by Blaze Ward
This particular vessel had been used as a runabout between the two big ships, when Erin needed to be going back and forth with supplies and orders. As a result, there were a couple of boxes back there, both roughly the size of double-tall coffins, where random things could be stashed so they didn’t move around when the vessel was in zero-g.
A’Alhakoth moved down her checklist, keeping an eye on her skyvox and turning on her local scanners to track traffic around the station. She also brought up the main station control channel on her screen, watching for departures to suddenly be added, so she would know which vessel to follow.
Just as she reached for the vox, in order to brief the Commander on the situation, the outer lock on her SkyCamel began to cycle, beeping to let everyone know that the heavy door was in the process of moving, so they could get out of the way.
She had gotten so wrapped up in pre-flight that she’d forgotten her skyvox. It showed Erin standing just outside on the concourse.
They were about to leave in this ship?
She was trapped. The door would open in about fifteen seconds and she would have to risk a gunfight, right here in the SkyCamel.
Or would she?
A’Alhakoth unbuckled from the pilot’s seat and moved aft. There was the privy and the storage closet. Neither sounded appealing, as hijackers with any sense would poke a nose into both, just to make sure they were alone.
She would have.
That left the two coffins aft. And hardly any time to reconsider her insanity as she raced to the aft one, popped the locks holding it closed, and threw herself in.
Hopefully, nobody would notice that someone had left the lid unlocked and do something about it. She found a crossbar inside, grabbed it, and pulled the lid back down on the hinges, plunging herself into total darkness.
At least the box wasn’t airtight, as pressure differentials were common between ships and stations, and you didn’t want anything exploding suddenly.
At the same time, she was in a gray box in total darkness, when her mind wanted to interpret everything as being in a coffin, where she was about to be lowered into the ground and buried alive.
At least it wasn’t spiders. This was a nightmare she felt she could contain. Spiders would have her out of the box, screaming and firing.
Outside, as she tried to calm her breathing, the inner lock beeped. On her skyvox, she could see Erin enter the vessel and move directly to the pilot’s seat.
She could hear other noises. Perhaps jumpseats being lowered and used.
There was absolutely no conversation.
Other than training, A’Alhakoth couldn’t remember a time when those women weren’t cracking jokes or talking about some fantastic meal Daniel had prepared for them. A’Alhakoth had always been closer to her closest brothers, Kilra and Trelga, rather than her sister E’Elbarth, so she had recognized the banter when they admitted her to the comitatus.
Utter silence baffled her.
Unless they had all somehow been taken. There was that.
A sound directly above her caused A’Alhakoth’s hand to slip into her jacket for a pistol she had not brought with her before she remembered where she was.
Fists and clubs. The Commander had wanted prisoners.
The sound above had been a body sliding onto the top of her box, as though whoever it was would fly without a jumpseat to hold them when the SkyCamel escaped the grav field inducers of the station. That was even more insane than total silence.
But if they were taking this SkyCamel, it would make it easier for her to follow.
If only she had been smart enough to call the Commander first, but she’d been wrapped up in her own fantasies of riding to the rescue. She had forgotten the first rule of the comitatus: We are legion.
There was nothing A’Alhakoth could do now but ride helplessly along, and hope that she could fix her error before it was too late.
Forty
There was a rage in her soul so deep and so grand that Erin was surprised she didn’t just erupt in flames, like the evil djinn from the story.
Not that she could do anything.
Daniel talked about the left hand of evil. Of all the terrible things a person with mental powers such as his could do to a woman, once she was in his control. But Daniel was a male. He thought about the physicality of rape.
The act of forcing a woman to have sex, even to enjoy it. As if that was all that rape consisted of.
Foolish male had no idea. But his heart was in the right place. She had continued to verify that on a regular basis, every time he opened his mind to her.
Erinkansilemi Uduik would know the man was turning evil before he did. She would feel a few moments of regret when it became necessary to kill him, but as he said, such power corrupted even the most innocent souls.
These furry fuckers were going down in the hardest, nastiest way she and all her sisters could come up with.
Rape was a physical act. It didn’t happen in the tribal squadron, on penalty of a slow, painful death, but there were women alive, elders who remembered the days when the women of the Mbaysey were property.
Grandma Ezinne still bore the barcode tattoo on her cheek, just as Erin did.
Rape was a crime of power, not sex.
A person could take, because nobody could stop them. Daniel had that potential in him, but he worked hard every day to keep it as far away from himself as possible, lest he become the thing he hated most in the universe.
These pink snakes just took.
Erin fought, but there was precious little she could do. The others were certainly struggling just as hard, but they lacked the raw power necessary to change things. At least the four of them required the attention of one of the snakes, lest they break out. The other five were too much for Daniel to overcome, but someone would have a lapse.
It was human nature, and Erin was willing to bet that it was snake nature, too. Even pink, furry monsters like these.
