She gave him a hug then navigated her platform in and asked Posha what she should start loading up. Regan wasn’t convinced at all, but they’d deal with it later.
Calico returned with Straya and Reverie. Despite their sluggish movements, Straya was thrilled with what she saw. Her arms reached out to the sides as if she could hug the room.
“Holy fuck!” she shouted. “This is more than a pirate could loot in their entire lifetime! How did you get all of this?”
Posha, as he pointed to boxes for Arkei and Bob to load up, just smiled up at Straya.
“They are largely my own designs.” He then directed Straya to a large crate he was standing next to.
He entered a combination into the keypad and the lid retracted. A small drone came whizzing out, hovering just above the box. Other drones soon followed until five were hovering in a single line upward from the open crate.
Posha reached into the crate and removed a small handheld device. He entered some sort of calculation, which resulted in the line of drones flying off toward the space yacht. They attached themselves to the hull of the ship in various spots.
“Those look like mines,” Straya said, watching the action occur.
“That’s precisely what they are,” Posha said. “It’s an excellent defense measure. They blast outward. Any ship that gets too close or tries to forcefully board our ship will be in for a surprise.”
Calico had been watching over Straya’s shoulder and nudged her arm. “Seems like our Voltek friend is a weapons expert!”
“No shit,” Straya replied. “It’s no wonder the neighbors won’t even look at you, Posha.”
Posha set down the hand-held device. “Neighbors are overrated. I much prefer the company of my inventions.” He then looked around the room at the items they had loaded up and nodded at Regan. “I think that should do it.”
“Then let’s rock and roll,” Regan said. His crew started for the ship.
Regan waited until all of them were on the ramp. When Reverie approached him, she put her hand on his shoulder, her mouth close to his ear.
“Arkei is in distress,” she said softly. There was much concern in her voice.
“I know,” Regan replied. “As soon as we’re on board, I’m going to talk to her. I don’t want to make it a big deal, so if you could please help everyone get settled on the bridge…”
“Of course. Am I to tell Calico where to take us?”
“Not yet,” Regan said. “We can discuss that when Arkei and I join you. For now, just keep everyone calm. See if Squit can make everyone something tasty to get our spirits up.”
“Good call, Captain,” Reverie said as she boarded the ship.
Regan joined the crew aboard, sneaking up to Arkei as they entered the ship.
“Can I speak with you for a moment?” he whispered.
Arkei nodded and the two of them broke off from the rest.
Regan and Arkei entered the Captain’s Suite. She took a seat at a table near the large window while he grabbed two glasses and filled them with water. He handed one to Arkei and sat next to her.
“Talk to me, Arkei,” Regan started.
Arkei hesitated at first, but she finally broke down and looked at Regan, her posture stiff.
“Remember my people, the Hiveroth?” she asked.
“Of course. The hive mind race that banished you.”
“Yes. Well, they’re calling me back.”
Regan took a moment to process this. The race that wanted her dead, that banished her, that made her choose a fate with Mephistopheles and turn to a life of hiding and bidding for that monster, was now calling her back?
“What do they want?” Regan asked, trying his best to temper his anger at the situation.
“They want me to join them again.”
Regan couldn’t believe what he was hearing.
“Arkei, they banished you!”
“I know.”
“They’re toying with your mind. I mean… are they speaking to you right this instant?”
Arkei had tears in her eyes as she nodded. She looked defeated.
“Well, can you turn it off? Do you have a choice? Can you just… not listen to them?”
“I don’t know,” Arkei replied. “The collective mind is a fundamental part of the Hiveroth. I thought I was cut off from an early age, but it seems that I wasn’t. Or perhaps they have the ability to bring me back in.”
Regan’s anger was growing, but he needed to be there for Arkei. His anger wouldn’t solve this situation. He couldn’t imagine what she was going through right now.
“Arkei, is this something you… want?”
Arkei shook her head, then grabbed Regan’s hands. She looked at him and opened her mouth as if to speak, but she couldn’t.
Something was happening to her. Her grip on Regan’s hands became firm. He couldn’t pull his hands away.
The look in her eyes changed as well. They started to fill with other colors, as if there were many eyes looking through them. Then she spoke, but it wasn’t her voice. Many voices came out of her mouth.
“Return Arkei to us,” the voices demanded. They were speaking to Regan, watching Regan. The entire hive mind was in the room with them right now.
Regan couldn’t imagine how Arkei was holding this back. How did she bottle this up, and for how long?
“You have no right to take over her mind,” Regan said sternly at the face of Arkei, speaking to the entire race.
“Her mind belongs to the Hiveroth. She is of us,” the voices continued.
“You cast her out. You hurt her, made her feel neglected for most of her life, and now you call her back? For what reason?”
“We have been attacked,” the voices answered. “Many have fallen. She is needed.”
Arkei then began to tremble. Her grip on Regan’s hands were loosening. She blinked and brought her hands to her head.
“No, I’m not!” she shouted. She was battling for control of her own brain, of her own body. It startled Regan. “You have an entire hive at your disposal!” she continued. “What good will one outcast do?”
