by Jake Bible
“Are they alright?” Sno asked.
“They are,” Loch said. “The pilot is in the brig and the old woman is locked in her quarters under full guard. Too elegant of a woman to be thrown into the brig with the riffraff. Not that we have riffraff here on the GS M’illi’ped. Gods forbid.”
“They are unharmed?”
“What? No, of course I had them harmed. The pilot has been beaten to within a centimeter of her life and the old woman was subjected to a good two hours of nerve stimulation,” Loch said with a grin. “She held out for thirty minutes before the pain was too much and then the screams began. When all of this is over, I may make her mine. I could listen to those screams for hours.”
“What are you doing, Loch? You’ve stepped over a line that you can’t walk back from. The GF will hunt you down and kill you,” Sno said. “There is no way out of this.”
“Except there is,” Loch said. “All I need is for you to tell me where the plans to Pol Hammon’s tech are. Even with Agent Prime assigned to protect and deliver Pol Hammon, which you have failed at, in case you were unaware, even with you by his side, I cannot believe that the SSD would make a deal with the old man unless some assurances were made.”
Sno waited for more. When Loch didn’t continue, Sno said, “Pol was the assurance. The GF has the plans for his tech, but he’s the only one that can reproduce whatever it is those plans are for. If Pol is a vegetable then he’s useless to me, to the SSD, to the GF, and to you.”
“No!” Loch shouted and slapped Sno hard across the right cheek.
Sno grunted, but didn’t cry out even though his head became a nest of Felturean fire ants. Loch slapped him again and again. By the fourth slap, Sno was crying out for Loch to stop.
“No one realizes what kind of trauma the removal of a comm implant can produce,” Loch said. “Look at me. I’m barely half your size, yet I am in complete control.”
“Take off these restraints and we’ll see about that,” Sno rasped.
“I think not,” Loch said and laughed. “Let’s start again.”
“More slaps? Aren’t you brave,” Sno said.
“No, no, I mean I want to try a different way of reasoning with you, Sno,” Loch said. “How does fifteen million credits sound?”
“Like the amount I have in my petty cash account,” Sno replied. “Bribes won’t work, Loch. I’m rich. Family money.”
“Right. I forgot,” Loch said. “The Sno Fortune. I do plan on rivaling that fortune when this is all over. I could even surpass it.”
“Too bad you can’t spend it,” Sno said. “The GF accountants will hunt that money down and find you, Loch. They find everyone.”
“GF? Sno, are you not grasping what is happening here? I plan on selling Pol Hammon’s tech. But we both know that the GF will not pay me even half a credit for it. Who else can I sell it to? Edgers? That rebel scum can barely scrape together a single credit to buy soup. Especially after their botched seizing of Razer Station. Oh, the amount of resources those idiots lost. Sad. So sad.”
“You have to be kidding,” Sno replied, realization dawning in his fuzzy brain. “The Skrang? You plan on selling the tech to the Skrang?”
“They will pay handsomely for it,” Loch said. “After all, it is rumored that Pol Hammon developed the tech with their funds to begin with. If they do not end up with the tech in their hands, then their investment is lost. You and I both know that the Skrang never forgive a lost investment. I’ve heard that a Skrang general once tracked down a ship that had shorted him a single barrel of mealworm skins. A single barrel, Sno. How much does mealworm skin cost? Not as much as it cost to send an entire Skrang ship with full crew after the supplier. Yet that’s what the general did and that supplier paid dearly for his mistake.”
“Did the Skrang general get his mealworm barrel?” Sno asked.
“What?”
“Did he get the barrel? Or did he simply kill the supplier?”
“He got the barrel.”
“Then why do the Skrang need you? You don’t have the tech they need, so why should they even deal with you?”
“Because you are going to get me the tech, Sno. You are going to tell me where Pol Hammon has it stored. You will then tell me how to put it together.”
“I can’t do either of those things, you stupid—”
The slap nearly caused Sno to wet himself. Loch had slammed his palm directly against Sno’s left ear. Bright hot pain shot through Sno’s head and ricocheted around his skull. He coughed a few times then took slow, even breaths.