She felt scaly hands rifling through her mind. They dug into the older memories, but really only seemed interested in Urid-Varg.
Erin found herself reliving the day she first met that salaud. Awakening from a daze to find herself naked in the flight bay, with Kathra and Iruoma also stripped.
And Daniel standing over the body of Urid-Varg, the little fucker’s head staved in by a fire suppressor. A heavy, steel one.
Later, trying to determine what the being was. And stopping Daniel when he fell prey to some last trap Urid-Varg had left behind.
Kathra killing the creature.
Daniel almost becoming him.
Eyes looked around now. Erin had the impression of someone sniffing, but the scent they wanted wasn’t here.
The largest snake had taken up station aft after he had forced Erin into the pilot’s seat, like was normal. Daniel rode next to her, just as glassy-eyed as the rest.
Ndidi, the voice called.
Erin shrugged, at least as much as her mind was allowed.
All eyes turned to Daniel now. Erin heard him make a strangled, almost choking sound as her own hands began the pre-flight checklist. It went quickly, but it always did. She didn’t leave things for later, if they needed doing now.
If there was a hand on the top of her head, pushing her mohawk down, it shifted now. Daniel was resisting them, and it took the efforts of all six to pry open his mind.
Their intense hold never wavered, but she could hear snippets of conversation, as if the aliens were talking, but need to focus all their will on Daniel to keep him from erupting.
Erin was made of fire, but these snakes did not feel her heat.
WinterStar, one of them whispered.
A memory had been pried from her mind, showing just how empty her old home was, with nearly everyone on SeekerStar now. There was just enough of a skeleton crew to fly the ship.
Another image, showing the Star Turtle in orbit where they had left it before coming to this TradeStation. Minds read the stars in the background.
She assumed that the snakes were going to hijack the ship, from the whispers she overheard. Nobody had mentioned to them that a SkyCamel also had a tiny valence drive. Slow and relatively short-ranged, but flying to the Turtle was possible, although the life support might be strained by the time they got there.
Erin focused her mind on WinterStar, lest they somehow realize their mistake. That ship moving would get Kathra’s attention, and Ife would come after them. Howling like all the demons of hell.
Hopefully, that many angry minds would be too much for the snakes to control, and someone could break loose long enough do something nasty. Once Daniel was free, things were going to get ugly.
Once she was free, there would be blood.
“WinterStar, this is Erin in SkyCamel Six, departing the station,” she found herself saying. “Got a package to drop off on my way to SeekerStar.”
“Acknowledged, SkyCamel Six,” came the reply. “Your usual spot is currently available.”
Deep inside, Erin felt a chuckle, but it withered in the heat. All spots were currently available on the old flagship.
Erin’s hands undocked from the station and applied just enough power to begin the transition. Grav Field Inducers let go quickly, and everyone was in freefall. There were no squawks, so she presumed that the snakes had hooked their tails onto something as they floated.
The humans had all been buckled in tight.
“Erin, this is Kathra,” the Commander came over the line. “Status?”
She felt hands rifle through her mind, looking for the trap contained in that conversation.
“Mission mostly successful,” she replied against her will, even sounding breezy and cool as she did. “Will explain everything when we get to SeekerStar.”
As in, I’m fine. The crew is fine. Nobody has a gun to our heads, and this is an open line, so I don’t want to let anyone else out there listening know our secrets.
Damn it. None of her mind was hers.
They could open her up like a book, find the page they needed, and read the words aloud with her mouth.
Kathra would not suspect anything, but would be patiently waiting while Erin intercepted WinterStar and dropped off whatever it was she was carrying. And then the older ship would jump straight to where the Star Turtle was and these salauds would be free to do whatever it was they had in those furry minds.
She had failed.
Damn it.
Forty-One
Instead of jumping somewhere, the SkyCamel had docked. A’Alhakoth didn’t think SeekerStar was close enough for that short of a flight, so the aliens must have hauled their victims to their own ship, as a prelude to whatever it was they had planned.
Hopefully, she could find a beam weapon in here, somehow stashed by Erin or one of the others against just such an emergency. A knife wasn’t going to do the trick, if she was surrounded by a mob of aliens that had the power to contain Daniel.
Again the complete silence was unnerving, even though she had heard Erin’s voice talking to someone briefly. Both rear hatches beeped themselves open, so something was presumably happening.
A’Alhakoth counted to one hundred slowly. Twice.
She took a deep breath and tried to roll face down without moving the lid. That way, she could get her feet under her to stand, maybe to maneuver if she needed to.
If that would do her any good.
The lid was hinged. She pressed up slowly, stopping when she had a crack of vision at the top.
Nothing. Several jumpseats had been left down, so somebody was going to catch hell for not following the Commander’s rules, but it would be a minor infraction in the scheme of piracy and mental assault.
A’Alhakoth opened the lid the rest of the way and stood, stretching after the ride in a too-small box.