The Hiveroth regained control of Arkei’s body. She stiffened, looked at Regan again. The eyes of many behind her own.
“You must return her,” the voices said.
You must fuck off.
“Who attacked you?” Regan asked.
“Mercenaries. They came searching for Arkei. We fought them, but our worry is founded in something else. We are concerned because not far from the mercenary ships were Intergalactic Council troopers.”
“Are you sure about that?”
“They were cloaked, but our radars are advanced. Whatever Arkei has done, she is in trouble all the way up to the Intergalactic Council. She must return to the hive.”
“And why should we trust you? What would keep you from handing her over to save your own asses?”
“We will keep her safe.”
Regan moved close to Arkei’s face. He put his hands on her cheeks and glared into her eyes.
“You had your chance,” Regan said. “Now I keep her safe. And I have a crew that will never stop fighting to keep her safe. You made your choice with Arkei long ago, when she was just a child. If you think for a moment that I will hand her over, you are dead wrong. I’ll go to war with your entire race, and I will win, to keep Arkei safe and away from you.”
Regan could feel the anger behind the eyes. He could tell they were furious with him, and it felt good. He knew he was on the right side of things. He thought of Arkei as a little child, as a child who needed help, and how her entire race turned their backs on her. He would not let those same cowards make demands of her now.
Arkei blinked several times and nearly fell over. Regan caught her. She looked temporarily weak, but also refreshed, like a massive weight had been lifted from her.
She rubbed her eyes and looked at Regan, then grabbed both sides of his face with her hands.
Whether it was permanent or tempora
ry, the Hiveroth had left her mind. He didn’t need her confirmation to know this. He could see it in her eyes. It was just him and Arkei looking at each other in that moment.
Then she pulled him toward her and kissed him hard. Her tongue reached inside his mouth and kissed him like only she could do. He remembered the first time they kissed. The first time he tasted this alien tongue.
They didn’t say a word to each other as they began to undress. They kissed every part of each other’s bodies. They tasted each other, and they did so passionately. They touched each other in the same way, with confident and exploratory hands. In what seemed like only moments, Regan was inside of her.
They were on the ground, with Regan riding her. Nothing else mattered right then. Not the Hiveroth. Not Rubicio. Not even the rest of the crew. It was just Regan and Arkei, having each other completely.
They stared into each other’s eyes. She moaned and pulled on his hair, but kept looking at him with all four of her eyes. She touched herself and grabbed his ass, pulling him hard toward her, deeper inside her.
He took her hands and mounted them above her head on the ground. He pushed deeper and fucked harder, not holding back until she came, pulling him into a release as well.
He remained inside her for a bit longer. Regan relaxed on top of her as they continued kissing. He rubbed his fingers across her breasts as she nibbled at his ear. She smiled and hugged him.
“Thank you,” she said.
“We’re in this together,” he replied.
Back on the bridge, Straya was the first one to notice how much better Arkei looked, and she winked at them.
It seemed there was some disagreement in the room as to where they should head next, where they could hide from the Intergalactic Council.
While Arkei and Regan’s entrance gave everyone pause, it only did so momentarily, as the crew returned to their argument.
“No, not that planet either,” Calico said, brushing Straya’s hand aside from the planetary map. “Rubicio’s reach spans the entire universe. It’s useless.”
“It seems he is onto us more than we realize,” Regan began.
The crew grew quiet and turned their attention to their Captain, but he turned it over to Arkei.
“The Intergalactic Council sent mercenaries to attack the Hiveroth,” Arkei said. “They were looking for me.”
The room remained quiet for a moment longer.
“So that is two of our civilizations that have seen action,” Posha said.
“Very different approaches though,” Regan noted.
“Why would Rubicio be so bold in going after Arkei or her people?” Reverie asked.
Arkei shrugged. “I’m an easier target. Regan, Bob, and Straya are undocumented, so he might not know how to get to you three. Calico is a princess, so maybe he’d rather not mess with her just yet. Squit’s probably not on the radar either as she stayed on our ship the whole time. As for Posha, his neighbors really hate him, so maybe they gave him up when we landed.”
“It still doesn’t explain how his neighbors knew anything about the events that transpired,” Regan said. “But enough talk, at least right here. We need to move. This bastard is stepping up his game, and I don’t want to be caught off guard again.”
Regan took his seat.
“Calico, fly us to a quiet spot, away from Intergalactic Troopers for a bit. Even if Rubicio’s reach spans the whole universe, it’s better to move than to stay here where we’ve been reported.”
Calico didn’t reply, just nodded. There was some uncertainty to her movements, it seemed, but they had all been through a rough ordeal back there.
So much for trying to live a peaceful life. We need to take out this bastard.
The ship departed and left the Voltek atmosphere.
Chapter Forty-Seven
Calico navigated them toward a dead zone between galactic sectors. There was little traffic, but they were hardly the only ones around. It seemed like mostly truckers and cargo ships. Even though the space yacht was nicer than ships in the area, the travelers here tended to mind their own business, at least according to Calico.
