Si's Solar Salvage Ch. 04

Ruger

As soon as they came out of hyper-space, Shiva spotted Ruger's ship - still sidled up next to a wrecked freighter.

"Life scans?" Si asked.

"Too far away. I'm taking us in," Shiva said.

Si headed to the cargo-bay to start suiting up. As soon as they had stopped, he was through the atmospheric barrier - thrustering over to Ruger's cargo-hold. The ship was dark and lifeless. Shiva and the boys were right behind him. The doors on both sides of Rumer's hold were open. The body of a dead pirate was still floating within.

As soon as Shiva got there, she found a terminal and plugged herself in to talk to the ship's computer. Si waited, anxious to see what she could find out.

"The ship's in lockdown," she said. "He may have even welded the doors shut before he sealed himself in. I think he's still alive but the engines are blown or gone and they've knocked out his communications array."

"What if we steal pieces off of the freighter, use your construction drones to weld the ships together, and then breach through the joined section - maybe airlock to airlock?"

"It'll take some time..."

"How fast can help get here?"

"A little less than a day."

"I think that's our best bet."

"I hate to slag his airlock ..." Shiva said, "but I think you're right - that's the best we can do."

Since Shiva already had things under control, Si buzzed off to check the freighter. It was clear and the safe had been cleaned out - whether by Ruger or the pirates - Si couldn't tell. Shiva immediately sent the drones and droids to the stricken vessel. She and Si worked to identify pieces of the hull that could be cut into even squares - to make their work to join the tugs together go faster.

Within a half-hour, the airlock from the Old Timer was connected to the one on Ruger's ship and they were cycling out the airlock on Si's ship - to give them breathable atmosphere within the connecting-tube - a pre-requisite to successfully merging the living spaces of the two ships. The quickly-formed hallway was holding up and soon they were able to start slicing their way into the disabled tug.

Shiva tried to be careful with her cuts - so they could replace the airlock door when they were done - hopefully with the salvage-ship's captain restored to the helm.

As soon as Shiva lifted the slagged section out of the way, she and Si stepped into the other ship to search for Ruger. Ten minutes later, they found him. He was holding a blood-soaked rag to his neck. His eyes were big as saucers when he saw Si and Shiva. He tried to talk but Si shook his head.

"Let me look," Si ordered, gently pulling on the man's hand that was holding pressure to his wound.

Blood wasn't pouring out - but it wasn't good. Shiva took Si's hand and placed it on Ruger's neck, staring at him, telling him without words what she thought he should do. Si closed his eyes, willing his hand to do whatever magic it could.

"Hot," Ruger croaked, his voice dry.

Shiva raced back over to the Old Timer, grabbed a glass of water and a tube of protein paste, and ran back to the man. By the time she got back, Ruger was sitting up, staring at Si.

"What did you do?" he asked, taking the glass from Shiva with a nod - before downing it. Once the water was gone, he accepted the food-paste. He started squirting it into his mouth and swallowing it down.

"I stopped the bleeding," Si told him.

"Felt like more than that," Ruger said, "but I've asked enough questions. You're a sight! I thought I was done."

When he finally acted like he was ready to try getting up, Si and Shiva helped him to his feet. The passageways weren't made for three people to walk side-by-side but they eventually got Ruger moved from his ship to the Old Timer - and then to the kitchen.

"Damn, son!" Ruger said, looking around at Si's companions, "You sure know how to crew a salvage-sled!"

The girls all laughed.

"Bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich?" Staci asked him.

"I'll eat anything that comes from your hand, sweet thing," he said, smiling.

She blushed and went to make him some food.

"Where'd you find these beauties?" Ruger asked.

"This one," Si said, pointing to Shiva. "It's my ship's computer. She wanted to 'stretch her legs'."

"Good choice, missy," Ruger said, "them's some damned-fine legs."

Shiva smiled.

"The rest of us," Mary reported, "are rescues - like you."

"You do this a lot, huh?" Ruger asked Si.

"Seems like it," he replied, chuckling.

Ruger put his hand to the side of his mouth and stage-whispered, "Looks like I'm the mutt of the rescued litter."

"I'm just glad we found you. Rita was worried sick."

"I sent a message to her," Shiva said. "Don't know how long it'll take to relay."

"You think we can jump to hyper-space with Ruger's tug hanging off of us?"

"I don't know. It'll stress both frames."

