“Dylan, what just happened? We’re dead in the water!” Johanna demanded, her face reddened. She turned to her sister.
“We’re sitting ducks,” Samantha shook her head. “Dylan, kindly get your ass in gear and get Johanna some power to the engines. Pretty please? I can work around our problem with the weapons. I’ll simply have to go down and operate the phase cannon manually. But we’ll be blown to smithereens if you don’t get Johanna what she needs,” Samantha shouted, above the whine of the red alert klaxons that Lucy had enabled.
“Oh, goody. Look who decided to join the party,” Samantha quipped, panting, she ran over to the weapons cabinet and threw hand pistols at Tyler and Johanna. “Just in case the shields go down, and we risk being boarded!”
Samantha watched to make sure that Johanna put the second gun in the holster beneath her arm. Samantha reached for a phase rifle comfortably placing it beneath her arm.
“What the hell is going on here?” Veronica growled.
Ross hadn’t uttered one word though he did have a thoughtful expression on his face.
“Oh, man! Oh no! Oh, shit!!!” they heard Dylan cry out.
Seconds later, a long and loud explosion ripped through engineering. Tremors rocked The Excalibur. Caught off balance Samantha swayed to the side and slammed against Tyler. She didn’t know when he’d come up behind her, but come to think of it, she didn’t care.
“DYLAN!!!” Johanna screamed. Right at that moment, piloting control returned.
Johanna went into a long dive as she tried to shake the large pirate ship that had taken such a liking to them.
Right now, Samantha really hated pirates. Tyler smiled at her, and then pushed her wayward wisp of hair behind her ear. He winked at her, and then turned to run toward engineering. Ross blew a kiss at Veronica and lumbered after Tyler.
She didn’t know why Ross had gone down to engineering. She just hoped there would be enough room for all of them once Ross arrived.
“Dylan?” Johanna questioned.
Her face had lost most of its colour. Samantha wanted to comfort her, but at the moment she didn’t have the time. If she didn’t get the weapons up and going, they’d be goners for sure.
Besides, Dylan had been in explosions before. He could really move that butt of his when push came to shove. He’d be okay. She didn’t have any bad feelings about him. But if she didn’t do something, they wouldn’t have to worry about Dylan, because they’d all be dead.
She raced down to the belly of the ship and leapt into the gun cannon chair. Strapping herself in, she reached for the phase cannon and moved it into targeting position. Breathing deeply, she tried to focus some of her abilities on keeping them alive. A purple glow circled her hands. She could do this!
“I’m fine!” Dylan’s hoarse voice streamed out through the ship’s intercom. He fell silent and then went into a long jag of coughing. Obviously, he was trying to clear the burning smoke from his lungs. “We got a shit load of problems though.”
Samantha pursed her lips and finally managed to hit one of the pirate ships though for the life of her she couldn’t manage to shake the bogey on her tail.
Why couldn’t her powers work for her when she wanted them to? They were on the fritz again. Why couldn’t she be more like Charlotte?
Grunting, she focused her concentration and blew up another ship gunning for them.
“Do they ever give up?” She was thrown forward in her chair, as the ship was rocked by another blast. If she hadn’t been belted in, she would have been on the floor. She turned her head as Veronica came running toward her and settled into the seat behind hers.
“Samantha,” Veronica grunted, as she worked the cannon. “I would like to know why the handle of your cannon looks like it is covered in amethyst light but I’ll wait to ask you once we blow up all of these bastards!”
She sighed. She didn’t need Veronica knowing about her well-kept secret. She hated anyone realizing what she had the potential to become.
“Samantha, get out of there. You could be fried! You’re sitting in the most vulnerable spot of The Excalibur!” Johanna cried, fighting to control her breathing.
“Well, Big V is right here with me, we can get fried together.”
Veronica hooted triumphantly. She had managed to shoot down one of the smaller pirate ships that had been closing in on them.
“I don’t want to alarm anyone, but someone’s hacking into my systems!” Lucy cried out.
