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  "I think that’s fair. They would be doing a lot worse to us if they caught us," Ben said.

  "Lorelei, turn us around and proceed at full power," E'Aria ordered.

  Ben sat down at an unused console on the bridge. E'Aria had three or four hats on and the data for each coming to her console.

  "Grubb, report to engineering," E'Aria announced. "Attention passengers, secure yourselves. In three minutes, we will engage the colonial corvette who has followed us from Anubis." Grubb would keep an eye on the drives and generators and report anything to E'Aria or make adjustments she may need. She hoped the Trillond Navy would be generous with the loan of the crew.

  ****

  "Captain Stren! The alien ship is changing course."

  "Put it on the screen, lieutenant."

  "Look at how it maneuvers, it has turned completely around and is heading towards us," the lieutenant commented out loud.

  "We can see that, lieutenant," Captain Stren's tone sounded amused.

  "Ensign, sound battle stations. Lieutenant, bring power up on all weapons and shields. When she is within range, fire a warning shot. Helm, prepare for evasive maneuvers."

  "She is coming fast Captain, a lot faster than her previous speed."

  "Evasive maneuvers," the captain yelled.

  "Aye captain, evasive maneuvers initiated."

  "She changed her heading and is still on a collision course, Captain."

  "Captain! Firing warning shots. No damage recorded."

  "She is returning fire."

  The XO ran to the bridge. He entered his password for the doors. During battle stations, the bridge was locked down. The doors whooshed open and he immediately glanced at the large screen and the ship approaching.

  A blast from the oncoming ships laser cannon hit the hull just below the bridge. Then it hit again and again. Commander Langley was on his back looking up. He could see the ensign who was currently the com officer on the floor. He got to his feet and helped the ensign back into her chair.

  "My God, they are going to destroy both ships," the commander yelled. The captain looked over at him, then back to the screen. The commander ran and threw himself on top of the captain to shield her from the impending crash. Everyone screamed and the lieutenant fainted and pissed himself.

  It was only a few seconds but seemed like an eternity with the commander smothering her. "Get off me, commander!" The ship shook and the captain knew they had been hit. The commander stepped back and looked over his shoulder at the screen. The two ships must have passed within 50 feet of each other. He could see the rear of the ship in the distance.

  "Damage report! Commander, take the lieutenant’s station, please. Medical to the bridge." The captain fired off her orders.

  "They are turning around, I mean turned around, they are coming back for another pass," the commander yelled.

  "Commander, let's see if you can do better than the lieutenant at evasive maneuvers."

  "Aye Ma'am." He started to maneuver the corvette into a hard turn, stressing the hull. "They just fired something at us. It looks like a ball of fire."

  "Brace for impact," the captain yelled over a ship-wide announcement. The ship bucked, shuddered and shook, then went dark. Momentum moved it along but gradually slowed till it finally came to a stop. The emergency power came on and the bridge lit up. Only critical systems received power.

  "Captain, it’s coming around again." Commander Langley spoke, dragging everyone's attention to the screen.

  "What have we got, Lieutenant?"

  "Captain, shields at 25 percent, no laser weapons, torpedoes if the men load them manually."

  "Captain, incoming com from the alien ship."

  "Here we go. Let's see what they want." Captain Stren released a long exhale.

  Chapter 9

  The screen flashed to show an attractive woman wearing a captain's uniform sitting in her chair looking like she was having a really bad day.

  "Captain, what is your name?" E'Aria asked taking control.

  The captain stiffened up. "Why do you want to know?"

  "Because we are going to be leaving shortly and if we run into someone who can help you, we will provide the coordinates and your name."

  "Why would you want to help us? You are obviously not friends," Captain Stren asked.

  "Captain, if we wanted to kill you and your crew, you would all be dead now. Surely you understand we just disabled your ship instead of blowing it to pieces."

  "E'Aria, that is Captain Marilyn Stren," Angela said from the sideline.

