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jeriendhalNotes: PG-13 for violence and implied sexual assault.
Part One
Part Two
Matt’s journey through the Marauder became slower at every step, as he came closer and closer to the cabin that he and Terinu shared. The image of the other Terinu, stuck in that cell, begging, actually begging for Matt’s help repeated itself in his mind.
You think I wouldn’t rather die than see ya hurt?
The strange thing was, he could remember the day that his own Terinu said that. Right after his beating by Brooks, when he was laid up in sick bay. Terinu had fed him, had changed his bedpan, had told him stupid jokes to make him smile, until he was able to walk again. Terinu had just been there, making sure he was all right, letting him know that Lady Mavra wasn’t angry about what happened.
She said it was Brooks’ own d*mn fault, for lettin’ himself get mad at just a cook’s assistant. She said if he thought the fraggin’ part was so important, he should have carried it himself. She said… that I was just what she wanted now.
Then things had changed. Terinu had become somebody important in Lady Mavra’s eyes. He’d gotten a real cabin all to himself, Brooks’ old one ironically enough.
Then he’d gotten Matt.
Matt came to the cabin’s door, took a breath, then pressed his hand on the palm reader. The door slid open, he took another breath, entered, and it slid shut again with a thunk. It wasn’t going to open again until Terinu stepped inside, or until it was time for Matt to go to the mess to help Cookie. A precaution, Terinu had said.
It’s dangerous on board. Everybody on the ship knows I work only for Mavra. If they want to stab her in the back, they have to get me first. If they want to get at me, the easiest way is to get you.
Later is was: Always let me know where you'll be. It had seemed a sensible precaution at the time.
Then: Don't leave without telling me.
And then: You stay here until I get back. It's safer.
Goddamnit, I said stay here. Can't you fragging listen?
I'll make you listen to me!
He twitched once, a nervous tic that he couldn't seem to shake anymore, then busied himself cleaning the cabin. Terinu's clothes from yesterday were piled in a heap on the floor of the 'fresher, so Matt picked them up and dumped them into the sonic cleaner. Then he did the same for the dishes in the compact kitchen area. When he found himself compulsively dusting the corners of the walls for the third time he sat down on a floor pillow and turned on the ship's entertainment system. As always it was 90% porn, leavened with movies that consisted mostly of high-speed chases and explosions, with a dash of fetishistic documentaries on the latest weapon systems. Which was a combination of the porn and the action movies in a way, Matt thought.
After a half-hour of this, the door slid back and Terinu entered, frowning, tail swishing in agitation. He glanced once at Matt on the floor, then unbuckled his weapon belt and hung it up on the rack by the door. The razors embedded in his tail spade were flicking in and out, snick-click, snick-click, deadly little flashes of silver that could cut a man’s arm to the bone. It wasn’t a good sign.
“H-hi, Terinu,” Matt greeted him cautiously. Terinu didn’t stay anything. He just prowled back and forth through the cabin, looking into the ‘fresher, opening and closing the cabinet doors, glancing at the ceiling lights, checking for anything out of place that might indicate hidden bugs or hidden bombs.
Finally, when Matt though the constant snick-click of Terinu’s razors might drive him mad, the younger Ferin boy stopped in front of him, tail now stilled.
“Stand up, Matt,” he said softly.
Matt did as he was told, biting his lip. It would be over sooner if he didn’t try and argue. He’d learned that lesson quick enough.
“What did you think you were doing, Matt?” Terinu asked, his voice low, dangerous. “Lady Mavra told you not to talk to the prisoner. I told you not to talk to the prisoner. All you had to do was stick his food through the fragging slot and walk away.”
“I-I’m sorry,” Matt muttered. He didn’t look down or try to break from Terinu’s angry gaze. That would only make things worse.
“He’s sorry,” Terinu mocked, opening his arms up and looking up towards the heavens. “Hear that? He’s fragging sorry!”
Matt grimaced. “Okay, I made a mistake...”
In a flash, Terinu’s tail whipped around, the razors snapping out, snick!, tearing through the front of Matt’s tunic, leaving it shredded, the vulnerable skin underneath untouched. Click! “Yeah, you made one frelling big mistake, Matt. You didn’t fragging listen to me!” Terinu’s tail whipped around again, ripping through the back of the tunic, leaving a long, shallow, bleeding score along his right shoulder blade. Matt winced in pain and drew in a breath, as the remains of his tunic fell to the floor, leaving him bare chested. The razors clicked shut, and Terinu’s gray tail wrapped around his chest, pinning his arms to his sides. “What didja think you were gonna do, Matt?” Terinu demanded, his tail spade wrapping around the back of Matt’s head, forcing it down to look at the Ferin boy’s face. “Thought you might get a better deal with him, huh? Thought you might have a shot at gettin’ off this tub?”
“N-no! He was talking crazy, Terinu!” Matt exclaimed, panting as he felt his chest constrict as the grip of Terinu’s tail tightened painfully. “Ugh! Please, that hurts!”
“Hurts? Oh, it ain’t started to hurt yet, ya stupid traitor!” Terinu shouted. He foot swung out and kicked Matt behind the knees, sending him falling, landing on his stomach as Terinu's tail spun him around like a top. Then the Ferin boy landed on top of him, legs straddling his waist, grabbing Matt's wrists and twisting them up between his naked shoulder blades. Matt cried out in pain as Terinu wrapped his belt around his wrists, pulling it tight and securing the buckles.
"Y'know what I did ta that little grey wimp after you left, Matt?" Terinu growled into his ear, his breath hot on Matt's neck. "I hit him with a few zaps to his collar ta let him know I wasn't real happy about him tryin' to take ya away from me. He dropped to floor and was screamin' before the third zap. Ya think someone like that could protect ya from Chan? Do ya?"
Matt gasped for breath. "No! No, Terinu! Please, ya gotta believe me! Please!"
"We'll see what kinda song yer singin' in a couple of minutes," Terinu snarled. He lifted up his tail and slapped a button on the annunciator panel with the spade. "Terinu to Ship's Mess. Tell Cookie that Townsend won't be makin' to his next shift, and maybe not the one after that either!"
In a few minutes, Matt wasn't in much shape to give any answers at all.
* * *
“Hey, Ru,” Lance said softly, glancing down the bar, on the edge of what passed for Bolt Hole’s spaceport. The place was crowded, with wall-to-wall scum, rubbing shoulders with each other as they took turns shouting down the harried bartender. “Your bro there doesn’t look so well.”
“I am painfully aware of that,” Rufus answered, sotto voce, as he kept an eye on his twin. His brother was at least presentable, in a freshly laundered flight uniform and with his fur neatly combed, but it would be a gross exaggeration to call him well. At least he’d learned to keep his hands on his lap and out of sight, after Captain Blake had caught them shaking during the pre-mission conference. But it was impossible to hide the weary, wrung out look in his eyes, or the nervous tapping of his foot pad on the floor as the bar’s disreputable patrons looked them over.
“At least you look like you’re fitting in,” Lance noted. Rufus had taken the extreme step of temporarily dying his fur to differentiate himself from his brother, now a much darker roan color, and putting away his flight suit for a patched and worn pair of trousers and a multicolored quilted vest in a Wedding Ring pattern, all borrowed from his brother’s wardrobe. It was about as opposite from his customary dress as he could manage, even if the dye did make his skin itch. “Look,” Lance continued, “I still think we should send him back to the shuttle…”
Rufus shook his head sharply. “No, just... give him a chance, please.” An uncharacteristic feeling of doubt ran through him, as he recalled the incident in the bathroom stall. His brother had been remarkable contrite, or at least quiet, after that. He’d busied himself setting the calibration on his White Knight’s new chin gun, occasionally pausing to shake, and had spoken no more about the incident. If he’d taken another hit after that Rufus hadn’t caught him, and he’d managed to follow Rufus’ course to where the Suhayar waited without difficulty.
There, Rufus had been thankful to find that Captain Blake had opted for a stealthy approach, choosing to paint one of her ship’s superliminal capable shuttles in civilian colors and outfitting the Marine landing party in plainclothes. The amount of firepower they were toting along might have been cause for panic on any other world, but on Bolt Hole it barely attracted notice, and they were taken as just another band of heavily armed thugs making spare cash as mercenaries or bruisers for hire as the situation allowed.
“I just don’t know why you’re sticking your neck out so far for this fella, Ru,” Lance said.
Rufus shook his head. “He is myself, Lance. As near as I’ve been able to find, his life was exactly the same as my own, until he chose to take the Blue Horizon run. That means he must have my will and my honor inside of him somewhere. He still had enough shame in him not to want Bethany to see him in this state at least.”
“The Blue Horizon was lost over seven years ago, right?” Lance asked. “He’s had more than enough time to try and make up for it. Instead he’s wallowed in his own sh— self-pity ever since then. He ain’t going to start making up for it now.”
“You’re wrong,” Rufus said. You have to be wrong, he thought.
Lance touched him on the shoulder, bringing him out of his brooding. “Here’s the Major,” he said, as Talbot entered the bar. Lance’s commander caught their eye, and motioned for all three of them to meet him out on the street. A tall man with a footballer’s build, Talbot led them into a secluded side alley for a conference.
“All right, Lieutenant, Captains Brushtail,” the Major began. “My Lieutenant Freeman has finished scouting the position of the two Marauders. They’re parked at the most extreme corner of what passes for Bolt Hole’s spaceport. Nice and out in the open, not a damned bit of cover to be found, and swarming with heavily armed, anti-social types.”
“That doesn’t, ah, sound terribly promising,” Rufus’ brother noted with trepidation.
“Not normally, no,” Major Talbot agreed. “Fortunately we have an in. We tapped into the com traffic of Chan’s usual heavy equipment supplier. They’re going to be bringing over new containment magnets for the damaged Marauder’s primary fusion reactor in two hours. We’ll be replacing the contents of the shipping crates with ourselves.”
“Come close enough to get the element of surprise,” Rufus concluded.
“Hopefully close enough to get under her guns’ maximum traverse before we attack,” Lance said. That was enough to make Rufus’ brother look distinctly green under his fur.
“You and your Captain Brushtail are familiar with the interior layout of the Marauder, Lieutenant,” Taylor continued. “I’ll be counting on you both to lead us inside and to the probable locations of our targets. Have you picked up any information to confirm that they’ll be aboard?”
“Scuttlebutt in the bar is that Chan, either of them, haven’t left their ship. If Ter--, the throat cutter we’re looking for is really her personal pet, then she isn’t likely to step onto shore without him, especially not with her ship in such a vulnerable position,” Lance told him.
“Good,” Talbot nodded. “All right, we go in, grab our target and the Captain’s twin if we can, and then get out. After the second team disables the other Marauder’s guns, we’ll bring the shuttle in for pickup and then go the hell home for a beer.” He paused to check his watch. “Meet me at the rendezvous point in one half-hour gentlemen.”
