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jeriendhalRated R for just desserts and excessive Vulpine abuse
Previous Entries:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
From her small box in the cell bay, now subdivided to accommodate her new roommates, Leeza watched as two guards dragged Rufus back to his cell, directly across from hers and next to the one Matthew occupied. They threw him in, the Vulpine dropping to the steel floor with a thump, and closed the door. Only after they were gone did he let out a low moan, clutching his stomach, one hand tucked under his opposite arm.
“Rufus, are you all right?” she asked, while Matt looked at him with alarm through the transparent wall of his cell. “What did they do to you?”
“I’m fine…” he replied, breathing deeply and keeping his eyes closed. “They tried some interrogation drugs on me, trying to get me to tell them what I knew about Captain Blake’s attack plans. Fortunately, they didn’t have anything compatible with Vulpine biochemistry. Gave me a terribly sour stomach though.”
“Is that all?” Matt asked.
“Er, no.” Rufus held out his right hand. Leeza winced as she saw three of his fingers had been broken, bent backwards at a painful, unnatural angle. “I sincerely hope nobody asks me to fly anything more complicated than a paper airplane any time soon,” he said. “Actually, I’m not sure I could manage that much if I had to fold it myself.”
Leeza kicked the heavy composite door in front of her. “There has to be a way out of here. Lance and my twin must be working on some kind of rescue plan.”
“I’m certain of that dear.” Rufus smiled in hope, though he kept his eyes shut and slumped a little closer to the floor.
The cell bay door opened again. Leeza looked over in surprise as the guards dragged a second Vulpine inside, wearing an achingly familiar green and gold flight uniform. They dumped his body into the remaining cell next to her’s, slamming the door shut. Then he rolled over, giving Rufus a cheery wave.
“By the Holy Den Mother, what are you doing here?” Rufus demanded, then out a moan and clutched his stomach again.
“Oh, didn’t you realize?” his twin answered with a maddening giggle. “I’m your daring rescue.”
“You’re our what?” Rufus demanded.
“Rescue. Daring,” his twin repeated, grinning like an idiot. “You know, dramatic escape, maybe a sword fight or two, a kiss from your lady vixen at the end. Don’t worry, everything is going to plan. Well, my plan, at least. Presumably Captain Blake’s plan has been scuppered, I hope. If not, things might get a trifle hairy if we don’t move quickly.”
“Why is that?” Leeza asked. She felt the deck plating underneath her shiver, along with a hum increasing in pitch as the Marauder’s engines spindled up.
“Ah, apparently not,” Rufus’ twin said, glancing in the direction of the engine room. “No doubt Lady Mavra has decided to vacate the premises, what with the nuclear missiles and everything.”
Leeza blinked, opened her mouth to say something, closed it, then after careful consideration started again. “What nuclear missiles?”
“The ones your counterpart is launching at Bolt Hole. Five of them, with neutron warheads, right at the space port. Which strikes me as overkill to an extreme, but I gather she’s not a very happy captain right now.”
With his good hand, Rufus rubbed his forehead, looking as if he had a terrible headache coming on. “And how, dare I ask, does Mavra Chan know about these missiles?”
“Oh, I told her.”
“What!”
“It’s all part of my clever plan. I came to her, with a lovely case of the shakes and crying that Captain Blake had tossed me from her vessel after that horrible fiasco of a rescue attempt, and begged to be made part of her pirate crew, imparting what I knew about Captain Blake’s plan of attack. I figured it was the best way to get close to all of you to affect a rescue.”
The thin, careworn Vulpine was sporting a wide grin on his face as he related this. Leeza couldn’t decide whether he was overwhelmed by his own supposed cleverness or had just gone completely ‘round the bend. “Minor problem. You’re in here, not the crew quarters.”
“Ah, there is that.” Rufus’ twin grabbed his own tail and ran his fingers through it, pulling out a small electronic device. “Electronic lock pick, small enough to be hidden in my tail. Only another Vulpine would think to look there.” He pressed it against the frame of his cell and Leeza heard a loud click as the magnetic bolts pulled back. With an effort, he pressed his paws against the smooth surface of the cell door and pushed back into its alcove far enough to slip out. The effort, mixed with the fact that he still appeared to coming down off of some pharmaceutical high, left him breathless. After a moment he regained his strength and opened Matt’s cell, pulling it open more easily with the boy’s help.
He turned towards Rufus’ own cell door when the hatch the cell bay opened unexpectedly. Both he and Matt froze in place as one of the guards that had brought Rufus’ twin inside side stepped in, a strange expression on his face. Then the pirate toppled forward to land in a heap on the deck, the hilt of Terinu’s short sword sticking out of his lower back. He was followed by a smirking Mavra Chan, Terinu’s twin, and Terinu himself. The latter was bound with heavy electronic manacles at his wrists, ankles, and even one that kept his lashing tail in place with a short cable that connected to his inhibitor collar.
“Mouse, if you would?” Mavra said. Terinu’s twin smiled, his spurs glowing. A short blast of bion struck Rufus’ twin, dropping him to the floor with a cry. “Honestly, I’m not sure who was more of an idiot, my guards for not checking that Vulpine’s fluffy tail, or him for not thinking that I’d keep a bug running in my cell bay to monitor what my prisoners are saying.”
“Back in yer cell, Matt,” Terinu’s twin said, motioning to the human boy.
“Belay that,” Mavra said, leaning against the bulkhead, arms crossed, with studied casualness.
“Yer letting him go?” Terinu’s twin asked, looking both surprised and pleased.
