Dammit, he should have seen it coming.
God, he was a moron,
Shira had said it, it was too easy to spot,
and he just dismissed it,
and now the ship might be destroyed or taken or worse.
He stomped his foot willing the lift to go faster. How long had the enemy had to get down to the ship and attack?
Had Davi seen it coming?
No word from him at all, was he dead?
Did they jam transmissions?
Was the ship still there?
Blake was starting to pace the small space with both Shira and Rom eyeing him silently
“Davi, come in dammit”
Blake said a little too loudly into the com,
but there was nothing only silence
“Morgan can you hear me?”
Again, nothing but silence.
Blake lashed out and punched the side of the lift causing a deep dent in the thick metal.
“Captain, if you wish to disassemble the lift,
might you wait until we get off?” Rom said.
“There is nothing that can be done until those doors open, save your anger we will need it in a moment, but first we need to assess what it is happening before we rush in.”
Blake nodded.
Rom was right. He was pissed but all he was doing was chasing his tail,
he needed to calm down if he was to beat whatever was going on at the dock.
The defenses, they would still have to be active,
he had made sure that Davi had checked them.
This might give them the time they need to stop this.
This one shred of hope steeled his resolve and allowed him to focus.
The lift reached the dock,
and the doors opened onto what can only be described as pandemonium.
Xera – The Docks, 20 Minutes Earlier THIRTYdfgegqeergwekbjhg
Xera reached the dock just in time to see two full mercenary groups hunkered down behind crates as the little bald man and the ships automated systems were firing down upon them from the ramp.
The little bald man had a tripod mounted gun that Xera had never seen before,
but it was pounding crates and mercenaries causing them to explode on impact,
that was a hell of a weapon.
The bald man stopped and tossed out three metal balls that rolled down the ramp and onto the dock floor.
Once they reached the bottom,
they began emitting a gas that in a moment solidified into a wall 8 feet high and along the entire ramp,
the only openings were at either end,
and the automated turrets on the ship would disintegrate anything coming around that corner. The little bald man had created his own defendable fortress,
Good, Xera thought, hold them off until I can get behind them, and until that crew upstairs figures out what’s going on.
On reflection,
she should have told them but being in the middle of a battle she was sure they would have shot her before she even got a word out.
Besides her first priority was the box,
everything else was secondary.
As Xera began to move,
she saw the man from level 2 again standing far back from the action,
but as she watched he raised a large rifle and before she could call out a warning the bald man on the ship was flung back into the bay with a spray of blood.
Xera moved as fast as she could,
pulling out her staff she jumped into the middle of the first group of mercenaries.
She had the element of surprise as they were forming up to storm the ship at the tall man’s orders.
She touched a small recessed button,
and the staff shot to its full length in an instant.
Jumping into the group,
she slammed the butt of the staff into the first mercenary she saw,
before he could even register what was happening, he was down.
The others began to turn,
some yelling in surprise,
then she was in among them swinging the ends of the staff at legs and torsos and heads.
They were going down but not fast enough.
At this rate she would be taken down,
her only hope was to give the ship enough time to defend itself,
or for the trio above to arrive and help protect it. Something exploded off to her left,
and she looked up to see the tall man taking aim again with that big rifle,
she stepped to the left putting some large docking crates between her and him,
he would have to reposition to get a shot which gave her a few minutes.
Damn she thought,
this is going to be a lot harder trying to take these guys down while wearing a target on her back.
She swung down with her staff taking down another mercenary when her forearm vibrated. Xera Smacked her arm against a crate, activating the arm computer with a squawk of complaint,
Kree’s manic voice erupted from the speaker she caught something about the system,
and then time stopped.
She saw the tall man step into view further away and bring up his rifle,
he had her dead to rights,
he was out of range of anything she could throw at him,
there was no cover,
Xera was going to die.
She was surprisingly calm as she watched the tall man take aim and sight down on her.
Xera closed her eyes,
but death did not come,
opening them again she saw the man was gone,
one second, he was standing there taking aim and the next gone.
It was like a giant invisible hand had come down and swatted him from atop the place he had been shooting from.
She cocked her head and perked her ears looking like an inquisitive cat more than anything else when a black staff came sailing over her shoulder and struck a mercenary who was aiming to take a shot at her.
The staff hit him square, and he was flung back onto the floor knocked out,
the staff landing close by with a metallic clank.
