Dry, No Lube Ch. 04a: Desperado

He spun then to look at her in disbelief. "Ma'am?" he told her flatly.

"Fleet procedure. First Officer goes."

"Oh!" He looked like he hadn't thought of it. "Okay. It's just, I've been acting as XO for awhile. Not quite up on the regs." He licked his lips; people were starting to look away from him now, and Pixy was having trouble believing what she was hearing. "Just, you know, I'm working on Number Fourteen..."

"Yeah. What the fuck?"

He cleared his throat. "Apparently the gunner forgot to update the targeting app, ma'am. It's downloading now."

Pixy stared. "Targeting app? Jesus H Buddha, Mr Delmer, it's a fucking tube. You point it at the bad guy and shoot."

He hesitated, seemingly trying to be delicate. "Um, ma'am, manual guns are still on GP Service ships, but Combat ships are all upgraded."

"Upgraded? Doesn't fucking sound like it." Pixy had heard enough. "Well. Since that's going to take you all day, I'll just send your assistant. Prep yourself for the boarding party, Mr McZylenko."

"Uh. What?" The Assistant First had just shown up, fresh from a nap, and now he stared back at Pixy like she'd just told him to go fuck a horse. "Ma'am, I just got here."

"Yeah, no shit. Prep yourself anyway. You're a Combat offcier, Mr McZylenko." She couldn't help her smirk. "You guys are supposed to be upgraded." She surprised a tight grin on Chief Heller's grim face. "Go. Report to Major Origami and Lieutenant Kymchenko in Cargo Three." She paused considering. "Oh. And make sure you bring a vidcam. Link it back here. So that Mr Delmer can see what he's supposed to be seeing," she seethed at the end. "Get moving."

"Uh, ma'am?" Zuus leaned in close, his breath loaded with stim and coffee. "Shouldn't the captain be here if we're closing?"

Pixy hesitated. The officers all seemed to accept the captain's weird ways, mostly because she left them the fuck alone and let them do whatever they wanted. Pixy was starting to understand why she, a new Combat officer with a reputation for going off and doing her own thing, had been assigned here. "Mr Zuus, we all have our roles to play in Fleet. Some of us run ships, some of us play Parcheesi. Some of us?" She paused, glaring over at him. "Some of us follow fucking orders when we're OOD. So mind your helm." He needed to too, constantly, the acoustic probe fluctuating dramatically. "How's our closure time looking?"

"Seven minutes now, ma'am, plus or minus fourteen seconds." He swallowed, every eye on the bridge staring up at the plot repeater, where the freighter still bulled placidly along now at much closer range. The opticals had picked it up a little while ago, twinkling like a star out against the black velvet of space, still too distant to show any detail.

"Good. Commo?" Paulus and Jeyne glanced over, each buried underneath bulbous phonic units. She suppressed a giggle; they both looked vaguely like penises. "I'll want all bands scanned simultaneously. If you need to, call up an extra tech from your shop; your sound is going to be the way we decide whether we blow this asshole out of existence, or wave and wish it a happy day." She smirked. "No pressure."

"Bridge? Shuttle." McZylenko, tinny in Pixy's speaker. She messed with the gain. "We're checked and loaded, prepared for departure." Over at his station, Delmer tensed. "Should I pre-launch? Or wait until we figure out the probe?"

Pre-launching was a good idea. It would save the Marines at least three minutes in boarding. "Not bad, Mr McZylenko. Go ahead and pre-launch. Stay in the ship's lee, though, so you won't be detected. Then when I give the word, you can slingshot around." She signed off. "Mr Delmer, is McZylenko a good shuttle pilot? Did I just doom the Marines to a fiery death by collision?"

Delmer nodded his head. "He can do that, ma'am."

"He can do what? Slingshot around, or collide?"

"Well. Either? He's not had much practice, actually. The shuttle training schedule for Juniors and Sublieutenants has always sort of fallen by the wayside."

"That's the kind of training schedule the First Officer should start overseeing, I think." She ignored his scowl. The proximity alert chimed. "Heads up. Three minutes." A grating clang sounded from hullside as the shuttle bay swung open, the safety bar retracting. "Should I have flown them over myself, Mr Delmer?" It was the one thing she was famous for, Fleet-wide and not just in Service: she was an outstanding shuttle pilot. Once, she'd crammed a shuttle into a docking ring at high speed under fire, first try. All the marbles.

The other thing she was famous for was the big explosion she'd caused on the Flasbard homeworld. She'd gotten her nickname that way. Fire-in-the-hole Pfeiffer. People thought it would be more funny as a contraction, Firehole. Alas, it had stuck. Pixy had no doubt Delmer called her that behind her back, in the wardroom with his cronies.