“Of course not, Townsend is a traitor, attempted deserter and has no one who could pay a decent ransom for him anyway. That and I don’t think I care for the idea of your loyalties being divided, Terinu.” She smiled slightly. “Kill him.”
“What?” All of the arrogance dropped out of the Ferin boy’s face as he heard her order. “Lady Chan, he ain’t worth…”
“Be quiet.” Mavra stood away from the wall, taking hold of the boy’s shoulders and leaning her face close to his. “Listen to me, Mouse. You are going to turn around. You are going to grab your best friend Matt by the throat. Then you are going to power up that wonderful bion of yours and blast his head off, just like you did to Brooks. That is an order.”
“I… I…” Stiffly, like a malfunctioning robot, Terinu’s twin turned around, Leeza and the others watching in mute horror as he faced Matt. “Milady, please.”
Mavra’s voice was low, silky and dangerous. “You don’t have choice, Ferin. Your entire race were made to be slaves and you must obey your Master. This one lesson you will always remember. You have no free will, save which I allow.”
“Teri?” Matt asked, his eyes wide.
“Stupid… stupid… Why couldn’t you have just listened to me?” Terinu’s twin asked him desperately, grabbing hold of the boy by his throat. A mass of bion, crackling like ball lightning, began to form between his spurs and run down his arms towards Matt.
“Stop it!” Terinu shouted, trying to rush forward to grab his twin, tripping over his restraints and landing on his knees. “You don’t have to do it!”
“He can’t help it. You know that,” Mavra mocked.
“Listen!” Terinu shouted at his twin, as bion touched Matt’s throat and the human boy let out a choked scream. “You’re always gonna have a Master, but you can choose who they are!”
His twin froze and the terrible, his hands dropping away from Matt’s throat. Then the Ferin boy dropped to his knees, clutching his head and letting out a cry.
“It’s a lie, Mouse. You can’t fight what you are,” Mavra told him, smiling down on his agony.
Finally he looked up at her, a weird, fey gleam in his eyes. “Yeah,” he breathed, “I can!” The pirate barely had time to grab the hilt of her shortsword before Terinu’s twin leaped on top of her, toppling her to the ground. “You want my power? Have all you can take!”
Leeza ducked down and shielded her eyes, as the boy began glow, his bion power filling him, before it poured out between his spurs like a plasma torch, striking Mavra in the center of her face. The pirate lord didn’t even have time to scream before her decapitated body dropped to the deck.
There was a long moment of silence, as Terinu’s twin curled up into a pained ball from the effort of expending so much bion and fighting his conditioning. After a moment it was broken by Rufus’ brother, who lifted his head off the floor and said calmly, “Ah, that’s why everyone is so keen to grab the lad.”
Leeza stuffed her hand in her mouth, fighting off a hysterical giggle. Regaining control she called out, “Matt, are you all right?”
The blond haired boy nodded, clearing his throat painfully. “I’ll be okay,” he rasped. He picked up the lock pick off the floor and pressed against the lock for Rufus’ and Leeza’s cells, then Terinu’s restraints. The boy rubbed his scalp gratefully as his spurs rose up from his head for the first time in a week.
“What now, do you think?” Rufus asked as he helped his brother up from the floor, the latter making bleary reassurances that he could walk on his own.
“Get Terinu’s inhibitor collar and restraints on his twin and then see if we can make our way to the ship’s shuttle bay and see if our Sniper is still there to fly.”
“I saw it there when I landed my fighter,” Rufus’ brother answered, standing up. “We could take all six of us if a couple of people don’t mind sitting in another passenger’s lap.”
“Right, lemme just finish with this,” Terinu said, as he finished connecting his unresisting twin’s restraints. Then he pulled his short sword from his twin’s belt and methodically began prying the implanted razors from his twin’s tail, leaving behind a bloody hunk of skin and exposed muscle.
“Teri! What are you doing?” Leeza demanded.
“Even with his tail cuffed, I ain’t havin’ him in my lap with those fragging things in his spade.”
Leeza frowned, but she couldn’t argue with the boy’s dreadful logic. Still, she turned to Matt and asked, “Are you all right with that?”
“I… I guess,” he said, wincing as another blood-covered tail razor dropped to the floor. “I… would it sound strange to you, if I told you I pity him? I mean, I know… I know he hurt me. But he wasn’t always like you saw him. Not always.”
“One shouldn’t just give up on anyone,” Rufus said gravely. “The ability to feel compassion for one’s, er, antagonists marks the difference between a civilized being and a mere sociopath.”
“Do we have to feel sorry for her, too?” his brother asked, gesturing to Chan’s body on the floor.
Rufus struggled manfully not to smile. “Everything has its limits.”
They all jumped as the cell’s enunciator buzzed and Captain Aynish’s voice called out, Captain to Lady Mavra. Forgive me for interrupting your recreation, but your counterpart wishes to speak to you, Milady.
“Oh, fragg,” Leeza muttered. She cleared her throat and activated the enunciator, trying to match Chan’s raspier tones, “Put her through, Captain.”
Are you all right, Milady?
“Fine,” Leeza growled. “Put her through.” She motioned for Terinu, who had finished de-clawing his evil twin, to let Rufus and Matt pull the other Ferin to his feet and all start moving out into the corridor.
Chan to Chan. Launching are you? Where the Hell do you think you’re going with my Mouse?
Oh, I’ll bet you’re burning about that one, Leeza thought. It was comforting to know that there was no love lost between the two pirate sat least.
Answer me, you fragging…
Terinu hopped up to the enunciator and said sweetly, “Sorry, that was Leeza. I’m right here, Chan.”
Mouse! What’s happening over there? Where is my twin?
