by Tom Dublin
The final word became a scream of pain as a huge, dark bird swooped over the stacks of servers and shot down towards him, her sharp claws digging deep into the pirate's cheeks. The hawk gripped tightly to the rapidly bloodying skin as Tuss swung his arms about wildly in an attempt to dislodge this feathered foe.
"Get it off me!" he bellowed, not suspecting this would be the last sentence he would ever speak clearly.
For as soon as she spotted the pirate's moist, wagging tongue, Mist gripped the lump of flesh in her pointed beak, and tore it free of its terrified owner's mouth.
Artok raced to his brother's aid, only to feel a painful thud as Tc'aarlat hit him over the head with a heavy, metal wrench. As the stunned pirate reached for his weapon, the Yollin tossed the bulky tool aside, grabbed a pair of screwdrivers from his belt, and plunged them hard into the furious Skaine's ears.
There was a muffled clink as the tips of the two tools met deep inside the pirate's skull.
Artok's eyes rolled back in their sockets, then he slumped to the ground, dead.
"Ar'ok!" yelled the tongueless Tuss, finally tearing Mist away from his face, thick flaps of skin ripping away in the process. "Oo kiy mah ovvah! Ow oo unna ie!"
Tc'aarlat spun to face the blood-soaked Skaine. "Sorry pal," he said with a mock frown. "Could you run that by me one more time?"
The pirate whipped out his gun and aimed it directly at the Yollin's face. "I ed, ow oo unna ie!" Tuss pulled back the old-style weapon's hammer with his thumb.
Suddenly, a long whip-like tail lashed out from between two of the packed pallets and coiled itself tightly around Tuss's throat.
"Not today, you cockwomble!" spat Dollen, backing out of his hiding spot. His tail squeezed tighter and tighter, cutting off Tuss's supply of air and causing the Skaine to cough up a fine cloud of blood as he choked.
"Cockwomble?" queried Tc'aarlat as Mist soared in to land on his shoulder, her sleek feathers gradually returning to their usual burgundy hue.
Dollen grinned. "Heard it on one of those old British radio recordings Jack listens to at full volume in his quarters," he said. "I quite like it."
The pair watched as the Baloreon unwound his tail from Tuss's throat, allowing the deceased pirate to crumple to the floor beside his equally dead sibling.
"How did it go on the bridge?" Tc'aarlat asked.
Dollen wiped the blood from his tail with the flap of his shirt. "Good guys two, pirate pigs nil," he replied. "Positive result, if you ask me."
"Until their captain sends over another batch of these pox-ridden sac-suckers to find out what happened to their boarding party, that is."
"In which case, we'd better-"
Both Tc'aarlat and Dollen grabbed hold of the torn plastic hanging from the pallets of servers as the engines roared and the ship suddenly lurched.
"What the fuck is Jack doing up there?" spat Dollen, glaring in the direction of the bridge.
"He'd better not be getting ready to dump any of this cargo!" cried Tc'aarlat, setting off at a run.
Dollen followed at his heels, the two aliens staggering from side to side as the ship's erratic movement caused the corridor to tip and buck beneath their feet.
By the time they crashed onto the command deck, Jack had the ICS Fortitude running at top speed - in reverse.
"What are you doing?" demanded Tc'aarlat, leaping into the co-pilot's seat and strapping himself in.
"Getting rid of these Skaine bastards once and for all," exclaimed Jack, perched on the smoldering remains of the captain's chair.
He slammed his forearm onto the nearest console, dragging it down to flick an entire bank of switches at the same time, diverting every last drop of extra power to the engines.
"By flying towards them?" cried Dollen, securing himself into his own seat.
"Not towards them," said Jack with a wink. "Right into them! Hold tight..."
There was a crunch and the freighter rocked violently from side to side. Tc'aarlat activated the external cameras once more, pounding his fist on the control panel repeatedly until the system finally flickered to life.