All around her the ship purred, with every now and again that slight rattle that reminded her the gravisensors were going to fail eventually, but not to worry because the plus-ups ran in parallel with the gravs, and those could be shunted for short periods to save wear on the Pritz. Another endless detail in a battalion of details. Her implant fed her constantly now. But the ship was strong and fast and it surged with power, with Pixy in charge as long as she could get Captain Ledecki to sign all the orders.

Just six weeks she'd been aboard. Six weeks, and already she was driving a warship into battle on her own, and the joy was sharp in her mind, the bridge and everyone around her jumping out in sharply defined detail with, at the center of it all, the winking star that might be a freighter growing ever larger in the proximity port. "Soon, ma'am." Paulus, growling from under his phonics. Every eye in Commo was epoxied to the strength meters.

Something was nagging at her, a frown twitching at the corner of her mouth, and then she had it. "Fuck me," she growled, her finger flicking at the vox-box key. "Mr McZylenko!" She wasn't sure, in hindsight, that barking at the kid over the vox while he tried to keep the shuttle in station with the frigate was a wise move, but it was too late. "Turn your fucking vidcam on."

"Sorry." It came back in a burst of static, and then Pixy was glaring over at Delmer.

"When that feed comes across, Mr Delmer, get it up on the screen." If all went well, she'd be able to see the Marines board in real time. Or close to it, anyway; you never could account for timing disparities at these velocities.

"Ma'am!" Paulus, from Commo, spinning in his chair with an eyebrow raised. "Probe's on line."

"Yeah?" Pixy felt her heart pumping. "Any abnormalities?"

The two officers and their chief listened, glancing at each other in that way people have when they're not finding something they're looking for. "Um." Jeyne shook his head at Paulus, who looked hopefully at Pixy. "Just sounds normal so far. We'll keep listening."

Pixy felt her scowl tighten. "Nothing? Nothing sounds out of place?" Every face in the bridge was turned her way.

"Not yet, ma'am." Paulus bent to the console, doing diagnostics on the probe itself, but Pixy was already deciding, the choices slotting into place, glued there by the data. She spun to Delmer.

"Targeting! Two torpedoes at the engines." Delmer's eyes went wide. "On my command," Pixy added.

"What the fuck, ma'am?" The freighter was bigger in the frame, superimposed beside the feed from McZylenko's vidcam. "It's a freighter!"

"Two torpedoes at the engines," Pixy repeated evenly. "At my command. Let me know when you're ready to shoot." She sniffed.

He got to his feet. "Ma'am, I... I mean, are you sure?"

Pixy glanced over there, nodding, not terribly surprised. It was too bad the Weapons Officer was a pussy, but she had no time for this. "That Number Fourteen tube? Go check on it personally, Mr Delmer. Chief Heller?"

"Ma'am?"

"You're on the guns, Heller. Two torpedoes at the engines. At my command."

"Ma'am." A deadly note in Heller's voice now, and then Delmer was glancing uncertainly between the two with his neatly clipped beard swinging.

"Are you fucking deaf, Mr Delmer?" Pixy's mouth was a thin line now. He'd need to be relieved at the earliest opportunity, if she could get the captain to care enough to order it. "Number Fourteen. Go." People were muttering now, and the freighter was bigger, and there was no fucking time for any of this. "I'll clarify," Pixy grated, her voice a whip, "get the fuck off my bridge, and do it now." She heard him move, an air of shock sweeping the bridge, but Pixy was already turning back to Commo. "Last chance. Any abnormalities, Mr Paulus? Mr Jeyne?"

They gaped at each other, watching out of the corners of their eyes as Delmer summoned his dignity and stalked out. "No, ma'am, none." Paulus frowned. "Sounds like a normal Type IV drive. Typical clobbet sounds."

"No problems or issues at all?" Pixy wanted to be certain. She tapped busily at the ship's log. Heller raised her voice from the weapons station, loud and certain.

"Guns are up, ma'am. At your command!"

"Mr Paulus?" Pixy pressed. "Nothing unusual?"

"No ma'am." He cleared his throat. "Mr Jeyne is ready to raise them on the working beam, ma'am. Shouldn't we just ask them to halt for boarding?"

"No." Pixy ran a hand through her hair. "They won't comply. And if they do, it'll be even less safe to board." She brought up the vox box again. "Mr McZylenko?"

"Ma'am?"

