Witch Of The Federation (Federal Histories Book 2)

by Michael Anderle

  The sight didn’t strike even an ounce of fear into the team’s hearts. Frog screamed at the top of his lungs and closed with the first one. He thrust his pistol under the alien’s chin and pulled the trigger. The bullet plowed upward into the Dreth’s head and the underside of his helmet as Frog stepped clear.

  At the same time, the team leader stopped and fired at the other guard. The pirate grunted as his armor absorbed the damage, then took two enormous strides forward and swung his sword with a yell.

  The blade nicked his cheek, and Lars narrowed his eyes. With a loud growl, he raised the gun and fired, hoping to fell his adversary before he could reverse his swing and slice him in two. He pulled the trigger repeatedly and filled the Dreth with bullets. His opponent shuddered with each strike but didn’t succumb.

  When Lars’ gun clicked, out of bullets, he snatched another magazine and took several hasty steps back. “Does anyone want to take care of this?”

  Marcus had snuck past the two as they fought. He now stood behind the Dreth, reached up, and tapped him on the shoulder. As the pirate spun angrily, he smacked a palm into the top of the invader’s sword arm, shoved the blade down with his left hand, and drove the long-bladed knife in his right hand into his opponent’s belly.

  The Dreth froze and Marcus smiled as he thrust the blade deeper, “Do you feel sad, now?” he asked, a grim smile on his face.

  The alien’s eyes widened and the human twisted the blade, dragged it up, and shoved it down again. “How about now? Anything? Flashes of your lumpy childhood? Kisses from your mother? Your first time with a lovely Dreth girl?”

  The pirate sagged heavily on the blade and Marcus sighed and used his free hand to push him back as he yanked the knife out and allowed the body to fall. “No? Well, maybe you’re an anomaly. I’ll test that on your buddies too.”

  Johnny looked at him in disgust. “Didn’t your mother ever tell you not to play with your food?”

  Inside the Bridge, the Meligornian pirate looked at his hands and purple magic sparked from his fingertips. “What is going on? This doesn’t make any sense. I should have way more power than you, Ambassador. I took your power, dammit.”

  As the ambassador, Stephanie stood silently but a small smirk played around her mouth. Infuriated, Saqteq took a few steps to the side and attempted to see through the open Bridge doors.

  As he approached them, a loud bang made him jump and he looked over at one of the pirates who stared out with a worried look on his face.

  The Meligornian took another step to follow the direction of his warrior’s gaze. He tilted his head for a better angle, and a bullet rocketed into his crewman’s forehead. The force whipped his head back and sprawled his body over the control board.

  Stephanie released the magic holding the pirates as the team rolled through the door. The boys glanced briefly at the Meligornian in pirate’s clothing, at the crew held at gunpoint, and finally at Stephanie and continued into the room. They knew she’d deal with the captain and they had other assholes to eradicate.

  Without stopping to ask either permission or forgiveness, they engaged the Dreth pirates, swept the invaders’ weapons away from their human targets, and used their blasters and knives at close range.

  A laser bolt barely missed Frog and he looked at the singed metal on the wall. “If you’d been three inches farther, you would be picking comets out of your teeth right now, dumb ass. That wall is really thin. Are you a space pirate or a dick with delusions of grandeur?”

  “Muschstack,” the Dreth sneered in response and Frog shrugged, leapt at him, and garnered a very satisfying scream as he activated the laser cutter he carried instead of a blade.

  As chaos engulfed the Bridge, Stephanie, as the ambassador, kept her gaze locked on the pirate captain. The Meligornian shook his head at the scene and panic edged his voice. “This isn’t how it’s supposed to go.”

  He gathered his magic, thrust his arms out, and launched everything he had at his opponent in the hope that he could overwhelm him. She simply swiped her arm and pushed the energy back into the walls of the ship where it dissipated. Her eyes widened as the captain growled, stamped his boot against the floor, and pointed his finger angrily at her.

