Irbzrk Orbital Factory Main Station
Jennifer Delaney. Mid-twenties, space-babe pirate queen. Finally taking control of the situation. Adrian would have been proud, but it’s no time to go getting distracted by that sort of thing.
“Fusion blades cut anything,” Jen said, “make sure that the patrol groups realise that they can use them. Make sure they keep close to each other as well, to stop them getting picked off one by one as seems to have been happening.”
“These aren’t trained troops, Jen,” Chir reminded her needlessly. “We can’t expect them to work that way together. There’s such a difference in height between team members that of course they’re going to spread out.”
“I don’t want to hear it, Chir,” Jen replied sharply. “These people are practically serving themselves up to this fucker and I’m not going to go on thinking it’s in some way my fault.”
“We’re also taking on board your advice about the cameras,” Trycrur said, interrupting to ease the tensions. “Each patrol has its own hover camera, and is using it ahead of their group to avoid surprises. We’ve avoided any more groups simply going missing since we started doing that.”
“Now they just get slaughtered on camera,” Zripob observed.
“And that’s how we know that they’re hardly acting as patrols at all,” Jen said flatly. “English just seems to find it fun to leap out of nowhere and take them apart before disappearing again to repeat. Just like in the Alien movies.”
“The what?” Chir asked.
“We have reason to believe he’s emulating the actions of historical and literary figures,” Zripob told him. “They’re part of his game.”
“Just get the message out to tighten up their formations,” Jen said. She was certain that humans wouldn’t have had this sort of problem, and figured that the extreme regularity of herbivores being sentient creatures was partly to blame. There would have been little reason for such creatures to evolve pack hunting mentalities, and as that was screwing them all over she had little choice but to lend them all hers.
“The station leaders want those translations as well,” Chir reminded her. “The messages that were written…”
“I know the ones they mean,” Jen said. “They’re lines of meaningless crap, but yes, they’re meant for me. We have to assume he is intending to target me, but from the video footage he seems to be enjoying himself right here.”
“At least he hasn’t tried to vent all of the atmosphere,” Trycrur mused. “Although that makes sense if you factor in his enjoyment.”
“That would be too detached for him,” Jen replied, although she was really only doing her best impersonation of a criminal psychologist. “I don’t think we have to worry about that, but if you do go out there make sure you’re wearing a Vacuum suit just in case.”
“You have that much confidence, hm?” Chir said dryly. “I will have the leadership shut down the venting systems.”
“We also need to be ready to send several teams at him at once if he is found,” Jen said. “Preferably from different directions.”
She recalled that that sort of thing was called ‘flanking’ and while she wasn’t exactly a student of military history she knew enough to know it wasn’t good to be subjected to it.
“It might confuse him, and cut off his escape routes,” she continued. “If we can force him in a given direction we can have anti-tank weapons in place. Those should at least slow him down.”
They looked at each other in agreement, and with a sense of renewed confidence.
“Then we all know what we have to do,” Chir said. “Zripob and I will be liaising with the leadership and conveying orders to the militia. Trycrur will be monitoring the camera feeds…”
Jen sighed. “And I will be sitting here with my thumb well buried.”
“We will patch feed through here so you can help me,” Trycrur said.
“Fine,” Jen replied, thoroughly tired of being confined to the ship when there were much larger open spaces just outside. Just another incentive to finally bring this to a close. “Let’s do this, then.”
Cameron White was beginning to feel exhausted, and that meant that the game must be coming to its proper end. Even a fine lad from south London had his limits, and the improved tactics that the mice were employing had forced him to keep moving and to keep killing.
That cheeky redheaded bitch had to be responsible for it. Somehow she had turned killing xenos into a chore, and now that they had started to used their fusion blades and keep in formation it had effectively stopped his wonderful little rampages. He was forced into sneaking and striking from ambush, forced to work as though he was afraid of the mice.
It was clear to him now that he had made a misjudgment; the redhead was supposed to have broken or fled, but she had done neither. He had imagined her hiding away on her ship in fear and desperation, waiting for him to come and make good on all his little promises.
She was still waiting for that. It was time to make good on them.
She would learn that her efforts had meant nothing. She would learn that her clever little tactics had meant nothing.
She would learn that anything she did meant nothing. He would teach her that slowly. He would make sure that she learned it before the end.
Cameron White made his way towards the freighter with the greatest stealth. He fell upon the little group of mice who thought to guard it from him and butchered them with his bare hands, savagely tearing heads from bodies and crushing skulls between his thick fingers until they burst like water balloons.
He was covered with their filth, but that would only serve to aid him in the coming encounter. The wretched stink of it was the perfect eau de toilette for their little rendezvous.
He could barely contain his excitement, but Cameron White knew when a moment required intimacy and waited until he was sure she was alone.
Her xenos would return eventually, but by then it would be too late. Then it would be their turn, when they knew that they had already lost, and he could savour their defeat.
The time was right.
