In the Queen's Service

[LancerZero]

On the bridge of the HMS Pendragon, Leeds System

The flagship of the QCO was often a hectic place; but today, it was quiet. The mighty Dunkirk-class battleship was awaiting a new shipment of turrets at Southampton Shipyard, and thus had only a skeleton crew onboard. The communications officer was therefore somewhat startled when a voice suddenly came through over the emergency channel. She jabbed a finger down on the controls, and the message came on the main screen...it was a simple transmission, one-way. A distress call.

The image was grainy, but it was obviously the bridge of a Bretonian gunboat. The overhead ventilation fans were sparking instead of spinning, and as a result, smoke was rapidly building up. There was one crewmember slumped over a console, face bloodied...another was clutching his arm. And in the middle of it was a man in the uniform of a Lieutenant Commander, blood flowing over his face from a gash in his forehead. Flashing red lights could be seen in the corridor beyond as a heavy blast door slammed shut to seal off the bridge...

"We were just passing thr-*static*-ambridge when we got jumped by a Benitez gunboat! Aegis has t-*static*heavy damage, but not as much as we have. Hull breach in the hold and in enginee-*static*don't know how much longer we can last. I'm going to give the order to abandon-bloody hell! They're boarding!" The crewman with the injured arm drew his cute little defense pistol, and Martin drew his slightly more impressive-looking officer's sidearm. As if on cue, the screen shook as the blast door was hit with heavy weapons fire, obviously much more firepower than the Bretonians could call on from within the ship. "All we have are sidearms, we can't repel a boarding pa-*static*"

The screen went blank, and the comm officer's console read simply, "Transmission Lost." Her eyes got a bit wider as she tried to establish a video link...her first two attempts failed, but the third succeeded. She gasped at what came on screen...there were no Bretonians left standing on the bridge. Just Corsairs. Four of them...two with heavy military-grade rifles, one with a stunrod, and the fourth with two black pistols featuring silver castillian lettering on the barrels...the young officer noted with some satisfaction that the body of a Corsair lay near the entrance to the bridge, unmoving.

But that satisfaction was small indeed in the face of the fact that the Corsairs had apparently managed to capture a top-of-the-line BAF gunboat. From the way that the other three pirates held their distance from the fourth, she assumed he was some sort of authority figure. With as much confidence as she could muster, she keyed her mic. "Corsair boarders, this is the HMS Pendragon. Who the bloody hell are you, and what do you think you're doing?"

The man with the pistols turned to look at the screen, grimly smug. "I am Praetor Zavier Benitez...and what does it look like I'm doing, senorita? This ship, and its crew, are now the property of the Benitez family. Adios." He pointed one of his pistols at the screen and fired, severing the link. The communications officer sat there in shocked silence for a minute or two. Then, she dialed up Admiral Windsor.

"Sir? We have a situation..."

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Current Stories
Linus' Lackadaisical Logs(upd.3-1-10)
Archived Logs
In the Queen's Service(upd.4-21-10) | The Finer Things in Life (upd.4-8-10)
Silvy's Story(upd.2-29-08) | Conrad's Flight & Fight(upd.1-14-08)