The boy grinned ferally. “She can’t come to the comm right now. She’s havin’ a bit of a lie down after my twin decided top change bosses.”
You’re not going to get away from me, Mouse, Mavra growled
“You haven’t caught me yet, Chan, and you’re never gonna. Stew on that for a while.” Terinu killed the enunciator and turned to Leeza, “We’d better get out of here. I’ll clear the way.”
“Was that wise to taunt her like that?” Leeza asked, pulling Terinu’s twin to his feet with the help of Rufus’ brother.
“Maybe not, but it was sweet t’ do,” the boy replied. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
* * *
Mavra fought the urge to slam her fist through some piece of expensive equipment, as her ears burned from her Mouse’s insult and the tactics room crew very carefully avoided looking in her eyes. Instead she turned to Aynish and demanded, “Can we follow them?”
“Launch prep will be complete in less than two minutes, Lady Chan,” he reported. “We’d probably be able to catch her, given the amount of damage her ship has suffered, but then we’d risk being caught in one place while we effected a boarding action.” He motioned towards the tactics room’s display. At the very edge of the screen were a series of blips, coming from several directions and all vectoring towards Bolt Hole.
“My sister’s fleet. Fragg!” She slammed her fist down on the console in front of her. “That tears it, we’re bugging out. I am not going to let us be caught here when she gets the upper hand in firepower. Plot a course back to the gravity anomaly and prepare to transit it. This universe has just become too unprofitable to remain.”
She sat back in her station chair as the Marauder’s crew ran through their launch checks. For a moment, she wondered if Mouse’s little kiss-off to her meant that her sister was dead, or merely disabled.
Does it matter?
Nah.
* * *
“Captain, the two target vessels have launched from Bolt Hole and appear to be heading out-system,” the Suhayar’s sensor officer reported.
“Frell,” Blake muttered, as the tracks appeared in the main display. “That drug snorting Vulp moron sold us out. Weapons Officer, reset the missiles to track the target vessels directly.”
“Aye, Captain,” he said, then reported, “the missiles are only going to be able to catch up with one of the ships, ma’am.”
“Which one?”
“Our universe’s Marauder, Captain.”
“We could try to intercept it instead,” her XO suggested carefully. “It’s separated from the other pirate and we’d outnumber it 2 to 1.”
“I am not putting any more marines at risk with a boarding action,” she said. “Besides, we’ve got pirates crawling in from all directions to hook up with her and the other Chan. No, we’re going to take that ship out quickly, cleanly and not leaving so much as a dust mote behind.”
“What about the other Marauder, Captain?”
“It’s going beyond our range and it never was our original target. As much as I’d like to kill it for what they did to the Wilson, we’ve got to be pragmatic here.”
Her XO’s voice went strangely dry. “Of course, Captain.”
* * *
Getting forward from the Marauder’s brig to the shuttle bay was proving to be an exercise in speed and sheer aggressiveness on the part of Terinu, Rufus reflected. The young Ferin was cheerily working off a week’s worth of anger and frustration on every pirate that had the poor luck to get in the boy’s way. So far, none of them even had a chance to sound out the alarm before Terinu’s bion blasts and good old fashioned head knocking took them out. It helped that between the original attack on the ship and the subsequent failed marine assault that her crew had been diminished by a fair amount, leaving few idlers to wander the corridors.
“How much further do you think?” Rufus’ brother asked. He was doing his best to shoulder the burden of the other Terinu with Matthew’s help, while holding a pistol liberated from a pirate who no longer had use for it in his other hand.
“One more corridor, behind this hatch, and we’re home free,” Terinu told him. “Get ready to open it, Blake.”
“Okay, Teri,” she placed her hand on the control panel, getting ready to open it.
That was when the ship’s announcement system blared an emergency bleat and a male Galen voice called out, All hands, alert stations! The prisoners in the ship’s brig have escaped and have killed Lady Mavra! All hands to your stations! Guards are to be doubled at all critical point. All hatches and emergency bulkhead seals are to be locked down!
“Fragg it! Get through!” Terinu shouted, throwing open the hatch itself. He leaped into the corridor, where four guards stood at the open doorway leading to the shuttle bay. Terinu’s bion blast struck the first pirate squarely in the chest, sending him flying into the bay. Rufus pulled Teri’s unconscious twin through the first hatch, Leeza, Matt and his own brother following. Behind them, the hatch began cranking shut automatically, as was the door in front of them.
“Terinu! The hatch!” Rufus shouted, trying to get a clear shot at the remaining pirates. The Ferin dodged a punch from one of the pirates, his tail wrapping around the legs of another and pulling him off his feet to crash in a heap on the ground.
“No!” Rufus’ brother shouted, then let go of his load, running forward before Rufus could grab him. Terinu, busy with the remaining two pirates, was unable to stop him as the Vulpine slid through the door, nearly half-shut.
“You cowardly…!” Rufus began to shout, as his brother punched at the hatch controls. The door kept rolling shut. Only Terinu was in any position to slip through before it would close and latch, trapping Leeza, Rufus and Terinu’s twin in the corridor.
His brother slammed at the hatch override one more time, then gave Rufus a desperate look. Then as Rufus watched in dawning horror he seemed to come to some sort of decision. With careful precision, as Terinu finished off the last pirate, his brother jammed his upper right arm in the narrow alcove where the door would have closed and latched itself, and then pressed his hand into a large hole, meant to grab the one of the opposite magnetic latches that would have sealed the door and their doom. He let out a pained cry as the hatch continued to roll forward to the sound of crunching hand and wrist bones, before it stopped. Though the door’s electric motors continued to whine in protest, it was jammed open by the most brutal of brute force methods that Rufus could imagine.