She put the ship on autopilot and they cruised along with the minimal scattered traffic. Then she turned her chair around and faced the center of the bridge, as did Arkei and Straya. Squit was busy with her tentacles on the screen next to her, making squishy noises, which Bob translated.
“Squit is hacking into the various communication networks in this sector, seeing if there is any mention of us, either individually or as a whole. So far nothing is coming up.”
“That’s good news,” Regan said. “But I wonder if they’re smart enough to be speaking in code?”
Regan couldn’t help but think back on the ninja attack. That coupled with the fact that the Hiveroth were attacked so quickly gave Regan concern that his current foe was smarter than enemies of the past. He and his crew would have to start thinking creatively.
Straya nodded and snapped her fingers, as if affirming that Regan’s comment was correct. It made him glad that her head was already in that place.
Squit made more noises.
“Right, she is looking for seemingly coded transmissions as well,” Bob said. “And putting them into a database sequence, so even if something comes up that is recurring or out of place, we will be notified.”
Damn. She’s good.
But as Regan and the crew then found out—being good was not the same as being preventative. It was only a matter of moments before the proximity scanners on the bridge started going off, sending alarms and signals to all the display screens.
Straya brought up the alert on one of the windshield screens, the video showing a drone-like device flying right at them. It was larger than a drone though and looked like it could do some damage.
Squit made some noises.
“It’s a probe!” Bob shouted.
It had a blinking red light that Regan assumed could only mean it was making contact of some sort, reporting to whoever sent it that it found something. That something was Regan and his crew.
“It’s an Intergalactic Council Navy probe!” Calico shouted as she took the ship out of autopilot, kicking it into gear and speeding up.
“How do you know it belongs to the navy?” Arkei asked, bringing up a hologram radar of the surrounding area, seemingly checking for additional attackers or visitors of any kind.
“Does it matter?” Calico snapped in response. “I just do!”
She pulled the controls and took the ship into a downward spiral away from the probe which followed their trajectory. It was fast, incredibly so.
“We need to get out of here,” Calico said. “Straya, can you—”
But she was cut off by a new alarm, as well as the arrival of three ships, which came out of light speed right in front of them. Arkei enlarged the hologram of them and took a closer look.
“You’re right,” Arkei said. “Intergalactic Council Navy vessels. Three of them.”
When the ships showed up Calico put on the brakes. They were face to face with the three ships. The probe whizzed by and idled in the space off to the side between them.
It was a stare down, but Regan wasn’t sure they stood a chance. Sure, this ship had seen action and fought its way out of tight situations, but these ships came prepared. They knew exactly what they were dealing with and showed up ready to go. They were on the hunt, and they had found their prey.
They were red battleships. Regan could see that they were loaded with massive weapons. The red was a surprise, as Regan hadn’t seen ships colored like that before. Their ominous appearance definitely stirred up fear on the bridge of his ship.
They made no attempt to call Regan’s communication line. They were here only to destroy.
“Captain,” Calico started. “I am waiting for your orders.”
Regan didn’t need to think about a maneuver. He knew that Calico could handle the ship better than any of them, and the last time they were in a ship fight,
he dropped all of their antimatter modules out of the cargo hold. Sure, they survived, but he trusted his crew right then more than he trusted himself.
“They aren’t taking us in peacefully,” Regan said. “Let’s give ‘em hell.”
Calico didn’t hesitate. She thrust the controls back toward herself and accelerated the ship right for the three navy vessels. The speed was incredible, nerve racking, even. He wasn’t sure about the tactic, but he appreciated the aggression she displayed.
The three ships started firing toward them, but mostly blasts that could be deflected by their shields. They didn’t unleash any of the large weapons. Regan realized that the ships must be too close to fire massive missiles. An explosion from one of those things could backfire on them.
“Posha, how sure about you about those mines you made?” Calico asked.
“I am quite sure that whatever sets them off will be significantly more troubled than we will,” he replied. “That is their purpose.”
“You’re nuts,” Straya said, catching on to Calico’s plan.
“Maybe,” Calico said. “But if it means saving our collective asses…”
Calico took the ship toward the first of the three ships, the closest one. She got close enough that it seemed for a moment they were going to collide, but they didn’t. Instead she just grazed the surface of the navy vessel. The proximity of the two ships set off a mine that caused a massive explosion.
Posha was right in that it didn’t break through their own ship, but the impact did send a massive jolt their way. It made alarms go off and the screens flicker.
Arkei’s hologram display showed that the navy vessel that received the explosion now had a significant hole in its top, near its bridge. The ship was without power and was now drifting, unable to fight back. Its firing had stopped and its ability to maneuver out of the situation was depleted. Much of the crew would still be alive, but the ship itself was useless.
“Nicely done,” Arkei said.
“Yeah, but they’ll be onto us now,” Calico replied.
She kept the ship moving the way it was and started to circle back around. It was clear there was no running away from this fight. They had no ability to make a jump and escape. If they were to flee, it would be easy for the navy vessels to follow them, hunt them down, and use their larger and more powerful weapons. The proximity was their greatest strength right now.
Galactic Bandits Compilation Page 33