by Dark Knight
Further up ahead in their route, captain Anit’za’s body floated, feet helplessly dangling in the air – he was being choked to death. Those slaves that he had so bravely freed were now cowering on the floor, terrified, as before them stood clad in armored robes, one tall, alien figure. Boris sighed again, this time slightly angered.
Yet another pitiful, foolish weakling stood in his way! This time the raging, evil thoughts were swirling around the idiot alien like a vortex of mediocrity that he foolhardily imagined to be true, telekinetic power. Those were always a sight to behold. Their idiotic red robes, clad with long iron chains made them look so... ludicrous. Yet they thought themselves mighty, intimidating even. Slave breakers of the clan Push’va, whatever meager telepathic talent those disgusting criminals occasionally had, was used to advance and improve their clan’s “trade”. Boris placed his wife’s feet gently on the ground and snapped his fingers, shining with star fire. That made the chains instantly heat, melt, and then explode in a fiery inferno, ripping his captain’s would-be murderer’s body apart.
Mediocre telepaths, the “breakers” were nevertheless very stubborn in following their hollow illusions of strength. One, and then two more, floated over the slaves, in a futile display of weak telekinetic skill. For him, concentrating through the constraints of those weak psychic nullifiers was but child’s play – certainly nothing compared to the hell that was the slave uranium mine he’d spent an entire decade toiling in. Another one of the now ever-present choir of horrid wails echoed in his mind, signifying that the souls locked within were enjoying themselves. He in fact, did not. Boris made a cross swath with both hands unleashing two more air blades yet this time one of the enemy telepaths survived and attacked back. Boris could feel how the clanner’s worthless powers were trying to crush him into the bulkhead nearby. The strength of that attack tickled, and in the end wounded but him slightly. His nose bled as he felt one of the smaller bones inside slightly move out of position.
Boris snarled.
The slaver telepath’s internal organs caught on fire.
Not surprisingly behind the idiot that was now rolling on the floor, burning to death came more enemies, and all of them were flying. What was this, a circus band made of floating telepathic clowns? He gathered that there were perhaps too many for a normal display of skill to defeat, even for him. At least ten of the breakers were now ready to attack and Boris was not going to unleash any of the locked souls to kill them – no matter how much they moaned and complained, the telepath needed them for later. He would also not risk the safety of his wife, Captain Anit’za, nor the lives of those battered slaves that they’d just saved. Instead, in his mind a tiny piece of time-space formed.
For a split moment there was a terrible coldness, a frigid shiver, sensed by all who were nearby and still alive.
And then came the strange, malignant uncertainty. It was a feeling deep within one’s DNA, whose strains began questioning the reality of their own bonds and structure. Terrans called it “Deja-vu” – when your very being felt that you were about to experience something, or perhaps had experienced that something before, and certainly could experience it again soon. It was confusing to the the body’s perception, being in close proximity to unsteady time-space. Within Boris’s mind a tiny, insignificantly small flake of hyperspace was displaced, moved and then pulled apart. Yesterday, today and tomorrow – the universe’s flesh trembled, vibrating slightly and folding all the slavers through the telepath’s powerful mind.
They all materialized inside the nearby walls and floor-plating, limbs still twitching and sticking out at unnatural angles, their faces mangled by the metal and stuck in horrid, permanent death-masks. Boris felt his mind drained off concentration and another drop of blood dripped down, this time from his left ear. The young telepath steeled himself – tis’ was but a scratch, nothing serious nor life threatening. But for the slavers and taz’arans who approached, Boris’s very presence was. He reached over and picked up the spare laser rifle that captain Anit’za had mag-locked on the back of his suit for exactly such an occasion.
His whole being shuddered as his hand touched the rifle – it was one of the weapons that they’d looted from Aleska star marines. Boris knelt and breathing heavily, fought with the overwhelming urge to cry, ultimately surrendering. The clanner who had last used this rifle had left little to nothing in the weapon, but the original owner had. A teenage girl by the name of Mikaela, who’d barely reached the age of thirteen had imprinted the rifle with all of her hopeful spirit, and he knew that she’d been fighting to the last shot and drop of blood. Mikaela’s final, defiant scream was encased in this firearm, and oh, what a fiery one it was. The Aleska never captured any of those colonists alive, not even the children, because they all shot themselves rather than bend a knee and surrender. Through the imprint, Boris witnessed that entire battle and his eyes wept tears of blood; each drop melted the floor-plating where it fell and his very steps began smoldering behind him as he moved forward. Boris raised the rifle and shouldered it securely, switching off its safety – the weapon remembered every shot fired and every hit that its owner had suffered before she fell on the ground dead. Surrounded on all sides and outmaneuvered, the colonists fought for their lives and certainly gave even the Aleska a run for their money. Yet they were a hastily armed civilian resistance band; not even a full militia unit, consisting of young teens and children like Mikaela. The pirate marines outclassed and outmatched them many times over and still the colonists had not surrendered.
