by N M Tatum
Sam vaulted over their makeshift walls and brandished her sword. One of the guys yelled from behind her, ordering her back to cover, but his pleas didn’t persuade her to move. Not backward, anyway. She charged the enemy.
The first Rapoo leapt at her, its diamond teeth glistening in the flash of blasterfire. Sam thrust her sword forward, her momentum and that of the Rapoo tearing the creature completely in half. She used that momentum to dispatch one more. Then she ducked her head and rolled forward, dodging the swiping claw of the next Rapoo. As she rose, she brought her blade up and separated the Rapoo’s head from its body.
Blasterfire proved significantly less effective. Cody broadsided a Rapoo with his scatterblaster, knocking the creature off its feet. But the hit did little more than superficial damage, drawing blood, but barely slowing the thing down. Reggie held his aim at one Rapoo’s face for a full three seconds of gatling fire, about three hundred rounds, before the creature fell dead.
When Joel realized that his pistols were only effective at short range—after dropping a Rapoo with a single shot to its eye—he jumped over the crate wall and took up a position next to Sam. The impulsive move paid off with the death of one more Rapoo, leaving just five, but it was a short-term victory. Joel was too exposed.
A Rapoo slammed into his shoulder, using its head as a battering ram. Sam moved to assist, but she was hit with a similar attack. A different creature used its body to ram the backs of her legs.
Cody and Reggie tried to come to their friends’ aid, but the Rapoo seemed to realize the effectiveness of their attack. Three of them rammed the barricade with their bodies, keeping Reggie and Cody trapped in their base, while the other two circled Joel and Sam.
Joel tried to raise his pistol, only to discover that his shoulder had been dislocated. Sam swiped her sword when the Rapoo ventured close enough, but the beast easily dodged it.
The Rapoo bared their teeth, prepared to attack, their growl shaking the floor beneath Sam and Joel. They readied to lunge.
And then something collided with one of the Rapoo like a meteor into a planet. The creature’s bones cracked as it let out a piercing yelp. Peppy stood on top of the Rapoo, a victorious hunter. He dropped his paw onto the creature, slapping it in the side of the head and knocking it unconscious. Then Peppy clamped its jaws around the Rapoo’s neck, jerked to the side, swung it back, and snapped its neck.
Joel froze at the sight of his beloved pet so viciously dispatching the thing that shrugged off their blasterfire. Equally powerful senses of pride and unease battled inside him.
Sam took the opportunity to act. She charged the three Rapoo currently attacking Reggie and Cody, and slashed one across the back. When it fell, Cody jumped the wall and shot it repeatedly point-blank with his scatterblaster. It squirmed and screamed, but was eventually turned into a soup that somewhat resembled what it once was.
Reggie plunged his pincer daggers into either side of one Rapoo’s neck. The creature lurched back, yanking the pincers from Reggie’s hands. He followed after it, peppering it with gatling fire, tearing it to pieces.
Peppy dispatched the last of the Rapoo pack as viciously as he did the first. Throats torn open. Snapped necks. And then he sat on his haunches, tongue dangling from his mouth, waiting for a pat on the head.
Joel reached for Peppy cautiously, ready to pull away should he need to. The ignorant expression on Peppy’s face, empty of anything but joy, tugged at Joel’s heart. The total innocence there clashed with the violence of Peppy’s behavior, and left Joel feeling pulled between the two. Ultimately, it was the naïve pet that won.
Joel laid his hand on Peppy’s head. The animal pressed against it like any pet would, his entire body rumbling with a sort of purr. “Well, that was…something.” Joel had decided which Peppy he would embrace, but his voice still quivered with indecision.
What happened next only widened that divide.
Peppy began to shake beneath Joel’s hand, with more than a purr. More than a rumbling growl. He shook like an earthquake was born deep inside his chest. Every piece of Peppy spasmed until he fell to the floor. He made a noise Joel had never heard before, but it didn’t seem like a pained sound.
Joel knelt beside Peppy. “Pal? What the hell is happening?” He looked at Cody, expecting him to have the answer.
