Driving a Hard Bargain

The cargo elevator slowly descends, depositing you and the industrial freight pod between the landing struts of the Breaker. Casually you push the massive box, easily ten feet to a side and made of solid durathium toward the assembled pirates. It slides forward easily and smoothly, coming to a halt right before the crowd, who point a wide variety of **** dealing instruments at it. True, the gravity repulsors built into the shipping container make it more of a feat of bravado than strength, but it does make a moment.

“Ah, Swanna,” you say as you strut forward. The hatch rises as you step off, your only escape sealed into the Breaker. “So good to see that you follow instructions.” Behind Swanna stands humans, Gavleths, Oo’licks, and other stranger species. Clearly they are anticipating your orders and not mentally counting all the ways they plan to fuck you. No doubt their weapons are in hand/flipper/tentacle so they can provide their arms as a ceremonious offer of surrender. Jokes on them. The only symbology you believe in are **** brands.

Not for the first time, Swanna seems flustered by your magnificence. You can’t imagine why; you’re about to make her life so much simpler. “What the hell is wrong with you?” Is all she can manage after a few failed attempts to come up with something more poignant. Her cinnamon hair is frazzled, as though she’s spent quite a bit of time trying to pull it out and you can see her grip tighten on that energy saber she’s wielding. The crew shifts behind her, spreading out in an arch around the conversation.

“Oh, I’m on top of the world. Between you and me, a big case I’ve been working on for what seems like three years is about to close. A better question is how are we going to fix what’s wrong with this ship? It’s a mess.” Swanna grimaces but her gaze follows the crew. Those beautiful brown eyes shift quickly back and forth.

You smile. Doe eyes.

“You come onto my ship and-”

“The Syndicate’s Ship, actually.”

Everyone pauses, even Swanna’s eyes. It takes her a second to recover but you have already taken the initiative. “Do you think they will be happy when you come back?” You step forward, one foot in front of the other, making your hips sway just so. All eyes are on you now. “How much were they paying you to do this job for them? How much did they pay for you to do this job for them? Better question than both of those, how much are they going to make you pay for this job?”

Swanna points her saber at you with the all the **** of impotent rage. “That’s enough! What did you find down there! Tell me where it is and the Syndicate never needs to find out about all this.” The saber quivers in her grip. The crew has formed a circle around you both, trapping her in with you.

You roll your eyes. Still bargaining. “I found a new way to go fast with no extra cost. Fewer costs actually. I can get from here to Renada, the most luxurious resort world in the Federation, in three days.”

Swanna actually laughs. “That's impossible. It’s on the far side of the Federation. There’s at least ten jump points you have to go through.”

“You better hope you’re wrong. Because if that’s the case, then there is nothing to save you.” With a broad gesture encompassing the Freedom's End you ask, “How much do you think it will cost to repair this thing? You can go ahead and ball park it for me. I imagine the damage is quite extensive and you’ll need to see a shipyard for a complete estimate.” You saunter over to the cargo pod and check a few things.

She ignores your question (at her peril you might add) and considers your claim. In the back ground the crew hangs like melting icicles; you never know when one could break off and fall on you. Finally, the trembling saber slows. “Show me. Show me how you can do this.”

“Certainly! Once you have formally surrendered to me. That is the purpose of this little pow wow.”

Her mouth just hangs open in disgust and befuddlement. In two strides she has closed the distance and is pointing the blade at your throat. “You keep fucking saying that like it’s funny! Why the hell do you think that’s funny?”

You shrug. “It’s not supposed to be funny. You should surrender to me because it's the logical thing to do.” Gingerly, you push away the saber. “Inside this box is a datapad. On that datapad is an equation that tells you how to find new jump points. Including one that will take you to the Renada system in three days. I had Melodia do the math so you know its right. Between you and me, she’s better at that stuff than me.”

She looks at you, and looks at the box. “Well then…” She thumbs the activation stud on her energy saber. As the phasic energy blisters from the blade, you turn on the holoprojectors.

The cargo pod is a standard commercial cargo pod. Built to be stackable and keep goods in whatever condition they needed to be in for long periods of time. Often, the contents need to be inspected without breaking whatever atmospheric conditions they are transported in, so the shipping containers often come with holoprojectors that will make the sides of the container appear transparent and well lit, even if the contents are in perfect darkness save for one, tiny viewscreen.