"We're about to blow the shit out of that vessel. Start your slingshot right now. Keep well to our starboard to make sure you avoid our torpedoes. I want you at full velocity when they impact, comprehend?"

"Uh, aye aye ma'am." It sounded more like a question.

"Tell Origami to go in heavy. She'll be happy to hear that. And you? The docking? You better nail that shit on the first try. I don't want everybody hanging around out here, masturbating while we wait for you to remember how to hard dock. No questions?"

"No ma'am."

"Go." She settled back, trusting her judgement even though Paulus looked like he was about to say something, raise some sort of objection. The shuttle crept onto the monitor as it slingshotted from behind Desperado. Pixy closed her eyes a moment; at least the fucking guns would fire. The weapons officer was gone, his assistant currently taking his shuttle toward the target, and their chief was more than willing to open up. Then she focused on the monitor, calculating ranges, picking a spot on the scope where the rapidly receding shuttle would be when she ordered up the guns. "Shields to full forward, Mr Vecque," she added, knowing they probably already were, but there'd be no return fire. The sensors would have shown it if the freighter was priming any guns.

"Still nothing abnormal, ma'am," Paulus ventured, covering his ass. He licked his lips. "Mata is hailing us. They want to know what's going on."

"They'll find out in a couple minutes," Pixy muttered. The shuttle was accelerating, bounding toward its target, the freighter's appearance completely innocent, and Pixy nodded to the weapons chief. "Open fire, Heller." The chief was smiling as she slapped the button.

* * *

"It's just that I need to make sure I'm not leaving a mess behind." The captain had her bare feet perched on the little coffee table next to a paper copy of some sort of Parcheesi strategy bulletin. "When Fleet investigates, you better have your ducks in a row, Pixy. Because if they haul you off and throw you in the clink, Chonny takes over again. But now you're telling me you want me to fire him?"

"Mr Delmer is not my choice for First Officer," Pixy nodded, "and I'm not getting thrown anywhere, Captain." She sniffed and sat back on the couch. "I knew what I was doing."

"You blew the engines off a likely civilian freighter, boarded it, and killed all hands!" Ledecki wailed.

Pixy shrugged. "I intercepted a Cathos Vremein spyship and destroyed it." And she had. Over the skepticism of her own commo officers and the loud, angry protests of the Mata, she'd gone for it.

"But all the sensors indicated it was just a freighter!" Lededcki's hand shook, the bluish liquid stirring in its mug. "Captain Dziarmo has lodged a protest."

"Captain Dziarmo's protest will go nowhere, ma'am," Pixy gloated. She was very pleased with how it had all gone. The vidcam had shown them the whole thing: the "freighter," drifting loose in space with a trail of debris, internal lights flickering. The docking, not perfect but serviceable. The Stellar Marines zipping onto the other ship at zero-g, McZylenko's camera following along behind; he'd stopped to equalize the pressure, then floated aboard just in time for the camera's unblinking eye to catch Plovsek, the platoon sergeant, getting her leg blown off by a waiting Cathos Vremein scout.

That had pissed off Major Origami something fierce.

The battle had been short and savage, Kymchenko pushing his platoon through the spyship's cramped and slime-speckled corridors, wiping out anything they found. They'd come away with a wealth of intelligence, one legless platoon sergeant waiting for her clone to send her another limb, and a dead machine gunner named Ghyll who wasn't really dead: his buddies had salvaged his brain into a haemodrive, and now it was hanging out in Dr Borowicz' fridge. Waiting. Another message sent to the Clone Farm.

All in all, a successful operation. So Captain Dziarmo could go fuck himself.

"The signs were all there," Pixy tutted. "The mean distance to the spyship over the past week tracked closely with Cathos Vremein preferred ranges. The flight signature looked exactly like one of their Disruptors. And?" She drew this last point out with relish, proud of her deduction. "I've heard a fuck-ton of freighters moving through space, Captain. Not a one of them has ever sounded normal. The kind of freighter that operates out here would have mechanical problems of every description." She smiled tightly. "That target should have rattled like a fucking toolbox. As soon as Paulus told me it sounded normal, it was obvious."

"It's just that nobody's ever encountered this... this..." She peered at the tabslate, Origami's report, the generator they'd found aboard the spyship. "Auditory projector?"

Pixy nodded. "And now Fleet knows about it. It's a good thing, ma'am," she soothed. "If the Cathos Vremein can emulate friendly vessels audibly as well as visually? That's something we need to adapt to." She nodded to herself. "That's the kind of thing Combat Command is supposed to find out about. Right?"

