The Pirates of the FireStar Nebula

<< reserved for Oreo>>

:: Bridge, The Sudden Death ::

As Captain Niko Naverre sat at the bridge of his battle hardened stolen Defiant class starship in a mood. It had been 2 weeks since the Federation had put out the annoucement about avoiding the Firestar Nebula Traderoute due to increased piracy! Since then, the Federation had sent out more ships on patrol in a vain effort to secure the tradelanes.

Those patrols had not been the problem at all. He could easily disappear into the nebula for every if he had too...

The problem was that the tradeships... for the most part were heeding the warning, which took away from his money. He hated everything that the Federation stood for and eventually... he would find a way to destroy them... somehow...

"Captain! We have incoming." The Klingon warrior, Kroto, barked from security. The Klingon was a tall powerful man who wore a pair of twin disruptors at his sides and a battleh on his back at all times.

"Patrol?" The Captain asked... there was a long pause and he said, "Well?"

"No Captain! It is a trader..." The Kroto barked with a hint of excitement in him!

"Double check it. Make sure it is not some kind of Federation trick!" THe Captain said trying not to get too excited just yet. They had had a few times in which the Federation sent out decoys or bait to try and lure him out but he had sniffed it out every single time. Partially because of his ship to ship network throughout his small fleet which kept close eye on the tradelanes and all traffic in and out of the area.

"Sir... the trader is confirmed... " The Cardassian, Dutar, said from his position at the comm. He said, "The Death Stroke, the Firestorm, and the Dukota all confirm no other ships in the area."

"This is it profitable..." The Ferengi, Quik, said from Helm. Quik was the ship's money man... who piloted the craft and who had almost as many smuggling connections are the Captain himself.

"Wait till it gets within range... keep an eye on the horizon.. it could be a trap..." The Captain barked, "All ahead one quarter impulse till we clear the nebula then all ahead full!"

THe ship launched forward through the nebula to attack...




http://i247.photobucket.com/albums/gg121/Powerdog16/NikoNavarre.jpg

"Shit," muttered Osa Spader, as her human companion alerted her of a ship on radar. She was the only Federation ship on the route, at that time. The patrol ships weren't scheduled to make rounds for another... well, for a while. And hers was the only Trader that dared take the route. It was the fastest route to Earth, and she wasn't exactly a patient woman.

"I believe they've located us," the third human said in an urgent and obviously worried voice. He hadn't wanted to come along in the first place. But there was a minimum need for passengers, to fly the Trader properly, and Osa had always had a way of... getting her way with him.

He, along with only four others, and Osa, had been the only ones willing to take the route, and so, with Osa captaining the small trade ship, they'd embarked for Earth. Osa knew, as the rest of them did, exactly what'd likely happen to them if they were captured. That was part of the reason the crew was mostly males that had nothing to lose. Three were under investigation by the Federation, and ordinarly wouldn't have been allowed to be on a Federation ship, but one of Osa's talents was getting what she wanted, and she knew how helpful those two men could be. Another had lost his family to the pirates, and wanted nothing more than revenge. And then there was Vo... Vo was Osa's best friend from the academy, and was just as pissed at the pirates as Osa was.

Together, the six of them had flown to and from Earth, successfully, a number of times. This was going to be their first encounter, if they couldn't avoid it.

"Should we turn around?" The same man asked.

"No, David," Osa replied. She rolled her eyes. "Grow a pair," she told him, gritting her teeth, thinking over the situation. "Vo?"

"They could take us down in an instant," she responded, knowing exactly what Osa wanted to know. She grinned at her friend. "Let's do it."

Osa grinned back, but her eyes scanned her crew. Really, David was the only one that looked like he didn't want to take the bastards on. "Stay the course. Marsh, be prepared to take over the auto-pilot. There's no one I'd trust more to get us out of this."

The Sudden Death dropped out of the nebula and sped up to full! There was no subtlety in their intentions. The armed up all weapons, raised shields and moved in fast! As part of his strategy, he activated hidden beacons throughout the passageway that knocked out communications with all but a very specific frequency.