  His jaw clenched and his silver hair stuck to the sweat on his forehead. “You traitorous piece of shit. I will be your end, one way or another. I will kill this ship and all the people on it and I will start with this pathetic excuse for a security team.”

  The Hormghast thrust a bolt of magic toward Lars, and she lunged sideways quickly, caught the purple ball of energy in her palm, and closed her fist to force it into mist. Her magic flared. It had reached the limit of its patience, and so had she.

  The pirate captain had crossed the line and threatened her friends. Her team had stopped the pirates from threatening the hostages, and the crew had taken cover from the fight. Now, she had no reason to hold back.

  The Meligornian gaped when he watched the ambassador shrink, the robes suddenly too big for the female form inside. The hood dropped over her face and he was at a complete loss as to what in the hell was going on.

  Power thrummed over her small form, vibrated through the command center, and drew the attention of everyone present.

  “Oh, shit,” Frog said and pointed at her.

  “Dammit.” Lars tackled one of the pirates and managed to drag the enormous form to the ground. “Interesting,” he continued, as the alien looked at him in confusion. “Tell me, do you feel anything but anger and pride when you take a life?”

  The pirate’s confusion melted into a look of scorn and distaste, and he bared his fangs as his body tensed. The human gave him no more time to react “Sorry, I need intel or I’d let her have you.”

  “Musch—” the pirate started and struggled to break his adversary’s grip.

  He released the alien but powered a fist as hard as he possibly could through the open visor. The blow rendered the man unconscious before he could finish his insult.

  Marcus glanced over and nodded in approval. Lars winced, shook his hand, then motioned toward Stephanie. “Someone’s gone black.”

  With the last pirate eliminated, the other guards raced toward her. “Stephanie!”

  Stephanie swiped her hand back and pushed her team away from her. Her head raised in challenge, she shrugged the robes off her shoulders and stepped out of them in her body armor.

  Her eyes were as black as the space outside and she glared relentlessly at the captain. “You dare to threaten my people?”

  He froze. Whatever he’d expected to find under the cloak, it hadn’t been this, but she gave him no opportunity to recover his startled wits. She leapt forward and moved so fast the team couldn’t see her until she stopped in front of the Meligornian Hormghast.

  Her hands moved swiftly over him to drag the magic out of him. “I’ll take that back,” she told him coldly, “and with the interest you owe.”

  His eyes bulged in shock and terror as pain engulfed him when streams of energy ripped their way through his skin. He opened his mouth and a scream shattered the air. It broadcast through the open comm line to fill every inch of the Dreamer.

  In their cabins, the passengers cringed and some moaned in fear, while others stared with real horror at what they saw on their viewscreens. In an ice cream shop many decks away, one little girl felt a surge of hope and gave a very quiet giggle.

  On the Bridge, Stephanie Morgana held the pirate captain at arms’ length, his torso wreathed in purple energy. His body shook violently, and she smiled a terrible smile. As she looked at him, he opened his eyes and his skin began to melt from his bones.

  Recognizing her, his voice cracked. “That human witch—”

  Her smile widened. “Perhaps it would have been best if the ambassador had been here because I haven’t the wisdom to use anything but raw power. And since I will need it all to fix the evil you have done, I’ll take that from you.”

  The magic surrounding him brightened as she did
as she promised, thrust her arm into his thinned and brittle chest, and wrenched the last strand of magic from inside him. He shuddered slightly when the energy left him. It shimmered as it flowed into her and left nothing but a pile of ash and bone behind it.

  Stephanie drew several slow, deep breaths, and the room seemed to expand around her. She turned and stared at Captain Penman and the cold darkness in her gaze made him shiver.

  Despite the urge to look away, he held her gaze and saw something beyond the young woman he had welcomed on the ship only days before. Sparks of energy crackled around her as she spoke. “Keep your people safe. Take care of everything else on this ship while we take care of the bomb.”

