by Jillian Ashe
Three shots were fired from various directions and I ducked. There could be more behind them, but I couldn’t tell. The pulse fire was incessant and it heated the metal of the cargo boxes. Ricky fired in retaliation. I pressed my back against the box and let my breath out slowly. I needed to calm down. With a quick glance over my shoulder I clocked where the pirates were and ducked back down before they had a clean shot at my head.
With a quick snap that strained every muscle I had, I aimed for the shooters and squeezed off three rounds. There was a strangled cry and a crash as one of them fell to the floor. All my target practice finally paid off.
“There are at least five up there,” Ricky told me. “I can feel their minds.”
“Well I hope they don’t get any crazy ideas. Do you know how long this metal will hold up against pulse fire?” I asked, shooting wildly to keep them from coming down the stairs. The hall was narrow and it would be difficult for all five to fire on us without compromising their cover.
“It depends.” Ricky’s voice was strained as he kept his gun pointed at the pirates and fired round after round. There was hardly any pause as he reloaded and laid down some impressive cover. Use those enhanced genetics. “See if you can hit another. The pulse fire won’t damage the hull, but with this much crossfire we’re bound to have some damaged systems and we need to have the ship up and running and to the jump point as soon as possible.”
I took another glance and spotted one I thought I could manage. He was being pushed out by a comrade trying to get in on the action, and it gave me a small window to work with. Slowing my thoughts I moved and shot off two rounds before slipping back into cover. Pulse fire fell heavy on my end of the boxes. The target was hit and they didn’t like it.
“Wolfe, how’s it coming?” I asked, trying not to sound too panicked. There were still four more pirates if Ricky’s assessment was accurate. It wouldn’t take long for them to overpower us. The extended silence worried me.
“There are more pirates onboard their ship than originally anticipated,” Celeste informed us. “We are making our way to the bridge.”
“You two need to hold out a little longer,” Wolfe said.
I shared a glance with Ricky. “Got any ideas?” I asked him.
Chapter Six
“We are nearly to the bridge. Four stunned pirates in total. I assume there will only be one or two manning the ship,” Wolfe updated Ricky and me.
I glanced at my alien friend and gritted my teeth as we braced against another barrage of pulse fire. We could retreat to the pirate ship since Wolfe and Celeste had taken out anyone in there on their way to the bridge.
Ricky nodded. “Go, I’ll cover you.”
I waited until there was a brief pause as they reloaded and made a run for it. Something burned my arm as I weaved through the boxes. It didn’t burn through the suit but it was hot enough to sting. Another pulse blast skimmed my thigh and I hissed at the pain. Then I was through the hole and in the airlock. I ducked behind the wall and glanced out. Ricky was pinned down and I only had the one gun.
Ready when you are, I thought.
Ricky popped up, shot off an entire magazine of rounds as I laid cover, and then dove through the ragged hole in the ship. From the red glow on his shoulder they managed to tag him as well.
“I don’t think I can keep this up,” I warned. “My back is in shitty condition. My hands and feet are still tingling, and I can’t fight back if they reach us. I’m almost out of ammunition and if we lose the cargo-hold they can detach from the Wolfegang.” It seemed hopeless. Wolfe still hadn’t taken out the scanner, and he hadn’t made it back to us. At this point it didn’t even matter if the scanner was operational or not. We were pinned down with nowhere to go and no weapons at our disposal.
Ricky shook his head. “You have to trust the captain. He will do what needs to be done and get control of the ship back. You’ll see. We just need to hold out a little bit longer.” His faith in the captain was unshakeable.
I nodded since there was nothing else I could say. We had to hold this position for as long as we could until they pushed us back again, buying Wolfe and Celeste more time. The pirates were relentless and seemed to have unending ammunition. The heat from the pulse fire was hot, too hot. The metal on the ship and the connecting tube glowed red and I wondered how much more the hull could handle.
“Kat, see if you can find some of the loot the pirates loaded onto their ship. We can set traps and make another retreat,” Ricky managed as he fired again. Another pulse fire landed and the armor on his suit stuttered and then fired back up. He couldn’t take any more hits.
“You go,” I said. “I’ve only been hit twice and my suit is still at eighty percent power.” I double-checked the readout on my forearm to be sure. “Grab whatever you can find. We’ll use these assholes’ own ship against them.”
Ricky frowned. “I don’t like it. You might not be able to hold them back.”
I honestly knew I couldn’t, but I was hoping to distract them long enough for Ricky to find something to help us, or to find Wolfe – anything to make it out of this mess. Worst-case scenario I could retreat into the ship. A blast hit so close I could feel the heat through my suit. “Just go, we’ll figure it out.”
Despite his frown he nodded and disappeared around the corner, deeper into the pirate ship. I focused on keeping my shots scattered. They were precise only when I got a good line of sight. It gave the appearance I wasn’t alone, though it wouldn’t take them long to figure it out on their own. When they did I was in deep shit.
“Update?” I asked, shooting at one of the pirates as they moved in closer. Another scaled the catwalks as Ricky had earlier and I knew I had minutes, if that. I had two magazines left and then I’d be out; I had to come up with a game plan before then.
