by C. F. Harris
Maybe these assholes didn’t have the facilities to care for us because they didn’t care if they lost a few. That was an ominous thought.
I looked around the room for any way to get out of here, but I didn’t see anything. Damn it. I shouldn’t have been hanging around that control panel, but I also couldn’t think of a better time than in the middle of a raid when they were all distracted.
Distractions. I needed a distraction.
I banged my head lightly against the wall and thought about the alien captain. Vrath. That he was the captain hadn’t been much of a surprise.
If the ancient movies taught me anything, it was that the captain was always handsome and dashing. Even if he was the captain of a pirate ship. Though admittedly the thought of a captain pirate looming over me did set me to shivering.
I closed my eyes. Thought back to fighting with him between the ships. To the hardness pressing against me in the cell moments ago. The ghost of a smile played across my face. I wouldn’t mind a rematch with the good captain where we weren’t separated by vacuum suits.
It was a damn shame I couldn’t do anything more than think about it. That was the problem with being in a brig on a strange alien ship.
That didn’t mean I couldn’t think about the sort of fun we might have if he threw me into the brig and then came in to check on my situation. Oh yeah. The big powerful alien pirate and the helpless human who…
Noise from outside my cell brought me back to the real world. I frowned. I didn’t like being brought back to the real world.
It wasn’t nearly as fun as the world where I was indulging in the kind of fantasy that never happened in the real world. He was an alien who wouldn’t ever be interested in a human woman.
That kind of thing only happened in cheesy romances.
The noises coming from the other side of the bars sounded like the sort of thing that came from a very different sort of story. The not so fun kind where something bad happened to the humans sharing a ship with nasty aliens.
I heard the distinct sound of plasma sizzling through the air. I frowned. That wasn’t the sort of thing you wanted to do on a ship like this.
Hit the wrong thing and it could cause a chain reaction that ended with the ship blowing up around you. Hit a bulkhead that was facing the vacuum and it could suck all the air from a ship.
And I didn’t like that the plasma blasts were coming from outside the brig. I doubted that Captain Arnold and Dirk had worked up the courage to stand up to the aliens and try to make a daring escape.
There were a lot of words that could describe those two, but daring was not one of them. Which meant this was something else. Something unknown.
I didn’t like unknown. Had the Aegis Fleet arrived? That could be bad if the aliens decided to hold us hostage.
A loud bang reverberated through the brig as a plasma blast hit near the door. I jumped. I tried to peer out of the bars, but I couldn’t see anything aside from my guards.
Besides, I probably wouldn’t want to see what was going on out there. It couldn’t mean anything good for yours truly.
The doors opened. I could tell from the sound. Standard Shipyards stuff all sounded the same, though this door sounded like it hadn’t seen maintenance in some time. There was a bad rattle that would eventually end with the door coming off its track if someone didn’t get to it.
Odd for a pirate brig. I would’ve figured this thing got a lot more use considering the business they were in. The fact that they even had a dedicated brig spoke volumes. Most ships didn’t bother.
Something flashed outside the bars. One of my guards swore and ducked, but the second one wasn’t as lucky. A plasma blast slammed into him and sent him flying out of the sight in the other direction.
The second guard tried to return fire, but a plasma blast slammed into his head. He crumpled to the ground with smoke coming out of the various burnt out holes that’d been his eyes, ears, and nose moments ago.
Well then. There was something you didn’t see every day.
I felt like now would be a good time to take a couple of steps back into the cell. Yeah, I had a really strong feeling that whatever was waiting out there wasn't going to be anything good for me.
Words like “mutiny” were floating through my head. Okay, so maybe mutiny was the only word running through my head, but it was a pretty big word. It’s not like there was a huge chance another set of alien raiders would happen to be passing through and attack this ship, and the sound was all wrong on those blasters. They weren’t Terran.
I mean it was possible another group of Vosk raiders had come along. It’s just the odds against it happening were so vanishingly large that it gave me a headache to think about it, and I was pretty sure there weren’t any Standard Shipyards hulls that featured Infinite Improbability Drives.
I had a bad feeling that whoever was running a mutiny on this ship wasn’t going to be the kind of person who meant anything good for the humans who’d recently been added to this pleasure cruise.
Well shit.
A hulking dull golden shape appeared on the other side of the bars. Those alarm bells going off in the back of my head were getting louder and louder.
I was suddenly glad there were bars separating me and whoever the hell this asshole was. The guy leered at me and I felt dirty under that gaze instead of the fun fluttery butterfly feelings I got when Vrath gave me a once over.
“We’re going to have some fun with you little one,” the Vosk growled.
I took several more steps towards the back of the cell. It wasn’t very far considering the Standard Shipyards brig layout wasn’t exactly designed with prisoner comfort in mind, but it got me away from this Vosk.
Just a little. Just a little was all I needed right now.
The Vosk grabbed at the bars and gave them a good shake. I pressed against the wall, but it’s not like that wall was budging.
