As Arblis feels the young girl fall limp within the cocoon of his body, he considers that maybe he went just a little too hard on her. Her unrelenting desire for more even in the face of back to back orgasms had been almost insulting really. Most women never experienced anything close to the sensations she had received with Reika and his members assaulting her holes, and their tentacles playing across her body yet there she was screaming for more. Next time he would allow her to service him instead and see if she could elicit the same level of response. He smiled to himself, thinking of how she would go about the attempt and he reformed himself to carry her from the water. Reika seemed concerned for his mistress, but Arblis sent him emotions of satisfaction, teamwork and a job well done. He raised a hand before the squishy creature, and was pleased to have his gesture returned with a high five (high tentacle?).

He carried the unconscious priestess out of the pool, laid her on a bench at the side of the room, and left her to sleep off the effects of the morning romp while he checked the ship's progress and any new developments that might have come through the sub ether array.

She had just rested though her mind had been overloaded and she needed rest it would not be for long. Reika retracted from her and as Myra was taken from the pool the gills vanished so that her neck seemed meaningless, and unconscious shape change? Perhaps. She had no tail currently though seeing that entering the water was a surprise though this had told him that the changes weren't automatic, that there was a degree of conscious control so a part of her must have been still “conscious” of her surroundings at least.

Unless transforming above the waves had been what was automatic since she spent so much time in this form now that it was her ideal one. He would have to ask her if she knew.

Going through the ship had revealed several things. One the subspace drive cut out and they were in real space. Apparently an unexpected gravity shadow nearly smashed into them to disastrous effects but the drives cut out before then, a safety procedure that work about 80% of the time.

Another had been that the communications system had been lit up, someone or something was transmitting an auto message on a broad band frequency hoping that someone, anyone, would pick up. A distress signal …

Desperate times called for desperate measures. Lieutenant Minerva Rocha had assigned to a cargo ship to guard a new piece of gear that had been discovered by one of the patrols. The device seemed to force any ships that traveling in hyperspace nearby to immediately fall out of hyperspace. It was the perfect device to force any ships that traveling in hyperspace nearby to immediately fall out of hyperspace. It was the perfect device to ensure that any target ship could be ambushed at a point of their own choosing.

So it was no wonder that pirates would have gotten wind of the device and tried to claim for themselves. They were not gentle either as they absolutely wrecked the cargo ship. Minerva had barely managed to escape into a pod before the ship was destroyed. Now the pirates were about to surround her little escape pod.

The agent felt like she had no choice. She hit the device which would force any ship nearby with out of hyperspace. The redhead also hit a distress signal. With luck she somebody would come out of hyperspace with enough firepower to drive off the pirates.

Something was very wrong.

The ship's power supply was still still whirring away, but the ship's guidance system had just shut down the main subspace drive. The computer reported something about a gravitational disturbance, but the scans didn't show anything nearly large enough to be dangerous while in hyperspace. The only meaningful objects he could detect were two crafts, one larger than Myra's and another that seemed to be an escape pod, and the remains of a third ship.

One of the ships must have been broadcasting a distress signal, because moments after the ship dropped back into space/time a message appeared on the screen.

Emergency, this is Agent Minerva Rocha off the ADD requesting immediate assistance from any nearby ship. I am under attack by pirates, out numbered and out gunned. Repeat, I need immediate assistance. The sensors picked up a burst of energy from the larger ship and the signal almost completely faded. If the pirates were looking to destroy that pod, they could have taken it out in a single shot. Arblis didn't envy the agent once her pod was disabled and captured, but he had more important things on his mind at the moment. Like how the hell he and Myra were going to deal with a full crew of space pirates without a subspace drive.

As he attempted to locate the controls to focus the ship's sensors on the potentially hostile ship, Myra hurried in, still naked and wet from the pool.

"Myra, we've got a problem. Something is interfering with the subspace drive, and we are stuck nose to nose with an angry looking group of pirates. What sort of armaments does this ship have?"

Rin glared at the helmsman. Little fish that he was. She regarded the blue scaled fish-like creature and shook her head at the mute creature. All the males of her species had been mute. She was once a male though went through the automatic sex change her species made about three years back now. Her scales had darkened to a deep green and while she adapted to her knew gender she got other abilities as well, such as speak. Not just above but below the waves. It was more like telepathy though all those within 30 feet could hear her though like shouting or whispering she could adjust that tone …

“It is an escape pod, targeting the engines would be paramount to blowing it up. She can't get far and Minerva will be captured soon enough. Bring up the ion guns we will short out the electronics and she'd be dead in space. After all we wouldn't want to destroy what we sought in the first place.”