Cody shrugged. “I don’t know. I don’t even know what species he is, so I can’t look it up.”
Before Joel could lash out at Cody in a fit of misplaced anger, Peppy pulled away from him. It wasn’t an act of urgency; the creature moved with calm, like he knew what was about to happen. He just needed the space.
Peppy grew. Not just up, but out. It didn’t seem to hurt, but Joel couldn’t understand how that could be. Peppy’s muscles stretched. His bones twisted, popped out of place and settled in new formations. His teeth grew longer and came to a needle point. Streaks of red appeared on his side.
When the change was done, Peppy stood waist-high on all fours and at least six feet from nose to tail. The Notches stared in stunned silence as he pranced around, admiring his new body.
“What just happened?” Reggie asked.
Joel beamed like a proud parent. “Peppy just leveled up.”
Chapter Sixteen
They didn’t have time to stop and assess the drastic change to their newest team member. Or contemplate what it meant. But they did have time to appreciate how awesome of a killing machine Peppy was. He was, by far, the most effective weapon at their disposal for ridding the Cleopatra of the Rapoo infestation.
But don’t refer to Peppy as a killing machine in front of Joel.
“He’s not a killing machine,” Joel protested Sam’s stark appraisal. “He just happens to be really excellent at killing the exact things we need killed. He’s not a weapon any more than you are.”
Sam bristled at that, but understood his point.
Cody studied the schematics of the ship. “The ventilation system should have flushed out the Rapoo by now, but I have no way of confirming that.” He looked up again, eyes pointed toward their invisible friend. “Could you help with that, Cleo? All you would need to do is—”
“Patch you into the onboard infrared scanners,” Cleo said, finishing his sentence. Then she went silent, like she was thinking. “Granting you access to the infrared scanners falls within my mandate of assistance. You have been granted access.”
Cody’s wristcom display lit up with new colors. “Awesome. There are scanners at regular intervals throughout the entire ship. They could track any crew member at all times.” His excited smile soured. “A little creepy, now that I think about it. But for our circumstances, it’s a perfectly helpful invasion of privacy. There’s a pack of Rapoo just outside the hangar bay doors.”
Reggie hoisted his gatling. “Then that’s our next stop.”
Joel stifled a laugh. “Was that your gruff, cool-guy voice? Is that a thing now?”
“It’s just how I talk.”
“It definitely isn’t.” Joel walked toward the hangar bay door, Peppy loping behind him. “Oh, and by the way, that corridor is the only way out of the hangar bay, so of course it’s our next stop. If you’re trying out gruff action star one-liners, you’ll need to choose your timing better.”
Reggie grumbled as he followed the others.
They paused at the hangar bay doors. After a quick brainstorming session, they devised a plan of attack. Cody counted down from three, and then cracked the door just enough for Joel to toss out a flashbang. Then Cody opened the door the rest of the way, and the team rushed out. Sam decapitated a Rapoo. Reggie pinned three of them against the wall with a barrage of fire. Cody and Joel moved in close, taking out two at close range. Peppy dispatched four then stopped to lick himself before the others had time to breathe.
Joel looked like the father of the kid who’d just hit the game-winning run. “And you guys didn’t want me to smuggle a pet of unknown species off a planet of black-market hoodlums. Shows what you know.”
Cody shook his head. “Yeah, you totally knew something like this would happen. But just because Peppy is tearing the shit out of these Rapoo doesn’t mean he still won’t do the same to us while we’re sleeping.”
Joel patted Peppy on the head. “Don’t listen to him, Pep. He’s just jealous because he doesn’t have his own badass mutant sidekick.”
Cody scoffed, but couldn’t offer anything in the way of a denial. “The next pack is down this corridor, in the nav room to the right. It’s a small space. I say we send in the mutant sidekick and let him do all the work.”
Joel marched ahead with Peppy. “He’d be happy to. He’d also be happy to take your slice of the payout, since he’s doing all the work.”