Aleska claimed themselves to be “Proud star warriors”, and indeed this victory would cost them most dearly. He’d make sure of it personally, all of his connections and all the favors that multiple powerful characters owed him, Boris would use to teach them what a folly they’d committed. Had he known that those Aleska marines were responsible for such an atrocity, Boris would’ve gladly released one single soul from its bondage and ended their pitiful existence back on Starshatter.
Another detachment from the station’s security swarmed from an elevator nearby and Boris aimed the weapon at them. Pulling some of his ability to control fire, the telepath augmented the already devastating laser beam instantly when pressing the trigger. The rifle’s imprint echoed, vibrating at the same psychic frequency, unleashing not a tight laser beam but a fiery cone. A red glowing burst of fire that engulfed Aleska and taz’aran troopers both, making them swim in literal hellfire. A few managed to escape it by swiftly retreating back with their engines, only to fall, slowly suffocating to death as Boris pulled the air from their lungs.
Boris began matching his fire abilities with that Krupp laser rifle and its psychic imprint. Never had he used telepathic artifacts before yet this time he’d make an exception and pour time in effort augmenting this item because he had already formed a bond with it. He aimed at the elevator doors, holding the trigger. Expending all of the weapon’s power pack and pulling more of his fire ability, the standard issue rifle manufactured in the heartland of old Germany unleashed a beam six times the size and power it was originally designed to. The elevator melted. The soldiers evaporated. So did the bulkheads, floor-plating, and part of the station’s hull behind it. While Kera was doing everything she could to patch those slave’s wounds and wake up their captain, Boris’s connection with that imprinted laser rifle deepened. Shot after shot, the weapon sang happily in his mind, empowered laser beams of fiery destruction melting everyone and everything he fired upon.
The telepath then unleashed the power of his mind upon all enemies who glimpsed him. Their deeper thoughts were suddenly engulfed by a reality of fiery pain and most threw down everything that they carried, rolling on the floor, trying desperately to douse a fire that existed nowhere but in their minds. Boris reloaded his laser rifle on the move, leaving the screaming slavers behind, each with a mind forever twisted, their broken perceptions of reality warped beyond repair. They would spend their remaining months with neurons burning and screaming full of never-
ending pain. In the center of all this, Boris wrapped his mind around the rifle completely and summoned whatever concentration he had left. New pirate reinforcements who ran towards him saw a man with a laser rifle in hand, whose body was shrouded with starfire and quickly aimed their weapons. Their internal organs bursted out in flames.
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Kera ignored the soon-to-be dead slaver “telepaths” and rushed over to her fallen captain. Her belief in Boris’s skill, power, and overall superiority over the disgusting slaver telepaths was unflinching. So she just ran tall right before their very faces, and as they were dropping dead like flies, through her link, Kera felt that the consciousness’ emotions were stirring.
Was it getting angrier?
The woman shuddered at the mere thought that a universal consciousness might go into full rage mode. Kera’s link was flooded by the angry thoughts of Boris, which passing through her had somehow affected the consciousness itself, and taking a short couple of seconds to concentrate, the Avern’a witch pulled herself together. The star witches shouldn’t be both conduits of thousands of imprisoned souls and the source of their own powers yet in her mind, she witnessed the full force of the rage of those vengeful imprints. Wailing, they wished that Boris would visit deadly violence on everyone around. She had no use of her witch’s ways in this instance.
The only thing Kera could do to help silence their screams was to sing.
And that she did. In the center of that horrid battle, surrounded by the tortured slaves, beams shooting over and close to her, Kera sang something that she’d only heard once. It was a lullaby she remembered her mother sing the night before she was taken by the Jaern. An Avern’a mother’s song dedicated to the Universe, it begged the creator to shield a mother’s son, a husband or a brother when they went out to war. Her witch’s ways allowed perfect replication, but the feelings and power that an Avern’a could embed while singing were different. Coursing through was her desire to shield Boris and alleviate some of the terrible burden on his mind. The graceful melody shook all who heard it, and Kera, with her pink eyes full of blue tears, finally felt that those souls stirred no longer. She could at last use her medical abilities and tend to the wounded in relative peace.
Using some of the spare med-sprays that her captain had on him, Kera quickly treated the battered slaves and healed their worst injuries. At the same time she utilized a stim to wake Anit’za up, who moaned, annoyed in her face:
“What took you so long my dear healer? I was beginning to bore after all of that fun back there.”
“Captain, I don’t think that is the time and place for you to... bore. Moreover, your jokes are not battlefield-correct. We should leave the joking part to our hamster anyway.”
The Olian whom she’d noticed earlier had his nerve-gear ripped out, and the subsequent meeting with those slaver telepaths had severely inflamed the wound. Moreover, after a rapid inspection she’d noticed that one of the creature’s nerve clusters was punctured by a piece of leftover cybernetic wiring that had to be removed this instant or the Olian would die. The man was already shaking, eyes profusely bleeding, and mouth frothing. One of the other slaves, a woman whose back was covered with horrid whip scars pointed the Olian out to Kera and muttered in an obscure Fringe dialect:
“Star witch, this water brood knows where your people were taken. He was captured and spent time together with them!”
