she likes my company!" the pirate whined back.

  "I said all or do you think you're ready to take over?" the boss shouted, causing the pirate to let go of Ellie. "Get on board that ship, lady!" the boss said loudly.

  Ellie half-ran away from the pirate who held her and felt of her body. She went directly into the ship and made her way to the showers to wash the feel of his hands from her skin.

  ***

  "Ya gots that ransom message off yet?" the drunken pirate asked.

  "No. We're maintaining radio silence because of that Navy ship," the pirate manning the radio replied.

  "There ain't no Navy ship anywhere near heer. It'd takes hours more for them to get dis far. Ya know dat. Heer, lemme helep ya sind dat message," the drunken pirate said as he reached for the communications panel.

  "No! Stay away from that!" the second pirate said and tried to push the drunken pirate away.

  The drunken pirate's hand brushed against the panel as the second pirate shoved him away. The second pirate then whipped his stinger out and fired at the drunk, stunning him as he fell on the deck. Then he quickly checked the panel and restored one switch back to its original position. As soon as he made sure that the panel wasn't transmitting, he dragged the drunk out and locked the hatch to the radio cabin. He hurried off to find the pirate boss and let him know what almost happened before he resumed his listening watch.

  ***

  "Damn!" the communications officer hollered as she pulled the headset off her head.

  "What's wrong?" asked Captain Vincent.

  "Ow! I just got hit by a close transmission blast," she replied. "It felt like someone real close opened a transmitter for a split moment."

  "First Officer, what's sensor status on planet below us?" asked Brut.

  The First Officer replied, "It's a dead planet
according to sensors and Navy records. I mean really dead. Acid and poison atmosphere that would eat through ships and space suits easily. Then it'd kill whoever was unprotected in a heartbeat. It could have been just a natural occurrence. It could have been that loud because of our nearness to the planet."

  The communications officer said, "It sounded more like someone on just one channel. I'm looking now at the past readings for the other channels at the same time. There's no indication of any transmission on them."

  The First Officer said, "It's still possible that it was a limited natural occurrence."

  Captain Vincent asked, "What do Navy records say about satellite for this world?"

  "What satellite?" the First Officer asked as he turned to look at the hologram imaging display and saw the moon the captain was asking about. "There's none listed for this planet. Hmmm. . . I see what you're asking about. The Navy must not have spotted it for some reason. I'll do a quick scan with our sensor devices on it."

  ***

  "They're scanning our moon now, Boss. They must have just realized that it's not listed in the Navy records."

  "Then they haven't spotted us?" he asked.

  "It's got all the earmarks of a routine surface scan. If we stay quiet, they shouldn't spot us at all."

  "Good thing you got that drunk out of here. With them so near, they could have followed the signal right in to us," the boss said.

  ***

  "Captain, initial indications are that it's habitable. We just found a new place for settlers. I can have a probe sent over for a more detailed analysis. If there's water, it's perfect then," the First Officer said.

  "Yes, send a probe. Start a full mapping survey, as well. Even if there isn't water, it might still be useful for mining or as a Navy base," Brut replied.

  "Yes sir. Full spectrum of tests. I'll get on it right away," the First Officer exclaimed, happy to have something to do than just wait for the rest of the squadron.