Hodgepodge, Pirate Cruiser, Far Reaches
“I’m counting eight separate life forms,” read out the sensor tech. “Two groups of four. One taking the exterior starboard passage towards the command deck, the other cutting across to the other side.”
“Main screen,” Zripob instructed, and once his order had been followed he briefly studied the situation. He was unsettled by the sheer quantity of probable humans now invading his ship, a number far larger than his men had training or ability to repel.
He pointed out a particular section of the ship, closest to the command deck where the two paths would inevitably converge. “Instruct the Human Suppression Squad to move to this area. I want them to set up barricades there, there and there. They are to delay only, and then withdraw to the next barricade.”
The Gaoian Graf objected as Zripob knew he would; the Squad leader was too proud for his own good, and too daring as well. Zripob knew this boldness made him popular with the females, but in his estimation the would-be hero had seen his last mating.
“Commander,” Graf insisted, “we can do this! We’ve trained and we know the ship!”
Zripob would have none of it. “Your pride will get you killed,” he told the Gaoian fool. “But not today. You will do as you are ordered and hold the last lines, and if you feel you are incapable of following this order I shall promote somebody who is.”
One final glare of defiance from Graf and the Squad leader was gone to do his duty, and Zripob could turn his attention back to the situation at hand. One group of the insurgents was making their way to one of the larger traps, while the other was on target for the hot zone. That idea had been adapted from one of Adrian’s defenses aboard the Zhadersil, and with Jen’s input refined into something truly nasty indeed.
“Now,” he said, switching the feed on his datapad to show what was coming in from the hover cams in each area. “Let’s see who gets the first taste of the fun.”
+++++
Sergeant Valery Markovic led his three men down one of the cross-ship corridors in an effort to reach the other side. That was a distance of nearly one hundred and fifty metres, and it was straight and as quiet as the grave. It was too quiet by half, and Valery was unnerved; no ship he’d boarded thus far, and no facility he’d raided had been so without resistance.
He knew that something was up, and in spite of his bet with Captain Kaminski he was not hurrying. Valery trusted his instincts and he wasn’t going to put men in danger over a bottle of vodka, and as a result they were stopping at each and every door.
And there were a lot of doors; the smooth white walls of the corridor were frequently interrupted by the grey rectangles, and every three doorways the corridor was crossed by service passages and encircled by structural reinforcement. There’d been all of that aboard the frigate, and as a result Valery had an eerie sense of familiarity with the ship he was now boarding; the layout was more expansive, but so similar that he thought he knew it already.
The Captain’s voice came over the radio. “Sergeant Makovic,” he said. “Make sure you destroy any drone you see. Pasternack is dead.”
Valery quickly glanced around for any drone in the area, but he saw none. If one had taken down Prokopy it didn’t matter how, only that the same didn’t happen to the rest of them.
“Understood,” Valery responded grimly. “Thanks for the warning.”
He switched over to his team. “Any drone you see, destroy it on sight. The Captain advises they are dangerous.”
His men showed their understanding; they didn’t stop moving, but they sure as hell started paying more attention than they had before. Hopefully one loss would be all it took to see them through.
“Service passage coming up,” Bogomolov advised. He was about four meters ahead of Valery, and two ahead of Sokoloff, and took cover at the corner. The rest of them slid in behind him and waited for the all-clear while Bogomolov risked a glance around the corner.
“Nothing,” he grunted, almost in disappointment. None of them wanted a firefight, but it didn’t feel right with nothing.
“Keep moving,” Valery instructed.
And that was when it all went to shit.
Bogomolov stepped out into that corridor, and fell away to his right with a shocked gasp followed swiftly by a godawful scream.
Valery hurried to look after him; he stuck his head around the corner and felt the heavy tug of gravity pulling him towards the corridor’s distant end. Bogomolov still flailed as he bounced from wall to wall, twisting and tumbling until he came to the inevitable conclusion of his journey.
The radio transmitted the terrible crunch, and then it was silent.
Sergeant Valery Markovic ran his fingers across his chest in the shape of a cross as he stared after the dead man, whispering some vague prayer as he did so. “Captain Kaminski,” he said, profoundly disturbed. “Captain… Captain come in…”
+++++
Roman Kaminski had just shot down a drone, and when he had done so it had unleashed its payload. Whatever it had been there was no explosion, but he and his men lay on the floor gasping with pain that wracked their entire bodies.
