The Terran Privateer

by Glynn Stewart

  “I would go this far for any of my crew,” she snapped. “And if the nonhumans aren’t with the human crew, you’d better believe I will rip this station apart to find them.”

  There was some kind of communication between Tellaki and his fellows, and then the Rekiki awkwardly sank to one knee facing her.

  “Honored Captain Annette Bond, if you would have this vassal’s fealty, I would return to Tornado and take up service with you,” he said calmly. “My fellows would join me in this.”

  “You said you could only offer fealty to a Rekiki,” she replied. She didn’t have time for this, but Tellaki’s dozen well-armed, experienced troopers could make the difference between life or death for her crew.

  “If you will fight for the least as few would fight for the greatest, then you may as well be Rekiki,” the reptilian alien told her.

  #

  “Wait, the Captain did what?” James demanded of the Sergeant leading the Captain’s protective detail.

  “Put a Crew twit who told us not to go after our people on the ground with his own gun,” the woman replied with a satisfied tone. “We’re following the bouncing ball, with the Rekiki backing us up. See you at the rendezvous.”

  “Will do,” he confirmed breezily before dropping the channel and looking around at his companions, cataloging his assets and liabilities. His Troop Captains were no slouches, easily capable of carrying their weight in a firefight. His boyfriend, however, was a naval officer.

  “Can you shoot, Pat?” he asked quietly.

  “I qualify,” the cruiser’s XO confirmed. “I’m even armed, thank you, but I’m probably not the best fit for an all-out assault on an enemy position.”

  “Wasn’t planning on bringing you on that part,” James admitted with a chuckle as he leaned back in his chair. The gesture might look casual, but it also allowed him to get a clear line of sight at one of the Kanzi aliens watching the exits. “Skipper said there was backup on its way, but these guys are getting antsy,” he noted. “They may move before our crocodilian friends arrive.”

  “What are you thinking?” Sherman asked.

  “If Pat is armed…” James glanced around. “We’re all armed. I do not care about these bastards. I want to get to our crew—and if we don’t move pretty quickly, we may not catch up to the Captain in time to back her up.”

  He bared in his teeth in what someone very unfamiliar with humans might have called a smile.

  “I have a plan.”

  #

  The plan started with Sherman and James wobbling their way out of the bar, incoherently singing the same song…about three beats and two octaves out from each other. They gave a wonderful impression of being utterly drunk.

  Out of the corner of his eye, James could see the Kanzi closing in on them. He’d identified six outside the restaurant, and four were now sweeping toward him and Sherman, clearly planning on taking them with the shotgun-like webbers as soon as they were out of sight of the restaurant.

  Once they started to close in, though, James intentionally fell against Sherman, engaging in a level of physical contact that would probably have got him punched out in any other circumstances. They leaned against each other, clearly holding each other up as the aliens closed.

  “Now?” she whispered in his ear.

  “Now,” he agreed.

  Drawing each other’s weapons, they shoved themselves apart, clearing lines of fire and opening up on several very surprised-looking little blue aliens. By the time the Kanzi realized anything was going on, James had taken one step to the side to be absolutely sure of a clear shot and opened fire.

  The first Kanzi went down instantly, a solid double-tap from the standard auto-pistol ripping his torso apart. The second in James’s zone managed to raise and even fire his webber—but rushed it, spraying the thick sticky strands across an inoffensive wall.

  The alien didn’t get a chance to fire a second shot as James’s second double-tap took his head apart.

  He didn’t check to see if Sherman had taken down her targets—if two one-hundred-and-fifty-centimeter aliens were a danger to the woman, she wouldn’t have made Troop Captain in the Special Space Service. There were at least two more Kanzi, and he needed to be sure the rest of his people were safe.

  As James hit the ground, taking cover behind a corner, however, there was a sharp exchange of gunfire that rapidly echoed away to silence. He tapped his communicator, linking to the earbuds for his translator.

  “Are we clear?”