“Yessir,” Lance replied, checking himself before offering the major a salute in public.
“Oh, and Lieutenant,” Talbot continued, in a much quieter tone, when Rufus’ brother was distracted by a fight emerging from their recently vacated drinking hole. “Are you certain your Captain Brushtail’s… counterpart will not be a liability on this mission?”
“Rufus vouches for him, sir,” Lance said. “That’s good enough for me.”
“My word as a Brushtail, Major Talbot, he will prove himself to you,” Rufus said firmly. Holy Den Mother, please make my words truth.
* * *
1340 hours
I think I must be going mad, Leeza thought to herself, I actually want to be interrogated. It would be better than being bored to death like I am now. She’d been sitting and stewing in this frelling cell for nearly a week now. The only interaction she’d had with the outside world since Chan had given her that brief glimpse of Terinu’s altrenate self had been with guards delivering her food. Unfortunately their vocabularies were limited to “Here!” and “Gimmee the old one”, spoken when delivering her food and taking away the empty trays. Other than that she’d been left alone with her own thoughts. She’d had a brief surge of hope when there had been a call to action stations a few days ago and the ship had been rocked by what felt like several missile hits, but it hadn’t turned out to the be the rescue she’d been hoping for. Or if it was, it failed, she thought mordantly.
For perhaps the hundreth time her thoughts circled back to Terinu. This Mavra Chan had a week so far to play with him. Would she keep him, trying to break him into a duplicate of the sleek, frightening assassin that he was in this universe? Was he already dead, killed because Chan either didn’t need two Ferin or judged him too dangerous to keep around? No, he has to be alive, she thought, Chan is too much of a sadist not to at least try and break his will. Leeza bit her lip and tried to distract her self again by mentally stripping out the White Knight’s engine core and reassembling it in her mind.
She was midway through trying to re-seat a tricky fuel feed when the cell bay’s door slid open, letting in a glimpse of normal light to contrast with the dim red glow that she’d lived with for a week. Leeza looked up to see, instead of a guard, a young boy of seventeen, blond haired, blue eyed. Matt, she thought, remembering Terinu’s descriptions of his only friend when he was growing up on the Marauder. He looked like he’d been in a fight recently. There was a fading bruise under one eye, others at his wrists, and he was moving in a painfully stiff and careful manner.
“Hey, you’re Terinu’s friend, Matt, right?” she asked, when he slid her meal tray through the cell door’s slot.
The blond haired boy grimaced. “Not you too. I’m not talking to you.” He turned to go.
“Wait, wait!” she shouted after him. “Are you okay?”
“I’m not talking to you!” He touched a passkey to the door controls and it slid open.
“Where’s Terinu! Is he okay? Did Chan hurt him? Where are we? I thought I felt the ship land a day or two back. Can we get out of here?”
“No you can’t!” Matt said, turning around to face her again. “You can’t escape from here! Nobody can, so stop asking!”
“Please,” she begged, “just tell me if my Terinu is alive! You can at least tell me that, can’t you?”
Matt bit down on his lip, thinking. “He’s alive,” he finally said.
Leeza blew out her breath in relief. “Oh, thank God. Can you take a message to him for me?”
“Fragg no! That’s it, I’m going before you people get me in anymore trouble!” The blond haired boy turned to go again.
“Okay, no, forget that!” she said quickly. “I don’t want to get you into any trouble or get hurt.”
Matt froze again. Keeping his back to her, he asked, “Why do you and him keep saying that? What am I to you?”
“Teri’s friend, or at least a version of him,” Leeza said. “Terinu worries about him, the other you, all the time. It makes him sick that he escaped from the Marauder and had to leave his Matt behind. I think he’d rather die than have to do that again. He loves you.”
Matt hunched his shoulders. “Love,” he said, then laughed bitterly. “Love can… hurt you.”
Just what was the relationship between this Marauder’s Terinu and this Matt? For that matter what was the real relationship between her own universe’s Terinu and Matt, two young men trapped for years on a ship with no one else to turn to for emotional and physical comfort? Don’t ask that question if you don’t want to hear the answer, she thought. “Yeah, that’s a risk. It can make you do stupid things for other people. Usually it’s worth it though.”
“Maybe,” Matt allowed.
He looked like he was about to turn around and go, when they both heard the sound of a distant, explosive thump and men shouting. Then a loud alarm began to sound and a voice over the speakers announced, “All hands! Ground assault in progress! Prepare to repel boarders!”
Leeza pressed her palms against the thick plexiglass door of her cell. “Help me!” she shouted. “Help Terinu and yourself! We can get out of here!”
“I can’t!” he shouted back.
“Get me out of here and I can protect you!”
Matt bit down on his lip. Then he limped over to the wall panel and unlocked the cell door. “I’ll show you which cell bay your Terinu is in. There are lots of places to hide if we can get him out of there.”
Leeza stepped out of the cell as the door slid back. “Lead the way!”
1300 hours (twenty minutes earlier)
“Are you all ri—“ his twin started to ask again.
“Fine,” Rufus snapped. “I’m perfectly fine.” Actually he wasn’t fine at all, perfectly or imperfectly. Realizing that it might be his last chance before he found himself surrounded by a mob of nearly thirty hairless, sweating humans, he’d taken the opportunity when his twin’s back was turned to inject himself with a hit of Juno to calm his nerves. Except that the Juno didn’t seem to be working this time. The shakes had stopped but that hadn’t prevented his mind from racing as the sheer insanity of this operation began to make itself clear to him.
We’re going to attempt a frontal assault on Bloody Chan, just to kidnap some alien and free a couple of others, he thought. And you let yourself be talked into going along, idiot Normal people avoided pirates, especially that one. Worse, there were apparently two of her now. With two crews. Two heavily armed crews.
He watched as the marines picked up the last of the stunned bodies of the warehouse’s employees and laid them in a row in the corner, while another marine pulled out the shipping crates that housed the containment magnets intended for the damaged pirate galleon. You don’t have to do this. It isn’t like they can force you to fight. The only thing really keeping here was the desire of his twin, who seemed to think that he’d be of some use. The sensible thing would have been to fly very quickly in the opposite direction from this place once they’d launched from the refueling station. So why didn’t you, fool?
That answer came easily. Because he honestly does think I might be of some use. For the life of him Rufus couldn’t figure out why. But it felt… I wish he hadn’t called Bethany. Damn him for making me feel ashamed.
It didn’t matter, none of it mattered. He’d help his twin get his friends out of here, then he’d fly the White Knight somewhere well out of Mavra Chan’s reach. There wasn’t any problem in the universe too big for him to fly away from, so long as he had his ship.
“Okay boys and girls, time to mount up!” Major Talbot called out. “First Platoon, go in the first truck with Lt. Freeman. Your assignment will be the spike the intact galleon’s guns so they can’t fire on us. Second Platoon, you’ll be with me and our Freeman’s twin, while we infiltrate the interior of the damaged galleon and locate our targets. Clear?”
The marines made relatively quiet noises of assent, salutes were exchanged, and then Rufus squeezed between his twin and Freeman in the cargo box of one of the trucks.
“So exactly how much of a deathtrap is this going to be?” he asked rhetorically, as the ancient truck began rolling and bumping over the cracked surface of the tarmac, the temperature in the cargo box rapidly rising to suffocating in the heat of the planet’s noonday sun.
Freeman gave him a cheerful grin. “Oh nova, this’ll be buckets easier than a boarding action in space. No chance of getting your armour holed by a stray shot and your blood boiling off in the vacuum at least. Course we aren’t going to be wearing armour either.”
“What a hopeful thought,” he replied. At a motion from the Major he quieted down, as the truck came to a halt in the shadow of one of the ships. Rufus held his breath as the marines around him tightened their grips on their weapons, as the driver spoke to the guard at the ship’s perimeter. Then the truck’s hydrogen motor roared to life again as it backed up to the open cargo lock of the ship. When it stopped, the Major raised his hand, and thirty marines, Rufus and his twin, all rose as one, facing the truck’s cargo door.
“Come on, you dregs,” he heard a female, nasal, Vulpine accented voice call out as the door was unlatched opened. “Help me get these containment rings back into Engineering before the Chief gives me any more—“ The door opened to reveal a vixen dressed in dirty coveralls, looking up in astonishment at the array of weapons pointed at her face. “Oh, fragg!”
The rifle of the nearest marine fired at point blank range, and her body dropped with a thud to the floor of the cargo bay, a neat, burned dot at the center of her forehead, steaming slightly as the interior of her brain cooked off. Three more shots took down her human and Creo helpers before they could call out an alarm, and a fourth killed the guard leaning up against the far hatch leading into the interior of the ship. Then the platoon was rushing forward, spreading out to the corners of the cargo bay, checking for any additional pirates that might hiding behind crates or stowed equipment. It seemed an eerily silent affair to Rufus. The shots from marines’ weapons had been near-inaudible, low powered laser shots, barely making a crackle as their superheated light ionized the air. At a motion from his twin, Rufus followed both him and Freeman as they stepped down lightly from the truck and ran up to the interior hatch. He spared a single glance back at the dead vixen, as the major and Freeman held a quick, whispered conference.
“Continue forward,” the Major ordered softly. “Keep them guessing about our movements for as long as you can.”
“Yessir,” Freeman agreed. “The cell block ought to be one level up and portside, about twenty five meters from the gangway.”
Talbot nodded. “Right. Sergeant Gant, the door if you please.”
A marine sergeant touched the hatch controls, as the rest of the platoon moved out of the line of sight of the passageway. It was barely open ten centimeters when two other marines tossed grenades inside. Rufus jumped as there was a loud double flash of light and twin BANGS, as the stun and EMP grenades went off simultaneously, disabling anyone in the hallway and frying watching cameras at the same time.
“Go, go, go!” Talbot ordered and the marines rushed forward. Rufus and his twin followed a moment later into a wide, empty intersection of two passageways. He clapped his hands to his ears as an alarm began to sound and a voice called over the comm system out “All hands! Ground assault in progress! Prepare to repel boarders!”
“Sergeant Gant! You, Phillips and Captain Brushtail here,” Talbot pointed to Rufus, “hold position and maintain control of this junction. We’ll move forward and take the main personnel hatch and continue the search for the target!”
“Yessir!” Gant answered, and the rest of the unit moved down the passageway. Rufus let a small sigh of relief as he realized that most of the potential fighting was going forward with them. He was safe, for now.
1330
Matt led her out of the cell bay where she’d been isolated and into the connecting hallway. There was an armoured and sealed watch station overlooking the length of the corridor, but it was empty, the guard on watch evidentially having been called away by the alert. “Okay, your Terinu is in the second bay over,” he said.
“What about my tracker, here?” she asked, holding up the band still locked to her wrist.
