Star Kitten (27 page)

Replies started popping up along the side of
the broadcast screen image. Most were affirmative and some were
even downright sarcastic, like “Christ if I had one of these at
home, I’d never leave the house!” Kscheeech sat back in his chair
and kept on detailing his revisions to the plan. Two ships landing.
Two brigades deployed. Secure areas and capture prisoners. Load
prisoners and leave. No takeover of the whole space station. No
pitched battle with determined defenders on an isolated space
station.

He’d needed to be a good salesman, and this
was certainly not in his nature… but the buttery smooth funky music
playing on the audio, accompanied by the sexy deep voice… that was
doing some measure of the work for him. Snout winced a bit about
the security breach but he let it slide. In a few days Star Fleet
would pick up this transmission and wonder what the hell was going
on out there!

And it was working. Replies started turning
into positive and even enthusiastic acceptance, even from General
Vladimir of the Arian Knights (especially when Kscheeech mentioned
in his transmission that he’d send The Impaler a video recording
about hunky male Gladiators at the Roman Empire exhibit). “Sssssex
ssssells,” he muttered humorously under his breath to himself as he
watched the replies coming in. If this worked, all the Brigadier
Generals would go back to their troops proclaiming, “We can do
this.”

And by the time this meeting concluded, it
seemed all seven generals were clearly on board. If nothing else,
Kscheeech had them all quite motivated to attack the place. How
ironic it seemed really. They’d fought to the death for their
survival against insurmountable odds to capture the terminal
headquarters two years earlier. Then they practically decimated
each other in bloody civil war over access to food depots. Yet now…
they were all somehow willing to risk their lives quite willingly
and enthusiastically—all because of a cat video.

Kscheeech signed off with one last message
of encouragement, stating “We have been charged with this mission
because our planet… our fellow Nausties… felt they could trust us
with the task. Now the future of our planet rests squarely on our
shoulders. Let our troops fight bravely and swiftly to bring this
mission to a successful conclusion. Good luck to all of you….”

As the screen flashed a message stating in
bold letters, END TRANSMISSION, Admiral Snout looked back down the
table at his diminutive old friend Kscheeech and nodded with
approval. General Bengal growled with delight as well. He’d done
it. Kscheeech had sold the generals on a battle plan to raid Star
Pussy. And with just a little bit of decent luck, nothing would be
able to stop them… certainly not the Star Pussy Police.

“Nothing but Bouncers in a Whorehouse,”
that’s what Snout called them.

“Deep Space… that’s an
ironic term, isn’t it?” asked Snout sarcastically. “All of its
bloody deep,” he then +added with a
schnerrrk
. Some of the crew standing
and working nearby the Admiral heard him but Snout’s words only
sank in with a few of them. A couple of them snickered with
acknowledgment. They’d been on patrol now for several days, looking
for an unsuspecting freighter, and the boredom had made a lot of
them on the Captain’s deck just a bit
punchy
….

Snout was standing on the
bridge of the Naustie flagship looking at a massive video screen
display spread across an entire wall of the command deck of
the
Anarchy
. It
showed seven views of space surrounding the craft, with one large
image in the center and four smaller views that showed Starboard
and Portside views as well as the rearward view from the craft; as
well as below it. He’d been staring at the screens for hours (not
that it did any good really) just like he’d already been doing for
days on end.

Of course, ship’s
computers did all the actual work of detecting approaching craft,
or obstacles to the flight path of the
Anarchy
, but it gave a ship’s
captain much comfort in knowing he could “see” around the outside
of his ship. It’s just that he didn’t need to. The crew took care
of reporting to him nearby ships or calculating distances to
destinations. It was just force of habit. Made him feel like he was
actually doing something.