  "Captain Stren, you have been warned. Stay where you are and repair your ship then go home."

  Ben got up and walked over next to E'Aria. "Captain, what I want to know is how many of you pissed your pants? Tell the truth or we are going to play again and I think it will be even less fun for you people if we do."

  "Are you kidding me?" Captain Stren exclaimed.

  "Unfortunately, he is not kidding, Captain," E'Aria explained. The Captain looked at Ben, then back to E'Aria.

  "I only know of one who fainted and pissed himself."

  "See I told you. I bet even the Captain there wet herself," Ben said stifling a laugh.

  "I most certainly did not!" The captain was visibly getting angrier.

  "Ok Captain, calm down. You do look like you are pretty tough."

  "She is and we need to get going." Andrea cut Ben off from teasing the captain further.

  "Who are you people?" the captain asked flustered.

  "Captain, we are Reaper Inc. Didn’t they tell you who you were shooting at and chasing across the galaxy?" Ben asked.

  "Smugglers using an alien starship is what we were told."

  "I see, hold on a second, Captain."

  "Natalia, mute the audio," Ben asked.

  "Prime Minister and Senator Sims, report to the bridge please." Ben paged ship-wide.

  "Ok Natalia, audio please." A minute later both individuals walked onto the bridge, taking in the scene.

  "Captain Stren, I would like you to meet Prime Minister Alona Aok of the Trillond Empire and Senator Thurmond Sims of Athena." Ben smiled at the recognition on the captain's face.

  "Captain, I am going to transmit a document to you." E'Aria touched her screen. "That is a diplomatic writ signed by the president of the alliance. For your information, we transmitted that to Captain Mahajan who evidently chose not to share it with the rest of you. Congratulations, you and the rest of your captains have attacked a diplomatic transport. Endangering the lives of two very high-ranking officials should carry some pretty grave consequences."

  Ben said. "We will be departing now. I hope you understand how lucky you are that we chose not to retaliate. We are leaving you with weapons, shields and one of two drives intact. Goodbye, Captain."

  "Natalia," Ben said and she cut the com.

  The Claymore maneuvered away from the Dagger to continue on its journey towards the Trillond border. They were eight hours out from the Asmoss asteroid belt. If all went well, they would have the much-needed additional crew on board within a day.

  Ben said, "Natalia and I can watch the bridge. Why don’t you three grab a meal and a shower, even some sleep, before we rendezvous."

  "You would have all three of us off the bridge at the same time?" E'Aria asked.

  "Just a suggestion. I think after our scheduled stop, the three of you will be needed here most of the time and will have to work out a rotation. If not, then I will and my head is still sore."

  E'Aria pressed the screen on her console. "Buddy, Grubb, come to the bridge." They walked in two minutes later.

  "Yes Ma'am," Grubb said as they approached. Grubb was more of a talker and tended to make most of the decisions for the two of them.

  "Monitor tactical and the helm. We will relieve you in the next four to eight hours. It will be boring. I am setting all the primary functions on auto. You will just need to notify us of any alarms. I have set all sensors to max so there should be hours befor
e we would make contact with anything that appears on your screen." The three women were up and moving even as E'Aria explained.

  "Natalia, you don’t need to stay dear if you don’t want to. You can come with us," Andrea said looking at Ben. Natalia didn’t respond. She just stood up and walked out with Andrea. They walked side by side, Andrea with her arm around Natalia giving her a motherly hug.

  The hours passed; nothing but war stories and talk of women, some of that was like a war story. Grubb and Buddy were a number of years older than Ben. They seemed to have a girl or two in every port back in the day.

  Grubb looked like he wanted to say something then changed his mind. Ben saw it on his face.

  "What were you going to say?" he asked.

  "Nothing," Grubb answered.

  "Bullshit, you were going to say something. Your mouth was hanging open."

  "Well, you have these beautiful women all living with you, are you. . . you know with all of them?"

  Ben laughed. "No Grubb, Andrea and I are together. I have never even tried to be with any of the others."

