The Hunt for Red Fluffy

by Angel Martinez

"Is it the—"

  Verin interrupted him, bellowing, "Brace or get tossed! Duomo registered cutter in-system! Gonna try and hide us!"

  Corny again: "They're firing!"

  The ship gave a violent jolt, and Shax barely managed to wrap his arms around a corridor handhold before the Brimstone accelerated with purpose and executed a hard-to-starboard turn. Shax cursed his timing. Stuck in an inside corridor during maneuvers, he had no idea what was happening except that they were probably trying to put asteroids between them and the incoming enemy ship. Jaw clenched, feet braced, he had no choice but to ride it out for now. Maddening.

  Another sharp change of direction, dorsally. A hard shock. A rumbling grind and whine of mechanized distress. The lights went out. Shax barely dared breathe in the sudden black silence as the circulation fans cut off.

  A moment later, the ship hiccupped. The lights and fans returned. Shax drew a shuddering breath and hit ship's comm. "Damage?"

  "Fuckers got a lucky shot in," Ver snarled. "Two propulsion engines out."

  That's just lovely. Effectively dead in the water. "Are we hidden?"

  "Oh, fuck no. They're coming right for us."

  "Firing still?"

  Verin hesitated. "No."

  All right, it looks like they want some of us still breathing, at least. "Prepare to repel boarders. Corny, I'm sorry, but I need you down here," Shax said as calmly as he could over ship's comm, until he realized he had no idea where. The airlock would seem to be the most sensible place, but if he were boarding a ship, he'd make sure he had the equipment to cut a hole in the hull and seal the entrance. Airlocks were often booby-trapped. Another thing he really needed to see to if they got out of this, but the enemy didn't know that.

  Switching to wrist comm, Shax contacted the pilot's pod. "Ver, best guess on where they'll try to latch on."

  "The bastards are steady toward our port. Could be going for the airlock."

  Thank all the sulfur pits that gravity's holding. Back on ship's comm, Shax bellowed, "Repelling party, meet me in outer corridor C. C as in carats."

  Bellowing felt good in a bad spot. He understood why Ver did it so often. Calm though, they needed him to be calm. Shax leaned against the wall beside the air lock controls and waited with what he hoped was confident nonchalance as nearly his entire crew thundered toward him.

  With everyone assembled, Shax craned around Ness. "Where's Mac?"

  "Mac's holding the engine room," Julian answered.

  "Very well, Agent Parallax. Post your troops."

  Julian swung around to face the crowded corridor. "Heck, packing crates?"

  "Right here!" Heckle wove through the larger people pushing a float cart with three crates piled on top.

  "Perfect. Ness, if you would? That's our barrier." Julian pointed. "Corny, you're with the captain. Opposite sides of the junction. Leopold, I need you—oh, you're there already."

  Shax followed Julian's gaze up and was shocked to find Leopold perched up in the ceiling girders like a tiny pink sniper. No. There was no simile there. Leopold was a tiny pink sniper. He peeped in acknowledgement and waved his hedgehog-sized gun.

  "Fluffy, you're with me," Julian went on. "Down behind the barrier, please, miss. Head down until you've become an absolute last resort."

  With a little mrrreh, Fluffy leaped the crate barricade and crouched behind it with her spiked tail switching back and forth. Ness lifted Heckle over to take their positions while Shax risked a glance out of the portal. The cutter stood off a short distance and was sending a shuttle. Said shuttle was definitely not aimed at the airlock.

  "They plan on cutting through the hull." Shax swallowed against his rising anger. Cutting into his beloved ship. Barbarians. "Everyone grab a canister set from the drawer there in case these goons are incompetent and don't get a good seal."

  A hard thump on the hull heralded the shuttle latching on. Shax vaulted the barricade, made certain his crew had their oxygen, and strode to the cross corridor, where he sheltered behind the wall, watching as a laser cutter began to heat a blue-white circle in the Brimstone's poor hull. Growls rose in several throats, and Shax realized one of them was his.

  He loved his little ship, damn it. How dare they?

  When the cutter completed its glowing ring, the circle of hull fell inward with a clang. No air rushed out into vacuum, so their attackers weren't complete idiots and had managed a good ship-to-ship seal. Smoke wreathed the hole in the breached hull, and for several interminable moments, nothing happened.

