“Refused?” I said, unable to believe my ears. “Isn’t it RTF protocol to hand over the Dust if the vessel can’t defend itself?”
“Ha, you don’t know Captain Cross, buddy, and you don’t know the Stalwart. We’re more than capable of blowing these pirates out of space. You give them ground, and they’ll keep taking.”
Attacking the pirates rather than hand over the Stalwart’s Dust stores seemed crazy. Still, I’d always hated the law that made the RTF into victims, and the captain’s desire to stand his ground made me feel a lot of respect for a man I hadn’t met. He was standing up to those who threatened him. I almost wished I’d shown similar courage at the Academy when Ludas Barnes had first called me Poor Boy.
Even so, it didn’t matter how courageous the captain or the crew were when faced with forty enemy vessels.
“Can’t the Stalwart outrun them?” I asked not because I thought we should run, but because apparently the best ship mage in the RTF was aboard the Stalwart. I thought we should have been able to open another portal and escape if we wanted to.
Moses frowned at me. “We don’t run from battles. Especially those we can win. These pirates will find some other suckers to loot, suckers who might not be able to defend themselves. You don’t believe we have what it takes to stop them, do you?” The knight nodded at the console I just sat in. “Turn on the gunner terminal.”
“It’s not that I don’t--”
“Turn it on!” Moses interrupted before I could explain to him I wasn’t a coward.
“Yes, sir!” I exclaimed before I punched the power supply. The gunner terminal’s giant fans whirred to life, and a gust of wind from the machine blew into my face. I activated the screen and put both my hands inside the control arms.
The monitor in front of me displayed the status of the weapon:
Weapon Type: Plasma Quarrel
Rounds: 160 (8 x 20)
Details: Medium mounted-artillery. Manually-operated. Can only fire in a straight line.
I’d used similar weapons once during an introductory Academy drill, but only in a simulation. They were reasonably archaic because the AI systems provided only minimal targeting. The basic idea was to point, shoot, and hope you hit something vital on the enemy ship.
I moved my arms around to get a feel for this particular unit. The left stick controlled the base of the turret’s rotation while the right stick controlled the gun’s barrels. It took a little bit of getting used to, but after a minute or so my first target was inside the crosshairs. The enemy vessel was quickly getting closer, and its nose had almost reached the Stalwart’s hull before I pulled the trigger.
Eight purple plasma quarrels cut through space and slammed into the pirate ship’s shields. The plasma disintegrated on the forcefield, but one quarrel penetrated an arrow-ship’s shield and hit the rear engines. Metal melted before plasma, and the ionic batteries burst into a bright blue flare. The entire ship exploded into chunks of iron, and the Stalwart rocked a little from the blast.
“Got it!” I pumped my fist into the air.
“Nice job,” Casey said. “Seems you’re not too bad at ship warfare after all.”
The weapon I’d fired must have been enhanced by some kind of Runetech. From what I’d learned during Academy classes, a single plasma array shouldn’t have been able to take out an entire vessel. The Stalwart seemed to be filled with surprises.
“Try to hit them before they get so close,” Moses said to me as he glanced up from his terminal. “We don’t want the Stalwart getting hit with the shrapnel. Makes extra work for us shielders.”
“Understood, sir.”
“I better be going, Nick,” Casey said as she touched my shoulder lightly. “Good luck in here. I’m gonna see if I can find some extra firepower in case these pirates board.”
I watched her leave the gunnery before turning back to the monitor. I hadn’t known Casey for long, but it seemed as if she considered me a friend. Moses showed me more regard than anyone in my entire time at the Academy. And Dr. Lenkov healed me without hesitation.
In response to those kindnesses, I couldn’t let these pirates breach the Stalwart. I would blast as many of the arrow-ships as I could manage.
I ignored the blaring sirens, wrapped my fingers around the control sticks again, and carefully moved my hands to target. Another arrow-ship drifted into the crosshairs, and the assisted targeting feature locked onto it. I exhaled while squeezing the trigger.
