Trampship Wars 2 Page 3
The Officer backing up brought his hand up across the top of the pistol and Blackbeard could a lmost see him switching it from stun to its deadly laser setting. Blackbeard smiled wishing he had time to bet on whether the officer had the time to make the switch and fire before the lion tore his throat out.
The laser fired with the lion about 6 feet away to Black beards surprise. The officer was faster than he thought possible. The beam hit the loin in his dropped head as he flew toward the officer. The thick main not even slowing down the deadly beam at full power, (Blackbeard also sure that he could not switch the gun from stun and up to full power ), as the loins body flew through the air to drop at the feet of the officer still firing his weapon with the last shot hitting the now dead loin only a foot away as it dropped to the ground.
The Officer fell backwards landing on his butt as the two robbery suspects laid watching him. His weapon still po inted at the lion laying dead in the midd le of the parking lot.
The officer finally got up taking a scanner off his belt and running it over the li on before putting his weapon away and going to the bleeding store proprietor still laying on the ground where the lion had last slapped him. The officer ran the scanner over the blackman as he talked into his comm.
A crowd started to form only seconds later coming from blocks away . Several clerks and costumers came out of the store. Severa l of them were catmen and catwemon with a couple of dogmen.
Shaking his head at the thugs stupidity at charging the officer even though Blackbeard knew he had gotten away with doing it before and had been let out of jail a dozen times for the murders when witnesses disappeared or changed their storie s.
Sitting down Blackbeard noticed that the computer’s attention light was blinking at him. Hitting the button he raised his eye brows in surprise. His secretary had forwarded an email bid request on an armed gunboat, badly damaged in combat. With Star Queen 52 as the address. Blackbeard smiled from ear to ear . It had to be the fighter that was plastered all over the damn news screens for half the night and ruining his breakfast.
And then he saw the part about the Star Queen delivering it to the winning bidder. If the damn boy delivered the fighter, it would give him a chance to grab him. A big smile came to his face as he imagined all the things he would do to the little squirt for all he had done to screw things up for him. The damn kid had discovered and then revealed to the authorities, Blackbeard’s secret using Garbage Transfer companies picking up garbage from pitted ships to scan and find which ships had the rich cargo’s across the quadrant. Then plant beacons on the outer hulls to make finding them later deep in space between the stars easy. With untraceable, remote energized knockout nerve gas cylinders hidden in their holds or garbage system . M , m aking taking the big ships even easier without firing a shot. But Mark had put an end to all of that costing Blackbeard billions across that whole sector of the galaxy.
Some how Somehow t he kid had discovered the loader scanning the inside of the ship from inside the ship, where no one should have even been looking. How he figured the innocent looking loader , loading piles of junk into trucks was scanning the inside of the ship from the inside of the hold still baffled Blac k beard. But e ven w orse , the damn kid had found and even defused the bomb that was designed to be tamper proof that should have destroyed all the evidence as well as half the ship.
Then to make things even worse. Blackbeard had sent 6 heavely armed attack boats to shoot down the kid coming back from the planet’s main spacestation n after seeing him on the news the day before . Blackbeard still could not believe the kid had managed to destroy 4 and capture another of his special attack boats (before he blew it up remotely) . It still pissed him off. But now things seemed to be looking up.
The Star Queen m selling the fighter also meant that he did not have to worry about a damn fighter attacking them later when they caught up to that damn Star Queen outside of the system unless he could lure them into the asteroid ring around the planet so he did not have to worry about losing track of the damn ship once it left the system. Trying to fallow a ship from light minutes behind in its baffles was always hit or miss as it only took losing sight of the ship ’ s exhaust trail for even a few seconds to lose it in the big void of space . A a nd if the pirate ship he tried to follow it too close and the pray spotted it, the target ship it could call for help long before he could close with it while they were still close enough to inside the damn patrolled system to ca ll for help . Which was why he had started planting beacons on the damn ships to begin with. No. Tracking down that damn ship was going to be damn expensive if it managed to get out of this system. So managing to get his hands on that damn boy before the ship even took off was just too much to pass up. If he could not get the ship right away , he could at least get the kid.
Blackbeard started enjoying himself as he fantasized about how much pain he was going to inflect onto Mr. Mark Collins. It took him an hour gloating to order all the new toys he wanted to use to really enjoy himself torturing the boy. The Pilot of the Boat that had told him to fuck off when Bl ackbeared had ordered h im to attack the boy and his supposedly unarmed fighter the day before, (after the man had watching Mark take out 4 of the other 5 boats) was just a worm up. He had enjoyed the pore sods guy ’ s wife and child very much that night, before killing the wife her in front of the insolent bastard and then killing him when he got bored with his old toys and would continue to enjoy his young daughter for a very long time. She was just old and young enough to be an interesting virgin he could rape again and again. He definitely liked the fringe benefits of employees that had displeased him.
