I looked back at the breach and Coonts was gone. The Scrun platforms were firing non-stop into the flying junk and making the debris field even bigger. I hoped that the little Grawl had made it to the Legacy. Down below us we saw a light appear and two more platforms went flying towards the breach. No matter the outcome it was time to move. I slid forward and grasp the jagged edge of the hole.
“Tria, Klutch let’s go!” I tucked my legs under me and pushed off the ceiling flipping myself up into the hole. I found myself back inside of a one plus G gravity field and an atmosphere. The momentum from the zero G of the cargo hold quit me halfway through my arc. I landed unceremoniously on the deck. The noise of my landing alerted the Scrun that had been standing there that something was not right. The big alien was standing over me when Tria and Klutch came plopping onto the deck beside me. One of Klutch’s tree trunk legs hit the Scrun, knocking it straddle of me. I reared up and head butted the square visor on its chest knocking it over backwards. I jammed my rail gun against the soldier’s lower abdomen and let loose a three second burst. The effect was immediate and dramatic as a mass of black gore sprayed out the opposite end of the creature followed by a fountain of sparks and shrapnel off the wall behind it. We were sandblasted by the cloud of disintegrating needles. Klutch gruffly pointed out he was glad I was not using explosive munitions. Even though our armor shrugged off the micro shards, I apologized for my over reactive trigger finger. Fratricide would not be in the plus column on my growing list of achievements.
We got to our feet and surveyed our surroundings. The room we were in was big enough to house several of the gun platforms. There was a garage door size atmosphere lock on one side and a hatch that resembled a vault on the other. We moved toward the hatch, the only visible control was a circle with three holes around it. I messed with it but got nothing. Klutch came up behind me dragging the dead Scrun.
“Excuse me Commander.”
He let the grotesque corpse plop to the floor. He grabbed its long arm and inserted the fingers of the hand into the holes. We heard a loud beeping that sounded like an alarm. The alarm stopped, and the door slid aside giving us a quick blast of pressurized atmosphere. We had our weapons up and ready as we peeked inside. There was another pressure door at the other end of a twenty foot hallway. It was an airlock and would be a perfect trap if it was being monitored. Klutch volunteered to open the other door.
“I don’t like it Klutch, if they locked you in there I don’t know if we could get you out. There has to be another way.”
We turned back towards the hole in the deck and were greeted with a flash and a violent explosive blast. The deck below our feet heaved up knocking us to the floor. I rolled over trying to figure out what just happened. Suddenly one of the Scrun gun platforms came crashing up through the hole in the deck violently hitting the ceiling then falling in a smoking heap to the floor in front of us. A good portion of the platforms rear deck was missing. One of the occupants was pinned in the wreckage the other was thrown clear. The survivor was trying its best to sit up. Klutch jerked his arm up and gave the Scrun a blast with his rail gun sending it sliding into the wall. We were showered by the shards of needles that ricocheted in all direction after failing to penetrate the visor on the slavers armor. Klutch gave it another burst, this time in the less armored junction of its arm and torso. The second blast ruptured the suit sending its pressurized contents in a gory spray that covered the front of Klutch’s armor. We started to get off the floor when we were startled by Coonts flipping up through the hole in the deck and landing on his back at our feet. Tria and Klutch immediately pointed their weapons towards the hole in the deck. I knelt down next to Coonts. “COONTS ARE YOU HURT?” I got no answer, so I tried sitting the little Grawl upright. His visor was blacked out so I could not see his face. “COONTS ARE YOU ALL RIGHT!” His visor became transparent and I could see his pallor was pale white but changing to its normal gray. “Coonts are you injured?” His big dark eyes seemed to finally focus on me. “Commander what are brassy big ones?” I stood up letting the Grawl fall back to the floor. Turning my back to him I bit my tongue to keep from laughing out loud. Regaining my composure I turned back to Coonts. “Coonts what the hell were you thinking? We could have opened fire on you!”