The turrets released the plasma quarrels, shooting them through space like arrows. The projectiles pounded into the enemy vessel’s hull, and it spun out of control until it was no longer on my screen. A second later, an explosion of blue gas and metal debris showed on the bottom right side of the monitor.
“By the queen!” Moses yelled as he slapped the side of his terminal. “A damn fine shot, Nick.”
“Thanks,” I said, and the back of my neck heated up.
My next shot sent plasma quarrels into the cockpit of the diving pirate ship. Another turret fired at the same time, and the enemy vessel erupted from both ends. Two other vessels flew straight into the cloud of debris, and my monitor flared from the subsequent blast.
While my monitor was too bright to look at, I glanced to the artillerymen inside their gunner terminals. Pirate ships were exploding on almost every monitor screen, and I guessed that it wouldn’t be long until this assault was over.
Before I could turn back to my terminal, the artillerymen leaped to their feet and cheered. They started shaking hands with each other, and a smile broadened my lips.
We’d done it. The last pirate ship had been destroyed.
“You did good, buddy,” Moses said as he clapped me on the back.
“Sir! Navigator Manzo has intercepted enemy comms,” a heavyset artilleryman said. “More pirate ships are inbound. Calculations suggest they will enter this system within five minutes.”
My heart stopped. I couldn’t believe it. We’d been incredibly lucky to hold off the first attack.
We couldn’t possibly stop another one.
Chapter 8
Moses scowled as he stared at his shield station’s monitor, and I turned to study my own screen. Enemy vessels were flowing from the portal and gathering into tight battle positions. I counted about sixty ships, and my heart sank as they began to drift toward us.
This was a shitload of pirates. Even the RTF Valor would have a bit of a problem battling this many enemy ships. I thought we were as good as dead, but I would take as many of these bastards with us as I could.
“Our ship mage is probably working his cybernetic ass off to seal that portal,” the shield knight said. “Hopefully, he’ll get it done before any more waves come through.”
The artilleryman scratched his neck. “It gets worse, sir. The pirates have taken down our detection systems.”
Moses peered down at his prot-belt and pressed a few keys on his holographic interface. “Every one of them is offline. It is probably a system-wide virus by the looks of it.”
How had pirates obtained a virus smart enough to infect an RTF ship? The Stalwart wasn’t the best vessel, but it would still require a remarkably intelligent bit of malware to bring down her systems.
“How the fuck did they deliver it?” the artilleryman asked.
“The first wave of enemy ships must have flown close enough to the Stalwart to deliver the bug remotely.”
I cursed under my breath. These pirates were obviously wielding some serious tech.
We’d fought off the first wave, but the second wave was almost twice as large. And now they’d delivered a virus to cripple the crew’s ability to hunt down any of the hostiles who might board us.
“Those arrow-ships have some incredible modifications,” Moses grunted. “I’ve never seen a vessel that size move so fast.”
“What do we do now, sir?” The artilleryman was standing beside a gunnery station, and he seemed eager to jump into it and start firing at the enemy ships as soon as
they got within range.
“Someone needs to clear the detection systems, otherwise we’ll be in the dark when the enemies board. Tell the commander we’ll send someone as soon as we can.”
“Aye, sir.”
“Time to get serious, crew,” the captain’s voice crackled from the overhead. “Take as many out before they get their claws onto the hull. Then we start killing every last one of these bastards.”
“Gunners! Back to your stations,” Moses ordered. “You heard the captain. The more we blow up now, the less we’ll have to deal with when they breach the hull. Shielders, protect the Stalwart’s vitals. As soon as the hull is breached, you need to maintain the airlocks. If we all pitch in, we got this.”
The portal on the monitors behind the pirate ships shimmered and vibrated. I heard Moses yip with glee when the purple fissure sealed shut.
“Matthias has done it!” the knight said. “Only sixty ships filled with these space scum to take out! Let’s do it, boys!”
