The Corrupted Star

by Martin HC

  “Hrghhk ohhhk, ohhk, OK, OK, OK, talk, talking, words, good, great, I can talk again,” he said, then looked directly at her. “What is wrong with you...?”

  “What is wrong with me? How about what just happened to you?” she answered back.

  His face and eyes stared incredulously at her.

  “What happened to me... you ran a large knife through my eye, ear, neck and throat, that's what happened to me. If you'd given me the slightest chance to talk, I would have said, oh hey, hi, it's me, Bob, yeah you remember, from the bar right, well you're friend isn't in the cells but I know where he is.”

  “How are you still alive?”

  “That's all you've got to say,” he answered her. “Unbelievable, I might not have died but my eye, ear and neck still hurt, a lot. Especially the neck.”

  His sarcasm was off-putting, she became very anxious and every muscle strained to be released into action.

  “What are you?”

  “Me, nothing you would understand, but I am going to help you find your friend.”

  “Why?”

  “Why not?”

  “Nobody does something for nothing.”

  “Fair, I do want something, I want your support with Tiralyn later.”

  She couldn't question further, gunshots started ripping up the wall to their side. Diving towards Bob, Jill pulled herself outside the shooter's line of sight. A long and deadly blade poised at Bob's face, he eyed the shiny point, glancing down its length with severe interest.

  “If my weapons can't kill you, why do you look so afraid?”

  “Did I mention that it still hurts,” he answered, then slowly, very slowly, handed back the dagger pulled from his neck, still slick with blood.

  “Thank you.”

  “You'll be wanting these back too,” he told her, producing two small but very recognisable throwing knives, a look of disdain took hold of him as she removed them from his open palm. “Have you ever had to fish knives from your own chest and face, I promise you it's upsettingly uncomfortable.”

  “You told me you know where Brenn is? So where is he?”

  “The leader here, she has him with her, I can get us there.”

  More gunshots battered across the wall, energy flashes tore up the surface, sending sparks and debris across the tight space. A buzzing noise was heard as an insect like machine plunged towards someone, a high pitched yelp followed, then a wet bang which ended with a series of frightful shrieking.

  Noise could be heard from down the corridor as the ships crew shuffled and backed away, falling over one another to put distance between them and their now headless comrade.

  “How will you get us there?” she asked, reaching into a pouch and releasing another two of the flying insects.

  “With this,” he said indicating to a spot beside him while watching the insects fly off down the corridor. The spot sparked to life and a doorway of energy formed, its seams flawless. The image on the other side was of a room, and Brenn was getting dressed in the room while a woman pointed a gun at him, she seemed not to notice the doorway opening.

  “Now I should warn you, it can be very discomforting at first using these...” Jill stepped through, cutting him off, “oh, well I see you're familiar with it.”

  A chorus of yelling was heard again from the corridor behind them, the men seeing the flying devices ran in fear, wild shots echoed along followed by two more wet bangs, followed then by more howling and terrified screams. Bob, shook his head and followed her through into the room, the doorway closing behind them.

  The woman had seen them now and was in a state of panic, she didn't know who to point the gun at and swung it wildly from person to person.

  Jill ignoring her looked at Brenn in disgust.

  “How could you? I mean, look at her.”

  The panicked woman took offence to this and pointed the weapon at Jill now, Brenn shrugged, a neutral expression on his face.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” the woman scowled out. “And how did you get in here, what was that?”

  “You want to put that down,” Jill told her.

  “How about I use it to mess up that pretty face of yours,” she snarled back moving towards Jill.

  “I hope the sex wasn't as bad as her attitude, Mr,” she said, speaking to Brenn again behind the woman.

  The wildly unsettled woman turned to where he should be, and not finding him spun round further to see him on the other side of the room.

  “How did you get over there?” she shouted at him.

  Shrugging again, Brenn grinned and nodded at Jill, she turned back and unfortunately the newcomer had also moved. Jill now gripped the arm holding the gun and casually removed it from her hand as they met face to face. The menacing look of the strong, toned and blood covered killer, stared the woman into a shivering wreck.

  “Please, I haven't hurt anyone... and he came on to me,” Jill didn't kill her, but she did put her into a state of enforced rest.

  “Get dressed,” she told Brenn, before turning her attentions back to Bob. “And you, tell me what you know about Tira.”

  “I've been watching her for a while now. I couldn't be sure before, but now I'm positive it's her. Her energy's been hidden, mostly, but I've felt it twice now, then I lost her again,” he said solemnly. “But then I got wind of what was happening here, and knew I would find her. I know she's out there, somewhere, close.”