All three crew members stared up at the view screen in time to see the severely damaged Skaine vessel, Narvalt, tumble away into space before exploding in sheets of white-hot flame.
Jack pushed hard against the main control levers, forcing the screaming engines into forward gear in an effort to escape the rapidly expanding fireballs.
He flashed a wide grin to his two astounded colleagues, then gestured to an image fading into view on the navigation screen. It showed a colossal space station
"Next stop, Etheric Federation Base Station 11!"
2
Federation Base Station 11, Jean Dukes R&D Labs, Vacant Office
Her hand trembling slightly, Adina Choudhury raised her particle beam gun and aimed it squarely at Ecaterina Romanov's heart.
"I've been waiting to do this for a long time," she said.
Ecaterina steeled herself. "Then, what are you waiting for?"
Needing no further encouragement, Adina concentrated and pulled the trigger.
Deep within the gun, a well-guarded, top secret mechanism dipped into a reservoir of neutral atoms, stripping a single electron from each one as they were pulled almost instantaneously into the firing chamber.
Less than thirty picoseconds later, the collection of now fully charged atoms were accelerated close to the speed of light and fired as a beam from the weapon's hardened barrel.
The beam, normally invisible to the naked eye, had been colorized to glow a bright cobalt blue, allowing its path to be tracked as it streaked towards its quickly-beating target.
Ecaterina screwed her eyes shut as it approached - only to be deflected just centimeters in front of her at the last moment, zipping past her left arm and blasting a coin-sized hole in the reinforced wall of the room.
"You can open your eyes now," said Adina as the blast point sizzled and burned. "It worked."
Ecaterina turned to look at where the particle beam had struck, working hard to slow her exaggerated breathing and heart rate.
"I can't tell you how delighted I am that it did," she said with a smile. "Although I still don't completely understand how."
Adina flicked the gun's safety into position and laid the still-cooling weapon on a nearby table. "Try to think of yourself like a planet," she said, tapping a command onto the screen of her tablet.
"A planet?" commented Ecaterina, her eyebrows rising. "Are you trying to say this new armor makes me look fat?"
Adina giggled. "Anything but!" she said, looking her colleague up and down appreciatively. "I wish I could rock a protective suit like that."
"No reason why you couldn't..."
"No need for body armor in a sensible job like mine," replied Adina with a shrug. She tapped on the tablet screen again. "Here we go; this will show you what I mean by a planet..."
Ecaterina joined her to peer at the display. It showed slow-motion footage taken by a camera mounted high up on one of the room's walls which had tracked the path of the particle beam as it left the gun.
"I added a color to the beam so we could follow its trajectory," Adina explained. "OK... I pulled the trigger, and there goes the beam, straight towards your heart."
Ecaterina nodded, her pulse once again beginning to race, even though she knew that she had survived the experiment.
"Now, watch as it approaches the breastplate of your updated armor..."
The two women concentrated on the screen as the searing line of atoms sped closer and closer to its target. Then, at the last second, it appeared to glance off a barrier, an invisible force field which deflected the beam harmlessly to one side.
"Brilliant!" breathed Ecaterina.
"Thanks!" said Adina, blushing slightly. "But all I've done is upgrade your armor so that it generates a force field. It acts as a shield, diverting the beam away from your body..."
"...like the magnetic field of a planet deflects harmful radiat
ion from its parent star," finished Ecaterina. "So, you really weren't calling me fat, after all!"
"I know enough about your reputation to understand that wouldn't be a good idea," grinned Adina, grabbing the gun and heading for the door.
Ecaterina followed. "So, when does this armor update go live?"
"Not for a while yet," explained Adina, stepping out into the main weapon testing area of Jean Duke's R&D labs. "We've got more tests to run, and we have to find a way to keep the field charged throughout an extended battle."
"Sounds like you've got a long day ahead of you."
"Not me," beamed Adina, sliding the gun through a hatch in a reinforced glass window where a uniformed guard returned it to its storage slot. "I've got the afternoon off."