I turned back to the terminal and resumed the defense. The shield knight’s confidence calmed my mind as I magnified a section of my monitor to get a better look at a line of enemy ships.
The sixty new vessels were almost identical to the other pirate ships in construction, except their engines were much larger. These vessels cut through space much faster than the first group, so I guessed that the first group was meant to soften us up for the actual raiding party.
We battled the enemy ships, taking out as many as we could. Blue beams arch out from the Stalwart’s hull--rune lances. The magically enhanced weapons were used to scramble the systems on the enemy ships, and it must have been a last-ditch effort by the crew before the inevitable.
After our rune lance attack, the Stalwart’s gunners performed better than I could have imagined. By the time the remaining vessels closed the distance, there were less than twenty left. Each enemy arrow-ship launched a smaller boarding vessel and the Stalwart rocked when these pirate-bearing craft fastened themselves to her hull.
Sirens screamed, red lights flashed, and smoke burst from pipes all along the overhead. The pirate ships must have hit something vital when they clamped onto the Stalwart. Her atmospheric systems seemed to be struggling. The air thickened, and I wondered how long it would be until we couldn’t breathe anymore.
“Shit!” Moses punched the screen on his shield station.
I eyed the bulkheads and imagined a horde of cutlass-wielding men bursting through a breach. The pirate vessels were large enough to carry crews of at least twenty. If twenty ships had survived the initial firefight, then as many as four hundred pirates would be boarding our ship. There was no way the Stalwart’s crew of eighty could take on so many enemies.
I heard something slam into the bulkhead behind me, and then a dozen more banging noises sounded in a small radius.
“They’ve breached the hull,” Moses said to us all after he’d stepped out from his terminal. “Whatever tech they’re packing aboard their ships has disabled our shields.”
The hull screeched as a drill pierced crystalanium. In just a few seconds, a metal rod poked through the bulkhead and then unfolded like an umbrella. I drew my sword to attempt to cut down the foreign objects.
“No!” Moses yelled as he grabbed my arm. “We can’t cut the grappling hooks off. Do that, and you’ll depressurize the ship.”
“What do we do then?” I asked, still holding my sword. I doubted the blade would cut through metal, but I would have tried had the shield knight not stopped me.
“We wait,” Moses said.
We didn’t have to wait long.
A screeching sound filled the artillery room. I thought it was an alarm, but then massive sparks started flying from between the grappling hooks. The door leading to the passageway behind us clanged shut.
“We’re sealed in now,” Moses said. He touched his helmet, and the visor slid over his face. I heard some feedback chirp from his earpiece. “Captain’s given orders. No one is to leave until the last pirate is dead. Do not let them escape back to their ships. Generators are already at their maximum, and we don’t have enough juice to plug twenty holes.”
I’d already fought a battle of life and death today, and I would have been exhausted were it not for Dr. Lenkov’s drugs. My pulse throbbed in my ears and adrenaline surged through my veins as the artillerymen stepped out from the terminals while the shielders remained to seal the breaches if any pirate ship unclamped itself from our hull.
“Get ready to fight!” Moses commanded us all.
The artillerymen pulled out their rifles, and I gripped my longsword in both hands. I activated my shield from my belt. The air around me crackled for a moment as the prot-field generated. When I enabled the longsword’s Forcewave rune, the blade started to glow a bright blue. My first real battle was about to unfold, and my stomach churned with excitement mixed with a touch of fear.
I turned to the hole carved into the bulkhead. The lines met each other, and the section of wall fell inward with a crash.
“Wait!” Moses said as he raised his hand in the air. The smoke settled, and four pirates ran into the room. “Artillerymen, fire!” The knight clenched his fist, and the soldiers’ rifles roared to life.
Bullets punched holes in the first wave of enemies. The second wave came immediately after. Unlike their fallen comrades, these pirates had activated their forcefields, and the bullets were unable to penetrate them.
“Draw your swords!” Moses screamed as he took his short spear in hand. With a flick of his wrist, the handle extended two meters. “Time to spill some blood, boys.”
