Star Kitten (35 page)

A Battleship could do such things; and the
only reason a full squadron hadn't been deployed yet, was just
sheer bureaucratic red tape on the part of the Interplanetary
Authority. Such a massive undertaking was difficult for the
different planets in the IPA to commit to; and the resources
necessary to mobilize such a fleet were quite expensive indeed.
Besides it was time consuming. It had been several months in the
making: organizing the fleet, outfitting it, manning its crews, and
choosing a commander for it; but the increase in raids over the
past year and the public outcry over it, had pressured the IPA to
finally take action.

Snout could tell from Star Fleet inter-space
communication traffic, that a force was heading their way which
could wipe them all out if engaged in combat; or even worse track
them back to New Australia if they tried to escape. And even though
the plan for the Star Pussy raid had always been to take separate
routes home in the aftermath of the battle, this also meant one
very cold hard truth that only Admiral Snout could really have
fully grasped, and few others would have considered.

ONE ship
would
have to end up (in
all likelihood ) being tracked down by Star Fleet and destroyed—no
matter how hard they tried to confuse their pursuers. There was no
denying it. No matter how clever they all were, once a Star Fleet
battleship had identified at least one Naustie ship and tracked it;
that ship was doomed. Admiral Snout began to realize what he now
had to do.

HIS ship, the
Anarchy
—the flagship of
the whole Naustie Fleet—would have to be the bait. The
Anarchy
would have to be
the Fox, getting hunted by a pack of angry Bloodhounds. It was the
only way, and Admiral Snout bloody well knew it. Someone would have
to be sacrificed; and just like any brave commander he just
couldn't leave this task to someone else.

After all, only Admiral
Snout knew how to navigate through the galaxy and lead that battle
squadron on an endless futile chase. He was the most skilled
commander of any ship in the Pirate Fleet, by far. Even Kscheeech
lacked the kind of experience Snout had. Oh, Kscheeech might have
been quite skilled in sniffing out most any ambush. He knew when it
was time to cash in the chips, so to speak, and get the hell out.
But this was different. Once detected by a Battleship Squadron,
only Snout knew just exactly how to keep Star Fleet quite busy
chasing the
Anarchy
for months
(
if that's what it took).

And so that's exactly what
Snout did. He actually flew the
Anarchy
directly toward the Star
Fleet Squadron heading toward Star Pussy; and waited to hear
inter-space communication traffic coming from Star Fleet ships
indicating that the
Anarchy
had indeed been detected. Once accomplished,
Snout then turned his ship toward deep space (in quite nearly the
complete opposite direction of New Australia) and raced away at top
speed.

As he explained it to his
crew sitting nearby him on the bridge, "Now that they've detected
us; let's give them a real chase; shall we?" His men laughed and
gave a few affirmative responses, but many still wondered what the
Admiral was really up to. Not but a few really knew the true mess
Snout had purposely gotten them all into. And even those few
wondered
just how crazy
their Admiral might really be after
all!

Snout told his communications officer Brilly
to open up full ship intercom systems so the Admiral could make an
announcement to the crew. Brilly hesitated for a moment, baffled,
thinking that if they did that, wouldn’t Star Fleet sensors pick up
the communication and be able to intercept the message? With Star
Fleet this close to them; merely a few million miles away, they
could practically hear a crewman fart if they listened hard
enough.

Snout glared at him for a
second or two... until Brilly began to understand the true purpose.
Obviously the Admiral was expecting Star Fleet to hear the
communication and this was just another dirty trick he was playing.
Snout was famous for those. Brilly's eyes widened and he gave a big
gasping "
OH YEAH
"
look. Then he scrambled to open up the ship's entire internal
communication system for the Admiral's announcement. Snout said
slowly, loudly, and clearly, "This is the captain speaking... we're
setting a course for Earth star system. I repeat, we're setting a
course for
Earth star
system
. All crewmen shall prepare for deep
space conditions and rationing of supplies... that is
all."