For being an AI, she sure did sound frightened.
Lucy’s bright purple hair flew out around her and her face was scrunched up in intense concentration. She seemed to be going through some unseen battle and she was waving her arms madly, as if to fight off an invisible opponent.
“Get out, you stupid asshole!” Lucy yelled.
She began to fade. She looked almost crazy with her frustration.
“That’s one of our many problems!” Dylan shouted. Lucy let out one last horrifying scream and disappeared from sight. “What happened? Lucy, are you there?” Samantha called.
In Lucy’s place a strange AI’s figure emerged. He was a thickly built man with black hair and he wore a black patch over one eye.
Samantha let her concentration wander. She stared angrily at the AI that had just invaded her ship.
“Oh, freaking hell! Dylan, Lucy is gone. And the guy that’s come to dinner, wasn’t an invited guest,” she screamed.
She was jostled forward yet again as The Excalibur was rocked by a particularly strong blast.
The pirate ship that had been following them so closely, now attempted to latch onto them so they would be able to board them.
“My day just can’t get any worse,” Samantha concluded.
And then it did.
Chapter Twelve
“Prepare to be boarded!” the male Artificial Intelligence said. His holographic projection gradually became clearer. Now, he almost seemed lifelike.
“Here’s an idea. Why don’t you go straight to hell,” Samantha growled. She jumped out of her chair and quickly clambered up the ladder that led onto the bridge. “I’m going down to give our friends a welcome they will never forget!”
Johanna leapt out of her chair and followed her. Samantha stopped and gaped at her.
“What’s your problem?” Johanna demanded.
Samantha stared at her as if she had grown another appendage, waiting for an explanation.
“I can’t do anything either. Lucy is gone. Remember? And that lame brain has taken over our controls. I can’t be of any use anyway. And, besides you’re going to need me to watch your back.”
Veronica fell into step beside them and then abruptly turned away from them.
“Well, where the hell does Veronica think she’s going? I wonder,” Johanna remarked.
They ran down to where the boarding party would soon be streaming through. They were fully armed and prepared for battle. If she’d had more time, she would have set up a booby trap for the pirates. But sadly enough, beggars couldn’t be choosers.
They settled themselves behind some titanium crates in the cargo bay. Samantha crouched down. Aiming her phase pistol, she rested her finger on the trigger.
“Make sure that the settings are on optimal stun,” she advised.
Johanna gave her an ‘I’m not that stupid look,’ and then began entering the necessary numeric sequence.
“I hate this part!” Johanna complained. She knelt into the same position Samantha employed. “Why didn’t they just blow us up?” Johanna asked, turning to level her gaze at Samantha.
She stared at Johanna considering her question. She knew that other New Monaco ships had been destroyed, and as far as the pirates were concerned they were in the same category.
So why hadn’t they attacked them ruthlessly until they had been destroyed? And then Samantha nearly vomited when she finally comprehended the reason.
“Oh, well. Don’t they have balls of steel!” Samantha muttered.
&
nbsp; Johanna glanced at her again, nervously chewing on her lower lip.
“Think about it, Johanna. The Excalibur is a beautiful ship. In its day, it was a luxury liner. What do you think that they might want to do to us?”
Johanna stared dumbly at her, for a few seconds. Her face fell as recognition dawned.
“They want to commandeer our vessel and add The Excalibur to their fleet,” Johanna concluded.
Fear crept into her voice, and her eyes looked as if they were going to fall right out of her head.
“Yeah, and as far as I’m concerned they can take a one-way ticket to hell!” No one was going to get her ship. Who the hell did they think they were?
Her phase rifle whined with its charge, just as the door to the cargo bay blew apart.
Chapter Thirteen
“This is it!” Samantha tensed. She locked gazes with her sister and winked at her. “When was the last time I told you that I loved you?” she asked. The acrid smoke from the explosion was quickly clearing, and her head felt as if it were going to explode.
