by M. D. Cooper
“I feel like Nance,” Thompson said as he twisted in the thick, supple armor. It sported plates on the front and back of the torso, but the rest was a thick material, which would harden on impact and disperse the force of a shot. It could also nullify the effects of a pulse rifle and disperse the heat of a hand laser. The helmet had a HUD that interfaced with their internal Links to provide displays of everyone’s field of vision and status—not that Tanis needed such a crude interface.
They fastened their helmets and looked one another over.
Nance replied.
Tanis without worry.
Tanis sighed to herself. At least this part would be over soon. Once they were on their way to rescue Sera, she hoped Nance and Thompson would lay off the accusations.
The light above the inner hatch changed from red to green and the iris spun open to reveal an empty corridor. Everyone had their weapons leveled and Tanis double-checked the seal on her helmet. Chemical warfare was all too common in instances like this. The suits did not detect anything, but she wasn’t going to take any chances.
After planting a mine in the airlock, Tanis and Flaherty made their way fore to the bridge, while Cargo and Thompson went aft to the galley. While it was possible that the entire crew had done as directed, they were expecting to find at least one pirate holed up somewhere.
The bridge on the pirate ship was up four levels. Like Sabrina, or any ship expecting trouble, ladders were available for passage between the decks; no one wanted to take a lift down into a firefight.
Tanis sent her nano cloud ahead. It almost felt like cheating in this technologically backward time, but not so much that she was willing to risk getting shot in the head on a point of honor.
The tiny bots reported the next level clear and she slipped up the ladder, Flaherty was close behind, silent and serious as always. The next two decks were clear as well, but on the final level, her nano reported small sounds from the direction of the bridge.
Someone hadn’t followed orders.
Tanis crept up the ladder and sent a command to Flaherty to follow her, but hold near the ladder while she checked out the bridge. He nodded his assent and backed against a bulkhead in a low crouch, his eyes everywhere.
Conscious of how easily sound traveled in these ships, Tanis took careful steps, her pulse rifle slung low with her finger on the trigger. Her nano flushed into the bridge and her overlay brought up a clear view of the space. There was someone in there all right—a tall woman with long, dark hair and a long leather coat bent over a console.
Tanis stepped out into the hatchway and spoke calmly, her voice coming over a speaker on the suit. “Raise your hands slowly and then turn around.”
The woman complied, raised her arms and slowly turned. Even before she saw the other woman’s face, Tanis’s image recognition systems made the identification.
“Sera?”
“You were expecting the Easter Bunny?” Sera smiled, her dark eyes dancing with mirth.
“What are you doing here?” Tanis asked.
“Thanking my lucky stars you weren’t someone intent on blowing this ship to pieces. I had a few minutes of serious worry until Helen cracked that fake ident and we realized it was you guys.”
“How did you get away from Rebecca?” Tanis asked. Sera was a far more resourceful woman than she had expected.
“Skill and cunning, but that’s a long story. The whole crew here?”
“Thompson and Cargo are below, checking on the crew,” Flaherty said from the hatchway behind Tanis.
He slipped past Tanis and stepped into the bridge to embrace Sera in a quick hug. “You gave me a bit of a worry there. I don’t like you going off on your own.”
Sera laughed. “I don’t either. It’s not like it was my idea.”
“Did you get it?” he asked.
Sera nodded and stretched her foot out to tap a container the size of a personal luggage case on the floor near her.
“All in a day’s work,” Sera replied.
Tanis’s IFF systems scanned Sera and showed the woman to be a mass of wounds and trauma.
“Was that a voluntary alteration?” Tanis asked, pointing at Sera’s exposed glossy skin.
Sera’s face reddened. “I was always a bit jealous of Rebecca’s outfits, so I tried one on. The crazy bitch booby trapped it, so this is my new skin for now.”
“You’d fit right in with Jessica, one of my team on the Intrepid,” Tanis said with a smile. “If you can’t get squared away before we get there, our docs could fix you up without trouble.
“Not sure I want to be fixed—I think I rather like it,” Sera said with a mischievous grin.
“Now you really remind me of Jessica.”
“Maybe we should discuss mods and fashion later,” Flaherty said. “We still have a ship to secure.”
“That we do.” Sera picked up the mysterious case in one hand and pulse rifle in the other. “Compliment on this ship is twelve. Angela just informed me there are only nine in the galley, so we’ve got some fun ahead of us.” Sera suddenly stopped and turned to face Tanis.
“What did you do to my ship?” she asked with eyes wide.
“Angela shared that tidbit, did she?” Tanis replied with a smile.
“You added ten offensive beams and rail guns? Where’d you get the money?”
“We sold some nano to S&H,” Tanis said with a shrug.
Sera turned to Flaherty. “And you let her do this? It could destabilize the regional economy.”
“It’s alright,” Flaherty replied. “The stuff she sold them is not replicable with their current levels of technology. They don’t have the ability to produce the nano-sized stasis fields without the Casimir effect collapsing their containment. It’s essentially useless.”
Tanis was dumbfounded. How did Flaherty understand that, let alone know it was a required component of the technology she had sold S&H. Sera saw her confusion?
“I’ll explain later, once we deal with these pirates and set a course for Bollam’s World and the Intrepid.”
Sera sent a broad message on Sabrina’s ship-wide net.
A chorus of voices cried out Sera’s name before a round of expletives and questions flooded the comm.
“Flaherty,” Sera directed, “cover the hatch. They may make a break for Sabrina and it’ll be a good place to corner them.”