“It’s just a shocker,” Matt told her. “So long as we don’t run into anyone who carries the remote for it, you should be fine.”
“Thank you, Matt,” Leeza said. “Keep an eye out for visitors while I get Terinu out.” Matt nodded and gave her his passkey. She touched it to the cell bay’s door and it slid back, to reveal Terinu sitting on his heels in a corner of his cell. “Teri!” she hissed, and the Ferin boy looked up, surprised.
“Blake! How didjya escape?” he asked.
She touched the wall control and his door slid back, allowing him to leap out, tail swishing in agitation. “I had help from a friend,” Leeza said, heading out with him into the corridor. Matt was cranking his head back and forth, as if fearing that a pirate might appear at any moment.
“Matt!” Terinu shouted, running up to him, then skidding to halt, arms out, as if reaching out to hug him and thinking better of it. “What happened t’ you, Matt? What did that bastard do to you?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Matt said, turning his face away, “let’s just get out of here.”
Terinu crossed his arms and planted his feet. “No dice! What did he do to you?”
“It doesn’t matter!” Matt shouted. “C’mon! We have to get out of here now!”
“He’s right, we can talk about this once we’re safe,” Leeza said. “Matt, can you get me a weapon, or at least a tool so I can pry off Teri’s inhibitor collar?”
“We’re not going to get anywhere near the weapons locker or engineering during an alert,” Matt said. “We’d better just get out of here. I know where we can slip into the maintenance ducts and get close to an airlock.”
“Good,” Leeza said. “Let’s just hope whoever is attacking Chan isn’t interested in us.”
“This way!” Matt palmed the door open, dashing through. Leeza and Terinu nearly walked over him when he froze though, as they all saw who was waiting for them at the other end of the corridor.
“Think yer goin’ somewhere?” Terinu’s twin asked, his face dark with fury. “Think yer playin’ the hero, Matt?”
Matt took a deep breath. “I’m doing the right thing.”
“No, yer doing the stupid thing,” Terinu’s twin growled, pulling out his pistol and pointing in Leeza and Terinu’s direction. “You two! Back in yer cells, now!”
“Ya think I’m gonna let you hurt Matt again, chump?” Terinu growl, his long tail flicking in anger.
“He’s my meat, Twin. I’ll do anything I want to him,” the boy with the gun said, smiling ferally.
“No you won’t!” Before Leeza could stop him Terinu leaped forward, flying down the corridor, bouncing off the wall and leaping again as his twin fired a shot at him. Leeza and Matt both ducking as it burned the door behind them. Terinu’s twin ducked low, rolling out of the way as the Ferin boy flew over him, his tail razors snapping out and slashing at Terinu as the other boy’s tail swatted the gun from his hand.
“That won’t help you!” Teri’s twisted twin shouted, his spurs rising up and firing two blasts in Terinu’s direction.
“Too slow!” Terinu shouted back, launching himself off the wall, landing a double-fisted punch in his twin’s solar plexus. The other Ferin collapsed in a heap, but then his body glowed and suddenly Terinu was dancing backward, as his twin’s Bion aurora spread outward, threatening to burn him. That gave his twin enough breathing room to get to his feet, scooping his gun up with his tail and flipping it back into his hand. “Hey, whatsamatter? Yer Bion ain’t putzing out already, is it?” Terinu taunted from a safe distance.
“Ain’t seen ya use yer’s yet!” his twin shot back, wheezing in a breath. Then he leveled his gun, not on Terinu, but on Leeza. “Lay down on the floor, or I’ll fry her brains!”
“How am I supposed to, with this stupid collar clamped around my head?” Terinu asked. “Give it up! Ya kill Leeza, then I’m gonna cut yer fragging tail off and feed it to ya, razors and all!”
The other boy glanced at the inhibitor collar that Terinu wore, as if seeing it for the first time. “She’ll still be dead,” he pointed out.
“Terinu, don’t let him intimidate you!” Leeza called out. “Just get out of here!”
Terinu’s face twisted in agony and he said, “Fragg it, Blake, don’t make leave! Not without you and Matt!”
“On your belly, Twin!” the other Terinu shouted.
“Fragg off!” Terinu shouted back at him, glancing helplessly between Leeza and his opponent.
At that moment the door behind his twin slid open suddenly, revealing a crowd of humans and one very welcome Vulpine.
“Marines, fire!” one man shouted, and two other fellows holding pistols fired and dropped Terinu and his twin before they could react.
“Lance, Rufus!” Leeza shouted, upon seeing faces she recognized. “What the frell are you doing!”
“Lee, you're all right!” Lance shouted back.
“Hullo, my dear,” Rufus greeted. “Don't worry, they're both just stunned. Given the circumstances, it seemed wisest not to wait until sorted out their differences.”
“Fine, fine, but who are these guys?” Leeza demanded, pointing to their companions.
The leader of the armed looked like he was almost ready salute her, but instead offered his hand. “Miss Blake, ma'am, I'm Major Talbot, Alliance Marines and these are my men.”
“Marines?” Leeza asked, ignoring the major's offered hand. “Lance, where did you get a squad of Marines?”
“Two platoons actually, and they're not mine, they're your twin's. She's a Navy captain,” Lance said, slinging Terinu over his shoulder, while one of the marines took the other boy. “And if you think that sounds wierd, wait until you meet Rufus' twin.”
“Let's save the discussions until we're safe aboard the shuttle, eh Lance?” Rufus said, looking discomfited. “I fear it's all very complicated.”
“Right,” Leeza agreed. She looked back to where Matt still stood, trying his best not to be noticed. “Come on, Matt. Let's get out of here.”
“Oh, that would be terribly rude,” a mocking, female voice said, as the corridor lights suddenly died. “Especially when you've got both my Mouse, and his favorite cabin boy with him.”
“What the hell?” Major Talbot shouted. “How the fragg did she get behind us?”
A moment later the first streak of plasma fire lit the corridor, and the major went down with a burning wound in the center of his chest, his two marines quickly dropping dead beside him.
1315
Rufus patted his hip, wishing the pistol he had stowed there didn’t seem so entirely inadequate for personal defense, especially compared to the large, very intimidating rifles that the two marines with him the hallway carried. Well, it didn’t matter. Though there had been a loud round of shooting up ahead recently, as the rest of Major Talbot’s platoon cleared the way towards the Celestial Marauder’s CinC and the most probably location of Chan and her Ferin boy, it had actually been quiet for the past several minutes. That, Rufus hoped, boded well. He wanted nothing more for everyone, especially himself, to get out of here with their hides intact and with a minimum of gunplay.
Tink.
“Did you hear that?” Rufus asked Sergeant Gant softly, his ears pricking up. It had been a quiet, but distinct, sound of metal on metal.
“Hear wh--?” the sergeant started to ask, just as four pirates, one at either end of the cross corridor, appeared around the corners and fired. Two shots hit the sergeant, one cooking off the top of his skull, the other striking him in the gut. The other two shots struck the other marine, dropping him to the floor and leaving Rufus suddenly very alone and outnumbered.
Letting out a cry, he pelted down the corridor, heading back towards the cargo bay where they had entered. Yellow-white plasma fire seared by him, and Rufus was stuck in the arm by one final shot as he dived through the hatch, searing his fur and the skin underneath. “Pirates!” he shouted to the half-squad of marines guarding the bay, rolling out of the way of the door and jumping behind a pile of hard plastic cargo boxes. It was poor cover, but the best he could see, and it least it might hide him while the marines dealt with the threat. Clumsily, he tugged at the flap of his holster, trying to draw it with the wrong hand while his right arm throbbed in agony. He heard shouting from the marines, calls to find cover and make certain their weapons were ready. Then there was the sound of something small but solid being tossed in the room and one of the marines shouted, “GRENADE!” as the room was suddenly filled with light and an overwhelming BOOM!.
Deafened from the flash-bang grenade, but at least still possessing his eyesight by virtue of being behind his cover, Rufus risked poking his head above the lip of the cargo box, only to duck down again as the body of one of the marines fell backwards across it, his face eye to eye with Rufus' own. The marine's eyes were wide open, sightless in death, his mouth turned up in an “oh” of surprise. He let out a frightened yelp that sounded distant and hollow in his own ears, scrabbling backwards on his legs and one good arm, only to bump up against the bulkhead and find himself out in the open.
The room was filled with smoke, obscuring his vision. There was a humanoid, angular shape some four meters in front of him that he couldn't make out except as a dark fire in a field of grey. Almost on its own volition, his left hand rose, pistol in his palm, and he tried to draw a bead on the target. But his hand was shaking so wildly from fear and the pain in his wounded arm that he didn't even attempt to fire.
The figure turned and walked towards him, walking confidentally out of the smoke. It was a tall human female, with close cut hair died blood red, dressed in an armoured corselet and, instead of an engy weapon, she held a whip in one hand and in the other a long knife. She looked down on him without fear, only a distant, amused curiosity on her face.
“What's the matter, Vulpine, aren't you going to fire?” she asked.
It was her voice that caught him. She was less than a meter in front of him now, close enough that even with his shaking hands and poor grip he could have easily hit her. But he couldn't pull the trigger, as the sound of that amused, knowing tone filled him with fear, memory, and shame. The pistol fell out of his nerveless fingers and he opened his mouth to cry out, but no sound came.
“Smart little Vulp,” Mavra Chan said, “better that you don't get involved.”
And then the only thing he could see in his mind was the events of seven years ago, and the death of the Blue Horizon, and of his honor.
* * *
White Knight! White Knight, where are you! Joli’s voice called out his radio. Rufus dropped a precious spoofer from the Knight’s defence pod, drawing the missile off his tail long enough to spin his fighter around with its thrusters and fire, blasting the missile before it could regain its senses and get the Knight’s track again.
“Here, Joli, I’m right here,” he called back his wingman, forming up on the elderly Sniper’s two o’clock position. “What’s your status?”
Caught some debris from the cutter exploding, but it just scratched the paint, the Creo pilot reported, a young fellow but certainly a capable pilot, though understandably stressed right now.
Fighter wing, what’s your status? the Blue Horizon’s XO asked, sounding strained. Being a passenger liner with no guns and minimal shielding was not a comfortable position to be in, especially with the apparently formidable pirate galleon bearing down on them.
“This is the White Knight. My wingman and I will continue missile defence, while Tanner and Murka go for the galleon’s cannon array,” Rufus told them, with false cheer. The galleon had come out of seemingly nowhere, dropping down from superliminal far closer than any sane shipmaster would allow. The cutter had been the passenger liner’s main line of defence and it had been taken out immediately. Still, a well coordinated fighter attack had a chance of at least driving off this intruder, if they could inflict damage that outweighed the potential prize the Blue Horizon represented. It’s a passenger liner, so they’re going for hostages, he reminded himself, they can’t just crack open the hull and empty the cargo holds, so they aren’t going to be firing all out.
