The Corrupted Star
Page 27
“You'll need to signal Tira now,” she told him.
So he did, opening up his palm a light emitted from it, creating a set of wireframe controls only he could read, using his fingers he manipulated and activated one of the controls. It took only a few seconds for the doorway to form in the middle of the room, Jill slipped through the light of the open doorway and left them. It closed again, leaving only the ambient light of the dull lamps remaining.
Haydn looked down at the woman still tucked up in his arm, her body was soft under the touch of his hand, eyes open now having watched Jill's exit display.
“That is absolutely amazing, I'll never get over watching that.”
“Why are you helping us, I mean really, why?”
She lay beside him quietly, her eyes dropped to his chest and she began to slowly answer.
“I belong to a world I've never wanted to be a part of, all I've ever wanted was to be free from it.”
“Why couldn't you just leave?”
“You don't just leave the syndicates, they'd chase me, capture me and then sell me in chains, I had to wait for the right time and someone strong enough to help.”
“How did you even end up there to begin with?”
“My father sold me to that world.”
“Your dad?” he asked her, shocked at the idea.
“No, my father was a high level enforcer, he killed my dad because he couldn't meet debts.”
“That's terrible, I'm sorry.”
“Don't be, I was too young to understand it all anyway.”
“So he just took you then?”
“Pretty much, he would take me places with him as I grew up and I would watch as he hurt or killed people for the silliest of things. I always remembered thinking one thing,” she told him. “These people are fools, but why is it necessary to kill them?”
She lay quietly thinking about the days of her past.
“Is that how you still think?”
“One day, when I was fourteen, he put a gun in my hand and told me to kill someone,” the feel of the gun was still strong in her mind, solid and coarse in her hand. It was heavier than she expected. They were stood in an open floor trading station and surrounded by watching bystanders, there was no secret to what they were doing, and with no law in the fringes, only the ruthless survived. So she became ruthless. The gagged and bound man looked up at her, his eyes pleaded and tears rolled down his beaten face. Pulling the trigger was the easy part, the nightmares that would follow for years after, that was the hard part.
“It was an easy thing for me to do, there was no emotion to it, I'd seen so much of it by then that I was numb, like how a butcher slaughters animals. My father, he would have taken his time, killing him slowly, so I saw it really as a mercy.”
“How do you see it now?”
“The same, he was going to die, so at least it was fast,” she answered while walking her fingers up his chest, looking back up at him she spoke on. “I know I've done bad things, but I've never killed without good cause.”
“So why would you kill?”
“When it keeps me alive, I know my reputation, but the truth is after I killed that first man, who wasn't exactly good himself, I swore never to take an innocent life. All the lives I've taken were of bad people, guns for hire, pirates, mercenary contractors, the types of people willing to do horrible things while hiding behind masks.”
“Well hopefully soon, after we're done here, you won't have to do those things again.”
“No, after we're done here, I intend to leave.”
“And go where?”
“Out past the unknown, to find out what lies away from the reach of our greed and evil.”
“You don't have to leave you know, we're not all bad.”
“I know that, most people are good, like you and your friends, even the odd girl, is she an AI?”
“No, but she's not entirely human.”
“Not human?”
“Well she is, just not made the same.”
“That was less than helpful,” she told him, her eyes inquisitive now.
“OK, I found her and her ship, so I don't know where she came from, but she did explain it a little to me one day, her body is made up of different stuff from what we are, she's powerful and doesn't age.”
“Are you saying she's a super human teenager, who can't age?”
“In short, that's how she explained it.”
Her eyes trailed off now, looking at something he couldn't see.
“When I was younger, I was always kept planet side, and I hated it. I would gaze up at the stars and imagine what wonders lay beyond them. I saw them as my escape and swore to myself I would go out and look one day, I want to be there in the unknown, to discover new things, like you have,” she was full of enthusiasm now, her face lit and she smiled again. “Where did you find each other?”
“Me and Tira, on my home planet.”
“Which is where?”
“No idea, we haven't even invented space flight yet, I found her under a jungle, pressed some buttons and ended up here by complete accident.”
For a few seconds, her enthusiastic stare remained as she measured his answer, then a smiled formed, which turned to a laugh, it went from a laugh to a screechy cackle which last a short while, then finally subsided back down to a laugh again.
“What?” he asked dumbfound.
“Please tell me you see the irony in all this.”
“What irony?”
“Here you are, a backwater clout from some unheard of non evolved planet, up amongst the stars in the midst of all this excitement, being chased by all these people and nations because you have the most advanced ship ever seen, then you land yourself in a bed with me.”
