The Alienbutt Saga, Book 1. War of the Coffee Bean. Part 10.

Piestoff landed back in the hangar and immediately jumped out and grabbed a Tec. Officer he recognised. The bay was a hive of activity and the ground crews rushed around securing the returning ships. “Is everyone back?” He looked around the hangar checking the ships that were already back.

“Don’t worry, Commander Alienbutt, they’re all back apart from Wickede who’s returned to his own ship. Blackarachnia says you’ve to get up to his office as soon as you touch down.” Piestoff gave a sigh of relief and relaxed. The Tec. Officer continued. “I think that’s the first time you brought a ship back in one piece, Alienbutt, you're improving.”
Piestoff grinned back at the man who always managed to fix the damaged ships he brought back. “There’s a battered-up fighter bomber heading this way. Look after her when she gets here, she promised me a drink.”
The Tec. nodded and turned his attention back to the work at hand as another ship entered the bay. This one was quite badly damaged. As it passed through the atmosphere shield, smoke began billowing from one of the twin engines; the sudden arrival in an oxygen atmosphere caused a fire on the damaged engine. Small orb-like flying droids intercepted it, spraying a white foam over the engine to prevent the fire spreading as it landed in the bay indicated by the ground crew. Piestoff saw his ship already on a transfer lift being lowered to the lower levels where the ships were stored. This was so room could be made for the bounty hunter’s short range ship waiting to enter. He turned and headed for the lift. On his way, he popped his head into his quarters. Poodles lay still sleeping on his bed, next to him lay Mr. Fluffy.
“Found the safest place on ship did you, cat?” Piestoff said to the cat.
Mr. Fluffy gave a look of disdain and jumped down, sauntering out into the corridor and strolling off.
Hurrying onwards, Piestoff soon reached Blackarachnia’s office and walked in. Nifty was sitting in one of the chairs but jumped up and gave him a hug. “Thank God you’re OK; Wickede was worried sick when he lost track of you out there.”
Snoodgrass and Blackarachnia stood at the other side of the office. Both looked relieved to see Piestoff standing before them. “Grab a whiskey and sit down, Piestoff,” ordered Blackarachnia. “This isn’t over yet. We’ve lost five of our dreadnoughts and God knows what else. Once we get all the fleet that still flies sorted we are jumping to a safe site and then we need to work out what went wrong.”
“Wickede is worried; there shouldn’t be a ship out here that can take out a dreadnought so easy,” Snoodgrass said, sitting down and pouring generous whiskies into four glasses. “You and Nifty fought really well today; no one would have known it was your first battle. You trained them well, Blackarachnia.”

Piestoff drained his drink in one, so Snoodgrass slid over the bottle with a grin. “I’ll get a fresh bottle for the rest of us.”
There was a knock at the door, and Blackarachnia shouted for whoever it was to enter as he too sat down at the table. The door slid open and two bounty hunters entered. Blackarachnia smiled in recognition at the two and introduced them as Captain Noble and Jack Lantern.
“Good to see you survived,” said Blackarachnia, indicating to them to sit.
“Good to see you turn up,” said Jack with a slight smile. “We were getting our arses kicked by those guys.”
Snoodgrass passed over a drink to each of them. “Any ideas who they were?”
Both shook their heads as they drained their drinks.
Snoodgrass sighed then continued, “We ran the ships through our database but came up blank, but you two spend more time out here than the Ick do, so I hoped you might have seen something.”
”Never seen their type before. I just hope we smashed them here, but somehow I doubt it,” Said Noble, leaning back in her chair.
Snoodgrass looked at the monitor in front of him at the table and stood up. “We have the co-ordinates for the jump. I’ll go sort that out before I hand command back to you, Blackarachnia.”
“Thanks Snoodgrass, let’s get to a safe place and then try and work out some answers.” Blackarachnia turned to Nifty and Piestoff. “You two go try and get some sleep; lord knows there won’t be much chance very soon.”
Nifty waved away the comment but Piestoff stood and went to walk out. He still felt uncomfortable in the company of strangers and was glad he had an excuse to leave. As he passed Noble she put out her hand to stop him.
“You’re commander Alienbutt?” she asked.
He nodded, feeling suddenly too tired to talk. She smiled at him. “Your Tec. Guy said you had unusual taste in boots. Thanks, you got my back out there and I think the boots are cool. When this is over, you’ll have to tell me where you got them.”
Piestoff looked down at the seated bounty hunter and smiled when he saw she wasn’t making a joke. “Thank you, I will,” said Piestoff at the unexpected compliment. Bidding good night, he left to return to his quarters.

Thanks for reading, all artwork is my own.