  "You’re shittin’ me."

  "No, truth man, I never have. Thanks for the thought, though. I can tell you thought I was just living it up."

  "Why the hell they staying with you then?" Grubb asked.

  "That is a good question. I really thought a couple of them would have left by now but they haven’t. I did give them a good salary and a job and a free place to live so I think that may have a lot to do with it."

  "Yeah, I can see that. Do any of them have a man somewhere?"

  "Not that I know of. You looking for a woman, Grubb?" Ben asked smirking. "My friends are a handful. If you want to give it a shot with one of them, go ahead, but do so at your own risk."

  "You don’t mind?"

  "Grubb, you are all my friends. Just don’t ruin that. If she says no you better respect it. We might get a Trillond female or two when the crew comes aboard."

  "Like your little green girl?"

  "Probably not just like her, but similar."

  Buddy was soaking in the whole conversation. "Lorelei is a very pretty woman. She has a bit of an edge to her," he said.

  "She does at that. She used to be the first officer on a pirate ship."

  "That would explain how she lost a finger or two," Buddy said.

  "Ah no, not in her case. I cut her finger off and almost took a second one off except the captain of our ship stopped me. She was on the pirate ship that Natalia was a prisoner slave on." Both their eyes got big. They had never heard the story because no one ever talked about it.

  Ben decided to give them some details. "I'll give you the short version. We came to the aid of a disabled freighter. Pirates attacked. Bad move on their part. The navy captain wanted some of the pirates alive to get info. I found Natalia abused physically and mentally, locked in a hole in the floor. I was seeing red, to say the least, and interrogated Lorelei and her captain. She held out till I cut off her finger and started on the second one. Her captain wasn’t so lucky. He insulted the captain of our ship, calling her a whore. I cut off his balls, shoved my knife in his throat and then in his heart. No more hurting little girls or anyone else."

  Buddy sat really still. "Why is she with you? You would think she would want to be as far away from you as possible."

  "She says it was all like a religious experience. I let her live mainly because she had done what she could for Natalia while she was on their ship. It wasn’t just her fingers, she heard her captain screaming while I worked on him. She found out what I did to him. Long story short, the navy captain let her go on my ship when I left. I feel she and I are friends. I think she has a better life now and she can leave or stay as she chooses."

  "Hey Ben, it looks like there are three starships on the other side of the belt about two hours from here," Grubb interrupted.

  "I will notify the captain. He tapped the console and slid his finger across the screen. A diagram of the Claymore appeared. He tapped the room that belonged to E'Aria and Natalia. He sent a notification from the bridge. Five minutes had passed and still no response. He started to send a second with voice, when he heard footsteps coming towards the bridge. More than one person, he just waited to see who.

  "Huh um, you are in my seat," he heard at his shoulder.

  "My apologies, your highness. Did you get up on the wrong side of the bunk?"

  "No, it is my own fault. I was worried about leaving you three here. My subconscious was monitoring for any issues. There were no issues, as you know, but four hours of your exploits with your human females was more than I could take." Buddy and Grubb slipped out of their seats, quietly hoping to make it to the door.

  "Where do you two think you’re going. Get back to your stations until your reliefs show up." E'Aria wasn’t even looking at them but then turned her head quickly in their direction, giving them the look. Poor guys couldn’t even pretend to act like they were working. They couldn’t read the damn consoles.

  "We are sorry, captain, if we kept you up. Was just some lyin’ and bragging. There t’weren’t a bit of truth to it," Grubb stuttered.

  "Grubb, I believe there was quite a bit of truth to it. There is no reason to say otherwise. It was quite educational." She turned and looked at Ben. "But you, on the other hand, were quite boring. I am surprised, given all that has happened in the past months."

  "Sorry to have disappointed you, captain. I will work on my carousing and debauchery. Now you need to get to work flying my starship and don’t hit anything!" Ben said, walking off the bridge.