Snout knew the Star Fleet
Squadron would scramble to pursue him. His was the first ship
detected; and the enemy Fleet Admiral would never break up the
Squadron to pursue other leads either. That was not Star Fleet
protocol. He had only about 300 left of his original crew anyway;
plus pressed labor from the males captured off the
Chengshi
. So he still
had food enough left over to supply practically an entire Brigade
for two months in space. That's because he'd transferred the
Smilodon Brigade onto the captured
Chengshi
when it was ambushed; plus
half his original crew to operate it. True, he'd also taken on
about fifty new female prisoners from the
Chengshi
as well, but those he
figured he'd put to work operating the ship's kitchens... once his
crew had enjoyed their favors for a while; of course. That was the
least he could do for them. They were going to be in space for a
very long time.

Essentially, Snout looked
forward to testing his amazing knowledge of the galaxy and matching
wits with the Fleet Admiral of the Battleship chasing him. Every
day that he eluded them and stayed alive; was indeed a victory. And
it would end gallantly… most likely in a duel to the death between
equals. That idea suited Snout just fine. An honorable death for
him and his crew, with the safety of his home planet assured. He
felt young and defiant once again; just like in his youth. He'd
once told an IPA official years ago, to go fuck himself when the
Agent offered him a chance to rat out his mob contacts in exchange
for a lighter sentence. Now, for a moment anyway, he as that brash
young Porkonji again, telling the IPA to
shove it
. “Bring it on, you
bastards,” muttered Snout to himself as he snorted
arrogantly.

It put him in a great mood thinking about
the upcoming chase… and besides: Snout had first dibs on all the
captured females to be distributed to the crew. He'd take his time
and pick a really nice plump girl (or two) to be brought to his
cabin—that’s what he told himself. Yes, that would be really nice…
once they got a nice big lead on Star Fleet for a few days
anyway.

• • •

The
Warthog
took off from Star Pussy
with 175 male prisoners and over three hundred female human body
workers they’d captured in the Human Environs. Counting the crew
and the remaining Arian Knights Brigade, the ship carried about
2100 beings from four different species. It was a very crowded ship
with little room to get around inside.

Of course the troops and crew had every
intention of preserving these human prisoners as best as possible
during the journey, because returning to New Australia with that
big of a haul of new slaves could be quite likely very profitable
for the Arian Knights; not to mention prestigious for their
General, Vlad "the Impaler". So they kept the prisoners safe in the
cargo hold among the plunder taken from Star Pussy. Dead or damaged
prisoners would be worth nothing, after all.

That said, the Arian Knights did keep fifty
of the best looking males all for themselves to enjoy; plus the
practical equivalent of a warehouse-full of liquor. Both of these
could be “thoroughly consumed,” said their commander. And with that
the warriors of the Arian Knights quickly started in on their share
of the “plunder”… with great earnest actually! Cases of liquor were
opened and distributed indiscriminately to both captor AND captive;
and soon the party in the troop section of the ship got right under
way.

The trash bins quite
quickly filled with empty bottles and keg barrels, which could be
dumped into space once they got far from Star Pussy and were sure
they weren’t being tailed. That was a good thing too; because the
cargo hold was packed to the gills with
hundreds of cases full of booze
.
Whiskey, Vodka, Rum, Tequila, Catnip Ale; and even some fine wines
had been carted away from the Earth Environ on Star Pussy. Frankly
it was far more than even the hard-partying troops in the Arian
Knights Brigade could consume. Even with the crew pitching in
(hell, even with the prisoners helping out) it would take a month
to drink it all; given the circumstances.

Vlad for his part kept one
of the best, cleanest and most spectacular males all for himself
and basically just made the young man his own personal consort. No
objections there of course.
Phillip
was the muscled hunk's name; and yes the handsome
young man of 22 was certainly terrified of the grizzled, tattooed,
scarred-up General (at first). Most definitely, he was. But after
about a week, the two became quite cozy together. Before long it
really looked like Phillip was enjoying the arrangement! Soon they
were downright inseparable. And why wouldn't they be, really? The
bronzed and sculpted young man figured out quite quickly that Vlad
was actually a very powerful and influential man on the ship. He
was powerful within the Pirate Army as well, and back on the
Pirates' home planet of New Australia: Vlad was the "Chieftain of
an entire tribe", the other Nausties said.

