Hold the Star: Samair in Argos: Book 2 (18 page)

              “I hate this plan,” Cookie whispered to himself. 
How the hell did I let myself get talked into this terrible plan?
 
I’m not a damned Marine, I’m a chef by the stars! 
But thankfully, no one was paying any attention to him standing there behind one of the stainless steel galley prep tables.  He frequently would turn to the main room at large to look out at his customers, as he called them.  The zheen were deep in conversation about something, chittering away happily, though reading of their body language told Cookie that they were indulging in a famous pastime of all sailors, talking about the females of the species.

              Reaching under his apron, he pulled out the stunner, making sure to keep it concealed beneath the galley counter.  Taking a deep breath to steady his nerves, he brought the weapon up aimed at the pirates and opened fire.  Azure bolts of energy lanced across from Cookie’s weapon, two of them striking one of the zheen, once in the thorax, the other in the head.  It made a low screeching noise and then pitched over sideways onto the deck.

              The other one was lightning fast.  As soon as his fellow was pitching over, his weapon was in his hand, a needler.  He depressed the trigger and fired at Cookie just as the chef was firing again.  The needler barked, like a loud zipper noise and a fusillade of tiny metal spikes shot out.  The spikes were only a millimeter thick and made a host of
ping-ping-ping-ping-ping
noises as they struck the metal bulkhead above and behind Cookie. But he was too late, the zheen took a shot from the stunner straight in the face and went down like a sack of Cookie’s potatoes.

              “Good shot, Cookie!” one of the crewmen called from across the room.  All three of them were huddled down behind the table, having dived for any kind of cover as soon as they saw the chef jump up with his stunner.

              “Cookie!” one of them, Marcos, the big guy formerly of the
Emilia Walker
’s crew shouted.  He leaped up from cover and rushed over.

              The chef looked down.  His shipsuit and apron were covered in blood, little pinpricks of red that were each growing in size.  The bug hadn’t missed him after all.  Little needles had gone right through him, perforating his insides so quickly and cleanly he hadn’t even noticed.  There wasn’t even any pain.  “Damn it,” he groaned as his knees gave out and he pitched forward.  His chin knocked on the edge of the stainless steel counter and he collapsed on the ground.  He could hear and feel his mess attendants calling his name, turning him over, but his vision swam and darkness overtook him.

              Environmental was finally getting squared away.  The cleaning of the tank was finished, the new matrix was put in and the crew was just starting to put away all the gear and swab down the deck.  It seemed impossible that the crew of the
Grania Estelle
could change out the algae matrices without slopping more than what seemed unavoidable onto the deck.  Kay’grax, who was still getting used to the rituals and procedures on
Grania Estelle
, made out a blat of zheen laughter and flicked some of the spent algae at one of the other techs.  Ka’Xarian secured the console and got up, slaving his datapad to the feeds so he could monitor Environmental wherever he went. 

              “Well done everyone,” he told the crew, who gave smiles or antennae flicks at the praise.  He hooked his datapad into his belt and placed his hands on his hips.  Yukrix was standing nearby, noting what was going on, but saying nothing.  His own datapad or scanner or whatever it was was chirping away and he seemed absorbed in the readouts. 

              Xar flicked his antennae to one of the Enviro techs, who nodded.  She was carrying one of the tubs of spent algae matrix took a step forward and tripped, dumping the lot onto Yukrix who hissed furiously.

              “Clumsy fool!” he screeched, and backhanded her.  The young woman spun with the force of the blow, which connected with a great
crack
and dropped her to the deck, whimpering in pain, clutching her face.

              Yukrix looked up, but Xar was already there, a heavy wrench in his hands, swinging the metal tool at the other zheen with all his might.  There was a terrible crunch as the wrench impacted the pirate’s thorax, and the pirate shrieked in agony.  The wrench was buried in carapace and greenish black ichor, innards leaking out around the terrible wound. 

