He hit the pirate low and they both went down. Hard. He groaned as his shoulder slammed into the deck and his vision threatened to white out for a heartbeat. Not a good place to be when he was still underneath the biggest pirate of the lot, his hands still bound behind him.
Draanth.
The pirate got an elbow into his ribs, then tried to pin him. Twisting Thyaar brought his knee up sharply and connected with something soft. There was a grunt of pain, and the weight above him shifted. He rolled away, putting the bigger body between himself and the gun he could hear charging somewhere to his left. Another body made decent cover in a pinch.
Somewhere behind him, Barnaby screamed. Not the yowls he’d given before. This was a scream—high and furious, like a battlecry. One of the pirates howled and swore in pain.
Thyaar didn't have time to look. His pirate had recovered, already reaching for the blade at his waist, his face twisted into a snarl of rage. Thyaar rose up, slamming his forehead into his opponent’s face. Something crunched and the pirate dropped, the dagger dropping to the deck plating next to the body. Thyaar grinned. Somewhere in his unknown family tree, someone had paid for some extensive bone-mods, his forehead was as strong as hull plating.
Rolling, he picked up the blade, twisting it to bring it to bear on his bound wrists. He worked the edge against his bonds, hissing as he caught himself a couple of times. He didn’t have time to think about it, not with the battle raging around him. The binding was cheap cargo webbing though and it parted in three hard sawing motions and his hands were free.
The pirate with the gun had been trying to get a firing solution on Amelia but she’d been clever enough to keep the foam spray aimed in his direction so he couldn’t.
He caught sight of Thyaar’s movement out of the corner of his eye and swung around. Thyaar grabbed the blade and threw it. He didn’t have a good angle, so he aimed for distraction. It caught the pirate in the meat of his forearm, and the gun went off into the ceiling. Sparks rained down and another panel on the main console flickered and died.
He was on his feet and moving before the pirate could recover the weapon, closing the distance with a speed he shouldn't have had left in him. His left arm was deadweight, his head rang, and he had blood running down over his right eye. None of it mattered. He hit the pirate like a battering ram and slammed him into the console hard enough to crack the display.
The fight was bloody and brutal.
There was nothing clean about it. It was ugly, close-quarters work. The kind you didn't walk away from looking pretty.
The pirate got behind him and he couldn't turn fast enough, his left arm refusing to cooperate. The blade came down toward his shoulder. He braced for the bite of it?—
Then a fire suppressor slammed into the side of the pirate's head with a crack that echoed off the bulkheads.
"Get back," Thyaar snarled at Amelia, as he pivoted to finish what she'd started.
"Make me," she snarled right back, and swung the suppressor again.
She shouldn't be here. She was barefoot and small and wearing his shirt and she had no business being in the middle of a draanthing boarding action. She shouldn't be here, but he couldn't stop watching her.
His heart was in his throat every time he caught a flash of her in his peripheral vision… all wild dark hair, her jaw set and her gray eyes blazing as she wielded that suppressor like a bat and refused to stay down.
A pirate lunged for her and Thyaar put himself between them without thinking, taking the hit meant for her on his damaged shoulder. The pain was white-hot, lightning streaking down his arm and across his body into his spine. He used it, let it become fuel for the rage as he drove his fist into the pirate's throat. He followed the stumbling body down and didn't stop until the male wasn't getting up again.
Behind him, Barnaby screamed again.
Thyaar looked up, his forearm shoved into his opponent’s throat as he took his last, struggling breath. For one disorienting second, his brain couldn't make sense of what he saw.
Barnaby was on a pirate's shoulders, but the cat looked wrong. He was bigger than he had been before, his claws rending flesh with a power and depth that a twelve-pound house cat shouldn't be capable of. The pirate flailed and bled, trying to throw the cat off but Barnaby rode him like a warrior on a panicking mount, raking down the side of his face and taking an eye out with a flick of his paw.
What the draanth?—
A blade came at his head and Thyaar had to stop watching. He blocked, twisted the weapon away, used the pirate's momentum to throw him into the navigator's station. The console sparked and died. The pirate didn't get up.
When he looked again, Barnaby was sitting on the pirate’s still chest, cleaning blood off his paw. His ginger fur was streaked with red. His eyes, when they flicked up to meet Thyaar's, were flat and predatory and absolutely not the eyes of a house pet who'd spent his life knocking mugs off tables. He yawned, showing teeth that seemed sharper than Thyaar remembered, and began grooming his chest.
There was something very, very wrong with that cat.
Later. He'd deal with it later.
The pirate he’d head-butted had regained consciousness and was trying to crawl toward the door. Thyaar caught up to him in three strides, grabbed him by the back of his collar, and introduced his face to the bulkhead until he stopped moving.
Then it was quiet.
Well, not really quiet. The systems were still failing around them, alerts screaming from the consoles that worked, and there was something venting aft with a hiss. But no one was trying to kill them anymore.
Thyaar stood in the wreck of the bridge, breathing hard, and took stock.