Anit’za, confused, split his attention between both women. After pulling his ion pistol and shooting a random attacking pirate warrior, he asked:
“What was that wonderful lady saying, my dear?”
“Excuse me captain, but I’ll be needing some cover now or this Olian will die a most needless death. That would be most unfortunate, even if he didn’t know the precise location of our specialist’s kidnapped neighbors.”
With little to no time and insufficient equipment, Kera had to both keep the alien stable and operate on him, removing one tiny piece of metal lodged in his neck. Being a doctor wasn’t exactly how she imagined it to be, but the realization made her even happier. It would be somewhat hard to perform such a procedure even in the best of conditions. Experiences like this should increase the genetic contribution that she, as a mother, would provide to all of her offspring. Kera’s hands grabbed what little tools she had packed in her captain’s backpack and with the utmost concentration proceeded to operate on the shaking Olian. Nearby slaves quickly came to her aid, holding the man with their bandaged arms, eyes wide and amazed, witnessing an avern’a witch stick her fingers into an open, profusely bleeding wound. From time to time, above their heads buzzed an occasional beam and they dropped to the floor, some of them screaming.
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Anit’za looked around, and again aimed his ion pistol, shooting another Aleska warrior dead. The woman he’d “seduced” had apparently trailed them from the slave auctioning center, forming a band of a dozen or so pirate fighters, all of whom sported melee weapons. They didn’t hurry, nor did they look panicked, and Anit’za lowered his gun; perhaps it was best if they died by his blade. Then again he didn’t holster the pistol. That weapon had rested on his belt for far too long, the many dekats he’d spent procuring it were finally burning a hole in his mind. For a dzenta’rii an unused item in one’s possession was like burying good dekats and leaving them to rot in the ground. A sacrilege most vile. As Jovos always used to cite the Venerable Old Ones – “You can’t always sell something at its original market value, therefore you should use it, because increasing its fame means an increase in its price!”
Gallantly, the dzenta’rii opened his belt pouch, giving the wounded slaves nearby his last med-sprays. While doing so he dodged one annoying stab from a nearby pirate. He shot the dishonest sod right in his faceplate, blowing his head off. Why couldn’t the rapscallions understand that a gallant gesture is not to be interrupted, ever? The sods suffered from a severe lack of class and that made his follow up actions even more gratifying. Anit’za crackled his neck and other joints, pulling out the plasma saber, unleashing its energy blade with a most elegant flick of his wrist. He took a fighting stance, blocking the sods’ way and while they were circling, waving their weapons in his face, hopelessly trying to illicit some reaction, the captain linked attack orders to his secret weapon. Only then did he fully commit to the fight.
A flurry of fake strikes confused his five opponents and allowed him to move inside their guards. Before the nearest one could notice what he was doing, Anit’za fluttered the plasma blade in his face. Of course, he then shot the sod’s knees with his ion pistol. Honorless rapscallions like them could expect no better and as the pirate sod fell on the floor, Anit’za danced around using well trained steps away from their attacks. It wasn’t that they were incompetent. The pirates were simply unaccustomed to fighting an opponent that versed in misdirecting his enemies. One of them pulled a snub gun and sheathed his sword. Whatever the sod had envisioned in mind didn’t occur in reality. Anit’za used his tricky footwork, jumped and, flying over his enemies heads, slashed down with his blade. The confused fool was taken completely by surprise, and after his snub gun melted, his helmet exploded from the intense heat, squishing the sod’s head like a ripe watermelon.
Doing a full split immediately after his landing, Anit’za’s ion pistol again blew the nearest pirate’s kneecaps to pieces. Not completely dead yet, the screaming sods were playing on their companions nerves, and because he had planned all of it from the very start of that “duel” – the blood that spewed from their blown off legs was spreading quickly all over the floor-plating limiting their movements. Instead of dodging back like Before, Anit’za fluttered his plasma saber again, and while the nearby sod thought it to be another feint, the captain then promptly melted his head off. He did get stabbed in the side torso once, while doing that, by his last standing opponent.
Staggering for real now, the wounded dzenta’rii collapsed again next to Kera, blood slowly forming a puddle of his own making.
“Ugh, those rapscallions be damned – they can stab well, the sods.”
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Cat quietly opened the container that she and Ort were hiding in and unpacked two small cases of hand grenades that her gorilla ass had been resting on until now. The situation on the floor was slowly changing, shifting in favor of the defenders. It wasn’t that hard to predict, really. Pion base was a huge installation and her own crew, no matter how heroically and bravely they fought, were but a dozen strong. Despite that difference in numbers, one skilled strategist could neuter a large force’s numbers by using their main advantage against them. And so Cat packed all those grenades in her “stealth crate”, not only because she was a grenadier. Anit’za needed one last ace in the sleeve, and her crewmates, a rock solid fall-back position.