“Just don’t stand there gawking!” his brother shouted. “Get through, for the love of the Holy Den Mother get through!”
“Oh, by the Goddess,” Rufus mutter softly, as he and Leeza quickly dragged Terinu’s twin forward, shoving him under his brother’s arm and then slipping underneath and into the shuttle bay along with Terinu and Matt. His brother’s White Knight and Leeza’s Sniper were right there, waiting for them to escape. “Leeza, get that bloo-- get the hatch back open! Hurry!”
“I… I don’t… think… there’s…” his brother gasped, then let out a pained howl as his arm began to visibly bend as the door moved again. There was a horrible, deep noted crack and for a split second Rufus could see the splintered remains of his brother’s forearm ripping through his uniform jacket, before the hatch rammed shut.
His brother’s eyes were wide and his mouth agape in pain and surprise, but no breath came though his lips. For one horrible moment Rufus thought the crushing shock of the door had killed his brother outright, but after a long moment he drew in a shuddering breath, as Rufus’ companions could only stare on in silent horror at the bloody scene. His brother’s right arm and shoulder had trapped in the hatch’s alcove, crushing it completely and pinning him down.
Leeza let out a gasp then moved over to the control panel, until Rufus grabbed her arm. “No, we can’t open it now,” he told her.
“Are you fraggin’ nuts? We can’t leave him there!” Terinu shouted.
“He’s… he’s right…” his brother gasped. “I’d just… ahhh! …bleed to death.”
“We aren’t leaving you behind!” Leeza told him.
He shook his head. “You don’t… have a choice! Go!”
“Leeza,” Rufus said softly, taking his brother’s good hand, “get Matt, Terinu and his twin into the White Knight. It’ll be desperately tight, but it will only be a for a short flight. You can blast open the bay doors with her guns and escape.”
His brother shook his head wildly. “No, no! You’ve all got to get away!”
“I am not going to let you die alone, brother. Not like this.”
“No! You must get away! All of you! Everyone! Or I’ll have failed… and it won’t mean anything!”
Leeza glanced at Terinu, biting her lip. “We’re all leaving,” she said.
Matt looked pale. “Miss Leeza, even if you get the hatch open, he’d bleed to death in a couple of seconds. I’ve seen it happen, when some poor fella got caught underneath a falling strut and they lifted it away.”
“He won’t bleed to death if the wound is cauterized,” she said.
“How are we supposed t’ fraggin’ do…” Terinu started to ask, then went pale. “No! No way, Blake!”
“You can do it, Terinu,” she told him. “You’ve got enough control over your bion that you can cut away his arm and cauterize the wound cleanly. If we try to use an energy pistol we could kill him.”
“You can’t ask me t’ do that, Blake!”
“Whatever… you’re going to do… please be quick,” Rufus’ brother said. His feet went out from under him and Rufus had to grab him before he fell and yanked what was left of his shoulder out from under the door. “Missiles are coming in… and I doubt… Captain Blake is going to let… this ship get away…”
Rufus kept his grip on his brother’s hand, watching as a slow trickle of blood seeped from under the seam of the door. “Terinu, please. It’s the only way.”
“Fragg!” Terinu bit down on his lip, then placed hand over point where the Vulpine’s shoulder met the door. He took a deep breath and his hand began to glow as the bion gathered, the energy flowing out from him and into the terrible wound. Rufus’ brother let out sharp, pained cry, then his eyes rolled up into his head and he fell away form the door, unconscious. Where his arm and shoulder had been there was only smoking, smoldering flesh now, rising up from his body with a smell that made Rufus gag.
“It’s done, now we must be going. Help me load Matthew and my brother into the Knight’s passenger seat,” Rufus said, throwing his brother over his shoulder. For one moment of awful humor he thought, Well, at least he’s lighter than when I carried him out of that brothel.
“Can you fly with your fingers mangled like that?” Leeza asked.
“I’ll manage. Now we must hurry!”
It some agonizing minutes, but they managed to stuff Terinu and his twin in the side seat of the Sniper and Matt and Rufus’ brother in the back of the White Knight. Rufus quickly powered up his brother’s fighter, thankful he’d fixed up into fighting trim before dragging the poor fellow into this maddening adventure. “Are you ready to go, Leeza?”
Ready.
“Then here we go.” Rufus flipped the weapons lock on the Knight’s chin guns from NAV to WAR then touched the trigger lightly. Lines of red fire sprang from the fighter’s metaphorical fangs, blasting through the doors of the hanger bay. He fired a quick burst from the retro-thrusters to keep the little ship from flying uncontrolled through the damaged doors as the atmosphere blew out through the hole, then eased her forward through the opened, opening up the thrust as soon as he was clear. “Max power to your rear shields, Leeza, in case they fire on us we leave!”
“Gotcha!” Her fighter eased through the opening and then quckly flew away, matching vectors with Rufus. “Do you think they’ll turn and go after…” The comm channel screeched in his ear as a bright light lit up space behind him.
“Leeza! Leeza, are you all right!” He pivoted the White Knight on her axis in the direction of the Celestial Marauder, only to see a field of glowing, shattered debris.
We’re okay, Ru, she said, sounding shook up as her fighter reappeared on his sensors, the interference from the blast fading. I guess your brother wasn’t kidding about the nuclear missiles.
“I suppose not,” he agreed. He turned the fighter around again, tapping in a course towards the last position of the Suhayar. “Come on, Leeza. Let’s go home.”
Aye.
