Starblazer- Through the Black Gate

by Reiter

  Nulaki’s face twisted in disgust. “Seriously?! Is that the best you have? Try this!” Nulaki leapt toward the man and then his body arched to the left, avoiding the man’s grasp. Nulaki landed on the railing and pushed off, spinning around and connecting with a powerful crescent kick to his opponent’s face. The man only took one step in the direction of the attack as Nulaki landed, realizing what sort of a fight he was in for. Only slightly less menacing than a Temple Chevalier was an InvokeR’s Guardian. They were the best of the best, and usually enchanted or enhanced by whomever they guarded. Nulaki had expected the helmet of the man to come off his head from that kick. It had yet to budge!

  “Is that the best you have to offer?” Yorduff asked, swinging his mace. It sailed over the ducking Fazbred who jumped up and drove both of his feet into Yorduff’s face. Again the large man barely moved and came back around with his mace. Nulaki cartwheeled over the man’s arm, bringing his feet down across the face as he landed. The first foot made the man blink, the second made him angry. His right hand shot out and took hold of Nulaki’s neck, but both hands chopping at the forearm weakened his grip and the bug twisted free.

  Again Yorduff swung his mace and Nulaki hopped back to move just out of reach. The swing was part of a pattern and the warrior spun quickly, swinging again. The agile pest jumped over the attack and was planning to hop off of his shoulder and to his rear, but Yorduff’s hand grasped tightly to the ankle of the man.

  “No!” Nulaki yelled, punching down hard into the man’s face.

  “Yes!” Yorduff hissed, slamming the man’s body down to the floor of the catwalk. He smiled down on his victory as he lifted his mace. Instinct pulled his eyes away from his target, but he looked up too late to do anything but be kicked in the face as Jocasta streaked toward him. He staggered back two steps, but he was not the only one who was jostled. Slonn quickly turned around, feeling one of his spells being hammered into failure. His emerald green eyes looked at the woman who had been caught in his glyph-trap and he was amazed to see her alive and obviously thriving.

  “You should be dead!” Slonn said as he steadied himself.

  “Sweets, you didn’t even perm my hair!” Jocasta shot back as she watched the large man recover from her attack. “You want to tell me why you’re aboard my ship, or do I get my info by way of séance?”

  “Yorduff, kill her!” Slonn said in a cold tone. He was angered and he turned to take his frustrations out on the door. Bolts of electricity left his fingertips and blasted against the door.

  “As you wish, Master!” Yorduff replied, removing his cracked helm.

  “Damn!” Jocasta whispered, looking at the long brown hair of the muscular dark-skinned man. “Oh baby, there are so many better uses for that face!” His brown eyes locked on her form and he took a two-hand grip of his weapon, leveling it at her.

  “Move, Jo!” she thought, feeling what Beta-Chiaro had termed ‘the nudge’. The energy bolt just missed her body as she moved laterally. It was bright yellow and very warm as it passed by her and into the low wall of the catwalk, removing two sections easily. The entire catwalk shook and Jocasta was moving too fast to hope to keep her balance. Instead, she went with the tremor and dove for the vertical support cable just over the handrail. She grabbed it with one hand and swung around, landing another kick to Yorduff’s face. Jocasta continued her swing, but she was only one third into it when the man recovered, firing his weapon a second time. Jocasta released the cable that was burned away in the very next instant. She grunted as she stretched to catch the edge of the flooring and dangled there by one hand as the weight of her body taxed both her grip and arm strength. She cried out against the strain and the pain.

  “For the record,” Yorduff said as he walked over to the edge, tightening his grip on the mace. “You are exceedingly attractive.” A slight whirring noise could be heard over the continued blasting from the InvokeR, and Yorduff looked up and around for a moment.

  “That better be what I think it is,” Jocasta said as she released her hold. She dropped twenty-five meters when her feet found the top of one of Z’s drone robots in a slow descent.

  “Yes!” she cried in triumph. “Damn if he didn’t find a way to send me weapons anyhow! Okay, robot,” Jocasta said, lowering to one knee. She could see energy emissions flash above her that did not appear to be coming from the SpellCasteR. “… back up to that catwalk!”