“Yeah, thanks for that, just what I need, heckled by you for how things turned out.”
“Oh relax my love, I don't chose men lightly, in fact and just between us, it's been over twelve years since my last,” she told him casually. “It's just unexpected that you would be the one I finally turned to for help.”
“You haven't had sex in over twelve years?”
“No I haven't, not with a man anyway. In my world, sex is a garment of control, so I controlled my own.”
“Why chose me then?”
“You're different, you make me laugh, and at least you had the decency to try and look away when you got here. Most men think it's their privilege to stare.”
“I'm not most men.”
“I know love, you're my caveman,” she laughed again as she finished the sentence, it was odd for her to laugh because she truly was amused, and she liked the feeling she rarely got to express.
“Thanks again, the blows just keep hammering in.”
“Oh don't get upset dear,” she said, pushing herself up on top of him and smiling as she leaned her face down to his. “I kind of like your little story, you'll have to tell me about it, every detail.”
“What... now?”
“No, of course not now, we only have a little time left and I have something much more fun in mind,” she lifted one of his hands to her chest, then leaning down, kissed him.
“Should we be doing this without Jill?” he asked.
“She knows what we're doing my love, and had more than her own fair share of fun before you showed up.”
“Don't you have guards on this ship, or a crew? Someone might come knocking.”
“I hacked and overrode the life support, there's no oxygen on this ship anywhere but in here,” her focussed stare left him with little more to ask, but any further questions he may have had, slipped away after she sat down on him.
A Killer's Walk
Jill walked out into the cavernous hold with crates piled high around her, she wore a tight dark grey full body suit crafted by Tira to her specifications, the material would hide her visibility to the ship's onboard security suite. The mask she wore began to boot up a faint display, it tracked her eyes and would respond to their movements. Together, both
the suit and mask would keep her alive in the event of a vacuum, up until her oxygen ran out, at which point it would spray a vapour into her face designed to put her into a deep coma. Only ever a last ditch effort to stay alive for a few extra hours though, as results were never guaranteed.
Over her bodysuit she wore a vest, it wasn't like the jacket she would normally wear to conceal her weaponry, she didn't need the restriction, but it did contain a few more necessities than usual.
Reaching into a small pouch on her chest, she removed one such necessity, it was no longer than an inch in length. Spreading four insect like wings it threw itself into the air, with such detail in its appearance and flight that it looked like a large hornet.
An overlay of the room appeared in her vision, her implants worked with the flying bug and helmet display together, allowing her to see the room's details ever clearer the more the small insect like device scanned around the cargo hold. A red blob appeared amongst the crates between her and the exit. As the insect studied it a little more, the blob took a more human form.
Tira had outdone herself with these tools, they were better than anything she'd ever used.
The unsuspecting quartermaster stood no chance, neither did the rations he was stuffing into himself. Jill's silent drop from the crates above, landed on them both, and a dagger rammed its way through the man's head as he absorbed her body weight.
After first hiding the body, she left the hold, moved along a small corridor and turned right, her helmet nav highlighting the required route. Even compared to the Ophelia, the dimmed corridors she moved through now were only half the size, wide enough for three abreast and about a foot taller than the average man, all the time her insect like device mapping for signs of life, it found more than a few.
She'd come across the living quarters for the crew and of the options given to go through, potentially being spotted and having to silence threats, or, taking the long route round, requiring more time but with a healthy decrease in the likelihood to stumble across resistance, she decided on the latter.
Her hud, understanding her intent, rerouted automatically as she moved off and the flying device backtracked from the living area, found her and zipped passed her ear into the corridor in front.
After fifteen seconds of following it, she rounded a corner and stopped less than two metres from a grinning male, he hesitated, she didn't, and two blades flew threw the air to slam into his chest and head. Unusually, her blades didn't make it all the way through, both instead became lost in the man's body and head, but it made little difference, he crumpled into a dead heap all the same.
She looked around, wondering to herself why he wasn't seen by the insect but stopped her pondering to open a door into a storeroom full of mess, she needed a place to lump the body and this was as good as any. In the dimness of the room, she looked at the man's dead face and could swear she recognised him, she was sure it was the same man from the bar on the Grinder, Bob.
Continuing on her chosen path, she came across a security locked door, the flying device hovering patiently at it, pulling a key card from her pocket she put it to the lock. USER AUTHORITY DENIED <
She reached into another pouch, pulled another card out, one of Tira's making and put it to the lock, it flashed, and ran a series of codes she couldn't read before the display blanked and the door clicked open. The ship's computer would likely pick up the irregularity in the now powerless door lock, which Tira suggested would happen, so it was only a matter of time before someone would come looking.