To Be Concluded
Previous Entries:
Part One
Part Two
Part Three
Part Four
From her small box in the cell bay, now subdivided to accommodate her new roommates, Leeza watched as two guards dragged Rufus back to his cell, directly across from hers and next to the one Matthew occupied. They threw him in, the Vulpine dropping to the steel floor with a thump, and closed the door. Only after they were gone did he let out a low moan, clutching his stomach, one hand tucked under his opposite arm.
“Rufus, are you all right?” she asked, while Matt looked at him with alarm through the transparent wall of his cell. “What did they do to you?”
“I’m fine…” he replied, breathing deeply and keeping his eyes closed. “They tried some interrogation drugs on me, trying to get me to tell them what I knew about Captain Blake’s attack plans. Fortunately, they didn’t have anything compatible with Vulpine biochemistry. Gave me a terribly sour stomach though.”
“Is that all?” Matt asked.
“Er, no.” Rufus held out his right hand. Leeza winced as she saw three of his fingers had been broken, bent backwards at a painful, unnatural angle. “I sincerely hope nobody asks me to fly anything more complicated than a paper airplane any time soon,” he said. “Actually, I’m not sure I could manage that much if I had to fold it myself.”
Leeza kicked the heavy composite door in front of her. “There has to be a way out of here. Lance and my twin must be working on some kind of rescue plan.”
“I’m certain of that dear.” Rufus smiled in hope, though he kept his eyes shut and slumped a little closer to the floor.
The cell bay door opened again. Leeza looked over in surprise as the guards dragged a second Vulpine inside, wearing an achingly familiar green and gold flight uniform. They dumped his body into the remaining cell next to her’s, slamming the door shut. Then he rolled over, giving Rufus a cheery wave.
“By the Holy Den Mother, what are you doing here?” Rufus demanded, then out a moan and clutched his stomach again.
“Oh, didn’t you realize?” his twin answered with a maddening giggle. “I’m your daring rescue.”
“You’re our what?” Rufus demanded.
“Rescue. Daring,” his twin repeated, grinning like an idiot. “You know, dramatic escape, maybe a sword fight or two, a kiss from your lady vixen at the end. Don’t worry, everything is going to plan. Well, my plan, at least. Presumably Captain Blake’s plan has been scuppered, I hope. If not, things might get a trifle hairy if we don’t move quickly.”
“Why is that?” Leeza asked. She felt the deck plating underneath her shiver, along with a hum increasing in pitch as the Marauder’s engines spindled up.
“Ah, apparently not,” Rufus’ twin said, glancing in the direction of the engine room. “No doubt Lady Mavra has decided to vacate the premises, what with the nuclear missiles and everything.”
Leeza blinked, opened her mouth to say something, closed it, then after careful consideration started again. “What nuclear missiles?”
“The ones your counterpart is launching at Bolt Hole. Five of them, with neutron warheads, right at the space port. Which strikes me as overkill to an extreme, but I gather she’s not a very happy captain right now.”
With his good hand, Rufus rubbed his forehead, looking as if he had a terrible headache coming on. “And how, dare I ask, does Mavra Chan know about these missiles?”
“Oh, I told her.”
“What!”
“It’s all part of my clever plan. I came to her, with a lovely case of the shakes and crying that Captain Blake had tossed me from her vessel after that horrible fiasco of a rescue attempt, and begged to be made part of her pirate crew, imparting what I knew about Captain Blake’s plan of attack. I figured it was the best way to get close to all of you to affect a rescue.”
The thin, careworn Vulpine was sporting a wide grin on his face as he related this. Leeza couldn’t decide whether he was overwhelmed by his own supposed cleverness or had just gone completely ‘round the bend. “Minor problem. You’re in here, not the crew quarters.”
“Ah, there is that.” Rufus’ twin grabbed his own tail and ran his fingers through it, pulling out a small electronic device. “Electronic lock pick, small enough to be hidden in my tail. Only another Vulpine would think to look there.” He pressed it against the frame of his cell and Leeza heard a loud click as the magnetic bolts pulled back. With an effort, he pressed his paws against the smooth surface of the cell door and pushed back into its alcove far enough to slip out. The effort, mixed with the fact that he still appeared to coming down off of some pharmaceutical high, left him breathless. After a moment he regained his strength and opened Matt’s cell, pulling it open more easily with the boy’s help.
He turned towards Rufus’ own cell door when the hatch the cell bay opened unexpectedly. Both he and Matt froze in place as one of the guards that had brought Rufus’ twin inside side stepped in, a strange expression on his face. Then the pirate toppled forward to land in a heap on the deck, the hilt of Terinu’s short sword sticking out of his lower back. He was followed by a smirking Mavra Chan, Terinu’s twin, and Terinu himself. The latter was bound with heavy electronic manacles at his wrists, ankles, and even one that kept his lashing tail in place with a short cable that connected to his inhibitor collar.
“Mouse, if you would?” Mavra said. Terinu’s twin smiled, his spurs glowing. A short blast of bion struck Rufus’ twin, dropping him to the floor with a cry. “Honestly, I’m not sure who was more of an idiot, my guards for not checking that Vulpine’s fluffy tail, or him for not thinking that I’d keep a bug running in my cell bay to monitor what my prisoners are saying.”
“Back in yer cell, Matt,” Terinu’s twin said, motioning to the human boy.
“Belay that,” Mavra said, leaning against the bulkhead, arms crossed, with studied casualness.
“Yer letting him go?” Terinu’s twin asked, looking both surprised and pleased.