Flaherty nodded and left the bridge. Tanis couldn’t even hear him as he slid down the ladder.
“How does he move so quietly?” she asked.
“Honestly? I have no idea,” Sera replied. “Helen usually has to use probes to hide my ruckus—though not anymore, I guess.” With that, she threw off her long coat and slipped out of the bridge in her whisper-silent skin.
Tanis and Sera checked the two cabins on that level, which appeared to belong to the captain and the first mate—both empty. On the next level, the rest of the crew cabins also checked out.
“You have no idea how good it is to hear that again,” Sera said aloud to Tanis.
“You have no idea how good it is to hear them say it.”
Sera cocked an eyebrow. “They hold together ok?”
“Better than a lot of other crews I’ve seen when their leader is captured,” Tanis replied as they slid down a ladder.
“Good to know I trained them well.”
Trained, Tanis added that to the long list of mysteries surrounding Sera.
The two women reached the freight deck, with Angela coordinating probe coverage as they searched for signs of the missing crewmembers. The search turned up nothing and they proceeded down the ladder to environmental.
Just as their feet touched the deck plate, the life support equipment wound to a halt.
Environmental was clear and they worked their way aft toward waste reclamation and engineering.
Tanis pivoted and peered over her cover. The motion shifted the deck plate beneath her and gave a low groan. Moments later the waves from a pulse rifle tore through the air over her head. She ducked and Sera rose from cover, firing shots at the attacker.
He ducked down before the waves reached him. Tanis tossed Sera a conspiratorial smile, before slipping out from behind her cover into the next row of tanks, sneaking toward the enemy’s location.
As Tanis moved, Sera supplied cover fire, keeping their opponent pinned.
Tanis crept within two meters of the last tank at the end of the row. She steadied herself for a second, and then, in one swift motion, leapt over the tank, twisted mid-air, and landed a meter from their attacker—weapon leveled at his head.
“End of the road, bub.”
His back was to her, peering around the other side while trying to get an angle on Sera. He turned slowly, lowering his rifle with one hand, while raising the other.
<’End of the road, bub’?> Sera asked.
A half-second before his weapon reached the deck, a series of shots rang out over the waste reclamation equipment, and Tanis heard Sera let loose a string of curses. The man in front of Tanis took advantage of her momentary distraction to raise his weapon and fire a shot off. It struck her square in the chest, flinging her back against the bulkhead. She squeezed off two shots after she hit, but the man had already ducked out of view.
Tanis saw Sera pull two slug throwers from holsters on her legs and let loose a volley of her own, the bullets ricocheting off the tanks across the room. Tanis used the distraction to launch herself from her position against the wall. She leapt onto a tank and fell upon the man on the other side.
While not exceptionally graceful, it had the advantage of total surprise. He had been peering back around the tank, his weapon pointed to where she had been. Her elbow slammed into his stomach and she drove a knee into his crotch before smashing the butt of her rifle against the back of his head.
Tanis crept along her side of the room, and then moved even with Sera’s position.
Tanis saw one of Sera’s shots catch a man at the end of the room in the shoulder. He spun sideways but still managed to fire a few bullets in Tanis’s direction. She responded with a series of blasts from her pulse rifle, all missing, but it was enough to force him behind cover.
Tanis replied as she swapped out her rifle’s energy coil.
Sera and Tanis worked their way closer together and then down to the location of the man Sera had clipped. When they got there, they saw that he had cracked his head on the tank and was out cold.
Tanis shook her head.
Shots rang out from their right as they stared down at the fallen pirate. One hit Tanis’s chest armor and she swore as the impact caused her to stagger.
Sera dashed down the row of tanks, throwing caution to the wind and Tanis saw her boot lash out, sending
a weapon flying. A second kick elicited the soft crunch of breaking bone. There was a third kick as Tanis reached her, weapon at the ready.
The man on the floor was down with a long gash across his face, as he rocked side to side, moaning and clutching his chest.
“Last one, then?” Sera asked out loud.
“Should be. Nine and three is twelve last time I checked.”
“Good, all that cat and mouse stuff was starting to get on my nerves. I want a hot meal and a bath.”
“Do you even need baths now?” Tanis smiled.
“Probably not, but I’m going to take one anyway,” Sera groused.
Tanis laughed, but her voice caught at a familiar sound from behind them. Angela cried out a warning, but it wasn’t fast enough. The high-pitched whine of a rail weapon echoed through the chamber and Tanis felt a stinging sensation in her chest.
Sera had both of her handguns out, shots ringing from each as she fired at a figure racing past a nearby tank. A shot hit him in the side and he staggered forward, then fell to his knees. Sera kept shooting as she advanced, the man collapsed, his body twitching as Sera emptied her clips into him.
“Aww hell,” Tanis said in a strained voice, catching herself against a tank. She wheezed as Sera turned, her face a mask of horror, and rushed back.
“You’ll be okay. We’ll get you patched up in no time,” Sera caught Tanis as she slid down the tank and pulled her up into her arms.
Tanis looked up at Sera and tried to speak. No words came out, but she tried to sound jovial over the Link.
Sera grimaced, pulling Tanis close, and, calling on some untapped reserve of strength, heaved her up and stumbled toward the closest lift. Tanis was wheezing more than breathing and knew that in any moment she’d go into convulsions. The armor was trying to seal the wound to stop the blood from flowing out, but couldn’t deal with the massive hole the rail gun had torn through Tanis’s chest.