  He nodded and she turned and strode from the room, her security team close behind her. Penman sat for several moments in the silence that followed, then pushed himself from the seat and turned to his executive officer. “Deal with the pirates and the dead. Get them off my Bridge.”

  The comms crackled and Chief Engineer Bruce’s voice came through. “Captain, we have a problem.”

  Chapter Thirty-Seven

  The pirates had spread out and made for the passenger decks as their captain had ordered. Fortunately, they hadn’t managed to do much before their captain’s scream and the view screens set up throughout the ship had alerted them to his death. Now, they converged on the Gramghast and his team.

  Their motivation had not changed. They’d wanted to destroy the ship and now wanted that more than ever. They had lost their leader and that was a travesty, the ultimate betrayal.

  It was clear the ambassador had known they were coming and had seeded the witch in his place. For that, he would pay. But before that, they would destroy the witch, because no one, not even the magically gifted, could survive the vacuum of space.

  At first, they’d thought they could team up, move into place as a single force, and trap her. There were enough of them that she wouldn’t be able to eliminate them all before they overwhelmed her.

  It might have worked, but with the speed at which their adversaries moved and their determination, the pirates couldn’t enact it in time. They found themselves under fire before they could put any of their plans into action.

  The team strode through the ship, Stephanie in the lead with her wild black eyes and silvery strands of hair blowing wildly around her. Any attempt at resistance was simply annihilated. Her team walked behind and to each side of her, grim-faced and unyielding as they fired with measured deliberation to pick off the pirates she missed.

  They walked without fear and ignored the laser fire and bullets directed at them without flinching. She swayed her hand from side to side to block any attacks very effectively.

  It took her no extra effort to do so. The shield had been a good idea but it demanded more power, and with her magic expanded, it was easier to block or slow any shots fired at them. Defeated in the ship’s corridors, the remaining pirates converged on the bomb. Their Gramghast made the next plan seem possible. “We will be able to use the bomb as negotiation. We have a ship full of hostages so she will have to let us go. And when she does, we will detonate it. She killed our leader, and she must die.”

  The others who stood near the incendiary device looked doubtful. His plan sounded good, but they were not so sure. “Have you seen her? She is the Federation witch and there is something in her that none of us have ever seen. I watched Saqteq as he was reduced to nothing more than ash and bone.”

  The Gramghast narrowed his eyes and bared his fangs at this insubordination. “This is no time for cowardice. We are Dreth and we fight against the tyranny and oversight of the Federation. This witch is merely smoke and mirrors, a little girl who only plays with magic.”

  “I don’t know, Gram,” the pirate insisted and revealed a hint of fang. “If she is only smoke and mirrors, she is the kind that has more than fire and glass behind her. She sucked the power out of him and melted the skin from his bones.”

  Their leader sighed and waved his hand dismissively. “Whatever she is, this is our only chance to stop her. The hologram is gone. Start welding and close the hatches. We don’t want her to throw it into the umbilical.”

  The Dreth went to work and moved the bomb enough to make sure it sat squarely on the beams strengthening the floor. They were very careful to avoid creating any kind of friction as they moved it.

  Once it was in place, the pirates backed away and looked around. “Where is Krozar?”

  A massive Dreth pushed through the crowd and his presence made the rest of them look small. His battle armor was worn, and he was covered in scars and wore a pair of round glass goggles on the top of his helmet.

  He raised the welding torch he carried, pressed the lever to activate it, and lit the cigar clenched between his jagged teeth. Krozar puffed a couple of times and looked at it, then regarded his companions with a smirk. “Does somebody need a weld?”

  The closest two Dreth exchanged glances and groaned but waved him over. “Krozar. Bomb. Stick it down and don’t blow us up.”

  The alien sneered at them, knowing they were making fun of him and hating it. He sassed them in return and enjoyed the looks on their faces. “What? No boom-boom?”

  Not giving them time to respond, he pushed them aside and went to work to weld the bomb to the floor. A pirate crouched to his right and another to his left to hold it in place. Krozar looked up and pointed to the guy to the right. “Move it a half an inch to your left.”