  “What do you want with her?”

  “It's not something we really have time for just now, but she will need me soon I have no doubt, I will speak to her then, I hope my helping you again will allow you to trust me next time we meet.”

  “Again?”

  “I was the guard that stopped you from killing the interrogator.”

  “The one that electrocuted me three times,” she growled out, slowly reaching for a dagger.

  He picked up on her tone, nobody could have confused it, raising his open hands the man spoke quickly.

  “No, no I wasn't that one, I was the one who grabbed your arm, who stopped you from using the dagger. I helped you, if you hurt the interrogator, they would never have released you,” Jill, taking in his words, put the dagger back. Bob relaxed a little.

  “When will we see you again?”

  “When Tira needs me, I must go now, we must all go now.”

  He didn't allow her to ask more questions, instead, the conundrum known as Bob, stepped backwards into the darkness and vanished. Jill realising he was gone, looked down at the unconscious woman, then to Brenn and shook her head.

  “You're sick, there's nothing appealing about that thing on the floor.”

  He raised his hands to his chest and gestured in return.

  “They may be big but that hardly redeems you.”

  A Hunter Waits While the Bushes Shake

  “Commander, we're getting a series of distressed rants from the lead cartel frigate,” someone shouted across the deck.

  Babaidou's immediate thought was one of pain and punishment for the owner of the interrupting voice, his second conversation with Damon was going well as the captain recounted his most recent history.

  He looked to the owner of the voice, “explain.”

  “We're not certain, there's a lot of confusion, but they are confirming many dead and the disappearance of the male hostage.”

  Damon's face dropped as the commander looked at him, expecting that the easy times were now over, he stepped back.

  “Relax Captain, you're in no trouble, we've been waiting for this,” he told Damon. Looking back towards the interrupting voice, Babaidou re-designated the message as worthy, the creature wouldn't know it but he'd been mercifully spared. “What is the status on the second prisoner, the female?”

  “We're getting no answer from them.”

  Babaidou waved Damon off down the steps and sat in silence, he looked around his command deck, people went about their business as usual, it's time, he thought to himself.

  “You wil
l remain there,” he said to Damon, who nodded and took a seat at the bottom of the room as Babaidou turned to the closest person. “Get me the ship's captain.”

  The ship captain's image appeared on the massive holo display in the centre of the room.

  “Commander,” he spoke, acknowledging the call, his deep and powerful voice rolling across the flag deck.

  “Captain, I believe our prey is in local range, lets bait them to our sights.”

  The captain's dark eyes didn't blink and unlike Babaidou's, Damon could see these were the eyes of an outright killer. The captain nodded as the screen cut, a man of very few words.

  Damon watched as a display at the front of the room, filled the space across the entirety of the massive wall, information populating a three dimensional chart appeared and the room burst to life, his crew preparing for action.

  Damon sat in silence, hoping that Haydn and Tira knew what they were doing.

  The Hunter's Bait

  “The Ferrens, they're leaving the Ophelia,” Tira told them.

  Brenn still heaved on the floor, his body spasmed against any attempts to recover himself, and Jill stood looking down on him.

  “Serves you right,” she said without emotion.

  “I've heard nothing back from Haydn yet, there's been no signs of distress as such, but his body temperature and heart rate have climbed again, are you sure he's fine?”

  “Again?”

  “Yes, it happened shortly after he left to get you too, for a sustained period.”

  “Ah, I think he's getting on just fine over there, no doubt Feissa's just working him out a little.”

  “Working him out a little, what does tha... oh wait a second, he's not...?”

  Jill's amused expression gave Tira her answer, causing the girl to flinch back in disgust.

  “No... the first time too?”

  “Yip.”

  “All three of you?” she exclaimed.

  “Yip.”

  “That's horrible, I don't even want to speak with him when he's back, and you, I expected better of you.”

  Jill laughed as the girl's remark bounced of her uncaring persona.

  “A Ferren shuttle has just broke dock with the Ophelia,” Tira said, as a small craft on the tactical display bee lined towards the Ferren fleet, nothing slow about its speed. “It looks like the last one, we should be able to get over there now.”

  “OK, I'll get ready and head on over, and I'll need more bugs, I only have the two left.”

  “That won't be an issue, I can make more but it'll take a short while,” as Tira finished speaking, she snapped her attention up towards the main display.

  The room lit up around her, lights flashed and alarms called out their long, drawn out and high pitched warnings. The tactical situation on the display in front blinked a change in circumstances, and a continuous series of loud triple beeps filled the air, as the lights dimmed to a more tactical red, darkening the room.