“If you listen to me, Loch, I may be able to get you what you want,” Sno said. “But I need Veben and Velly to be on a ship and away from here first. I can’t have you using them as bargaining chips.”
“What if I do, Sno?” Loch asked. “What if I brought Velly into this room and began carving her up in front of you? Would that be motivation enough?”
“Hurt either of them and you get nothing,” Sno said. “Bring the ship out of trans-space, let Velly take Veben away on her swift ship, and I can give you Pol Hammon.”
“Sno, Pol Hammon is a pile of useless organs,” Loch said. “Were you not fully conscious when I mentioned that to you? I have Pol Hammon. He’s a brain dead turd.”
“His body is, yes,” Sno said. “But Pol Hammon’s mind is still on this ship and fully aware. You have been played, Loch, and I know how.”
The captain stared at Sno for a long while before he shook his head.
“No. I do not think so, Sno,” Loch said. “I let the women leave and you’ll clam up. I’m not stupid.”
He snapped his fingers, his beady little eyes locked onto Sno.
“I may have lied,” Loch said as the door to the small room slid open.
Her hands tied behind her back, Velly was shoved inside and forced to her knees by two guards. She looked like she’d been through all the Hells. Sno winced when he saw the state she was in. Velly winced when she looked up and met Sno’s gaze. He probably wasn’t looking much better.
“Sno,” Velly whispered as Loch placed a small plasma pistol to her temple.
“Don’t speak,” Loch ordered. “Only kneel.”
“Sno, listen to me,” Velly said, ignoring Loch. “We glimpsed something when Zan was—.”
Loch slammed the butt of the pistol down on top of Velly’s head, sending her face first to the floor. The two guards grabbed her arms and yanked her back up. Velly screamed as a loud pop echoed through the room. One of her shoulders hung loose. Blood began to pour down her face from the blow to her head.
“Do not speak,” Loch snapped, his mouth right next to Velly’s ear.
She slammed her head sideways and Loch’s nose crunched on impact.
“Bitch!” he shouted then put the pistol back to her temple.
“Stop!” Sno yelled. “I’ll tell you!”
“Good,” Loch said. “Very good. But if I think you are lying, I will blow her head off. Poof. No more Velly Tarcorf.”
“Sno. Don’t,” Velly said. “Pol has it all—”
“I said to not speak!” Loch roared. He shoved the pistol into Velly’s temple, bruising the bright orange skin. Purple began top blossom immediately, he was pressing so hard.
“Sno,” Velly said.
“Velly, stop,” Sno warned. “The little Ferg will kill you.”
“Ferg?” Loch asked, his attention back on Sno. “I’m not a Ferg. Do I look like a Ferg?”
“An orange Ferg,” Sno said. “Yeah.”
“Don’t tell the man a thing,” Velly said. “He’s going to lose. Tell him and the Skrang will—”
Loch pulled the trigger. Velly’s head was vaporized. Only a rough hunk of the bottom of her skull remained attached to her neck. Then that slowly dissolved as the remnants of the plasma energy finished obliterating the flesh. Headless, Velly’s corpse remained on its knees for a second then toppled over.
Sno screamed. He screamed with rage and pain and simple confusion. He was
going to tell Loch everything and send the captain off chasing Ested. Sno was Agent Prime and he knew how to word the admission so that Loch kept him alive, just in case. Velly didn’t need to die. There was no point in her death.
Sno’s voice gave out as Loch stood before him, arms crossed and an annoyed look on his face. He glanced over his shoulder at the two guards.
“Get the woman’s body out of here and bring me Veben Doab,” Loch ordered.
Before the guards could move, a klaxon blared and Loch looked about like he’d never heard one before.
“What is happening? What is that?” Loch shouted then activated his comm. “Talk to me!”
The captain’s head swung around to the view window and he gasped as the quantum swirl stopped. The ship had exited trans-space and certainly wasn’t in the Bgreete System. It was way worse than that.
“Mlo,” Loch whispered. “But how…?”
“I have a pretty good idea,” Sno said quietly.