She looked over her shoulder to see the trio emerging from the lift area,
the sizable horned creature was lowering his rifle from the general direction of the tall man and the woman was pulling out knives from her lower back,
Xera could guess that was her staff that hit the mercenary.
She could still hear Kree babbling about ships and sensors, but the connection was terrible,
she yelled for him to get down here to the dock asap,
Xera smacked her forearm against a crate disconnecting the call.
Moving over cautiously to the trio,
she nodded at Shira in acknowledgment of the save.
“Your bald friend is down, not sure if he is alive, but no one has been able to get onto the ship.
That man held them off until he was taken down by the sniper, I assume you.”
She said pointing at Rom with his rifle.
“Took out”,
The leader looked at her cautiously and then in a moment, seemed to make a decision.
“Alright, let’s make our way to the ship,
spread out,
take out any mercenaries who are alive,
but we need to get there to check on Davi and to secure the vessel.
Let’s move people!”
And then he was off running towards the ship weaving in and out of boxes to use them as cover while his team did the same.
As they moved fast towards the mercenaries wading in with guns and knives and swords.
It turned from a boarding mission to slaughter,
and Xera had time yet again to appreciate their speed and accuracy and how well they worked together,
they were terrific and as she watched an entire team of mercenaries began to fall to the speed and skill of the trio.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-NINE
TWENTYNINE
When All Else Fails
Selcarm was lying in a pool of his own blood,
the wound hurt like hell,
his body armor had taken most of the impact but when the round hit it shredded one of the plates of armor and drove it into his side.
He would live.
Where the hell had the ship’s crew come from? They were supposed to be preoccupied upstairs.
It was impossible they had neutralized the force he had left,
but it seems impossibilities were a bit of a specialty for this crew.
He removed his hand from the wound and saw the blood.
He reached into a small pouch on his belt and sprinkled a powder on the wounded area;
this would promote clotting and,
also aid the nanites in healing.
This was a massive effort,
and he had been putting it together for days, drafting Craylor’s men without him knowing. Putting together his mercenary force,
he had even co-opted the stations best black-market slicer and paid them a small fortune to use every trick they had in the book.
Using a team of his slicers who had tirelessly poured through reports coming in over Empire channels trying to ascertain the whereabouts of the
ship.
That is how they had intercepted the report of the freighter attack before even the Council knew.
He had quickly surmised they would be in need of supplies and a new transponder and doing a quick scan of system maps,
had come up with this place.
It wasn’t a far stretch to figure out they would be coming here.
Once he knew that he had begun to work,
this plan was foolproof it should have gone off without a hitch.
He had accounted for everything.
Hell, even when that little slicer had sent out word they were landing in the wrong bay,
he was able to get every one of his people into place without the slicer knowing.
He had even sent a team to deal with that little bastard in case he tried to stir up more trouble.
Moreover,
since he already had a slicer on the station who was dialed into the system,
he was able to keep station security entirely in the dark.
At least that little slicer would be dead now.
Damn his thoughts were rambling,
he had to get it together;
the dock is lost he knew that,
but it wasn’t over yet.
He had accounted for this contingency just in case all else failed.
His suit was already staunching the flow of blood and applying healing gel and pain packs to the wound.
That coupled with the powder he had put on it should have him functional soon.
His head was still fuzzy,
but the fire in his chest was dying down.
Selcarm pulled out his transmitter and checked the frequency
“Ground to Support; this is Selcarm over.”
He said into the communication device.
“This is support, come in ground.”
Selcarm breathed easier;
they were out there, all wasn’t lost yet. ‘
“Ground incursion has failed we are moving to plan B when the objective leaves the station you are to disable, I repeat disable not destroy.
I have ensured that all station security will be shut off, you will not have any opposition from the station. Understood?”
After a moment, the voice came back.
“Confirm, disable, and the station will be silent.” He closed his communicator and watched as the last vestiges of the battle played out.
Selcarm watched as the three crew members moved through the mercenaries with astounding speed taking them down.
He didn’t know what this thing was,
but if it did that, then it indeed was a masterpiece. He didn’t know if he could take any of them alive, but he would like to,
once they were dissected, alive of course,
they might be able to replicate what was done. Imagine how much that would be worth to the Empire.
A smile spread across his face as he thought about the profit from that alone,
he hobbled towards another bay where his shuttle awaited.
He needed to get to the fleet to ensure that his orders were carried out precisely,
he didn’t need some captain thinking he could go above him and try to take the prize for himself. That would not do at all.