“Commander, Justice was able to destroy three of the gun platforms but was not able to target the last one before it turned back into the hull breach. Justice would not risk collateral damage by firing into the hull opening. I feared the platform would flank you and attack while you were attempting to gain access to the ship. I could not allow that outcome. I pursued the weapons platform into the hull and when you were not present in the cargo area, I attacked the gunners with a low yield anti-matter munition. A premature detonation stunned me when my projectile intersected with a piece of debris behind my target.”
I was relieved Coonts was not injured. Finding out he was the source of the blast that floored us made me feel a little better because I thought the Scrun might be counterattacking. I was definitely happy we weren’t surprised by the mounted gun crew showing up to our rear. The little Grawl may have just saved our lives. I reached down and pulled Coonts to his feet.
“Now that we are all here, we need to get past this airlock without being trapped inside.”
Tria was examining the remains of the gun platform. “Commander one weapon is still functional. Now that Coonts has reduced its size I believe it will fit in the airlock. Once inside we can use it to burn down the interior door.”
As usual Tria was right. I was thinking about just going ahead and blowing the hell out of the whole mess. If I would have done so, it could have possibly sucked the atmosphere out of the rest of the ship. “All right let’s see if it will go through the door” Klutch tried to pull the dead Scrun from the wreckage but the side of the platform was folded over on to it. The four of us pushed and shoved until we got it inside the first door. We had to wedge it in at an angle to get the operating weapon’s barrel pointed at the door at the end of the airlock. We all ducked down behind the remains of the machine and Coonts crawled up next to the dead Scrun and triggered the beam weapon. The yellow white beam contacted the door and molten metal splashed across the floor as the beam punched through. A cloud of atmospheric gas came blasting into the airlock. A whooping alarm sounded and the door behind us slammed shut. We rocked the wrecked platform and the gyrating beam did a great job of widening the hole. The hole was now big enough to crawl through and Coonts shut the overheated weapon down. We could hear the din of additional alarms on the other side of the door as we crawled over the platform. Smoke was filling the airlock as we crawled through the still glowing hole. The next room was filled with machinery and the beam cutting an even bigger hole through additional walls destroyed a lot of it.
I was still wondering about the lack of organized resistance. I wondered where the rest of the crew was. We had been out of contact with Justice for quite a while. We could do nothing about it because our comms were not penetrating the hull. I decided not to use the hatch to the room we were in and we all crawled through the large hole in the wall. We were now standing in a huge corridor. Klutch took the lead, and we moved down the hallway. We took up our customary defensive formation. Coonts was bringing up the rear with his hand on my back and looking down the hallway behind us with his weapon at the ready. We hadn’t gone twenty feet when a hatch behind us opened and Coonts gave the gangly Scrun that leaned out of it two quick burst with his rail gun driving the slaver back into the opening. The Grawl charged the doorway and fired three additional burst into the room. Klutch and Tria took a knee and pointed their weapons down the hallway in both directions. I peeled off and backed up Coonts who was standing over the gory mess that was once a Scrun. “Commander the plating on the Scrun pressure suits deflects all but point blank weapons fire. The smaller diameter projectiles may have been a less than optimal choice for this operation.”
I had to agree with his assessment. “Don’t worry Coonts
I won’t make the same mistake twice. I was concerned our primary weapons might be dangerous to us in the close quarters of a ship.”
The little Grawl turned to me. “Roger that Commander!” I could not help but smile. I looked behind me and saw Tria and Klutch were now just inside the hatch and peeking down the hallway. Klutch turned and said. “Commander, we should keep moving.” I was looking at the stubby barreled weapon the Scrun had been carrying. Coonts must have read my mind. “They will only respond to Scrun interaction.” I picked it up anyway and beat it on a piece of equipment till the fat barrel caved in on one side. I reached down and grabbed the Scrun’s long gangly arm. I drew my fighting knife and with a violent down stroke severed the dead Scrun’s hand from the appendage. Putting my knife back in its sheath I tucked the severed hand behind the handle. I turned toward the open hatch. “OK Klutch lets move out.”