+++++
Adrian was attracting some attention. The fact that he was a hairy blue man with a big gun notwithstanding, there were a handful of protests when he had used it to obliterate the fucking statue they’d made of him. Of all the people in the galaxy who might deserve one, he didn’t put himself amongst them, and he sure as fuck didn’t want anyone looking up to him.
The locals might have protested but none of them wanted anything to do with him or his gun, and it seemed their police were all too busy looking for the same fucker he was.
“Any news, Askit?” he demanded, pressing his finger into his other ear so that he could more easily hear the Corti hacker over the angry mutterings of the crowd.
“Just got it for you,” came the reply. “A Rauwryhr female, and a male Chehnasho and Gaoian are alright. The human female…”
Askit’s voice trailed off.
“What about her?” Adrian demanded sharply.
“She is on a freighter in dock seven,” the Corti told him. “A team of militia was just found dead in the area a few seconds ago, the hover cam feeds are all over it.”
“Fuck!” Adrian snarled. “I’m on my way.”
He heard the growl as he turned, and his attacker was on him, a furry ball of fury striking with all the force of… a Gaoian male. It felt somewhat like a small child kicking him with padding on.
“How dare you destroy that statue?!” Chir shouted in his rage, still making his ineffectual assault. “That man was my friend!”
“Still is, Chir,” Adrian replied, and the Gaoian went wide eyed as he recoiled in absolute astonishment.
“Right now Jen is in trouble,” Adrian continued. “Take Gdugin here and get there as soon as you can.”
“Adrian…” Chir mumbled, still in shock.
“Chir!” Gdugin said sharply, bringing him back to his senses with a firm shake. “Do as you’ve been told, there is no time to lose.”
+++++
Jennifer Delaney. Mid-twenties, space-babe pirate queen getting entirely too used to life or death situations, and still scared shitless. She had been surprised by the sudden intrusion but she had not been unprepared. She had, after all, been expecting this for some time.
So far she’d managed to shoot him in the left arm with one of the bolts from the boltgun Adrian had given her and that hadn’t even seemed to bother him that much.
He also spoke in a creepy English monotone. That didn’t help at all.
“Come now, little mouse,” he said softly. “There’s no getting around it.”
She was still pointing the gun at him, although it no longer held any ammunition, but she knew that while she didn’t shoot again he wouldn’t know that. The kinetic pulse may hit hard but English was the kind of brute who looked as though he hit harder.
“You stay right there!” she told him. She had to buy time until… something. “I mean it!”
“Now, now, little mouse,” he said, his tone entirely flat and emotionless. “We both know that if there was any more of those little nettles in your pea shooter, you would have used them by now.”
Jen swallowed her fear. “You really think that?” she demanded, hoping that a show of confidence would make him think twice.
It didn’t. He drew his stun gun and began to advance. He moved slowly and relentlessly, his eyes never leaving her face. It was like he wanted to watch her fear break her.
Well, fuck him.
She fired again, and it had all of the stopping power that she’d expected. He gave a grunt and that was about it.
She grabbed a chair and swung it at him, catching him on the side and staggering him for a moment, but the chair fell to pieces from the blow.
Cheap alien rubbish.
She was running out of options. He was backing her into a corner and it was now she started to breathe the heavy breaths of terror. There were no more other weapons; she threw the hardest punch that she could. A punch that was solid enough to deter any of her brothers from pushing her around.
And he caught it.
She saw the faintest hint of a smile on his face as he let go, and then he fired the stun gun. The gun they had always intended to be used on him.
The pain was obscene, and Jen’s body rebelled against her as every nerve spasmed at once. The floor came up to meet her as her legs gave way, the wind knocked out of her as she hit it.
She kicked out feebly as he took her beautiful red hair and held it tight, finding the strength had been blasted from her body.
He looked into her eyes and seemed satisfied. “There it is.”
That was when the ball of blue hit him.
Cameron White had made some kind of terrible mistake.
He realised this as the blue xeno grabbef him from behind, too fast even for Cameron to react. It had snarled as it took him, a terrible and inhuman noise that filled his chest with cold terror and it had lifted him away from the redhead.
It threw him against the wall and punched him in the side of the head with the kind of force Cameron normally expected from high end xeno power suits.
It hit him again before his vision returned, and he stabbed at it randomly with his switchblade, burying the metal deep into flesh.
The beast had cried out in pain and thrown Cameron backwards across the control terminals.
Cameron White expected that it would hesitate for long enough that he could start to fight back, or failing that to make himself scarce.
Cameron White was wrong.
The blue and hairy bigfoot didn’t pause. It was on him again before Cameron could find his feet.
Dear God it was fast!
And angry.
But its eyes were cold and empty.
Cameron White knew terror then.
The space monster punched him in the head again, smashing the console and driving his head into it.
Life became a blur of pain and utter helplessness. The world was dark when his eyes became too injured to see.
And then the creature stopped.
Cameron White waited, his body shaking uncontrollably. He waited for the end to come.
But the monster did not kill Cameron White.
