“The first to battle, this powerful family ‘leader’ of ours,” Misha said proudly to her fellow wives.
Puko quickened his pace, forcing Glue and the other males in their battle group to extend their strides, and the females accompanying them to break out into a dead run.
“Do not take more than one mate,” Puko rumbled, bumping his shoulder into Glue to emphasize his point. “Do not listen to them, no matter how they beg or plead. And they will beg,” he confided, leaning in conspiratorially.
Glue rolled his eyes. It was fortunate to finally find something on which they could reach agreement. Best not to throw it away, he decided.
“It is the natural way, the way of our people since before leaving Old Terra, up until today. Besides, you are such a good provider, a strong powerful male like you can support a large family,” Glue parroted, slapping his chest.
“By the Moral Code, they got to you also,” the Elder exclaimed disbelievingly.
“First they stroke your ego,” Glue agreed, doing a little stuttered foot-stomp of negation.
“Then they wile you with temptation, ‘think what two, or even three females can do at the same time,’” the Elder mimed in a higher-pitched voice, and then grunted derisively. “Years later, you awaken to find yourself surrounded by half a dozen of her sisters, cousins, and even a thin-lipped auntie with the voice of a banshee!”
“Base trickery and deception,” Glue sighed in remembrance.
For the first time, the two males shared a look of mutual understanding before Puko punched the Primarch in the shoulder with enough force to break his stride. Glue returned the favor by shouldering him with just enough force for it not to be considered a full-out shoulder charge, knocking the Elder against the wall.
Thumping each other on the arms and chest, and with much slapping of backs, the two Males chortled in agreement as they marched forward to re-shape their entire race’s destiny.
Chapter 74: In Line Abreast
The Colum of Sundered stretched across several decks, as it steadily marched deeper into the station.
Internal Security Cameras were spoofed, their displays set in a loop displaying normal human traffic instead of the heavily armed line of the People marching on Station Command. The deception was thanks, in no small part, to those like Glue who had been born in need of cybernetic enhancements.
Scouts in advance of the main force, whose normal job it was to clean corridors or haul garbage to the waste recyclers, sent status updates through normal station channels in small data packets hidden within routine, mundane communications.
If the Pirates had been organized enough to have one central, public distributed intelligence data network instead of the half dozen major public outlets that seemed to have sprung up almost organically, the Sundered would have struck with precision and subverted it entirely to their cause. Unfortunately, Glue had concluded that the risk of detection was just too great, trying to take over the six main systems and dozen minor DI’s simultaneously.
Conversely, without such a paranoid alignment including two independent automated networks, as well as a manual control system for each weapon, they could have subverted the Omicron’s ability to defend itself with its beam weaponry and shoot anyone they felt like out of cold space. They would never have needed to set foot within the Command Center.
As it was, they had been able to subvert several of the main data trunks with the intent of taking away the Omicron’s ability to fire-link its weapons on key sections of the station. Sections which the Sundered space fighters and corvettes intended to operate, in support of the Hold Mother. To their disturbance, they had discovered both independent networks in a sub-AI shut down, and everything already on local control.
Both networks were separate, and never used at the same time, so there was no way they could go down simultaneously. The protocols were solid, as they ought to be, being designed by the Sundered themselves. Had the Hold Mother and her Confederation Allies already penetrated network security, or was something else going on?
Finally, two decks down from Station Command, an area defended in paranoid detail with automated weapons and a ready staff of power-armored pirates, the column encountered a platoon-sized guard force moving toward them.
“We got closer than I expected,” Glue commented.
Puko harrumphed and popped his lips derisively, spittle flying in the direction of the approaching pirate security force.
“You overgrown gorillas are going the wrong way; the Confeds are pinned down three sections over, and a deck down. I’ll squirt you over the coord’s,” said a tall human of Imperial extraction.
A darker-skinned pirate with a large patch covering the breast plate area of his armor, sporting the Flag of the Deep Fleet Space Army, stared at them suspiciously.
“I didn’t hear nothing over the net about any of you fur ball’s sending a bunch of smelly fighters against the Confeds,” he said suspiciously in his thick accent.
Glue and Puko, still at the head of the column of their people, ignored the humans as they continued to stomp straight at them in ominous silence.
“I don’t see any sign of the Happy Dancers, the Strange Believers, or the Coalition Hunt Packs,” Puko signaled him over the short range wifi, using his implanted com-link.
Glue skinned his lips back, exposing his teeth.
“Must be waiting to see which side is going to win first,” he squirted back over the wireless.
“The Dancers are not strong fighters, so I expect them to hide first and only fight if cornered,” Puko grunted. “The Coalition is so fragmented, I wouldn’t be surprised to find them fighting for both sides, if the price is right, but the Believers have a Code similar to our own, and have associated with our people for nearly five centuries. The ones locally and throughout this sector have done nothing but prosper since we arrived; I expected more from them!”
“Would you have supported them if they declared they were marching to take over the station and needed your support?” Glue grunted.
Puko was silent, as Glue had clearly made his point.
