“Clever traitor,” the Dreth commander murmured.
The man’s terrified shouts would deflect suspicion from him long enough for him to ensure the leading fighters reached the door. Orqtue bared his teeth with satisfaction as the treacherous crewman grabbed a wrench and smashed the emergency override console on the other side.
“Dreth!” He turned with the invaders right behind him, only to find himself face to face with one of the junior officers. His face fell but she didn’t hesitate. “You disgusting traitor,” she sneered and her top lip quivered as she drew her side-arm. “You earned yourself a one-way pass to hell.”
The guy raised his hands as she spoke but she fired anyway and the shot burned a hole through his chest. He fell and wheezed as he touched the wound in disbelief, but he was dead before he hit the floor.
Orqtue had to admire the young female because she didn’t run. Instead, she tried to kick the pole out of the doorway, but it was jammed in too tightly. With the console disabled, she moved to try to close the door manually.
Fortunately, his men were faster. The lead warrior fired and the heavy slug drove into the officer’s shoulder and spun her back. She impacted the wall behind her, smacked her head, and slid into unconsciousness.
Her attacker came through after her and made sure the room was clear before he bent to run a claw down her cheek. Orqtue said nothing as the warrior’s second grabbed his shoulder.
“Hormghast Orqtue Rebile,” the Dreth rumbled to alert him to their leader’s approach.
With a hurried glance in the Hormghast’s direction, the soldiers raced forward to make sure the area beyond was clear. If their HUDs had guided them correctly, they had one room to clear before Engineering’s command center was in their grasp.
Orqtue stalked after his lead warriors and entered the atrium in front of the command center doors. Another traitor waited at a computer terminal, trembling as he tried to control his fear.
He snarled and the man jumped. Several of the Dreth raised their lips in appreciative snarls. The sight of their fangs did nothing to calm the crewman’s nerves.
Sweat covered his forehead and his hands shook violently as he turned fearfully. “Please,” he begged. “I put the worms into the system, but some of them didn’t take. The main ones did, though, and I’ll have it for you as soon as I can.”
The Dreth stared at him for a moment and shook his head. “No need. I’ll do it my way.”
Before the man had time to protest, he raised his blaster and shot him in the head. He holstered the weapon and threw the corpse from the chair before he stooped over the console. Leaning forward, he wiped gore off the screen and peered at it.
It didn’t take him long to see that the traitor had failed far more miserably than he’d claimed. Orqtue brought his fist down on the screen with a roar and decided brute force was the only remedy.
With the worm not doing all he needed it to, he had one thing left—the decades of survival skills inherent to his race. When all else failed, Dreth used brute force to bull their way through any and all situations.
Those who became pirates earned their place by being the most skilled at all forms of attack and infiltration. Orqtue was one of the best. He strode forward and examined the doors. His inspection complete, he turned to the advance team.
“Burn it down,” he ordered, and they growled their affirmation.
As they scrambled for the equipment, the Dreamer’s security sprung their trap. Orqtue’s head snapped around when he heard shots fired. Two Dreth who’d scouted the room tumbled from stairs leading to a walkway. Both were mortally injured.
Their deaths infuriated him, and he uttered a deep howl that shook the inside of the ship. The other Dreth responded immediately and climbed the stairs to where a security team guarded another door.
As soon as the leaders reached the outermost guards, they attacked and didn’t limit themselves to guns. Their armor absorbed most of the damage as they lunged at the defenders and hurled them over the edge to be ripped apart by their comrades.
Some of the guards took cover while others stood their ground and fired as rapidly as their weapons were capable of.
As Orqtue walked toward the stairs, he heard a scream from above and stepped aside to avoid the security crewman who catapulted over the rails. He paused as the guard landed with a thump beside him. It amused him to make a brief show of studying the man, even though he was clearly dead.
The guard’s body was twisted in an unnatural way, his eyes were wide open, and blood trickled from the side of his mouth.
He snorted and shook his head. “These humans are so fragile. All the better for me and my men to destroy them easily.”
Orqtue climbed to the walkway and assessed the situation. The HUD hadn’t lied. Engineering’s command center lay behind the doors below. He snorted and signaled the cutting team to begin. No doubt there would be a greater fight for the room itself.
Hopefully, the captain of his sister ship would have an easier time reaching the Dreamer’s Bridge.
Hormghast Saqteq had fought his way from the atrium to the Bridge, almost relieved when the corridors and hallways of the liner remained empty. Well, except for the liner’s security, and his men soon took care of that.
Now, the Bridge was directly ahead and the pirates were in another firefight with what he hoped were the last guards. With every shot the pirates fired, they claimed another kill without sustaining much damage in return. His men wore battle-grade space armor, and the liner’s security did not.
When they’d eliminated most of the defenders, Saqteq placed his faith in his armor and marched up to the hastily constructed barricade before them. He reached over an overstuffed armchair pulled from Dreth knew where to seize the lead security man, Hargan. His huge hand tight around the man’s throat, he held him suspended a few feet off the floor.
The officer’s eyes widened but he still tried to position his blaster between them to fire. Saqteq yanked it from his fingertips with his free hand and put his face against Hargan’s. “We are not here for games, human. Move your men or die fighting.”