We’re starting our attack run, Tanner reported. Rufus kept an eye on his sensors, watching as the two nimble ships dove in on the galleon, cannons firing, trying to hit their opponents cannon array and missile launchers. Murka’s hit! Murka’s hit! How can their damned cannon be tracking so f---! The radio erupted in an electronic squeal as Tanner’s fighter turned into a thousand confetti tracks on the White Knight’s screen.
Then there was another voice in his ear, female, human perhaps, and very much amused. Two down, two to go, it said. Go home boys, you’re outmatched.
Rufus? came Joli’s worried voice.
“They’re trying to mess with our heads, lad,” Rufus told him. “Don’t let them rattle you. Stick to my wing and coordinate with my fire. We’ll take out their cannon and force them to go home.”
Right, Joli agreed, sounding a bit more confident.
Your funeral, the voice taunted. Rufus ignored it as best he could, focusing on his instruments and the looming mass of the galleon as it grew in his front windscreen. Fire erupted from the pirate’s close defence guns, zipping past as the White Knight’s active jamming system disrupted the guns’ targeting computers. There was the cannon, bracketed by his fighter’s targeting scope...
Take a breath… pull the trigger…
There was a flash outside his cockpit’s window as Joli’s fighter was struck in the power plant, detonating in an explosion that had Rufus pulling the Knight hard to the right to avoid chunks of debris that the flaming hulk was shedding off. One piece bounced through his craft’s dust jacket, rattling Rufus in his seat as the fighter spun away, out of control, leaving one of the Knight’s aero wings bent nearly double. He brought her nose back in line and kicked in full thrust, peeling away from the galleon.
Just you and me, little Sleek Wing, the voice taunted again, what ever are you going to do?
The call from the liner was immediate. White Knight, the pirate is heading right towards us! You’ve got to take her out! her XO demanded.
He could taste coppery blood in his mouth, where one of his incisors had nearly bit through his tongue when the Knight had been struck. He swung his fighter around, wrestling with the controls as the craft’s now warped center of mass fought with his flight computer’s version of reality. “I’ve taken some damage here,” Rufus reported, his heart racing. That ship took out the cutter and three fighters in less than ten minutes. How do you stop someone like that?
For the love of the Den Mother, you’re the only thing standing between us and that galleon!
“I’m going to get help!” he called back, swinging the White Knight away from both the Blue Horizon and the pirate galleon and shifting power to the superliminal drive.
White knight! You can’t leave us! We’ve got over four hundred civilians on board!
Smart little vulp, the voice on the galleon interjected, better you don’t get involved.
White Knight! WHITE KNIGHT! the XO screamed, as Rufus’ fighter accelerated past lightspeed and the radio channel dissolved into static.
Surely, he only imagined the voice on galleon laughing then.
* * *
“Get down!” Lance shouted, shoving Leeza down to the deck, while Rufus did the same to Matt. The shots flew over their heads, striking the wall behind them.
“Where’d they come from?” Leeza demanded.
“I don’t know! Rufus’ brother was supposed to be guarding the corridor junction with a couple of…” Lance’s face, illuminated in the light of the flashing plasma fire, turned up in snarl. “Damnit, Rufus, I told you we couldn’t…”
“Later, Lance!” Rufus shot back. “What say we get out of here first?”
“Right!” Lance handed his rifle over to Leeza. “Give me some cover fire, Couz!”
Leeza took the rifle, bringing the sight up to her eye. Military issue, it features a multi-spectrum sight with infra-red and low-light, giving her a fair view of the darkened corridor and the pirates shooting down the hallway. They had night sighted rifles too, but were deliberately firing over their heads. Probably to keep us pinned down until they can figure out how to get this Chan’s Terinu back without him getting hurt, she figured. She snapped off a couple of wild shots that splashed against the corridor walls, making the pirates duck back as Lance began unfolding something from the pack on his back. “Lance! What are you doing?” she called to him, as Rufus kneeled and fired his pistol, hitting one pirate in the shoulder.
“Making a new exit,” he told her, slapping a square frame about 1 meter wide, made of plastic pipes with what looked like clay bricks taped to it, to the wall. “Cover your ears!” he shouted, dropping to the deck and pressing a button. The frame suddenly exploded, blowing a neat hole through the corridor wall and into an empty and now thoroughly trashed bunkroom.
“Everyone out!” Rufus shouted, scooping up their Terinu. Lance tossed a grenade down the passage that exploded and gave them a few more moment of cover while Lance stepped through the hole and took the bodies of the two Ferin as Rufus and Matt passed them over to him. Then Rufus fired off his pistol twice more as Leeza and Matt scrambled through the opening, joining them a moment later. She followed as Lance and Rufus each took a Terinu and slung them over their shoulders, everyone moving quickly out into a secondary corridor, heading in the direction of the cargo bay.
“They’re just going to follow us!” Leeza pointed out, as they passes through a corridor hatch.
“No they’re not!” Lance punched the switch to shut the hatch and it began to roll closed under a metric ton of hydraulic pressure. Just before it shut he tossed a small stick of plastique into the frame, which began to glow white how, forcing them all away from the hatch. “Thermite charge,” Lance explained. “That should seal the hatch and force them to find another route to us.”
“Excellent, Lance,” Rufus said. “Let’s not delay then.” They hurried down the corridor, crossing back into the main corridor that went the length of the ship from the boarding locks at the nose of the Marauder to the massive cargo bay in the middle. Along the way, Lance radioed the platoon leader that was assaulting the other pirate vessel, and received word that its weapons had been effectively spiked by the low-tech but effective method of paint bombing her external visual sensors, making them unable to track human-sized targets.
“Almost home free,” Rufus assured Leeza and Matt. “We’ll meet up with the other marines in the cargo bay and rush outside. From there the shuttle will pick us...” He slowed to a halt and entered the cargo bay. The doors, which had been open before, were now shut tight. The marines that had been guarding the bay were lying on the deck down, dead from either plasma fire, or in one gruesome case actually beheaded.
“Wha-what happened?” Matt asked, staring at the carnage.
“Somebody counter-attacked,” Leeza said grimly. “Quickly, let’s look for survivors.” Lance and Rufus set down their respective Terinus down on the deck and they quickly fanned out across the room, but it was Leeza who found Rufus’ twin curled up into a ball between two boxes, the body of one of the marines nearly draped over him.
“Rufus! I found your twin!” she called out. The aristoractic pilot rushed over, reaching out to grab his brother by the shoulders. The other Vulpine was shuddering violently, breath coming out in gasps, eyes wide and unseeing.
“What happened here? What's the matter with you?” Rufus demanded. His twin didn't answer, merely shaking his head. “Damn you, speak to me! What happened to the marines you were with? Why did you let Chan get behind us!” Still his brother didn't answer, though his mouth opened and closed, as if he couldn't get the words out. Finally, looking furious, Rufus shoved him in the direction of Lance. “Put that bloody worthless sot in the truck, Leutenant! I've got to help Leeza get the doors open.”
Lance took hold of Rufus' twin and started pulling him toward the truck, while Leeza crouched down in front of the cargo bay door controls. They were security sealed, probably from the bridge.
“Can you get them open?” Lance called out from the cab of the truck. He turned the engine over and it came to life with a roar.
“One minute!” Leeza shouted back, taking the mini-tool kit Rufus handed her from his belt.
Going somewhere? Chan's voice boomed out from the cargo bay's loudspeaker system. The personnel doors on the upper part of the cargo bay opened, revealing more pirates. A moment later fire started raining down aroudn the truck. Matt, who had been staying by the stunned bodies of the two fired, let out a cry and dived for cover behind some crates.
“Lee! The door!” Lance shouted, leaning out from the cab and firing up at their opponents. Meanwhile Rufus crouched beside her and gave her cover fire while she pried loose the panel and started pulling wires.
“Got it!” she shouted. The cargo bay started crank upward with agonizing slowness. “Rufus! We've got to get Terinu and Matt!”
“Right!” Rufus agreed. He let out a growl and began running towards the boys and Leeza quickly followed. Behind her he could hear Lance shouting for her to get back to the truck.
The Vulpine pilot had just reached the two unconcious Ferin boys, when a rifle shot grazed his head, dropping Rufus to the ground. The time seemed to slow as he fell, as Leeza reached out towards him, rfile fire falling like deadly rain around her. She felt a horrible burning sensation in her leg and she was suddenly falling towards the floor...
...and then she felt nothing at all.
* * *
Six hours later
“At that point, Captain, I couldn't see any way of retrieving either Leeza, Terinu, Rufus, or Matt and the other Ferin,” Lance reported, standing stiffly at attention in the conference room. It felt as if Leeza's twin was boring at a hole in hs soul with her eyes, listening ot his tale of failure. “The cargo bay door was open so I punched the accelerator and got out of there. I picked up the retreating your Lance and the rest of the retreating marines from the raid on the second Marauder and we high tailed it across the tarmac. The shuttle met us just at the edge of the spaceport and we hopped aboard.”
“Do you know the status of your Leeza Blake and your universe's Lord Brushtail?” Captain Blake asked, her tone measured, controlled, and quietly furious.
“I saw them get hit and go down,” Lance asked. He swallowed hard. “I don't know if it was stunner or plasma fire. Given Mavra Chan's history in our universe...”
“Understood,” Captain Blake said. She gave one withering glance towards Rufus' twin, sitting in his conference chair silently, arms wrapped around himself, shiverring, even though the room was quite warm. “To what would you attribute the raid's failure?”
“We got ambushed, Captain, attacked from behind” Lance told her, also looking at the Vulpine. “Somebody wasn't guarding our backs like they were supposed to.”
“I see,” she said. Turning back towards her universe's Rufus she asked, 'Do you have anything ot add, Lord Brushtail?”
He glanced up from where he'd been staring at the faux woodgrain of the conference table for the past hour. “No, Captain.”
“How did the pirates get past you?” Blake asked.
“I... I told you. They attacked us in the corridor. Sergeant Gant and the other marine were... killed. I ran back to the cargo bay, and Chan's people slaughtered the rest of the marines guarding it.”
Captain Blake's expression didn't change. “And why are you still alive, when they aren't?”
“I... I don't know,” he admitted miserably.
“You don't know,” she repeated coldly, standing up from the conference table. “Lord Brushtail, out of consideration for your family's status in the Vulpine government, I will not throw you in the brig as you deserve. Instead you are confined to quarters. I strongly advise you to stay in them. My crew is disciplined, but even they have their limits.”
“But I didn't do anything...” he began to say, then shut up and merely muttered, “Yes, Captain.”
Blake nodded, the turned back to Lance and his brother, who'd been sitting beside him quietly, not adding to the show any more than was needed. “Leutenant Freeman and Freeman, escort this... noble... to his quarters. I've got to figure out a way to salvage something from this mess before it gets any worse.”