  The pirate hurried to comply, but his body was suddenly hurled away and blood splattered the side of the bomb. Krozar raised an eyebrow and turned to the other one. “All right then. You. Move it a half an inch to your—”

  Another shot rang out and his second assistant somersaulted into the virtual grass. A blue wall of magic swirled around him and shoved him back several feet before it returned to wrap itself around the bomb.

  Krozar threw his cigar on the floor and raised his goggles. He stood and turned to see what the hell was going on.

  “I’m workin’ here,” he protested

  The others ignored him. They were too busy looking up so he followed their gaze.

  The witch and her team looked right back at him.

  Stephanie leaned over the balcony five stories above the park floor. “I’m glad to see they take bomb safety seriously. Sure, let’s smoke cigars and light torches around the big explodey thing.”

  “Well, you put a stop to that.” Lars grinned.

  Stephanie cracked a smile and put her hand out. “Fine. We’d better get our asses down there before they work out how to set it off in spite of the magic.”

  Around her, the team responded with a soft chorus of affirmatives, and she placed her hands on the rail and prepared to launch herself over. “Drinks are on me when we finish?”

  “All right!” Marcus grinned like a maniac and placed his hands on the rail beside hers.

  The others mirrored him and each of them grinned like they were about to raise hell—which was exactly what they intended to do. “Let’s make an amazing entrance, and I hope the security cameras get this,” she said and looked at Frog. “You did get the cameras, right?”

  He looked at her and curled his lip with scorn. “Puhlease, I’ve haven’t been out of them since you had me get in. Smile! This thing will go out live.”

  They all chuckled and readied themselves to jump. She sent a small glimmer of magic to each of them and it coated their boots with a slight gleam. When it settled, she began to count. “All right. On three… Three!”

  They landed hard and bounced, and the magic cushioned the impact enough that they didn’t break bone. Marcus took two running steps and dived forward. Frog saw what he was doing and sprinted over.

  He dropped to his knees and reached to push his teammate’s feet up as he did so. The dive turned into a flip, and Marcus spun feet over head toward one of the Dreth.

  The pirate raised his blaster, but his attacker moved too fast. His feet pounded into the alien’s skull and fe
lled him. Marcus landed and pushed to his feet where he bounced on his still-enchanted boots. “This shit is seriously wicked.”

  The Dreth groaned and struggled to stand. His opponent continued to talk about his boots while he drew his pistol. “I feel like I’m in control but I have super-feet power. Who knew that could be a kick-butt super-power?”

  He pulled the trigger and fired two shots into the invader’s head and immediately looked for the next target. Around him, the fight had started in earnest. Frog backed up to him and eliminated another pirate as he came.

  When he ran into his teammate, he gestured to his feet. “My turn, my turn.”

  Marcus laughed as he locked his fingers together and stooped for him to step into them. A group of three Dreth had attacked Johnny as a unit, so he pivoted slightly as Frog stabilized.

  He bounced his hands up and down and he crouched, grunted with effort as he straightened, and raised his hands to launch the other man toward the Dreth trio. He narrowed his eyes to follow the man’s trajectory and his jaw dropped when he realized he might have tossed him a little too hard.

  Frog whooped as he soared up to the sixth floor, then grasped the cutter as he began to descend once again. He tipped himself forward to aim at the three Dreth and Johnny and activated the bladed weapon.

  At the last second, he flipped so he now fell feet-first, knowing they were the only part of his body that was actually cushioned by magic. His plummet hurled him into one of the Dreth and he lashed out at another and partially severed the pirate’s neck.

  Johnny blinked and grinned as he high fived his teammate before he turned back to the battle. “That was killer bad.”

  The third Dreth lunged toward him and his grin disappeared. He raised his blaster and fired to pulp the left side of his face inside the helmet. He followed up with a shot to each of the Dreth on the ground. “I want to give that a go.”