The attacking pirate craft had disembarked after the crew on this one had been dealt with though Rin wasn't expecting the pesky agent. She was resourceful.

“Open a channel.”

One was opened to the escape pod, whether or not the agent would respond was another matter but Rin wasn't about to hold a conversation with the agent.

“Minerva? It looks as if your plan has failed? Where will you go little mouse? My, my, I'll have to ransom you back to the ADD but first I'm going to show you that my species doesn't loose their prior sex organs when going through our change.”

She was about to signal the helmsman to fire, a single ion pulse should be enough to short out the components there. She liked this ship, it had weak armaments though for blasting apart asteroids and deterring pirate ships though the ion cannons weren't too potent they were a match for other freighters though Rin snapped her head to the human on the sensors as he spoke.

“Another ship, unknown configuration. A freighter!”





Myra had been out of it after their last session though alarms woke her. They had disengaged from hyper space and that could only mean a few things, the dangers of a gravity well being detected was high on the list. With objects always in motion even the computers failed to plot safe courses from time to time. Other times pirates would tow asteroids into space lanes with tractor beams forcing a ship into real space though often there were no asteroids in a given area.

Regardless there was some sort of danger and weary muscles groaned as she rushed forth to the cock pit. Not pirates, wait … huh, what was going on here? She could hear the message cycling over and over. An escape pod, another ship.

“Weapons?” There were some upgrades when she had gone to Mistah some months back. The primitive Craiglords were given energy weapons by the Undine. Though her ship had concealed weapons, which of course were illegal.

Rushing to a control panel she hit a few buttons popping out a half turret. “Half turret of moderate strength fires front, left and right. I have an ion cannon in the back to dissuade pursuit. That's about it but the turret is pretty strong, one of the advantages of being a Princess, it's military grade.”

She was use to running though the lasers where there in case she ran into any Undine ships near Mistah. She got on her com.

“This is Princess Myra V'al of the Vodran home world, cease hostilities at once -” it was an open channel so the escape pod would pick up the message as well.

“Princess -” there was a dark chuckle but all that had been said in response was the single word as the ship's shields and weapons were coming on line and it looked as if they had another target in mind so unless Arblis had something it appeared that they would have a fight on their hands.

Myra had the better ship though it was designed for evading conflict it had been manufactured by a government rather than a private company and the quality was better. Shields were stronger, as were the weapons seeing that this wasn't the pirate's attacking vessel but one where they left a prize crew behind and about ready to depart themselves if it were not for Minerva's meddling.

The agent had hoped that her escape pod would somehow manage be lost in the wild combat that occurred just moments ago. However, these pirates were pretty through, making sure that was no way anyone would get away. Apparently they had been well informed as well, as a channel crackled to life.

The pirate captain called out the Lieutenant out by name, clearly identifying that the redheaded agent onboard of the escape pod. The female probably also probably knew that the feisty woman had also attempted to escape with the device as well.

You won’t get away with this. All seemed lost for the young agent as the pirates were finally surrounding her.

It was then that the radio crackled again, this time a different voice on board. The voice identified herself as a princess and she was demanding that that all fighting stop. The agent assumed that she was have drawn a warship into the fray. Little did Minerva realize that she had drawn in a freighter albeit a heavily armed one.

Still this was an opportunity and one that the agent would not squander. Lieutenant Rocha began to maneuver the escape pod towards the new ship. She had little fuel but it would be enough to get her there. Hopefully the ship would pick up the escape pod. It had to be better than being captured by the pirates.

This was going to be tight. Myra's ship was impressively armed, but he had no way of determining the pirate's strength. Ion guns weren't cheap, and were never a ship's primary weapon. If they were firing on the escape pod with those, he had to assume they were as well armed as Myra. They needed a way to buy time until the subspace drive was functional again, and escape.

"Myra, we need to get to that pod before they do. Once they have what ever it is they're after, we'll be next. Fire a warning shot in front of them. Maybe it will slow them long enough to get the pod on board. They won't risk destroying our ship with whatever that agent is carrying, and I can handle things if they try to board us."

The ship vibrated as the forward cannon fired a blast, barely missing the bridge of the pirate vessel. It shifted course, trying to turn its forward weapon battery on the Wave Breaker, but they were going to be too slow. The escape pod was already on course to rendezvous with the freighter, and and by the time the privateers were in position to fire, the pod would be in danger if any shots went astray.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________

"Captain, the Vordani ship has opened fire."
Rin delivered a swift backhand to sensor officer's head before calling out to her helms man.

