Scarborough Fair Story One Chapter Six
#6 of Scarborough Fair One
SCARBOROUGH FAIR
Story One
Chapter Six
by RedFox6
Endings and Beginnings
Entering the ship, Leu kissed Tollel then said, "I'll be on the bridge. Come on up when you're ready."
Tollel went to refresh herself in her room as he headed for the bridge.
Leu sighed as he entered the bridge, his body tensing up again. Marrakesh had been a nice interlude, but it was time to return to LeGrand and attempt to complete his mission. The difficulties were overwhelming, and he didn't really see a good ending. Nevertheless, he had signed a contract, and felt honor bound to complete it, no matter the cost.
Sitting in his chair, Leu tossed his sunglasses on the console, looked at the monitor and said, "Marie. Take us out of the blue and into the black."
"We have a launch window in thirty minutes, Leu," she answered. "All systems are optimal." A countdown appeared on one of the monitors.
Tollel entered and stood behind him while they waited for their launch. She didn't quite understand his tension, but she smiled and massaged his back seductively, trying to relax him as much as possible.
As their launch window approached, Tollel sat down in the copilot's chair, watching the monitors closely. It would be the first time she could observe a takeoff from a planet, and she wanted to see as much as possible. Her visible excitement made Leu smile as he remembered the first time he had watched a launch from the inside of a spaceship.
"When did I become so jaded about this?" he thought, watching as Tollel almost vibrated in her excitement, waiting for the liftoff. Some of her enthusiasm infected him too. For the first time in many years, he saw a launch as more than just a routine.
As they launched, a tight beam coded transmission from the control tower was sent to certain coordinates occupied by the King Tiger and her escorts. When Blaine Crakesbone was informed of the contents, he smiled evilly and ordered his ships to prepare to attack.
Reaching high orbit, Leu smiled, turned to Tollel and began saying, "Looks like things are going okay..."
"Multiple target locks!" Marie interrupted. "We are under attack!" She activated the ship's shields, carefully calibrating them to be able to stop the current attacks without revealing their full strength.
As they quickly strapped themselves into their chairs, Leu muttered under his breath, "I have got to stop saying that."
"Leu," Marie said. "I have sent an emergency call to the Auberge Spaceport. There is no response."
"Probably bribed someone. Everything's for sale on Marrakesh." Leu answered. "Looks like we're on our own."
Multiple programs analyzed the attacks, determining type, intensity and range.
"They are using disabling attacks only," Marie reported. "Extreme range, and designed to penetrate civilian shields. Attempting to identify attackers now."
"Two Raider class gunships, and one freighter," Marie continued a moment later. "They have fired a full spread of missiles, Lampreys from the signatures. They are locked on us and will be in range in three minutes. PDWs are activated and standing by."
"Target the Raiders, and fire HAWKs under the cover of their missiles being destroyed," Leu ordered.
The Fair began to roll, turning her belly away from her attackers. The shields rippled, being reinforced on the facings towards the enemy. A concealed bay opened and two pairs of Homing All the Way Killer missiles prepared to fire.
"Whoever they are, they're about to get one Sheol of a surprise," Leu remarked. He smiled grimly at Tollel and said, "The Fair is a Q ship left over from Spartacus' Revolt, and Marie's been keeping her updated as we go along. They won't be expecting just how powerful she really is. Gives us the advantage, at least for a little while."
The Lampreys got close enough, and Marie opened up with the ship's Point Defense Weapons. Despite their evasive maneuvers, her military grade targeting systems quickly locked on and destroyed the missiles in a flurry of close range plasma blasts.
The HAWKs launched under cover of the explosions, the Alpha missile of each pair locking onto the target and feeding telemetry to its Beta missile. They accelerated towards their objective, stealth technology combined with the evasion maneuvers of the onboard computers making them difficult to track and stop. Using the telemetry from the first missile, the Beta missile of each pair moved to intercept their target on a different trajectory. With no direct lock on the target, they were almost undetectable until they struck.
"I have identification on the Raiders," Marie announced. A picture showing two fox morphs went up on a monitor. "They are the Zombie Stomp and the George A. Romero, owned by two brothers, Sam and Dean Axler. They are guns for hire. I am attempting to identify the remaining ship, but it is not yet close enough."
"Frag," Leu muttered. "I knew that damned zombie movie revival was a mistake."
Aloud, he went on, "So who the Sheol hired them?"