It was starting out to be a great morning as he placed a rush on all the orders paying premium rates. Though it was a shame he would have to wait for the kid's family and their fringe benefits. He would just have to make sure the kid's pain and his pleasure lasted long enough. Then he looked at the current bid. "Shit! That was un fucking believable." He screamed at the thick armored glass surrounding his office as he topped the bid anyway but only by a few credits. Not understanding why anyone would want a junk fighter even as a souvenir. Then after his bid was topped a half dozen time s , he doubled the bid and added a rider almost doubling th at e bid if the boy delivered the damaged fighter.
No, it said Gunboat not fighter. Did they mean a fighter that was technically a Gunboat or a real shuttle type of gunboat? When the hell could they have gotten a shuttle gunboat battle damaged? Just how experienced were they fighting off pirates.
Shaking his head as he turned white and mouthed the word, “No” as he realized one possibility. They could not have held onto a battle damaged shuttle gunboat for 21 years could they? No this had to be the damn fighter. The stupid tramps just had to be trying to get more credits out of it thinking a gunboat was worth more or too stupid to call it a fighter. Damn morons. Blackbeard was suddenly looking forward to flying a real fighter even if it had to be repaired first. After all, it had still been flying the night before so the damage couldn’t be that great.
Blackbeard picked up his binoculars and started scanning the perimeter of his port, the old once closed planetary port serving England’s Capital City and planet. Replaced by a new many times larger Space Port built hundreds of miles away during the recent 10 year war with the neighboring Russian State. The dilapidated deserted had ( except for hundreds of broken down junk ships littering its almost 10 0 square mile property making it ) had been cheap to purchase (the cleanup costs being prohibitive expensive t o build condos on) . W w ith millions of credits in bribes and Blackbeard’s promise to put thousands back to work in an economy that had a high unemployment rate after the war suddenly ended. As well as The bribes to all the right pockets making sure no one took a close look at why he wanted the spaceport. He had been made to look like a benefactor to the whole planet while shipping a hundred million credits of laundered pirated cargo out of the port every week.
And he owed it all to that damn boy’s ship and the huge hundred mill
ion Credit pot he had stolen from the Star Queen 52, 21 years before just before the Star Queen killed his beloved Wife and Kids as he escaped. Damned ironic if he had bothered to think about the connection.
Blackbeard, a run of the mill not very successful pirate 21 years before, had tried to take the ship called Star Queen 52, after following it for days as it left the system it had ported at and being lucky enough not to lose it in the void. Then easily taking the defenseless ship that didn’t even have the basic hull guns. But then it had strayed far from its normal trade routes much closer towards the Empire inner core worlds that were mostly(but not quite) safe from pirates on its way to look at a large transport that was advertised to be in extremely good shape to purchase and split the ship’s already large crew into.
The Star Queen 52, already years past when most Tramps split as it grew richer while rejecting ship after ship for many reasons was long past able to buy a better ship than the run of the mill Junker most Tramps could afford, seeking out the perfect ship to buy and split into. The ship they were headed for at the time was far the best they had looked at yet with the ship’s council feeling that they had finally found the perfect ship even if it turned out not quite in as good of shape as the surveyors they had paid said it was (but they hoped it was). And then in a hurry, the Star Queen 52’s Captain at the time , afraid that the Council would change there their mind s , had not taken that one final Zig Zag turn (That would have added half a day to the trip) as they left the system before heading for the star that contained their promised ship. And that was enough for Blackbeard to follow.
It took Blackbeard 4 days to run the Star Queen 52 down. Taking his time as not to spook them before it was too late for them to simply turn and disappear in the black void.
Blackbeard’s crew had already boarded and managed to capture hundreds of the crew’s best specimens to sell as slaves with the Gronks eating the useless young kids and babies for snacks to keep the ever hungry monsters happy while they worked.
T W ith t heir new slaves were being gathered and chained to be taken to Blackbeard’s ship . w W hen one of the ship’s councilmen offered to help find the ship’s fortune that was surprisingly well over a hundred million credits (no tramp ever had money like that), if Blackbeard let the man and his followers keep half the pot of money and control of the ship after he killed Captain Adams and his officers.
With his normal plans of killing the rest if the crew of the ship as his kids used the disabled hulk for target practice. Blackbeard realized that he could leave a beacon on the ship and come back later once the crew had finished dying and get the rest of the loot without a fight while insuring that a good portion of the Star Queens crew even helped him (instead of resisting) find the rest of the loot the crew had spread around the ship he always felt he had missed on the few other ships he had managed to take,.
Then with three quarters of the pot in his hands instead of only half. The damn ship’s marines suddenly come up with an army of weapons no Tramp spouting the liberal passive mantra of no violence, should have had when his men were spread out over the entire ship trying to capture and herd all the damn slaves.
After a running battle that cost Blackbeard the majority of his crew, he had managed to get away with ¾’s of the hundred and fifty million credit pot thanks to the crooked councilman and his followers helping him take the original Captain Adams and his family hostage. O Then when the ship started fighting back Blackberd took most of the credits and then escaped using the Captian’s family as hostages o nly to leave Captain Adams chained in the air lock to keep the Star Queen’s suddenly armed marines his crew from attacking Blackbeards ship through that lock until he had time to reorganize his ship , man its stations and then blow the lock turning the Star Queen whole ship into one big vacuum packed morgue. Only taking the Captain’s youngest girl child and his whore that had just given birth in the middle of the hold as he left through the tap-lock blasted into the hull. Only to have the damn ship’s new Captain Cook slap a clear plastic barrier over the inside of the lock . Even whi le his guard was staring out the lock’s viewport could not see , saving the Queen when Blackbeard finally blew the lock killing Captain Adams.
