by C. F. Harris
"Up there," Kir said, nodding overhead.
I looked up and saw a strange turret snaking down from the ceiling. I didn't like anything that looked like a weapon. I didn't wait for him to tell me what it was. I pointed my weapon up and let loose with a few blasts.
Blasts that were followed by a couple of shots from Kir’s confiscated weapon. The lowering weapon exploded in a shower of sparks that rained down around us. A large chunk of metal landed next to me, and I was really glad I wasn't standing a foot to the right.
That would’ve hurt.
Kir moved to the other side of the power armor and leaned over a second plasma rifle that hung limply there. Now that the Klik wasn't moving Kir was able to work fast.
A moment later the rifle came loose with a hiss. He did the same magic he'd worked with the first one by flipping open a panel and ripping at something, and then he was dual wielding those plasma rifles as though they were pistols, even though they looked pretty fucking big and heavy.
Damn. A fluttering started in my stomach then went down between my legs as I stared at him holding those weapons. He looked like something straight out of a late twentieth century action movie poster with those big guns and the rippling muscles.
A girl could get used to watching her guy looking like that.
I blinked. My guy? Was I really thinking of him like that? Of course there’d been that impossible link across the stars. Not to mention the way he’d jumped at that Klik researcher in the bay trying to make an escape for us.
Maybe I really was falling for this strange alien, as crazy as that was.
"You ready to make some magic?" Kir asked.
"You know it!" I said.
He pointed his dual plasma rifles up into the stands and started firing indiscriminately. The shouts of anger and hisses that’d been raining down on us from above turned to what I imagined was the Klik equivalent of cries of terror.
I couldn't help but grin as I watch them running, and I raised my own weapon and fired. I fired for every human they'd ever captured. I fired for every human they'd ever prevented reaching for the stars because we were so afraid of what might be happening out there in the darkness where the Kliks lurked.
"This is fun and all,” I said. “But they're going to send guards in here any moment."
"You're right," Kir said. He turned the plasma rifles to one of the walls and fired a couple of times. There was a sound of a crashing and hissing screams from Kliks as dust rose up, and a moment later the dust cleared and there was an obvious ramp leading up into the arena proper.
I stared in astonishment. "Nice shooting!"
"I had a little practice in my last line of work,” he said.
"I know," I said. "Transporting cargo of dubious legality.”
"Actually it's transporting cargo that exists in a legally gray area," he replied. "But close enough."
I scrambled up the improvised rubble ramp he'd created and tried to ignore some of the squishier bits. I figured any Klik who was in this arena to watch the bloodsport deserved whatever was coming to them when the roles were reversed and theirs was the blood being spilled.
Finally we stood in the arena proper. I looked around and grinned. I never would’ve imagined I'd be up here.
Kir looked around with equal amounts of astonishment as he pulled himself up next to me. I could only imagine how this must feel for him. After all, he'd been captive for far longer than I had. Exactly how much longer was difficult to tell, but long enough that he seemed even more astonished than I felt.
“Finally," he breathed.
"You did a pretty good job back there," I said.
A familiar hiss brought me back to reality. It was all well and good to stand around talking about how great it was that we were about to escape, but it wouldn't help if we spent so much time talking about how we were about to escape that we allowed the bad guys to sneak up on us.
And sure enough the gate leading back to our cell was opening. Any moment Klik guards were going to start pouring out of there in their power armor, and something told me the guards would be a hell of a lot better at what they did than the scientist we’d just faced off against.
"We're about to have company," I said.
"We'll see about that," Kir replied.
He pointed his double plasma rifles down at one entrance and fired off a couple of shots. There was an explosion as he hit something under pressure in the bulkhead and then the whole thing crumbled. He turned and did the same to the other doors which were opening revealing the shadow of what I assumed to be Klik guards in power armor. There was no explosion with the second and third entrance, but the arena did go tumbling down on top of whatever was about to step out to ruin our day.
“There," he said. "That's not going to keep them away from us forever, but it should keep them away long enough for us to get hell out of here."
"Good thinking," I said.
"Not my first time trying to escape from the authorities," he said with a wink that was rather dashing if I did say so myself.
Damn. Was I really falling for this space pirate? Not only a space pirate, but a space pirate from an alien species I hadn't even known about before I was taken captive.
Still, he had the right look and it seemed so far that all the parts would connect correctly. Though I blushed at that thought.
I could worry about all that crap later. Right now I needed to focus on the business in front of me, and that included clearing out this area.
Most of the Kliks hadn't been smart enough to bring weapons, but there was always the chance that one of them was packing, and that wasn't a chance I was willing to take. I wasn't going to go back to captivity. They weren't going to take me alive.
"So how long were you going to hide that little toy from me?" Kir asked, laying into the Kliks with his double rifles.
I blushed. I'm sure my blaster materializing seemingly out of nowhere had come as a hell of a surprise to everyone. Including the Kliks who thought I was mostly harmless.
"Sorry about that," I said. "I was waiting for the opportune moment.”