He said, "Patch me through to the Death Strike" He moved his hand to his pistol to ensure it was in tact still...

"Captain!" The human captain known as Marcus said from the screen. He was a rough looking man with a full beard. He wore a scar on his neck. He said, "We see them."

"You know the drill. If we don't get em, activate the mine field as a last resort."

"Aye Captain." He killed the comm. Niko then turned to Dutar and open scrambled commlink. Inform them that they wil power down engines and prepare to be boarded or face the consequences!

"Aye Captain!" Dutor said as he quickly began preparing the message! After a moment he gave a nod and said, "Message sent sir!"

"Good... Helm, if they do not agree, get us within 50 Km or them. Tactical. Target weapons and then engines. Standby till we get their answer..." Captain Niko said as he watched the tradeship race as fast as it's little engines to take them...

"Communications are down, Osa," David told her, struggling with the equipment. That wasn't good. "I'll try and find a frequency, but my guess is they're jamming us." He began fidgeting with things, working his hardest to find something that worked.

“They’ve picked up speed,” Vo added in. She watched the radar, her eyes glaring at it with intensity that could kill a dog. No one, not even Osa, knew why she hated the pirates so much. She wanted nothing more than to do battle with them. If she died in the process, so be it, but she’d be damned if she didn’t take some of them with her in the process.

“Marsh.” Osa said simply. Marsh nodded and swiftly took manual control of the ship.

“Others on radar, Osa,” Vo piped up again. “I count four total.”

“Message coming in,” David said. “Seems to be from the large ship.” He paused. “They want us to power down our engines… and prepare to be boarded… or face the consequences.”

Vo’s boisterous laugh pierced through the room. “Yeh, right.” She said. Then she paused. “Actually,” she looked at her friend. “That could be a good idea,” she told her.

Osa looked at her curiously. “Why’s that?”

“Because that gives us a chance at hand to hand,” Jon Walker cut in, glaring at Vo. He was there for tactical. Not her. And yet, she always seemed to give her two cents. “We have no chance of defeating them ship to ship. We’re skilled at hand to hand.”

“We can’t possibly take out four ships.” Osa responded, her mind mulling things over.

“Can’t take out even one on this thing,” Axel said, adding his voice to the mix. “I’m good, but I’m not that good.” He gave her a charming smile, one he was well known for, and turned back around in his chair.

“I don’t think I can outmaneuver all of ’em, either,” Marsh said, hating to admit it.

Osa sighed. She hated what she had to do. “Cut the engines, Axel.” She said, finally.

"They are powering down Captain!" Dutor said with a sneer! He said, "What a shame... I was hoping for at least some kind of resistance."

Captain Niko was not so excited. Sure they powered down their ship, but that did not mean that they did not have some kind of surprise. Perhaps they hoped to get out of this with handheld weapons. He said, "Kroto, you are with me. Prepare an assault team to secure the ship."

He turned and headed off the bridge and towards the transporter rooms. He looked at the transporter chief and said, "Do you have them?"

"I have counted 6 total. I am ready to lock on them." The chief said.

"Good." He checked and spotted a group of 10 walking into the room, weapons drawn and levelled at the transporter. He looked to Kroto and then the chief and said, "Go ahead... beam them over here..."

He smiled as the chief said, "Locking... got them..." 6 swirls of energy began to materialize on the pad! Once they were released from the transporter, he said, "I am Captain Niko. Put your weapons down and surrender and I promise no harm will come to you."

The group of them waited, all of them, except Vo, looking to Osa for their next move. And then they were beamed. As they rematerialized on the strange ship, Osa took a step forward, holding her hand up to her crew, as if to say "Ignore the bastard, you do as I say."

"My crew will not follow your orders," she sneered, sizing the man up. "They listen to me, and only me. You want them to put down their weapons? You're gonna have to give them a better reason than living. We'd rather die fighting than be taken by the likes of you. You have nothing to offer us, nothing we want."