Down on the dock Blake finished off the last of the mercenaries,
and then the three of them stood staring at the cat lady from earlier,
Blake assessed her dress as that of some kind of religion, but she was hell with a staff,
some sort of warrior monk maybe.
Either way, she had helped, but that didn’t mean they were going to hug and go out for coffee.
Blake leveled his rifle at her
“All right Fluffy, who are you and why are you fighting those guys?”
Blake pointed the barrel of his carbine at the closest mercenary,
who was still moaning on the ground,
he put a bullet into him and swung the barrel back towards her, point given, and he hoped, taken.
Xera looked at the three crew members and tried to figure out what she was able to tell them,
she knew the machine had started the process of conversion and had told them something, but she wasn’t authorized to say anything yet,
if she could get to talk to it,
to her before she had to answer questions,
she would at least know what to hold back.
If the machine had held something back as Xera knew she must have,
she would have a reason,
but there was no time, not with what was out there. She would have to take a chance.
The man with the gun was talking with the woman, and then she was off heading towards the ship, probably to check on the bald one.
“Fine, I am Xera a member of the Path,
it is a religion older than the Empire itself.
We have been the keeper of the machines,
the boxes,
a little while ago they began activating,
I was sent out to find out why,
I now have orders to bring you to the head of our order as well as the machine,
it needs to report in.
I am not sure how much it told you,
but this is bigger than just you or that ship.
If I can talk to it, it will confirm my identity.”
Blake touched his ear
“Morgan you got all that?”
After a moment Morgan came on the line
“I have Captain, and I can confirm her identity,
she is a friend,
Captain I am sensing vessels massing outside the station, normally we would not see them until we had gotten outside,
but I was able to interface with the station and utilize its raw sensor data.
What do you propose?”
Blake reeled at the news,
of course, there would be ships,
this guy was a pain in the ass,
but he was not stupid,
he had every contingency covered.
What was he going to do, dammit?
Suddenly a small chair came gliding down from above,
coming towards the ship at a high rate of speed, Blake reflexively raised his rifle when the Cat monk threw herself in front of him.
“NO, he is a friend, and he can help.”.
Blake hesitated as the chair finished descending
“Goddamn station, and stupid mercenaries and all these fucking tall ass fucking people and who the hell are you?”
The small furry creature said pointing at Blake. “Good use of fuck, even If it was only translated,” Rom mumbled and started, walking towards the ship,
figuring the little creature wasn’t a threat.
; Blake shook his head
“What the hell are you?”
was all he could say as the chair hovered right in front of him and the little creature hovered to eye level.
“Really, that’s what I get, not,
‘Thank you for saving us,’ not,
‘Gee thanks for helping out,’ I get, ‘What are you?’ Well, Asshole, what are you?
I mean look at you tall and pink and practically hairless,
it was like nature didn’t know what to do with you, oh and those big dumb eyes,
yeah that was a good choice.”
Kree said standing up in his chair with his hands on his hips.
Xera stepped back into the middle of them
“Kree, now is not time, we have issues,
and we have to get the hell out of here.”
Kree looked over at her,
“Well I know that, remember who the smartest guy here is,
not big dumb and not so hairy here”
he said pointing at Blake.
Blake was amused, this was like a little monkey with an attitude,
talk about small guy syndrome.
“All right Monkey Boy, how can you help and what do you want?”
He said lowering the carbine.
He had gotten word moments ago that Davi was hurt but would live,
he was being moved to the medical bay.
As soon as the fighting stopped,
he sent Shira in to check on him.
Davi might be a pain in the ass,
but he was their pain in the ass.
He had taken a round directly to the chest,
but the body armor had stopped the bullet; unfortunately, it could not stop the foot-pounds of pressure,
he had three broken ribs and a broken sternum,
but he was healing fast.
Whatever Morgan had done also increased the ability to recover between fights that information might come in handy later,
Kree gave Blake a look of incredulity
“Really, Monkey Boy,
oh, we will be talking about that later.”
he huffed.
“What I can do for you is first and foremost is get rid of that beacon issue you're having,
unless you like being tracked all over the known universe by the Empire.
Second, I can change the ship’s profile and data that is transmitted permanently.
Also, I can mine the systems we enter for information and wipe it before it gets transmitted.” Now it was Blake’s turn to look annoyed
“Whoa their Fur ball. What’s this ‘we’ shit?
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