  It occurred to Shax in that uneasy silence that maybe there was no boarding party, that this was an unmanned shuttle, and it was about to explode. Though remote operation from the cutter would have taken some damnably ingenious robotics. His wild speculations died, though, as a broad-shouldered figure stepped across the seal, firing. Four heads ducked behind the crate barrier, and both Shax and Corny took cover behind their respective corners.

  Projectiles pinged against the steel and polyceramics of the corridors, that first goon providing cover fire for the next, who came in on one knee, firing with greater precision. They could fire as they pleased into the interior. Shax and his crew would have to be more careful for fear of damaging the seal and venting the ship's atmosphere.

  Julian appeared to be counting, either shots or the rhythm of firing. With a nod to Heckle, they both popped up and fired single shots at their assailants. One shattered through the faceplate of the kneeling goon. The other took the standing one through the heart, neat and quick.

  They dropped, but it was far too much to hope those were the only two.

  The rest of them, however many, were apparently the smarter goons, since they didn't come rushing through the opening. A whirring came from beyond the seal instead, one that grew ominously louder.

  Julian only had time to shout "Drones!" before they swarmed the corridor—basket drones as long as Shax's arm, equipped with both projectile and plasma weapons. He couldn't even count them. It took Julian two shots to find the sweet spot, and he began picking them off by taking out the power cells. Heckle initially aimed for the EM packs underneath, not quite as effective, since the damn things crashed but kept shooting. For Ness, it was a couple of shots more before he figured it out, and up in the rafters, Leopold simply watched Julian and did what he did with great success.

  Though Shax suspected his front line was better than any other mismatched sharpshooters in the galaxy, they couldn't hit all of the nasty things. Five got past them.

  "Cap?" Corny called from across the corridor.

  "I see them. Center mass, Corny. Best we can do."

  Pistol in each hand, Shax started shooting as soon as he could without endangering his crew down the corridor. He brought down one before they reached the cross corridor. Corny, pistol in a two-handed grip, managed to cripple two more. Those two crashed and continued shooting until Julian whipped around and took them out, while the rest bore down on Shax and Corny. Now Shax was firing desperately, almost indiscriminately, as many shots hitting the ceiling as the drones. One burst into flames and went down with a screech. Corny shot another through its core, but the last was behind him, taking aim. Shax couldn't hit it without shooting Corny in the head.

  "Corny! Get—"

  A bone-rattling roar came from behind Shax, and a blur streaked past him, heedless of the firing drones. In one motion, the blur tackled Corny and ripped the drone out of the air, resolving into Verin kneeling on the floor and clawing the basket drone to pieces with his bare hands.

  "Ver! I thought you were guarding the controls?" Shax shouted as he turned back to the thinning melee.

  "Three Arms has it." Verin bristled when Shax looked at him, aghast. "I gave them a fucking pistol."

  "You armed Three Arms?"

  "Yeah. They've got it. Shut up." Verin pulled a stunned Corny into his arms. "No troll-shit quality drone's shooting my cowboy, fuck you very much."

  "I reckon I'll thank you right and proper later," Corny's voice ros
e muffled from where Verin had smushed Corny's face into his shoulder. "But we ain't out of this mess yet."

  "That's the last," Julian called from the barrier. "Ness, we're going to have to rush the— Fluffy, no!"

  Before Julian could finish laying plans, Fluffy had gathered her hindquarters, given a little butt-calibration wriggle, and leaped the barrier to sail through the connector seal into the shuttle. Julian moved as if to follow, but Ness put a hand on his shoulder and shoved him down before taking off after Fluffy himself.

  Universal winces and shudders ran through the watching crew as high-pitched screams and other terrible sounds came from inside the shuttle. Thirty seconds after he'd dashed in, Ness staggered out, pale and wide-eyed.

  "Fluffy, um… She…" Ness swallowed hard. "Neutralized. Enemy neutralized, Captain."

  Quite pleased with herself, Fluffy nudged Ness aside with her head, plopped down atop the crate barricade, and began to clean the blood from her jaws and whiskers.

  "That's my girl," Shax crooned, though he didn't grin like he wanted to. Ness looked a bit too disturbed already. "I think we can safely assume now that they don't want us dead."

