But as I continued to watch the map – keeping an eye out for any pirates near my own location at the same time – I noticed that one small cluster of green dots was moving far more rapidlythan the others. I frowned as I watched them race along a hallway, then around a corner. There were two more green dots in their path. The five surrounded the two, and there seemed to be a bit of shuffling about. It was impossible to know exactly what was going on, based on the movements of two-dimensional dots, but after only a few seconds, the five abruptly took off again, heading towards the bridge. The two green dots drifted very slowly towards the stern.
I took a wild guess that this little cluster were the missing crew, the ones who’d caused the engines to stop. And from the movement of the two dots they’d left behind, it was possible those were two pirates who were now dead, drifting aimlessly in zero gravity.
I couldn’t know for certain, so I tagged the little cluster as purple, distinguishing them from the orange of the military group, and the green of the pirates. That way, I could keep an eye on them, but also not get too comfortable with the idea that they were allies.
I turned my attention back to my own mission, checking where the final pirate I would have to get past was. He was standing right in front of the door to the bridge, and while that might have seemed an obvious place to station a guard, it was rather pointless when their attackers were armed with laser guns. According to the map, there was no cover at all in that hallway, and the guard would make an easy target.
Then again, the pirates apparently believed that most of their attackers were still locked up in storage, so maybe this one’s job was more about stopping the more junior members of the group from annoying the senior ones inside the bridge?
Either way, he wouldn’t be a problem for much longer. I floated along the hallway, around a corner, along another hall, then stopped just out of sight of the last sentry. I once more extended my camera to get a look at what he was doing, relievedto see he was looking bored. He was currently turning in slow circles, sending his feet up towards the ceiling, then around until he was upright again, and I figured I was correct in my assumption that he was counting on the other pirates further down the ship preventing any trouble getting this far.
I checked my map again, just to make sure everyone was still where they’d been… and felt a jolt of alarm run through me. The purple team, the ones who were most likely the missing crew, were heading my way fast. They probably had the same goal as I did, to retake the bridge, but from what I’d seen, even if they were armed, they’d be walking into a death trap. This band of pirates was experienced, prepared and heavily armed, and a group of civilian ship rats wouldn’t last thirty seconds against them.
At the same time, they weren’t expecting me to be here, and they likely had a ‘shoot first and ask questions later’ policy when it came to finding stragglers sneaking around the ship. Fuck. That really narrowed my choices, and it only took me two seconds to decide on a course of action. Checking on the distracted sentry again, I leaned out of cover and fired three quick shots at the man, making sure he was dead before he had the chance to react.
I slid up to the door along the floor, to avoid the worst of the blood splatter, then checked the position of the pirates inside the room. There were five of them, and they were spread out, likely monitoring various consoles, which would make my job that much harder. On the plus side, though, I now had a dead body that I could use as cover. The Anicrian was smaller than me, but he’d still do to shield my torso, even if that left my legs as easy targets.
I pulled out the hacking device I’d stolen much earlier in the mission and tried to link it to the door, then frowned as it flashed a message:Lock release failed.Damn it. Had the piratesphysically jammed the door? Or placed some extra encryption on it?
I looked at the release button again, and rolled my eyes, cursing at myself. This was the sort of mistake people made when they were being rushed, and didn’t take the time to think things through. The blue glow of the button indicated that the door was already unlocked. Fine, then. Time to unleash some true mayhem.
I tightened my grip on my makeshift shield and pressed the door release.
CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
JAI
The instant the door was open, I vaulted through the gap, sending myself careening towards the ceiling. I fired twice at the two pirates to the left of the door, killing one and injuring the other. I plastered myself against the ceiling, the Anicrian’s body shielding me from below, while I took half a second to finish off the injured pirate – a Polvron whose head exploded in a mushy splat as I shot him between the eyes.
I kicked off the ceiling, heading in a rapid spin for the console that the two dead pirates had been using, intending to take shelter behind it. As I was crossing the room, though, I also got three shots off towards the pirate on the right side of the door. He had his gun out by now, startled shouts echoing across the room, and he fired rapidly at me. Two shots hit the dead Anicrian squarely, and another grazed my left calf – not close enough to do any real damage, though I did feel the sting as it seared a thin line through my pressure suit and across myscales. Just before I landed, I saw him flinch and a spray of blood ejected from his shoulder. Injured, but not dead.
