Three Square Meals Ch. 016

"Shields at 72%." Sparks called out, the beams from the destroyer and the hits from the laser cannons taking their toll.

John nodded his understanding and watched as the duel unfolded.

Alyssa brought the Invictus around in a sharp turn, putting them directly behind the Heavy Cruiser, just as the cooling icon disappeared from the beam weapons on the weapon loadout display. Calara pulled the trigger and the beams cleaved into the shields, which flickered desperately as they tried to withstand the concentrated energy. The front mounted laser cannon turrets took over the work from the starboard facing ones and fired relentless fusillades of laser bolts into the back of the Stalingrad.

The Stalingrad pilot tried desperately to shift their stubborn pursuer, but they had neither the skill nor the manoeuvrability to shake them. The Stalingrad heavy cruiser returned fire, but now the Invictus was directly behind them and no longer in the broadside arcs of the beam lasers or heavy cannons, leaving only laser cannons able to attack. Still, the Stalingrad massed considerable banks of laser cannons in their rear arc and with not much room to dodge, a lot struck home.

"Shields at 46%!" Sparks replied, "They won't stay up much longer against that much firepower."

Alyssa dipped the nose of the Invictus so that the entire top deck could open up on the rear of the bigger ship. 16 laser cannons spat a steady stream of laser bolts into the back of the Heavy cruiser, causing the enemy shields to ripple with the repeated impacts. The Stalingrad opened up again and this time it was the front of the Invictus that was peppered with dozens of laser cannon blasts.

"Down to 15%!" Sparks cried out in alarm.

Calara kept her crosshairs squarely over the heavy cruiser as her relentless barrage of laser cannon blasts kept up the pressure on the Stalingrad's shields.

"Nearly there..." she said softly, watching the tactical summary of the Stalingrad out of the corner of her eye and the predicted shield strength displayed next to the heavy cruiser.

Finally it was time.

"Pull up Alyssa!" Calara demanded and her friend brought the nose of the Invictus up to face the rear of the Stalingrad, just as the cooling icon disappeared from the beam lasers on her weapon loadout hologram.

Calara narrowed her eyes in concentration and targeted an upraised tower on the back of the heavy cruiser. She pulled the trigger and six beams of coruscating energy lanced out from her ship and punched into the enemy shields, finally overloading them at long last. The beams from the Invictus seared onwards and slashed through the tower with a 6 clawed swipe, shearing the entire structure off the back of the heavy cruiser.

"Oh yeah..." Calara said, grinning with satisfaction.

The enemies rear facing laser cannon turrets powered down, the enemy fire control tower eviscerated by the brunette's precision shooting. The Stalingrad was now helpless and completely at their mercy.

"Incoming hail John" Alyssa said, putting the communication on the vid-screen when he glanced her way and nodded.

A swarthy looking figure wearing a tricorn hat filled the viewscreen.

"Everett Hitch, Pirate Lord at your service." the man said with a sweeping flourish of his archaic looking hat.

"You seem to have me at somewhat of a disadvantage, may I ask for a parlay?" the Pirate Lord requested cordially.

"I don't deal with slavers." John snarled. "Especially not someone who sells people to the Kirrix!"

"At least tell me your name, good sir!" the Pirate Lord requested, surprisingly calm despite the desperate situation he found himself in.

"Commander John Blake and I'm here to end you!" John said, pointing at the man.

"Well Mr Blake, that's as may be, but I think you might want to hear what I have to say before you shoot any more bits off my fine ship" the Pirate said a sardonic smile.

"Ok let's hear it." John said, his dislike of the Pirate Lord growing by the moment.

"I didn't trade all our captives with the Kirrix. Let's just say I kept a few behind for insurance purposes, so to speak" he elaborated with an evil glint in his eye.

The pirate lord glanced at a control panel to the side of him and pushed a button, the image of his face replaced by vid-feed of human prisoners locked in cells, before the image returned to his smug face once again.

"Now how about you turn your splendid ship around and let me be on my way, or who knows what terrible fate might befall them!" he said with mock lament.

"You bastard!" John exclaimed.

"Bye-bye Mr Blake, just accept you've been outplayed and everything will be just dandy!" Pirate Lord Everett Hitch said, waving farewell with a taunting smile and ending the communication.

"What now John?" Alyssa asked him, Calara and Sparks looking up and waiting with baited breath.