Shit. I wanted out of here, but I didn’t want someone opening the cell if it meant it was some hulking asshole trying to have his way with me.
He shook the bars again. Looked at them in confusion.
“How do you open these damn things?”
I blinked a couple of times. Was I actually going to be safe in here? I mean for certain definitions of the word safe, but this guy not being able to get in here with me was safe enough for now.
He looked up at me and growled. Raised his weapon.
“Let me in there now you bitch, or else.”
The tip of his plasma blaster glowed. I probably should’ve been terrified considering I’d just seen that thing fry one of my guards’ brains, but I wasn’t. I couldn’t help myself. I barked out a laugh.
“Seriously? If I could open those bars I wouldn’t be in here asshole,” I said.
That was only partly true. I’d definitely still be in here if I knew he was waiting on the other side of the bars, but now didn’t seem like the time to go around making new enemies.
The big guy growled and shook at the bars again, but they didn’t budge. Vrath had entered a code to keep me in here, and I figured without him to enter that code I was stuck in here until he came back.
Sure they might be able to get a tech to come in and take care of the issue if they got back to a spaceport. Or, more unsettling, if something happened to Vrath they might decide to leave me in here to rot.
The Vosk glared at me, though there was a lot more lasciviousness to that glare than I preferred from hulking aliens carrying a plasma blaster.
“We’ll get in there soon enough human,” he said. “Just as soon as we take the ship!”
Huh. So it was a mutiny. And it was a mutiny being run by people who meant nothing good for me.
Shit.
How had I gone from being a glorified mechanic to a prisoner in the space of an hour, and why, despite everything, did I still feel more excited than worried?
I suppose that excitement would last right up until the moment they figured out a way to get in thi
s cell.
I wondered where Vrath was, and if he was even thinking of coming down to rescue the nice human he’d thrown in the brig.
He probably had bigger problems right about now.
11
Vrath
I could tell something was wrong the moment I stepped into the command center. All the sensors were dark. None of the ship’s electronic eyes were reaching out into warp space to warn us of potential incoming.
That wasn’t the sort of thing you wanted to see when you were deep in enemy territory. This was the kind of situation that called for every sensor suite on the ship to be running as far out as they possibly could to make sure nothing was sneaking up on us.
“What’s going on here?”
Vlox turned to me, smiling a deeply unpleasant smile.
“Vrath,” he said, his grin never quite reaching his eyes. “I’m afraid we’ve had a change of plans on this trip. A change of plans that involves a change of command.”
Someone stepped up to me. He looked nervous. Everyone in the command center looked nervous. I didn’t recognize any of the usual crew, and I kicked myself for not realizing this wasn’t the usual crew when I stepped through the door.
Sure I recognized these men. They were always hanging around Vlox. Someting I’d noted and kept an eye on, but never truly worried about.
I was learning the folly of that too late. Though they were going to learn the folly of trying to take me on.
I wheeled around and brought my fist up. Slammed it against the one who’d approached me. He fell back and I wheeled around to see another face who had no business in the command center moving in on me.
I kicked him in the gut and he doubled over. These mutineer scum had made the mistake of tipping their hand too soon, and I was going to make them regret it.
I charged across the room and slammed into the stomach of a guy who was pulling out a plasma blaster. He dropped it with a cry of pain and I caught it. I leveled it at my other would-be attackers to make sure there’d be no other heroes in the room.
“Anyone else want to try anything?” I asked.
Vlox stared at me with pure fury, but he hadn’t been brave enough to do his dirty work himself so he could and stare all he wanted. It wasn’t going to stop me from doing what needed to be done.
I kept the blaster trained on my attackers and stepped over to an access panel. Tapped in a few codes that would lock anyone but yours truly out of essential systems unless they had my code.
The lights dimmed and then came back up as the computer ran through a subroutine I’d buried deep in the ship’s systems on the day I took her fair and square from the previous owner.
No one else had my codes. That was the point of having command codes. Not even Vlox could retake control of the ship without my help.
“You’re locked out Vlox,” I said. “Now tell me. Are there any members of the crew still loyal to me, or do I need to activate the destruct sequence now and do the humans’ work for them?”
“No need for that,” Vlox said. “Your friends are safe on the human ship. At least until I take control and blow them out of the stars. No salvage, but well worth it to get rid of the loyalists you always insist on taking with you on a raid.”
Damn. I’d never given a thought to asking the same men to come on the raids, but it was a hell of a security hole.
Vlox sneered. He tapped his own series of codes into a command panel. The lights dimmed again and came back up. Then they went down and were replaced by a pulsing red that made my balls retreat up into my body.
Those were the self-destruct warning lights. Vlox frowned. I frowned right along with him. That was the last thing any spacefarer wanted to see.
“What did you do Vlox?” I growled. “You couldn’t take the ship so now you’re going to kill all of us?”
“Clever,” Vlox said. “But trying to scare me with this fake display isn’t going to save you.”