“Don’t you be getting sentimental on me now, Samantha!” Johanna warned. “If you got sentimental under normal circumstances I wouldn’t be so worried. But you only get sentimental when you’re feeling desperate!” Johanna’s hand trembled slightly causing her phase rifle to move just a bit.
“You’ll get us out of this jam, you always do. And, you’ve got me to kick you in your big butt if you don’t!” Johanna remarked grinning. Johanna stared back at Samantha and stuck her tongue out at her. “You can tell me that I’m the best sister in the whole wide world while we are locking these goons in the brig.”
The smoke completely cleared making their line of fire completely unhindered.
“Hey, Jo. How’s about we show them the love?” Samantha asked. “I wouldn’t want for them to feel neglected.”
She reached for a disorientation grenade from her belt and threw it at the numerous pirates that charged through the gaping hole.
They fell to the floor completely knocked out. She quickly reached for another grenade, until she realized that she was all out. Why hadn’t she made sure that the weapons locker on the bridge had been better stocked?
She was slipping, that’s for sure.
“Uh, Jo. I think that we’ve got a wee bit of a problem. You don’t happen to be packing, do you?”
Johanna hit one of the pirate’s dead on, and he went slamming against a bulkhead and slumped to the floor.
“Do I look as if I’m PACKING?” she shouted. “You are packing more than guns, Sam! Now would be the time for you to do some freaky shit!”
Three more pirates came howling into Excalibur, and Johanna turned her attention away from Samantha. She blasted each of them in turn not missing once.
“Well, like you said, I am packing but you know as well as I know that that ammo isn’t really the reliable kind. I could blow us up along with the pirates!”
Samantha’s face fell straight down to the floor, as she considered how well the odds were stacked against them. “Oh, well, guess we are going to have to use these assholes for target practice,” she murmured.
Her ears rang and her eyes stung. Gunfire blasted out around them, and her eyes darted back and forth. She was getting a headache trying to keep up with all of it. She was so tempted to draw on the fire inside of her… but when she used to practice with Charlotte, she was always the one that had the unfortunate effect of actually making things go boom.
Charlotte was able to protect herself, Johanna couldn’t. Her ability to make things explode hadn’t been effected by distancing herself from Devlin, but she wouldn’t gamble with Johanna’s life!
Samantha was worried. She had never been this worried before in her entire life. But she was so worried that she could see her life flashing before her eyes. Things didn’t look good.
They had pirates on their ship. They had never been invaded before and as soon as she hit one pirate there was another to step in and fill his space. They were like soldier ants. No matter how hard you tried, they still kept coming back to attempt another infestation.
Samantha had run up against a few pirates in her time, but that had usually been a scenario where she had held the upper hand. They now had control of her ship’s computer, and they definitely outnumbered her crew. Yep, things were really going down the old shit pot.
“Johanna, duck!!!”
A ticking grenade landed on the floor behind them. She closed her eyes, expecting it to explode, but it didn’t.
“Jo, cover me!” she cried out, above the din of the gunfire.
She crawled across the floor for the curious looking grenade. Samantha had never seen one that looked like it before and there was a strange red light beeping on it.
Feeling a shiver go up her spine, she managed to get back to her previous position. She immediately flung it back toward the pirates not expecting it to explode. But as soon as it hit the ground it exploded, causing her stomach to lurch sickeningly.
Johanna and she were thrown back toward the door with the impact. At the last moment, an amethyst hue sparkled in front of them, taking the brunt of the explosion. Stunned, Samantha sat there shaking her head for a few moments.
“Holy crap!” Her ears rang loudly and her voice sounded as if it were miles away. “That most definitely wasn’t a disorientation grenade, it was a freaking bomb! I think I did something though… just like you wanted me too! Aren’t you proud of your little sis?”
“What did you say?” Johanna asked loudly, putting her hand up to her ear.
“Nothing!” Samantha mouthed, gesturing for them to make a hasty retreat back through the door and into the main part of the ship.