"I want that man dead" John grimaced, "but we can't just carve up his ship with the Invictus. The vid-feed footage might be fake, but I don't think it is".

"Boarding action?" Alyssa suggested.

"Yeah, I think we have to." John said.

"I'll soften the ship up for you" Calara volunteered. "They won't be going anywhere."

Sparks had finished performing an active scan of the Stalingrad and she turned to face the command podium.

"It looks like the prisoners are been kept in the ships brig." she said, hitting a button on her console to bring up the scan of the Stalingrad. It showed a group of 15 life readings in an area highlighted as the brig, on the detailed schematic overlay showing the floor layout of a Terran Federation heavy cruiser.

"Can you upload that data to the computer in my armour please." John requested.

Sparks nodded eagerly and turned back to her console to make sure John had a detailed map to guide him in the pirate ship.

John rose to his feet and Alyssa joined him, as they prepared to get ready for an assault on the heavy cruiser. They took the elevator down to their quarters and hurried to put on their combat armour and collect their rifles and ammo. Alyssa looked at the ragged hole in the shoulderpad of her armour with a raised eyebrow.

"Yeah, I know." John muttered, as he slammed in a magazine of hollow point caseless into his bullpup rifle.

"If I'd known I'd be doing this much combat, I would have bought a few dozen suits of armour just in case!" he said with irritation.

"The trials and tribulations of being a trader?" Alyssa said, smiling.

"I've seen more combat in the last month, than I saw in my last couple of years in the military!" John said in exasperation.

"If it's any consolation, I've been in more combat in the last month, than my last 18 years!" Alyssa said, smiling wryly.

"Ok, that has me beat." John said, grinning at her.

"Come on, let's go say hello to Mr Everett Hitch." he said with grim finality.

"Don't you mean goodbye?" Alyssa said, smiling.

John nodded in agreement and they headed down to the Hangar bay. They boarded their captured Kirrix dropship and once John had opened the outer hull doors, Alyssa powered up the engines and carefully exited the Hangar. From outside, the two space leviathans loomed above them, the Invictus and the Stalingrad locked in a one sided melee. Calara was using the laser cannons to completely cripple the heavy cruiser, having firstly melted down the relays that powered the Stalingrad's defence grid and now taking out the enemy ship's engines with her uncannily accurate shooting.

"Escape pods leaving the Stalingrad." Alyssa said, pointing to the small metallic spheres being jettisoned from the escape pod launch tubes along the flanks of the heavy cruiser.

"Rats deserting the sinking ship." John muttered darkly.

Alyssa brought the Kirrix dropship around to the hangar bay positioned in the underbelly of the heavy cruiser. She flew directly underneath the pirate vessel and then used manoeuvring thrusters to lift their ugly looking dropship up into the open mouth of the Stalingrad's hangar bay.

The dimly lit hangar bay looked to be deserted, so she brought their dropship forward and landed it on one of the empty pads. The two of them readied their rifles and then disembarked, sealing the door to the dropship behind them and covering the various doors into the hangar in case of surprise attacks.

"Where too?" Alyssa said.

John pressed a button on the computer built into the vambrace of his armour and a holographic map of the interior of the heavy cruiser sprung into existence.

"The brig is here." John said, pointing to a location a few decks up from where they stood in the hangar.

"The Captain's quarters are here." John said grimly, pointing to a spot near the top decks of the Stalingrad.

"Ok prisoners first, then we pay a visit to the Captain?" Alyssa said enthusiastically.

"That's the plan." John said and led her out of the hangar.

They headed along a corridor and saw an elevator on their right, currently coming down to their level. John pressed the call button and then the two of them raised their assault rifles. The elevator door swung open and three scruffy pirates looked at them in open mouthed surprise.

"Going up?" John asked, before he and Alyssa filled the elevator with bursts of fire from their assault rifles, spraying the back wall with blood.

"Hmm, going a long way down I suspect." Alyssa replied.

They got into the elevator and pressed the button for deck 4. On the way up, the elevator stopped at deck 3. The door chimed and then swished open to reveal two pirates in a hurry to evacuate the ship. They looked down in shock at the blood soaked corpses of their ship mates, before looking up to see the assault rifles pointed in their direction.

"The lift's full I'm afraid" John said apologetically, before they opened fire, cutting the brigands down.

Alyssa's musical laughter filled the elevator as the door swung closed and John grinned at her.

"What's with the quips?" she asked amused.