All except for Prokopy Pasternack; he’d been closest to the drone when it had fallen and he’d only spasmed once. He wasn’t moving anymore.
“Flying… flying drone with nerve jam grenade,” Lagunov advised between breaths. “That is a new thing…”
They’d been briefed about those by the officials of the Celzi Alliance who had received them into their joint operation. The only thing in their armoury that seemed to have a significant effect against humans, and what they looked like. Mostly they were thrown, but there’d been stories about the Hunters using a launching mechanism to deliver the damned things. It seemed natural that drones were the next step, but it was awful fucking luck that they’d been the guinea pigs.
“It seems we have severely underestimated the tenacity of our enemy,” Roman admitted as he pulled himself to his feet. He felt like he’d been tasered, and perhaps there was some similarity between that and whatever a nerve jam grenade did to a man. “Any drone you see… shoot it immediately. We do not risk this again.”
He helped Lagunov and Zolnerowich to their feet, and mumbled a quick prayer for Pasternack; there had been no way there’d been anything but pain in that kind of death, and Roman yearned for some aliens to exact payment from.
“Sergeant Makovic,” he said, communicating with the other team in the hope they hadn’t met with a worse fate already. “Make sure you destroy any drone you see. Pasternack is dead.”
“Understood,” Valery responded grimly. “Thanks for the warning.”
Roman turned his attention back to his remaining two men. “This won’t happen again. We spread out, Lagunov takes point and Zolnerowich to the back. No less than four metres between us.”
Hopefully four metres would be enough to prevent them all getting hit by the same threat again, although he worried for the safety of Lagunov. If another of those altogether too silent drones came out, they would need to destroy it immediately or risk Lagunov joining Pasternack in the hereafter.
Lagunov moved ahead with renewed caution, and they slowed their pace to match. All eyes were peeled for the sudden, speedy motion of the nerve-jam drones, so much so that Roman nearly missed the turrets spinning out from the floor.
The one nearest to him went down under a hail of bullets fired as much on instinct as they were on training, and Lagunov’s failure to do the same only proved Roman to have been correct.
Roman had never watched a man die burning before, but even as he struggled away from the immense heat he found he could not look away. Lagunov’s screams were clearly audible over the radio, but they soon turned to gurgles and then into silence.
It was only then that he realised that Valery was calling for him, his tone urgent and distressed. “Captain… Captain Kaminski, please come in!”
“Sergeant… Jesus in Heaven…” he whispered, his eyes still fixed on the hellfire ahead. “There are turrets…”
“Captain,” Valery repeated, no relief in his voice from the fact that Roman had answered. “Bogomolov was killed. They turned the gravity sideways, and he fell down a service corridor to his death.”
“Acknowledged, Sergeant,” Roman replied, somewhat absently. “I have just lost Lagunov… they have turrets… plasma turrets.”
There was a brief, but heavy silence on the line. “Captain, I am not sure we are up against only aliens. This is very different to previous scenarios.”
“I agree, Sergeant,” Roman replied. “Tell me, what would you do if you were constructing defenses against boarding parties?”
“I would turn the hallways into a killing area,” said Valery. “They have drones, turrets, and control of gravity. Who knows what else? We should stop using the path they are expecting.”
“That is a reasonable decision, Sergeant,” Roman replied, breathing heavily as he hauled himself to his feet for the second time. “The walls between rooms are thin. You are to break through where possible, and avoid traps in this way.”
“Very good, Captain,” Valery acknowledged.
A few minutes ago they had been making a game of it, they had gone so far as to make a friendly wager.
Now the game had turned deadly, and all bets were off.
“Who are you?” Roman asked the ship in general. “WHO ARE YOU!?”
+++++
Zripob croaked a long, loud laugh as the number of invaders dropped from eight to five. That had been a remarkable victory against humans, but he knew the hardest was yet to come; humans were an adaptable species, and he only had so many surprises in his bag of tricks.
Even now it seemed that the group of three were negotiating the corridor drop, and the other pair had made their way into one room and had broken through into an adjacent room. That was clever thinking, if they were hoping to avoid traps in the hallways, but it seemed they had either forgotten or were ignorant of one very important fact.
He knew where they were.
