We Charge You Yield

Posted on Wed 27th Feb, 2019 @ 6:15am by Purulence Addams

1,068 words; about a 5 minute read

Mission: A Diplomatic Affair
Location: Crimson Assurance, Deep Space
Timeline: MD 3, 13:10

Crimson Assurance's signals warfare officer, the woman her Captain called "Witchy-Poo" peered through her soda bottle lens glasses at a display. There was the ship, just where Cap'n Daggerbeard's schedule had said it would be. Cautiously, gently, she extended the first tendrils of her web, touching, caressing the ship. She looked at the resulting returns, nodded, unwrapped a chocolate-flavored bit of chewy wax, and popped it in her mouth. Still chewing, she looked over her shoulder at the Officer of the Deck. "Contact confirmed," she announced.

Ignatius Collins mused on the unreal direction his life had taken. Not so very long ago he had been the owner of an asteroid mining start-up company. After running afoul of a pirate ship near the Triangle, he'd been taken prisoner and his cargo seized. Stupid, stupid to have let them know his real name; he hadn't repeated that mistake since. They'd kept him alive for ransom--which Ignatius supposed was better than killing him. On the other hand, given his family's history, he was well aware that there were far worse things than mere death.

After an even more unreal turn of events, he was now under the command of the strange married couple who had boarded the pirate ship, executed its captain, and freed him after taking charge. As his own prospecting ship was now so much space dust, he'd stayed.

They'd been pirating ever since--successfully and bloodlessly--which puzzled but relieved Ignatius to no end.

"Excellent," Ignatius said to Witchy-Poo--though Ignatius' private nickname for her was 'Trelawney.' "Verify the contents of the manifest with sensor analysis of what's in their hold. No sense bothering them if we don't have to."

He didn't really expect a discrepancy. Captain Daggerbeard had been correct every time before. Ignatius still preferred to check, anyway.

"There's a sensor anomaly in the midships bays," Witchy-poo reported, pushing her glasses further up her nose. "But the manifest reads that they're carrying sheets of processed quadrixenon, which would naturally block passive sensors like ours."

"Quadrixenon? Pretty," Ignatius said. He flicked on the communicator. "Rockhound to Captain Daggerbeard, we are approaching our target, and cargo is confirmed."

"Excellent!" the Captain replied. A moment later, the aft door opened, revealing the diminutive Captain, his eponymous van Dyke beard oiled and waxed to a point, his beautiful and deadly wife towering behind him. "What ho, me hearties!" he cried.

How were you supposed to reply to that? Ignatius wondered as he wracked his brains for dialogue from old pirate vids he'd watched in his childhood. "Ahoy mates!" meant Hello. The captain had just asked for a situation report.

"A, ah, fine prize ripe for the plundering, sir," Ignatius reported with a graceful gesture toward the main viewscreen. "Increase magnification by three, please," he requested of Witchy-Poo. He really needed to find out what her actual name was.

"A lovely sight, to be sure," Gloriana murmured to her husband. "Ideal for your purposes, Ma moitié¹."

As the image of the freighter bloomed onscreen, Pubert turned to his wife. "Glory! You spoke French!" He seized her hand, turning it over to kiss the palm.

The corridor door opened again, and the exec, a Romulan named -- or at least going by -- t'Shek rolled her eyes. "If, perhaps, we could focus on the business at hand?"

"But I am!" Pubert announced, flipping his wife's hand over and kissing her knuckles as well.

"I actually meant piracy, Captain," the exec said dryly.

"Ah! Pirating! Right you are, Bos'n Smee! Right you are!" Pubert straightened, but did not release Gloriana's hand. "Witchy-poo! How are we doing? Do you have control of their systems, yet?"

"Just about... in three... two... two and a half... now!"

Glory slipped her right hand free and gave both hands something to do - massage her husband's shoulders. Would this be the ship where their plans met success?

Ignatius pinched at his nose. "Mr., ah, Sparrow," he said to the fellow manning communications, "would you hail the Darkness Visible? It's time to have a chat."

Sparrow cackled gleefully, wiggled his fingers for a moment, and then danced them over the comms panel like a pair of fidgety spiders.

Ignatius blinked at the elegantly-garbed woman who appeared onscreen. She was a dead ringer for the sorceress Maleficent from animated videos he remembered watching during his childhood--right down to the high cheekbones, heavy-lidded eyes, and arched, dark eyebrows--along with--Ignatius squinted and glanced at Daggerbeard. "Is she seriously wearing a houppelande?" he whispered.

"You were expecting maybe a cotehardie?" the Captain murmured back, before stepping forward. "Ahoy! 'tis I, Captain Daggerbeard! Heave to and prepare to be boarded!"

"I was expecting something a little more, you know, 24th century," Ignatius whispered back and then fell silent so the captain could take center stage.

"My name is Captain Munster," the woman onscreen said, smiling in a way that promised endless pain. "Captain Malice Munster. And I am very much concerned, Captain Daggerbeard, that you are laboring under several false impressions."

Pubert glanced at Witchy-Poo. "Shut down their power grid."

The electronic warfare officer nodded, and pressed the representation of a big red button on her screen. After a moment, she frowned and leaned closer.

"First misapprehension," Captain Munster drawled, "you do in fact not have control of our computer systems, only of a walled garden created to make you think so. Second misapprehension: this is not a merchantman."

"She's turning to port," Witchy-poo said, her fingers busy on her console. "Cargo hatches are opening! Those bays aren't full of quadrixenon! They've got overcharged photon torpedo launchers!"

Pubert gasped dramatically. "A Q-ship!"²

"Third and final misapprehension, dear Captain Daggerbeard... I am, in fact, Commander Malice Munster of the United Star Ship Kingfisher." The image onscreen rippled, revealing the actual Commander Munster and the bridge of the ship she stood on. Her blood-red uniform tunic, three golden rank pips, and combadge told the same story as her words. "And now... in Queen Anne's name, we charge you yield!"

Pubert glanced uncertainly from the screen to the bridge crew of Crimson Assurance, and then back. "You do?"

"We do," Munster repeated forcefully.

"Then it seems we have no choice," Pubert sighed. "For all our faults, we love our Queen."

---

[1] my other half

[2] A military vessel disguised as a merchantman. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q-ship )

 

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