TBC
Part One
Part Two
Matt’s journey through the Marauder became slower at every step, as he came closer and closer to the cabin that he and Terinu shared. The image of the other Terinu, stuck in that cell, begging, actually begging for Matt’s help repeated itself in his mind.
You think I wouldn’t rather die than see ya hurt?
The strange thing was, he could remember the day that his own Terinu said that. Right after his beating by Brooks, when he was laid up in sick bay. Terinu had fed him, had changed his bedpan, had told him stupid jokes to make him smile, until he was able to walk again. Terinu had just been there, making sure he was all right, letting him know that Lady Mavra wasn’t angry about what happened.
She said it was Brooks’ own d*mn fault, for lettin’ himself get mad at just a cook’s assistant. She said if he thought the fraggin’ part was so important, he should have carried it himself. She said… that I was just what she wanted now.
Then things had changed. Terinu had become somebody important in Lady Mavra’s eyes. He’d gotten a real cabin all to himself, Brooks’ old one ironically enough.
Then he’d gotten Matt.
Matt came to the cabin’s door, took a breath, then pressed his hand on the palm reader. The door slid open, he took another breath, entered, and it slid shut again with a thunk. It wasn’t going to open again until Terinu stepped inside, or until it was time for Matt to go to the mess to help Cookie. A precaution, Terinu had said.
It’s dangerous on board. Everybody on the ship knows I work only for Mavra. If they want to stab her in the back, they have to get me first. If they want to get at me, the easiest way is to get you.
Later is was: Always let me know where you'll be. It had seemed a sensible precaution at the time.
Then: Don't leave without telling me.
And then: You stay here until I get back. It's safer.
Goddamnit, I said stay here. Can't you fragging listen?
I'll make you listen to me!
He twitched once, a nervous tic that he couldn't seem to shake anymore, then busied himself cleaning the cabin. Terinu's clothes from yesterday were piled in a heap on the floor of the 'fresher, so Matt picked them up and dumped them into the sonic cleaner. Then he did the same for the dishes in the compact kitchen area. When he found himself compulsively dusting the corners of the walls for the third time he sat down on a floor pillow and turned on the ship's entertainment system. As always it was 90% porn, leavened with movies that consisted mostly of high-speed chases and explosions, with a dash of fetishistic documentaries on the latest weapon systems. Which was a combination of the porn and the action movies in a way, Matt thought.
After a half-hour of this, the door slid back and Terinu entered, frowning, tail swishing in agitation. He glanced once at Matt on the floor, then unbuckled his weapon belt and hung it up on the rack by the door. The razors embedded in his tail spade were flicking in and out, snick-click, snick-click, deadly little flashes of silver that could cut a man’s arm to the bone. It wasn’t a good sign.
“H-hi, Terinu,” Matt greeted him cautiously. Terinu didn’t stay anything. He just prowled back and forth through the cabin, looking into the ‘fresher, opening and closing the cabinet doors, glancing at the ceiling lights, checking for anything out of place that might indicate hidden bugs or hidden bombs.
Finally, when Matt though the constant snick-click of Terinu’s razors might drive him mad, the younger Ferin boy stopped in front of him, tail now stilled.
“Stand up, Matt,” he said softly.
Matt did as he was told, biting his lip. It would be over sooner if he didn’t try and argue. He’d learned that lesson quick enough.
“What did you think you were doing, Matt?” Terinu asked, his voice low, dangerous. “Lady Mavra told you not to talk to the prisoner. I told you not to talk to the prisoner. All you had to do was stick his food through the fragging slot and walk away.”
“I-I’m sorry,” Matt muttered. He didn’t look down or try to break from Terinu’s angry gaze. That would only make things worse.
“He’s sorry,” Terinu mocked, opening his arms up and looking up towards the heavens. “Hear that? He’s fragging sorry!”
Matt grimaced. “Okay, I made a mistake...”
In a flash, Terinu’s tail whipped around, the razors snapping out, snick!, tearing through the front of Matt’s tunic, leaving it shredded, the vulnerable skin underneath untouched. Click! “Yeah, you made one frelling big mistake, Matt. You didn’t fragging listen to me!” Terinu’s tail whipped around again, ripping through the back of the tunic, leaving a long, shallow, bleeding score along his right shoulder blade. Matt winced in pain and drew in a breath, as the remains of his tunic fell to the floor, leaving him bare chested. The razors clicked shut, and Terinu’s gray tail wrapped around his chest, pinning his arms to his sides. “What didja think you were gonna do, Matt?” Terinu demanded, his tail spade wrapping around the back of Matt’s head, forcing it down to look at the Ferin boy’s face. “Thought you might get a better deal with him, huh? Thought you might have a shot at gettin’ off this tub?”
“N-no! He was talking crazy, Terinu!” Matt exclaimed, panting as he felt his chest constrict as the grip of Terinu’s tail tightened painfully. “Ugh! Please, that hurts!”
“Hurts? Oh, it ain’t started to hurt yet, ya stupid traitor!” Terinu shouted. He foot swung out and kicked Matt behind the knees, sending him falling, landing on his stomach as Terinu's tail spun him around like a top. Then the Ferin boy landed on top of him, legs straddling his waist, grabbing Matt's wrists and twisting them up between his naked shoulder blades. Matt cried out in pain as Terinu wrapped his belt around his wrists, pulling it tight and securing the buckles.
"Y'know what I did ta that little grey wimp after you left, Matt?" Terinu growled into his ear, his breath hot on Matt's neck. "I hit him with a few zaps to his collar ta let him know I wasn't real happy about him tryin' to take ya away from me. He dropped to floor and was screamin' before the third zap. Ya think someone like that could protect ya from Chan? Do ya?"
Matt gasped for breath. "No! No, Terinu! Please, ya gotta believe me! Please!"
"We'll see what kinda song yer singin' in a couple of minutes," Terinu snarled. He lifted up his tail and slapped a button on the annunciator panel with the spade. "Terinu to Ship's Mess. Tell Cookie that Townsend won't be makin' to his next shift, and maybe not the one after that either!"
In a few minutes, Matt wasn't in much shape to give any answers at all.
* * *
“Hey, Ru,” Lance said softly, glancing down the bar, on the edge of what passed for Bolt Hole’s spaceport. The place was crowded, with wall-to-wall scum, rubbing shoulders with each other as they took turns shouting down the harried bartender. “Your bro there doesn’t look so well.”
“I am painfully aware of that,” Rufus answered, sotto voce, as he kept an eye on his twin. His brother was at least presentable, in a freshly laundered flight uniform and with his fur neatly combed, but it would be a gross exaggeration to call him well. At least he’d learned to keep his hands on his lap and out of sight, after Captain Blake had caught them shaking during the pre-mission conference. But it was impossible to hide the weary, wrung out look in his eyes, or the nervous tapping of his foot pad on the floor as the bar’s disreputable patrons looked them over.
“At least you look like you’re fitting in,” Lance noted. Rufus had taken the extreme step of temporarily dying his fur to differentiate himself from his brother, now a much darker roan color, and putting away his flight suit for a patched and worn pair of trousers and a multicolored quilted vest in a Wedding Ring pattern, all borrowed from his brother’s wardrobe. It was about as opposite from his customary dress as he could manage, even if the dye did make his skin itch. “Look,” Lance continued, “I still think we should send him back to the shuttle…”
Rufus shook his head sharply. “No, just... give him a chance, please.” An uncharacteristic feeling of doubt ran through him, as he recalled the incident in the bathroom stall. His brother had been remarkable contrite, or at least quiet, after that. He’d busied himself setting the calibration on his White Knight’s new chin gun, occasionally pausing to shake, and had spoken no more about the incident. If he’d taken another hit after that Rufus hadn’t caught him, and he’d managed to follow Rufus’ course to where the Suhayar waited without difficulty.
There, Rufus had been thankful to find that Captain Blake had opted for a stealthy approach, choosing to paint one of her ship’s superliminal capable shuttles in civilian colors and outfitting the Marine landing party in plainclothes. The amount of firepower they were toting along might have been cause for panic on any other world, but on Bolt Hole it barely attracted notice, and they were taken as just another band of heavily armed thugs making spare cash as mercenaries or bruisers for hire as the situation allowed.
“I just don’t know why you’re sticking your neck out so far for this fella, Ru,” Lance said.
Rufus shook his head. “He is myself, Lance. As near as I’ve been able to find, his life was exactly the same as my own, until he chose to take the Blue Horizon run. That means he must have my will and my honor inside of him somewhere. He still had enough shame in him not to want Bethany to see him in this state at least.”
“The Blue Horizon was lost over seven years ago, right?” Lance asked. “He’s had more than enough time to try and make up for it. Instead he’s wallowed in his own sh— self-pity ever since then. He ain’t going to start making up for it now.”
“You’re wrong,” Rufus said. You have to be wrong, he thought.
Lance touched him on the shoulder, bringing him out of his brooding. “Here’s the Major,” he said, as Talbot entered the bar. Lance’s commander caught their eye, and motioned for all three of them to meet him out on the street. A tall man with a footballer’s build, Talbot led them into a secluded side alley for a conference.
“All right, Lieutenant, Captains Brushtail,” the Major began. “My Lieutenant Freeman has finished scouting the position of the two Marauders. They’re parked at the most extreme corner of what passes for Bolt Hole’s spaceport. Nice and out in the open, not a damned bit of cover to be found, and swarming with heavily armed, anti-social types.”
“That doesn’t, ah, sound terribly promising,” Rufus’ brother noted with trepidation.
“Not normally, no,” Major Talbot agreed. “Fortunately we have an in. We tapped into the com traffic of Chan’s usual heavy equipment supplier. They’re going to be bringing over new containment magnets for the damaged Marauder’s primary fusion reactor in two hours. We’ll be replacing the contents of the shipping crates with ourselves.”
“Come close enough to get the element of surprise,” Rufus concluded.
“Hopefully close enough to get under her guns’ maximum traverse before we attack,” Lance said. That was enough to make Rufus’ brother look distinctly green under his fur.
“You and your Captain Brushtail are familiar with the interior layout of the Marauder, Lieutenant,” Taylor continued. “I’ll be counting on you both to lead us inside and to the probable locations of our targets. Have you picked up any information to confirm that they’ll be aboard?”
“Scuttlebutt in the bar is that Chan, either of them, haven’t left their ship. If Ter--, the throat cutter we’re looking for is really her personal pet, then she isn’t likely to step onto shore without him, especially not with her ship in such a vulnerable position,” Lance told him.
“Good,” Talbot nodded. “All right, we go in, grab our target and the Captain’s twin if we can, and then get out. After the second team disables the other Marauder’s guns, we’ll bring the shuttle in for pickup and then go the hell home for a beer.” He paused to check his watch. “Meet me at the rendezvous point in one half-hour gentlemen.”