The man’s eyes narrowed slightly, and he lashed out with a boot as he choked out a short reply. “We…will…always die…fighting. For the Federation!”
His boot glanced off Saqteq’s armor and the Dreth captain sneered and used his gloved hand to crush his victim’s throat. When Hargan went limp, he threw the body over the barricade and raised his weapon.
With a guttural call to his men to join the slaughter, he howled and sprayed the remaining humans with deadly fire. They fought back but not for long.
He smiled when they fell one after another. As the Dreth pushed past the barricade, the remaining security contingent backed away but made no effort to surrender. They knew they’d lost, but they wouldn’t give up and they refused to run.
Saqteq and his men thought it was a morbidly stupid waste of life, even though the humans’ courage was to be admired, and they carefully took their time to kill each one.
Deaths for the stupid were not something to be hurried, so the warriors marched forward and fired at each guard to render them wounded and helpless before the pirates’ approach. When they reached them, the Dreth killed them systematically with their bare hands or crushed them under their feet.
The pirates bellowed in victory as they marched toward the Bridge, losing very few men to the security guards left to defend it.
Saqteq was on a mission and he wouldn’t leave until he’d destroyed what he came to destroy.
In Security Central, Charlie buried his head in his hands and wept. Protocol kept him from leaving the center—well, protocol and a very pale-faced and determined 2IC whom he had no doubt would shoot him before he reached the door.
“We have to help them,” he pleaded, but Hubert stood firm, even though his voice quivered when he replied.
“We have our orders.”
The blaster trembled in his hands but not enough to miss, and Charli
e doubted the tears streaking the man’s cheeks would blur his vision enough to put him off his aim.
“When this over, you and I—” Hubert’s voice cracked.
“When this is over, sir, you can shoot me. It’ll be better than having to remember this.”
He gestured at the screen and they watched as the Dreth pirates reached the doors to the Bridge.
As he stared at the number of pirates filling the corridor, Hubert whispered, “There are other ways to commit suicide.”
“What if I come up with a plan that might free the Dreamer?” Charlie asked.
“At least you’ll be alive to do that, now,” Hubert pointed out, “and I’ll be along to make sure you stay that way.”
While Saqteq took the Dreamer’s Bridge, a dozen or so pirates marched through the umbilical from the Dreth ship to the atrium. Four of them carried a large metal cylinder between them. The others escorted them, tasked with ensuring the bomb reached its destination.
They growled and snarled at the bodies of the security guards who had tried to stop their comrades from boarding and laughed at the ridiculous fountain in the center of the open area.
Their path took them past it, and they headed for one of the elevators on the far side which took them up several floors until they were able to reach the open space suspended above the atrium.
As they carried the bomb out into the space hologrammed to resemble open parklands, movement at several of the balconies adjoining the vista caught their attention. Blaster fire forced the occupants of the rooms to scurry back inside, and the pirates continued to the center of the open parkland.
Their leader, a Gramghast to the Orqtue’s Hormghast, moved into the huge park sanctuary and watched his men carry the bomb in and set it down gingerly.
He surveyed the area and snickered. “When this goes off, it will rip this ship completely in half. There will be no survivors and this sector of space will forever be peppered with dead Federation civilians. Assemble it quickly. We have little time.”
The pirates took a variety of tools and last-minute pieces from their belts and went to work. They’d trained for this for months.
Each piece fit perfectly into the bomb, and the gentleness and careful placement of them was reminiscent of a human engineer’s soft touch. Even Dreth didn’t like the idea of blowing themselves up, and none of them wanted to meet their captain in the afterlife if they did.
The Gramghast walked across the deck to a small ice cream shop. Its lights were off and there was a display window at the front. He could see something—or someone—hiding beneath a table inside and growled. The window shattered easily with a single powerful blow and he leapt over the counter and stools along it and grasped the small girl who tried to scramble frantically away. She screamed as he brought her closer to his face.
“Don’t be scared, little girl,” he bellowed and laughed at her terror. “We don’t like the taste of children, but if you end up being all there is, I will make it quick.”
The child uttered an ear-piercing shriek that made him cringe. He dropped her and covered the part of the helmet that shielded his ears.
“Fey’da haqte!” he shouted and turned to look for her, only to find she’d vanished.
Before he could start searching for the little wretch, one of his men interrupted. “Gramghast, it’s ready to program.”
The corporal gave a frustrated snarl and glanced around the shop one last time. “Hide. Hide, while you can, little girl. I will find you soon enough.”
Stephanie’s team had hurried through the hallways, careful to check each section before they raced to their suite. Frog had worked his magic on the locked door, and they’d entered Lars’s room without detection. Inside, he’d stashed an array of weapons in his closet as well as armor for everyone.
Marcus shook his head. “I thought all this was in the storage compartment.”
The team leader handed the armor out. “You didn’t think I’d come all this way without a backup plan, did you?”
She selected an armored vest, pulled it up her body, and snapped the pieces on the side. “I don’t need armor. I have magic, remember?”
“Even your magic won’t stop your body from dying if you’re cut, shot, or stabbed,” Lars replied while he laced his boots. “Being prepared with armor is a good first step on a really bad day.”