"I do not have that information, Leu," Marie answered.
As they were talking, the Zombie Stomp had moved in closer, attempting to overwhelm their defenses. Marie had taken several shots at the ship with the beamers at less than full strength. The Zombie Stomp had easily stopped the attacks without even having to bring their shields up to full power. Confident that the Fair posed no real threat, the Zombie Stomp moved in even closer.
At optimum range, Marie opened up with the beamers at full power. The beams penetrated the shields and raked the ship, scoring deep gouges in the armor. Several sections were holed and exposed to the vacuum of space. The shield generator for that section was destroyed, leaving a gaping hole in their defenses. Both HAWK missiles slipped in behind the beams and struck the Zombie Stomp, one hitting near the engine room, and the other amidships. The ship was destroyed, parts of the ship vaporized by the explosions, and the other sections falling away from each other.
As the Zombie Stomp was destroyed, Marie said, "Leu. I have identified the other ship. It is a converted freighter called the King Tiger." A pause, and she continued, "It is registered as the primary personal ship of Blaine Crakesbone."
"Deity, no!" Tollel said, her ears flattened and terror in her voice.
"Well, smeg," Leu said calmly. "I suppose it's too late to reroute the HAWKs."
"Yes," Marie answered. "Once launched, they are autonomous."
As this discussion was going on, Marie had targeted the George A. Romero with the beamer turrets. Having seen what happened to the Zombie Stomp, they had powered their shields up to full strength. Handicapped by having to take the Fair's crew alive, they could not respond with their heavy weapons. All they could do was hope enough of their disabling attacks got through to stop the ship.
Multiple hits from the Fair's turrets overloaded the shields, letting one beam get through. It penetrated the lower hull, cut through the ship and exited a moment later through the top hull. One unfortunate crewman had the bad luck to be in the direct path of the beam. He was vaporized before he could even begin to know what was happening to him.
Sirens sounded inside the George A. Romero, signifying hull breaches. The affected sections were sealed off. The ship's emergency protocols rerouted the power, communications and control systems around the breaches. Several crew members who were unfortunate enough to be in those areas perished when they were exposed to vacuum.
The George A. Romero's PDW's managed to lock on and destroy the first HAWK, but their sensors were unable to locate the second. The ship rolled, to present undamaged shields towards the Fair. Unfortunately, it also brought the damaged section towards the surviving HAWK missile. It easily penetrated the weakened shield and struck near the engine room, causing a chain reaction that split the ship in two.
As the surviving HAWK missile destroyed the George A. Romero, the King Tiger managed to get a Lamprey missile close enough to launch its virus attack. For the split second it took Marie to neutralize the virus, the Fair's shields were down, long enough for the Lamprey missile to fire an electromagnetic pulse at the engine room. The armor took most of the EMP, but enough got through to disrupt the power plant. The Lamprey moved in closer, attempting to attach itself to the hull. Once there, it would attempt to disrupt ship operations by hacking into the communications systems and sending conflicting data to the computers. Marie's Point Defense Weapons locked on and destroyed the missile at point blank range.
"Leu!" Marie said. "The engines are offline. The power plant has been disrupted and we are on emergency power now. We have extremely limited maneuverability. We are incapable of making the jump to hyperspace. We have only enough stored energy left in the main turrets for three more shots."
"How long until you can repair the damage?" he asked.
"Fourteen minutes, 23 seconds," she answered, putting the countdown on a screen, then continued. "Our shields will not last more than four more minutes at the rate they are attacking us. When the shields go down, I will not be able to protect the ship from being totally immobilized. Already, their attack programs and viruses are attempting to penetrate my firewalls, and there are several more Lamprey missiles incoming. Without the shields, I do not think I can stop them all."
Leu thought for a moment, then went on, "Marie. Prepare to destroy the ship. Crakesbone is not taking us alive."
"I, I can stop them," Tollel said.
Leu's bright green eyes looked at her as he asked, "How?"
"I have his codes," she explained. "If you give me access to your computers and a tight beam commo channel, I can stop him."
"Can you stop them before they disable us completely?" Marie asked.
"Yes," was the answer.
"Even with his codes, my best attack programs would take at least five minutes to defeat his security. We have less than four," Marie went on.
"I can do it," Tollel said. "Please," she begged, tears in her eyes. "I don't want to be taken by him again, I know I couldn't survive it, not sane."