  “Warning!” Satithe reported. “Security measures are nearly depleted!”

  “Hang in there, baby doll,” Jocasta thought. “Momma’s comin’!”

  “Aarrgh!” Yorduff cried as his mace struck the side of the offending robot. It had not been built for combat, and had his first blow not been a glancing one, the contest would have already been over.

  “Do you know how much these things cost?” Jocasta asked as she set a foot down on the catwalk. “Stick to the plan,” she muttered and the robot flashed its lights before departing. “Just tell me which Imperial wimp I send the bill to!”

  Yorduff had no words for the woman. He was frustrated and, after the blasts from the robot, in a fair degree of pain. He had had his fill of this place and this mission. He turned quickly, hurling the mace at the woman. She spun around, moving her head out of the way and catching the weapon in the same measure.

  “Whoa!” she shouted, stumbling from the momentum and mass of the weapon. “Hey, is this a down payment?”

  “Sure!” Yorduff summoned the mace, but Jocasta kept her grip and flew back with it.

  “Here’s your change!” she grunted, kicking the man in the chest. Both of their bodies tumbled over the side of the railing. Yorduff reached for his weapon. He knew that with it, he could fly. Jocasta bit down on the hand reaching for the stalk. The pain of her attack broke his concentration and the mace was now hers to wield.

  Yorduff drew back his right hand to punch the woman. As his hand flew into action, her mouth released his hand and she smacked his fist with the mace. He cried in pain but his voice was stifled when Jocasta gave a slight push away from his body and rode the winds perfectly to spin in the air and hammer the weapon into her opponent’s crotch. She spun again, reaching out with her left hand, taking hold of the robot as it took hold of her. Yorduff continued to fall as she swung her legs around the robot.

  “Spin me around vertically!” she commanded and the robot performed its given task. In completing her second revolution, Jocasta threw the mace. “Heads up!”

  The doors to the chamber opened and Vobis Slonn knew he did not have much time. Energy emission ports fired at him as he entered the room, but none of these energies would get through his shield. The spell he wanted to use had already been cast and set inside of his keeping gem. Slonn needed to find the heart of the system to cast it against. The Chief Engineer had told him what to look for, but the design of this room was alien.

  “Hey!” a labored voice called out as something stuck against Slonn’s back. He turned quickly, ready to engage his adversary, but all he saw was what was left of the Fazbred that Yorduff had bested barely holding on to a smoking pistol. “Have you ever been pounded, boy? I mean, really pounded?”

  “You’re pathetic!” Slonn declared. He readied a MannA Bolt spell, though he knew his opponent could hardly stand a stiff breeze. Yorduff’s mace descended down on Slonn’s outstretched arm and his concentration was broken, causing backlash.

  “No, InvokeR,” Nulaki said as he set his back against the doorframe and slowly slid down to take a seat. “I’m a distraction… and you’re a nail!” The robot drone continued to pound down on Slonn until Satithe commanded it to stop.

  The robot drone brought Jocasta back up to the catwalk and she smiled as she took the blue-skinned hand offered to her. Leaning on his strength, Jocasta stepped down onto the catwalk and looked around.

  “You dead over there, Mr. Conadier?”

  “Yup,” Nulaki replied, with a very weak wave of his hand.

  “Okay, just checking,” she joked, a
smile breaking across her face.

  “The gurneys are already en route, Captain,” Dungias reported.

  “I trust all is well in the NHB section of the ship?” Jocasta asked as she walked over to the nearly dead SpellCasteR.

  “Captain, I am sorry to report that the SpellCasteR-Guardian tandem dispatched there met with their untimely deaths,” Dungias stated.

  “I don’t know, Z,” she sighed. “It’s got to be understood that sending people after my ship and crew is not a healthy act.

  “Sati, baby,” Jocasta called out.

  “Yes, Captain.”

  “How long before we can Gate to the Gulmar System?”

  “The necessary sequences have already been loaded,” Satithe reported.