“Yessir,” Lance replied, checking himself before offering the major a salute in public.
“Oh, and Lieutenant,” Talbot continued, in a much quieter tone, when Rufus’ brother was distracted by a fight emerging from their recently vacated drinking hole. “Are you certain your Captain Brushtail’s… counterpart will not be a liability on this mission?”
“Rufus vouches for him, sir,” Lance said. “That’s good enough for me.”
“My word as a Brushtail, Major Talbot, he will prove himself to you,” Rufus said firmly. Holy Den Mother, please make my words truth.
* * *
1340 hours
I think I must be going mad, Leeza thought to herself, I actually want to be interrogated. It would be better than being bored to death like I am now. She’d been sitting and stewing in this frelling cell for nearly a week now. The only interaction she’d had with the outside world since Chan had given her that brief glimpse of Terinu’s altrenate self had been with guards delivering her food. Unfortunately their vocabularies were limited to “Here!” and “Gimmee the old one”, spoken when delivering her food and taking away the empty trays. Other than that she’d been left alone with her own thoughts. She’d had a brief surge of hope when there had been a call to action stations a few days ago and the ship had been rocked by what felt like several missile hits, but it hadn’t turned out to the be the rescue she’d been hoping for. Or if it was, it failed, she thought mordantly.
For perhaps the hundreth time her thoughts circled back to Terinu. This Mavra Chan had a week so far to play with him. Would she keep him, trying to break him into a duplicate of the sleek, frightening assassin that he was in this universe? Was he already dead, killed because Chan either didn’t need two Ferin or judged him too dangerous to keep around? No, he has to be alive, she thought, Chan is too much of a sadist not to at least try and break his will. Leeza bit her lip and tried to distract her self again by mentally stripping out the White Knight’s engine core and reassembling it in her mind.
She was midway through trying to re-seat a tricky fuel feed when the cell bay’s door slid open, letting in a glimpse of normal light to contrast with the dim red glow that she’d lived with for a week. Leeza looked up to see, instead of a guard, a young boy of seventeen, blond haired, blue eyed. Matt, she thought, remembering Terinu’s descriptions of his only friend when he was growing up on the Marauder. He looked like he’d been in a fight recently. There was a fading bruise under one eye, others at his wrists, and he was moving in a painfully stiff and careful manner.
“Hey, you’re Terinu’s friend, Matt, right?” she asked, when he slid her meal tray through the cell door’s slot.
The blond haired boy grimaced. “Not you too. I’m not talking to you.” He turned to go.
“Wait, wait!” she shouted after him. “Are you okay?”
“I’m not talking to you!” He touched a passkey to the door controls and it slid open.
“Where’s Terinu! Is he okay? Did Chan hurt him? Where are we? I thought I felt the ship land a day or two back. Can we get out of here?”
“No you can’t!” Matt said, turning around to face her again. “You can’t escape from here! Nobody can, so stop asking!”
“Please,” she begged, “just tell me if my Terinu is alive! You can at least tell me that, can’t you?”
Matt bit down on his lip, thinking. “He’s alive,” he finally said.
Leeza blew out her breath in relief. “Oh, thank God. Can you take a message to him for me?”
“Fragg no! That’s it, I’m going before you people get me in anymore trouble!” The blond haired boy turned to go again.
“Okay, no, forget that!” she said quickly. “I don’t want to get you into any trouble or get hurt.”
Matt froze again. Keeping his back to her, he asked, “Why do you and him keep saying that? What am I to you?”
“Teri’s friend, or at least a version of him,” Leeza said. “Terinu worries about him, the other you, all the time. It makes him sick that he escaped from the Marauder and had to leave his Matt behind. I think he’d rather die than have to do that again. He loves you.”
Matt hunched his shoulders. “Love,” he said, then laughed bitterly. “Love can… hurt you.”
Just what was the relationship between this Marauder’s Terinu and this Matt? For that matter what was the real relationship between her own universe’s Terinu and Matt, two young men trapped for years on a ship with no one else to turn to for emotional and physical comfort? Don’t ask that question if you don’t want to hear the answer, she thought. “Yeah, that’s a risk. It can make you do stupid things for other people. Usually it’s worth it though.”
“Maybe,” Matt allowed.
He looked like he was about to turn around and go, when they both heard the sound of a distant, explosive thump and men shouting. Then a loud alarm began to sound and a voice over the speakers announced, “All hands! Ground assault in progress! Prepare to repel boarders!”
Leeza pressed her palms against the thick plexiglass door of her cell. “Help me!” she shouted. “Help Terinu and yourself! We can get out of here!”
“I can’t!” he shouted back.
“Get me out of here and I can protect you!”
Matt bit down on his lip. Then he limped over to the wall panel and unlocked the cell door. “I’ll show you which cell bay your Terinu is in. There are lots of places to hide if we can get him out of there.”
Leeza stepped out of the cell as the door slid back. “Lead the way!”
1300 hours (twenty minutes earlier)
“Are you all ri—“ his twin started to ask again.
“Fine,” Rufus snapped. “I’m perfectly fine.” Actually he wasn’t fine at all, perfectly or imperfectly. Realizing that it might be his last chance before he found himself surrounded by a mob of nearly thirty hairless, sweating humans, he’d taken the opportunity when his twin’s back was turned to inject himself with a hit of Juno to calm his nerves. Except that the Juno didn’t seem to be working this time. The shakes had stopped but that hadn’t prevented his mind from racing as the sheer insanity of this operation began to make itself clear to him.
We’re going to attempt a frontal assault on Bloody Chan, just to kidnap some alien and free a couple of others, he thought. And you let yourself be talked into going along, idiot Normal people avoided pirates, especially that one. Worse, there were apparently two of her now. With two crews. Two heavily armed crews.
He watched as the marines picked up the last of the stunned bodies of the warehouse’s employees and laid them in a row in the corner, while another marine pulled out the shipping crates that housed the containment magnets intended for the damaged pirate galleon. You don’t have to do this. It isn’t like they can force you to fight. The only thing really keeping here was the desire of his twin, who seemed to think that he’d be of some use. The sensible thing would have been to fly very quickly in the opposite direction from this place once they’d launched from the refueling station. So why didn’t you, fool?
That answer came easily. Because he honestly does think I might be of some use. For the life of him Rufus couldn’t figure out why. But it felt… I wish he hadn’t called Bethany. Damn him for making me feel ashamed.
It didn’t matter, none of it mattered. He’d help his twin get his friends out of here, then he’d fly the White Knight somewhere well out of Mavra Chan’s reach. There wasn’t any problem in the universe too big for him to fly away from, so long as he had his ship.
“Okay boys and girls, time to mount up!” Major Talbot called out. “First Platoon, go in the first truck with Lt. Freeman. Your assignment will be the spike the intact galleon’s guns so they can’t fire on us. Second Platoon, you’ll be with me and our Freeman’s twin, while we infiltrate the interior of the damaged galleon and locate our targets. Clear?”
The marines made relatively quiet noises of assent, salutes were exchanged, and then Rufus squeezed between his twin and Freeman in the cargo box of one of the trucks.
“So exactly how much of a deathtrap is this going to be?” he asked rhetorically, as the ancient truck began rolling and bumping over the cracked surface of the tarmac, the temperature in the cargo box rapidly rising to suffocating in the heat of the planet’s noonday sun.
Freeman gave him a cheerful grin. “Oh nova, this’ll be buckets easier than a boarding action in space. No chance of getting your armour holed by a stray shot and your blood boiling off in the vacuum at least. Course we aren’t going to be wearing armour either.”
“What a hopeful thought,” he replied. At a motion from the Major he quieted down, as the truck came to a halt in the shadow of one of the ships. Rufus held his breath as the marines around him tightened their grips on their weapons, as the driver spoke to the guard at the ship’s perimeter. Then the truck’s hydrogen motor roared to life again as it backed up to the open cargo lock of the ship. When it stopped, the Major raised his hand, and thirty marines, Rufus and his twin, all rose as one, facing the truck’s cargo door.
“Come on, you dregs,” he heard a female, nasal, Vulpine accented voice call out as the door was unlatched opened. “Help me get these containment rings back into Engineering before the Chief gives me any more—“ The door opened to reveal a vixen dressed in dirty coveralls, looking up in astonishment at the array of weapons pointed at her face. “Oh, fragg!”
The rifle of the nearest marine fired at point blank range, and her body dropped with a thud to the floor of the cargo bay, a neat, burned dot at the center of her forehead, steaming slightly as the interior of her brain cooked off. Three more shots took down her human and Creo helpers before they could call out an alarm, and a fourth killed the guard leaning up against the far hatch leading into the interior of the ship. Then the platoon was rushing forward, spreading out to the corners of the cargo bay, checking for any additional pirates that might hiding behind crates or stowed equipment. It seemed an eerily silent affair to Rufus. The shots from marines’ weapons had been near-inaudible, low powered laser shots, barely making a crackle as their superheated light ionized the air. At a motion from his twin, Rufus followed both him and Freeman as they stepped down lightly from the truck and ran up to the interior hatch. He spared a single glance back at the dead vixen, as the major and Freeman held a quick, whispered conference.
“Continue forward,” the Major ordered softly. “Keep them guessing about our movements for as long as you can.”
“Yessir,” Freeman agreed. “The cell block ought to be one level up and portside, about twenty five meters from the gangway.”
Talbot nodded. “Right. Sergeant Gant, the door if you please.”
A marine sergeant touched the hatch controls, as the rest of the platoon moved out of the line of sight of the passageway. It was barely open ten centimeters when two other marines tossed grenades inside. Rufus jumped as there was a loud double flash of light and twin BANGS, as the stun and EMP grenades went off simultaneously, disabling anyone in the hallway and frying watching cameras at the same time.
“Go, go, go!” Talbot ordered and the marines rushed forward. Rufus and his twin followed a moment later into a wide, empty intersection of two passageways. He clapped his hands to his ears as an alarm began to sound and a voice called over the comm system out “All hands! Ground assault in progress! Prepare to repel boarders!”
“Sergeant Gant! You, Phillips and Captain Brushtail here,” Talbot pointed to Rufus, “hold position and maintain control of this junction. We’ll move forward and take the main personnel hatch and continue the search for the target!”
“Yessir!” Gant answered, and the rest of the unit moved down the passageway. Rufus let a small sigh of relief as he realized that most of the potential fighting was going forward with them. He was safe, for now.
1330
Matt led her out of the cell bay where she’d been isolated and into the connecting hallway. There was an armoured and sealed watch station overlooking the length of the corridor, but it was empty, the guard on watch evidentially having been called away by the alert. “Okay, your Terinu is in the second bay over,” he said.
“What about my tracker, here?” she asked, holding up the band still locked to her wrist.