What Snout was referring
to humorously was that “deep space” is a relative term anyway;
given the sheer vastness of space to begin with. When he made the
comment, it was more of an attempt to humor his bored and yet quite
apprehensive crew on the ship’s bridge that day. They’d been
cruising slowly back and forth across commonly traveled shipping
routes leading between planets and space colonies; hoping to catch
a lone vessel they could raid and use as a bait ship to land on
Star Pussy. This was the old “false flag” ruse used by Pirates for
centuries. But it was taking too long, Snout thought. After all, he
had eight ships in his fleet counting the
Anarchy
. He had a fleet which could
simply blast away any of Star Pussy’s defenses and scoop up a
thousand prisoners in a matter of a few hours. They’d be on their
way in no time. That’s what Snout believed.

But this? Waiting two days (or had it been
three now) in commonly traveled shipping routes looking for a ship
they could pounce on? This was absurd. He had a brigade of hardened
warriors languishing in the ship’s hold. He had seven other
warships drifting in space several thousand miles away which he
could call in for support and just devastate Star Pussy easily. Why
bother with this silly ruse? But he trusted Kscheeech implicitly.
His first mate usually knew exactly what he was doing.

And actually Kscheeech was right again. If
Star Pussy detected a fleet of ships approaching and no explanation
as to why… they’d send a distress call to Star Fleet and within a
day Star Fleet forces would be chasing the Naustie fleet all over
the galaxy. Many would never make it home. New Australia might even
be identified as the source of all the raids. And Star Fleet could
soon be directing a massive attack on the Naustie’s home base. No,
this was much better… sneak in under a false flag just to get the
first brigade safely landed. Then they could scramble
communications coming from the area.

But… the waiting was aggravating. Snout knew
his crew were getting agitated. Something needed to break the
monotony. And still they had to remain at their posts for 12 hours
at a time; on high alert for any passing craft.

The hours ground along. They just travelled
back and forth across a thousand mile expanse of space, turning
around every few hours and repeating the route as Snout and the
Nausties waited. And waited. And waited some more.

Then finally, in the silence, with thirty
Zorg, Porko and Earther crewmen on the ship’s bridge just sitting
or standing there… nothing left to talk about or shoot the breeze
about… it finally happened. A beeping sound and notification light
went off on the display panel in front of the Navigation Officer, a
Porko named Frilbriliram (the other crewmen actually just called
him Brilly). He startled to attention, having drifted off in a
mindless personal daydream about wallowing around in the cool mud
of his pigsty back on Porkonji when he was a little piglet. Only a
moment before, he’d been counting down the last two hours of his
duty shift… looking forward to a game of cards or a pint of ale at
the officer’s club… but not anymore. Now he and five other crewmen
monitoring the control panel were excitedly springing into
action.

“Admiral, sir!” snorted Brilly. Snout
instantly reacted, knowing instinctively what the sound meant and
what Brilly was referring to. Coolly he commanded in a gruff but
calm voice, “Main screen, Mr. Brilly, please.”

Within a few seconds, the
main screen showed a magnified image of a small cruiser, with Earth
markings and design, growing like a little white dot… gradually
nearing
Anarchy
maybe a few thousand miles off the Port side of the pirate
flagship. Perfect… this was what they’d been waiting for. Snout
ordered Brilly to send the message they’d crafted and been waiting
to send for days whenever they finally found a good
target:

“Hailing Earth craft with course bearing
Alpha-Zulu-Tango-niner-eight-three-six Pumalar system. Requesting
passage for civilian passengers returning to Pumalar wishing to a
attend funeral for their family Patriarch. Price negotiable.
Request docking.”

Such a message was sure to
get attention.
Everyone
in the galaxy knew the strict Pumalar tradition
of attending a family member’s funeral, especially when the leading
eldest male of the breed passed away. That Patriarch, or “Tom”, was
the senior member of one’s family lineage, and commanded the most
respect among the males in the family. Not attending his funeral
meant bringing shame to your family; and no matter where a Pumalar
was on the planet or even within the galaxy, when receiving word of
the death of their Patriarch they had to drop everything and travel
home for the ceremony.