The monster dragged Cameron from the spaceship with such care that he wondered if it simply intended to arrested him. Had it simply been a police officer? It was hard to think of beast as anything other than a savage animal.
Cameron White was dropped to the floor, and here he could hear the sound of an angry crowd.
Then he heard the monster talk.
“Gdugin, leave some for the rest of them.”
How strange that the monster spoke with an Australian accent.
Cameron White died badly.
+++++
Askit had watched in sick anticipation as Adrian burst into the ship. The sounds of savage violence had come soon after and had persisted for long enough that a crowd arrived, led by Gdugin, another Chehnasho and a Gaoian.
All had waited outside when they’d heard the sounds of fighting from within, as though there was an unspoken agreement not to interfere, or perhaps the more likely case was an instinctive sense of self-preservation against getting involved in it.
Askit knew he was shitting himself.
When the sounds had stopped, Askit thought that it must have ended in death, and when Adrian had emerged – bleeding from a knife still buried in his shoulder – and had dumped the body of a human on the deck, Askit had at first thought the man must be dead.
But when the broken man had moved, Askit realised what this really was. Adrian was not presenting a dead man to his victims.
He was presenting a helpless one to those he had persecuted. Askit swallowed nervously; there was only one way this was going to go.
Adrian had spoken in private to Gdugin and she had started in on the fallen human, laying about his body with a thin, curved knife.
The crowd had looked on, and then he had spoken to them, his voice clear but hollow and lifeless . “Make sure you take this cunt apart.”
Then he had stood and watched as it was done, and Askit had stood with him
“Think they’ll make another statue of me for this?” Adrian asked as the crowd took their justice.
Askit wasn’t sure if the human was speaking to him or not, so he remained quiet and wondered how strange it was for this variety of aliens – most of them herbivores – were tearing a sentient being apart with the savagery expected of a Vulza.
“They shouldn’t, I think,” Adrian continued. “This isn’t the sort of thing that you should want to remember.”
“What, then?” Askit found himself asking. “Should they forget all they’ve been through here?”
Adrian sighed. “I don’t have those answers. I’m just a fuckup who only knows how to destroy things. I don’t think that’s worth celebrating.”
“Have you considered that maybe the statue isn’t for you?” Askit asked. “The statue they make, if any, will be for them, and it will mean whatever they want it to mean. And celebrate what they want it to celebrate.”
Adrian looked down at Askit then. “You’e a strange little bugger for a Corti.”
Askit frowned, uncertain if he had been insulted or not. It was sometime hard to tell with this human. There had been only congeniality in his tone, though, so Askit figured probably not.
“And you,” he replied, “are a strange blue haired ball of violence. One may even make the mistake of thinking you’re not a total savage after all.”
+++++
“You’ll be pleased to know that she’s alright,” Chir said, standing in front of the small transport ship that had brought Adrian and his new comrades, whoever they were, back to Irbzrk. “You could go and see her, be there when she wakes up.”
Adrian simply looked sad at that, an expression that Chir had never seen on his face before, even when it wasn’t covered in blue hair. Never during all of they’d faced together.
“No, I couldn’t,” he said, and gestured for his new comrades, the Chehnasho female who had first led the slaughter of the serial killer, and a Corti with whom Chir was unfamiliar.
“Why not?” demanded Chir, his voice hard despite his desire to reconcile. “We’ve looked for you, Adrian! Jen looked for you! We thought you’d been eaten by Hunters, and after we found the Zhadersil we were sure of it!”
“They only got one bite,” he said, patting the shoulder that had just been stabbed. “Always this shoulder for some reason…”
“Answer the question!” Chir ordered, his voice breaking. “What happened to you, Adrian? You abandoned us, and-“
He stopped as Adrian gave him a hard look. “I was going to come back, Chir. I did come back as soon as I’d heard there were Hunters, but you were already gone and I had no way of finding you. I did whatever I could to save this station from those fuckers and you know what? I did it! I beat them! And then somebody else came and rescued me, so right now I’m helping them out. But when I heard you were in trouble I still came, and that is worth something, Chir! It’s fucking worth something.”
Chir was silent. He could see Adrian was angry, but Chir wasn’t sure if it was at him or at something else. The contrast between Jen and Adrian had been so staggering that as he learned more about Jen the more savage Adrian had seemed by comparison. But then Cameron White had come and shown him true human savagery,
“What do we tell Jen when she wakes up?” he asked, dreading the idea of telling her how Adrian had returned to save her only to flee again before she recovered. Then would come the endless searching for a man who didn’t want to be found.
“Tell her a blue man saved her,” Adrian said. “Then tell her he left.”
Chir nodded; if Adrian wasn’t going to stay, perhaps something like that would be for the best. Chir wouldn’t have recognised the human under all the blue fur – wherever it had come from – had he not spoken, and Chir had been in close physical contact at the time. It gave him a thrill now to think that he could claim to have attacked a human and lived, regardless of the fact that the human hadn’t even seemed to mind. “And where was that blue man going?”
“The blue man?” Adrian grinned. “He’s got a whole fucking empire to burn down.”