  "Cap, they were shooting at us," Corny said in disbelief.

  "Granted. They don't want us all dead. They shot out the engines and went through the trouble of trying to board instead of blowing us to bits. Why?"

  The ship's speaker crackled. "Captain Sweetums, I think you're going to find out." Ms. Ivana sounded anxious. Not good. "Something big just came through, and not big in a good way, and they're hailing us."

  Shax holstered his pistols and faced the speaker. "When you say something big, could we be more specific, my dear?"

  Ms. Ivana hesitated before answering, "It's the Pinochet, Captain."

  His stomach sank to his boots. "I see. And it's himself calling?"

  "It is, the nasty so-and-so." Ivana sniffed her most disapproving sniff.

  Maybe there's a way, still. Maybe he just wants me. Not that I'm all that keen about being the sacrificial lamb, but needs must. "All right. Put him through down here, Ms. Ivana, if you would, please. And let Mac know we're all fine."

  "Done and done, tiger."

  The comm station beside the airlock blinked to life as Shax made his way through his crew and over the crates, stopping to give Fluffy a congratulatory scritch. He straightened his jacket, ran a hand through his hair—probably hopeless with bits of ash and char—and hit receive. Federico Duomo's self-satisfied, bulldog-jowled face appeared in all its wretched glory above the holo plate.

  "Hello, pretty little demon." Federico's smile would make a demon ill. Oh. Right. It did make demons ill. "Have you missed me?"

  "As much as I miss broken fingers." Shax made a show of checking his nails. "Are you calling truce to recover the bodies of your boarding party?"

  Federico waved a hand in dismissal of his dead minions. "My employees know the risks. No, I thought I might give your crew a sporting chance."

  "If this is another pin-the-demon-to-the-table game—"

  "Perhaps later. For now, I need your surrender. I know you're a bit sentimental for a demon, so I won't demand the lives of everyone on board. Just you, that luscious angel of yours, and of course, Parallax. I don't have any interest in him myself, pretty as he is. For a colleague. You understand."

  "Let me verify here." Shax pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. "You let my ship and my crew go free if I walk peacefully into your custody with Ness and Agent Parallax? Is that right?"

  "Yes." The smile grew wider. "In restraints, of course."

  "And then?"

  "Why, then the ISE agent will be handed over to other parties, you and I will have some long delayed fun while you last, and your angel gets to watch."

  Is it possible to send grease through a holo image? It feels like it. "You're not really making your case here."

  The horrid smile vanished abruptly, which was almost more disturbing. "Your crew get to live. That idiot retainer of yours with the horns. That adorable little imp I've seen footage of, even though he's far more tempting than the rest. Your son. They walk away."

  If the bargain had just been for Shax, he would've taken it. The surviving Duomo brother had a grudge that had been simmering for some time. He'd want torture and humiliation, and as long as Shax was alive, he'd have a chance to escape. But Julian and Ness? Julian would be executed without a thought, and Shax had promised that Ness would never suffer captivity again.

  "No."

  A furrowed line appeared between Federico's brows. "I could be magnanimous. Give you some time to think. We have nothing but time."

  I could stall. Maybe give Three Arms Circling's colony ship time to get here. But then I'd be putting them in danger, too. "No. Just no, Federico. In the words of my oldest friend, fuck the hell off."

  The horrible smile was back. "Either way, I win. Goodbye, Captain Goldner."

  Shax cut the connection just for the petty satisfaction of being the first to hang up. He missed the days of being able to slam the phone receiver down. But now he was at a loss. Should they abandon ship and try to steal the cutter? The shuttle wasn't damaged, and at least the cutter had working engines and a Copernicus drive.

  While he mulled, Julian leaped up and dashed off.

  Damn it, what now?

  "Captain!" Now Ivana sounded beyond anxious. "Multiple ships launching from the Pinochet!"

  And that bastard knew it. Damn it, Julian. Shax took off in the direction Julian had taken, his crew calling after him in variations of alarm and annoyance. He was fast, but Julian had a head start. Shax didn't catch up to him until he found him in the cargo bay, unstrapping his float bike from where it was secure to the wall.

  "Julian."

