Firefly

Chapter 20

Kate was in the cafeteria with both kids and they were all making a mess. "Combat's over?" Kate asked Rick as he walked in.

"All done for another three days." Rick scooped up his son. "So what do you want to do today?" Rick questioned him only to see him look down at Kateryn. "You like her, don't you?" Caleb reached out to be back on the floor.

"Okay." Rick felt a little rejected but at least these two liked each other since they were the only kids in the whole place.

"You really attacked those places?" Kate meant the treatment plants. She knew what not having any plumbing was going to do to people.

"Yes, we did." Rick sat down next to her. "This is war, Kate. When we tried to free whole planets from slavery a lot more happened than just losing three sewage treatment plants. The only difference is that this time the Alliance core planets are suffering instead of Browns."

"And they didn't suffer?" Kate queried since war affected everyone.

"Perhaps. …They may have had to use ration cards since most of their food comes from Browns' planets and we did what we could to prevent cargo ships bleeding our planets dry.

"Make no mistake, we starved and they were stuck using ration cards. You were a slave to a single person. All of us are slaves to the Alliance. That's why Frankie and Liz came all the way out here to get away from all that.

"It only feels calm here because the Alliance isn't out here. The planet I found you on wasn't a food producing planet. That planet wasn't nearly as affected as several of the others.

"You would have been, well younger; might have gone hungry a little," Rick said.

"We were always hungry. It was part of why my parents sold me. I don't blame them. I knew what they were doing." Kate didn't want him to think badly of her parents.

Rick tried to explain. "I don't think badly of anyone who's trying to stay alive. I just have a problem with owners of slaves and that happens to include the Alliance."

"Who wants to go to the park!?" Rick had had enough gloomy talk and would rather hear some laughter for a change.

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Kate was smiling widely as she watched Rick spinning both kids. He had a firm grip of both arms of each kid, one at a time, and was spinning in place with both kids flying at the end of his arms. Rick was grunting and the kids were laughing.

After a few minutes Rick was on the ground ready to throw up and the kids were still laughing while lying on the ground. Rick's mind was still spinning but it sounded like the kids were happy.

Then Frankie and Liz showed up. "What happened to him." Frankie asked Kate as they both saw him lying on the ground. The kids meanwhile were still laughing until one of them spotted the two of them and crawled toward Mom.

"Rick was spinning them one at a time. I think he's dizzy." Kate was still all smiles.

"It sounded like a good idea at the time." Rick said yet still didn't move an inch which had all of them laughing at his expense.

"So have you been having fun, sweetness?" Liz scooped up her daughter. She knew she was lucky to even have her. Yet her joy spread to them having Rick and especially Kate. She was starting to wonder if her daughter just knew who mommy was. Her or Kate.

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It is now three days later

"What's on the agenda for today?" Rick was right next to Liz and they were both right behind Frankie.

"We're headed for planet Sihnon. We're going to start with their power plants as well. Londinium is the home of the Parliament and the Prime Minister. Sihnon is the home planet of the Trade Association and other guilds within the system. They're the ones that steal all the produce and meat produced on other planets," Liz explained. They watched Frankie leave the Landing Bay then jump to the first target.

The first target wasn't all that hard to make out. It was a massive solar power station that took up at least a dozen acres. Technically there were three towers that the panels surrounding each of them fed solar energy to. Out of all the Alliance core planets, Sihnon was the greenest in terms of energy, trash it created, and how it handled that trash.

Frankie's job was to take out each of the three solar towers before moving to the next target elsewhere on the planet.

They watched as he disintegrated all three towers quickly and easily before moving on to the next target.

"I still have all greens. Scans show only two Alliance military ships in orbit. Both are Longbow class. Scanning targets now." Frankie brought one up on this screen for all to see.

This planet had a number of large solar disks in orbit that collected solar energy from the sun and sent that energy down to the planet in the form of microwaves or SPS for short.

"Locking on target and…firing." They watched as yet again a dark blue ball inside a separate bubble and surrounded by lighting bolts struck the target. Since it was small enough it was totally encompassed by the affect and when it ended the satellite was just gone. Then they watched him destroy two more just like the first one.

Since he was in orbit targeting where the microwaves went to supply power to the rest of the planet, all he had to do was target them, have his shots encompass them, and watch them disappear.

"Can I hit these stupid Longbow class ships. There are just the two." Frankie thought it would be simple.

"Negative, we're still on civilian targets only. We don't need military involvement yet. Stay with the program, babe. Do not screw this up. Just come home. We'll hit them eventually." Liz was going to remove his ass if he did something stupid.

"Jumping for home." Frankie didn't see Liz relax and start breathing again. Eventually she watched him shut down each system.

"They were just Longbows. Six hundred forty thousand tons. I could have taken them easily." Frankie still didn't see why not.

