Hold the Star: Samair in Argos: Book 2

by Michael Kotcher

  “Oi!” the first one cried. “Easy! Gentle you git! Rogerian firebrand! Dat’s the good stuff!”

  Eamonn stepped past them toward Tamara’s cell. Drang had already gotten the bottle open and was tipping some back into his mouth. He gasped as the fiery liquid seared his throat. “Ahhh! That’s lovely.” He passed the bottle to his fellow and closed his eyes to savor the taste.

  Just as Drang leaned back to take a big swig, Eamonn exploded forward. A knife was in his hand, not a combat knife, just one of Cookie’s steak knives. In one swift, practiced movement, he had the pirate by the hair, yanked his head back, and drew the blade across the man’s throat. Blood washed over the captain’s hand and gushed onto the table. The first pirate opened his eyes, hearing his fellow’s gurgling noise, about to rib him for choking on the booze. He was about to say something when Eamonn lunged forward, plunging the blade into the man’s chest.

  His hand, slippery with the hot blood, slid up the handle, slicing his forefinger on the weapon. It wasn’t made for stabbing, it was meant for cutting meat for dinner. He swore as his own blood was spilled, but it didn’t stop him. Tearing the blade free of the astonished pirate’s chest, he plunged it again and again into his chest, until finally, the man was still. The knife remained in the man’s chest, gummy with the crimson liquid.

  Eamonn was breathing heavily, feeling slightly nauseous both from the pain of his injury and the violence of what he’d just done. Pressing a button and tossing people out into the void was one thing. Actually murdering them with your own hands, feeling their death throes and their blood wash over you was quite another matter. Tearing a strip from the sleeve of his ship suit, he wrapped it tight around his finger. Stepping forward to the dead bodies he grabbed the bottle, which miraculously hadn’t shattered when he’d sliced the man’s throat, though a great deal of the alcohol had poured out onto the deck. Bringing the bottle up to his lips, he gulped down the firebrand as though it was a life giving elixir, not caring about the searing throat and burning stomach that came with the drink.

  Once the alcohol was in him, he could feel his head clearing, and the throbbing of his hand eased a bit. Eamonn splashed some liquor on his finger, which burned like acid causing him to hiss with pain, but he didn’t falter. He set down the bottle and helped himself to one of the soldier’s stun pistols. Walking over to one of the cells, he keyed it open his gaze flicking over his shoulder to the main hatch, looking to make sure no one was coming. No one did. Gripping the access handle, he twisted hard and heard a number of metallic clicks from the cell door. A second later, the door slid to the side.

  Corajen immediately stepped out, her sister one step behind. “You did good, Captain,” Corajen said without any humor or mirth. “Took them completely by surprise.”

  “I say he got lucky. But, all things considered, not too bad, me-…” Saiphirelle started, then grunted and changed what she was about to say. “Uh, I mean, not bad, Captain.”

  “Arm up,” he ordered, ignoring the jibe. “Then get your asses up to Security and deal with who’s there.” Eamonn looked right at the younger of the two siblings. “I hope your time stuck in there hasn’t blunted your edge. Because I want my ship back.”

  “Better weapons,” Saiphirelle said in reference to his earlier comment about the Security office, taking one of the sidearms, ignoring the rest. Corajen took one of the stunners and a datapad. At her sister’s incredulous look, she only said, “More shots.” With another look back at their blood-splattered Captain, both wolfwomen nodded and then hustled off down the corridor into the ship.

  The captain slumped hard against the bulkhead, just outside of Samair’s cell, his hands shaking. They wouldn’t stop. His breathing was ragged and he stood there for a long moment, just gulping in air. He didn’t mourn for those men that he’d just killed, far from it. They were a blight, murderers and rapists themselves, most likely. The spacelanes would be better off with them gone. But it wasn’t as easy as the holos made it out to be, to kill someone. Finally, he got himself back under control and stood up straight.

  He stepped over to the other cell. Steeling himself, he spoke up. “Moxie, it’s me.”

  “Yeah, it’s you,” her voice came back, dripping with anger. “Captain,” she said belatedly.