We worked our way down the corridor going from hatch to hatch not finding anyone. The hall ended at a huge pressure door. I carefully inserted the fingers of the severed hand into the holes and got a warning claxon that blared three times and the big door opened revealing hundreds of cages. The modular frameworks were encased in a thick glass like material and had environmental control systems mounted to them. To my relief all the cages I could see were empty. We carefully worked our way to the far end of the hold and found all the cages empty. Tria called out. “Commander, there are lift tubes on each side of the hold.” I moved in Tria’s direction when our ears were assaulted by a loud punctuated grunting sound. I personally didn’t care for the demanding quality of the racket. It translated to, “Surrender or die.” We suddenly heard a loud hum, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out it would not be associated with a warm welcome. Klutch howled out. “Everybody take cover!” We hit the floor and pushed ourselves against the stacked slave crates. I saw small flashbulb like flashes accompanied by loud pops. We were showered by high velocity shrapnel. The sound of it pelting my armor reminded me of being in my grandfather’s metal machine shed during a hail storm.
I realized the barrage was designed to kill unarmored combatants without damaging the confinement crates or the ships hold. We heard the loud clipped grunting again. The translation quit after the word die so the rest must have been unintelligible expletives. I was alerted by an atmosphere alarm in my helmet. Coonts came over our comms. “Commander the Scrun are pumping a gaseous toxin into the hold.” I could now see an orange tinged cloud coming down from the overhead. The Scrun were hoping the shrapnel munitions had pierced our armor.
I was feeling a hate filled rage seeping into me and I gritted my teeth. I looked at the monstrous doors on the other side of the stacked cages and yelled “Going hot!” I lobbed ten rounds of high explosive at the center of the doors. The hold shook with the concussions of the rounds exploding against the massive doors. Cages were upended and blown back on top of us. An alarm started whooping. I could hear the shriek of atmosphere escaping out the seals on the gigantic doors and the gas cloud quickly dissipated. I could hear frantic grunting over the noise of the bursting munitions but it was still not translating. I heard my crew open fire, and the hold shook from the detonations. The shrapnel storm came to an abrupt halt and my crew ceased fire. I pushed a confinement crate off of me and saw the mangled remains of the two turrets that had been bombarding us. I held both of my arms up and pointed at the big pressure doors. My crew did the same. I called to them. “Four rounds each.” We let them fly and ducked down behind the scattered cages. We were bounced around by the explosive impacts then all hell broke loose as all kinds of debris flew towards the eight foot long rend we had created in the doors.
“Justice have you got a copy!”
“Commander I am prepared to bring down the remaining Scrun shields and will come alongside for immediate evacuation.”
“We still have unfinished business here Justice. Have you detected any additional hostiles?”
“Negative Commander the Scrun have launched twelve comm buoys, and I have destroyed them all. I located the hatches they were launched from and disabled them with the rail guns. The slave ship no longer has a deep space communications capability.”
For now we had the star system to ourselves but that could change at any time. We needed to get moving again. The atmosphere was finally depleted and the silence it brought was welcomed. I looked at Tria and she was giving me a worried look and commed me. “There is a chance we are being monitored through the view screen at the top of the wall between the lifts.” I looked at my crew. I gave them a grim smile. “Now that we don’t have to worry about collateral damage, you are weapons free.”
My team turned around and gave the view screen on the wall long bursts of armor piercing rounds followed by a generous helping of high explosive munitions. The result was a large gaping hole that was blasting atmosphere and other unknown objects out into the prisoner hold. It was all the invitation we needed as we boosted up and into the shattered remains of the control room. There were the remains of four dead Scrun scattered about the floor and walls. One had somehow survived and was on the floor next to a hatch. It was frantically trying to get the door open with an appendage that had an almost rubber like quality to it. We could only hear gibberish coming from our translation software. Klutch rendered assistance by grabbing the Scrun’s hand and jamming it into the door control. The door alarm sounded and then the door opened, sending more alien atmosphere bursting into the shattered control room. Klutch yanked the much taller alien off the floor and heaved it out the hole in the shattered view screen. Coonts said, “Commander the noted lack of any organized resistance seems to indicate most all the Scrun may have been with the shuttles when they departed the ship.” In a deadpan voice I said, “They will pay dearly for that mistake.”