I can see that you idiot. Bring us around and focus our main battery on the little princess. I would have loved to take her alive, but that blast could have done some damage if she had any guts. Blast that ship to dust before they can reach the pod. If that agent gets aboard she will turn off the device and be gone before we can do anything. Even if their shields hold, make sure our ion blasts knock out their propulsion."

The weak side battery opened fire, while the main gun was brought around. Several shots hit Wave Breaker, but its shields withstood them with ease. What sort of freighter had that sort of protection? A Vordani princess' obviously..

Hold fire on the main cannon until the ion gun is ready to shoot. The main gun might not break through those shields, but they should be weakened enough for the ion blast to short out some systems.

“They're not trying to destroy it?” Myra spoke a loud more so to herself as she hit a few buttons. The thing was she would have loved to obey with a warning shot. She was not really good at shooting though it was just a warning shot. She was better at evasion, being without support she fought when backed into a corner or now.

She had no idea about the pirates though that single word was haunting. It wasn't one that she had found familiar and clearly the pirate knew her but she had no idea as to who the captain was and it was best that she had not been aware that it was one of those filthy Undine.

Her shot is surprisingly close and almost hit serving as an attack rather than a warning if that were the case. Her aim with these things were terrible but seeing that the pirates wanted the escape pod intact she weaved about using it as a shield.

Occasional bursts hit the shields though the vessel did not even rock, shield strength was holding and they wouldn't feel it until they were depleted or …

Shit! A miscalculation on her part as she briefly flicked to the sensors. Her main focus was on piloting though it looked as if they were bringing up that ion cannon and if they accidentally hit the escape pod then it would not go up in a fireball either.

“Target that cannon,” she says in haste to Arblis as if he were a crew member. She focuses in on the flying for now getting hit meant something. The ion cannon would bypass the shields and would act as an EMP pulse shorting out their electronics, it might take a few hits to make it completely dead in space though each blast would effect the handling of the ship making their computers go on the skits for jumps out of here and the like.

“Brace for impact.” Well, it looked as if all that back pay would be dump in fixing the ship. They were speeding towards the escape pod and Myra released some of the fail safes turning the ship a full 360 degrees as she decelerated as the cargo bay opened to allow the escape pod in she just hoped that that pod was slowing down too otherwise this could be catastrophic. The shields were designed to ward off energy though there was a second set of shields to deflect small debris and micro asteroids they obviously were ineffective against something so large.

Snatch and go she hoped though if the collision was too severe it could knock out the ion cannon back there one that could be fired from her or a station at the rear of the ship near the cargo hold ...

The agent continued to try to coax the escape pod to move as quickly as possible. The escape pod was not meant for this type of work, it was simply designed to keep its occupant alive as long as possible. The last thing that an escape pod was designed for was to be caught in the middle of firefight between two larger ships.

At once a shots were exchanged between the two larger ships. The agent could not help but notice the light display that was passing between the two ships, sometimes just meters away from her ship. The young woman could not help but admire how pretty they were. Of course if even one hit her little pod, she would be killed in an instant.

The freighter began to turn as it approached the pod. The turn began to pick up in speed, making the agent wondering how it could turn so quickly. Soon the ship had completely turned around so that its cargo hatch was positioned towards the escape pod. Minerva’s eyes went wide as she realized what the freighter was trying to do.

As the cargo hatched opened, Minerva fired her front thrusters on the pod in a desperate attempt to slow down her ship. She knew she would not be able to slow down completely, but hopefully it would be enough to ensure that she doesn’t destroy her pod or the cargo bay. The agent disengaged the device, hoping that they could all escape as soon as possible. Then the redhead braced for impact….

Arblis very nearly shot back a biting remark about how he had only been on this ship half a day, and most of that was spent inside her, but he decided there were more important matters at hand. A tendril of his essence reached up to her head and dove into her mind, searching for the memories related to the ship's controls. Thankfully, controlling the ship had her entire focus and he had no difficulty extracting some of her training. In fact, he probably remembered it better than her in the heat of the moment.

He sprang into action, aiming the main cannon at the enemy weapons battery and unleashing a powerful bolt of energy. The enemy shields lit up with the strain of deflecting the blast and the privateer vessel swung drunkenly with the impact. Arblis looked at the screen in astonishment. Myra had not been joking when she said this ship had military grade armaments. A second blast barely missed as the pirates dodged and rolled. A third connected directly on the broadside, and one of the smaller guns there went ceased its barrage of nearly insignificant pokes against Wave Breaker's shields.

Unfortunately, the force of the blast helped bring the slower ship around quickly enough for the ion cannon to lock onto the speedy freighter. As he saw the tell-tale glow of the weapon preparing to fire, Myra screamed for him to brace himself, and everything in the ship was thrown to the side as the ship spun. He alone was left unaffected, in the same way his immunity to gravity allowed flight, but it was a disconcerting feeling to float motionless while all the surrounding reference points shifted.