"She's shot, Si. Scrap the damned thing. I think I'm done with this business anyway. It's not worth it anymore."

Si looked at Shiva - who shrugged.

"Look," Ruger said. "If you try to drag it back, it'll take weeks. Even if you flew back, grabbed some engines, and repaired it, you're down almost a week. I feel bad enough already but you'll lose too many days fucking with my ship. Like I said, I think I'm throwing in the towel. I'll haul shit for Harlan. I'll get by. I won't have to worry about any fucking pirates anymore."

Staci set the plate in front of him.

"Eat," Si ordered. "Get your strength. We'll scrap the freighter you'll have an hour or two to think about it before we have to decide."

"You can scrap that in two hours?!" Ruger said, taking a bite of the sandwich. "Damn!" he said. "This is tasty!"

"We've got an army of droids - and Shiva directs them like an orchestra. You probably only have about an hour to decide."

"Fuck me to Tuesday!" Ruger said to Si. "Can I have another one of these?" he asked Staci.

Staci giggled and went to make another sandwich.

"Your food-fabricator kicks the shit out of mine," the salvage-operator said.

"Yeah. It's definitely worth the money," Si told him. "We'll be back in a bit, you might think about what we need to grab from your ship if you're serious about scrapping it."

"If you can reduce mine to parts in two hours, I don't know why were even talking about trying to save the thing," Ruger said.

"Alright, well give it a think. You'll want everything out of there before Shiva's buzzards rip the meat off."

Ruger picked up his plate and said, "If these two little cuties can help me, we'll go start clearing shit out. That way you can start on mine as soon as the freighter's done."

Si looked at Shiva.

She laughed and said, "No. I don't need you. You can help them."

"Fuck, dude," Ruger told Si, "that's cold!"

"What can I say?" Si replied, smirking. "I've been replaced by a hot android."

"Yeah, her ass is definitely better-looking that yours," Ruger said, laughing, trying not to choke on his food.

Shiva shook her head and left as the others laughed as well.

As soon as Si and the girls had helped Ruger clear his stuff out, they sealed the airlock on the Old Timer and the construction drones started separating the two ships.

Si and Ruger stood against the far bulkhead in the cargo-hold and watched Shiva's team rip the tug apart piece by piece.

"Mother of God!" Ruger exclaimed.

"She's nothing if not efficient. Honestly, I barely have time to check through a wreck for bodies before her crew is tearing the thing down around my shoulders."

"I can see what Seb was pushing me for. You started with, what? Three cargo-droids?"

"We found three more a few weeks ago. We got the mining droids last week. The construction drones were Shiva's bright idea. I couldn't even figure out what the hell she was talking about until she sent them into action. Actually, they built the tunnel between our ships."

"Ingenious!"

Si just shook his head - and made sure to stay out of the way of his crew.

"Hey," Ruger said, after about a half-hour of watching the droids work. "I assume Rita gave you a sector or two to clear."

"Six," Si admitted.

"Six?! So, yeah. There's no sense in you wasting two days to dump me off at Seb's. You got a spare room you can shove me in?"

"Yeah."

"I'll just tag along, if that's alright. You finish your run and I'll still end up back at Seb's faster than I would have if I hadn't gotten shut down by those damned pirates."

"Si!" the Old Timer's computer called out.

"Yeah?"

"We've got incoming. A ship just dropped in by that asteroid. They're heading this way."

"That's the direction they came from - when they hit me," Ruger said.

"Let's get you inside before it gets crazy out here," Si said, steadying the man and leading him across the cargo-hold.

"What're you guys going to do?" Ruger asked.

"Knowing Shiva, take their ship from them," Si replied.

"No shit?!"

Si just smiled and helped the man through the interior air-lock in the bulkhead, grabbing his space-suit and his blaster. He suited up, gave Ruger a wave - telling him to hang out in the kitchen - and sealed the airlock doors.

By the time the new ship stopped, and the airlock opened, Shiva and Si were hovering beside the Old Timer, attracting the marauders' attentions. As soon as the pirates left their ship to confront the pair, the droids and drones appeared from underneath their ship - buzzing in behind the attackers. The eight pirates were dead before they knew what hit them.

Shiva waited a bit - giving a chance for anybody else that wanted to join the party to come to play - but - after a few minutes - she and Si took two miner-droids and two cargo-droids and entered the airlock. The doors wouldn't work until they found which corpse had the RFID tag that served as the security key. Once the dead pirate joined the assault team, they were on their way again.