Not to Commander Ledecki, though, Pixy understood. To her, Combat Command was about a sharp black uniform and funded travel to Parcheesi championships for PR value. "We'll come through the investigation just fine, ma'am," she went on. "Medals, even a Ship's Commendation. Count on it." She nodded. "I've been through this kind of thing before. You can go represent Fleet at the... the... tournament? No worries, Captain. I promise." She risked a smile. "Ship's in good hands."

"I hope so, Pixy," Ledecki muttered. She sighed. "Maybe I should take Chonny with me. When I go to the championships. As an aide."

Pixy tried not to look smug. "I think Mr Delmer would be an outstanding choice as your aide."

* * *

She awoke in the middle night, the stars dazzling all around her; she'd ordered the hull translucent. Not for any tactical reason, but just so that she could see the stars. Because she was the XO, goddammit, and she wanted to.

Already she'd started to sense something new in the ship, the slight stiffening of spines, the vaguely incredulous self-assurance that they'd actually gotten involved in the war. They, the crew of the Desperado, Rose Nova Squadron, Inner Sector Division of the stinking little Outer Parabolic Archsquadron Four, had done something. Before yesterday only a quarter of the crew had ever seen any kind of combat, and now here they were, dealing with a Ship's Commendation on one hand and the threat of charges from the Mata's captain on the other.

Pixy had dealt with worse. Much worse.

She breathed deeply, smelling Jeyne, her body crushed up against his. It was always like this after action, the comedown, her shivering little frame struggling to contain its excitement, in disbelief that it was over. "That's the thing." She was speaking into his chest. "To me, this is what I thought Combat was. It's seeking out and killing the bad guys."

"Sure," he yawned, "but most of Fleet have never really been under fire before. It's a big fucking universe, and there aren't really that many ships. And out here? On a station like this?" He shrugged, his muscles tight against hers. "These people never really see any enemy at all, unless they seek them out."

"Yes, but fuck. Why wasn't this ship doing that shit all along?" It really did bother her. She'd spent a dozen years in Service, traipsing the galaxy, hauling all its infinite impedimenta, helping Combat maintain itself in... whatever it was they were doing. She'd always assumed they were fighting all the time. And when her own chance had come crashing into her life, her own first action, she'd tamped down her terror and performed well and she'd figured that was what everyone did. "This is a war. If Fleet's not looking for the enemy and trying to kill them? What's the point?"

"For some people?" Jeyne toyed with her nipple. "It's about staying safe. There's a reason they send people out here, Pixy."

She remembered Thajk. "Because they're flawed."

"The senior officers here are not the best and brightest. I mean, fuck. We serve under a captain whose real job is Parcheesi." He kissed her forehead. "You might be the only officer on the whole station at subcommander or higher who has any balls."

Pixy reached down, her fingers finding his scrotum, so familiar already even though it had only been a few months. "No. That's you, Mr Jeyne."

"I'm not even a full lieutenant. Ma'am." They chuckled softly in the starlight. "I do have balls, though."

"Mmhmm." Pixy didn't feel sexy after she fought, but her old bedwarmer Klonmyre had always thought she was. Only once had she let Klonmyre take care of her; usually, Pixy wanted to give, and give some more, and now as she felt the stirring in Jeyne's cock she shivered most of her stress away. "You do." She wanted to suck, suddenly, to feel the leap in her heart she never told anybody about, the joy of giving someone an orgasm, and she'd just started to ease her lips down from his nipple to the top of his abs when, without any warning, the hatch swished open, the harsh red corridor light stabbing into the peace of her quarters. Pixy's back shrieked as she sat up, nipples dancing. "What the hell!"

"Don't mind me, Commander." Juno strode coolly into the room, stopping short as she glanced at the starlit bed. "Oh! Good. You two are already starting."

"Get the fuck out of here!" Jeyne propped himself on his elbow, bemused, his cockhead just starting to peek past the blankets as he got hard. And it was easy to figure out why: along with Pixy's hand between his thighs, Juno was shrugging out of a red silk kimono to show a smooth, nude little body. "Why do you never fucking knock?"

"Oh, come on." Juno, Pixy had noticed before, was not good at reading her audience. She slunk over to Jeyne's side of Pixy's rack, her cute face all smiles. "Scoot over, sir," she purred at him.

"You can't possibly be serious." Pixy had that venom in her voice that had made her famous when she was First Officer on the Pulver, that tone that usually preceded a kicking. Jeyne was looking quizzically over at her, his hard-on obvious, not at all sure how to proceed but clearly willing to find out. "You can leave now, Juno. I won't be needing you this evening." She spoke through clenched teeth. "For anything," she added pointedly.