“Of course not, Townsend is a traitor, attempted deserter and has no one who could pay a decent ransom for him anyway. That and I don’t think I care for the idea of your loyalties being divided, Terinu.” She smiled slightly. “Kill him.”
“What?” All of the arrogance dropped out of the Ferin boy’s face as he heard her order. “Lady Chan, he ain’t worth…”
“Be quiet.” Mavra stood away from the wall, taking hold of the boy’s shoulders and leaning her face close to his. “Listen to me, Mouse. You are going to turn around. You are going to grab your best friend Matt by the throat. Then you are going to power up that wonderful bion of yours and blast his head off, just like you did to Brooks. That is an order.”
“I… I…” Stiffly, like a malfunctioning robot, Terinu’s twin turned around, Leeza and the others watching in mute horror as he faced Matt. “Milady, please.”
Mavra’s voice was low, silky and dangerous. “You don’t have choice, Ferin. Your entire race were made to be slaves and you must obey your Master. This one lesson you will always remember. You have no free will, save which I allow.”
“Teri?” Matt asked, his eyes wide.
“Stupid… stupid… Why couldn’t you have just listened to me?” Terinu’s twin asked him desperately, grabbing hold of the boy by his throat. A mass of bion, crackling like ball lightning, began to form between his spurs and run down his arms towards Matt.
“Stop it!” Terinu shouted, trying to rush forward to grab his twin, tripping over his restraints and landing on his knees. “You don’t have to do it!”
“He can’t help it. You know that,” Mavra mocked.
“Listen!” Terinu shouted at his twin, as bion touched Matt’s throat and the human boy let out a choked scream. “You’re always gonna have a Master, but you can choose who they are!”
His twin froze and the terrible, his hands dropping away from Matt’s throat. Then the Ferin boy dropped to his knees, clutching his head and letting out a cry.
“It’s a lie, Mouse. You can’t fight what you are,” Mavra told him, smiling down on his agony.
Finally he looked up at her, a weird, fey gleam in his eyes. “Yeah,” he breathed, “I can!” The pirate barely had time to grab the hilt of her shortsword before Terinu’s twin leaped on top of her, toppling her to the ground. “You want my power? Have all you can take!”
Leeza ducked down and shielded her eyes, as the boy began glow, his bion power filling him, before it poured out between his spurs like a plasma torch, striking Mavra in the center of her face. The pirate lord didn’t even have time to scream before her decapitated body dropped to the deck.
There was a long moment of silence, as Terinu’s twin curled up into a pained ball from the effort of expending so much bion and fighting his conditioning. After a moment it was broken by Rufus’ brother, who lifted his head off the floor and said calmly, “Ah, that’s why everyone is so keen to grab the lad.”
Leeza stuffed her hand in her mouth, fighting off a hysterical giggle. Regaining control she called out, “Matt, are you all right?”
The blond haired boy nodded, clearing his throat painfully. “I’ll be okay,” he rasped. He picked up the lock pick off the floor and pressed against the lock for Rufus’ and Leeza’s cells, then Terinu’s restraints. The boy rubbed his scalp gratefully as his spurs rose up from his head for the first time in a week.
“What now, do you think?” Rufus asked as he helped his brother up from the floor, the latter making bleary reassurances that he could walk on his own.
“Get Terinu’s inhibitor collar and restraints on his twin and then see if we can make our way to the ship’s shuttle bay and see if our Sniper is still there to fly.”
“I saw it there when I landed my fighter,” Rufus’ brother answered, standing up. “We could take all six of us if a couple of people don’t mind sitting in another passenger’s lap.”
“Right, lemme just finish with this,” Terinu said, as he finished connecting his unresisting twin’s restraints. Then he pulled his short sword from his twin’s belt and methodically began prying the implanted razors from his twin’s tail, leaving behind a bloody hunk of skin and exposed muscle.
“Teri! What are you doing?” Leeza demanded.
“Even with his tail cuffed, I ain’t havin’ him in my lap with those fragging things in his spade.”
Leeza frowned, but she couldn’t argue with the boy’s dreadful logic. Still, she turned to Matt and asked, “Are you all right with that?”
“I… I guess,” he said, wincing as another blood-covered tail razor dropped to the floor. “I… would it sound strange to you, if I told you I pity him? I mean, I know… I know he hurt me. But he wasn’t always like you saw him. Not always.”
“One shouldn’t just give up on anyone,” Rufus said gravely. “The ability to feel compassion for one’s, er, antagonists marks the difference between a civilized being and a mere sociopath.”
“Do we have to feel sorry for her, too?” his brother asked, gesturing to Chan’s body on the floor.
Rufus struggled manfully not to smile. “Everything has its limits.”
They all jumped as the cell’s enunciator buzzed and Captain Aynish’s voice called out, Captain to Lady Mavra. Forgive me for interrupting your recreation, but your counterpart wishes to speak to you, Milady.
“Oh, fragg,” Leeza muttered. She cleared her throat and activated the enunciator, trying to match Chan’s raspier tones, “Put her through, Captain.”
Are you all right, Milady?
“Fine,” Leeza growled. “Put her through.” She motioned for Terinu, who had finished de-clawing his evil twin, to let Rufus and Matt pull the other Ferin to his feet and all start moving out into the corridor.
Chan to Chan. Launching are you? Where the Hell do you think you’re going with my Mouse?
Oh, I’ll bet you’re burning about that one, Leeza thought. It was comforting to know that there was no love lost between the two pirate sat least.
Answer me, you fragging…
Terinu hopped up to the enunciator and said sweetly, “Sorry, that was Leeza. I’m right here, Chan.”
Mouse! What’s happening over there? Where is my twin?
