After they left Vilmore things settled into a comfortable routine. Josh was busy tracking the last reported positions of the changeling’s privateers ships and tracing a route that would put them through their blockade. Velvet used her free time to put the paperwork in day and explore the ship.

Velvet woke up early in the morning with one of the androids knocking on her door with a platter of fresh fruits and juice.

“Good morning, Velvet.”

“Morning,” She sank her teeth into a slice of apple. “We received any communication from the Society?”

“Nothing yet, madam,” the android replied. “But we are still receiving an update from the local ansible buoy.”

Velvet was still learning the quirks of FTL communication, their dependence on the ansible network and the courier ships made it so messages usually came in bundles and could take a long time to reach their destiny, more akin to ancient letters than emails or text messages.

She combed her hair while awaiting for the update, trying on one of her new dresses. She put on a light summer dress, of a soft, pastel purple that was short enough to let part of her plot showing.

With the update completed, she logged in the Society’s server. A couple messages were awaiting.

Sweet Velvet took a deep breath and dove into her work.

Velvet pulled the data from their current location and the cargo’s status from the ship’s computer and ran it through an encryption algorithm before sending it back towards the Exploration Society.

Sweet Velvet stretched her hooves and began typing her reports, she needed to update their course with the Tarku’s spaceport security, have the documentation on the crystals ready for when they arrived, and get some of the androids to verify that the emergency generators on the crystal’s container were in proper order.

“Such a hard working mare,” Josh whispered as he came close, his voice rough and vibrating as his fingers moved her panties slightly to the side, teasing her hole.

She raised her hips, lowering her head, and lifting her tail as he held her tightly by the waist and pressed his cock against her ass. His cock, so thick and hard, weighed heavily against her ass, the thick head pressing against her hole. Driving her into bliss as he pushed inside her body.

His hands were domineering, his expression savage as he pulled her body against his. Velvet shuddered as she felt her ass being stretched, his large hands holding her in place as inch by inch he quickly penetrated her.

She bit her lip as a strangled moan escaped her throat; he held her steady and pushed fully inside her. A hard thrust had her fighting to hold onto consciousness as his erection stretched her ass to its limits.

A maelstrom of wicked, flaring pleasure pounding inside her body with that thick, heavy weight lodged deep and hard inside her.

She didn’t need gentleness, she craved him fast and hard. A rough fucking.

His cock retreated, then thrusted hard, stretching her sensitive muscles again as he pounded her ass furiously. His groans joining her moans as they both fought their pleasure.

Her hips moved against him, his hands gripping her thighs. Perspiration coated his flesh and her fur, heated moans filling the air.

His hands tightened on her hips, her eyes widened at force of his thrusts, her breath catching in her throat, a strangled scream escaping her as a shattering orgasm crashed through her body. His cock throbbing with hard blasts of semen filling her up.

“What about some breakfast?” She asked with a labored breath.

The ship’s speakers cut his reply short.

Warning. Warning. Changeling ship detected!

Josh Sinclair rushed to the bridge, cursing under his breath as his eyes coursed through the sensor screens.

A cold knot formed in his guts as the first readings of the changeling ship returned, it was a privateer, almost twice the size of his ship and heavily armed with dark energy weapons, the thick armor would make it almost impervious to his defensive systems. But the most dreaded weapon in their arsenal was their boarding teams that captured people from all species and took them to the hive worlds were they were drained of their love until they died.

I can do it, Josh repeated to himself between clenched teeth.

“What’s wrong? What’s happening?” Velvet asked from behind him. “Josh?”

The siren rang once again. “It’s a hail. We have company.” He turned toward her. “Strap yourself in, we may need to go into high G.”

Sinclair checked the sensors one last time, the enemy ship was a dark wound in the space, a crooked form with thousands of sharp needles sprouting from it, crackling with their unnatural energies.

Sinclair took a deep breath and answered the hail.

“This is the Errant Venture, answering, Captained by Josh Sinclair, a registered merchant captain in service to the Equestrian Space Exploration Society.”

“Josh Sinclair,” the changeling drawled out the name, a low insectoid hiss in her throat. “The Society has no authority in this region, but the Changeling Empire is always glad to receive merchants, as long as they don’t break the law.” Her voice rattled strong and hateful through the speaker system.

“I apologize, who am I speaking to?”

Merciless laughter answered, “Salticidae, a proud Hive Queen for the Changeling Empire, human,” her voice was a hissing whisper, ready to ignite.

“All my cargo is registered on my manifesto, I’ll have it transmitted for you in a moment, you are welcome to investigate if you wish,” Sinclair leaned back, hoping he had a fiber of charm in his body.

“Ah, I’m glad to see some proper respect, human, I am used to too much bark, but no bite!” she chuckled with glee.

Josh kept an eye on his sensor displays, the cold in his soul, as he knew that any delay could be fatal not only for himself, but to Sweet Velvet.

He checked the database of the ship, selecting the electronic warfare program. Only inexperienced captains put all their trust in software. Sinclair knew that he could never completely trust it, it wasn’t just flaws and glitches, but also all the malware that hackers kept coming up with.

“I’m sending my manifest right now,” Josh embedded a particularly malicious worm in fake manifest and sent the archive in a tight beam transmission.

Sinclair couldn’t help a tense smile as he touched the transmit command, and in a fraction of a second the worm began raising hell on the enemy ship. This wouldn’t last long, but it was enough.