There was a grunt of effort and then Wolfe’s voice came through. “We’re on the bridge and have neutralized the operator. Working on shutting down the scanner,” he said. “Celeste and I will make our way back to you shortly.”
I fired wildly as one of the pirates jumped down from the catwalk and I scrambled back. The captain wouldn’t make it in time. I had to run. Now. Two pirates were closing in; I turned and ran straight into someone behind me. Where the hell had he come from?
His large hands gripped my biceps hard enough to bruise. “How are you still alive?” he demanded.
Oh shit, definitely not good. “I’m great at faking it,” I spat, yanking out of his grip. My strength shocked him and made him slow. I brought my knee straight up and into his groin as hard as I could. He crumbled over in pain and I ran.
It occurred to me as I blindly made my way through their ship I could have shot him, but saving my ammunition might have been the better choice. I skirted a body tied up like an animal and kept going. Nothing about the pirate ship was familiar. It was completely different than the Wolfegang. It was sleek and fancy and there were too many doors leading to who knew where. The first I tried was locked and the second as well. Wolfe must have set off a safety alarm. I ducked into a small alcove.
These were no amateurs. They were on point and professional with all the toys. The Wolfegang had originally been a ship built for speed, but not much else. The comforts were an afterthought and all the defense features Wolfe had put in himself whereas this pirate ship was made for dirty work.
“Ricky?” I whispered. “Where are you?” There was no trace of him and the locators were all over the place. My suit kept shifting the display of my crewmembers; I figured the pirates had to have some sort of jamming device.
Boots stomped through the halls but I couldn’t pinpoint where as they echoed. My hands felt sweaty in the suit. Every muscle trembled as I waited to see if they would find me. The mask fogged from my breath. Each moment made my heart pound harder as I wondered if I should risk peeking out or if it would give away my hiding place.
“I found their safe, I’m trying to open it,” Ricky’s voice finally came through.
How he was able to do that I didn’t want to know. “What do you even need in there?” I hissed. “I’m trapped in this stupid ship and almost out of ammo.” We had to work as a team.
“Katerina, just hold still,” Ricky muttered. “They have what we need to seal the hull in here.”
“Excellent, Ricky,” Wolfe said. “Scanner is down and we are headed back.”
“Be careful,” I whispered, not sure if the pirates could hear me through the mask. “Four more came in after me and I don’t know where they are.” I couldn’t help myself; I leaned out a smidge to see if they were nearby.
“There you are!” The hand came out of nowhere and a woman pulled me out of my hiding place. She shook me with both hands. “Where is the rest of your crew?” she demanded. Her hand tightened on my forearm as she brought it closer to her face. “The damn jammer is mucking up the readings.”
“I told you we should have disabled it before we boarded,” a small man grumbled behind her. A sharp glance from the woman shut him up quick.
“And leave ourselves vulnerable? No thank you, Jeppy. This is why I’m team leader and you aren’t.”
“Captain only made you team leader because he likes your tits.”
She whirled around so fast she was a blur and hit him right across the jaw. The taller, uglier alien dropped like a sack of potatoes. “Any more comments on my tits?” she demanded with a bloodthirsty gleam in her eye.
Despite myself, I liked her.
I tried to wiggle out of her grip when she wasn’t looking. Her fingers tightened and that bloodthirsty glare whipped around to me. I shrank under the intensity. “You, you should be dead,” she said in irritation. “Your heart was barely beating when we tossed you below; looks like we could find some use for you.” The pirate dragged me down the hall with her and it was difficult to keep up without skipping. The men behind us muttered general disagreements. “Not everyday someone comes back from the dead.”
“You’d be surprised,” I said.
She glanced back and frowned. I realized she couldn’t hear me through the mask and she wasn’t tuned in to my crew’s frequency. She reached back and ripped the mask off my face and tossed it aside. “Can’t have you warning your crew now, can we? Now lead me to your mates.”
It didn’t matter. They already knew someone had me. Ricky could read my mind and he could follow the ‘feel’ of it as he once explained. It was creepy, but extremely useful. “I don’t know where they are,” I told her truthfully, resisting the urge to yank my arm back and out of her grasp. I glanced back when the three men chuckled.
“Can’t we have a turn with her first?” one of them asked. “She looks like she would be so much fun and…resilient, hard to kill.”
I shuddered and moved closer to my captor.
“No,” she snapped. “When I say useful, I mean actually useful and not simply a means to your end.” Her dubious look downwards made me laugh.
All three men glared at me before I was yanked ahead again.
The moment passed and the smile dropped from my face as my heart pounded. We were headed to a place where I knew nothing, had no advantage, and couldn’t even fight back. I was helpless. My eyes searched the woman from head to toe. There had to be something I could do, something I could use. I couldn’t stand being helpless. “No one in here can help you,” I told her. “They’re all dead or knocked out and tied up.”
The woman halted abruptly and glared down at me. I glared right back. “Is that right?” she asked. “And you think your crew will save you?”
I said nothing. If Wolfe and Celeste could take out their entire crew on their own, they could do a lot more with Ricky’s help.