  “What are the chances they can track us through the Gate?” Jocasta asked Dungias who smirked before speaking.

  “Satithe, prepare to drop stealth fields. You will reroute that power to the weapons. Just before you initiate the Gate, emit a pulse in pattern Alpha Three.”

  “Understood,” Satithe replied.

  “That will allow us to slip away, Captain,” Dungias explained. “They will know, however, that this ship can Gate.”

  “Right now, Z, I want them to know!” Jocasta looked up at her First Mate with a fire in her eyes he had never seen before. He had weighed the risks of having her trained in the fashion he had arranged. Greater intensity had been only one of the possible developments.

  “And if I were to tell you that I could arrange it so that our stealth field would negate dweomers as well as normal scanning measures?”

  “You mean to say, what if you could give me an easier way out of this without having to eat it in the future just because I’m pissed right now?”

  “Something to that effect,” Dungias quickly remarked. “You have good reason for your anger, Captain. However, we have a very small and highly untrained crew. With Nulaki in his current condition, it would be left to you and I to repel any would-be boarders.”

  “You not up to the task, Z?” Jocasta joked, putting her hand to his arm and chuckling. “Make it so, First Mate. Let’s just slip away. That’s sure to piss them off.”

  “Satithe, engage full stealth measures,” Dungias commanded.

  “Warning! Power–”

  “I am aware of the power drain necessary to maintain the field, Satithe,” Dungias interrupted. “We only need keep it active for so long, and each of the capacitors holds a full charge. Increase to full stealth and engage drives to the maximum allowed velocity!”

  “How much more power does it take to keep wands from poking in on us?” Jocasta asked.

  “Just over five times the normal expense,” Dungias replied and Jocasta winced in pain. “As you know, we cannot engage the generators over fifty percent while in stealth mode. With the capacitors I have in power storage, we should be able to maintain the field and movement for eleven days.”

  “You think it will take that long to get out of this soup?!”

  “I am looking at the events that led up to this. We engage with a Temple Chevalier who is in pursuit of Nulaki. We do not kill him, but failure does not seem to be something he is well-adjusted to handling. Then we have three Imperial Groups around our location and two InvokeR-Guardian teams sent to deprive us of power. I would say that our opponent is very much invested in bringing this ship down! Now, if you will excuse me,” Dungias said as he started away from Engineering.

  “Late for a date, Z?” Jocasta ribbed.

  “We have two corpses bleeding all over the ship on the lower decks,” he said. “They have already made enough of a mess of things down there.”

  “Z,” Jocasta called his name just as he started to turn away again. He turned back and she smiled at him.

  “Thanks for sending me some weapons.”

  “My Captain,” he said, giving a slight bow and walking away. Jocasta watched him walk and she shook her head in disbelief.

  “Absolutely nothing to that walk,” she muttered. “But then again, maybe that’s his flavor. You want to know how bad-ass Z is, just cross one of his lines. First Mates can get away with that crap, though.” Two gurneys came from Engineering and Jocasta put her hands on her hips as they approached. “Take this one to the infirmary,” she said, gently touching the side of Nulaki’s face. “And thanks.”

  “No problem,” he groaned in response and she smiled.

  “Always the liar.”

  “Who me? Never!”

  “Warm up the regenerator and get him into it,” she commanded as she moved to the second gurney. “And as for this one… let me think.” She looked down on the slender man and punched him hard in the face. “Dose him enough to keep him alive and shove his ass in a cell!” She looked up as she heard the engines engage. Her ship was underway and giving the Empire the proverbial bird at the same time. She smiled, but only for a moment.

  “Satithe, how many decks did Z go down just now?” After a bit of a delay, Jocasta picked up the mace and looked up. “Sati, don’t make me find your CPU and hammer out my childhood issues!”

  “Two decks, Captain.”

  “I knew it,” she said as she started running. “The drones would take care of the bodies. He’s working out how the damn mages knew how to feel us out!”

  With the screening for pests completed, the new crewmen were free to move about. Three in particular had found each other and then went about the business of seeking out a fourth.