“Hell yeah, it is,” Johnny agreed and strapped his armor tightly in place. “There have been more times it’s saved me than not. You may be a witch, but you still have a human body and compared to a Dreth, we’re like porcelain dolls. Trust me. You want as much coverage as you can possibly get.”
Stephanie nodded, put her foot on a chair, and tucked her pants into her boots before she laced them as tightly as she could, one section at a time. “I can’t determine what’s happening here. I tried to send magic out to get a feel for it, but this ship is full of Dreth, Meligornians, and humans already. There is no way to know who’s behind this.”
“It could be the Dreth. Or it could be some unknown force we haven’t met yet, and it could be the rebels,” Marcus stated. “I do know that it doesn’t matter who they are. We’ll eliminate them. This was supposed to be a relaxing cruise and now, we’re covered in armor and doing our best to not be seen before we want to be seen. It’s complete bullshit.”
“War is bullshit,” Frog yelled. “But no one can seem to get the hell away from it. We keep trying to make peace by either starting a fight or making enemies of the ones with zero shits to give. There has to be a better strategy to it all.”
“When we get back to Earth, Frog, you can spend all the time you need to find a strategy that will work in our favor,” Stephanie told him and slipped a gun into the holster on her side. “For now, assume violence will be involved.”
He checked his gun and shrugged. “Meh, I really don’t mind. I simply felt like being a free-loving hippy for five seconds. I want to kick whoever this is back to wherever the hell they came from.”
Suddenly, the comms over the entire ship gave a loud whistle that faded into a crackle. It was followed by a deep growling cough that radiated throughout the vessel. “Attention. Prepare yourselves to listen carefully to the announcement about to be made.”
Stephanie walked over to the console in the corner. “Frog. A little help here? I want to see what’s going on.”
“You know this isn’t allowed, right?” he asked, dragged a seat up, and opened a panel in the wall behind the terminal.
“It’s an emergency,” she told him. “I’m sure they’ll forgive us.”
“We have to be breaking I don’t know how many Fed regs, here,” he grumbled as he fiddled behind the panel to wire in a connection to Lars’s laptop. Once he’d done that, he slid a thumb drive into the laptop and began to type.
“Ha! I knew we hired you for something,” Lars commented, looking over his shoulder.
“My good looks and chick magnetry?” Frog sounded hopeful, but his fingers didn’t stop their rapid-fire efforts and the screen in front of her showed her a list of the difference surveillance sections. “There. That should do it.”
“You’re a genius,” she said and clicked through the surveillance to see what was going on outside the suite.
The ship appeared deserted without a passenger in sight. There were large numbers of Dreth, however, and the bodies of security guards strewn in the corridors. The scene outside the Bridge was almost too horrible to look at.
Before any of them could comment on it, the speakers crackled again and a different but equally as sinister voice spoke through it. The emergency communications screens set into every cabin wall flashed on to display a Dreth pirate captain who stood on the Meligorn Dreamer’s Bridge.
His grin was particularly nasty, and he gestured to the center of the Bridge. At the consoles around him, the other pirates held the Dreamer’s captain and crew hostage with guns pointed at their heads.
The ship’s captain had a look of disdainful calm on his fa
ce and did not appear to be intimidated by the pirates at all.
“He should have been an actor,” Stephanie murmured.
The pirate captain spoke again, his tone brutish and guttural
“I am Hormghast Saqteq. As you can see, I speak to you live from the ship’s Bridge. We have taken control of your ship. Your security personnel are dead, and your captain and crew are at our mercy.” He lifted his lips in a fanged smile.
“He’s very happy with himself,” she commented dryly.
“He’s also very calm for someone who’s just won the battles he has,” Lars said. “That’s not good.”
“No,” Marcus added, his face serious as he studied the Dreth captain. “There’s no excitement there at all, and that makes him very dangerous. He’s here for more than simply taking a liner.”
Frog cursed. “And they’ve put a worm in the system. I’d need to be in the ship’s central computer to deal with that.”
Saqteq continued his speech, and they fell silent. “We have the willingness and the ability to rip this ship in two. As I speak, my crew are placing a bomb on board which I can activate with a word. If that happens, your final resting place will be in the middle of another dimension, where your decompressed bodies will float with those of your families and children for all eternity.”
He paused to let the horror of his words sink in and smiled malevolently again. “So, we will ask one very special and very esteemed passenger to come to the Bridge. Once they do, we will leave in our ship and allow you to continue your journey. If they do not come, we will detonate the bomb.”
Marcus gritted his teeth and sneered at the screen. “He has no intention to save anyone. He will detonate that bomb either way. Whether they plan to leave first or not is another question. They’re obviously willing to die for whatever ridiculous reason they have for being on this ship.”
Frog glanced nervously at Lars. “And you’re sure no one knew about us coming? This is a very big coincidence if they didn’t. What else on this ship could they possibly want? Dreth pirates don’t need to take hostages to get rich. They kill the people who have what they want and simply take it. Whoever it is they’re after, they must be damned important.”
Witch Of The Federation (Federal Histories Book 2) Page 38