Vo was shaking, visibly. The hatred she felt for these men bubbled inside of her. And there was their leader. She knew she could take him. "Big man, talking behind guns. Bet you wouldn't be so cocky if it were just you and me,"

Osa clenched her teeth, only for a moment. "Stand down," she said. She refrained from using Vo's name. They didn't need to know who they'd captured. It didn't matter. "I've seen men like this. They don't deny their arrogance. They think they're "big" because they have the advantage, not the advantage allows them to be big."

She looked at the man, considering something. “Captain Niko, eh?” He was one of the few humans she’d noticed in her brief glance around the room. That intrigued her. She waved her hand now, at her crew. “Put them down.”

The group looked at each other, and then at her, obviously confused. They didn’t want to relinquish their weapons! “I said down,” she repeated, keeping her voice even. She understood that they couldn’t know what was running through her head, but they had to trust her. She was only worried about the two that had lost family members to these men. Marsh and Axel. Vo hated them more, but she trusted Osa, too. Marsh and Axel really had nothing to lose. Slowly, they all did as they were told.

The Captain did not give into to their petty baiting of him. Truth was he simply did not care what they said. He was not stupid enough to take away any advantage that he ever got. THere was no point to that. As they dropped their weapons, the guards moved in and began to search and cuff all 6 of them. They seemed to pay particular close attention to the Captain and the one known as Vo...

Once they were secured. He said, "Take those five to the cells. Seperate them. I don't want them even speaking to each other. We will figure out what to do with them later... Her... send the Captain to my ready room... She and I have business to discuss..."

Once the prisoners were gone, he turned to his Security officer and said, "We don't have much time. Take charge of that ship over there. Let's get it back to the nebula so we can take our time going through it before the patrols show up..."

He watched his officer and four others walk to the transporter PAD and be whisked away. He knew they would quickly find a way to dispose of any traps that might be set and take charge of the vessel.

He turned and headed back to the bridge. By the time he got there, Kroto had already contacted the bridge and given the ship secure signal. Captain Riko said, "Good. Bring us about, back into the nebula. Let the fleet know they can resume their patrols."

Dumar nodded and began working his controls. 22 minutes later, the tradeship and the Sudden Death were hidden so deep inside the nebula no patrol vessel would ever find them. He said, "Send crews over to start assessing what they had on the vessel. Bring everything over that can turn a profit..." He turned to Quik, his ferengi and said, "You are in charge of that. Go."

As the crew went about their business of cleaning out that ship, he turned himself to the ready room and then got up and walked into it. When he stepped inside he smiled when he found her arms high overhead, shacked to a set of piping. She was barely able to even step on her tip toes to give her shoulders any relief. He could see that even her legs were shackled down to an iron ring in the floor itself.

He said, "Ahhh... Captain... that looks quite unconfortable. What a shame... So tell me... what kind of defenses does your ship have? Trust me when I say you don't want to be the one responsible for the death of a single member of my crew."

Vo glared at Osa with absolute disbelief. She was not OK with being taken. Why had she allowed this. For the first time in a long time, Vo wanted to cry, out of anger, out of hurt, out of this obvious disregard on Osa's part for her crew. She just wanted to break down in tears. And that pissed her off more. She wasn't a crier. She wouldn't cry. Tears would never leave her body again. She'd promised herself that a long time ago. She wasn't going to let that change.

Osa refused to look at her crew as they were taken away. They couldn't understand. Even if she could have told then, they wouldn't have accepted it. It was above their heads. This was something she'd been taught long ago, something she'd learned in her school, in her normal school, for those that weren't considered gifted, those that hadn't been found to have any specific talents. The leader wasn't always the baddest, the meanest, or the strongest. In a case like this, the leader had something the rest of them didn't, and finding out what that was, was vital.

But they'd all gone to their gifted schools after their evaluations. They wouldn't understand. They couldn't. And so, she ended up there, staring calmly, blankly, at her captor. She'd been tortured, in ways even he couldn't think of. Life was rough for the ordinary kids, back on earth. Anything he had to offer, was child's play.