"Perhaps you're a bad influence?" John said, smiling at her affectionately.

The elevator chimed again and the door opened out on the 4th deck, which contained the security brig.

*Ok they should be just up ahead* John thought to Alyssa, falling into their silent combat routine.

They walked ahead cautiously until they reached an intersection, at the end of which they could see a guard post and a ceiling mounted Gatling laser.

"Damn!" John cursed under his breath, as he and Alyssa darted to the sides and out of line of sight of the powerful anti-personnel weapon.

Alyssa looked at him questioningly, wondering what they were going to do now. She could read John's frustration and realised they might be stuck. Suddenly a whir started that she recognised from the Mexican standoff back on Karron and then staccato pulses of laser fire opened up, strobing light flashing down the corridor.

She instinctively pulled right back into cover, remembering the carnage those laser bolts could cause, but was surprised when no laser fire came searing down the corridor. John looked her way and shrugged, his face and thoughts showing he was as equally puzzled as her. He tentatively poked his head around the corner and then pulled back as his watch communicator flashed. He answered the call and Sparks' beautiful smiling face filled the image.

"You're welcome!" she said mischievously.

"What...?" John asked, confused.

"I hacked the Stalingrad and took control of their defensive subsystems. When I saw you two approaching the brig, I thought I'd lend a hand." She explained.

"Above you and to your left." the redhead grinned impishly.

John looked up and left and spotted a small security camera set into the ceiling.

"I'll call and let you know if I see any trouble coming your way, but it looks pretty chaotic from up here, the pirates seem to be evacuating." Sparks said reassuringly.

"Very nice Sparks, thank you!" John said appreciatively, wondering how she had managed to hack military grade security subsystems.

He ended the call and prepared to move onwards, Alyssa falling into line at his side. They moved up to the end of the corridor and saw that the Gatling laser was now pointed at the guard station and two pirate guards had been shot to pieces by the point blank laser fire, their corpses smouldering from the high energy laser impacts. They cautiously headed into the brig which was lined with rows of cells on either side of the corridor.

John walked ahead and looked into the cells, seeing the captive people Sparks had picked up on her active scan of the Stalingrad. He unlocked the cell doors and the energy fields securing each cell disappeared, freeing the prisoners. The men and women locked within came out carefully, unsure what to expect.

"My name's Commander John Blake, we're here to rescue you." John said, "Follow us".

The relieved traders and ore haulers nodded eagerly and huddled in a group behind John and Alyssa. They were all about to head out of the brig and back to the elevator when John heard the distinctive sound of the Gatling laser firing again. He darted forward to see what the problem was and he saw three figures slumped over in the corridor, smoke rising from their perforated corpses. He looked up and around for another camera and when he spotted one, he gave it the thumbs up sign. The Gatling laser bobbed up and down like it was nodding and John grinned at the camera.

"Can any of you use handguns?" John asked the freed prisoners and most of the people raised their hands.

"Ok grab the guns off the dead pirates, we might need the extra firepower" he instructed.

Two traders picked up guns from the guard pirates, three more from the ones that Sparks had ambushed in the corridor. John and Alyssa led the group down the corridor and back to the elevator, which they called to take them back down to the hangar. When the elevator arrived, John got in with five of the prisoners, three of them picking up guns from the pirates that had been killed earlier. They headed down to ground level and then waited in the corridor, sending the elevator back up. Alyssa sent five more armed prisoners back down to join John and the growing group on the bottom deck, before finally coming down with the last group.

They headed back to the dropship, leading the bedraggled group of ex-prisoners behind them. When they arrived in the hangar, they saw a group of three pirates trying to figure out how to open the airlock door at the back of the Kirrix dropship. With a few well aimed bursts, John and Alyssa gunned down the men unceremoniously and then led the freed captives over to the dropship, where three of the ore haulers grabbed guns off the fallen pirates.

"We're going after the Pirate Captain" John said to the group as Alyssa opened up the airlock. "We won't be long."

The traders and haulers nodded and then gratefully climbed into the safety of the dropship. It was a bit of a squeeze, but they managed to fit all 15 prisoners into the ship.

"Ok that's them free, now let's pay a visit to Mr Hitch." John said smiling grimly.

They quickly jogged back to the elevator, before taking it all the way up to the second deck. The second deck held a handful of officers quarters that led off their corridor, but they had all been hastily abandoned in the rush to evacuate the stricken ship. Light spilled from the room at the end of the corridor, which the embossed nameplate at the side identified as the Captain's quarters.