"Destroying the satellites might get them to think ship, however, the destruction of the ground stations could lead them to think it was a technical issue instead of a ship in orbit. If you had destroyed those two they would know for a fact it was a ship. There's only one group that could have ships that were capable of doing just that. They would be all over the outer planets searching for us and taking it out on them. We stick to the plan. Got it!" Liz needed for him to understand fully and stick with the plan.

"Yeah, I got it." He was military and wanted to kill military. But he trusted his wife. "So what's next?"

"In three days we go back and take out more civilian targets. Loss of life will be minimal like previous strikes except the damage is going to severely affect them. Pretty soon those rich civilians are going to start screaming. When that happens they'll open themselves up to new targets.

"The last war lasted six years and cost millions of lives. The Alliance didn't suffer nearly as much. This time we're going to fix that. The Alliance civilians may not die but they aren't going to enjoy their privileged lives. Now, I'm hungry so I'm going to the cafeteria." Liz kissed his head and left him sitting there.

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It is now one month later

Rick, Kate and Caleb were busy looking over their new cabin. It had been proven to be impossible to expand the Commander's cabin directly across from the Command room. Getting a Command and Control desk into another cabin had proven to be equally impossible.

The answer was to combine two standard cabins into one big cabin. It meant they had two living rooms, two bedrooms, and two bathrooms. At least it solved the space problem as Caleb grew up. If they chose to have another child the bed would be swapped out with a handmade bunk bed.

Frankie, Liz, and Kateryn were doing the same thing for the same reason with the same result. They, too, would end up with bunk beds if they chose to have another child.

"What do you think?" Rick asked, knowing as he looked around it wasn't nearly as nice as their previous cabin. For one thing it was an internal cabin, meaning it had no windows looking out onto blackness. Still the illusion of having windows had been nice, even if there was nothing to see.

The look on Kate's face told Rick she was thinking what he was. It wasn't really nice but it was necessary. "It'll do. Some paint, maybe?" Kate asked hopefully.

"We can ask." There were times when Rick really wasn't sure he was the commander around here. He kept asking if he could do this or could do that.

Caleb was getting closer and closer to being a year old and while Kate was interested maybe now wasn't the time to ask about another baby so she kept her silence for the time being.

Kate did have one idea and it wasn't a new one. She traced a finger over his chest. "Maybe we could break in the new bed? You could make love to me." That was one thing that hadn't changed. Kate needed sex, lots and lots of sex. Sometimes twice a day if she could find Rick and talk him into it.

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"So what's the target of the day?" Frankie questioned his wife who was right behind him again.

Liz began to explain what she had planned. "We have three planets that are now about one third dark and are going to stay that way for a long time. So far their answer is to put fighters in the air twenty-four hours a day. In addition they've pulled in some of their patrols." She had been keeping up with what they had been doing to try and counter what they were doing.

"So today we're going back to Londinium. This time you're going to attack their spaceports. They're shipping in supplies to try and provide support for that planet. We're going to stay here until the military reacts a little harder and focuses on Londinium. Ignore any cargo ships in the air or in orbit. The spaceport and any cargo ships on the ground, though, are your targets. You're free to fire on anything you want until military fighters show up. Then I want you to jump for home."

"Got it." This little trip was going to sound like one he was going to like. "There are three spaceports, you know."

"Yes, I do and that's why you're jumping from one to the other then the final one if the fighters stay far enough away. Don't risk a fighter getting lucky and shooting you or ramming you. We'll get there, babe, just be a little more patient." Since Liz couldn't see his face she didn't see him smiling wide.

Today was going to be a big day.

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Frankie was powering down after a really good day. "Let's see how they like that." Frankie was all smiles since he had almost totally destroyed three spaceports along with a number of cargo ships.

Granted the Alliance had hundreds and hundreds of cargo ships so what he had destroyed was barely a drop in the bucket. Still it felt good.

"I'm cooking tonight. Go find our daughter and bring her." Liz kissed him and headed off to the kitchen.

Frankie still wanted to start hitting Alliance warships. Show them that their precious fleet wasn't all that powerful any longer.

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Rick was sitting at his desk when suddenly hands that he knew well started to go down his chest. He smiled. Kate might have started out as a slave who only did what she was told. A very beautiful slave at that. Now that she wasn't a slave any longer the real Kate was shinning through nice and strong. She was also willing to ask for what she wanted.

"No luck?" Kate could guess what he was doing.

"If I didn't know better I would swear your parents have found another Outpost that's just as hidden as this one." Rick gave up for now and sat back. "Where are the kids?" That was one more thing Rick had noticed. She loved kids. She was a natural at being a mother.

"Liz has them for the day. Last I saw, Frankie was with her since today isn't an attack Alliance day," Kate answered.

Rick, however, heard the tone of her voice. "You disapprove of us attacking the Alliance," Rick stated with what he felt was certainty.

"No, I just… I don't like killing is all. You started this. I know what you tell me. It just means a lot of people are going to die, including children," Kate told him.