The SkyCamel was empty. She crept forward and confirmed that the front was as well, before peeking out the front portal.
Wait a minute. This is WinterStar’s flight deck. What are we doing here?
She saw several figures moving away, towards the lift that carried people to the central core. Not all of them were human. Several looked like enormous, pink snakes.
What in the many hells had Daniel found?
Or who had found him?
She was at a crossroads. She could pursue them to the ship’s core, or try to find if anything was left in the armory. Would they blow the ship up or steal it? Those were really the only two options, if you were going to ride the lifts into the zero-grav core of the vessel.
She seemed to remember that the skyvox didn’t have that great of a range, considering where SeekerStar was floating, so calling Kathra was probably doomed to failure. That left her.
Without a weapon, there was little A’Ahlakoth could do, if those snakes had powers sufficient to overwhelm Daniel, so she set out looking for something. Anything. Even a handful of plumbing fixtures she could throw and a length of pipe would do.
A’Alhakoth checked her memory and headed right around the rim of the ship.
She didn’t have much time.
Forty-Two
“Damn it,” Kathra snarled as WinterStar blinked out of existence. “Do you have a track?”
“I do,” Obioma replied.
Obioma was the actual pilot, while Ife handled all communications and sensors, and acted as the Commander for the regular crew when Kathra wasn’t around.
“Where?” Kathra demanded.
Obioma turned and stared at her for a moment, with a look like she had bitten something sour.
“The Turtle,” she finally admitted.
“Damn it,” Kathra repeated. “Is Isaev clear?”
“Affirmative, Kathra,” Ife spoke up now. “His shuttle has departed, headed to his factory, well out of our path.”
“And Erin’s SkyCamel docked with WinterStar?” she asked, mostly just to confirm.
“She did,” Ife nodded “There were no further communications from that point.”
“Jump as soon as the drives are charged,” she ordered.
It was obvious. Daniel had met his match.
And fallen to them. Erin and the others had probably been little more than innocent bystanders at that point.
Now she would need to chase them, whoever it was, and stop them from…what?
SeekerStar lacked the weaponry necessary to destroy the Turtle. Even a Septagon had only pounded fruitlessly on that massive, green hull with its Ram Cannons. WinterStar wasn’t even as heavily armed, with only two slightly-illegal Ram Cannon turrets, twinned at either end of the long axis, with lesser turrets around the larger rim.
What could someone who could fit into a SkyCamel do against that?
Besides stealing it.
Erin had warned her that someone would eventually find a way to overpower Daniel, but Kathra had not believed that was possible.
She had apparently been wrong.
“Contact A’Alhakoth and let her know she’s on her own for now, and that we’ll be back for her,” Kathra ordered.
“I have been trying already, Kathra,” Ife replied. “But I cannot find her signal on the station, or anywhere else.”
“Was she with them?” Kathra asked, but that was a rhetorical question.
A’Alhakoth and Erin had worked out a plan of secrecy, so perhaps the young woman had found a way to sneak over to WinterStar with them. That, or she had also been captured.
Kathra ground her teeth and considered her options. One more Spectre wouldn’t be all that useful on the other side, so she would command from here. And do whatever she needed to do.
Find whoever she needed to kill.
“Ready to jump,” Obioma called out. “Initiating now.”
SeekerStar leapt into the darkness.
Forty-Three
Try as he might, Daniel could not break through the i
ce again. He was trapped, deep in his own mind, pushing and snapping at the bars the ishtan had erected, but nothing was working.
Time had passed. He wasn’t sure how much, but enough. The salauds had taken him and the others to the core and then the bridge. There, they finally ran into someone. Daniel didn’t know her by more than face and dietary preferences, but she turned into a glass-eyed zombie half a second after she turned her head towards them when the main hatch opened.
She had immediately programmed a jump, going to the place where Daniel had already shown them the Turtle was quietly waiting in space.
They had, as near as he could tell, arrived. It wasn’t a long flight from here, but an hour had passed while he was contained in some fugue.
Deep in his soul, where he was hiding, Daniel had the faintest hope that the ishtan would take him over there and leave Erin and the others behind. Without him, there was nothing they could do that was a significant threat to the aliens.
Perhaps they would just kill him, steal the Turtle, and return whence they came? Could it be that easy?
But he found himself in the middle of a convoy, surrounded by the four women and then six pink snakes. Out into the corridor to the elevator ring. The chambers were large enough for such a group, except that Daniel had pink fur pressed against his back and legs as they rode down into gravity slowly.
He wished he could say or do anything about it, but he felt more like a disembodied ghost than anything. Presumably, a priest would come along soon and banish him back to whichever of the hells welcomed chefs masquerading as mad gods. Or vice versa.
They landed on the outer ring and circled to the flight deck in near silence. WinterStar had never been a particularly crowded vessel. Kathra kept the crew down to only those people who had proven themselves, rather than putting amateurs on this deck and hoping.