But Loch paid him no mind. The captain raced from his antechamber and onto the bridge. Before the door closed, Sno could hear him shouting orders. Those orders were then repeated and shouted to someone else who began shouting at someone else. Military efficiency was not one of the GS M’illi’ped’s strong suits.
30.
Velly’s headless corpse wasn’t removed from the antechamber. It was left to ooze all over the ornate carpet. Left there in front of Sno as a focus for his rage.
Odds were, Loch was not going to survive whatever Pol had planned. And if Pol didn’t plan on killing the captain, Sno swore he would take care of the orange-haired son of a bitch himself.
But, Sno needed to get out of the antechamber before he could think of revenge. He also had to make sure Veben was safe. Once he knew his old friend wasn’t going to come to harm, and he crossed his fingers he wasn’t too late, Sno then needed to track down Pol and the android body he’d hijacked.
The klaxon continued to blare, making it impossible to hear what was going on outside the antechamber. Although, he suspected the room was soundproofed since it was where Loch came to relax. The thought of Loch made Sno’s blood boil.
Sno tested the restraints around his wrists and smiled to himself. The guards hadn’t used energy shackles, but plastic ties instead. Not unusual for a ship like the Mip. They weren’t expecting a dangerous criminal element to deal with, mostly just drunk passengers that needed a time out now and again.
Sno worked at his waistband. It took him a couple minutes, but he managed to get his “In Case Blade” free from the special slit in his waistband. It was merely a short strip of sharpened metal, but it had come in handy on more than a few missions. Sno angled the blade and went to work on the restraints.
The plastic wasn’t cheap. Apparently, on a luxury liner like the Mip, even the restraints had to be top of the line. It wouldn’t do to surround guests’ wrists with restraints meant for the masses. Add that to the barely healed wounds inflicted upon his arms from the removal of his implants, and Sno wasn’t sure he’d cut through the restraints within the hour.
Sno kept at the task, his eyes locked on the antechamber door, waiting for it to slide open and ruin his chance at escape. But the door didn’t slide open. The bridge crew, and guards, were obviously still occupied with their sudden arrival near one of the most powerful black holes in the galaxy. With that in mind, Sno doubled his efforts. Free from the restraints or not, if he didn’t get off the ship soon, he was going to be sucked into the black hole with the Mip and all aboard.
The pressure was immense, but that was why General Gerber had given him the mission. There was no way the general could have guessed at the exact chaos Sno would face, but Gerber was smart enough to know who to send in case exactly what was happening to Sno happened.
The klaxon continued to blare and Sno thought his head might split open. Having his comm implant removed left his head feeling like he’d gone a couple of rounds with a Chassfornian. And Sno actually knew what that felt like.
The blade slid through half of the restraint on his left wrist then became stuck. No matter how hard Sno tried to move it up and down, the blade refused to budge. His hand slipped and he ended up cutting deep into his right palm. He squeezed his mouth shut and kept the scream from passing his lips. Although, nothing was going to be heard over the sound of the warning klaxon.
Taking a deep breath, Sno pinched the blade between his thumb and forefinger, giving the metal a slight twist so that it would bend just enough to maybe come loose. He twisted then pulled and had the blade free. Sno switched it to his left hand and worked on his right restraint. That was much easier and within a few minutes, the restraint popped free. Sno brought his hands in front of him and worked on a different part of the stubborn restraint and made it through that one in only a few minutes as well.
Arms free, Sno took care of his ankles. Then he stood up, checked his body over, assessed his physical state, realized he’d been in much worse shape, and began to hunt through the antechamber for a weapon. All the while, Sno kept his eyes averted from Velly’s corpse. He needed to focus on one task at a time. Velly could be honored later when the mission was done. For the moment, Sno had to consider her a hunk of dead flesh and nothing more.
The antechamber was weapons free. Not even in the hidden panels did Sno find anything. Some weird items that Sno wondered if they might be part of a sexual fetish of Loch’s, but no weapons.
Testing his muscles and what was left of his strength by shadow boxing in front of the view window, Sno decided there was no time like the present. He’d go through the antechamber door, burst onto the bridge, surprise the closest guard, and strip that being of his or her weapon. Loch had to have put guards on the antechamber door, so at least one would be within reach as soon as the door opened.