They cleared the pack in the nav room the same way they cleared the previous pack. Crack the door, pop a flashbang, and breach. And they cleared the next dozen packs the same way. Cody’s earlier assessment was spot on. There were fewer Rapoo overall, and the packs were way smaller than the ShimVen swarms, but they were far stronger on an individual basis. The Notches had killed less of the pests they would have typically killed by this point, but they were close to spent physically.
At Reggie’s suggestion, they took a break after eradicating a pack in the engine room.
“These fuckers are tough,” Joel said, “but I thought this would be harder.”
“Aren’t you violating your own rule?” Sam sat on the floor and stretched forward, grabbing her toes and pulling until her head touched her knees. “Tempting fate?”
Joel sat next to Peppy, who then curled up and laid his head on Joel’s lap. “No way. Fate’s a bitch that we don’t need to worry about with this guy around. He’s tearing this job to pieces, and then shitting all over the pieces. It’s like he was made for this.”
“Maybe he was.” Cody didn’t mean to say that as loud as he did.
“What’s that supposed to mean?” Anger colored the edge of Joel’s voice.
Cody knew he should backpedal, but he didn’t. “I’m just saying that we don’t know anything about Peppy. But we do know that certain corporations have been experimenting with genetically altering certain giant space bugs. Who’s to say that others out there haven’t done the same with whatever Peppy is?”
“Don’t compare him to the ShimVens.” The force in Joel’s voice caught them all by surprise, and the hurt beneath it was enough to shut Cody up.
Silence filled the engine room.
Cody felt moved to say something. He would never be comfortable having Peppy onboard without knowing more about him, but he hadn’t intended to hurt Joel’s feelings. He didn’t feel that he was wrong, but he felt guilty.
Before he could speak, however, something knocked on the engine room door.
The Notches shot to their feet. Peppy was at the door before anyone else, sniffing along the bottom edge. He stiffened his back and growled. The new red streaks on his sides seemed to glow.
“I thought this ship had been completely evacuated,” Reggie said.
Cody studied the infrared display on his wristcom. “It was.” His voice cracked as he showed the display to the others. There was nothing outside the door.
Joel threw up his hands. “Oh shit. Oh shitting hell goddammit. It’s not space zombies. It’s space ghosts. Fucking space ghosts. We’re on a ghost ship.” He paced the same meter several times, waving his arms like he was being pulled out to sea. “Listen, if I get possessed by a wayward spirit, I just want you to kill me. Straight up, kick my ass out the airlock. I’d rather get spaced than be some ghost’s meat puppet.”
Sam stepped in Joel’s path. “Stop. There is no such thing as space ghosts or zombies or any of the other asinine things that keep you up at night. This is a large ship, with countless moving parts. We are in the engine room. Shit in here makes a lot of noise. Let’s assume the nuclear-powered engine that’s bigger than our entire ship might have clanked before we jump to haunted ghost ship.”
Joel nodded. “You make a valid point. One that I will take into consideration as I circle myself in salt.”
Sam turned her back on Joel to consult with Cody. “Tell me that was just some kind of clanking.”
Cody whispered to save Joel the anxiety. “I’m pretty sure that noise came from the other side of the door. But I’m not seeing anything on infrared. I’m not saying it’s space ghosts…”
He pinched the bridge of his nose, the scientist in him screaming at what he was about to say.
“But I’m not saying it’s not space ghosts.”
Something knocked on the engine room door again. There was no mistaking where it came from this time. It was not a quirk of the engine. It was definitely coming from outside the room.
Joel frantically dug through his bag. “Where is it? Are you serious? Where’s the salt? You didn’t pack salt?”
“No,” Reggie said. “I didn’t pack salt. Why would I pack salt?”
Joel gestured around him like the answer to that question was obvious. “Because salt repels ghosts, obviously. Amateurs. A bunch of goddamn amateurs.”
Sam drew her sword, silencing the others. “Everyone just chill.” She pointed to Peppy, who was still growling at the bottom edge of the door. “There must be something out there. Something real.”
“Animals are acutely attuned to the realm of the supernatural,” Joel said.