In this case, Bellextra happens to be part of those contents. Cargo winches are attached to cuffs on her arms and legs and they hold her limbs in a wide X. A close inspection will reveal a toy silently buzzing away in her ass as well as the cock ring you gave her. The pod is far too spacious for one bound Iah Kuruh, so you filled most of the remaining space with a significant portion of your armory. Lastly, there is one datapad taped to the wall opposite Bellextra, which is playing a video. Because the holoprojectors simulate a transparant surface, it is impossible for someone from Swanna's perspective to see what Bellextra is watching. She can however see Bellextra's face, expressing the rage unique to your beautiful former rival.

Swanna freezes, the point of the saber just beginning to sear a line into the seam of the metal, causing the holo image to distort around it. “You’re going to surrender to me, or Bellextra is going to smash her way out of that pod, and I promise you, she’ll destroy that datapad on the way out.” You press another button. Slowly, the winches start to unwind. Bellextra, her arms once razor straight, now begin to shift and wiggle as the tension eases. Only tension in the restraints though. Bellextra is tight enough to compact a black hole. "You'll have nothing."

“This is your plan?” She’s shouting now. The crew has closed in and a Gavleth, probably her second, looms behind and above Swanna, making her seem very small indeed. “Demand our surrender or you release one woman?”

“Yup. I’m pretty proud of it.”

“What makes you think she'll help you? She wrecked this ship to get to you. And you’ve locked her in there.”

“That’s right. She did wreck this ship. That’s why I brought her, so she could do it again.” You ignore Swanna for a moment to inspect your nails, which were poorly served by your time on Hellno. You’d kill for a manicure. “As you can see, she has her choice of tools to repeat the task, and I've been making her watch videos of me edging her on loop. She’s only cum once in the past couple of days so I imagine she has a lot to work out.” The cables have been gradually loosening this whole time and Bellextra is starting to flex. One could almost hear the metal groan as her struggles began to gain momentum. There was the smallest amount of bend in her elbows now. The pirates, who have been steadily closing in this entire converstion, take a not so steady step back. “After she punches that datapad into the sun, she is going to pound my ass! Mmmh!” You put your hand on the pod and lick your lips.

Swanna almost drops her sword as she stares at you. “And this is relevant because....” All demands forgotten in the face of your baffling brilliance.

“Because Bellextra won’t stop with me.”

You smile as one pirate makes a mad dash away. Someone shouts “Dammit Jenkins!”

“There are more of us than there are of you. You can’t win.”

To which you can only sigh and agree with her. “You’re right. But I can keep you from winning. They Syndicate isn't going to be mad at me afterall." The crew exchanges glances. "Okay, they won't be as mad at me as they will be mad at you, how about that?" Another set of calculating looks.

You swear you can hear the crunch of grinding teeth from the Gavleth, the creak of the crews clothing as they press in. Swanna tries to say something, tries to take control of the situation, but you breeze past. They’re here to listen to you after all. “That of course is option one. Option two, is I accept your surrender and you accept me as your captain. You don’t need the Syndicate. What has it got you? Is this the life of sadism and debauchery you were promised? Slumming away in the outer reaches, playing with broken toys. Waiting for someone else to come to you?”

You look around. “Did Mal even leave you with any slaves when he went to the planet?” Heavy silence fills the room while Bellextras struggles are just beginning to bear fruit. She can now bend her arm at a right angle and is leaning forward, reaching for what looks like a Trenati Neuron Blitzer. Or maybe it's a tetrion caster? Certainly some manner of device that kills things with a very direct application of physics. “Tell you what, surrender to me, and we’ll go raid Renada. I hear there is an Oo’lick pop festival going on there.” Oo’lick pop festivals earned the name not because of the genre of music, which is generally quite diverse, but for the preponderance of busty musicians to experience wardrobe "malfunctions" on stage.

“You think,” Swanna advances, rage in her eyes, "that you can come on board my ship and-” Her words are cut off as the Gavleth shoves a taser in her back. He lets her shudder for just a moment before depressing the trigger. Two massive hands pull her arms behind her back and a third clamps around her mouth, cutting off what surely would have been a loud and meaningless protest.

“I,” he says with a deep voice, “have never been to Renada, but I like Oo’lick pop festivals.”