“Reactor at full power! Maximum burn,” Sinclair said as he strapped himself to his chair, even with the gravitational dampers there was always some bleed out. He sent out a distress call to the Tarku’s defense fleet, hoping they would arrive in time.

The Errant Venture groaned and shrieked as the ship accelerated forward with its full power for the first time. Josh was pressed against his chair, the air expelled from his lungs as if a sledgehammer had hit his chest, he was faintly aware of Sweet Velvet’s screams behind him and the sirens of warnings coming from all over, but nothing on his panel had gone red just yet.

It was designed to endure it, Josh mentally repeated to himself. The changelings wouldn’t take long to recover and he couldn’t maintain the astonishing fuel-burn rate demanded by the maximum speed forever.

“Launch detected,” the ship’s computer declared impassively. “Plasma emissions approaching at ten kilometer per hour and accelerating.”

“Shit,” Josh deployed their defensive measures, canisters of mirrored sand that would dampen the plasma, anything that pierced the cloud would be deflected by the armor.

“Turn around, Josh!” Velvet called from behind. “Go for the Gas giant!”

Josh didn’t bother acknowledging the order, he had to trust her. He couldn’t keep this acceleration for much longer. In an instant, all weight seemed to disappear as the ship turned and accelerated in the opposition direction; Josh groaned and cursed loudly as the acceleration returned.

The gas giant came into view quickly, the computer quickly tagging a few observation satellites in orbit as Josh calculated their travel path. He glanced at the fuel gauge decreasing too fast.

When the changeling’s ship opened fire once again, they would do it with all they had. The first probing shots had been just a test to see what the Errant Venture had for defenses. They would fly by each other at high speed, with the changeling’s ship firing their maneuvering thrusters to pursue them.

Josh was calculating their acceleration and maneuverability. When the shooting started, he would push throttle over the safe limits and try to move through their firing zone as quickly as possible.

Alarms were going off all over the ship, the high acceleration was taking its toll.

The changelings opened fire with their laser batteries, the space between the two ships suddenly filled with beams of dark energy. The nanolaminated armor on the Errant Venture deflected most of it, but the sheer power of the attack cracked through the defenses, burning out the armor.

“Dive!” Velvet screamed. “Into the plane…”

She didn’t get to finish it, they dived into the gas giant’s atmosphere with a screeching howl. The ship rumbled violently as the computer tried to adjust to the new conditions, the violent storms throwing the ship around. The already damaged superstructure was ripped open in several places, the airlocks closing themselves to prevent the atmosphere leak.

On his threat display, the changeling ship fired a salvo of plasma bolts, but the turbulence of the atmosphere disrupted their tracking system. More plasma bolts were fired blindly, the changeling ship kept itself above, it’s bigger size would make it hard to maneuver on the atmosphere.

The space was filled with bright green flashes of light and expanding clouds of gas as plasma bolts detonated harmlessly on the planet’s atmosphere. Josh breathed in relief, they wouldn’t be able to maintain themselves in this position for too long, but until them the changelings wouldn’t be able to track them down.

“That was really clever,” he said as he took some water. “How did you knew it would work?”

Velvet laughed. “Cradle of Stars. You know, the TV show?”

Josh had to laugh too, he would have to remember this trick.

The changeling ship spun to face the planet head-on. It took a moment too long for Josh to notice their change in movement, but he reacted fast by quickly tagging the ship with a threat overlay and igniting the engines.

The changeling ship was coming up fast towards them, their acceleration going way beyond the security thresholds. The computer tagged several breaches into their hull, they were bleeding atmosphere in their single-minded pursuit.

“They are coming for us,” Josh said, his voice calm despite everything.

The storm roared around them, thunders lashing between the dense clouds and gusts of wind strong enough to break steel threw the smaller ship around, the manoeuvring thrusters struggling to keep her stable. The changelings opened fire with their green lasers and plasma bolts once more.

Josh could only hear his own heart thundering in his chest, pushing away everything else as he took the ship into a dangerous dive, deploying the air brakes as he hit the denser, lower atmosphere. Normally intended for reentries, the airbrakes caused the friction with the denser atmosphere to launch the ship straight up.

“Hull breach,” the computer sounded. “Deploying emergency sealant and fire containment units.”

There goes the pool, Josh laughed nervously, transferring all remaining power for the anti-meteor lasers. A quick glance at the fuel gauge confirmed he only had enough fuel for a single shot.

One chance. One is all I get.

Josh shunted everything from his mind, let the fear and anger slip away. In a moment of cold practicality, he let his trained instincts take over. He locked the target and squeezed the trigger.

An enormous flash of light illuminated the storms; the Errant Venture was thrown by the shockwaves as the changeling’s ship lost balance and tumbled into a deadly spiral.

The shot had punctured their engine, what normally would be a minor problem in space quickly cascaded into a catastrophic failure, as the ship’s computer couldn’t compensate for the violent storms quickly enough. In a couple of heartbeats, it was torn in two, the pieces of hull spinning downwards towards the planet’s core.

Josh checked his display, the Errant Venture was in desperate need of repairs and running on fumes, but they had survived. The Tarkus fleet was coming towards them to escort them to the planet.

They’d won.

“Holy shit,” Velvet said. “Captain, that was amazing!”

Josh Sinclair unlocked himself from the chair, by the morning he would feel the pain, but for now he was still riding high on adrenaline.

He pulled Velvet to a rough, hungry kiss. He really could get used to that.

Author's Note

Hope everyone have enjoyed this story!

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