Then the increasingly nervous human from the Deep Fleet leveled a massively oversized blaster plasma pistol at them
“Stop and turn around Monkey Boys, or we’ll fill you full of lead,” cried the dark-skinned Pirate.
“That’s a plasma weapon. Doesn’t he realize there is no metal slug, or similar substitute in his weapon?” Puko asked over the link, with disgust evident in his posture.
“The Deep Fleet Space Army recruits people from failing or technologically backward worlds, he probably doesn’t know any better,” Glue replied the same way.
Raising his hand, Glue wirelessly signaled the column to halt.
“We done tolerating your outrages,” Glue began, his verbal speech becoming broken as he switched to Confederation Standard. Communicating via his link and/or in his native tongue was easier for him. “This is one chance to repent your crimes and flee. Run far, run fast and never return this place,” Glue commanded the more reasonable of the pirates.
Puko raised his shield.
“Animals do not tell me what to do,” sneered the Deep Fleeter, pulling the trigger on his oversized pistol.
Puko attempted to interpose his shield between them and the plasma shot, but failed when the technologically ignorant Deep Fleet Pirate unloaded his pistol’s single, over-powered shot high and wide into the ceiling.
Not only did the pistol blow a hole in the ceiling the size of a Sundered’s head; it then exploded in the hand of the pirate who had fired it, taking with it everything up to his armored elbow in an explosion of blood, bone and metal.
“The Uplifts have turned on us,” cried the pirate of Imperial extraction, leveling his weapon and firing.
“Females,” Puko snarled, “aim and fire!”
“Males,” Glue ordered, “push!” The Primarch set his shoulders and quickly went to a walk, then a jog, and finally a thundering run, picking up momentum
until he was storming down the hall with his sword raised over his head.
All around him, at leg and waist level, the occasional shot lanced out at the pirates as the females supported their charging males.
Crashing into the small force of pirates at full speed, the Primarch knocked over two before he himself was sent spinning to the floor.
The battle was joined.
Chapter 75: Down the Rabbit Hole
He was the very model of a recently upgraded Space Engineer.
“I still don’t understand why Baigon would gave you a flash shotgun when I specifically ordered nothing but stun weapons be released for this operation,” Gants growled in a low voice.
Spalding lifted an eyebrow, his former young protégé seemed significantly put out with this other armory rating, but the old Engineer had brow beaten Baigon into issuing him the weapon of his choice. Still, it was nice to see Gants growing into his role as head of the Armory.
“She wouldn’t give me a plasma weapon; not even so much as one grenade, if that’s what you’re worried about,” the old man protested, said pumping the action of the flash shotgun to ready the next charge. The whine of the shotgun’s capacitor winding up was music to his ornery old ears.
Gants looked like he was about to have a stroke.
“For taking down a glorified smoker’s hut,” the young man whispered angrily.
“Misappropriation of military equipment,” Spalding scowled in return.
“They’re just using what would otherwise be an empty room in an unfinished section of the Station, and possibly enough copper to make a still!” Gants glowered, staring at the lift door they were crouching behind with hot and angry eyes.
“Engaging in illegal activities, to the detriment of themselves and our work schedule,” Lieutenant Spalding retorted.
“Some rot gut, a deck of cards and an illegal cigar or three! They’re not hurting anyone but maybe themselves, and even that’s arguable with modern medical advances,” Gants fired back. He was clearly educated on this subject and when it came to Station Security, the previously uncertain and some might say inept head of the Armory was more than willing to hold his own with anyone, apparently even his former department head.
“They’re nothing but a bunch of hardcore slackers who should be drinking simple meads instead of rot gut, or better yet minding to their posts,” snarled the Chief Engineer, “and I aim to put a stop to the lot of ‘em before this infection spreads like a case of Vermulean crabs in mixed barracks!”
“It’s just some of the guys blowing off steam. We can take them into custody if they show up on duty drunk or fighting,” Gants argued, matching him glare for glare.
“A pair of those fools tried to throw me in the waste recycler,” roared the Chief Engineer, and with a pair of angry kicks from his oversized droid legs, he burst through the door leading directly into the little pressurized den of iniquity.
He barged into the smoke-filled, dimly lit room with holograms of naked women, or far off planetary vistas on the walls. Looking wildly for his quarry, Spalding saw a crude wet bar on the side, and a series of collapsible chairs and tables in the room where men and (in a few rare cases) women were drinking, smoking and playing cards.
He saw an engineering deckhand, wearing a head bag to avoid some of the noisome and billowing smoke in the air, wagering his tool-belt on one side of such a table, against a large stack of credits on the other. The sight so enraged the old Engineering Lieutenant that he pointed his shotgun at the ceiling, aiming directly above the head of the wayward rating.
“Take that, slackers,” he screamed, before discharging his weapon’s persistent beam. The nearly lightning bolt-sized electrical charge scorched a long divot, as he walked it across the ceiling before cutting the bolt of energy, causing a sonic shockwave to shoot from the end of his weapon, before the effect dissipated entirely. Tables rattled and cards were sent flying, as the ponderous beam of energy passed overhead.