“It’s just a shocker,” Matt told her. “So long as we don’t run into anyone who carries the remote for it, you should be fine.”
“Thank you, Matt,” Leeza said. “Keep an eye out for visitors while I get Terinu out.” Matt nodded and gave her his passkey. She touched it to the cell bay’s door and it slid back, to reveal Terinu sitting on his heels in a corner of his cell. “Teri!” she hissed, and the Ferin boy looked up, surprised.
“Blake! How didjya escape?” he asked.
She touched the wall control and his door slid back, allowing him to leap out, tail swishing in agitation. “I had help from a friend,” Leeza said, heading out with him into the corridor. Matt was cranking his head back and forth, as if fearing that a pirate might appear at any moment.
“Matt!” Terinu shouted, running up to him, then skidding to halt, arms out, as if reaching out to hug him and thinking better of it. “What happened t’ you, Matt? What did that bastard do to you?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Matt said, turning his face away, “let’s just get out of here.”
Terinu crossed his arms and planted his feet. “No dice! What did he do to you?”
“It doesn’t matter!” Matt shouted. “C’mon! We have to get out of here now!”
“He’s right, we can talk about this once we’re safe,” Leeza said. “Matt, can you get me a weapon, or at least a tool so I can pry off Teri’s inhibitor collar?”
“We’re not going to get anywhere near the weapons locker or engineering during an alert,” Matt said. “We’d better just get out of here. I know where we can slip into the maintenance ducts and get close to an airlock.”
“Good,” Leeza said. “Let’s just hope whoever is attacking Chan isn’t interested in us.”
“This way!” Matt palmed the door open, dashing through. Leeza and Terinu nearly walked over him when he froze though, as they all saw who was waiting for them at the other end of the corridor.
“Think yer goin’ somewhere?” Terinu’s twin asked, his face dark with fury. “Think yer playin’ the hero, Matt?”
Matt took a deep breath. “I’m doing the right thing.”
“No, yer doing the stupid thing,” Terinu’s twin growled, pulling out his pistol and pointing in Leeza and Terinu’s direction. “You two! Back in yer cells, now!”
“Ya think I’m gonna let you hurt Matt again, chump?” Terinu growl, his long tail flicking in anger.
“He’s my meat, Twin. I’ll do anything I want to him,” the boy with the gun said, smiling ferally.
“No you won’t!” Before Leeza could stop him Terinu leaped forward, flying down the corridor, bouncing off the wall and leaping again as his twin fired a shot at him. Leeza and Matt both ducking as it burned the door behind them. Terinu’s twin ducked low, rolling out of the way as the Ferin boy flew over him, his tail razors snapping out and slashing at Terinu as the other boy’s tail swatted the gun from his hand.
“That won’t help you!” Teri’s twisted twin shouted, his spurs rising up and firing two blasts in Terinu’s direction.
“Too slow!” Terinu shouted back, launching himself off the wall, landing a double-fisted punch in his twin’s solar plexus. The other Ferin collapsed in a heap, but then his body glowed and suddenly Terinu was dancing backward, as his twin’s Bion aurora spread outward, threatening to burn him. That gave his twin enough breathing room to get to his feet, scooping his gun up with his tail and flipping it back into his hand. “Hey, whatsamatter? Yer Bion ain’t putzing out already, is it?” Terinu taunted from a safe distance.
“Ain’t seen ya use yer’s yet!” his twin shot back, wheezing in a breath. Then he leveled his gun, not on Terinu, but on Leeza. “Lay down on the floor, or I’ll fry her brains!”
“How am I supposed to, with this stupid collar clamped around my head?” Terinu asked. “Give it up! Ya kill Leeza, then I’m gonna cut yer fragging tail off and feed it to ya, razors and all!”
The other boy glanced at the inhibitor collar that Terinu wore, as if seeing it for the first time. “She’ll still be dead,” he pointed out.
“Terinu, don’t let him intimidate you!” Leeza called out. “Just get out of here!”
Terinu’s face twisted in agony and he said, “Fragg it, Blake, don’t make leave! Not without you and Matt!”
“On your belly, Twin!” the other Terinu shouted.
“Fragg off!” Terinu shouted back at him, glancing helplessly between Leeza and his opponent.
At that moment the door behind his twin slid open suddenly, revealing a crowd of humans and one very welcome Vulpine.
“Marines, fire!” one man shouted, and two other fellows holding pistols fired and dropped Terinu and his twin before they could react.
“Lance, Rufus!” Leeza shouted, upon seeing faces she recognized. “What the frell are you doing!”
“Lee, you're all right!” Lance shouted back.
“Hullo, my dear,” Rufus greeted. “Don't worry, they're both just stunned. Given the circumstances, it seemed wisest not to wait until sorted out their differences.”
“Fine, fine, but who are these guys?” Leeza demanded, pointing to their companions.
The leader of the armed looked like he was almost ready salute her, but instead offered his hand. “Miss Blake, ma'am, I'm Major Talbot, Alliance Marines and these are my men.”
“Marines?” Leeza asked, ignoring the major's offered hand. “Lance, where did you get a squad of Marines?”
“Two platoons actually, and they're not mine, they're your twin's. She's a Navy captain,” Lance said, slinging Terinu over his shoulder, while one of the marines took the other boy. “And if you think that sounds wierd, wait until you meet Rufus' twin.”
“Let's save the discussions until we're safe aboard the shuttle, eh Lance?” Rufus said, looking discomfited. “I fear it's all very complicated.”
“Right,” Leeza agreed. She looked back to where Matt still stood, trying his best not to be noticed. “Come on, Matt. Let's get out of here.”
“Oh, that would be terribly rude,” a mocking, female voice said, as the corridor lights suddenly died. “Especially when you've got both my Mouse, and his favorite cabin boy with him.”
“What the hell?” Major Talbot shouted. “How the fragg did she get behind us?”
A moment later the first streak of plasma fire lit the corridor, and the major went down with a burning wound in the center of his chest, his two marines quickly dropping dead beside him.
1315
Rufus patted his hip, wishing the pistol he had stowed there didn’t seem so entirely inadequate for personal defense, especially compared to the large, very intimidating rifles that the two marines with him the hallway carried. Well, it didn’t matter. Though there had been a loud round of shooting up ahead recently, as the rest of Major Talbot’s platoon cleared the way towards the Celestial Marauder’s CinC and the most probably location of Chan and her Ferin boy, it had actually been quiet for the past several minutes. That, Rufus hoped, boded well. He wanted nothing more for everyone, especially himself, to get out of here with their hides intact and with a minimum of gunplay.
Tink.
“Did you hear that?” Rufus asked Sergeant Gant softly, his ears pricking up. It had been a quiet, but distinct, sound of metal on metal.
“Hear wh--?” the sergeant started to ask, just as four pirates, one at either end of the cross corridor, appeared around the corners and fired. Two shots hit the sergeant, one cooking off the top of his skull, the other striking him in the gut. The other two shots struck the other marine, dropping him to the floor and leaving Rufus suddenly very alone and outnumbered.
Letting out a cry, he pelted down the corridor, heading back towards the cargo bay where they had entered. Yellow-white plasma fire seared by him, and Rufus was stuck in the arm by one final shot as he dived through the hatch, searing his fur and the skin underneath. “Pirates!” he shouted to the half-squad of marines guarding the bay, rolling out of the way of the door and jumping behind a pile of hard plastic cargo boxes. It was poor cover, but the best he could see, and it least it might hide him while the marines dealt with the threat. Clumsily, he tugged at the flap of his holster, trying to draw it with the wrong hand while his right arm throbbed in agony. He heard shouting from the marines, calls to find cover and make certain their weapons were ready. Then there was the sound of something small but solid being tossed in the room and one of the marines shouted, “GRENADE!” as the room was suddenly filled with light and an overwhelming BOOM!.
Deafened from the flash-bang grenade, but at least still possessing his eyesight by virtue of being behind his cover, Rufus risked poking his head above the lip of the cargo box, only to duck down again as the body of one of the marines fell backwards across it, his face eye to eye with Rufus' own. The marine's eyes were wide open, sightless in death, his mouth turned up in an “oh” of surprise. He let out a frightened yelp that sounded distant and hollow in his own ears, scrabbling backwards on his legs and one good arm, only to bump up against the bulkhead and find himself out in the open.
The room was filled with smoke, obscuring his vision. There was a humanoid, angular shape some four meters in front of him that he couldn't make out except as a dark fire in a field of grey. Almost on its own volition, his left hand rose, pistol in his palm, and he tried to draw a bead on the target. But his hand was shaking so wildly from fear and the pain in his wounded arm that he didn't even attempt to fire.
The figure turned and walked towards him, walking confidentally out of the smoke. It was a tall human female, with close cut hair died blood red, dressed in an armoured corselet and, instead of an engy weapon, she held a whip in one hand and in the other a long knife. She looked down on him without fear, only a distant, amused curiosity on her face.
“What's the matter, Vulpine, aren't you going to fire?” she asked.
It was her voice that caught him. She was less than a meter in front of him now, close enough that even with his shaking hands and poor grip he could have easily hit her. But he couldn't pull the trigger, as the sound of that amused, knowing tone filled him with fear, memory, and shame. The pistol fell out of his nerveless fingers and he opened his mouth to cry out, but no sound came.
“Smart little Vulp,” Mavra Chan said, “better that you don't get involved.”
And then the only thing he could see in his mind was the events of seven years ago, and the death of the Blue Horizon, and of his honor.
* * *
White Knight! White Knight, where are you! Joli’s voice called out his radio. Rufus dropped a precious spoofer from the Knight’s defence pod, drawing the missile off his tail long enough to spin his fighter around with its thrusters and fire, blasting the missile before it could regain its senses and get the Knight’s track again.
“Here, Joli, I’m right here,” he called back his wingman, forming up on the elderly Sniper’s two o’clock position. “What’s your status?”
Caught some debris from the cutter exploding, but it just scratched the paint, the Creo pilot reported, a young fellow but certainly a capable pilot, though understandably stressed right now.
Fighter wing, what’s your status? the Blue Horizon’s XO asked, sounding strained. Being a passenger liner with no guns and minimal shielding was not a comfortable position to be in, especially with the apparently formidable pirate galleon bearing down on them.
“This is the White Knight. My wingman and I will continue missile defence, while Tanner and Murka go for the galleon’s cannon array,” Rufus told them, with false cheer. The galleon had come out of seemingly nowhere, dropping down from superliminal far closer than any sane shipmaster would allow. The cutter had been the passenger liner’s main line of defence and it had been taken out immediately. Still, a well coordinated fighter attack had a chance of at least driving off this intruder, if they could inflict damage that outweighed the potential prize the Blue Horizon represented. It’s a passenger liner, so they’re going for hostages, he reminded himself, they can’t just crack open the hull and empty the cargo holds, so they aren’t going to be firing all out.