Three things happened nearly simultaneously. First, his forth shot from the main cannon fired, and by some miracle landed a direct hit on the enemy ship's main cannon. With that down, they had no way to actually destroy the Wave Breaker.

Unfortunately, the impact of the escape pod in the cargo bay nearly did the job for them. The entire ship lurched again and warning alarms indicated that there was some structural damage in the hold. A quick glance told him the energency systems could handle it, before the screen flickered to fuzz.

The enemy's Ion cannon had just impacted, seriously hampering the guidance and weapons systems.

After a moment, he was able to pull up a status report, and the news was not good.

"We're in trouble Myra. Shields are still holding, but the damage from the hold and the Ion shot had dropped engine capacity to just over 30%. There was no way we are going to jump out of here until the entire computer system has had a chance to reboot. Worse, the main cannon has been knocked off its alignment, and it will take time for the computer to re-calibrate the targeting system. Until then, hitting anything will be dumb luck."

As if to accent the last point, his next shot went only vaguely in the direction of the pirates. Thankfully, one of the side cannons still seemed to be functional. It didn't seem to have the strength to pierce the enemy shields, but it would prevent them from assaulting using a boarding vessel. If they were foolish enough to dock the main ship the the Wave Dancer, these pirates would quickly discover how dangerous he was in a fight.
_____________________________________________________________________________________________________________
The pirate ship shook and shuddered with each blast from the Vordani craft.
"The main cannon is down captain, but the ion cannon is ready to fire."
Rin smacked the weapons officer as well, mostly for being the bearer of bad news, but also to be fair to the sensor officer on her other side.

"Well what are you waiting for you idiot? Open fire."

Rin smiled to herself as the monitor showed a direct hit with the ion cannon. Just as well the main gun was offline. She would enjoy tormenting the bitch during the journey to Vanejin VI and its notorious slave pens. Besides, she still needed to reclaim the device from...

"Wait, where is the escape pod?"

The sensor office from earlier answered, carefully leaning his head out of reach.
"It appeared to collide with the rear of the freighter captain. They must have opened their hold for it to dock. At the rate it was traveling, they probably sustained some significant damage."

Rin cursed herself for letting the ADD agent escape in the first place.

"We are going to have to board them. Take out their engines with the Ion cannon and bring us along side."

The ship was rocked with the hit though the quick spin showed how maneuverable the ship was. The inertial dampeners were the only thing that let the sharp maneuver be pulled off. Definitely in atmosphere she could not hope to pull this off even with her ship that lurched forward as the escape pod slammed into the cargo hold.

Fortunately the only thing there was the submarine on the ship but seeing that the ship did not go up in a fireball they had succeeded in their snatch and grab but at a steep price.

On the one hand whatever was suppressing them from jumping ended though they could not jump. This told her that the agent was alive or that a device on the escape pod had been destroyed. She saw a glimpse of the status of the ship before the screen went dead.

Shields were down, hull integrity in the rear of the ship had been severely down. Their targeting was off and it looked as if another direct hit would make them dead in space too.

“There's the rear facing ion cannon.” Unless the agent made it there an operator could switch of control from the bridge though there were ways of bypassing that from the bridge with default settings of course. Baring disabling that ship it looked as if they were about to be boarded. She would have to do her best flying, no pressure. Further, that ion cannon of theirs only fired in the rear arc so if the pirates pulled along side of them they could only use the half turret which had been on the fritz.

“We could surrender … trick them into boarding though I have no idea how many pirates there are or if you and the agent can handle them while I effect some repairs.”

After a second she flicked on communications to contact the escape pod. “Still alive back there?”

Minerva would was literally rocked as the escape pod slams inside the ship that was her would be savior. Panels exploded in the tiny space as the agent was sure that she had crashed her last ship. There was no way the red head was going to survive this.

Fortunately today not her day to die, as the straps on her seat kept her from flying into the console in front of her. Still she let out a loud gasp as the wind was knocked completely out of her.

For the moment the agent was struggling to breath as she was complete shrouded in darkness. Slowly though the agent began to recover as she struggled to get herself free of the seat’s restraints. The agent’s body was sore from head to toe, but somehow she lived.

The young woman soon began to make her way to the hatch. Minerva stumbled over not quite sure of her bearings or her balance after that ride.

