Onward, to the Pirate Ship!

Through the clouds, Katie could see bursts of multicolored light. What sounded like high pitched thunder accompanied each one brilliant burst. The soundwaves seemed to roll over the dropship, causing it to shudder again and again. And with each shudder, Katie practically jumped out of her seat. Thankfully her seat's harness kept her in place.

"Don't worry, my dear. Those are light patrol cruisers up there. They're far too busy trying to hold their own against the Righteous Indignation to worry about us," Arbuckle said, taking a hand off the control wheel and placing it on her bare leg.

She should have jerked away. Or at least that's what her first instinct was. But she didn't. It wasn't because she was afraid of him, which she knew she should be. He was the mad pirate Arbuckle after all! But... she just didn't want to jerk away. She didn't want to do anything whatsoever to jeopardize this tender moment.

And then, just like that, it was over.

"I may have spoken too soon," Arbuckle said with a chuckle.

Arbuckle jerked his hand back and wrapped it around the control wheel. She felt the whole vessel snap into a leftward spin, deftly missing a thick cloud of shrapnel. Then he jerked back right and shoved the wheel forward, dragging the ship, Katie, and her poor stomach into a dive. Earth filled the viewscreen for a few brief moments before he jerked back, replacing it with stars and exploding lights.

"Smitty, your grand captain is under attack. Would you mind doing something about that? I'd hate for my new bride to be vaporized on our wedding day," Arbuckle said, holding down a comms button on the dash.

Out there she could see three smaller ships and a fourth, much larger one. There was a cacophony of booms and the larger ship lurched, belching forth dozens of searing blue specks, which flew across space. They caught the closer of the ships squarely in it's massive engine block. The ship listed sideways and stopped firing on the tiny drop ship.

"Good old Smitty!" he said and slapped his hand back down on Katie's leg.

She jumped and then cringed, fearing that her reaction may have angered her new husband. But he didn't seem to notice.

The ship shifted again and the view centered on the bulky pirate battleship, which began to grow to fill the screen.

"What do you go by, pet? Is it just Katie or Kat or what?" he asked her.

"I- well, Sir, I'll happily respond to whatever-" she began, stumbling over her words.

"Speak plainly, girl. What do you want me to call you?" he interrupted.

"Um... Kat would be nice, sir," she said.

"Very well, you shall be my Kat! Yar har!" he said and then began singing another of his pirate songs. "...We know it's full of precious booty! Burst open the locks and then we'll say huray!"

As he sang, a pair of massive, armores shuttlebay doors opened up on the pirate ship's rear hull. In an instant they were inside. The viewscreen now showed a small army of workers, running this way and that in the dim red light of the shuttle bay. There was a hiss and that red light crept into the ship.

"Come along, my Kat! We've work to do," Arbuckle said, taking her by the wrist.

"Captain!" men saluted as he passed by with her in tow.

No one seemed to take a second look at the Katie as she scurried along behind him. They traveled down a veritable maze of hallways and up ladderwells, each one seemingly in worse disrepair than the last. Lights were out and equipment was strewn haphazardly. Everywhere she looked there were placards to indicate their position on the ship. However, many of the signs were either missing or illegible. It was a wonder that the crew didn't constantly get lost. And yet, this Arbuckle character seemed to know exactly where he was going.

Eventually they came to a massive one-ton hunk of metal, sunk into an even more massive bulkhead. It took a full ten seconds of grinding gears for the blast door to fully open. Inside, dim red light provided just enough visibility to get by without bumping in to anything. Fire control, navigation, communications, sensors, and other stations were spread out across the curved portion of the horseshoe shaped bridge with an imposing captain's chair in the center, overlooking it all. Arbuckle strode confidently to his throne, and she of course followed. This time she could feel the eyes of every single one of the pirates on her.

"Cap'n," a plump man in a blue and white striped shirt said, standing up and offering the captain his chair.

"Thank you, Smitty," he said.

"My pleasure," Smitty replied, giving a sloppy but sincere salute.

"Is that cruiser's engines still down?" Arbuckle asked.

"Yes sir, she's floating," someone answered.

"Good! Lock onto it with the tractor beam," he ordered.

"What? What the hell good'll that do," a buccaneer yelled in protest.

"Shut yer worthless mouth and do as the cap'n says before I have you skinned fer insubordination!" Smitty yelled.

There was a 'crack' and someone cursed in pain. "Ey, sir!"

"Have a seat, pet," Arbuckle said, patting his leg.

Kat slid herself ondo his knee and immediately was enveloped by an arm which pulled her up his leg and into his lap. She did her best to stifle a yelp.

Out in space a glowing blue light reached out and latched onto the floating cruiser.

"Now give it a little nudge," Arbuckle said.

A second later the cruiser began flying end over end towards earth's atmosphere.

"Now hail the lead ship," he said.

A few seconds later the viewscreen flickered. The view of the battle shifted to that of a navy officer on a ship's bridge. Blue light illuminated stations behind him, one of which was smoking heavily.

"What do you want, Arbuckle? Reinforcements will be here soon. You might as well surrender," the officer said.

"Surrender? Me? I could just as easily blow you out of the sky! Here, let me show you! I'll just launch a nuclear missile at your drifting cruiser. That way when it breaks up in the atmosphere, it can litter ratiation across half a continent," Arbuckle said, laughing like a mad man.

"What? No! That would kill-," the officer began.

"Tens of thousands, at least! I wonder how many slaves I'd be putting out of their misery?" Arbuckle said, a sudden steely calmness to his voice. "That is, unless you power down your weapons, ALL of your weapons, right now and move in to tractor your comrade out of their rapidly decaying orbit."

"Arbuckle, you bastard! And how do I know you won't just open fire the second we lower our defenses?" the earth defense officer demanded.

"Let's be honest. You don't. But, I just got married today and she was MOSTLY willing. Most men on earth can't really say that, can they? Anyways, as you can imagine, I'm rather in a hurry to get out of her and consummate it... assuming she's willing to concent. Are you willing, pet?" he asked, turning every single person's attention on Kat.

"I-...," she stuttered, unable to think.

"Oh well, arm the nuke!" Arbuckle declared.

"No!" the officer screamed through the viewscrean.

"Wait! I concent. I want to have sex with you. Lots of it. Maybe in lot's of different ways, I dunno yet," Kat declared.

Everyone, herself included, was speachless. The officer's mouth just hung open, comedically.

"Well... uh, well then. Go ahead and deactivate that nuke and get us out of here. Head for checkpoint alpha," Arbuckle said.

Ten minutes later, the two earth defense cruisers were presumably busy towing their third out of Earth's atmosphere and the Righteous Indignation was making fast tracks away. Stars streaked by in a myriad of white lines on the odd functioning view wall.

"Is it true? Did you really fight your way all the way to Earth just for me?" Kat asked as she and her husband walked the corridors.

"Well, more like snuck. It wasn't easy avoiding all of those patrols and we're not in the clear yet. We've still got to miss them on the way back to deep space, too. And... no, I didn't just come for you. The cargo holds are full of Tiberium crystals from a raid on Mars. Had to make the trip worthwhile, after all," Arbuckle explained.

"Oh...," she replied, hanging her head.

"But the end goal was always to retrieve you. When your daddy reached out to me, he spoke of your beauty and your manners, and I'm glad to see neither was an exageration. No cheer up, girl. I expect us to be quite busy for the next few hours," he said.

She suppressed a grin.

"Promise to be gentle? ...at first?" she said.

"Promise," he replied.