That gave him possibilities for entertainment. The group of three would have to be dealt with more seriously, but the pair… it was very difficult to see what you were moving into when you had to go through a wall.
“Dispatch a Hellhound and a Nerve-drone to this area,” he ordered, pointing to the place he thought them most likely to attempt their next breach. When he had confirmation of a room he would deploy them more precisely.
The other three would need to be monitored to determine an appropriate response once they’d navigated the drop, but thus far they were easily the furthest away from the command deck and thus received the lowest priority.
He sat back to watch the show. “And send a message back to base about what’s going on here.”
+++++
Carltopia
“You’ll be glad to know that Keffa will be fine,” Chir said, smiling thinly at his unexpected guest. As a rule he didn’t like Corti, and this Corti in particular seemed that particular type of smug that he didn’t enjoy in anyone. “If she hadn’t been, I’d-“
“Have still listened to what I have to say,” finished the Corti formerly known as Taski. He didn’t shrink back when Chir levelled his most threatening glare at him, which Chir found somewhat unusual because he was generally considered to have quite the dangerous appearance, but seemed rather amused by it.
“Adrian said you were quite the character.”
Chir froze, his thoughts about what to do with this Corti bastard falling over themselves into an ungracious heap. “What… what did you say?”
The pieces fell into place even as he said the words. Injured people, unconscious woman who had apparently been strangled, and a very perturbed Corti doctor…
“Nadria…” he said. “That ‘Latin-Pig’ again!?”
“I believe you mean ‘Pig-Latin’,” the Corti corrected. “But you have the understanding I was looking for. Is this room safe for us to talk in?”
“It’s my office,” Chir replied testily. “Of course it’s safe-“
He trailed off as the Corti held up what was obviously some sort of surveillance device, now destroyed, and tossed it onto the desk. “Yes, I can see that.”
Chir stared at the object on his desk. “Where did you…”
The Corti smiled wanly. “There was one in the light above your desk, but that one came from the more accessible location of your window frame.”
Chir looked in both of those directions, and saw the damage that had been inflicted upon his window. Then he looked up in considerable horror. “Someone is listening?”
“Was listening,” the Corti replied. “Perhaps I should introduce myself; I am Askit and I am the most useful person you will ever meet.”
“Askit…” Chir repeated, trying to recall where he’d heard the name. It only took a moment to recall Darragh’s complaints on the matter. “You’re the one who stole Jen’s lander! You were there on Irbzrk!”
The Corti currently named Askit seemed genuinely amused by that accusation. “Technically I was just there when the lander was stolen, my companion – now unfortunately deceased – was the one committing the actual theft.”
“And I’ve just received a report that somebody has ‘borrowed’ Keffa’s ship,” Chir replied. He was glad the girl was still unconscious, because he was not looking forward to telling her about that. “Am I correct in assuming that was Adrian?”
“You are,” Askit confirmed. “He would have stuck around, but there was a female to save and there’s at least two armies who currently want him dead. Right now they think he is, so it’s better if that sort of information stays between us.”
“The Hunters and… the Hierarchy?” Chir guessed. He knew from what Hrbrd had told them about the situation that Adrian had gone up against them.
That guess must have been right, because Askit looked happily surprised as he said it. “You’re clever, I’ll give you that, Gaoian. We barely survived an encounter with them, rode their starship around the edge of a singularity and only narrowly lived to tell the tale. Apparently that was around (six months) ago.”
Chir listened as the Corti explained everything that he and Adrian had been through. The disappearance of Jen – most likely back to Cimbrean – and Hrbrd’s death along with that of a Celzi fleet. It all seemed so fantastical that it had been difficult to think of any reasonable questions to ask, and every time he thought of something the little Corti would quickly explain it and move on to the next part of the story.
“So the reason you’ve remained here instead of going with Adrian was to keep an eye on Doctor Grznk?” Chir asked, making sure he understood. Hrbrd had never admitted to being in charge of Grznk while he was with them, but Hrbrd hadn’t exactly been the sort to tell all of his secrets. If Askit was correct, and Grznk was still advising someone other than Hrbrd about the goings on in Carltopia, that meant they could all be in serious trouble.
“You are correct,” Askit confirmed. “I will be ensuring his communications with his masters meet with my… exacting standards.”
Chir frowned. “You’re going to edit them, aren’t you?”