They found one crewmember in bed and another in the pilot's seat. They didn't find anybody to rescue. Shiva started ransacking the ship as Si and the droids headed back to exit through the airlock. By the time Si returned with Ruger, Shiva had the cargo-hold opened so they could just step through the atmospheric barrier.

"This your shit?" Si asked Ruger.

"That and a little more," the man replied.

"You wanna just take this ship back to Seb's? It's yours, as far as I'm concerned."

Ruger thought about it for a minute or two. Shiva stepped into the hold to join them.

"I'm still as nervous as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs," Ruger said. "I realize you don't want me hanging around, eavesdropping on your crew at bedtime - but I've lost my nerve. I can follow you around in this thing and then you wouldn't have to worry about me interrupting anything."

Si looked at Shiva - who shrugged.

"Tell you what, you fly this. You can eat & sleep on the Old Timer."

"I could also install my backup here, load this with the cargo we have, send it home, and we just move forward," Shiva said.

"You can do that?" Ruger asked her.

"She's been flying my ship since forever. I've probably forgotten how, honestly," Si told him.

"Let me fly the ship," Ruger said. "I appreciate the rescue and you babysitting me. If you can find some clean sheets, I'm sure one of these beds can't be that bad."

Shiva laughed and said, "You may want to look before you say that."

In the end, Ruger found a bed that was acceptable. Shiva took the bedding into space to kill any parasites and then they ran the linens through the laundry on the Old Timer.

Along with Ruger's stolen cargo and droid, they ended up with a safe full of goodies, and a couple crates of stolen electronics.

Si & Shiva wished Ruger goodnight and then headed to the Old Timer to join the girls. The four of them kissed and cuddled but nobody was in the mood to fuck. Ruger was used to sleeping in a ship, by himself, Si told them - but everybody was feeling unsettled.

~~~

The next three days passed in much the same way. Ruger joined them for meals and entertained Mary & Staci with card-tricks while Si, Shiva, and the boys eliminated wreck after wreck. Soon, they were heading home.

"You can land at my place or yours," Si told Ruger.

"It's your ship - it should go to your docking bay," the man replied.

"It's not mine. It's full of shit that belongs to you."

"I lost it; you found it. It's yours."

"I won't take it. You can land at my place if you want. We'll give you a ride to Rita's. She's dying to see you."

"A ride?"

"We have a hover-cart."

"Fuck! Fancy ass!"

"I don't need another fucking ship, Ruger. It's yours and that's final - including the shit from the safe. I'll sell the electronics for you unless you already have somebody."

"Keep the electronics - it's the least I can do. I'll let you strong-arm me into the rest of that bullshit - but that's it."

"Fine. Follow us in to Seb's and I'll get Virgil on the horn to give you a quote for the ship."

Ruger shrugged, defeated. Si fist-bumped him and then headed for the airlock to buzz back to the Old Timer.

A day later, they dropped out of hyper-drive, got clearance from the tower, and pulled into Si's docking bay. Virgil met them as they opened the door to pull the hover-cart out.

"You guys head on the Rita's", the man told them. "I'll check it out and send you an offer. I'll lock up when I leave."

"Send the offer to Ruger. It's his ship. The boys should have it unloaded by the time you finish looking it over."

"Sounds good," Virgil said. "Tell Rita I said hi."

"We'll do."

Ruger rode in the back, between Mary and Staci, and waved at every person they passed like he was a celebrity, riding on a float in a holiday parade. The girls giggled at his crazy antics.

Rita met them at the door and wrapped Ruger in a hug. She assaulted Si next - and then continued down the line. Every tug-slug in the place came over to shake Ruger's hand and tell him how glad they were to see him.

Si pulled Ruger into the booth with them. Rita and Shiva brought over coffee and breakfast for everyone - with milk & orange juice for Mary - who blew Rita a kiss. Shiva was chatting with Rita - rather than joining them for the meal. The two of them were hovering over the data-terminal.

When the food was gone, James hustled over to clear the plates - while Shiva and Rita brought another pot of coffee, pies for everyone - and another glass of milk for Mary.

Once everyone was leaning back, rubbing their distended bellies, and questioning their life-choices, Shiva walked up with the loot-bag from the pirate ship.

She handed it to Ruger and said, "Rita and I cleaned out the credit-sticks. They've been transferred to your account. The rest of the goodies are in here." Handing him a tablet, she added, "Rita set you up a new datapad. I think your offer from Virgil is waiting for your consideration."

Ruger took it, read it over - his eyes widening a little - and signed the agreement. He checked his account balance and his eyes widened even more. "How much was on those sticks?!" he asked.

"One of them had a quarter-mil on it," Shiva told him.

"You could buy a new rig," Si suggested.

"Nope. I already told you. It's the quiet life for me. I could almost retire with what I've got, thanks to you. I'll buy a little place, work for Harlan until I don't want to, and take it easy."

"You could join our crew," Si said, laughing.

"Fuck, dude! You don't even have enough shit for YOU to do - you don't need my lazy-ass slowing you down!"

"Alright, alright," Si said, laughing.

"Seriously, though," Ruger said, "I can't thank you guys enough for everything you've done. I was a dead man and now I don't have a worry in the world. It's intoxicating!"

Standing up, Si said, "Alright, then. We'll leave you to do some house-shopping with Rita and I'll see if I can unload those shitty electronics you stuck me with."

Ruger laughed and hugged him, saying, "Thanks again, Si."

"Don't mention it, man"

The retired tug-operator shook each of the girls' hands and gave them a peck on the cheek, effusively thanking them for everything they had done for him. When the good-byes were completed, they gave him a wave and headed out to hop on the cart.

"You stuck an extra credit-stick in there, didn't you?" Si asked Shiva, as he drove them home.

"Maybe ..." she said, smiling.

"Nicely done," he told her.

"Thanks."

"That was sweet, Shiva," Mary said. "I'm glad you thought of it."

"Can we celebrate now?" Staci asked.

"Sure," Si said, laughing along with the others.

When they got back to the Old Timer, the android and the humans pleasured their blue-gel lover until she passed out with a big smile on her face. After that, Mary sucked Si until he was hard again. He gave her two orgasms and then finished in Shiva after giving her a matched pair of orgasms for herself. She sent a command to the ship's computer to turn off the lights and they cuddled together to fall asleep.

By the time they woke up, two cargo trucks were arriving. The first was from the electronics buyer, picking up the two crates that Shiva had sold him. The second was from Harlan, collecting the crates of resources that she'd sold off from their salvage-run.

They hopped on the cart, dropped a load of stuff off to Wedge and headed to see Rita to scan credit-sticks, grab an early dinner, and get their next string of sectors. Si, approved Wedge's offer for the baubles as they finished their second piece of pie for the day. Si had milk, this time, with Mary. He decided that he liked that better than the coffee with Rita's scrumptious dessert.

Si tossed James a handful of credit-chits and they gave Rita hugs before heading off on their next run.