              Miraculously, the pirate tech had his sidearm in his hand and sprayed the room with tiny needles.  Two of the Enviro crew screamed in pain as the small spikes tore into them and a third simply dropped, gagging over the multitude of wounds in his neck and chest.  Ka’Xarian wrestled the weapon away from the pirate and kicked him backward, hard, knocking Yukrix down.  A few well-placed stomps and horrible crunches later from the uninjured crew finished him off.

              “Good work people,” Xar congratulated them.  He and two of the others proceeded to divest the corpse of Yukrix of his weapons and equipment, while the others were seeing to their injured fellows.  It was too late for Dobson, and everyone gave scathing looks to the dead zheen.  “I’m sorry, Dobson,” Ka’Xarian said, moving over and laying his hand on the dead man’s shoulder.  Blood had pooled on the deck but the engineer didn’t care.  After a moment of silence for the man, he went back over to the pirate’s body.  Xar picked up his scanner and swore as he studied the readouts. 

              “The bastard was checking on what I was doing,” he realized.  Thankfully, they’d taken care of him before he could warn anyone; his comlink hadn’t been activated.  He reached over and smacked the side of Yukrix’s head, it lolled to the side, limp.  “Get them to the infirmary,” he ordered the Enviro techs.  “You three, stay here and keep an eye on things.  And see if you can do something about this… this mess.”  He gestured to Yukrix’s body.  “We’ll get Dobson taken care of properly in a bit.”

              The techs nodded, two of them helping their two injured fellows out of the Environmental spaces and out into the corridor, heading to see the doctor.  Someone pulled an emergency blanket out of a locker in the next compartment, brought it back and draped it over Dobson’s body, which had been gently brought over to the side of the compartment, to get him out of the way of the other techs, but great care was made to treat him with respect.  As opposed to what they did with Yukrix, him they simply dumped his body in a bin of waste and one of the techs trundled the bin on a hover pallet out to deal with it.

              Xar stuffed the scanner into his knapsack, which was looped over his shoulder.  Not wearing a full shipsuit, he didn’t have the handy pockets that everyone else did, hence the knapsack.  Across his waist was his tool belt, but he didn’t want to keep the scanner there, it didn’t have the hook needed to secure it on the belt.  He double clicked his comlink again, to indicate Environmental was secure.  One compartment down, he only hoped the others had done as well as they had, despite Dobson’s death.

              It didn’t take long for the lupusan siblings to get to the Security compartments, as they were located only a very short distance from the brig.  It was lucky the Captain had decided to dispatch the guards with a knife and lucky that he’d been quick enough to get them before they could scream and raise the alarm.  They winced slightly when they heard Samair yelling at the Captain, but there was nothing for it and they were almost there.  Saiphirelle turned and caught a glimpse of the Captain rushing off in the opposite direction from the Security compartment, most likely headed for the bridge.  They didn’t care though.  In fact, they were happy he didn’t accompany them.  He’d only be on the way. 

              Coming to the entrance to Security, it was only a few meters down the corridor from the brig, the two stopped.  Both of them trained their ears into the open hatch, straining to hear how many of the pirates were inside.  Corajen sniffed the air delicately, trying to get any advantage they could.  “Four,” she said, her voice in a low undertone.

              But Saiphirelle shook her head.  “Five,” she corrected.  “Three different zheen and two humans.”

              Corajen sniffed again and then nodded.  “You’re right.”

              “What are you thinking?”

              “I’m thinking,” Corajen replied.  “That trying to go in there shooting is just going to smash up a lot of real estate with little gain.  We might get two, but then we’ll get bogged down by the other three and then we’ll be overwhelmed because you don’t have much ammo with that.  And they probably have grenades.”

              “Probably,” Saiphirelle agreed.  “So what are you thinking?  I know that look.  You’ve got a plan.”

              The elder sister’s ears flicked playfully.  “I think you’ll like this one,” she said, setting her stunner down on the deck.  Saiphirelle looked confused.  “No guns.”

              The other lupusan’s ears went flat against her head in shock.  “No guns, are you serious?”