“That is what I do, Base Commander,” Askit replied. “Now we have to figure out who was placing listening devices in your office.”
“Surely it was Grznk?” Chir asked. “If he’s been-“
Askit was already shaking his head. “I don’t believe it was, or I’d have found some indication of that in his messages.”
There was a beep on the office line, and Chir excused himself for a moment. “What is it, Layla? I’m busy here…”
“Message from Commander Zripob,” she replied. “I’m forwarding it to your data pad. High priority.”
The message notifier was flashing even before she’d finished talking, and Chir cast a quick eye over it before handing it over to Askit for his input. “Know anything about that?”
Askit looked over it, and tilted his head in a slight shrug. “Apparently the Celzi Alliance has formed an agreement with one of the factions on Earth? Perhaps they come from them?”
“The answer is no, then?” Chir asked, studying the Corti dubiously. This sort of individual seemed like he should know just about everything about everyone given enough of a chance.
Askit laughed – a Corti laughing?! – and shook his head. “I’ve just been in stasis for (six months), it seems a lot has happened.”
“Indeed,” Chir said with a sigh. It seemed as though his entire life had changed in that time. “Is there anything else?”
“Just one thing, Base Commander,” Askit said, with a slight but curious hesitation. “The name ‘Carltopia’…”
“We’re looking to change it,” Chir grumbled, rubbing his brow. “It’s just been a lot more… argumentative, than I would have hoped.”
“Yes, well…” Askit said, a little awkwardly. “Perhaps that’s because you haven’t yet considered ‘Askitoria’?”
+++++
Hodgepodge, Pirate Cruiser, Far Reaches
Roman put his shoulder into it, pushing against the wall with all of his might until it budged. They were running low on thermite paste, and soon they would need to switch to using actual explosives to breach the walls between rooms, but for the moment their plan seemed to be working.
“Push!” he ordered Zolnerowich, and they shifted the wall section together. It moved slowly at first, but then gained speed and fell into a heap in the next room while they staggered around for their footing.
“Check the corridor,” Roman said as he took stock of the room they were entering. Nothing much of use, as was becoming the norm, but there was also the fact that nobody else had died yet.
“Sergeant,” he said. “Status report?”
“Stuck in a mostly non-lethal trap, Captain,” Valery responded, heavy strain tugging at his voice. “Gravity has been maximised, and is shifting between walls and the ceiling. We are traversing this corridor by rope in case of another sudden drop.”
“The rooms seem clear of traps,” Roman advised him. “We’re making our way to the third breach, and have yet to encounter any.”
“Understood, Captain,” Valery replied, sounding like he was speaking through gritted teeth. There was a sudden curse and a thud. “Sorry Captain, gravity shifted sideways. We’ll make our way to a room as soon as possible.”
The radio fell silent, and Roman finished taking his rest. He turned back to Zolnerowich. “Do you see anything?”
Zolnerowich shook his head. “Nothing, Captain. I almost wish there was something to shoot. That would be preferable to creeping around traps!”
“I feel the same way, Efreitor,” Roman sympathised. “But we have no choice with the Frigate as it is. Let us proceed to the next room, and make one more step to the end of this nightmare.”
Zolnerowich did as he was told, crossing the corridor quickly and shoving his way through the nearest opposing door into the next room. “How many more do you think?”
Roman had no idea, but admitting that wasn’t the way to bolster a man’s flagging morale. “Five or six, it can’t be more than that.”
At least he hoped it couldn’t.
Zolnerowich worked with grim determination, and a greater fervour now that he had a number to work against. He marked out a line on the wall using the last of their thermal paste – things were going to get loud from here on out – and stepped back as it ignited.
Then they got pushing again, with Roman hoping that his Sergeant was having an easier time of it. He’d check back in again after they got through to the next-
The wall fell away, and Zolnerowich stumbled in with it.
There was a nerve-jam drone waiting for them… Roman twisted aside as it went off, barely making it behind the wall in time to avoid the lethal effects, but still catching enough to find himself flopping around on the deck for the second time today.
Zolnerowich would not have been so lucky, and Roman was beginning to wonder if he was going to be able to push through the rest of the way alone. Somehow they had known he was going to be passing through that room… could the pirates know where they were?!