  “What is it?” Jill asked rapidly, drawing one of her deadly daggers and spinning around.

  The display answered for her, the space around the Ferren fleet exploded to life, hundreds of tiny lines began to extend themselves from the ships, and burn directly towards the cartel fleet.

  “They're firing missiles at the cartel ship cluster, all nuclear, multiple salvoes.”

  “OK, but what's with the noise and light show?”

  “Sorry,” Tira said, returning the lights to their previous levels of illumination and silencing the room again. “If I don't do something dramatic, Haydn won't really get the seriousness of the situation until it's too late... he'd just look at the display and say, 'it doesn't look like that big a problem',” her impression was impeccable.

  “That's not really something you need to do with me, I mean, if you tell me nukes have been launched towards the Ophelia, I'll get it.”

  “Like I said, sorry, force of habit.”

  “Girl, I almost had a heart attack, just, open a doorway to the Ophelia's bridge,” Jill told her, calming herself down. “We have to get her out of the field of fire, now!”

  A doorway formed and Jill came bursting through, they were all there, all but Damon, even the kid had joined them via a vent in the ceiling by the looks of it.

  “Are you all alright? Where's Damon?”

  “Damon's been taken across to the Ferren fleet, we're fine but I can't move the ship, they've cut up every data connection leading away from the bridge and disabled my drive,” Serena answered her.

  “We have to get you all out of here, Ferren nukes are inbound.”

  “OK everyone, you heard her, time to clear out,” Serena told them all clearly and loudly, spurring them towards the open jump bridge door.

  “What about you?” Kaell asked, stopping everyone's movements.

  “Kid... Kaell, I can't leave, I'm part of this ship, remember.” she answered, looking sadly down to the child's eyes.

  “No, you have to come too, what about the nukes in the core room, you'll never survive?”

  “Nukes?” Jill asked.

  “They've rigged the core with nukes,” Kas told Jill, “they're going to destroy her no matter what.”

  “OK, first things first, you lot get out of here, kid you're last, I'll catch you as you come through, it's not a nice trip being honest.”

  “What about Serena though?” she snapped back stubbornly.

  “There's nothing we can do from here, but Tira might be able to do something from her side, so lets go,” Jill answered, still trying to get used to hearing the child's voice.

  Arlan and Kas twisted and wretched around on the floor, with tensing and spasms compounding the fiery feeling running through their guts. Jill as promised caught the youth, her condition as bad as the men, although she did do much better at hiding it than they did.

  Tira watched the cartel frigates, in response to the attack they quickly begun striking the missiles from space as anti-missile defence networks worked on overtime. The frigates themselves sat robbed of any chance to run until their drives could power up, they were only capable of minor thrust manoeuvres and all now focussed on defending themselves.

  Jill quickly rattled off the issue with Serena to Tira, breaking her attention away from the display.

  “How can we help Serena, she can't run?” Jill asked.

  “I'll have to upload her matrix, we'll need to get close though, it'll take some time and those frigates won't hold back all those missiles.”

  Tira rapidly began to manoeuvre into a position shielding both the Ophelia and Feissa's frigate, which oddly hadn't moved from the Ophelia's side.

  “What if they detonate her core?”

  “We'll worry about that when the time comes, why is that frigate still there?”

  “Feissa likely found away to disable her crew and figured the safest place to be is beside the Ophelia.”

  “I can't communicate with the Ophelia.”

  “The Ferrens destroyed all her comms, even the device used to talk to you,” Kas told her.

  “Wait here,” Tira said, leaving the bridge.

  “Is she kidding?” Kas asked. “We're just supposed to wait here, we can't just hang around, we have to do something to help Serena.”

  Jill calmed him down a peg or two with her stare, then relaxed a little herself, “she knows that, but the comms are out, she's likely getting something we'll need.”

  Through the comfort of Jill's words, Kas never spoke again. Or perhaps it was for fear of drawing the still blood covered warrior's attention again.

  Tira returned carrying a small device and handed it to Jill. It was a plain dull grey, could fit in one of Jill's hand, and had no distinguishing features of any kind.

  “Take this to Serena and place it somewhere close to her matrix, explain that as soon as you do, it will shut her down and begin transferring her intelligence, tell her not to fight against it.”

  Jill left back through the already open doorway, and less than ten seco
nds later Tira established the connection, beginning the transfer.

  The men still lay on the floor as Jill returned, struggling to recover and almost causing her to trip. The kid had a long thin object wrapped in brown in her hand. Unwrapping it, she began to chew on the contents which she tore off with her teeth.