Chapter 112 - The Scout

(Independent Trader Precious Harlot, Nuevo Edo Gateway)

It will be good to get somewhere civilized, so I can get this damn plug out of my ass.

In the privacy of her own mind, Samantha Michaels, slave-pilot of the Precious Harlot, cursed her Master for making her wear the large plug inside her ship suit for the duration of their trip to Nuevo Edo from Consortium space. Fortunately, the Gateway took off most of the distance or she’d have been REALLY fucking sore by the time they got to Nuevo Edo.

Her Master was a Gauz male, the Owner/Operator of the Precious Harlot. Why would a Gauz have a human slave as his pilot? Basically it boiled down to their different strengths. When it came to designing, building, and upgrading machines, the Gauz were still considered the best there were, even with the Nomads coming in and throwing off the averages. Their mercenaries were so well renowned that there were full-on armored units that would take one look at a position held and fortified by Gauz units, and either find a way to go around, or call in an orbital bombardment. Anything else was basically begging to lose upwards of seventy percent of your force, especially if they’d had time to really dig in.

However, they couldn’t pilot for shit. Oh sure, they had a few (mostly females, for whatever reason) that had the ‘knack’ for flying, but most were simply too methodical for their own good. Which was perfectly fine if you were running a shipping company in nice, safe areas with either military escorts or military not far off so you could deal with raiders. Not so great if you needed anything remotely requiring fancy flying.

So the Gauz, pretty much as soon as they’d made first contact with other species, and found that some of them were damn fine pilots, began acquiring their services. Sometimes that involved hiring them on. Sometimes it didn’t. It was the poorest kept secret in the galaxy that the largest importer of slaves in Known Space was the Consortium, and humans were their favorites, since they were adaptable, and prolific breeders, meaning there was always a ready supply if a slave got uppity or broken and needed to be replaced.

Unfortunately for Samantha, she had not understood the full situation when she had decided to start the game in Consortium space, not wanting to deal with the Civil War or the possibility of the Confederacy invading. Since local laws were fairly devious in how they supported ‘traditional’ Gauz culture, she had quickly found herself judicially enslaved thanks to some violation she still didn’t understand, and had been sold to her bastard of a Master, Aldreac Coppercoat.

She’d been going for a DEX-based build, since she’d wanted to be a gadgeteer (hence why she’d gone with the Gauz Consortium to begin with), but she hadn’t so much as touched tools in months, not since they’d given her skill downloads to make her a Pilot and a Courtesan. So now she was the primary pilot for the Harlot, and the primary bedwarmer for her master, with a Defiance collar to make sure she behaved. The only good thing about any of this was that the bastard didn’t like to share. As long as he was happy with her, she wasn’t at risk of being passed around to the crew.

Oh, she also had the role of ‘emergency medic’, since she’d been taught a Psy Power called ‘Pain Transfer’. Basically, she took damage from one person and gave it to another, healing target A to damage target B. The basic version was touch range, but her Master had paid to get her taught an upgraded version, which gave her a range of about ten meters. Not exactly ideal, but she could transfer damage from one person within ten meters of her to another person within ten meters. So far, she had been able to get away with just acting as a conduit, for the most part, instead of taking damage herself, but whether she took the damage or not, she felt everything. And it sucked.

She had considered having an ‘accident’ that killed everyone on the ship, but she’d put that aside so far. Not only did she not have any resources to pull off an escape like that Black Star guy did, but she’d been reading up on the forums, and if an enslaved Nomad went splat with their non-Nomad owners, then when they respawned it was as an ‘escaped slave’, and were subject to capture until they got their collar or chip removed. And she (quite rightly) wasn’t trusted with anything more critical than navigation and the piloting controls, so she couldn’t ‘accidentally’ space the fucker and fly on with her new ship.

She sighed to herself, and followed the instructions from Nuevo Edo control. They had four ‘gunboats’ by the gate, though it took her a while to see the second set. The first two were clearly local government, nice and visible so everyone knew the locals were armed. The second set shadowing them were Black Star craft. Even as a slave, she’d heard about what the Black Stars had done in that recent war in the Empire. She did not want to mess with those ships. Fortunately, the Harlot was a legitimate trader, even if they sometimes went questionable places, so they shouldn’t have trouble.

Of course, as a legitimate trader, they had commercial hyperlight engines, and that meant in-system FTL wasn’t really an option, since it took the engines too long to warm up. They were extremely efficient, about twenty to thirty times less fuel intensive than military models, but they did not react well to sudden transitions into or out of FTL speeds. That meant they were in for a nine hour cruise to Nuevo Edo. Not seeing anything on the screens to give her pause, she followed her standard orders for in-system flight, and set things on automatic before leaning back in her chair to rest. She wasn’t allowed to leave her station until she was relieved, or her Master called her to his bed. However, the asshole at least didn’t expect her to be constantly awake, so long as she was at her post and ready to take over if the alarms went off.

(Hunter-Scout Ship, Nuevo Edo system)

It had taken the Scout a long time to slip into the system unnoticed. These prey were not so soft and helpless as they were the last time the Hunters had been this way. They had ships that were of a design they had not seen, and they were armed, that much the Scout could tell easily from the scans of the white ships. This did not worry the Scout.

No, what worried (worried? Perhaps not. Concerned? Yes, that was better) – concerned the Scout was that they were detecting ripples in the Great Fabric where they could not sense the presence of ships. If the prey had developed, or gained access to, technology that allowed them to hide their ships from the Scout’s scans, then that meant the Prey might be worthy of the attention of the Hunters. But the Scout needed to know more before the rest of the Hunters were informed. Ripples across the Great Fabric were too indistinct to be used to target the Hunting ships, after all.

