The Carlson Chronicle Chapter 1
Chapter 6

11-Apr-2323

Alex and Amythyst watched as the various crewmen did their assigned tasks. Despite Omar’s failure to replace ship grade slave crew, Alex contacted some of the people he knew from his military days, and along with a few of those ‘Animal men’, or Gideons, that Lorelei had mentioned, managed to just about fill all the crew slots on the ‘Graf Spee’. The six slave girls he acquired from Omar, Elisha Graham, Ericka Lifeson, Misty Parker, Mi-lu Chen, Delilah Saxon, and Helena Ashiboa, he and Amy decided that they would serve him best if they were free to make their own decisions, and could be paid and thus trusted, as opposed to staying slaves and running a risk. Amy agreed, and of all of them, only Delilah chose to leave. Alex wished her well, and sent her on her way. The rest of the crew came from these ‘Gideons’, and some of them were downright cute! Of the 15 crew slots left to fill, he found a Gideon for each task, and some of them were absolutely made for their jobs.

Flow: A gunner with nary an equal, unless you toss in the bubble-headed ( and bubble-lovin) tigress, Tina. A wolf (Tundra), he enjoyed mixing it up with the ladies on board, but loved Tina the most. When not training he could usually be found pinned to the floor or pinned to the ceiling with the curvy tigress.

Tina: The aforementioned bubble-lovin yet ditzy tigress who could usually be found with Flow, was tops in gunnery. To call Tina a ditz, well, some titles fit people better then you can imagine, and after walking headlong into a closed, manual hatch thinking it was automatic, only cemented that to everyone.

Leo: A lion with as regal a mane as they come, he had been initially assigned to Tiberius’ newest play toy, the ‘Hammerfield’. But, while on liberty during a stop over on Center, a wild night at Callahan’s found him cooling his heels in Center Security’s main brig. When no one from the ‘Hammerfield’ came to claim him, Alex, at Lorelei’s suggestion, paid his fines and bail, and offered him a job. He mans the Ops station, opposite his former comrades Flow and a sexy skunkette named Jett...

Jett: Standing 5′0", with as many curves as Amythyst, though her chest was easily a full cup and half bigger then the small mage’s, Jett could have gotten a billet on Alex’s ship just on looks alone. But when he came to bail out Leo, the lion made it clear that he, Jett and Flow were a team, and to take one, he had to take all. Asked what it was she did aboard ship, her response was simple: “I replace things. Things that don’t want to be found.” De-scented by her creators, she found she had a real talent at CQB drill and was tops at paired knives. Sparing with her a few times, just to maintain poise and tone, Alex always found himself with a few new scars...

Valerie: Learning that Captain Grayson was letting Leo and the rest of his staff rot in a CSS drunk tank, Valerie, or Val to her few friends, wasted no time jumping ship. Finding herself at CSS as Alex was leaving with three of her best friends, she confronted him, telling them all, she’d rather be dead then serve out the rest of her term without them. When Alex was told her specialty, Ship’s Engineer, he invited her to come along, promising her technology to boggle the mind. Being naturally curious, compounded by the fact that she was a Squirrel, she jumped at the chance...

So, as they drifted with the cosmic wind through the nebula, when Jett called out, the shakedown cruise was over.

“Contact! Bearing 090 mark 040, declination 15. It’s a Dragoon Cap!” She called out to Alex. Setting Amy down, he pulled the image up on his sensors. His ship, nominally a light cruiser by tonnage, was flagged as a personal yacht, and thus listed with Center as an unarmed/non-combatant.

All the better to lure in the right kind of prey...

“Warn it away Jett. I’m not ready to deal with pirates today. Let’s just have a normal shakedown cruise and be done with it.”

“Warning sent, now I have 6 contacts, all moving to intercept!”

“Idiots! Red Alert! All hands, make combat ready! Secure the ship to Z status! Close all pressure doors, rig for explosive decomp!” Alex called out, as pressure doors all over the small cruiser slammed down and locked. The shield came on a moment later, but only at it’s Terran level of rating: 10,000 Kilo-Joules of capacity. Alex didn’t want people scanning his ship and replaceing a 100,000 MEGA-Joules shield generator running at half strength! Too hard to explain that away.

“All stations report manned and ready skipper.” Came Leo’s calm tenor from his spot at Ops. Amy sat beside Alex in the Exec’s chair, though he’d as yet named someone for the position of Adviser, but Amy had a few worthy candidates...

“Range now 125,000Km, targets assuming inverted V formation. Best guess puts the leader’s ship at the bottom of the V.”

“Never guess. Scan them, which has the most power generation?”

“Wait one, scanning. Damn Cap! These sensors make the ones over on ‘Hammerfield’ appear blind by comparison! Ok, lead ship on furthest arm of the V. His shields are better too.”

“Weps, rattle his cage, Starboard reflex guns please. One pulse only.”

“Aye Skipper! Firing!” Flow said from his spot at Tactical, triggering the starboard side mount of twin reflex guns, a form of focused, anti-matter beam rifle. The beams slammed into the starboard, crew berthing area, of the Dragoon, venting atmosphere, and sending the ship skittering to port like a kicked ball.