"Marie, do it," Leu said. "But keep the self-destruct on, activate it in three minutes, or if your firewalls are breached. Tollel, do it."
She nodded, placed her fingertips on the computer console, closed her eyes and entered the system.
Despite her surprise at how easily and quickly Tollel entered her systems, Marie had a tight beam commo channel ready, pointed at the enemy ship.
Tollel concentrated, and launched her attack down the beam.
Enough of the beam got through Crakesbone's shields to give Tollel access to his systems. Using his own codes, she evaded the firewalls and hacked the computers. First, she quickly scrambled all passwords, and then moved on into the system, deactivating the weapons controls as she went. Her fear of Crakesbone caused her to go for the most direct way of destroying him and his ship.
As the other ship was disabled, Crakesbone began thinking of what he would do to punish his errant slave. He smiled as he thought of the terrible things he had planned. There would be whippings and brandings, bones would be broken, toes removed and teeth pulled. He would take especial delight in slowly peeling the skin off sensitive parts of her body. By the time he was through, she would be totally broken and complaisant. "She won't even breath without my permission," he thought to himself, tail twitching in anticipation.
"Perhaps," he thought, claws extending and digging into the armrests. _"I'll trim her ears and tail, too. That should be, amusing." _ His cock began hardening at thoughts of slowly cutting off pieces of her tail and ears. Memories of her screams made him smile. He toyed with the idea of hamstringing her, as well. The image of her crawling across the floor dragging useless legs behind her had possibilities.
"Sir!" his pilot shouted. "Something is hacking our systems." His crew began frantically typing, trying to stop the attack.
"Status," Crakesbone demanded.
"We're locked out, sir," was the reply. "Weapons systems are down, but shields are still operational. Whoever is doing this has changed all our passwords already. We should regain control momentarily."
"How were they able to hack our systems so fast?" Crakesbone asked in a deceptively mild tone. "When I purchased this system, I was guaranteed that this could not happen."
"Tracking it back now, sir," his pilot said, typing frantically, then, "Sir! The initial incursion was made with your personal codes!"
One of the other crew members yelled in panic, "All the hatches are opening! The engines are going critical, and the power is shutting off! We can't stop it!"
Realization flooded through Crakesbone's mind. He understood what was happening, and who was doing it. As the lights went out and the ship began venting air, his last words were, "You bitch!"
And then the atmosphere finished venting into space, and there was no more air for speech or anything else.
As soon as the shields went down, Marie fired the last three shots from the beamer turrets at the King Tiger, targeting the weapons, command and crew areas of the ship. The energy beams easily penetrated the armor and tore through the hull, cutting through vital systems and leaving gaping holes that exposed the interior to vacuum.
The entire crew was dead from explosive decompression when the engines reached critical twenty minutes later and blew up, initiating a chain reaction that destroyed the ship completely.
By then, the Scarborough Fair had repaired herself and made the jump into hyperspace and safety.
Onboard the Fair, Tollel came out of her interface to see Leu looking at her with an unreadable expression on his face.
"You," he said, softly, rubbing at the scars under his left eye. "You're the interface I was looking for."
She lowered her head in fear. Her ears flattened and her tail brushed the floor. Releasing her safety belts and falling to her knees with her head to the floor, arms stretched above her head, wrists crossed, palms up and with her tail to the side, she said, "I'm sorry, Master. I was afraid to tell you."
Leu rubbed his eyes, then said, "Marie. Prepare an e-mail to Ms. Jenner."
Tollel trembled, and tears leaked from her eyes. Her worst fears were being realized. Again, she was nothing but property, something to be bought and sold. She stifled a sob.
"Tell her I've located the interface," he said, then continued, "Say it was on Crakesbone's ship, and was destroyed when the King Tiger blew up. Apologies, regrets, we'll pay back the advance, etc. etc. etc., you know the routine."
Tollel looked up in disbelief as Marie said, "Are you sure, Leu? Ms. Jenner is not forgiving of failure."
Leu replied coldly, "I don't deal in people. Ever. For any reason."
He smiled as Tollel sat up and continued, "And besides, we're not big enough for her to waste any effort on tracking down and killing. Not for this, anyway."
"Our money reserves will be almost totally wiped out paying her back," Marie said.
"Not a problem," Leu replied, shrugging his shoulders. "We can always run coffee and candy to Deseret. It'll at least pay the bills."