  “Three hostiles,” Troop Captain Bousaid said calmly. “Neutralized.”

  He checked around the corner and surveyed the neat set of corpses where the aliens had rushed to back up their fellows—and run promptly into the prepared ambush of his Troop Captains.

  “All right,” he said crisply, gesturing his people to him. “We need to move.”

  “Major—looks like those friendlies finally arrived,” Sherman announced from behind him.

  James turned again and found a set of six Rekiki churning down the street at a disturbingly rapid pace. They came to a halt in front of him, their gazes flicking across the Kanzi bodies.

  “Apologies, Major,” the leader said through his translator. “We had further to go than we had thought—a passage we intended to use was blocked.”

  “We’re fine, but it looks like two of our shore parties were captured,” James told them. “Can you help us?”

  “We have decided to rejoin Honored Captain Bond’s crew, if she will have us,” the Rekiki replied. “We are with you all the way.”

  The Rekiki were in light body armor and packing submachine guns. His people were in utilities and carrying sidearms. He sighed.

  “We need to get the XO back to the ship,” he announced. “Guo, Bousaid,” he called his Alpha and Bravo Troop Captains over. “Escort the Commander back to Tornado and organize the Company to come after us if needed.”

  “Yes, sir,” the two officers chorused.

  James turned an apologetic gaze on his boyfriend, who shrugged and smiled.

  “I’ll be a lot more use there than getting in the middle of a firefight,” Kurzman reminded him. “Besides, the Captain needs someone on the bridge with the backbone to fire into this bucket of bolts if the Crew gets stroppy.” He gestured. “Go!”

  One quickly stolen kiss later, the commander of Tornado’s ground forces obeyed.

  Chapter 34

  The rendezvous waypoint Annette had set led her new collection of armed people deep into a section of Tortuga she hadn’t seen before. Ki!Tana was surprisingly familiar with everywhere in the station and led them confidently through and around the various corridors and twists that led into the temporary warehousing district.

  “What’s your ETA, James?” she asked Wellesley, checking to see if the collection of comms had moved. They hadn’t, but that didn’t mean that the units were still on her people.

  “We got held up and this place is a maze,” the Major admitted over the comms. “I can’t be sure, but I’m guessing at least ten more minutes.”

  Tornado’s Captain looked around her companions. Six Rekiki in body armor and carrying submachine guns; two Special Space Service troopers in body armor but only carrying sidearms; herself, unarmored but with a sidearm; and Ki!Tana, who she’d never seen wear armor of any kind and had produced a submachine gun from within her tentacles.

  Ten minutes would more than double her strength. Thirty would have two entire troops of the Special Space Service, thirty elite soldiers, backing her up.

  “I’m not even sure they’re still here now,” she admitted to Wellesley. “I can’t wait. We have to move.”

  There was a pregnant pause, then he sighed.

  “Listen to Sergeant Lin,” he told her. “Wei Lin has seen more close quarters combat than anyone else in my company. That’s why she’s your bodyguard.”

  “Understood,” Annette said flatly. “My unit is set to encrypted beacon. Follow me in.”

  “Will comply
. Good luck.”

  Nodding even though she knew Wellesley couldn’t see her, she drew her sidearm and checked the load. She hadn’t fired that many shots, but she switched to her spare magazine anyway. Better safe than sorry.

  “We’re going in,” she told the people with her. “Sergeant Lin.” She gestured to her bodyguard. “You’re in charge; you make the calls. But we’re going in and we’re going in now.”

  “Then we go,” the SSS Sergeant said calmly. “Captain, you’re in the back. Tellaki, you’re on point with me. Let’s move.”

  #

  There was almost no one in the open spaces in the warehousing district—people would presumably only come there when loading or offloading a ship—and the handful of beings that they did encounter rapidly cleared out of the way of an armed party on a clear warpath.

  The beacons on the communicators led them off the main thoroughfare into a dingier, clearly less well-maintained section of the district, and finally to a loading dock door that wouldn’t have looked out of place on Earth.