The boy grinned ferally. “She can’t come to the comm right now. She’s havin’ a bit of a lie down after my twin decided top change bosses.”
You’re not going to get away from me, Mouse, Mavra growled
“You haven’t caught me yet, Chan, and you’re never gonna. Stew on that for a while.” Terinu killed the enunciator and turned to Leeza, “We’d better get out of here. I’ll clear the way.”
“Was that wise to taunt her like that?” Leeza asked, pulling Terinu’s twin to his feet with the help of Rufus’ brother.
“Maybe not, but it was sweet t’ do,” the boy replied. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
* * *
Mavra fought the urge to slam her fist through some piece of expensive equipment, as her ears burned from her Mouse’s insult and the tactics room crew very carefully avoided looking in her eyes. Instead she turned to Aynish and demanded, “Can we follow them?”
“Launch prep will be complete in less than two minutes, Lady Chan,” he reported. “We’d probably be able to catch her, given the amount of damage her ship has suffered, but then we’d risk being caught in one place while we effected a boarding action.” He motioned towards the tactics room’s display. At the very edge of the screen were a series of blips, coming from several directions and all vectoring towards Bolt Hole.
“My sister’s fleet. Fragg!” She slammed her fist down on the console in front of her. “That tears it, we’re bugging out. I am not going to let us be caught here when she gets the upper hand in firepower. Plot a course back to the gravity anomaly and prepare to transit it. This universe has just become too unprofitable to remain.”
She sat back in her station chair as the Marauder’s crew ran through their launch checks. For a moment, she wondered if Mouse’s little kiss-off to her meant that her sister was dead, or merely disabled.
Does it matter?
Nah.
* * *
“Captain, the two target vessels have launched from Bolt Hole and appear to be heading out-system,” the Suhayar’s sensor officer reported.
“Frell,” Blake muttered, as the tracks appeared in the main display. “That drug snorting Vulp moron sold us out. Weapons Officer, reset the missiles to track the target vessels directly.”
“Aye, Captain,” he said, then reported, “the missiles are only going to be able to catch up with one of the ships, ma’am.”
“Which one?”
“Our universe’s Marauder, Captain.”
“We could try to intercept it instead,” her XO suggested carefully. “It’s separated from the other pirate and we’d outnumber it 2 to 1.”
“I am not putting any more marines at risk with a boarding action,” she said. “Besides, we’ve got pirates crawling in from all directions to hook up with her and the other Chan. No, we’re going to take that ship out quickly, cleanly and not leaving so much as a dust mote behind.”
“What about the other Marauder, Captain?”
“It’s going beyond our range and it never was our original target. As much as I’d like to kill it for what they did to the Wilson, we’ve got to be pragmatic here.”
Her XO’s voice went strangely dry. “Of course, Captain.”
* * *
Getting forward from the Marauder’s brig to the shuttle bay was proving to be an exercise in speed and sheer aggressiveness on the part of Terinu, Rufus reflected. The young Ferin was cheerily working off a week’s worth of anger and frustration on every pirate that had the poor luck to get in the boy’s way. So far, none of them even had a chance to sound out the alarm before Terinu’s bion blasts and good old fashioned head knocking took them out. It helped that between the original attack on the ship and the subsequent failed marine assault that her crew had been diminished by a fair amount, leaving few idlers to wander the corridors.
“How much further do you think?” Rufus’ brother asked. He was doing his best to shoulder the burden of the other Terinu with Matthew’s help, while holding a pistol liberated from a pirate who no longer had use for it in his other hand.
“One more corridor, behind this hatch, and we’re home free,” Terinu told him. “Get ready to open it, Blake.”
“Okay, Teri,” she placed her hand on the control panel, getting ready to open it.
That was when the ship’s announcement system blared an emergency bleat and a male Galen voice called out, All hands, alert stations! The prisoners in the ship’s brig have escaped and have killed Lady Mavra! All hands to your stations! Guards are to be doubled at all critical point. All hatches and emergency bulkhead seals are to be locked down!
“Fragg it! Get through!” Terinu shouted, throwing open the hatch itself. He leaped into the corridor, where four guards stood at the open doorway leading to the shuttle bay. Terinu’s bion blast struck the first pirate squarely in the chest, sending him flying into the bay. Rufus pulled Teri’s unconscious twin through the first hatch, Leeza, Matt and his own brother following. Behind them, the hatch began cranking shut automatically, as was the door in front of them.
“Terinu! The hatch!” Rufus shouted, trying to get a clear shot at the remaining pirates. The Ferin dodged a punch from one of the pirates, his tail wrapping around the legs of another and pulling him off his feet to crash in a heap on the ground.
“No!” Rufus’ brother shouted, then let go of his load, running forward before Rufus could grab him. Terinu, busy with the remaining two pirates, was unable to stop him as the Vulpine slid through the door, nearly half-shut.
“You cowardly…!” Rufus began to shout, as his brother punched at the hatch controls. The door kept rolling shut. Only Terinu was in any position to slip through before it would close and latch, trapping Leeza, Rufus and Terinu’s twin in the corridor.
His brother slammed at the hatch override one more time, then gave Rufus a desperate look. Then as Rufus watched in dawning horror he seemed to come to some sort of decision. With careful precision, as Terinu finished off the last pirate, his brother jammed his upper right arm in the narrow alcove where the door would have closed and latched itself, and then pressed his hand into a large hole, meant to grab the one of the opposite magnetic latches that would have sealed the door and their doom. He let out a pained cry as the hatch continued to roll forward to the sound of crunching hand and wrist bones, before it stopped. Though the door’s electric motors continued to whine in protest, it was jammed open by the most brutal of brute force methods that Rufus could imagine.