The Scout needed to find a suitable Prey to capture so they could get the information needed. Fortunately, one of the Prey ships were floating close to the Scout now, unaware that a Hunter was hidden in the blackness nearby. For a zithad, the Hunter considered the different ways to take the Prey ship without ruining the Prey inside, preferably without alerting the entire system that the Hunter was here. This Prey promised to be challenging enough to hunt. There was no need to put the whole system on alert because their drives were discovered.

The Prey ship was an old design, unlike the new ones that could be seen and felt across the system. The Hunters had records of this kind of ship from the fighting in another arm of the galaxy. These Prey ships were used to carry goods from place to place, and rarely ran with more than minimal shields unless they were warned of trouble. But they did not see the Scout. A lance to two specific parts of the ship would leave the Prey ship dead in the water, and unable to communicate with the rest of the system. It would take the skill of a trained Hunter to make the shots. For a Hunter Scout, the skill required was like accompanying a youngling on the First Hunt.

(Independent Trader Precious Harlot, Nuevo Edo)

Samantha awoke to the sound of alarms going off across the bridge, coupled with the feeling of weightlessness as the ship’s artificial gravity stuttered, and then failed altogether as main power failed. Emergency power kicked in, but the Master had long ago decided not to use the emergency batteries to power something like gravity, when they could get more time on life support so they could try and fix the problem with the mains. Immediately, she sent out the distress signal, only to find that whatever had happened to them had destroyed their communication array.

That was not good. She brought up damage reports, and cursed. They hadn’t been hit by asteroids. Those were Grav Lance weapons! Who the hell still used grav lances? They were the ultimate in short-range weapons, sure, but the maximum range for those things had to be only a few thousand kilometers…

Oh shit. Looking back to the sensor readings, she tried to find where the ship that hit them was, but nothing was on her screens. Just a little trace heat a thousand meters off their bow. Wait, switching to visual scanners, she was able to see that something was damn close to the Harlot, thanks to how the blackness blocked the stars. They had a ship closing in on them! Ramming? No. They were going to dock!

CLUNK!

The sound carried through the weightless innards of the ship, as the alien ship locked on to their hull. Quickly, Samantha hit the controls that locked the bridge down, and watched on the internal cameras to see what happened. She could see the Gauz crew, including her Master, trying to set up a position in the cargo bay, but the lack of gravity made that difficult, but they managed to get to the door of the main corridor and lock in with their mag boots, ready to kill anything that came through the glowing outline that said someone was cutting through their hull.

Samantha saw the glowing outine shine, and sparks flew as the cutter penetrated the hull cleanly enough. Then the metal section of hull was pushed, slowly floating into the cargo bay. She cursed as the hull section moved in front of the camera she’d had trained on the cargo hold, and she heard shouts of anger and alarm from the crew. Whatever they saw was not what they’d been expecting. She could see blasts coming the other way on the corridor camera.

Right, she had to do something. But what? She had sealed the bridge, but she had no power and no communications. She didn’t even have a weapon in here, other than the plug in her ass, and she didn’t think that would impress anyone who got past the crew. If only anyone on her friends list was in system… Wait, the in-system chat!

(Nomad OOC Chat – Nuevo Edo System)

Parca: Seriously, Boss, when we going to go and get some action again? The boys are getting restless.

GunKitty: Poor flyboys. Go on down to the surface and impress those ladies with your war stories. The Marines have seen so much ‘action’ that I think even they are starting to ask for a break.

MajorTom: Never thought I’d see the day, but yeah, I’m hearing a couple are getting tired out.

SammyBaby has entered the chat.

SammyBaby: HELP! Independent trader Precious Harlot en route to Nuevo Edo from the Gateway is under attack! We’ve lost engines, lost communications, and are being borded!

M.Mollen: Parca, scramble the alert fighters. Raven will send you coordinates.

Parca: On it!

Parca has left the chat.

M.Mollen: Sammy, any details you can give us? Ship type, species, what the borders look like?

SammyBaby: Ship is black, only saw it because it blocked stars as it docked with us. Camera in the cargo hold is blocked by debris as we are null-grav. I’m currently locked down on the bridge. Rest of the crew is down. Unknown if dead or stunned. I see them… Oh god!

M.Mollen: What are they, Sammy?

SammyBaby: X’thari! We are under attack by X’thari raiders!

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Be sure to read my published works!

Frozen Soul series (Sci-Fi Supervillain story):
Frozen Soul https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071R125QT
Tales of the Void Traveler https://www.amazon.com/dp/B06ZZ52G37

Rules-Free VRMMO Life (Dark Fantasy GameLit):
Volume 1 - Tutorial https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071VPRNDB
Omnibus 1 - Volumes 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0774T354X

Into the Black (Sci-Fi GameLit):
Book I - Game Start https://www.amazon.com/dp/B071LT5WGL
Omnibus I - Books 1-4 https://www.amazon.com/dp/B077X2KR7Y

City of Champions Online (Superhero GameLit):
Issue I - Origin Stories https://www.amazon.com/dp/B075SHXQS1

Lewd Dungeon (Dungeon Core GameLit):
Book 1 - Welcome to the Apocalypse https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BB34DHF

The Kalipshae Affair (A First Contact Short Story): https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0739V6R6T