Besides all that, the young man's profession
was that of a male escort. It was his job to entertain male
clients—of any species. This was just another client, essentially.
But what a great client to have; especially if the rippling-muscled
bar-bell boy could keep the relationship going. Being the new
"partner" of the leader of one of the most powerful tribes on New
Australia? Now that was definitely a much safer alternative to what
those fifty selected male slaves were enduring down in the troop
section with the Arian Knights tribesmen. Down there, his fellow
male prisoners were most certainly being put through their paces.
Once those cases of Whiskey and Rum got distributed to the Arian
Knights; the party was in full swing; and it just never
stopped!

Vlad of course heard of
the Ship-to-Ship message sent from
Chengshi
to try and find those three
men (Randall, Charles, and Luis) and keep them safe; but he knew it
wouldn't be necessary. He didn't reply to it; and no reply was
necessary or requested. It was just a message sent to the ship; and
the Captain passed it onto Vlad. Duly noted in the log, that's all
they did with it. No... General Vlad's plan for all the new
prisoners—and his victorious troops and crew—was far, far better
anyway: Vlad was going to suggest to the Captain of the Warthog
that they take a "little detour" on the way home....

Not long after they
disembarked, the Captain of the vessel... a Porkonji nick-named
Razorback (his real name was actually Razzelbrach), was quite
surprised one evening (if not just a little perturbed) to find
General Vlad barging onto the bridge of the ship, about 36 hours
into the journey. "My Captain, may I suggest an alternative," began
Vlad. Razorback snorted and nodded with a polite—if not slightly
annoyed grin. True, the Captain was surprised at first... and
perhaps even a bit miffed at the intrusion; but mostly he figured
the General might still be a little inebriated from the constant
party going on in the Troop section of the ship. Razorback didn't
protest though, even if the ugly human’s breath
did
still smell a lot like Vodka.
Vlad, after all, was always such the charmer—especially when he
wanted something.

Vlad was standing shoulder to shoulder with
his new consort Phillip; both of them all clean and scrubbed down.
They’d come straight from Vlad's private quarters and a refreshing
shower together, no doubt. Though tilting and leaning on his young
bronzed Adonis a bit, Vlad did bow and tilt his head slightly in
deference to the Captain in command of the ship. So smooth and
suave he was, despite being quite downright terrifying-looking
(even by Russian standards). Nevertheless, Vlad boldly straightened
up and explained his plan:

"Why go straight home?" he
queried, then paused a moment to let the rhetorical question sink
in a bit. Vlad grinned slyly showing off his crooked gray teeth.
"You see, Captain Razorback; Star Fleet will be hunting far and
wide for all the Naustie pirate fleet. Everywhere... everyone, you
see. If we go home, they'll follow us... if they follow us home,
they'll
kill
us."
Razorback snorted pensively, but Vlad merely raised his eyebrows
and gestured with his hands continuing, "On the other hand, what if
we just disappear, so to speak? What if we hide somewhere... for a
while...? '
Hole up'
somewhere..." as my American friends used to say."

Vlad's plan was this:
Don't go back to New Australia. Not yet anyway. Nine other ships
were going there; and any one of them could be tailed by Star
Fleet. This could be far too dangerous for the
Warthog
. Instead, he suggested...
head to Frabrak 3! This was the planet where Naustie pirates had
been going on raids repeatedly over the past two years; and it was
an entire planet full of islands. Few were even inhabited. Only a
portion of the planet had even been explored. If they found a
deserted island, far from other colonial settlements; they could
drop off the radar for weeks, or even a full month before heading
back to New Australia with their prisoners, liquor, and food.
"Maybe even get a good tan in the process," the general added with
a humorous shrug.