“Well it was one hell of a surprise," Kir said. "Now let's get going!”
That sounded like a hell of a good idea to me. "What's the plan?”
"Actually I was hoping you had some plan for getting out of here," he said. "They took me captive on a planet, but I'm assuming since you were added recently we’re in space?"
I fired at a Klik spectator who was coming at us as though he was actually planning on launching an attack without any armor or weapons.
Brave. Stupid, but brave.
"We are in the middle of space," I said. "Or at least we were when I was taken captive. I have no way of knowing how long ago that was though. I was sort of lost track of time, but it couldn't have been long."
"Good," Kir said. "So we just find your ship and get out of here."
“Sounds good," I said. "I know some people who will be very interested in the information I've gathered on the Kliks. We might be able to bring the fight to them for a change, assuming everything I've been thinking about pans out."
I'd spent a good chunk of my captivity thinking about exactly how the Kliks had captured me and what I could do to stop them from capturing me again if I managed to break free.
I had a couple of ideas of what I could do, but they were just that: ideas. The only way to test them would be to escape this place and see how well things panned out once we were safe outside the Klik ship and firing on it.
"You get me to my ship and I can almost guarantee you we’ll be able to get out of here," I said.
“You can almost guarantee that?” he asked.
"Well there's no such thing as a sure thing in the galaxy," I said. "But I can get you as close to a sure thing as is possible."
"Got it," Kir said, hefting his dual plasma rifles with a look of grim determination that was so fucking hot. I didn't know why I was getting so hot and bothered looking at him, but I also knew that I enjoyed it and I wasn'
t going to stop letting myself enjoy it.
"Right then," I said, turning to blast another Klik who was getting a little too close for comfort. "Let's get the hell out of here!"
19
Kir
I stared in open mouthed astonishment at the beauty who was wielding that weapon with intent.
Every time a Klik got close she seemed to know they were there. She wheeled around and took care of them with her blaster. She didn't give them any chance to surrender. No, one moment they were moving in to make an ill-advised attack, and the next they were filled with holes
A woman that deadly, that beautiful, that ruthless, was someone I didn’t mind having at my side. I wouldn’t mind having her species on our side in the conflict with the Kliks, for that matter.
I might be nothing more than a pirate, but I was a pirate with a sense of duty to my people. For all that the powers that be with my people had thrown me to the Kliks. And I was going to make sure the Kliks got everything that was coming to them and then some.
If that meant having an odd ally in this woman and her strange warrior species then so be it.
We made our way up towards the exit, but I stopped at the last moment. Looked at a familiar glass room I'd stared at on more than one occasion when I was trapped in the arena fighting for my life.
"What are you waiting for?" Dalia asked.
I stared long and hard at the control room. I had an itch between my shoulder blades. It was a familiar feeling that told me there was something in there I needed to track down and hurt.
"Give me just a moment," I said.
I looked out to the massive gun hanging on an arm over the arena. Or rather the remains of that gun after Dalia had taken care of it. The same gun they’d used to kill that poor woman on the day I'd refused to participate in their ridiculous bloodsport.
I was going to show the person who wielded that weapon that there were consequences for what they'd done. And I was going to exact that justice now.
"We really don't have time for whatever this is," Dalia said.
My eyes narrowed and I frowned. "There's always time for this."
I moved to the control room door and knocked once politely. Just as I expected, there was no answer. The door didn't mysteriously slide open. Which was a damn shame. It would've been pretty damn funny if they had answered.
Still, if there was someone hiding in there then I needed to get them to come out and play. Being rude and not answering the door wasn’t going to stop me from doing what needed to be done.
“Stand back," I said.
"What are you…"
I brought up both weapons and fired at the door. At first it didn't give way. I shook my head, impressed. Whoever created this thing definitely didn’t want visitors, but that was tough shit.
The door started to turn red. Then it started to turn white-hot as I continued blasting. Finally with an explosion and a groan of twisting metal it flew back into the control room.
I smiled as I stepped inside. "Is there anyone in here who wants to come out and play?"
I looked over to the control panel and grinned. The senior researcher stood there. The one who’d been the architect of so much of my misery.
"Hello there old friend," I said.
Dalia stepped in behind me. "I don't know what the hell you…"
She trailed off as she realized who was in the room. Yeah, she knew exactly who we'd discovered, and she didn't look any happier at seeing him than I was. She raised her weapon and it crackled with the glow of a shot waiting to be fired.
I put a hand up and made her slowly lower the weapon, conscious of the fact that I didn't want to pull it down too fast lest she pull her trigger and send a shot blasting without aiming. That would be awkward and potentially painful.
I wanted pain for this asshole, but I wanted it to be pain that was carefully applied. I wanted to watch as the thing screeched in pain and thought about the error of its ways.
"What are you doing?" she asked. “This is the Klik who ran those experiments on us!"
"That it is," I said. "And that means I'm the one who gets to take the final shot on this one."