Rick heard the magic word in that statement and he twisted his chair around and pulled her down into his lap while he tried to explain again.

"I know I told you about the planets' attempt at breaking away from the Alliance. To try and be us instead of ruled by the Alliance. The idea was to start our own alliance and not be ruled by them. We entered into talks. Their answer to that was to attack us so we fought back. We lost, as you know. They took our audacious attempt at leaving them out on all of us. Things are even worse now than before.

"We're simply returning the favor. If they're not interested in talking and only want to kill then they should learn that it's a two edged sword. We haven't killed all that many people. We're just making sure they suffer for a change. What we've done will take them decades to recover from."

"So when do you stop?" Kate asked and Rick didn't miss that she used you and not we. Meaning she wasn't willing to be a part of this.

"WE will stop when Liz thinks they're ready to listen. They had no intention of listening last time. When will that be? That, my love, is anyone's guess. …When would you be ready to go back to being a slave?" Rick offered her a clue.

"Never," Kate said. "Do you really think it will be never?" Kate caught on fast.

"Everyone has their breaking point. The question is when will that be for the people in charge of the Alliance? And we have to be ready for a military response when we ask them if they're ready to talk. We know firsthand what their answer was last time." Rick really had no idea just when the Alliance would finally crack and listen to them.

"I just wish…" Kate left the rest off.

"I get it. I do. Honest. I'm not doing this for us. Well, not just us. We were right to try the last time. If we lose this time millions upon millions of people are doomed. If we think we're slaves then and now, we'll all have tattoos just like yours. We may be born with them." Losing this time would have dire consequences.

Kate still hated that killing had to be involved.

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"So what can we do with no kids around?" Kate smiled as she questioned him.

Rick offered an option. "You could help me look for your parents."

Kate actually thought about that one for a minute and shook her head.

"We could strip off all our clothes." Rick didn't make it any further and saw Kate smiling. "Then we could go running naked through the halls and flash everyone." Kate burst into laughter. He was being silly and she knew it. Still she actually thought about it for a moment. Being caught naked and maybe having sex did have a certain allure to it. Maybe next time when they knew no one was going to be in the park. She shook her head.

"One last guess, huh?" Rick wasn't sure what he wanted his last guess to be. So he decided to be both really silly and a little serious. "I could drag you by your hair over to the bed, tie you to it, and have my way with you. Caveman style," Rick growled at her and mock bit at her exposed arm.

Kate laughed yet again since he was being silly again. She loved feeling this free and happy. Yet he'd offered her something really different. She had come in there looking for sex after getting Liz and Frankie to watch the kids.

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He had given her four orgasms and while she had totally enjoyed that she'd learned that she didn't like being tied to the bed. She wanted to get her hands on him and not being able to do that hadn't turned into anything she liked.

Now untied she was lying on Rick and was thinking about another round with her on top this time.

"So tying you to the bed wasn't something you liked?" Kate had shown that she had struggled greatly with being tied to the bed.

Kate shook her head. "I couldn't touch you and I didn't like that. I like touching you. And I really liked when you hummed that song into my pussy." She already knew what his lips and tongue could do to her. Now she got to add the rumblings of his song to what she liked.

"Maybe…" There was a time when she would never have even thought of this. She used to be a slave and did what she was told. Now she was free. "Maybe I could tie you to the bed next time." Kate bit her lower lip and waited for his response to that idea.

Rick's eyes opened wide. Maybe he should have just kept his mouth closed. "And what would you do with me if you let you?" Rick asked, his eyebrows raised.

Oops, now Kate had a problem. She knew what she liked doing to him, but could she do that while he was tied to the bed? Just how would that work out? She was going to need to think about this.

Instead she moved down his body where she took him in her mouth until he was hard enough for him to be inside her with her on top this time.

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"What's today's target?" Frankie asked his wife as he sat down.

"Based on scans the Alliance military is searching the outer planets to see if there are any unknown military ships. Now while we do still have a few ships, they're all way out in the Rim.

"This means that the core planets are less protected. However, they're using a lot of fighters down in the atmosphere to try and catch us and prevent more damage to civilian targets." Liz had done her homework.

"So what are we hitting? There have to be targets that are still open. Their fighters don't worry me but this is your show," Frankie said.

Liz beamed and kissed him for that. "This should make you happy. There's a shipyard in space that's used to make Victoria Class and other smaller ships like Patrol Boats. It's basically unprotected at the moment. You, husband of mine, are going to spend this trip, all of this trip, ripping this place to pieces before coming home."

Grinning, Frankie turned to face her. "Is today my birthday and no one told me?"

"Early birthday present. Now blow this shipyard to pieces. What they leave unprotected next time is up to them. Soon choices are going to be a challenge for our little fighter," Liz warned him.

"Happy birthday to me." Frankie turned around and got ready to blow one of their shipyards to pieces.