"Try me," she said. She felt the sneer begging to appear on her face. But no. It couldn't. She forced the blank look to remain, no flicker of emotion, no hint of anything human in her. She may as well have been a Vulcan. "What? Are you gonna rape me?" She said, her voice even and calm. As if she was asking him what time it was. "Have fun. Or, no, you wouldn't do that, right? You'd cut something off, wouldn't you? You want my toe? My tongue? Gouge out my eyes. Go ahead. I hope you rot in hell."

Each of the prisoners were pushed into the brig area and then each pushed into a small cell no more than 6 foot by 6 foot across. As the forcefields raised up, so did the defense mechnanisms as well. The field actually enveloped all of the walls of the cell so to touch a wall would course electrical charge through their body! The only place that was safe was right in the middle of the cell.

Two of the pirates, one Andorian known as Mur and the other a Trill named Frazia seemed to pay particular attention to Vo as she explored her new living arrangements. They watched her body and began to wonder if the Captain would let them have permission with this woman later?

"Am I going to rape you?" The Captain laughed to himself. That was always the first thing that women asked when they became guests of him. He looked at her and said, "That would be too easy. I admit it was a lot of fun in the past when I captured women... but even that is too easy now. I need a challenge and you have the zeal to meet my challenge."

He walked towards her, grabbing her chin and forcing her head to look up to him. He said, "Let me ask you again. Do you have any defenses on your ship that might hurt my crew? Again, remember that if my crew is hurt or killed over there, you and your crew will pay... So if you have any desire to keep your crew safe, you will answer me now..."

Quik beamed over to the trade ship and as he dug through the contents of the vessel, he quickly began to smile! They had not found the motherload.. but the Captain would surely be pleased with some of the 'cargo' they were carrying...

"My crew is willing to die for our cause. I promise you, however, that you will lose many more men if you attempt to kill them. They won't go easy. As for surprises back on our ship..." Osa trailed off, her sneer leaving her face, only to be replied by a very smug smile. "Sounds like you're going to lose quite a few men."

In all honesty, for exactly this reason, she had no idea what would happen. Axel was the only one that knew. Them getting captured had always been a likelihood, and as long as she didn't tell anyone that Axel knew, the pirates would have numerous casualties. They couldn't break her, not for the information they wanted. And they didn't know she didn't know.

The likelihood of them asking, "Who of your crew could answer my question?" was rather low. Even a truth serum wasn't likely to get Axel as an answer. If they died because of it, so be it. They truly were willing to die. That's why they were there. The only trouble might come from David, who was only there because Osa had begged for him to go along.

"I suggest you don't send your men over, if you haven't already. Never know what might happen to them."

After the Captain left the room with his first talk with her, Quik returned to The Sudden Death with a case of Romulan Ale, and a case of something that looked strangely like some kind o medical vials that were unlabelled. He, of course gave the Captain his standard 20% of the loot, 4 bottles of ale for his own personal use and then began divying up the rest amongst the 30 crew. The vials were something that he was not as sure about. He showed the Captain after he left the ready room and then was ordered to take them to the quarantine in the sickbay till they could test them.

He figured they could be anything from viruses to seed, to anything in between...

He watched as the cargo was slowly moved to his ship, crate by crate, container by container. It was only when they got to the last section of the freighter is when they ran into trouble!

Dumar said, "Sir! I am reading a ..." was all he got out when the back of the frieghter seemed to detonate with deadly force! A small explosion... led to another and another... The Captain watched helplessly as the crew he had on that freighter, 10 of 30, were killed! Dumar quickly backed the Sudden Death up to a safe distance as his Chief of Security and the remaining 9 died off!

He felt anger grow in him as he said, "Get us out of here. There is no more we can do here." He watched as the vessel banked and moved even deeper into the the nebula to a fall back position.

He got up and walked back into the ready room and then said, "Well... guess I should have listened huh? Just lost ten men just now. Oh... whatever traps you set, your ship is completely destroyed too... just another debre field in space."