  “Can we open this?” Annette asked Ki!Tana as they approached it.

  “Of course.”

  “Everyone move back to cover her,” Lin ordered as the big A!Tol removed her communicator’s paper-like display and started checking into the door’s software. “If they’re smart, they’re waiting for us.”

  “They are smart,” Tellaki replied as he gestured for his people to obey. “They were not expecting others to intervene; they see great value in your people as stock and will protect them.”

  “Why us?” Annette asked.

  “Because you are new and exotic, and there are many wealthy Kanzi who will pay well for new and exotic slaves,” the Rekiki said simply.

  “Slaves still don’t make sense to me,” she noted.

  “In this case, it is about power and sex,” Tellaki said. “The Kanzi believe all bipeds but them were created to serve them. There is a section of their population—with many members in their leadership—that…”

  “Takes that in a very specific way,” Annette concluded. “I’m starting to really dislike them.”

  “You are hardly alone,” Ki!Tana replied. “The A!Tol Imperium are their deadly enemies, and slavers caught inside Imperial borders are sentenced to death if it can be proven.” She fluttered her manipulator tentacles toward the door. “I am ready. Shall we?”

  “Go,” Wei Lin snapped.

  The big docking door smoothly opened, sliding up into the roof without even a whisper of a sound. The space on the other side was smaller than Annette had expected, barely thirty meters wide and forty deep, and filled with crates and containers. An upper catwalk linked into a suspended second floor and two sets of stairs.

  Two Kanzi guarded the visible entrance to the second floor. Another six were working amongst the containers, checking numbers against a sheet of electronic flimsy. All of them looked up as the door opened—and went for weapons.

  The two guards were carrying rifles, probably slugthrowers but potentially plasma weapons. Annette quickly classed them as the key threat and opened fire at them.

  By the time her bullets slammed into the catwalk next to the closer guard, both of them were already going down. Wei Lin and the other SSS trooper had made the same assessment as Annette—and acted faster and more effectively.

  Annette hung back, trying to take stock of the situation and failing as the two troopers moved through the door. Their Rekiki backup had put down half of the Kanzi on the ground, but the remainder had managed to take cover and acquire their own weapons.

  Bullets cracked into the wall next to Annette and she dove forward for cover of her own. Leaving the Kanzi on the ground to the SSS troopers who were rapidly outflanking their position, she focused on the door the two more heavily armed aliens had been guarding.

  “With you, Captain,” Tellaki told her, clearly recognizing her intent. She glanced back to nod at him and then charged the stairs with two of the Rekiki right on her heels.

  Part of her mind noticed the last Kanzi on the ground throwing up its blue-furred arms in surrender as she charged up the stairs, but her priority was her crew—and the locator beacons said the communicators were in the second-floor office.

  She hit the door hard, throwing it open into the Kanzi behind it. He was thrown off-balance, but unlike any of the others they’d encountered so far today, this one had managed to put on part of a suit of powered armor. His head and legs were uncovered, but the breastplate, arms and gauntlets wrapped around his torso to protect him.

  An armored forearm slammed back into the door, crashing it shut behind Annette.

  “Who the hell are you?” the armored Kanzi demanded.

  “I’m the queen bitch whose crew you kidnapped,” Annette snapped, ramming her pistol into his face. His armored gauntlet grabbed the weapon in time to interpose his palm in front of the barrel, catching the bullet with an audible grunt as she fired.

  “The Crew will kill you for this,” he told her. “Attacking a warehouse without sanction? Whatever you wanted, your only chance of living through this is to surrender.” Somehow, the leer got across the species body-language barrier easily. “You’ll be valuable enough to keep alive, after all.”

  “I’ll deal with them later,” she said sweetly, flicking the pistol from slug to rocket rounds and firing again. He caught the bullet again, bared sharpened teeth at her, and then blinked in surprise when the rocket engine fired.

  It didn’t throw him off much—just enough for Annette to pump four more rounds into his unarmored head.

