Old Friends

I could feel Ilyurier Vrus staring at me from her station on the Luna Fuwuyothi's command deck. I attracted the same sort of crew where ever I went. Young, idealistic Keldons. Usually they have lineage that goes back to Urlafa or one of the other worlds were Keldons suffered in the abortive war for independence years ago. They seek me out, fresh from their clutch-mothers, because they believe I can lead them to some sort of revenge against the Ska'ari for what they did to their friends and family.

They don't often realize that the road to revenge doesn't lead straight to Ska. Which is why I suspect Ilyurier was staring at me. We were near the border to Empire space cloaked in a nebula and within optics range of a preywinder. How could she have known when she was a clutchling on Zaniah that the road to revenge led to the spot under the shadow of the business end of a preywinder?

She asked me with trepidation, "How long will we wait here clutch-brother?"

"The appointed time approaches young one. Have faith in our far-cousins."

Ilyurier looked down at her terminal and said nothing else. I decided to reassure her.

"Listen to the songs in the nebula. They will tell you where the preywinder wishes to go."

I had recently ignored the songs the galaxy sang to me in my rush to hunt down an enemy. That mistake ended, once again, in a trip to Phao in an escape pod courtesy of a different preywinder. I always try to make a habit of learning from my mistakes. Here I was trying my hardest to make another.

To my relief Aceeas Muriten, my second mate, excitedly reported a contact transmitting priority codes.

"Very good young-ones, let's get our guests aboard and get out from the shadow of this blasted preywinder."

Old Familiar Feeling

I sit in uncomfortably in my command chair. I spit blood on the deck.

"Status?" I inquire of my painfully overpaid first mate.

"The hull is breached clutch-brother. The control systems are fused and the back ups are non-responsive. We are in a rapidly decaying orbit over Diphda. She'll fly apart in a few minutes."

"Do we have any sensors?"

"Exterior optics only, I'll put it on the main screen."

Sparks fly and the display comes back to life. Unmagnified against the pitch-black of the Diphda system the Mooncrusher that had just smashed the Luna Fuwuyothi aside was bearing down on the Crazy Missile Foodie, curiously named and commanded by Godfather Q Roger.

I turn to my second mate with another question, "Mnaryii, did we even scratch the evil bastard?"

"Clutch-Brother, we scored three missile hits and several cannon shots. We stripped nearly half their armor before the weapons systems were disabled."

I look back at the view screen in time to see the Mooncrusher explode brilliantly under the withering fire of the Godfather's guns.

I smile wide, showing bloody teeth.

"To the escape pod then?" I look around the bridge one last time and say to myself, "This is becoming far to easy."