We’re starting our attack run, Tanner reported. Rufus kept an eye on his sensors, watching as the two nimble ships dove in on the galleon, cannons firing, trying to hit their opponents cannon array and missile launchers. Murka’s hit! Murka’s hit! How can their damned cannon be tracking so f---! The radio erupted in an electronic squeal as Tanner’s fighter turned into a thousand confetti tracks on the White Knight’s screen.
Then there was another voice in his ear, female, human perhaps, and very much amused. Two down, two to go, it said. Go home boys, you’re outmatched.
Rufus? came Joli’s worried voice.
“They’re trying to mess with our heads, lad,” Rufus told him. “Don’t let them rattle you. Stick to my wing and coordinate with my fire. We’ll take out their cannon and force them to go home.”
Right, Joli agreed, sounding a bit more confident.
Your funeral, the voice taunted. Rufus ignored it as best he could, focusing on his instruments and the looming mass of the galleon as it grew in his front windscreen. Fire erupted from the pirate’s close defence guns, zipping past as the White Knight’s active jamming system disrupted the guns’ targeting computers. There was the cannon, bracketed by his fighter’s targeting scope...
Take a breath… pull the trigger…
There was a flash outside his cockpit’s window as Joli’s fighter was struck in the power plant, detonating in an explosion that had Rufus pulling the Knight hard to the right to avoid chunks of debris that the flaming hulk was shedding off. One piece bounced through his craft’s dust jacket, rattling Rufus in his seat as the fighter spun away, out of control, leaving one of the Knight’s aero wings bent nearly double. He brought her nose back in line and kicked in full thrust, peeling away from the galleon.
Just you and me, little Sleek Wing, the voice taunted again, what ever are you going to do?
The call from the liner was immediate. White Knight, the pirate is heading right towards us! You’ve got to take her out! her XO demanded.
He could taste coppery blood in his mouth, where one of his incisors had nearly bit through his tongue when the Knight had been struck. He swung his fighter around, wrestling with the controls as the craft’s now warped center of mass fought with his flight computer’s version of reality. “I’ve taken some damage here,” Rufus reported, his heart racing. That ship took out the cutter and three fighters in less than ten minutes. How do you stop someone like that?
For the love of the Den Mother, you’re the only thing standing between us and that galleon!
“I’m going to get help!” he called back, swinging the White Knight away from both the Blue Horizon and the pirate galleon and shifting power to the superliminal drive.
White knight! You can’t leave us! We’ve got over four hundred civilians on board!
Smart little vulp, the voice on the galleon interjected, better you don’t get involved.
White Knight! WHITE KNIGHT! the XO screamed, as Rufus’ fighter accelerated past lightspeed and the radio channel dissolved into static.
Surely, he only imagined the voice on galleon laughing then.
* * *
“Get down!” Lance shouted, shoving Leeza down to the deck, while Rufus did the same to Matt. The shots flew over their heads, striking the wall behind them.
“Where’d they come from?” Leeza demanded.
“I don’t know! Rufus’ brother was supposed to be guarding the corridor junction with a couple of…” Lance’s face, illuminated in the light of the flashing plasma fire, turned up in snarl. “Damnit, Rufus, I told you we couldn’t…”
“Later, Lance!” Rufus shot back. “What say we get out of here first?”
“Right!” Lance handed his rifle over to Leeza. “Give me some cover fire, Couz!”
Leeza took the rifle, bringing the sight up to her eye. Military issue, it features a multi-spectrum sight with infra-red and low-light, giving her a fair view of the darkened corridor and the pirates shooting down the hallway. They had night sighted rifles too, but were deliberately firing over their heads. Probably to keep us pinned down until they can figure out how to get this Chan’s Terinu back without him getting hurt, she figured. She snapped off a couple of wild shots that splashed against the corridor walls, making the pirates duck back as Lance began unfolding something from the pack on his back. “Lance! What are you doing?” she called to him, as Rufus kneeled and fired his pistol, hitting one pirate in the shoulder.
“Making a new exit,” he told her, slapping a square frame about 1 meter wide, made of plastic pipes with what looked like clay bricks taped to it, to the wall. “Cover your ears!” he shouted, dropping to the deck and pressing a button. The frame suddenly exploded, blowing a neat hole through the corridor wall and into an empty and now thoroughly trashed bunkroom.
“Everyone out!” Rufus shouted, scooping up their Terinu. Lance tossed a grenade down the passage that exploded and gave them a few more moment of cover while Lance stepped through the hole and took the bodies of the two Ferin as Rufus and Matt passed them over to him. Then Rufus fired off his pistol twice more as Leeza and Matt scrambled through the opening, joining them a moment later. She followed as Lance and Rufus each took a Terinu and slung them over their shoulders, everyone moving quickly out into a secondary corridor, heading in the direction of the cargo bay.
“They’re just going to follow us!” Leeza pointed out, as they passes through a corridor hatch.
“No they’re not!” Lance punched the switch to shut the hatch and it began to roll closed under a metric ton of hydraulic pressure. Just before it shut he tossed a small stick of plastique into the frame, which began to glow white how, forcing them all away from the hatch. “Thermite charge,” Lance explained. “That should seal the hatch and force them to find another route to us.”
“Excellent, Lance,” Rufus said. “Let’s not delay then.” They hurried down the corridor, crossing back into the main corridor that went the length of the ship from the boarding locks at the nose of the Marauder to the massive cargo bay in the middle. Along the way, Lance radioed the platoon leader that was assaulting the other pirate vessel, and received word that its weapons had been effectively spiked by the low-tech but effective method of paint bombing her external visual sensors, making them unable to track human-sized targets.
“Almost home free,” Rufus assured Leeza and Matt. “We’ll meet up with the other marines in the cargo bay and rush outside. From there the shuttle will pick us...” He slowed to a halt and entered the cargo bay. The doors, which had been open before, were now shut tight. The marines that had been guarding the bay were lying on the deck down, dead from either plasma fire, or in one gruesome case actually beheaded.
“Wha-what happened?” Matt asked, staring at the carnage.
“Somebody counter-attacked,” Leeza said grimly. “Quickly, let’s look for survivors.” Lance and Rufus set down their respective Terinus down on the deck and they quickly fanned out across the room, but it was Leeza who found Rufus’ twin curled up into a ball between two boxes, the body of one of the marines nearly draped over him.
“Rufus! I found your twin!” she called out. The aristoractic pilot rushed over, reaching out to grab his brother by the shoulders. The other Vulpine was shuddering violently, breath coming out in gasps, eyes wide and unseeing.
“What happened here? What's the matter with you?” Rufus demanded. His twin didn't answer, merely shaking his head. “Damn you, speak to me! What happened to the marines you were with? Why did you let Chan get behind us!” Still his brother didn't answer, though his mouth opened and closed, as if he couldn't get the words out. Finally, looking furious, Rufus shoved him in the direction of Lance. “Put that bloody worthless sot in the truck, Leutenant! I've got to help Leeza get the doors open.”
Lance took hold of Rufus' twin and started pulling him toward the truck, while Leeza crouched down in front of the cargo bay door controls. They were security sealed, probably from the bridge.
“Can you get them open?” Lance called out from the cab of the truck. He turned the engine over and it came to life with a roar.
“One minute!” Leeza shouted back, taking the mini-tool kit Rufus handed her from his belt.
Going somewhere? Chan's voice boomed out from the cargo bay's loudspeaker system. The personnel doors on the upper part of the cargo bay opened, revealing more pirates. A moment later fire started raining down aroudn the truck. Matt, who had been staying by the stunned bodies of the two fired, let out a cry and dived for cover behind some crates.
“Lee! The door!” Lance shouted, leaning out from the cab and firing up at their opponents. Meanwhile Rufus crouched beside her and gave her cover fire while she pried loose the panel and started pulling wires.
“Got it!” she shouted. The cargo bay started crank upward with agonizing slowness. “Rufus! We've got to get Terinu and Matt!”
“Right!” Rufus agreed. He let out a growl and began running towards the boys and Leeza quickly followed. Behind her he could hear Lance shouting for her to get back to the truck.
The Vulpine pilot had just reached the two unconcious Ferin boys, when a rifle shot grazed his head, dropping Rufus to the ground. The time seemed to slow as he fell, as Leeza reached out towards him, rfile fire falling like deadly rain around her. She felt a horrible burning sensation in her leg and she was suddenly falling towards the floor...
...and then she felt nothing at all.
* * *
Six hours later
“At that point, Captain, I couldn't see any way of retrieving either Leeza, Terinu, Rufus, or Matt and the other Ferin,” Lance reported, standing stiffly at attention in the conference room. It felt as if Leeza's twin was boring at a hole in hs soul with her eyes, listening ot his tale of failure. “The cargo bay door was open so I punched the accelerator and got out of there. I picked up the retreating your Lance and the rest of the retreating marines from the raid on the second Marauder and we high tailed it across the tarmac. The shuttle met us just at the edge of the spaceport and we hopped aboard.”
“Do you know the status of your Leeza Blake and your universe's Lord Brushtail?” Captain Blake asked, her tone measured, controlled, and quietly furious.
“I saw them get hit and go down,” Lance asked. He swallowed hard. “I don't know if it was stunner or plasma fire. Given Mavra Chan's history in our universe...”
“Understood,” Captain Blake said. She gave one withering glance towards Rufus' twin, sitting in his conference chair silently, arms wrapped around himself, shiverring, even though the room was quite warm. “To what would you attribute the raid's failure?”
“We got ambushed, Captain, attacked from behind” Lance told her, also looking at the Vulpine. “Somebody wasn't guarding our backs like they were supposed to.”
“I see,” she said. Turning back towards her universe's Rufus she asked, 'Do you have anything ot add, Lord Brushtail?”
He glanced up from where he'd been staring at the faux woodgrain of the conference table for the past hour. “No, Captain.”
“How did the pirates get past you?” Blake asked.
“I... I told you. They attacked us in the corridor. Sergeant Gant and the other marine were... killed. I ran back to the cargo bay, and Chan's people slaughtered the rest of the marines guarding it.”
Captain Blake's expression didn't change. “And why are you still alive, when they aren't?”
“I... I don't know,” he admitted miserably.
“You don't know,” she repeated coldly, standing up from the conference table. “Lord Brushtail, out of consideration for your family's status in the Vulpine government, I will not throw you in the brig as you deserve. Instead you are confined to quarters. I strongly advise you to stay in them. My crew is disciplined, but even they have their limits.”
“But I didn't do anything...” he began to say, then shut up and merely muttered, “Yes, Captain.”
Blake nodded, the turned back to Lance and his brother, who'd been sitting beside him quietly, not adding to the show any more than was needed. “Leutenant Freeman and Freeman, escort this... noble... to his quarters. I've got to figure out a way to salvage something from this mess before it gets any worse.”
TBC