  He blinked. “You ready to get out of there?” He put his hand on the controls to open the cell, but he hesitated, didn’t open it.

  “What’s the holdup, Captain?” Tamara asked, scorn still filling her tone. “I thought you were going to let me out?”

  “I’m sorry for what-,” he began, but she cut him off.

  She rushed the door, slamming her palm of her free hand at it, making the metal ring like a gong. “You’re sorry?” she shrieked. “You just sat there and let him torture me! You fed me to that bastard! To all these bastards!” Tamara hit the door again with her hand. “And you’ve been hiding away in your stateroom drinking yourself stupid and I’m supposed to just forget everything that’s happened because you’re sorry?”

  “I never meant…”

  But she cut him off again. “And now that you’ve finally grown a spine and decided to get your ship back, I’m supposed to be grateful? Let me out of here,” she demanded, taking a step back from the door, though their eyes were locked through the small slot at head level. When he hesitated again, Tamara laughed in derision. “So now you’re just like them. Afraid that I’m going to go and do something that you won’t like, so you keep me in this box. You bastard.” She slumped back down on the bunk. “You bastard,” she repeated, her eyes blazing with fury. Eamonn didn’t respond and he actually took a step back. Tamara shook her head. “You piece of trash, you are a coward! You’re going to leave me in here!”

  He backed away and started walking to the door to the brig before he turned back. He walked straight to the controls and keyed in the door release. Twisting the handle, he heard the locks click and then hustled out of the brig. A few seconds later, the door slid to the side and Tamara rushed out. He could hear her stepping into the main area of the brig, but he didn’t wait, he didn’t speak to her.

  She was free. She was out from the cell and free from her guards. But then Tamara touched the device clamped onto her neck and she knew. I’m not free yet. Not while Jax still lives. She needed to get to him, to kill him, and to get the remote away from him. Maybe then, with help from Turan, she could remove the device and finally start to feel normal again.

  With a sigh, Tamara wondered if things would ever feel normal again. For a time, she was quite content here, on the Grania Estelle. But now, seeing the Captain for the first time since receiving Jax’s “gift” she knew nothing would ever be the same again. She’d meant every word she’d said from inside the cell, the captain was a coward and a betrayer. How could she ever trust him again after that? How could she continue to work on this ship knowing that he was here? Oh, sure, he’d probably been threatened with death or torture, or possibly getting to watch as Jax killed or tortured his crew, or possibly even Taja, but Tamara didn’t care. She wasn’t willing to accept that as an excuse, for that was all it would be: an excuse. Things could never go back to the way they were before, even when they took the ship back.

  Oh, she was determined that they would take it back. Gideon Jax and his fellows had had their days in the sun, now it was time to launch them into it. Walking swiftly to the corpses lying on the deck, in an ever-widening pool of blood, Tamara helped herself to the other sidearm pistol and relieved the dead man of his spare clips of ammo, which hung from his belt. The belt was far too big to fit comfortably around her slender waist, so she draped it over one shoulder like a bandolier, wincing slightly at the tacky feel of blood that had soaked into one portion of it. Tamara checked over the weapon in her hand, nodded in satisfaction and then belatedly followed the others out of the brig. The pirates were ravagers and scum, but they knew how to take care of their weapons.

  There would be places people needed to go to secure the ship. The bri
dge, of course, Main Engineering, Environmental, but Tamara headed instead for the boat bay. True, they were out in the void, so there was nowhere to go, even if someone did commandeer a shuttle or Tamara’s fighter, not to mention the other fighters in the cargo hold. She grimaced at that. She’d never really gotten a look at those ships, and once all this nasty pirate business was over, she was going to enjoy going to that bay to take a look at them. There really hadn’t been time from Ulla-tran for her to check out the sensor readings and then Jax had imprisoned her and of course she’d had no access once she’d killed half his gang of thugs.

  But that would be fun for later. For now, she was going to secure the boat bay and then move forward to the berthing compartments. She’d have to get some help, of course. Tamara knew that she was a good shot, but she couldn’t hope to take on a compartment full of the bastards alone. She might get one, maybe two, but then they’d start shooting and she’d get overwhelmed and quickly. But there would be crewmen that would help. Maybe some of the cargo people, she mused.