“Seal the Rogue and detach from their ship. They won’t be able to escape and once we find them we can jettison them all and you can watch. Maybe that will fix your attitude problem.”
Two of her subordinates shared a look. “Jaz, what about the bounty?”
My stomach dropped and I nearly puked. Did Lt. Donnelly put a bounty on me? Would pirates work for the Federation? Were they on the Wolfegang because of me? Guilt hit me hard and tears pricked my eyes. I destroyed everything I touched.
“We’ll go back in fully suited up and simply take the bounty without resistance. If there is no air, they can’t return you idiot. And this one,” she said, jerking her head in my direction. “Has no more oxygen.”
The crystals, he’d meant the crystals the whole time and not me. I heaved a huge sigh of relief and the pirates gave me a curious look. It wasn’t me they were after. I wasn’t a curse. We just had some bad luck.
“What about the captain?” one of them asked as we continued on our way, I assumed to the bridge.
Jaz shook her head as she kept me close, my knees were weak and I was almost grateful for her strength. She wasn’t human whatever she was, but she was extremely close. I couldn’t even see the difference except in her general size and strength. “I have to assume the captain is out of commission one way or another and until he comes and says otherwise, I’m acting captain.”
I grimaced, hoping this ascension in rank wasn’t our death sentence.
We climbed up some steps and she shoved me to the floor. My back screamed in pain and I hissed in a breath. Something felt wet and warm and I knew I was bleeding again. I could barely move.
While Jaz yanked me around and argued with her crew I’d been able to slip my fingers into her bulging pocket and take the crystals they’d stolen from me. My fingers opened slightly and I checked to make sure they hadn’t cracked or broken. No, both the black and red crystals were still intact.
I tightened my grip around them carefully. Now I had something I could use, if only I could figure out what to do with them.
“Seal the Rogue and pull the tunnel back.”
Without power and with a giant hole in the hull everything would be sucked out of the cargo-hold including and I wouldn’t allow that if there was something I could do to stop it. Jaz stood right next to me. A quick transfer and I held the sharpest crystal in my right hand. With a quick jab it sunk into her thigh and the following scream raised the hair on my arms.
Her thick blood oozed out; it was almost black in the light of the consoles. Jaz turned on me with a burning rage and I slipped by her as she stumbled. She pulled hard on the piece of crystal and I tried to access the main console as quickly as possible. I knew nothing about their ship. The best I could do was slow them down. The black crystal in my other hand gleamed and I shoved it into an access port. There was a flicker and then darkness as the crystal disrupted the ship’s main power.
Hands grabbed me and he laughed as I struggled. Everything in me was repulsed and my mind and body shouted at me to fight back, to get away as he grabbed for the seal to my suit. He pinned me down and I could feel his breath on my neck as he leaned in closer.
“You’re going to regret that, little girl.”
I was too weak and he was too strong. There was nothing I could do.
Chapter Seven
“Get off her!” Suddenly the heavy weight of the pirate’s body was gone and I could breathe again.
I rolled over and got to my knees. It was still dark with strange shadows from the glow of the mechanics. I saw boots, more than there were before. When I looked up Ricky had a pirate in a chokehold and bared his sharp teeth. The pirate slumped to the ground; unconscious and Ricky was instantly at my side.
“Found the captain,” Ricky said with a small smile. “Sorry it took us so long.” He helped me to my feet and shielded me when the ugly pirate came at us.
Celeste incapacitated him in seconds and then Wolfe had Jaz restrained as the blood gushed from her thigh and she growled and roared like a wild thing, trying to shake him loose. She spewed curses in multiple languages and my eyes widened. She was hardly fazed by the leg wound, more pissed than anything. Wolfe somehow managed to keep her contained.
“They wanted to break away from the Wolfegang,” I said, my throa
t dry. Had she activated the sequence? The lights flickered again and I could hear the backup systems humming to life. It was a miracle I hadn’t destroyed the main console completely. Wolfe would know how to operate this ship. “Can you check?” I asked the captain.
He gave a terse nod and then bound Jaz’s hands and feet before inspecting the damage I’d done. Celeste had a gun in each hand and made sure to point them at as many pirates as possible. “This is why keeping them alive is troublesome,” she stated blandly, as if she didn’t really care and simply wanted to point out how stupid humans were once more.
“Yes, I realize that,” Wolfe snapped. “Should we just blow the ship up and be on our way?”
I couldn’t tell if he was being sarcastic or not. Wolfe had never been sarcastic before, it seemed a lost skill in the future. I squinted at him as I tried to figure it out.
“That would be excellent,” she responded.
Jaz looked furious. “As acting captain I can offer you a better deal.” She muttered something that sounded like more curses.
Wolfe didn’t even look up. He was focused on the console, tapping through the holograms and moving them aside as he inspected all the programs. “Nothing I can do will stop the detachment protocol. Both ships will remain intact but we have about ten minutes before the Wolfegang is adrift.”
The charge for both of Celeste’s weapons was loud and clear in the dead silence.
I had no oxygen mask. Getting life support back to normal levels would take time and we still had to get to a good jump spot before leaving the pirates behind. Without the hyperdrive operational we would be stuck in this section of space with the Rogue on our tail.