He heard movement from the next room, and a larger bot passed through the makeshift doorway and began to turn towards him. Even in his semi-stunned state Roman could recognise the shape of a plasma gun.
“God no!” he gasped, forcing an unresponsive hand into movement. A burst of life-saving adrenaline was all it took to start firing wildly, and he emptied the magazine before he thought to stop.
Five of the rounds punched through the robot before it could spew hot death all over him, and that seemed to be enough to stop it. Whatever was running the robot had been broken, and it crashed to the ground in a heap of torn metal and escaping gasses.
“Fuck… fuck…” Roman panted, bringing his other hand up to switch over to Valery. “Sergeant… Valery… I think they know where we are…”
“Thank you, Captain!” Valery replied, everything tense about the way he said it. “I believe I have also figured that out!”
+++++
Graf laughed as he fired down the corridor, delighted at the trap that he had sprung on the unsuspecting humans. He wasn’t about to let Commander Zripob get all of the glory here, not when that… ice matriarch Layla had yet to acquiesce to his demands. If he could manage to take down multiple humans, he’d be a lot further along in his ambitions to take control of the Clan as well.
The humans had been taken by surprise when he’d set up a flanking manoeuvre. He’d had two of the others keep the humans pinned while the rest of his team had split into a further two groups to press in from the other sides. There were three humans in total, and they were worn from the gravity trap, and when he had hurled a nerve-jam grenade at them they’d had to give it their all to destroy it before it went off.
His men had laid down heavy fire as they’d done that, and even armoured humans didn’t seem like they much enjoyed the feeling of anti-tank weapons.
“Graf!” Zripob croaked angrily over the link. “Get back into position! Now!”
Graf ignored the Commander; soon the Chehnasho would be answering to him instead, and this incident would be remembered a lot differently.
“Eat shit, humans!” he shouted out as he readied another nerve jam grenade.
Something heavy and green landed at his feet, looking for all the world like a metallic fruit.
“Huh…” he said, examining it from hiding.
There was an explosion.
+++++
“That dumb piece of rethregi!” spat Zripob as the life signs of the Human Suppression Squad began to disappear. There were alerts near where the life signs had been that indicated extensive damage to systems, but it was the sound of explosions that really indicated what was going on.
Zripob had been undone by his own side.
“Status of Celzi Gravity Spike?” he asked his sensor technician. “Tell me that the thing is finally dead!”
“Sorry sir,” was the reply, and Zripob croaked out an angry roar. There was no point in attempting an evacuation if FTL was impossible.
“Send a status update to the base and all nearby ships,” he ordered. “Continue resisting with drones, and await my further instruction!”
The command crew looked at him in concern, as though they suspected – and quite rightly so – that he was abandoning them. He reassured them of his swift return as he busied himself suiting up, and stepped into the command deck’s own life pod. “I will return once the Frigate’s spike has been dealt with.”
He stepped into the life pod in spite of their protests, and switched Command control of the Hodgepodge over to his datapad.
“Hodgepodge,” he commanded from the safety of the life pod, taking a seat as it ejected into the void between ships. “Set silent self-destruct for (sixty minutes).”
He watched the initial stages of the countdown with grim satisfaction, and then turned the life pod to an approach on the Frigate. There was another benefit to having served across a range of vessels owned by a range of species: he knew exactly where the Gravity Spike system was located on all of these things.
+++++
The Five-Fingers, Pirate Salvage Vessel, Far Reaches
The communicator light started flashing red, catching Adrian’s eye. He reasoned that there weren’t a lot of things that were supposed to flash red, and when they did he gave them the attention that they needed.
Right now the red light was indicating an emergency message, and just in case it was intended for him – or was at least very interesting or important – he activated it.
It was one of those wide-broadcast jobs that cost someone else a bucket-load when you weren’t the one paying for it, and this one had come from an old friend, or at least an old acquaintance.
“Human soldiers…” he read, and then read again. It looked as though the Hodgepodge was in trouble, that Zripob was in trouble, and from all indications he was only about twenty minutes out of the way.
He considered it, even though he already knew what he was going to do. It was going to be a bad decision, he already knew that much, and he also knew that it was probably going to drop him right back in the shit again.
But it was Zripob calling, and he was only twenty minutes out.
“Fuck me,” Adrian cursed, shaking his head as he plugged the new coordinates into the navigational console. “The fucking choices I make…”