RidOv Chpt-18

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==Ridiculously Overboard!! (A Captain Roberts Tale!!)Chapter 18 - Recruitment, the Hardway==
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Halla star system...
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The Sons of Plunder ran out of gas before the warship ran out of ammo.
They also ran out of S-7 Bus smallcraft, those were popped like zits using gross overkill from the ship's main guns.
From there, it took only a few hours, for her to meet Larry Nichols, the owner/operator of "Larry's Wife", a smuggler who confessed to it.
Larry's impression was on the money, standing on the boat deck of the little warship. 'Captain Roberts' was younger than his estranged son, and looked maimed.
"Good, you surrendered!" she smiled, wide and looking a little unbalanced.
"We were the ones you rescued, uh...'captain' Roberts?"
"Yep, that's me...I can't carry your dropship, you'll have to give all your goodies to me through the cargo lock."
"Goodies?"
"Booty?? uh...plunder??" she seemed so horribly clueless, it was hard to remember she was holding a vibro-sword in cutlass configuration and had a sternsacht as big as her arm crammed into a sash around her middle.
Like a kid playing pirate...if you ignored the empty left eyesocket left open to the air, or the reddish, incompletely healed scarring near her temple.
"Uh...'cargo'." he said.
"Oh right...anyway, you won't need the Dropship." she asserted.
"WHy?"
"That's because we won't be making landfall, of course!" she almost burbled.
"Why not?"
"Because...You're going to WORK FOR ME!! The GREATEST PIRATE YOU'LL EVER SEE!!!"
"Work...for you...why?"
"Well, I have great big guns, and your ship isn't going anywhere without a lot of major repairs." she said, "But I am!"
"What are you going to do about the survivors from the Sons of Plunder?" it was Lori who asked that, she actually looked interested while Larry felt his mood bouncing from amusemed to appalled at their situation.
"Well...kinda depends on whether you guys will work for me, if you won't, I'll hafta offer the same deal to them, instead of...y'know, leaving them on the second planet or just letting them suffocate in their fighters outside."
"How many people do you have?" Larry finally asked.
"Uh...just you guys?"
Trading arms to pirates is a death penalty. being left out here? a death penalty. joining this...whatever it was?? could be deadly, or it could be a way out.
She's got a warship.
"I'm in." Larry spoke, "but you might consider grabbing some of those fighter jocks anyway, this boat has fighters in it??"
"Four SB-27 Sabres and a pair of Vulcans Heavy Fighters." she said.
Jesus. the kid has no discretion... "Okay, you'll need an exec..."
"You know how to do that?" she asked.
"I was once a Leftenant Commander in the Federated Suns Navy." he told her.
"You'll do...at least for a while, mind you, I might kill you anyway. Most likely, in the morning."
A Literature fan? Christ.
This felt like another one of Larry Nichols' bad life decisions..."You have weapons?"
"On this boat? YEAH!!!" she smiled wide again, "Come on! there's a whole armory of stuff!!"
"Well, if we're going to recover survivors from the Sons of Plunder? we're going to need 'em..."
The crazy girl with the warship saved Larry's life, saved his crew. Larry knew god didn't offer this sort of thing to everyone, and when you get the offer, you grab on with both hands and hold tight.
"We're really doing this?" Lori whispered.
"Yeah, we're really doing this...holy shit!!"
Mauser 960s Rifles, Nighthawk Power Armor suits, SLDF weapons and armors. Just sitting there like they were put there right out of the factory.
You don't snub your nose at that.
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