Ecaterina began to remove the prototype armor. "Doing anything fun?"
Adina signed to say that she had returned the borrowed weapon on a clipboard and sighed. "I don't know yet," she said quietly. "Not until I get there at least."
Alma Nine, Taron City, New Hospital Building
The camera operator perched on top of the Channel Three News van, wiped the sweat from the teal-colored skin of his brow and trained his lens on the slowly approaching limousine.
Like all male Malatians, he was the proud owner of a shock of thick silver hair, which he styled in order to attract a female partner. If this ancient mating ritual went as planned, the men would then leave their hair to grow long and wild, the unkempt look announcing to the world that a match had been made, and the person in question was living in a long-term relationship.
The cameraman had yet to attract a mate, however, and so he had styled his hair into a series of long, spike-like spirals. As a result, he was happily receiving admiring glances from several of the unattached females in the vast crowd of onlookers.
The limo drew to a stop and, after a moment to check for any obvious dangers, several burly security men climbed out and took up their well-choreographed positions around the vehicle.
All wore their hair in an extravagant style, except for one. Hip Win, the President's head of security, kept his head shaved completely bald. He deemed his species' constant preening and displays of courtship to be a distraction from the serious task of ensuring the President remained free from harm. So, he did away with his silver plumage altogether.
A decision which only made him more desirable to a large portion of the population - both female and male. Social media based fan clubs swelled with photographs of 'The Smooth Operator', as he was known among fans.
But, Hip Win wanted nothing to do with all that attention. He stood rock still, scanning the exterior of the new hospital building and the crowds gathered behind barriers on the opposite side of the road from behind mirrored sunglasses.
This may only have been a ribbon-cutting ceremony on a new hospital, but the safety of the colony's President was paramount.
As promised, it was another beautiful day in the capital city of the planet Alma Nine. Rain had been forecast, but that had been arranged to fall only over farmland outside the perimeter of the city. Here, the sky was a cloudless blue; the color causing the silver spikes rising from the camera operator's head to glimmer slightly.
Eventually, Hip Win was satisfied that no direct threats were posed to his employer, and he spoke this particular day's code word into a microphone stitched into the end of his coat sleeve to give the all clear.
Upon hearing the signal, the guard nearest to the left side of the limousine opened the door, allowing the single passenger to climb out into the sunshine. Alma Nine's twice-re-elected President, Tor Val.
The crowd went wild with applause. They cheered, whistled and jostled for a better view of the beloved woman. This moment made standing in such cramped conditions for hours on end worthwhile.
Tor Val turned to face her well-wishers, a beaming smile etched across her features. Dressed in her political colors of navy blue and lemon, she looked just as stunningly beautiful as in her official Presidential picture, now being waved by many of her supporters.
That photograph had been taken on the day of her inauguration and, despite now being almost a decade older, her looks showed no signs of fading.
Her dark blue hair was extremely short, allowing the shining teal skin of her scalp to show through. But this was no chosen style. All Malatian women were born with a fine covering of extremely short hair, which barely grew throughout the course of their lives.
They left the extravagant coiffured preening to the menfolk.
The Channel Three camera zoomed in to catch her piercing eyes as they caught sight of a baby clutched to its mother's chest at the front of the crowd, and she hurried over causing her security detail to fan out into yet another pre-planned configuration.
The young parent turned her daughter as the President approached, and the gathered well-wishers let out a collective 'AWWW!' As the baby stretched her chubby teal arms out towards the approaching figure, giggling.
One swift cuddle and press photo opportunity later, Tor Val once again made her way towards the microphone festooned podium standing outside the new hospital's main doorway.
Waiting there, his long silver hair swept into a tall, rigid mohawk studded with blinking white LED lights, was her Vice President, Saf Tah.
He watched closely as Tor Val slowly made her way along the barriers, pausing every few steps to shake hands with, kiss the cheek of, or provide a selfie and autograph for some star-struck member of the public or another.