              Corajen gave her a toothy smile.  “What’s the matter, Sai?  Don’t want to get in close?”  She flexed her fingers, her sharp claws glinting in the light from the overhead.

              Now it was Saiphirelle’s turn to grin.  “Now you’re finally saying what I want to hear.”  She too, set her gun down gently on the deck, making no noise.  “But how are we going to get in close?  They’ll see us too soon.”

              Corajen held up the datapad.  “It’s linked in to Security.  Ready to go?”

              Saiphirelle gave a subsonic growl, causing the flesh and the fur on the back of her sibling’s neck to ripple.  Corajen pressed a few buttons, opened a few menus and finally found the program she wanted.  Pressing another control, the lights in the corridor and in the Security compartment suddenly winked out.  As she dropped the datapad, the two of them moved into the compartment.

              From inside the compartment, the pirates were lounging about.  Oh, they were maintaining a good watch on the security monitors for the internal sensors throughout the ship, but there were only so many cameras and the crew was rushing everywhere trying to get repair work done as well as maintaining the ship’s current systems.  They weren’t moving, but there were always things to do, watches to be held, work to be completed.  The crew had also been fairly well cowed by the lesson Armsman Jax had given them, with the death of their fellows in the cargo bay.  The fellow soldiers were chummy, discussing what would happen once they reached their destination at Amethyst, wondering if the crew could actually follow through with their boasts and get the ship up to a higher level of hyperspeed.  They also wanted to know when it would be that they would get off this tub and back onto a proper raider again.  Things were boring here.  There was very little to do that didn’t feel like work.  That and since the Armsman had forbidden any of them to have any serious fun with the crew or get properly drunk, well, any chance they would have to get off this ship and back to a proper fighting ship again was one that all of them wanted to take.

              When the lights went out, they all groaned.  The repairs and fixes the techs were doing to the ship were causing random fluctuations in various systems, but so far the malfunctions had been minor.  Now, it seemed that they had finally made their way down to Security.  It was annoying, but not particularly problematic or threatening.  The glow from the displays gave enough illumination to keep the four of them out of complete darkness, but after a second, there was a clunk in the corridor.  Uk’kain, the zheen nominally in charge here, heard a strange noise, like fur rubbing on metal, and his delicate olfactory senses detected the smell of canine.  Adrenaline rushed through his body, and he cried out in alarm.

              One second too late.

              Just as the cry left his mouth, he was hit from the right, terrible sharp claws tearing into the bottom of his neck and into his thorax.  They penetrated his mauve carapace and ripped away just as a dreadful roar nearly shattered his tympanic membranes and another set of claws grabbed his right compound eye, ripping it out.  He screeched in pain, rising to his feet, just as strong jaws clamped around his throat, crushing the weaker carapace there.  Agony surged through him and his uninjured eye saw a pair of wide, horrifying shadows before him and then the jaws yanked backward, severing his head from his spine.  He knew nothing more.

              The others heard Uk’kain’s warning and looked around for targets, hands by their weapons.  They too, saw the large swift shadows, but far too late to save Uk’kain from his fate.  The second shadow tore into Jackson, the bulky human sitting to the right of the security console.  Jackson swore, then screamed, there was a ghastly tearing sound and the scream stopped.  Suddenly, all of them were on their feet, weapons drawn, but they couldn’t see anything.  The zheen tried to smell and hear where the threats were, but they moved too fast.  Ki’koon, another of the zheen, went down without any more sound than a crunch. 

              Terios, the only remaining human, a tall, wiry man covered with tattoos, started firing his sidearm blindly.  He had no idea what he was shooting at, but panic took over.  There were the sounds of bullets ricocheting off the bulkheads and the desk, but he wasn’t sure he hit anything.  There was another ear-splitting roar, which loosened Terios’s bowels, to his shame, and then a heavy weight crashed into him.  Claws tore into him as he screamed and tried to fight, but in seconds, he was so much bloody meat on the deck, the magazine in his gun empty.