John and Alyssa walked cautiously forward, eyes focused on the movement coming from the room ahead and listening to the sound of boxes being moved about. They raised their assault rifles, ready to react in an instant, as the sound of someone's voice drifted down the hall to meet them.

"Commander Bloody Blake..." the figure in the room ranted.

"Curse him all the way to Hades!" the angry man exclaimed.

"Can this one assist?" A high pitched voice asked curiously.

"Shut the fuck up!" The man snarled in irritation.

John and Alyssa finally got closer enough to see a familiar figure frantically stacking crates together. He walked over to the left side of the room and bent over to pick up another crate.

"Mr Everett Hitch..." John said menacingly as he stepped into the room, his weapon sighted on the Pirate Lord.

Hitch whirled to face them, the tails of his buccaneer's jacket whirling around him.

"Now, now Mr Blake!" the shocked pirate said, his right hand raised placatingly. "There's no need for this to get ugly!"

"Oh yes, there's definitely a need." John said, his voice dark and threatening.

"I surrender!" the Pirate Lord said abruptly. "You do-gooders like it when people surrender right?" he said pleadingly as he backed away from them with his hands in the air.

"I'm not that good" John replied ominously.

*Yes! keep this fool distracted just a moment longer!* Hitch thought to himself gleefully as he backed into a nearby table. His hand dropping down as if to steady himself, but instead furtively picking up a remote on the table behind him.

*Just don't let him see the robot* Hitch thought as his hand gripped the remote to activate his security droid and pressed a button.

"John, watch out!" Alyssa cried as she shoved John forward with all her strength, dropping her assault rifle in the process.

The room was suddenly lit up with shocking strobing brightness as the unseen robot in the right hand corner of the room powered up and fired an arm mounted Gatling laser in their direction. Pulses of light zipped between John and Alyssa to score burning holes in the wall opposite. John rolled forward with the momentum of the shove and then found himself face to face with a stubby pistol levelled in his direction.

"Say goodbye Mr Blake!" The pirate Lord grinned evilly as he prepared to pull the trigger.

The robot suddenly clanked loudly, its head jerking to the side as it lurched forward on unsteady feet. It pivoted at the waist and pointed the Gatling laser at the Pirate Lord.

"Stupid robot, what's wrong with you!" Hitch cried out in fear, pressing buttons on his remote to no avail.

"Goodbye." John said with finality, guessing who now controlled the robot.

The whirling Gatling laser trembled as it fired, bolt after bolt of high powered energy pulses searing through the terrified Pirate and sending his perforated corpse flying into the stack of crates on the left of the room. The crates tumbled over and broke apart, leaving a fortune in precious gems scattered over the floor. John and Alyssa stood in stunned silence as they gazed at the wealth of gemstones that had shockingly appeared at their feet.

Abruptly a claxon began to wail alarmingly in the background, piercing the quiet in the room.

"What's that?" Alyssa asked John curiously.

John shrugged, having no idea, but his watch began to flash insistently. He pressed the button to receive the call and Sparks' panicked face filled the Holo image.

"You have to get out of there!" she pleaded desperately.

"Why, what's wrong?" John asked, confused.

"He must have had a dead man's switch, the self destruct's been activated! The Stalingrad's going to blow in three minutes and I can't turn it off!" she yelled.

"Ok we're leaving!" John said and ended the call, looking down at the fortune in gems with regret.

"Come on, we haven't got long until the self destruct blows!" John said to Alyssa, who had started walking across the room to a doorway opposite, her rifle lying forgotten in the doorway.

"Just one moment John, I want to check something" the beautiful blonde said distractedly. She felt strangely drawn to a door leading through to a bedroom at the back of Hitch's private quarters and she moved forward resolutely.

Alyssa leaned into the bedroom, letting her eyes adjust to the dim illumination and saw a huge silk sheeted bed at the back of the room. Sitting in the middle of the bed was a figure that defied belief. The figure was a girl, wearing a school uniform, complete with plaid skirt, white stockings and a white shirt. However what filled that shirt was an absolutely enormous set of gigantic tits. Each was the size of a beachball and on the tiny girl's slim frame, looked positively ludicrous. Finally managing to tear away her eyes from the massive creamy skinned mammaries, Alyssa looked at the girl's face for the first time.