They’d done all they could do at the moment. Since they were both stunned, she didn’t want to risk taking the pirates on in hand-to-hand combat. Besides, after that blast, she wasn’t even sure if any of them has survived. But more would come. Dread continued to coil in her stomach. Her heart raced.
They rushed to bolt it manually. They certainly couldn’t rely on their computer systems to do it for them. They’d been damn lucky that The Excalibur had been reinforced with the hardest alloy known to humankind, or they would’ve been sucked out into the unrelenting coldness of space.
Samantha panted, trying desperately to catch her breath. Bending over, she leaned her elbows on her thighs. She could still hear gunfire and she knew the door would hold for only a short while.
She felt exhausted. Whatever she’d done to erect that shield had taken a good chunk of energy out of her.
They needed to do something quickly before they found themselves facing the unthinkable. She patted her sister on her shoulder and furrowed her brow when she noticed that Johanna was favouring her left leg.
“It’s nothing,” Johanna rasped, gasping for breath. “God, I could drink a gallon of water!” she murmured, wiping the sweat from her brow.
Tyler came limping back toward them, from engineering, and held his pistol as if he was ready to do some heavy damage. His eyes filled with relief when he saw that they were still in one piece.
“We heard an explosion all the way down in engineering. Dylan told me to hightail back here. He’s managed to slightly gain some leverage against that damn AI, and says Lucy is still fighting him. I’d wager that it’s only a matter of time before we have full control of our ship.”
“Yes, but that still doesn’t take care of the boarding party that is trying desperately to knock down our door,” Samantha retorted.
Tyler ambled over to her and stood in front of her, resting his hand on her shoulder. He looked at Johanna and her.
“Are you sure the two of you are unharmed?” his voice had become soft and he briefly touched the side of Samantha’s soot covered face.
“We’re both fine. Though Johanna seems to be a bit deaf at the moment. No worries though, I’ve lost my hearing briefly before and it came back.” She tried to sound optimistic, but she still worried about Johanna. “
Have you seen Veronica and her husband?”
They made their way to the bridge as fast as they could, considering the fact both Tyler and Johanna nursed injuries.
The door to the bridge was also reinforced, as was the door to engineering, so at the moment Dylan would be safe. Samantha planned on taking them back to the bridge and making their last stand there if need be.
She licked her dry and cracked lips, and smiled when Tyler produced a bottle of water from the bag that he’d slung over his shoulder.
“Dylan gave me this. He also said there were some new gadgets inside of it that you may find helpful though he specifically instructed me to not touch any one of them. He said I’m butter fingers when it comes to such things. Honestly, my brother sure can get on my last nerve,” he joked, carefully watching Johanna, who seemed about ready to drop.
“Johanna,” Samantha asked worriedly, pressing the water into her hand. “Drink this,” she instructed. Johanna’s shoulders continued to slump and she seemed paler than usual.
“Thanks!” Johanna rasped. “I really needed that.”
They burst onto the bridge, nearly colliding with each other in their haste.
“I’ll be fine,” Johanna murmured, and at Samantha’s expression of doubt, she pressed her sister’s hand and stressed, “Really.”
“Get off of my bridge!” the male AI commanded indignantly. He crackled into existence and pointed angrily at them.
“Oh, why don’t you shove it where the sun doesn’t shine!” Samantha suggested.
She turned to shut the bridge door. And began heaving and groaning. Budging the heavy thing was proving more difficult than she had originally thought.
Another explosion rolled through the ship. She gulped, suddenly realizing they had a very slim chance of emerging from this battle still standing.
“Here let me help,” Tyler offered.
Her body tensed, as he brushed against hers and put his strength into assisting her.
She stood there mesmerized for a moment. She marveled at how capable he could be when they were in a bind. Affection surged in her heart, and then her more sensible side, reminded her that it was no time to get moony. Besides which, he had abandoned her.
Reckless Bounty (Intergalactic Justice Book 1) Page 11