She glared, then finally nodded. This was my right. I was the one who'd been forced into the arena more times than I could count. I'd watched people killed because I refused to fight. No doubt it was this asshole of a Klik sitting up here in the control room who'd fired the shot that killed that poor woman.
I figured if this Klik had been that cruel where I could see it then he'd probably done equally sadistic things with other intelligent creatures he'd taken captive and forced into slavery and worse in the name of his precious research.
Now I had the ability to make sure that it never happened to anyone again. At least I could make sure this Klik never hurt anyone again, for all that it wasn’t going to solve the larger problems of the Kliks and their cruelty.
I didn’t need to fix the galaxy, though. Just my little corner of the galaxy.
I raised a confiscated weapon and fired. The Klik let out a scream as one of its legs was blasted off. The thing wasn't wearing power armor, so it was easy enough to take care of business.
“Sloppy shooting,” Dalia said. "I'm surprised that the great pirate has such bad aim.”
"Are you so sure it was a bad shot?" I asked.
I squeezed off another shot. Another one of the Klik’s legs disappeared. The Klik screamed out in pain again.
"Please," it warbled in that strange Klik voice that didn’t seem like it was quite designed for my language. Then it said something I didn't quite recognize.
"What was that?" I asked. It sounded almost like it was speaking in my language…
“Mercy…"
I laughed. This creature had a pair of danglies, for all that I was pretty sure the Kliks didn’t actually have that bit of anatomy, if it was willing to ask me for mercy after all the shit it’d pulled.
"You know that's funny," I said in the Klik language. "I didn't even know you assholes could understand the concept of mercy.”
“It’s asking for mercy?” Dalia asked.
“Yup,” I said. “And I think it says a lot about the Kliks that it has to switch to a different language to beg for mercy. Like they don’t even have the concept to put it in their own language.”
“Sounds about right,” Dalia growled.
"Mercy," the Klik said again.
Only I wasn't feeling inclined to show it mercy. Not after everything this bastard had put me, and no doubt plenty of others, through. So instead I raised my weapon and fired again. This time one of its clawed hands disappeared.
"Why should I show you mercy when you never showed any to my people?" I yelled.
I was starting to get good and pissed off. I had to make sure this Klik would never hurt anyone again. So I fired again. Another claw flew away.
"I have a feeling you've never showed mercy to any of the subjects you studied. Am I right?" I asked.
The Klik shivered as it tried to make itself as small as possible. Not that it was going to do the thing a damn bit of good. It looked up at me with one eyestalk, and that eyestalk shivered in a little bit of body language that I was pretty sure conveyed a deep and abiding hatred.
"Never," it hissed at me.
Well then. Apparently we'd gotten to the point in this little dance where the Klik realized it was running out of options and nothing was going to save it. I wondered how many times other thinking beings had fallen into this creature’s clutches and felt the same way.
It was a damn shame. I would've like the thing to have a few more moments of hope. A few more moments where it thought there was a chance I’d let it go after I had a bit of my cruel fun with it.
"I think we’re done here," I said. "What do you say Dalia? Do you want to give the Klik a last-minute reprieve? Let it go so it can reconsider the error of its ways?”
"Fuck no!" she said.
I shrugged and turned back to the Klik. I wasn’t sure how much of m
y body language it could read, for all that it was supposed to be an expert on aliens, but I acted like I was sad about what I had to do. Even if I was anything but.
"It looks like you're not going to get out of here after all. Sorry buddy," I said.
The Klik quivered again, but that was tough shit. I thought about all the people it’d tortured. I thought of the suffering I'd endured. I thought of all the intelligent creatures this thing had callously killed because it made for good “research.”
At least how the fucking Kliks defined research into alien species.
Thinking of all that made it very easy indeed to pull the trigger on both of those plasma rifles. I took out the thing’s eyestalks and remaining legs. The thing howled and wailed in pure pain, but that was more than it deserved.
"What are you doing?" she asked. “I get that you’re pissed off at the Kliks, but we really don’t have time for you to play with your torturer.”
I walked over to the Klik. Leaned down so I could be sure it would hear me. The thing was leaking that weird green goo that passed for blood on the things, and it was disgusting.
"You know I almost thought about sparing you," I said. "I had hopes about being better than you. About showing you there are species in this galaxy who are way better than you Klik scum.”
The Klik wiggled, and it let out a whimpering noise. Wiggling was all it could do now that I’d relieved it of its limbs and eyestalks. The thing was pitiful, but I didn’t have time for pity. I steeled myself by thinking of all the terror and suffering this bastard had caused. That helped me to stomach what I was about to do.
Not that I was a stranger to doing what needed to be done. No, my line of work meant you had to be hard sometimes. And those moments had prepared me for this.
"I thought about it, but then I realized if I spared you, even suffering like this, it would mean that your mind would still be out there in the galaxy. You’d still find a way to continue your research, and I can't take that chance."
I put the barrel of my plasma rifle against the Klik’s ass end where they kept their brains and squeezed a couple of times. There was a sizzling noise and the Klik finally stopped that pitiful vibrating and went still.