  She picked up her pace, moving to a light jog, but after only a few steps she felt herself get light-headed. It had been a long time since her last meal, two days, and she hadn’t exactly been living the healthiest of lifestyles in the last few weeks. Tamara swayed and came to a stop, putting one hand on the bulkhead to steady herself. Concentrating hard, she brought up her HUD, ordering a full scan of herself. It took a moment and the HUD flickered a bit, but then the image firmed up. She was dehydrated and had a mild case of malnutrition, which would certainly explain the light-headedness. Taking an extra minute for her head to clear, she moved off again, going a bit slower this time, but doggedly determined to see this through.

  ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~*~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

  When the double click came over Cookie’s communicator, his stomach, already filled with what felt like snakes, sliding all over his insides, filled with molten lava. His breathing suddenly got very shallow, and he nearly dropped the ladle into the fish stew he was making. But then he took a deep breath and turned to face the mess hall at large. There weren’t very many people here, only three crew members over at one of the tables farthest from the main door, and the two soldiers taking up their usual post at the table closest to the door. Both were zheen, each wearing more casual clothing than the crew of the Grania Estelle. Whereas the crew and a fair number of the pirates wore ship suits, these two were dressed in little more than a surcoat and weapon belts. Their carapaces were hard and thick enough that they didn’t need to wear boots so they decided to go with as little clothing as possible, and decked out in weapons.

  “I hate this plan,” Cookie whispered to himself. How the hell did I let myself get talked into this terrible plan? I’m not a damned Marine, I’m a chef by the stars! But thankfully, no one was paying any attention to him standing there behind one of the stainless steel galley prep tables. He frequently would turn to the main room at large to look out at his customers, as he called them. The zheen were deep in conversation about something, chittering away happily, though reading of their body language told Cookie that they were indulging in a famous pastime of all sailors, talking about the females of the species.

  Reaching under his apron, he pulled out the stunner, making sure to keep it concealed beneath the galley counter. Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, he brought the weapon up aimed at the pirates and opened fire. Azure bolts of energy lanced across from Cookie’s weapon, two of them striking one of the zheen, once in the thorax, the other in the head. It made a low screeching noise and then pitched over sideways onto the deck.

  The other one was lightning fast. As soon as his fellow was pitching over, his weapon was in his hand, a needler. He depressed the trigger and fired at Cookie just as the chef was firing again. The needler barked, like a loud zipper noise and a fusillade of tiny metal spikes shot out. The spikes were only a millimeter thick and made a host of ping-ping-ping-ping-ping noises as they struck the metal bulkhead above and behind Cookie. But he was too late, the zheen took a shot from the stunner straight in the face and went down like a sack of Cookie’s potatoes.

  “Good shot, Cookie!” one of the crewmen called from across the room. All three of them were huddled down behind the table, having dived for any kind of cover as soon as they saw the chef jump up with his stunner.

  “Cookie!” one of them, Marcos, the big guy formerly of the Emilia Walker’s crew shouted. He leaped up from cover and rushed over.

  The chef looked down. His shipsuit and apron were covered in blood, little pinpricks of red that were each growing in size. The bug hadn’t missed him after all. Little needles had gone right through him, perforating his insides so quickly and cleanly he hadn’t even noticed. There wasn’t even any pain. “Damn it,” he groaned as his knees gave out and he pitched forward. His chin knocked on the edge of the stainless steel counter and he collapsed on the ground. He could hear and feel his mess attendants calling his name, turning him over, but his vision swam and darkness overtook him.

  Environmental was finally getting squared away. The cleaning of the tank was finished, the new matrix was put in and the crew was just starting to put away all the gear and swab down the deck. It seemed impossible that the crew of the Grania Estelle could change out the algae matrices without slopping more than what seemed unavoidable onto the deck. Kay’grax, who was still getting used to the rituals and procedures on Grania Estelle, made out a blat of zheen laughter and flicked some of the spent algae at one of the other techs. Ka’Xarian secured the console and got up, slaving his datapad to the feeds so he could monitor Environmental wherever he went.

