The Reaper Chronicles

Party

    "Uhhh..." Lee started, looking at the guts all around him

    "Well what's the only thing pirates love more than plundering?" Samson asked.

    "So you want to throw a party for the rest of the pirates after killing the majority of the crew from their flagship?" Lee said.

    "No," Samson said, finally finding the body he was looking for in the mess, "I want you to throw a party for the pirates." He said as he tore Goob's helmet off and tossed it to Lee.

    "Ohhh, so you want me to impersonate Goob the Dreadful and tell their entire crew to gather in one spot so we only have to blow up the one ship."

    "That would be ideal but the only ship big enough to feasibly house all of them is the flagship, and it's got to have the most goodies."

    "Sooooo..."

    "So we call up a party on the flagship and I raid it."

    "Okay but how are you going to get on the flagship? They'll see you coming and know it isn't..." Lee broke off as he noticed Samson looking upward with an impish expression at the residual swirling matter where the pirates had opened a wormhole into their ship.

    "No. No way. You know how illegal that is. If the federation does a random check and sees that we opened one we'll be stripped of status and banished." Lee protested.

    "I agree. But if Goob were to request a wormhole back and the pirates opened it then we'd be just fine, legally speaking."

    "That is a fine line we'll be walking, but not a terrible idea." Lee said ponderously. He shook his head and started back towards the cockpit. He was not fond of walking the line like this but he had to agree that it would maximize mission profits in the end if Samson could annihilate the crew without them needing to destroy any more ships.

    "ASASN." Lee called out.

    "Yes?"

    "Can you reconstruct a visual and audio filter based on what data we have from communications with the pirate captain for me to reasonably impersonate him?"

    "I'd already been working on it as soon as Samson mentioned it. It won't be perfect but I've whipped something up that should be able to fool a few Incarthid."

    "Good enough." Lee said as he tugged out his hair tie and let down his wavy maine. When he pulled the helmet on he became keenly aware of just how fowl the thing smelled. It was a little large for Lee's head but luckily his excessive amounts of hair were able to keep it more or less in place. He looked at his reflection in the ship's video and spotted the ugly mug of Goob the Dreadful, scraggly-haired chin and all staring back at him. "Open a hail."

    "The is Goob the Dreadful calling my ship. Is this thing working?" Lee was surprised at how rough and gravely his voice sounded.

    The image of a greasy looking, hunched figure behind a pair of glasses answered the call. His voice came out even greasier than his appearance. "Captain?"

    "It worked!" Goob said excitedly. "We killed every last one and the ship is ours. Send a message to the other ships: we found some decent booze and we're bringing it back to celebrate our victory! Everybody is to gather on our ship to celebrate. Every. Man."

    "That's the captain for you!" Skalder said excitedly as he began typing commands furiously into his keyboard. Abruptly he stopped as if considering something. Uh-oh Lee thought.

    "Why didn't you just signal the other's yourself, why are you even calling from their ship at all when your helmet can do it?"

    That's a legitimate concern. Lee thought. "My armor was damaged in the fight." He said tightly, trying to affect a tone running low on patience. "That Dale ended up being a better shot than he looked."