My eyes narrowed. “What did you do Vlox?”
He smiled. A thin smile. A knowing smile. A smile that said he thought he was in control.
“I just ordered the computer to completely reformat with a little trick I learned about Standard Shipyards systems that aren’t updated. You really shouldn’t have vaporized our last IT guy, Vrath. It might take a little longer to get access, but when I do this ship is going to be mine.”
I blinked a couple of times. Was he serious?
“You can’t do that,” I said. “And we vaporized the last IT guy because he was skimming a percentage of all our take!”
“I can and I did!” Vlox sneered. “What’s the point of having a failsafe in the system if you never bother to patch any vulnerabilities!”
I looked down at the screen on my own panel. I hoped to see a friendly readout telling me everyone had been locked out of the system and it was waiting for the code to be input telling it daddy was home and it was safe to give me control of my ship again.
I saw a notification that everyone had been locked out of the system all right, but I also saw a notification that the auto destruct sequence had been activated and the computer was counting down.
We had one galactic standard hour to evacuate.
On the bright side I wouldn’t have to worry about the damned Aegis Fleet coming after me if I was converted to puffs of plasma floating in the void before they could reach us.
“You’re an idiot,” I said. “Whatever you did not only overrode my codes, but it also activated the destruct sequence!
The first inkling of something approaching genuine worry flitted across Vlox’s face. He was finally realizing he’d done something monumentally stupid in his quest to take the ship.
“If this is a trick…”
There was a threat in his voice, but it wasn’t much of a threat. Clearly he had no idea what he was doing playing with the computer’s guts. Clearly whatever exploit he’d been hoping to use to gain control of the ship’s computer had backfired spectacularly and now we were all locked out.
“Did you get this off of the Galactic Net where some criminal with a cruel sense of humor put a virus in with the exploit you asshole?” I asked. “Is that your great turn of hacking genius?”
“I… you lie!” Vlox spat, though I’d guess he’d been about to admit that he’d done just that.
The idiot.
“No trick Vlox,” I said, glancing at all the people in the command center. “You’ve just doomed this ship unless we can figure out a way to retake her.”
“Very well,” he growled.
I almost sighed in relief. If he was going to be reasonable then there was a chance we could figure out how to stop the autodestruct before it killed us all.
“Kill him,” Vlox said. “If I’m going to die out here then I at least want the pleasure of watching you go first.”
I pulled my sidearm. Plasma blasts ripped through the room, filling the air with its usual sizzle. The charged energy blasts didn’t exactly move at the speed of light, but that was only a problem in ship to ship combat when you were dealing with distances where the speed of light mattered.
Here in the cramped command center where the shortest distance between two spaces could be measured in mere steps? They were all dead before they had a chance to so much as touch me.
Those plasma blasts also slammed into the control panels in the CIC, which didn't do any wonders for them. Not that much worse could be done to the place with the self destruct on countdown and set to destroy us all.
If I managed to escape this situation Vlox had put us in I was going to throttle him to within an inch of his life, pull him back several inches away from that inch with the finest medical technology we had available on this ship, and then throttle him to within an inch of his life all over again.
Maybe that was a somewhat tortured metaphor, but it perfectly described how I felt about my mutinous second in command. I wanted to kill and maim, but I had to live long enough to do that killing and maiming.
Plas
ma bolts sizzled at me, and I ducked. Lucky for me Vlox had never been a good shot.
“This isn’t over Vrath!” he shouted. “I will kill you and take what is mine!”
I frowned. I wasn’t sure what he was on about. Did he honestly think he deserved my ship? Well if he thought that then he had another thing coming.
I didn’t intend to hang around here having a shootout in the cramped quarters though. I made for the door which obligingly opened for me. I rolled through and came up with my weapon leveled on an empty corridor. Nobody shooting at me was something. I’d take any luck I could get after the day I was having.
I fired a couple of shots at the locking panel to the command center. The thing sputtered and died, and I figured that would buy me some time with Vlox trapped in there. That was some luck too, though not much.
Besides, no matter what luck I had, there was still the glowing and pulsing red color letting me know it wouldn’t be long before the antimatter reactor went critical and everyone was reduced to so much atomic dust orbiting this star.
I moved down the corridor and stopped as a couple of Vlox’s men ran down a cross corridor. I thought for sure that one of them would see me, but they kept running. More interesting than that, they seemed excited about something. Which was totally the wrong reaction to being on a ship where the autodestruct had just been activated.
I knew I should’ve tried to connect with my crew on the Terran ship, but I found myself more curious about what they could possibly be so interested in that they were moving in such a hurry. And in a ship that was going to blow up all around them in less than an hour.
So against my better judgment I followed the mutineers deeper into the ship, careful to keep an eye both behind me and ahead so I didn’t accidentally get caught in a pincer.
I’d see what it was that had them so excited, then get back to the business of saving my ship or finding a working escape pod.
12