We entered the airlock, and I used the severed hand to seal the chamber and open the other door. It was pitch black and we switched to infrared and low light. The absolute darkness only gave us a limited view of the corridor that went to our left and right. There were no large heat sources, so the corridor appeared as a pale blue tunnel. I could just make out a hatch about thirty feet away to my left. To my right the hallway continued into blackness. I stuck my arm around the corner and switched my weapon to armor piercing. I ripped off twenty rounds into the hatch at the end of the corridor and was rewarded with an equal number of fist sized shafts of light. In the back of my mind I could hear Klutch saying “more is better.” I sent a round of high explosive into the remains of the door. We now had a generous supply of light. I was startled when Klutch sent several rounds of high explosive down the opposite end of the hallway. Debris and smoke filled the corridor. A strip of orange lights flashed on the ceiling down the length of the hallway. I turned to Klutch, and he gave me his usual toothy smile and a shrug of his big wide shoulders.
Our audio pickups were once again assaulted by the loud grunting of the Scrun language. My audio cut out as the translation program kicked in. “You must stop your rampage! I will gift you a million credits to leave!” I looked at Klutch and nodded my head. Klutch raised his arm and sent five more rounds down the corridor. The explosions rocked the hallway and set off a screeching alarm. Smoke was getting thicker and I could now see flames at the end of the corridor. I yelled out. “Give us all of your credits and we will spare your life!” That comment earned me some ugly looks from my crew. I turned to them and put my finger up. The looks went from furious to just mad. “If you turn over all of your credits and throw down your weapons and surrender, I will spare you! You must answer now or perish!” A large doorway opened beyond the hatch I had destroyed. Twelve of the armored Scrun marched out into the wrecked room. We would never know if they would surrender or not. Klutch took my weapons free order to heart and opened fire. He pumped three explosive rounds at the Scrun’s feet then pushed me back behind him as the rounds exploded. We were all knocked to the floor by the blasts. I attempted to get up but Klutch was lying on top of my legs. I rapped him on his helmet. “Klutc
h, we’re on your side!” His large toothy grin only earned him three sets of stink eyes. We got to our feet and moved to the shattered doorway. There wasn’t any doubt the twelve Scrun troopers slaving days were permanently over.
Down a short corridor just beyond the carnage of the eviscerated soldiers were six more Scrun wearing much different attire. They had light yellow puffed up suits with sparkling trinkets hanging around circular transparent masks. We approached them with our weapons ready. The condition of the first three closest to the open doorway was the same as their twelve guards. The three behind them were squalling and rolling around on the floor. They didn’t have any holes in their suits we could see. I gave the fattest of the three with the most trinkets a vicious kick. “Get up you cowardly piece of sewage!” I looked into the mask and saw a large wide heavily whiskered mouth and a large grotesque protruding eyeball. The suits lacked the armor plates the other Scrun wore. I assumed they were the equivalent of dress uniforms that could retain their atmosphere. One of the puff bags rolled over and pushed a box towards me. In one smooth motion Tria drew her combat knife and severed the Scrun’s arm. The arm and the box hit the floor, dumping a large assortment of shiny silver cards at my feet. The wounded Scrun let out a deafening screech I ended with a burst from my needle gun. The needles penetrated the Scrun’s suit and exited, destroying a large clear display case loaded with trinkets similar to the ones they were wearing. I looked down at the cards on the floor and recognized them as credit vouchers.
The fatter Scrun wailed out.
“You said we would be spared!”
My rage at the murderous piece of shit peaked.
“I said I would let YOU live!”
I gave the other less decorated Scrun a blast with my needle gun, blowing its entrails all over the Captain. Jerking the big Scrun up off the floor I kicked him through the door way.
“Let’s get out of this cesspool!”
First of my Kind Page 40