Sno counted to three and activated the door controls. The door slid open and Sno rushed onto the bridge, his fists up and body ready for the first fight. Then he saw what was in front of him and stopped cold. He lowered his fists as he tried to make sense of the scene.
It was brutal, bloody, horrific, and more than a little confusing.
The bridge crew, including four guards, had been butchered. Their bodies were nothing but dismembered and severed limbs strewn everywhere. Offal and skin hung from levers and seat backs. Blood from various races was splashed liberally across the floor, the control consoles, even the ceiling, giving the bridge a disgusting technicolor theme to it.
“What the fuck…?” Sno whispered.
No one was left alive, that was for certain. Even crew members that were of races that could take a beating, a slashing, some serious shredding, they were dead and done. Sno had once watched a maintenance man on his estate put a load of dead wood through a chipper. That was what many of the bodies looked like. Flesh confetti everywhere.
But it wasn’t rifle confetti. The guards’ weapons were undamaged and simply lying there on the bloody floor. Sno helped himself to an RX31 plasma assault rifle, some extra magazines then he slung the rifle tight to his back and picked up an H16 plasma carbine multi-weapon. It was a Galactic Fleet Marine’s standard weapon and with good reason. Sno checked the plasma grenade breach and smiled at the six grenades sitting in the chamber. He picked up a handful of extra magazines for the H16, snagged a combat knife next to the magazines, and turned to face the bridge doors.
He thought about trying to kill the klaxon, but that might attract attention. Attention from whom, he wasn’t sure. But someone on board had serious malice in mind, and Sno didn’t want to be on their radar unless there was no other option. He activated the bridge door controls then paused and turned back to the gory bridge. No orange fur. Loch had been spared. He’d either escaped or been taken captive. Sno made note then proceeded off the bridge.
The short corridor from the bridge to the lift was as bloody as the bridge, but not covered in flesh confetti. Only blood. Which made the tracks on the floor easy to make out. Several pairs of humanoid footprints surround
ed by lines and splotches.
Bots.
Things began to click and the hair on the back of Sno’s neck rose as he became certain he was being watched.
“Pol!” Sno yelled. “What are you doing?”
There was no response. Sno continued to the lift and called it to the bridge deck. The doors pulled apart and Sno was relieved that the interior was mostly blood-free. Mostly. He hopped on the lift and placed his wrist to the control panel. Nothing.
“Dammit,” he muttered as he manually pressed a button that he hoped was the right level for the brig.
Then he stopped the lift. No need to go to the brig. Velly was dead. Veben was in the stateroom. Zan may be there too. Sno entered a new destination into the control panel and waited as the lift adjusted trajectory and shot towards the new deck.
The klaxon was screeching in the lift as well. Sno thought he’d be bleeding from his ears and eyes soon if it didn’t shut up. The noise was drilling into his very soul.
The lift stopped and Sno brought up the H16. The doors opened and four guards were busy fighting off a gang of maintenance bots. Maintenance bots with very deadly blades and welding torches.
One of the guards screamed as her lower leg was severed at the knee. As she fell, a second bot raced to her and jammed a welding torch into her gaping mouth. The woman’s head became a grotesque jack-o-lantern for a second then the eyes were burned through and flames flicked out of the empty sockets.
A second guard shot a bot that was swinging a span-hammer at his belly. The bot exploded into a shower of sparks and shrapnel. The guard caught some of the shrapnel and fell to a knee. Another bot jumped onto his chest and drilled up through the underside of his chin. He screamed until the drill bit reached his brain and then his eyes rolled up and he fell over, taking the bot with him. The bot struggled to get free then disengaged from the drill bit completely.
The third guard swatted a small bot against the wall then put four plasma blasts into it, obliterating the machine. Then she saw Sno and started to yell. That moment of distraction cost the woman her life and her head came tumbling from her shoulders as one bot threw another bot at her, two long saw blades extended. Blood geysered up from the headless stump as the body collapsed onto the floor.