“Damage report!” Antilles Black roared to his shaken crew.

“Starboard side holed! Losing life support, shields are down and the generator is fused. The hyper drive is off line and Reactor 2 is scrammed. Whatever that beam was, we can’t take another of those hits!” His exec yelled over the various alarms. His wingman’s ship fired suddenly, a perfect spread of Fusion torps and 4) 304mm disruptors...

“Shit! Torpedoes!” Jett yelled, as Amy giggled and Alex flipped a holo switch on his chair’s right arm.

Two ball turrets, suspended beneath the ship sprang to life, the 5 barrel Gatling guns housed in each spinning, spitting gamma ray death at the dozen odd fusion torpedoes. Each one targeted in this fashion simply disintegrated.

Jett and Flow stared in wide eyed disbelief. Leo chuckled as his friends gawked at the screen.

“Captain, should we re-educate the rest of the crew now? I mean I’m not interested in being your first officer unless everyone knows what I’m talking about.” Leo said with a small hint of disdain. Looking to Amy, she nodding to him, he turned back to Leo.

“Ok Leo. Point noted. Besides, Val keeps chattering in my ear about how everything is so awesome. I guess it was wrong for me not to let you guys in on the big secret. Just trying to cover all my bases. Report to sick bay for re-education. I’ll take care of this pirate myself.” Alex said, as Jett and Flow looked at each other, then back to Alex as he pulled up their controls on the side panels of his command chair. A targeting reticle appeared over the remaining pirates, and one by one, each was obliterated from full power Reflex gun shots from the ’Graf Spee’s mains. Only the leader’s ship was spared, since it wasn’t going anywhere, at least not FTL.

“Incoming COM!” Jett said, as the COM light on her terminal began flashing.

“Let’s hear what he or she has to say, hmm?” Alex asked, giving her the nod to put it on the main screen.

“Who the hell are you!? I have rights! I also have a letter of marks!” Antilles screamed at them, miss-pronouncing Marque. Alex arched an eyebrow, then stitched the side of his ship with the starboard side Gatling Grazer.

“Captain! Stop pissing these people off! Main power is offline! Thrusters and main fire control is out! I’ve lost all pressure on the main crew deck! If they aren’t in vacc suits, they’re all dead!” His exec yelled. Trying to replace his calm, Antilles turned back to the screen. Alex smiled at him.

“You were saying?” He asked. Antilles seemed to change colors, which was a neat trick considering his natural ebony hue. Finding his calm again, he was about to speak when his COM system went down...

“Lost his signal Cap. You do know who he is right?” Jett asked. Amy shrugged as did Alex.

“A pirate?” He asked.

“Cap, that’s Antilles Black!”

Thinking back during his time in the service, he vaguely remembered hearing about a pirate in the employ of Tiberius, who made life miserable for the Colonies under a privateer’s license.

“Ahh, ok. Slap a tractor on his wreck Flow. Leo, once his ship is secured in trac-lock, fold us to Center.”

“Aye Skipper.” Leo said with a grin.

“Wouldn’t do to make enemies of friends, and any one who picks on the OC’s, well, we should help them too, eh?”

“How many lifesigns a board Jett?” Alex asked the sexy skunk.

“5. Three on the bridge, and two on the main deck. Those two are wearing LSB’s. Good thing too, considering the whole deck is in vacuum.

“Try to COM them, let them know everything is ok.”

“Wait one...Ooook, I have a very upset Commander Case, of Center Security yelling in my ear about what it is we’re doing.”

“Heh heh. Ok, Reassure the Commander that we’re ‘escorting’ Captain Black back to Center. He can do with him what he likes when we arrive.”

“K!”

“Ship secured. I rigged up a few drones with S.I.F. generators around his ship, trying to keep his air loss to a minimum.” Leo said. Alex nodded, and in a slightly less nauseating event, folded them to Center. Using the tractors, Flow launched the Dragoon at Center, where Lorelei grappled it and drug it into one of her commercial shipyard bays.

“Brother? Your handy work I see? I read Reflex damage and grazer scarring.” She said as she appeared in the center of their bridge. Jett and Flow’s eyes were about to bug out of their sockets, since most everyone on Center has spoken to her, but damn few have ever SEEN her...

Turning to face his Captain, Leo asked the only pertinent question.

“Brother?”

“I am Alexander, son of Barnard and Claudia. They were humans who were uplifted by the creators of Center. Lorelei there is my sister. My blood relations sister. Karen is my adopted sister.”

“Wait, the people who actually built this sphere are your parents?!” Val said as she came onto the bridge.

“No, my science and engineering teams, almost 5000 of your years ago, built this station. My dear brother here, well, Mother and Father took him away to keep him from being killed by our masters, the Elder Council of Galhadia.” Lorelei finished.

“Look, this will all make a ton more sense after your re-education. Let’s go.”

Alex said, herding his new crew down to the small room set aside as a sickbay. Within half a day, everyone on board now knew the how’s and why’s and had a working understanding of their upcoming mission: Hunt down and kill Garshans...