“Just don’t stand there gawking!” his brother shouted. “Get through, for the love of the Holy Den Mother get through!”
“Oh, by the Goddess,” Rufus mutter softly, as he and Leeza quickly dragged Terinu’s twin forward, shoving him under his brother’s arm and then slipping underneath and into the shuttle bay along with Terinu and Matt. His brother’s White Knight and Leeza’s Sniper were right there, waiting for them to escape. “Leeza, get that bloo-- get the hatch back open! Hurry!”
“I… I don’t… think… there’s…” his brother gasped, then let out a pained howl as his arm began to visibly bend as the door moved again. There was a horrible, deep noted crack and for a split second Rufus could see the splintered remains of his brother’s forearm ripping through his uniform jacket, before the hatch rammed shut.
His brother’s eyes were wide and his mouth agape in pain and surprise, but no breath came though his lips. For one horrible moment Rufus thought the crushing shock of the door had killed his brother outright, but after a long moment he drew in a shuddering breath, as Rufus’ companions could only stare on in silent horror at the bloody scene. His brother’s right arm and shoulder had trapped in the hatch’s alcove, crushing it completely and pinning him down.
Leeza let out a gasp then moved over to the control panel, until Rufus grabbed her arm. “No, we can’t open it now,” he told her.
“Are you fraggin’ nuts? We can’t leave him there!” Terinu shouted.
“He’s… he’s right…” his brother gasped. “I’d just… ahhh! …bleed to death.”
“We aren’t leaving you behind!” Leeza told him.
He shook his head. “You don’t… have a choice! Go!”
“Leeza,” Rufus said softly, taking his brother’s good hand, “get Matt, Terinu and his twin into the White Knight. It’ll be desperately tight, but it will only be a for a short flight. You can blast open the bay doors with her guns and escape.”
His brother shook his head wildly. “No, no! You’ve all got to get away!”
“I am not going to let you die alone, brother. Not like this.”
“No! You must get away! All of you! Everyone! Or I’ll have failed… and it won’t mean anything!”
Leeza glanced at Terinu, biting her lip. “We’re all leaving,” she said.
Matt looked pale. “Miss Leeza, even if you get the hatch open, he’d bleed to death in a couple of seconds. I’ve seen it happen, when some poor fella got caught underneath a falling strut and they lifted it away.”
“He won’t bleed to death if the wound is cauterized,” she said.
“How are we supposed t’ fraggin’ do…” Terinu started to ask, then went pale. “No! No way, Blake!”
“You can do it, Terinu,” she told him. “You’ve got enough control over your bion that you can cut away his arm and cauterize the wound cleanly. If we try to use an energy pistol we could kill him.”
“You can’t ask me t’ do that, Blake!”
“Whatever… you’re going to do… please be quick,” Rufus’ brother said. His feet went out from under him and Rufus had to grab him before he fell and yanked what was left of his shoulder out from under the door. “Missiles are coming in… and I doubt… Captain Blake is going to let… this ship get away…”
Rufus kept his grip on his brother’s hand, watching as a slow trickle of blood seeped from under the seam of the door. “Terinu, please. It’s the only way.”
“Fragg!” Terinu bit down on his lip, then placed hand over point where the Vulpine’s shoulder met the door. He took a deep breath and his hand began to glow as the bion gathered, the energy flowing out from him and into the terrible wound. Rufus’ brother let out sharp, pained cry, then his eyes rolled up into his head and he fell away form the door, unconscious. Where his arm and shoulder had been there was only smoking, smoldering flesh now, rising up from his body with a smell that made Rufus gag.
“It’s done, now we must be going. Help me load Matthew and my brother into the Knight’s passenger seat,” Rufus said, throwing his brother over his shoulder. For one moment of awful humor he thought, Well, at least he’s lighter than when I carried him out of that brothel.
“Can you fly with your fingers mangled like that?” Leeza asked.
“I’ll manage. Now we must hurry!”
It some agonizing minutes, but they managed to stuff Terinu and his twin in the side seat of the Sniper and Matt and Rufus’ brother in the back of the White Knight. Rufus quickly powered up his brother’s fighter, thankful he’d fixed up into fighting trim before dragging the poor fellow into this maddening adventure. “Are you ready to go, Leeza?”
Ready.
“Then here we go.” Rufus flipped the weapons lock on the Knight’s chin guns from NAV to WAR then touched the trigger lightly. Lines of red fire sprang from the fighter’s metaphorical fangs, blasting through the doors of the hanger bay. He fired a quick burst from the retro-thrusters to keep the little ship from flying uncontrolled through the damaged doors as the atmosphere blew out through the hole, then eased her forward through the opened, opening up the thrust as soon as he was clear. “Max power to your rear shields, Leeza, in case they fire on us we leave!”
“Gotcha!” Her fighter eased through the opening and then quckly flew away, matching vectors with Rufus. “Do you think they’ll turn and go after…” The comm channel screeched in his ear as a bright light lit up space behind him.
“Leeza! Leeza, are you all right!” He pivoted the White Knight on her axis in the direction of the Celestial Marauder, only to see a field of glowing, shattered debris.
We’re okay, Ru, she said, sounding shook up as her fighter reappeared on his sensors, the interference from the blast fading. I guess your brother wasn’t kidding about the nuclear missiles.
“I suppose not,” he agreed. He turned the fighter around again, tapping in a course towards the last position of the Suhayar. “Come on, Leeza. Let’s go home.”
Aye.
To Be Concluded