What’s more, a Pumalar would pay anything
and do anything to get home in time for the ceremony. A Pumalar
could not miss it. It was simply not acceptable. He had to get home
in time; or forever lose face with his family. It was just that
important to them. So this meant a wonderful opportunity for the
Earth craft approaching them. Fifty, or even a hundred Pumalars
traveling home? Oh, they’d pay every Dinar they had just to get
back to Pumalar. The Earthers could charge almost anything they
wanted; and the Pumalars would give it to them with no hesitation.
The Earthers on that ship would have known that.

And it worked. Within five minutes, a
message came in on Brilly’s computer saying, “Acknowledged.
Requesting number of passengers to accommodate….”

Snout snickered when
Brilly read the message. The Earthers were buying it. And why
wouldn’t they anyway? The Earth craft would have scanned the
Anarchy
by now and found
that it had very little cargo and over 1500 beings on board. This
must be a large freighter full of passengers! If the ship required
600 to operate, up to 900 of them could be Pumalars trying to get
back home for their Patriarch’s funeral. The Earthers could make a
fortune off this opportunity!

Snout muttered, “They probably just figure
we’ve carried the Pumalars this far…picked them up somewhere out in
space… and now we want to get back with our voyage. Or maybe they
figure we want to stop at Star Pussy for shore leave, and dump the
Pumalars onto another freighter heading their way toward Pumalar.
That’s probably it right there….” He could only chuckle at the
genius of his first mate. The crewmen nearby him laughed along with
him. Once again, he had to hand it to Kscheeech. So many years as a
pirate before being sentenced to New Australia… he sure knew what
he was doing. Greed for money and wealth. Lust for sex. Compassion
for someone’s apparent distress. There were just so many ways to
tempt or fool an unsuspecting victim.

Within an hour the Earth
ship approached and via public interspace communication channels, a
deal was struck for taking on five hundred and forty six Pumalars
in exchange for a quarter ton of assorted precious gemstones “from
the family treasury”.
Wow
, thought the Captain of the
earth freighter. This must have been a very wealthy breed-line back
on Pumalar, to be holding so much wealth. And, of course the whole
exchange of messages was being listened to by the rest of the
Naustie pirate fleet posted a few thousand miles off in silence
waiting all this time for an ambush.

The two ships backed into
each other and docked so that their two holding bays could be
opened and allow movement between the two craft. The
Anarchy
crew was to
first drive in a dump hauler pulling a massive bin loaded with
quartz, diamonds, rubies, and sapphires (which had been mined from
New Australia, of course). The gems were all put in Pumalar style
sacks as if they’d been gathered up and stored together as family
fortunes to be spent on this voyage home. It all looked completely
legitimate to the gullible greedy Earthmen. Looked just like they’d
imagined it would too—at least until the Pumalars walking in behind
the vehicle a few minutes later suddenly cast off their “mourning
robes”, lunged forward, and slaughtered the poor terrified humans.
The rest of the brigade followed right behind; and swept through
the craft killing or capturing the entire crew of over five hundred
Earthers (including fifty quite well-fed women).

The earth freighter never
even got off a distress call. The
Anarchy’s
assault brigade, under
General Bengal, knew exactly where to go within the ship and how to
get to its command bridge before any call could be made. The
captain had been one of the first killed anyway, as he’d foolishly
gone down to the cargo holding bay to greet the Pumalar “mourners”
as they entered. So after he’d fallen, the rest of the ship’s crew
were never able to organize into any form of resistance.

Within two hours, the
earth freighter, named ironically
Chengshi
(which is Chinese
for
honesty
), was
cleaned out of all dead bodies, and the surviving female captives
were moved into the
Anarchy
to be distributed later to the crew for
entertainment—starting with the Admiral of course. Snout simply
loved human females. Especially really large ones (he really had a
thing for big women). But for now, the females were kept in a
holding cell. All fifty of them. There was still a massive raid to
perform; and there was no time for ravaging the poor terrified
women. They would have to wait for the voyage home to enjoy the
companionship of their new captives.