But then Blackbeard’s ship was badly damaged from his own mines that had been secretly attached to his ship during the fighting, after as he pulled away.
With his wife and kids dead from his own replanted bombs destroying most of his hull guns and the racks of torpedoes while blasting holes in his hull in a dozen different places, Blackbeard managed to r R epel an assault by several armed boats (he remembered well) trying to take back the pot. Blackbeard had managed to repair one of the 3 inch hull guns just in time. Almost destroying the boat that had managed to attach itself to his ship’s hull, driving it away and then killing or capturing the few Star Queen crewmen left stranded aboard. Then almost destroying another stupid boat that tried to land on his hull as the other escaped .
It had taken days for Blackbeard to finally make enough repairs to one engine to escape as the Star Queen slowly drifted away into the distance. Blackbeard beating and killing several of the few crewmen he had left including most of the Star Queens captives from the assault, to make repairs, terrified the whole time that the Star Queen would try another assault.
But finally he managed to escape with enough loot to enable him to start an empire. First by buying an old mining station to launder pirated cargo back into the Empire and then using an idea one of his men had come up with to plant beacons and take ships without risking his own skin or ships and his business had flourished. Then when the cargo volume had outgrown the mining station, Blackbeard had bought the condemned planetary port as the war ended.
He had thought that the Star Queen 52 had perished in the cold void between the stars as he ran for his life (especially as much damage as he had done that included destroying all the ships fusion cores), only to have the ship that had murdered his crew and his loving wife and 6 kids 21 years before, land on the very planet he was using to launder Pirated Cargo back into the Empire. And then disaster struck when he tried to plant a beacon and nerve gas on the damn Star
Queen 52 .
Not only had the boy found and survived long enough to reveal his secret to the planetary authorities, for finding ships that were rich enough but had found the beacon the junk man had attached to the ship’s hull of the ships worth taking , t hat boy had ruined his operations across a hundred star systems. No, that boy was going to die with excruciating pain over many years while watching his ship’s crew die one by one with Blackbeard screwing most of the girls and women in front of him as he tortured and killed them one by one.
No, his only worry now was making sure the damn local authorities did not associate him with those dastardly Junk Yard dog Pirates that were being rounded up all across most of the planets of the English State according to the news reports.
So far it had taken the killing of hundreds of men and women that had called him friend to insure that the trail was not followed back to him but still he worried. Dozens more were on the list to be killed as soon as his agents could get to them. Even a few of his closest friends. Their deaths bringing a smile to his face each time he read or heard about their mysterious or accidental or mugging deaths. Any and every one that even had a hint of his ties with Pirates or the Junk Yards. Even destroying all their records he could possibly have had any references to him on were destroyed even if it took burning down whole buildings after the computers were destroyed.
An alarm went off jerking Blackbeard out of his get even fantasy. Whipping around Blackbeard picked up his glasses even though he did not need them to see the police gravcars converging on the mob of people gathered around the convenience store. The glasses showed him a hundred cats gathered around the conveyance store. Blackbeards eyes quickly picking out the block bosses from surrounding gangs bringing smile to his face.
Blackbeard knew what was coming as a news pod started orbiting the store. Taping the desk, a
screen popped on with a breaking news report with a cute anchor lady looking at the camera. Behind her showed what Blackbeard was seeing in his glasses but from a much closer vantage point.
“Our news reporting pod is on the scene.” The news lady continued to speak.” We now go to eye witnes s testimony ses .”
The pod dropped down in front of one of the crow e d that Blackbeard knew was a block boss from several blocks away. Making him wonder if she knew that or was just picking one of the cats with mains out of the crowd. “This is NPC News. Can you tell us what is going on here?”
The Cat looked into the pods camera and said. “I saw the whole thing. The Officer arrested two cats for simply coming out of the convenience store for no reason and then turned and shot Hunthead down as he came to talk even though Hunthead had his hands above his head showing no aggression.”
The News castor turned to the audeance audience and said. “As you have just heard it here first . The Police have murdered yet another cat on the west side for no reason. ”
Blackbeard started laughing as the new s lady continued. “The police are out of cont rol and must be rained in and its officers punished. We will now go to councilman Blackstrips, the head of the Cat coalition to address the police murdering rampage against innocent cats on the West side.”
Before Blackbeard stopped laughing , the C ouncilman had come on denouncing the police practices of stereo typing cats as an excuse to harass and murder them and called for the policeman that had murdered the law abiding Hunthead to p ay with his life.
The crowed must have heard that statement over their phones as the crowd su ddenly surged forward across the three police cruisers and the cops that came with them , tearing them from limb to limb. Minutes later the store was in flames and quickly spreading to other structures up and down the block. O ld warehouses that had been converted into apartments, housing hundreds of families each .