  #

  Moments later, the door came apart as Tellaki hit it with every ounce of force a four-hundred-kilo crocodile equivalent in full body armor could muster. He careened into the room, his submachine gun covering every corner of the utilitarian office until it came to rest level with the gory mess that had been a Kanzi.

  “Honored Captain, are you all right?” he demanded.

  Taking a deep breath and looking around the room, Annette nodded. Realizing that the Rekiki was unlikely to be able to read the gesture, she swallowed hard before speaking.

  “I’m fine,” she told him. “The communicators are…there.” Following the image on her communicator, she pointed at an assembly of storage cabinets. “Shit. Search the rest of the warehouse for our people.”

  Stepping over the blue-furred corpse, Annette ripped open the cabinet. A plastic bin on the bottom shelf spilled over when she grabbed it, scattering the scroll-like communication devices her people had been issued across the floor.

  The utilitarian office she stood in wouldn’t have been out of place in any warehousing district on Earth. Four plain metal desks with roll-up monitors designed to interface with portable computing devices. A small food counter with what would have been a coffee machine on Earth. An entire wall of storage cabinets, two exits back into the warehouse—and two doors leading into other sections of the suspended second floor.

  “Do you hear anything?” she asked Tellaki, gesturing toward the doors.

  “No.”

  “Right.” Annette paused, eyeing the doors. Presumably, if there were more Kanzi, they’d have emerged by now. If her people weren’t in the cargo containers on the main floor of the warehouse, they were up here—or had been moved already.

  “The Crew will likely be on their way,” the Rekiki told her. “We are short of time.”

  “Right,” she repeated. Picking a door at random, she shoved open the one closest to the entrance she’d come in. Instead of a set of offices or a bathroom, she found a small airlock-esque room—with an armory of unfamiliar weapons.

  “What are these?” she asked, gesturing.

  “Stunners and shock prods,” Tellaki replied instantly. “This has to be their holding area. It will be soundproofed—there may be more Kanzi inside who haven’t heard anything. I will go first.”

  Stepping back to cover him, Annette gestured for him to go ahead. The crocodilian alien stepped up to the inner door,
bracing himself on all four legs and then slammed a hand onto the panel next to the door. It whirred for a moment and then slid apart on smooth magnetic bearings.

  “Fuck you!” a female voice bellowed. “Fuck you all and the fucking horses you fucking rode in on!”

  An unfamiliar sound buzzed through the air and Tellaki winced, lurching back as the air around him shimmered like a warm day.

  Before whatever weapon was being used managed to cause actual damage, Annette charged into the open space next to the Rekiki.

  “Stand down!” she snapped.

  Thankfully, the naked young woman holding the stunner had seen Annette and jerked the weapon away.

  “Captain!”

  It took Annette a moment to place her: she was Sarah Amita, one of the engineering specialists who’d been assigned to Lieutenant Mosi’s prize crew. She’d ordered that prize crew to take one of the first shore leaves as a reward for their hard work.

  That was a decision she was starting to regret as she took in the full scene inside the holding cell. All of her missing crew were present—including the nonhumans, thankfully—but the humans had been stripped naked. All of them but Amita and Mosi were locked away in cages that covered the walls of the room. The single Kanzi in the room was also naked—and dead.

  Very dead, his eyes bulging out of his skull and Mosi’s hands still locked around his throat. The black officer’s naked body was covered in stab wounds where the Kanzi had repeatedly attacked her to try and save his own life.

  “She’s still alive, Captain,” the young specialist standing over her officer said desperately. “We’ve got to help her!”

  Annette looked at the young woman. She’d killed her attacker—and from the Kanzi’s state of undress, his intentions were disturbingly obvious—but Mosi had already passed out from loss of blood.

  “Tellaki. You have some kind of medkit, right?” she asked desperately.

  The alien had already starting unstrapping various supplies from within his armor but didn’t step past Annette as he met the survivors’ gaze.