  “So why not Dugger?” Olkin asked.

  “He’s doing those exercises that Nulaki has him on and Pristacia’s in the simulator,” Mel replied. “We need to handle this and quickly.”

  “What exactly are we handling?” Silnee asked as they entered the small-craft hangar bay. Mel looked up to see Annsura on the side of the only spacecraft in the chamber: the Captain’s fighter.

  “The only one of us that was never one of us,” Mel answered. “We’re handling her! She’s the only crewman that wasn’t with us at the den.”

  “Mel, I wasn’t with you at the den,” Olkin pointed out.

  “We were in the same group though,” Mel contested. “I know how you got there. We have no idea about Annsura.”

  “We don’t need an idea,” Silnee said as she stepped forward, raising her voice. “Get off that plane before I have to hurt you!”

  “This can’t be happening,” Annsura thought. “I am being threatened by a group of pugs!

  “You’re going to hurt me, or are all three of you going to gang up and make me laugh?” she asked as she jumped down from the wing. “Guys, you just wandered in over your heads.”

  Silnee started forward, but stopped only to see that Annsura had not moved in response to her feint.

  “Your eyes lack commitment,” Annsura commented. “Like this!” Her eyes flared as she returned the feint and Silnee jumped back. “See. If you can’t sell it, you’re just wasting energy.”

  Olkin charged, swinging for the young woman’s face. She stepped toward his body, blocking his right hand with her left and delivering a hand thrust to his chest, effectively clotheslining him. He flew for a moment and landed hard on his back. Annsura turned to watch him fall. She leaned to her left and Silnee’s back-attack missed. Annsura’s back kick did not.

  “Aaaiieee!” Mel screamed as he threw the lever forward on his chair. Annsura ran forward, jumped up, put one foot on the front of the chair, and kicked Mel in the face. He was stunned and lost control of his chair. It began to spin toward the wall. Before it crashed, Annsura landed. Silnee connected with a two-fisted clubbing action against the back of her head. Annsura stumbled forward two steps and Silnee ran forward, screaming and landing a poorly-formed jumping front kick to the woman’s back. It wound up being more of a push than anything, and Annsura stumbled forward another three steps. She quickly turned and faced Silnee, looking confused as to what the last attack was supposed to have been. Her unspoken query was interrupted by Olkin’s shoulder as she was tackled and driven int
o the side of the fighter. Again she was stunned, but she was also very mad. Her elbow dropped down to his back as her knee lifted into his chest. She could not hear the young man whelp in pain for all the racquet the gimp was making. Olkin dropped to his knees as Silnee clawed at Annsura’s face. Both women screamed, but for entirely different reasons. Annsura was in pain and Silnee was afraid for her life. All she could think was that they had opted not to get the largest of them because he had been exercising!

  “Get away from me!” Annsura commanded, landing a sharp jab to Silnee’s mouth. Nearly unconscious, Olkin took two handfuls hair and pulled Annsura’s head into the side of the fighter. He did it again as she took hold of his face and was beginning to thrust her thumb into his eye. His grip was loosened but she was not yet done.

  “Let him go!” Mel cried as a chain wrapped around Annsura’s right ankle. A back-fist found Olkin’s face before he could comply with the command, but Mel threw his chair in reverse and dragged Annsura away from his friends. “It costs me to get this thing recharged,” Mel hissed. “I’m gonna take it out of your ass!” Before Annsura could address the chain, she had been slung into the wall.

  “Now, into the fuel pod storage rack,” Dungias whispered as he watched the fight, looking as if he could pilot the chair with sheer will and his body language. He watched as Mel went into reverse with the chain taut. He was at his full speed when he stopped suddenly and then jutted forward with the chair. Annsura slid into the chair and came to a very abrupt halt. Dungias winced in pain. “That was most effective too!”

  “They grow so fast into the life, don’t they?” Jocasta asked and Dungias jumped slightly. He slowly turned to look at her and nodded. “One minute they’re slave meat waiting for the grill. The next thing you know, they’re bum-rushing pirates, defending their ship. They grow up so fast!”