~~~

A week later, they were at Rita's once more, without incident, to plop back into the booth for more of Karl's cooking.

"You know that sector where we found Ruger?" Shiva asked Si.

"Yeah? You think we should check that asteroid?"

"Yeah."

"I wondered that myself. We got tied up, arguing with Ruger, and I forgot about it. We'll see if Rita has something that direction - otherwise we'll just run there and back. That'll give you time to get the twins up to speed."

"That's what I was thinking," the android said. "Great minds think alike."

Staci and Mary laughed, knowing that - since Si had programmed most of Shiva - it was pretty logical that she would think like he did.

"Hush, playthings," Shiva scolded them.

That only made them laugh harder.

Si authorized the transaction with Harlan as they finished their pie. They met his teamsters at the docking-bay when they returned. As soon as the truck left, the Old Timer requested clearance from the tower, and Si & the girls were headed to check on the asteroid.

~~~

By the time they arrived, Si's dick was begging for a respite. They pulled around behind the first asteroid ... and their theories were validated. They cleaned out the vault and headed back to Seb's.

They had just contacted the tower when they got a call from Rita. There was a huge crash two hours away and the Trade Federation was desperate to get it cleared as soon as possible. It was causing tons of traffic to be diverted.

Si's Solar Salvage dropped into the sector to find a Gal-Pat cruiser, a T-Fed cruiser, and a nasty pile-up of at least a half-dozen ships. It was such a mess that it was hard to tell how many ships were involved.

Shiva pulled up to the pile, disgorged the boys, and started dragging wrecks out of the way, two at a time. She used the tractor beam on one and set the construction drones on the other. The drives on the drones weren't that large so she focused them on the smaller ships but, together, they were increasing the speed with which Si's team was able to clear things out.