She moved through the open door, continuing to follow the corridors until coming to a set of ladders, at the top of the ladders was a closed hatch, through the hatch was a room which led into the detention area. Climbing the ladders and opening the hatch she lifted herself into the room, strength and grace with every movement she made.
Three unarmoured and unmasked guards sat watching her, a makeshift table was placed between them with cards scattered across it. The first reached for a comms device, his arm didn't make it, a silver streak spat out the back of his neck causing him to crash to the floor, taking the makeshift table and cards with him.
Springing into action, the remaining male and female brought their side-arms to bear on Jill. Her next blade missed the females face, only because she'd lifted the gun in front of it. Instead, the gun scattered to the floor, its damaged power-cell sparked away leaving the woman gripping at a knife handle lodged deep in her arm. Letting out a delayed yelp of pain, she dropped to her knees.
The male managing to raise his weapon, fired at the masked intruder. He didn't know what hit him. The masked figure stood clear as day in his sights, he'd even fired at it several times, but now it stood in front of him, the masked face beside the gun, two long arms reaching forward to his chest. He looked down, at the end of each arm was a dagger handle, extending from the handles and buried deep through his lungs, were the blades.
He heard a gun being freed from a holster and turned his head to look, his partner began to draw a second weapon but hadn't managed to raise it, an insect slammed its way into her neck jerking her body back. As the arm he used to hold his own weapon fell lazily, his colleague's neck and jaw exploded, time slowed for him as her now mouthless head fell to the floor, his vision darkening more and more with each passing second.
Jill, slid the daggers out his chest as the guard fell dead to the floor, she turned to look at the mess, and dead eyes from half a face with no body looked back in her direction. She didn't get time to ponder, an alarm wailed and all lighting flared to life, illuminating every corridor on the ship, bulkhead doors could be heard slamming shut throughout the structure.
Their was no knowing what triggered the alarm, the overridden door perhaps, the noisy gunshots or maybe someone stumbling across a body, all she did know was that they would be hunting her now.
Reaching into her vest, she pulled out another of the deadly insect like mini machines, and released it to the air, then left the room and followed the passages into the cell block.
Cell by cell she checked and found nothing, the insect like device saw also no signs of life either. A chill ran up her back, her fight or flight turned to overdrive as tuned senses screamed of immediate danger, slowing her mind she controlled them. It took less a second to process and automatically she ducked, stepped backwards, twisted, spun around and behind the figure that so stealthily crept up on her. Grabbing an arm she twisted and lifted until the shoulder popped. She could see now it was a male as her dagger slammed through his neck, jamming solidly and refusing to release while he fell to his knees, she let it go.
He didn't die right away, and it was rare for someone with a dagger lodged through their neck to not die, so her shock and hesitancy on this occasion was understandable. Instead he tried to stand, and grabbed at the jammed weapon's hilt. Pulling another dagger, she gripped his hair and ran it through his eye until she felt it stop against the skull at the rear.
His face was clear now, it was the same man, the one who surprised her in the corridor earlier by evading her insect's sensors and again now, or perhaps a twin, what other explanation could there be, she'd already killed Bob.
For good measure she ripped her dagger free from his eye socket and shoved it through his ear, she noticed as the body crumpled to the floor that there was blood on her weapon, yet none spilled from his wounds. Perhaps an android, but even they were filled with hydraulics and cooling fluids. Something should be spilling from the wounds but nothing was, she wasn't liking this unknown.
Jill stepped off, she would have to go through the ship now, room by room if necessary until she found Brenn, but didn't make it to the door, nothing stopped her physically but she turned at hearing something.
Bob, to her astonishment, raised himself from the floor and turned to face her, his head at a horrible angle. Reaching a hand up to the object still jammed through his neck he g
rabbed the handle and pulled, the blade grated across the bones as it came free. His arm took residence back in its socket again with a distinctive and loud pop, the head and neck began to straighten, retaking their starting positions with a sickening series of cracks.
Removing her faceplate, Jill watched with a mixture of fascination and revulsion as he drew himself up. With his free hand he pointed at her, then waved her off as if signalling her to wait a second while he made rough grating noises, bending over slightly he grabbed the wall with his waving hand, and began to retch.
“... hhrrrgf, ... hrrghhhh,” he managed. “Hrrggh, hrrgh, hrmph, humpf.”
A couple of seconds passed, then he drew himself up again. Jill had no idea what was happening.