Dear God, all this 'press the flesh' nonsense made him sick.
Politics should be executed across heavy desks in rooms deep within the capital's parliament building, not out on the streets with the great unwashed.
He shuddered.
Tor Val could catch any number of diseases the way she willingly touches these people. Not that she ever would.
He wasn't quite that lucky.
And today's obvious support for Tor Val showed no signs of waning. Despite being the President for ten years, her approval ratings were as high as ever.
If only there was a way to force her to relinquish her grip on power.
The President briefly paused her meet and greet session as a pair of young twins - one girl and one boy, who had already taken to styling his hair in a perky quiff - stepped up to hand her a bouquet of flowers.
The amassed cameras of the press corps exploded with bright white flashes when the girl curtseyed, and the boy bowed, then cheekily kissed the back of Tor Val's hand.
Tomorrow's front pages were in the bag.
Around twenty minutes later, Tor Val reached the podium and shared a handshake with her deputy. As soon as she turned back towards her eager audience, a staffer surreptitiously passed him a wipe and a pocket-sized bottle of hand sanitizer.
Pausing just long enough for anticipatory energy to crackle through the air, Tor Val began to recite her memorized and rehearsed speech. A speech she had written especially for this occasion, the content of which only a handful of her closest aides were aware of.
"Vice President Saf Tah, esteemed political colleagues, assembled medical professionals, ladies and gentlemen, and everyone gathered here today and all across Alma Nine..."
The speech continued with the usual positive political rhetoric about the colony's impressive healthcare system, and how this new hospital and its staff would continue the government's excellent record of care for the elderly and infirm.
The crowds were lapping it up, but Saf Tah found it all to be exceedingly boring. He forced himself to imagine in detail how he would have Tor Val's office re-fitted and re-decorated once his name was on the door in order to keep himself from yawning.
Tor Val's speech continued to please her fans.
"Eleven years ago, when we brave settlers were climbing aboard the interplanatary Vessel Dessia, and preparing to leave Malatia behind, we received a lot of unwarranted criticism..."
The gathered citizens began to mutter softly among themselves as they recalled
how their journey to this new world had come about.
"They claimed Alma Nine was too distant a world to be successfully colonized, but we proved them wrong!"
Now, the crowd cheered.
"They told us our terraforming technology was too primitive to successfully transform 'that barren lump of rock' into the opulent, benevolent world it is today - and we proved them wrong!"
The crowd's cheering grew louder.
Saf Tah's eyes began to close as sleep crept over to wrap its warm arms around him.
"They assured us our plans for a comprehensive weather control system that would guarantee us bountiful crops and safeguard us from the kind of natural disasters that were tearing apart our home world were all just a pipe-dream..."
The audience held their collective breath.
"And. We. Proved. Them. Wrong!"
The loudest cheers of all forced the sound technician inside the Channel Three News van to quickly pull off his headphones.
"Which is why, today, I have a special announcement to make. A special announcement that will guide our incredible colony into the next millennium, and ensure its future as a citizen of this galaxy and beyond.”
Saf Tah's eyes shot wide open as his attention was suddenly fibrillated back to life.
"For the past few weeks, I have been communicating with a representative of the Etheric Federation…”
Cheers turned to uncertain chatter as wave after wave of rumors concerning this new galactic superpower and their rumored methods of expansion and control washed over the crowd.
Tor Val raised a hand to calm them.
The assembled audience grew quieter.
Saf Tah's eyes grew narrower.
"I ask you to believe that I will never place our world into the hands of anyone who would treat it with anything but the utmost care, love and protection," the President insisted.
Her words echoed off the fresh white paint of the hospital exterior, and all around the now utterly silent plaza.
"And so, after considerable thought and lengthy negotiations, I have arranged for Alma Nine first to align itself with, and soon become a full member of the Etheric Empire.”