  "Don't, Shax." Julian kicked the EM fields on so the bike floated beside him and pulled his sleek vacuum suit from a saddlebag. "We don't have time."

  "You can't go out there."

  Julian took him by the shoulders. "Listen to me. Brimstone is defenseless. I have missiles and several guns on this thing. You need me out there."

  "Against an army of cutters and shuttles? You'll be slaughtered!"

  "No." Ness's voice came cold and forbidding from the landing. "You will not do this."

  The sound of frustration from Julian was as close as Shax had ever seen him to losing his temper. "We have to do something. We're about to be riddled with an overkill of armaments here."

  "We'll hijack the cutter." Shax put a hand to Julian's cheek as Ness came to loom over them. "I don't want to abandon my ship, damn it, but at least we can escape."

  "Are you insane?" Julian's laugh was sharp and bitter. "They already know anyone coming over in that shuttle won't be theirs. They'll destroy us before we get halfway there."

  Ness's wings came around them both, his voice softer as he said, "This, what you're doing, is suicide. What use is it to die out there all alone?"

  "No. Listen." For a moment, Julian leaned his head against Ness's chest and breathed deeply. "Listen. I only need to hold them off. Enforcement's on the way. I put a call in when our engines died. They're coming, but I have to buy you time. This is for you." He glanced between them, and Shax's heart gave a painful thump to see the tears standing in Julian's eyes. "For both of you. I've already passed a reasonable lifespan for what I am. Let me do this for you."

  "I didn't accept that reasoning before." Ness tightened his wings around them, making a soft, tender cocoon. "And I refuse to now. We need to find a way that doesn't sacrifice you."

  "But there isn't—"

  "Something big's showing on scans," Ms. Ivana interrupted in a high, frightened voice. "And it isn't coming through Copernicus!"

  Shax met Ness's startled gaze, then Julian's. "Pilot's pod. Now."

  He ducked under Ness's wing and took off running without waiting for agreement. Two pairs of boots pounded after him, as he'd expected. In the pod, Three Arms was waving all their arms in obvious excitement. A hu
ge glow had appeared between two of the nearest moon-sized asteroids, not the blinding glow of an explosion, but an inexplicable soft, golden light of extraordinary dimensions.

  "It's the colony," Julian whispered just as Shax reached the same conclusion. He tried to dash back out of the pod and cried out in irritation when Shax seized him around the waist and Ness took his feet out from under him. "I have to go out there now! We need to protect them!"

  The colony solidified, its colors flashing orange and deep indigo as wide streams of light flooded from its tiers. Shax thought at first the lights were signals, but as he watched, they resolved into separate octopus spacers, thousands upon thousands of them charging out of the colony ship.

  "I don't think they need us," Shax said softly as he turned Julian to watch.

  The cutters and shuttles took precious moments to react, most likely caught off guard by something so completely unfamiliar. The octopus spacers were almost on them when some of the cutters recovered and opened fire. In the path of plasma shells, lights began to wink out.

  "No! They're being slaughtered." Julian sagged against Shax, trembling. "It's too late."

  "Wait…" Shax squinted at the viewscreen. Something odd, something… He focused on a spacer who had taken on an angry red glow. A shot cut across their path and they winked out…only to reappear a short distance to the right. "They're doing—honestly, I don't know what they're doing. But they're not dying."

  Three Arms was gesticulating wildly, holding a stylus in one arm and jumping it from point to point over the boards.

  "They're phasing. Holy hells." Julian's gaze whipped back and forth between Three Arms and the tableau out in vacuum. "They're phasing. I didn't think anyone had managed…central command has…well, classified."

  The disjointed sentences weren't hard to parse. Octopus spacers had tech that ISE had conceived of, but hadn't managed to produce. There were occasional casualties who were whisked back to the colony ship, but most of the…swarm? Herd? Battalion? Most simply avoided the ordinance fired at them.

  They reached the cutter farthest from the Pinochet first and surrounded it, octopus spacers covering every inch of its surface until it vanished under a bright cloud of glowing octopus suits. Shax held his breath, counting silently, though he couldn't say why. When he reached thirty, the crowd holding the cutter suddenly dispersed and underneath them was…nothing. The cutter had vanished.