Pirates

....18 Months Later

"Chocolate sprinkles?"
"Sure!"
"Coming right up"

Jamie handed the large cappuccino with a double espresso shot to the pilot, who took the cup with his hand while still skillfully piloting the Starbug with the other.

"Whats this?" Jay asked, looking for a second at the cup in his hand.
"What's what?"
"You call those sprinkles?"
"What's wrong with them?" Jamie asked, incredulously.
"Nothing I guess, it's just...you've just kind of scattered them on top, I like it when I go to Starbugs and they make a picture in the sprinkles."
"Is that really the biggest worry right now?" Jamie asked as he glanced out of the Starbugs forward window at the swirling stars and laser blasts that shot past at a hairs breadth as Jay looped and twisted the shuttle evading enemy fire. An explosion filled the view as Jay calmly discharged the forward pulse cannons blowing an attacking ship to pieces, before taking a sip from his coffee.
"I'll say this though, you do make a good cup" he said.
"I don't know why you even brought me on this salvage mission" Jamie said. "I've got enough to do back on the Blue Dwarf! That re-fit of the reactor isn't going to do itself!"
"I know" Jay said "But I needed an extra pair of hands to help me load the cargo bay." Another attacking ship exploded before the Starbug lurched into a wide loop-de-loop, twisting as it came up behind yet another attacker and promptly dispatched it.
"Yeah, but anyone could have helped! I'm needed back on the ship, why couldn't you have brought someone who wasn't doing anything vital, like Phil"
"You know as well as I do that Phil would happily come along for the beer and poker, but as soon as there's any hard work to be done he'd find and excuse to die and come back to life once all the heavy lifting was done"
"Alright then, what about Seymour!"
"I'm going to pretend you didn't say that..., besides, I needed an engineer in case I run into trouble and need the ship fixed on the fly"
"Yeah...." said Jamie, glancing past his own reflection at the battle beyond the plexi-glass "Looks like you really needed my help there...you've taken out 35.."
"36"
"...sorry, 36 advanced marauders, and haven't even taken a hit!"
"So you're bored? Is that it?"
"I'm a highly trained Space Corp engineer. I can build a second generation higgs drive out of old calculator parts. All I've had to fix on this mission is coffee!!"
"You changed that bulb" another raider succumbed to Jay's weapon fire as he gulped down the last of his coffee.
"On the microwave!"
"And now we can see our dinner as it's warming up!..look I'm sure I can find you something to do."
With Jay cut the thrusters and stopped the Starbug dead in space.
"What are you doing?"
Enemy fire was unleashed, and finally scored a hit, taking out the green shuttles engines and weapons in one hit.
"You said you wanted something to do, now you get to fix something!"
"But! We're under attack, they're going to blow us out of the sky!"
"Think about, these are pirates. They want our cargo and our ship. They're not going to destroy us just board us and kill us"
"How is that better?"
"Well, the lead ship will need to dock, and the others will have to close in to stop us flying off, they'll need to be at least...what...1 kilometre from us wouldn't you say?"
"Oh..." Jamie said, realisation dawning. "It hasn't been tested."
"You're a highly trained Space Corp engineer, who can build a second generation higgs drive from old calculator parts. Anything you build will work, have faith...ah here we go they're closing in"
"Tell me when" Jamie said flipping open a plastic cover over a button on the co-pilots control panel.
"Wait....wait...NOW!" Jay yelled.
Jamie hit the button, and a surge of blue energy streaked out in all directions. Pulsing through the last of the attackers and overloading their primary systems leaving them dead in the water.
"It worked" Jamie exclaimed. "I guess I better get started on the engines...."
"Make it quick" Jay said, looking at a scrolling message on his command screen that had just appeared. "We're getting a distress call from the Dwarf, and on just thrusters, it'll take us months to get there..."

<tag!>