He looked at her and let his eyes grow sad, "I lost so many men just now. Damn it... they were good men too!" He shifted his eyes to look into hers and the the sadness faded into a cold steel gaze. He walked up to her, grabbed her neck and leaned into her ear and whispered, "Thank you! That is 10 less people I have to share my bounty with now."

He backed up and let his eyes look into her once more. He didn't give a crap about what kind of traps there had been the entire time. He hoped for a few, to kill off a few people to thin out his numbers. He knew she knew it too...

He looked at her and said, "So let me tell you how I am going to thank you. You see... first, I am going to strip off your clothes one piece at a time. Then, I am going to readjust your legs so you are nice and wide open for me. Then, I am going to force you to beg me to fuck you till you scream. Don't believe me? Let's find out shall we?"

"Give me a few more, I'd be happy to rid you of the rest," she sneered at him, wanting nothing more than to spit in his face, and then beat him to a pulp. How dare he lay his filthy hands on her? "Good men? More like utter twits. They didn't even get half of what they deserved." Not that she knew what they'd gotten. But she doubted it lived up to what they should have. Most likely, they'd been blown up. Big deal. They should have been skinned alive and roasted on a spit. She felt her body heating up with pure anger.

She couldn't help but cringe at his words., though Her ship was gone. She figured it would happen, but knowing it for certain... it stung. That ship had been with her for a long time. And now it was gone. Just more particles floating out there in space. Nothing she'd ever see again. Nothing left...

She laughed at his words. "Is that supposed to intimidate me? You said no rape, ha! You're just like other men. You want what you can't have. You'll never hear me beg, you cretin. Nor will the rest of my crew. Do what you wish to us, but know that nothing will come of it. You disgust me and I'd rather screw a Mugato than even associate myself with the likes of you."

Now she did spit. It was a very un-ladylike thing to do, but she couldn't help herself. The man was just so... so... disgusting. He thought he could have her beg for him? Yeh, right. Like she'd ever want anything like him. The bastard.

He felt her spit hit his face and he released her neck and back handed her hard, sending her head jerking to the right. He grabbed her hair and pushed her head down. He walked behind her and said, "Oh no. That is entirely unacceptable slave... You never spit on me unless you are told to... You see... now you will have to pay..."

He kept her face pushed up with both of his hands and then took his thumbs and moved them to her eyeslids and forced her eyes to open. He looked down at her and the hocked a little lugie of his own... only this time... he let it fall nice and slow... letting it drip into her eyes.. forcing her to take it all.

It was a mild punishment but one that was humiliating and demeaning none the less. He looked at her, keeping her eyes open and his spit in them. He said, "Remember this whore. You can cuss and swear, fight and spit, loath and hate me. But remember that anything you can even pretend to dish out, you will recieve ten fold in return and swiftly."

He released her eyelids but held her hair. He said, "This is your one and only warning. There will be no others." He finally released her hair and then slid his knife from his pocket and slid it under her shirt and ran it up the tunic along her spine!

When her back was exposed and only her bra strap revealed, he turned and walked away. He picked up long cat-o-nine and walked back to her and said, "And now that we have addressed that little spit problem of yours... let's look at your mouth! It is quite dirty and needs to be cleaned."

He shoved the cat-o-nine into is pocket and then walked to the table and said, "My mother used to use this old punishmen on me when I was a boy. It was horrible! Simply horrible."

He turned around and showed her a large bar of soap. It was inside a leather harness which had a pair of ties added to it. He walked towards her, taking that bar of soap to her mouth, which was clearly closed now. He reached one hand to her nipple and pinched it hard!

It had been instinctive... it was true her yelp, but it was enough to get what he wanted done... done. He shoved the entire bar of soap into her mouth, leaving only the last inch inside the leather harness. He said, "I would not recommend biting into it as you will find this soap is on a metal form." He strapped it down in her mouth. It was one of the nastiest things a person could taste, but it worked.

He said, "Now... let's leave that in there for a while... as you get the last of your punishment." He pulled the cat-o-nine and walked behind her... and then lashed it hard against her tender skin!