The hatch literally fell off the pod crashing to the ground. The agent stumbled into the cargo bay or what remained of it. Her escape pod had really did a number on the insides of the ship, Minerva was fortunate not to have destroyed the ship, though the escape pod was never going to be used again. She would have to make sure that she could help her would be rescuers as best she could and maybe they could all get away together.

It was then that the voice spoke in her communicator. S-somehow. Although I am not sure how. How can I help?

Arblis looked at her with the most serious expression she had ever seen on his face. "Believe me, if they try to board this ship what the agent can or can't do won't matter. Either they have someone capable of fighting me head on, which is incredibly unlikely, or I will tear through them like a knife through butter." The matter-of-factness of his statement was chilling, and he saw Myra hurriedly turn back to the controls.

There wasn't much he could do on the bridge anymore. Myra would be able to handle the flying and he needed to be ready to meet the boarding party as soon as it breached the ship. He hurried through the corridors to where he had left Coran's circlet and scooped it up in a tendril of smoke before hurrying towards the cargo bay.

It was a complete wreck, but somehow the ADD agent had survived and was just crawling out of the pod. He heard Myra's voice over the intercom, and as Minerva responded he spoke. "They are going to try to board us, so you need to be ready to fight." She whirled to face him as he continued. "The rear facing ion cannon controls are over there, man those while you give me a rundown on who we are up against."

(OOC I don't really have time to write up the pirate's side today. You can either write them up yourself or I will edit this later tonight.)

(on it a quiet morning for me)



Good, she had survived. It was very risky indeed the way she had gone about getting that escape pod on board but if she tried getting it any other way she would have likely gotten them all vaporized and at least now the pirates had switched to nonlethal measures … that voice of their captain played back in her head and she figured that it was only for now.

Arblis seemed, well, scary. It was highly unlikely that the other ship had something capable but she did not realize what they had after all. It was just a matter of time before they were hit again before she could get those repairs under way though she did not make it easy zigging and zagging.

“You can man that ion cannon agent until they board. I'm going to try to get them to board on the port side.”

She would juke the ship trying to give Minerva plenty of opportunities though they weren't the best of shots giving the handling of the ship had been down. When they were hit she tried to spun the ship so that the pirates were presented with the port side before the controls went dead and the lights went dim. The only thing for her now was to arm herself and go join the others … no, once the ionization ran it's course and back up systems fired up and rebooted as the ionization wasn't strong enough to burn out systems but making them dead for a few minutes if she were not here their retreat might suffer …


---


The Undine. At least the captain was a female and some of the crew male though the pirates had comprised mostly of the Kreslar, a reptilian species that had been gruff and weak willed though physically strong and intimidating. There were a few others with the pirates, human out laws that made up the mix and when the ship finally went dead the pirates wasted no time in docking with them, plasma torches slicing through the door then halting before one final push could be made against it. Some hit it, probably with the butt of a rifle and a smoke grenade was thrown into the ship to provide cover for Grimm, the first of the Kreslar that issued through.

He was wearing goggles that granted him heat vision though with the smoke he concentrated on the largest heat signature that he saw as he stormed forth followed by other Krelar and two of the mute Undine males. Six in all with another six on the pirate vessel itself though on standby if there were troubles.

The Undine males had Tri-Blasts, weapons scavenged from conflict with the Vodran though they had not personally face them, that's where the weapons came from. The Krelar had energy rifles set to stun and that's what they tried now, stunning shots would do no damage to the prize they sought and Rin wanted both the Princess and Minerva alive. The former because it was so delightful for the Vodrani to suffer at the hands of the Undine and the later to teach a lesson to. Both would die when they were no longer amusing or sold into slavery as their had been no profit to be made in their deaths.

Minerva was still trying to get her bearings as she moved through the remains of the cargo bay. The young woman checked herself to make sure she was not injured merely sore from the crash landing in the cargo bay. Fortunately, for the redhead that it seemed that she was just sore and had not sustained any serious injury.

As she moved forward the voice responded with a task for the agent to perform. Roger, I’m on it. The agent didn’t like the idea of having pirates boarding the ship. However if they had no choice on whether the pirates would board, at least they could control how they board.


Minerva had just managed to get to the ion gun’s controls, when the ship began to juke to avoid the pirates fire. It made it difficult for the agent to aim, but she had to make the best of it to fire on the pirates. Unfortunately for the redhead, it did not take long for the a hit to disable the ship. To the princess’s credit she was able to turn the ship one last time before so that the port side would be exposed to the pirates as planned. Hopefully the pirates would take the bait.

The agent knew she was going to have to hurry to the port side if she was going to assist in repelling any borders. The agent cursed that her inability to stop her pod in time was enabling the pirates come aboard. Still there was little time to worry about it as she drew her pistol and headed to port side.