“Droids,” screamed the civilian equivalent of a petty officer, who then dove beneath a table, cowering in terror.
Several of the braver civilian crew present, along with a larger number of the military personnel, grabbed spanners and auto-wrenches.
Spalding jacked the slide, ejecting a power-cell and smoothly inserting another into the flash shotgun.
“We’re under attack by Cyborgs,” shouted one of the ratings, as he ran through the hazy, smoke-filled room at the old Chief Engineer.
“This is a raid,” shouted the old Engineer, aiming at a patch of wall just behind the charging rating and cutting loose with another shot.
Lightning shot past the crewman’s ear, as well as past half a dozen other slackers before striking the wall in a wave of pure force that scored a three foot line up and down the duralloy surface. The sonic shockwave at the end of the blast literally picked up the crewman, who was by now only a few feet away, and threw him into the air. He landed back-first onto one of the collapsible gambling tables, which lived up to its name on impact, as it folded beneath the crewman’s weight.
“This is Station Security,” Gants’ voice pierced the din, using a microphone projector, “surrender yourselves to the Armory Department for inspection, and no one needs to get hurt.”
“Run, my little jack-rabbits. Run! Run for your lives,” raged Spalding as he jacked the slide on his flash shotgun, ejecting a smoking, exhausted power cell before slamming another one home.
He strode into the room on his metallic feet, every step causing a clang on the floor. Spalding watched with satisfaction as some of the slackers cowered under their tables, while others ran for the back of the room.
Then he spotted one of the two — the one without a conscience — running from him, using the tables for cover.
“Throw me in the waste recycler, will you,” Spalding roared, discharging his archaic weapon.
The wayward rating only just managed to dive behind the wet bar when the shotgun fired. The beam walked across the various bottles and glasses on, and behind the counter during its two second life. Even more satisfying than the looks of terror on the crew’s faces, was the sonic blast at the end which shattered every visible piece of glassware, which the electrical discharge had missed.
He kept jacking the slide and shooting up the wet bar full of rotgut, until he realized there were no more power cells loaded into his weapon.
“Defective piece of junk,” he snarled, tossing it to the floor and striding over to the counter as if he were just one more customer, and the man hiding behind it, the bartender.
“I’ll take one order of slacker, deep fried,” the wild-eyed Engineer said conversationally, and the yelp and moan of the man cowering just a few feet from him was music to his ears.
“My advice is to find an Armory boy, quick as you can. Admit to every crime they even think of charging you with, and throw yourself on the mercy of the Officer of the Watch,” Spalding suggested in a hard voice. “Because I guaran-blasted-tee, you don’t want me coming up over that counter, you murderous, slacking, idjit!”
The old half-borg had already started to lift his leg, ready to vault the bar. He was more than a little disappointed when the crewman threw himself over the bar in a single leap.
“Hop along, little rabbit,” he screamed with delight as the other man practically ran over to an Armory crewman. The slacker’s shoulders were hunched, as if expecting a blow, as he literally begged to be taken into custody.
“Gonna need to get some proper ventilation lines run into this place,” Spalding observed as he caught a whiff of stale air, the stench of which wrinkled his nose. Tracing potential air duct lines all the way from the ceiling over to behind the counter of the former wet bar, he observed a single, unbroken glass with two fingers of whiskey still inside it.
Glancing around to make sure no one was watching, the old Engineer leaned forward to pick it up. In one smooth, practiced motion, he slammed the entire shot of rotgut straight down his throat.
The old familiar, liquid fire ran down through his mouth and into his belly.
“A terrible habit,” he reprimanded himself with a belch. “We’ll have to make sure we destroy their still before we leave.”
Chapter 76: Remind me why…
“Remind me why I let you talk me into this again!” thundered Puko, grunting with the effort of using the shield in his right hand to hold one battlesuited human against the bulkhead while lunging forward with the spear in his other hand.
The pirate in the blood red armor wielding a diamond tipped chainsaw was knocked away from his eldest wife before he could swing his weapon.
“You didn’t let me talk you into anything! As I recall, I bested you in debate,” Glue raged as he swung the thick, top-heavy sword preferred by his generation. With no females to watch over, he could advance or retreat without fear. As a Pirate knocked his sword down and slammed him into the side of the corridor, he also realized he had no one to watch his back... Or to take the shot this pirate had opened himself up to.
With an unexpected, powerful flash that picked his foe up off his feet, sending the pirate to the floor, Glue was no longer pinned to the wall.
Jumping feet first on the pirate, he ignored the discomfort of his bare feet on hard and in some cases sharpened metal and drove his sword into the human’s neck.
“Watch yourself,” said Misha, Puko’s senior wife sternly from her position lying on the floor, before she rolled into a ball and somersaulted away. Jumping up and bouncing onto the wall, her feet purchased on its metal surface for a split second as she leapt forward, she fired at one of three new foes threatening to flank her husband.
“Yes,” he agreed, even though she was no longer paying any attention to him. Laying about him with all the strength of a Sundered male in the prime of his life, he returned to the heart of the battle.
Spineward Sectors 03 Admiral's Tribulation Page 42