October 2942
Pirate Asteroid Base 'Haven'
Unknown System
Lexi lay under her consort passionless. She'd traded one cretin for another. At sixteen, she'd already killed a man and found herself betrothed to be the third wife of Gustav Skytte. She wasn't even sure the marriage was legal or not, but her survival instincts told her this was the best way to get what she wanted and would allow her to survive.
Gustav continued to pleasure himself upon her, while Lexi drifted in her thoughts. She'd been brought here nearly seven months ago at Gustav's order. He'd been impressed with her handling of the fat bastard who had enslaved her for his own pleasure and ruined her for any other man. A tear slipped from her eye, which she quickly wiped from her cheek. Gustav didn't seem to notice. He had commandeered the Phoenix and brought it along with her to the place they called Haven. This sanctuary was their home and base of operations looting both the UEE and Xi'an borders.
Suddenly and unexpectedly, an alarm klaxon began wailing throughout the Haven. Her ears trembled under the noise.
"What. What is it?" She questioned as Gustav pulled on some trousers and reached for his black trench.
"We've got unexpected visitors in Haven." He tossed the trench on, ignoring the missing shirt and reached for his shotgun.
"Stay put and see to my wives." He ordered as he exited the room and headed for the station's command center.
A few minutes later...
Eyanosa sat calmly upon a crate sharpening his stone tomahawk. Gustav entered the command center and looked across as several technicians punched buttons and looked upon the view screen. "Status!" Gustav said with an irritated voice.
Eyanosa chuckled beneath his breath. The white man never liked to being interrupted when pleasuring himself and with three wives he tended to find himself in this situation frequently.
"We've just had a Carrack and Aquila jump in system sir. Our remote asteroid sensor arrays caught them five minutes ago." A nervous tech responded.
"Dammit. Why did you wait five minutes to alert me.?"
The tech looked even more terrified now. "Ah... We had to be sure the sensor wasn't malfunctioning sir," Another technician quickly responded.
Ignoring both, Gustav turned to Eyanosa and started for the door. "Protect my wives." He ordered. "The rest of you make yourself useful. Execute defense plan Salty Dog." Gustav continued out the door and headed towards the hangar bay.
Fifteen minutes later...
Juliana traced the outline of her left arm Tattoo with her right index finger. She found solice in her markings as she impatiently waited for Gustav's signal from the seat of her Gladiator. They had acquired two of the bombers a few years back when raiding a remote UEE defense post that was in the process of being shut down.
Fortunately, both had been outfitted with jump drives at the time. Otherwise, they'd have left them in favor of other easier to acquire targets. Gustav had long since had the drives removed for use in raids and allowing for more payload. Just the thing she would need for these invading ships.
"110 meters," The voice broke her from the seductive trance of tracing her tattoo. Juliana pressed a few buttons on the ships console bringing into view the Constellation Aquila. Her Gladiator hung to the back side of the asteroid but piggy backing signals from the exterior asteroids, she along with the others were able to get a sensor reading of the ship without revealing their location.
"105 meters." The voice sound more rushed. "104. 103." As per the plan, Juliana held her finger ready to turn on full systems. Currently they were at minimal systems active and passive radars. The asteroid field helped to mask their presence. "102. 101. 100 meters!" The voice yelled the last bit over the communications channel.
"NOW!" Gustav cut into the original voice.
Tatiana, slide her fingers across multiple controls powering all systems. Using her left hand, she jerked on the joystick lifting the gladiator off the rock's surface it had been hugging. Shifting her other hand to the joystick, she turned and went around the asteroid putting it to her back. Right there, just like her piggy-backed sensors had informed, she saw the Constellation.
Pressing her trigger finger, she released a volley of stalker IR missiles. Not as powerful as the default load out the UEE usually armed, but they didn't have the budget or resources for that. Living on the fringes meant working with what you could scrounge off dead and damaged vessels, using the black market or a few willing legal sellers. Unfortunately this usually meant their targets tended to fire off most if not all of their ammo providing for a limited munitions budget. Most of their ships favored energy based weapons because of this. Gustav had determined defense of the base to be a higher priority and thus no weapons restrictions were in play.
Both Gladiators pummeled the Aquila with missile fire. As soon as one volley hit, a second one was inbound. The trio of cutlass added in laser and ballistic fire as well. Before the connie could react, it rippled with an internal explosion. Whatever the damage, it was severe enough to disable the vessel. Without firing a single shot, it started drifting on it's own, parallel to the asteroid field.