  “Well done everyone,” he told the crew, who gave smiles or antennae flicks at the praise. He hooked his datapad into his belt and placed his hands on his hips. Yukrix was standing nearby, noting what was going on, but saying nothing. His own datapad or scanner or whatever it was was chirping away and he seemed absorbed in the readouts.

  Xar flicked his antennae to one of the Enviro techs, who nodded. She was carrying one of the tubs of spent algae matrix took a step forward and tripped, dumping the lot onto Yukrix who hissed furiously.

  “Clumsy fool!” he screeched, and backhanded her. The young woman spun with the force of the blow, which connected with a great crack and dropped her to the deck, whimpering in pain, clutching her face.

  Yukrix looked up, but Xar was already there, a heavy wrench in his hands, swinging the metal tool at the other zheen with all his might. There was a terrible crunch as the wrench impacted the pirate’s thorax, and the pirate shrieked in agony. The wrench was buried in carapace and greenish black ichor, innards leaking out around the terrible wound.

  Miraculously, the pirate tech had his sidearm in his hand and sprayed the room with tiny needles. Two of the Enviro crew screamed in pain as the small spikes tore into them and a third simply dropped, gagging over the multitude of wounds in his neck and chest. Ka’Xarian wrestled the weapon away from the pirate and kicked him backward, hard, knocking Yukrix down. A few well-placed stomps and horrible crunches later from the uninjured crew finished him off.

  “Good work people,” Xar congratulated them. He and two of the others proceeded to divest the corpse of Yukrix of his weapons and equipment, while the others were seeing to their injured fellows. It was too late for Dobson, and everyone gave scathing looks to the dead zheen. “I’m sorry, Dobson,” Ka’Xarian said, moving over and laying his hand on the dead man’s shoulder. Blood had pooled on the deck but the engineer didn’t care. After a moment of silence for the man, he went back over to the pirate’s body. Xar picked up his scanner and swore as he studied the readouts.

  “The bastard was checking on what I was doing,” he realized. Thankfully, they’d taken care of him before he could warn anyone; his comlink hadn’t been activated. He reached over and smacked the side of Yukrix’s head, it lolled to the side, limp. “Get them to the infirmary,” he ordered the Enviro techs. “You three, stay here and keep an eye on things. And see if you
can do something about this… this mess.” He gestured to Yukrix’s body. “We’ll get Dobson taken care of properly in a bit.”

  The techs nodded, two of them helping their two injured fellows out of the Environmental spaces and out into the corridor, heading to see the doctor. Someone pulled an emergency blanket out of a locker in the next compartment, brought it back and draped it over Dobson’s body, which had been gently brought over to the side of the compartment, to get him out of the way of the other techs, but great care was made to treat him with respect. As opposed to what they did with Yukrix, him they simply dumped his body in a bin of waste and one of the techs trundled the bin on a hover pallet out to deal with it.

  Xar stuffed the scanner into his knapsack, which was looped over his shoulder. Not wearing a full shipsuit, he didn’t have the handy pockets that everyone else did, hence the knapsack. Across his waist was his tool belt, but he didn’t want to keep the scanner there, it didn’t have the hook needed to secure it on the belt. He double clicked his comlink again, to indicate Environmental was secure. One compartment down, he only hoped the others had done as well as they had, despite Dobson’s death.

  It didn’t take long for the lupusan siblings to get to the Security compartments, as they were located only a very short distance from the brig. It was lucky the Captain had decided to dispatch the guards with a knife and lucky that he’d been quick enough to get them before they could scream and raise the alarm. They winced slightly when they heard Samair yelling at the Captain, but there was nothing for it and they were almost there. Saiphirelle turned and caught a glimpse of the Captain rushing off in the opposite direction from the Security compartment, most likely headed for the bridge. They didn’t care though. In fact, they were happy he didn’t accompany them. He’d only be on the way.

  Coming to the entrance to Security, it was only a few meters down the corridor from the brig, the two stopped. Both of them trained their ears into the open hatch, straining to hear how many of the pirates were inside. Corajen sniffed the air delicately, trying to get any advantage they could. “Four,” she said, her voice in a low undertone.