Sam shook her head. “Just open the fucking door.”
None of the guys seemed happy to oblige, but they also weren’t stupid enough to stand in Sam’s way. They readied for the same maneuver they’d used to breach every room so far. Cody cracked the door, Joel tossed out a flashbang, then they stormed the corridor.
Nothing.
“Flashbangs have no effect on ghosts,” Joel said. “We need something that attracts ectoplasm. Then we can pull them into some kind of trap.”
Sam stooped by the door to inspect something on the floor. “It’s not ghosts, jackass. Look.” She held up a bolt for them to see. There was another lying next to it. “Two bolts. Two knocks. Something threw these against the door.”
“Restless spirits.”
“I swear to God, Joel, I’m going to cut you in half.”
“Wait,” Reggie said, stepping between them. “Why? Why throw these against the door? To maintain distance. To—”
Whatever he was going to say next probably had something to do with the pack of Rapoo that dropped out of the overhead vents.
“Trap!” Sam rolled forward, narrowly dodging a set of slashing claws.
Reggie didn’t have time to draw his gatling. He pulled one of his pincer daggers and jammed it into the gut of a Rapoo. When it fell dead at his feet, he drew his semiautomatic and laid down suppressing fire.
Considering they had been caught with their pants down, Joel was surprised that he was yet to be eviscerated. Until he realized that the Rapoo had another target.
“Peppy!”
General Pepper was surrounded by six Rapoo, each taking turns leaping and clawing at him. When Peppy turned to face one attacker, another struck at his blind spot.
Joel rushed to his pet’s aid. He pressed the barrels of his pistols to two Rapoo’s heads and sent a burst of hot death into their brains. Sam dispatched another with a downward slice of her sword. The number of his attackers halved, Peppy easily killed the remainders.
The team surveyed the scene like they’d just walked into the middle of a grisly murder investigation—objective and detached. They didn’t seem to notice the fresh blood running from their new wounds. Only Joel was concerned with the aftermath of the attack rather than the circumstances that had led to their ambush.
He knelt next to Peppy and examined the gashes on his hindquarters, then removed the first aid kid from his pack. He popped the cap on the medical spray—a mix of topical analgesic and nanobots that would speed along the healing process. Peppy yelped when the spray hit his wounds.
“They set a trap.” Sam kicked the body of a Rapoo, sliding the de
ad thing across the floor. “They lured us out here and ambushed us.”
“Why didn’t they show up on infrared?” Reggie asked.
Cody reexamined the scans of the area. “They were up in the vents. Infrared only covers the corridor. It’s for tracking staff…and hostiles, if they get boarded. Ventilation shafts are too small for people. No point in scanning them.”
The ramifications of what had just happened began to set in. Sam wiped the blood from her blade before sheathing it.
“The Rapoo are smart. They’ve learned in a matter of hours that our tactics are working, so they arranged a plan to disrupt them.” She pointed to Peppy. “They’ve identified the biggest threat and attempted to remove it. I almost wish it was ghosts.”
Joel finished patching up Peppy. “Never wish for ghosts.”
“We just went from hunters to hunted.” Sam shook her head. “This is bad. We assumed they were single-minded creatures, but they’re problem solvers, abstract thinkers.”
“But they’re still animals, driven by basic animal things.” Reggie looked like he’d lost his keys. He poked at his pockets, muttering to himself. “The Rapoo took my pin. The pin we won at that regional VR tournament a few years ago. I always have it pinned to my jacket.”
The others searched themselves and realized they, too, were missing objects.
“Not only are they conniving little fuckers, they’re also thieves,” Joel said. “So what?”
“There’s something familiar about the Rapoo,” Reggie said. “They remind me of racoons. They’re clever, vicious, agile in the way they move and climb. And they apparently are attracted to shiny objects.” He smiled. “I think we can set some traps of our own.”
Climate control was almost as loud as the engine room, that constant hum of machinery throwing a blanket of white noise over their conversations. They took to speaking through comms, so they only needed to whisper to be heard. The white noise ended up helping their effort in that regard, providing them cover.