Once on the floor, I shoved the dead body under the desk – convenient storage in case I needed to use it again later. Then I thrust myself silently towards the end of the desk, peering out for just half a second – long enough to fire at the injured pirate again, and hit him in the head this time. Three down, two to go.
Unfortunately, the time it had taken me to kill the first three had given the other two more than enough time to have their weapons out and to have taken cover behind their consoles.
I dared to glance over the top of the desk, and was already ducking down again when a rain of laser fire scattered over the console, searing small burn marks into the metal wall behind me. One Polvron and one Anicrian were left, and since using any kind of flash bombs or grenades in zero gravity would be as good as suicide, we were down to laser guns and wits. I glanced out of cover again, seeing one of them peering out of one end of the wide console they’d been working at, while the other was at the other end. None of us were creating much of a target to be shot at, so if I wanted to win this, it was going to come down to timing-
“Fuck!” Half the console in front of me disintegrated in an explosion of dust and metal, and I vaulted sideways, then launched myself across the room, taking momentary shelter behind one of the dead pirates. I kicked off the ceiling again, grabbing random chunks of debris to hurl at the pirates. Stars above, one of them had a pulse projector! It was sort of like a laser gun, but far more powerful, and a single shot was enough to liquify an entire person. But they also worked reasonably well at demolishing solid objects, and apparently, this pirate had no qualms about pulverising significant chunks of the bridge in order to kill me. I had no idea how to counter such a powerful weapon in such a confined space.
I managed to reach the console on the right without being hit, though a few pieces of debris crashed into the main console. With the engines dead, there was a limit to how much trouble I could cause, which, in a way, was a good thing. It meant I couldn’t inadvertently change our course or send us crashing into the moon. But it also meant there was going to be a hell of a repair job once we had things under control again.
I edged up to the end of the console, bracing myself to have to move again if the pirate with the pulse projector took another shot at me. “You’ve got no chance, you bastard,” he called out. “All your friends are locked up, and we’ve got you out-numbered and out-gunned.”
Interesting that he’d take the time to tell me that, rather than just trying to kill me again. Perhaps he didn’t actually want to blow up the rest of the bridge? It would certainly make it more difficult to pilot the ship to wherever they were going. I didn’t answer him, instead trying to calculate the angle I’d need to get a decent shot at him.
But before I could move, I heard a light, rasping sound. I barely had time to figure out that it was the sound of a door opening before a sudden rain of laser fire spread over the entire room, like sparks from a grind stone. One of the shots caught me on the shoulder, before I managed to duck back behind the console, and then another caught the edge of my boot, sending up a thin trail of smoke. The shots were coming from the doorway, though I didn’t dare look out from my shelter to see what was going on. Instead, I took a quick glance at my map… and sure enough, the cluster of purple dots was now crowded into the doorway of the bridge. On one hand, I was profoundly grateful to have help dealing with the pirate with the pulse projector. But on the downside, the crew didn’t know who I was, and from the looks of it, they werenottaking any prisoners.
I turned myself around and edged up towards the other end of the console. From this angle, I might have a better shot at killing the other pirates – though at the same time, I’d also have a greater chance of getting my own head blown off. I could see the lower half of the Anicrian, his hind legs sticking out a little as he concentrated his fire on the group by the door. That worked for me. I fired a series of shots straight into his ankles, which made him scream and writhe. He bumped the floor with his legs, which gave him enough momentum that his head rose above the top of the console, and a moment later, he was dead, caught by three or four different shots in the scattering of fire still covering the room.
Next, I heard a muffled yelp, then the pulse projector floated out from behind the front console. I guessed that the crew had managed to shoot the pirate’s gun hand, and he’d had to let go of the weapon. “Okay, okay, I surrender,” he barked out, but a moment later one of the crew members darted forward, shooting the man in the head. His head kicked back, then his body went limp, the bulbous shape of a Polvron floating out from behind the desk.
Well, that was good, because all the pirates were dead, but bad, because the crew still thought I was a pirate as well, and had just proven that they were perfectly willing to kill me.
“Alliance military!” I called loudly, even as the laser fire continued. “I’m Corporal Jai Hill. I’m with the rescue teams.”
“You’re not Alliance,” one of the crew called back. “Wrong species.”
Damn it. He’d seen me displaying my black scales. My master had said before that it was convenient for me to be mistaken for a Solof, with purple scales, but it was too late to do anything about that now.