Moses leaped into the group of pirates, and his spear whistled as its long sword-like blade carved two men in half. They screamed as the top parts of their bodies slid from their hips in a cascade of blood and entrails.
“Shields!” the big knight screamed as more enemies surged into the gunnery.
At Moses’ signal, the artillerymen removed their bucklers from the magnetons on their backs and pushed against the wave of pirates. I came in behind them, searching for an opening in the mass of bodies, blades, and shields. In such close quarters, I couldn’t use the longsword’s rune effect, but I shoved my sword into a gap between the shields. A shrill cry and the feeling of driving my sword into flesh told me I’d struck an enemy.
“Shields up!” Moses screamed.
The artillerymen raised their shields instantly, and I activated the speed sequence from my belt before I leaped over a pair of soldiers. A two-handed swing cleaved the bearded head off one pirate with a spray of blood, and an low thrust took another in the stomach, splitting armor and spilling his guts across the floor.
I turned to another group of pirates as they aimed their pistols at a pair of artillerymen. The soldiers’ low-grade prot-fields could absorb a few gunshots, but at close range the men’s heads exploded with red blood and grey brain matter.
I hadn’t had the chance to get to know any of them, but they were my brothers in arms. Each one who died caused my heart to ache and my rage to increase the frenzy of my sword swings as I carved pirates to pieces.
“Get back!” Moses reached over his shoulder and grabbed his tower shield. The artillerymen jumped aside as the knight charged through the pirate ranks. Bullets pinged off the knight’s shield as the huge sheet of metal crushed enemies like a bulldozer.
I retreated behind Moses, and the remaining artillerymen regrouped alongside me. The shield knight tapped his belt, and a shimmering domed wall appeared in front of him. The forcefield expanded three meters wide, reaching from the floor to the overhead and back around the pirates. Now they couldn’t escape back into their ship, nor could they pierce the field with their gunfire.
“Everyone alright?” Moses said as he scanned the crew. I did the same and realized only five of the original nine artillerymen were still alive. “Time for round 2. I’ll keep the rear barrier up so they can’t retreat. Releasing the shield in 3 . . . 2 . . . 1!”
Th
e forcefield vanished, and the pirates surged toward us. Cutlasses clanged against bayonets, and my shield absorbed gunfire as I charged into the fray.
A pirate with his teeth sharpened to points grinned at me as he brought his cleaver down. I caught his forearm with the guard of my blade before he could complete the attack, and then I drove my fist into his stomach. The blow caused the man to bend over, and an artilleryman slammed his bayonet into the back of the pirate’s skull. The end of the blade sprouted between the enemy’s eyes, and crimson sprayed over my face.
I had barely wiped the blood away when a flash of metal spun toward me. I ducked, and a sickle at the end of a chain whipped where my head had been a half moment ago. A lanky pirate retrieved the chained sickle with a sharp tug, and he grinned with a golden-toothed mouth.
“You’re a fresh one,” the pirate said as he threw his right hand forward.
The sickle sliced through the air, and I angled my longsword in front of me. The chains wrapped around the sword’s blade like a coiled serpent, and I knew it was only a second before the guy pulled on the other end. I released my left hand from my weapon’s hilt, and my fingers tapped a sequence on my belt like a pianist playing a sonata.
The gravity runes on my equipment burst with light as the arcane energy made them almost weightless. The rune on my right hand prevented the pirate from disarming me, so when he tugged on the chain, I jumped toward him. His eyes widened as I twisted my body so I was horizontal. I delivered a powerful kick to the pirate’s head, and his jaw shattered beneath the steel of my boot.
He was dead before he hit the ground.
I landed on my feet beside the dead pirate, and I returned my equipment to its regular weight with the press of a button. The gravity runes had lost some of their power from my attack, so my equipment was a little heavier than I was accustomed to.
I glanced at Moses to see if he’d noticed my maneuver, but he was too busy disemboweling a pirate with his retractable spear.
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