  "He didn’t mean nuthin’ by it, captain. He isn’t much for words," Buddy said.

  E'Aria studied Buddy for a second. "I know, his conversations are usually very short and end with someone bleeding."

  "Or dyin’," Buddy added with a grin.

  "Oh, we know captain. The night he fought the spacers at Gus's, he didn’t talk to them at all. He just commenced to punching and them to falling," Grubb said

  "This is a diplomatic mission and I may need you two to help with him if something arises. I don’t believe he would hurt either of you, so you shouldn’t be worried."

  Grubb shook his head. "Captain I don’t believe he would hurt you. Us, I wouldn’t bet on."

  Andrea and Lorelei walked in about that time. The conversation halted. Although no one had said anything untrue, the two old sailors were a little bit afraid of Andrea and didn’t want to get on her bad side. Buddy took a few extra seconds to stare at Lorelei before following his brother off the bridge.

  "We have a couple hours before our rendezvous with the Trillond navy. Let’s go through some system checks. Where is Natalia?" E'Aria asked.

  "She will be along in a few minutes. She wanted to talk to Ben about something," Andrea answered. "He probably has some new weapon for her."

  E'Aria thought out loud. "He had ordered two training swords last month. Maybe he will give her some instruction during this trip. We should all take some time everyday to train. If nothing else, it helps with the fatigue of being in space for a long period of time."

  Lorelei had a gleam in her eye. "I think I will find Adam and see if he wants to train in my room. That is my kind of training. I am sure he will be fatigued when I am done with him."

  "Just don’t piss him off or hurt his feelings. I don’t want to have to eat burnt garbage for a month," Andrea responded, checking her targeting systems.

  "Plus, he might poison you if you piss him off. Never anger the chef," E'Aria added.

  "Where do you think the Warhammer is at?" Lorelei asked.

  E'Aria thought about it. "She did not have to travel this route to get to Trillond space and it would be smart not to. Hopefully, she is safe and in hiding somewhere across the border."

  Chapter 10

  Trillond space looked like space anywhere else. Dark, cold and empty. It was a good thing really. It would be hard for another ship to be stealthy. That is what Captain O'Shaughnessy thought. She sat on the b
ridge contemplating their next move.

  "Ensign Ellison, com Lieutenant Jared for me and have him release Major Andersen's team from the brig and bring them to me."

  "Captain, Lieutenant Jared said he would handle it immediately, ma'am. He said to expect them in 15 minutes."

  "Thank you, ensign."

  "Captain, I am reading some strange fluctuations, as well as some small bursts of energy. I believe there is a ship very near to our location and it is scanning us." The captain moved quickly to stand behind Lieutenant Benson.

  "Is there any way to pinpoint its location?"

  "Yes ma'am, but I believe it is moving away from us. The strength of the fluctuations continues to lessen by the second."

  "I have never heard of the Trillond having any starships capable of stealth of any kind."

  "Neither have I ma'am, or any other navy, for that matter."

  "Captain," Lieutenant Jared greeted her. "I brought them here, unless you would like me to take them somewhere else."

  "This is fine, lieutenant." She stepped around him to greet the others. "Sergeant Major, Gunny, I hope your stay was not too unpleasant. You know I would never have locked any of you in the brig if there had been any other way. The general insisted I cooperate with M.I.

  "What the hell is going on Captain?" Sergeant Major Matt Kim asked; the rest of the team standing behind him, waiting to hear her response.

  "I have decided to throw my career out the trash chute. I have disobeyed direct orders and taken this ship with the approval of my crew and fled to Trillond space. It seems a faction of our military is out of control and wants the Hyson incident to go away along with those who were there."

  "I see. We knew that, so where does that leave us?" he asked, speaking for his team.

  "Sergeant Major, at the moment, I see only a few options. You can join the crew of the Warhammer or I can find a nice peaceful planet in the Trillond system to drop you off. It’s possible we will run into Ben, Andrea and the rest of his crew in the future if you want to remain with us until that happens."