Dog Emperor, You're Fishing Again

"Mrgllll glrrm gl! (I'll kill you!)"

The amphibious fish-man standing on Alfred's hat babbled wildly while, in its excessive frenzy and excitement, gleefully urinating on the vicious pirate captain's head. The latter paid it no mind, merely glaring as he directed his pirates in battle against the incoming enemy vessels.

"Navigator! Report on the enemy!" Captain Alfred was as furious as the yellow-green amphibious creature perched atop his head.

"Six Chimera Pirate capital ships spotted eighty miles away at bearing 240. They're accelerating toward us," the navigator immediately replied.

"Charge the main guns and make sure the torpedo tubes are clear!"

This was an unexpected encounter, but these pirates were long accustomed to fighting for their lives aboard warships at close range in space. Sometimes they faced armed merchant vessels and Imperial patrol ships; other times, it was ruthless peers like these.

Captain Alfred's pirate capital ship charged Captain Buzan's flagship, the Kimera, like an enraged beast. Its engines roared at full power, and cluster rocket pods along its flanks rotated as they launched a dazzling barrage. Explosions blossomed among the Chimera Pirates' fleet as their guns thundered in unison, showing no sign of yielding.

In the shadow cast by a satellite, Captain Alfred's pirate ship plunged into the Chimera Pirates' warships like a frenzied bull. They exchanged fire from distances of barely a dozen miles, sometimes only several. Massive laser turrets and magnetic rail weapons tracked escort ships and small raider craft weaving between the larger vessels as their fire-control towers turned.

Neither side held anything back. The Chimera Pirates' flagship was a modified old Confederacy battlecruiser, and those despicable, greedy tech smugglers had even found Yamato Cannon components in the starship graveyard left behind after the battle between the Confederacy and the United Earth Directorate Expeditionary Fleet in