Chapter 6
For a moment, everything was dark, and then the night vision that Francine had installed into my visor kicked in. My vision returned, and a green hue surrounded everything around me, but I was able to see around the cockpit perfectly clearly. I watched Bob scurry away into the living compartment where he curled up beside the bed, and then I checked the dark of the docking bay for any signs of movement.
The pirates had the stronger ship, and I was sure they’d sent more than just one guy to shoot me, but as long as we were in the dark, I still had a chance to surprise them. But the hangar was still for the moment, so I had a few seconds to plan my next move.
I hurried through the cockpit and into the living compartment, opened the hatch, and quickly climbed down the ladder into the storage compartment below. There were more places to hide down here, thanks to all my boxes of supplies, and I made my way over to one of the larger boxes where I could crouch out of sight.
I kept a tight grip on my gun and double-checked the mode it was on, and then I made sure that I could see both the hatch and the back door of the ship from where I was. I was up against the wall, which meant none of them would be able to sneak up on me. But, I could certainly sneak up on them, and that was what I was counting on.
“What is your plan here, Will?” Francine asked.
“Divide and conquer,” I replied, and before I could go into any more detail, I heard a thump at the door.
Something had collided with it and latched on. I heard the metal creak as pincers inserted themselves into the metal, and then the door was wrenched slowly open. I could see that they had some sort of rope attached to the winch that was slowly pulling the ramp down while the space version of the jaws of life continued to work on the door.
When the ramp was fully open, there was a pause as if no one was sure what to do next. The pirates had probably expected me to either appear with my hands up in surrender or to open fire immediately, but I was happy to wait until they were on the ship before I used my ammo, and I kept my eyes firmly trained on the open doorway. I had no idea what to expect.
My only real problem was that I had no idea what I was up against. Would they be big or small, hairy or scaly, or something in between? After seeing all of the weird and wonderful creatures in the Aghoa Intergalactic Space Station, anything was possible. If they slithered into the ship and left behind a trail of luminous goo, I wouldn’t have been at all surprised.
The key to my plan was to get each of them on their own so that I didn’t get ambushed all at once. That meant I needed to get rid of them as silently as possible and work my way through the group without any of them knowing what I was doing, something that would be easier if I knew what I was facing.
And while I had my gun armed and ready, I had no idea how many there would be. About the only thing that seemed certain was that they would be armed, and they probably wouldn’t be interested in taking me prisoner. It was my cargo, and maybe my ship, that they were interested in, and I was just in the way.
“My sensors show there are four beings outside the spacecraft,” Francine told me. “Trying to identify the species may take some time.”
I don’t have time, I thought to myself. I didn’t dare make a noise now that I knew they were right outside because that would expose my presence to them.
I tried to slow my breathing and keep as quiet as possible. I hardly blinked as I watched the doorway, and my jaw was clenched tight from the tension. My muscles twitched as well as my fight-or-flight response kicked in. But my hearing was sharp, and thanks to my newly updated visor, so was my vision, and I’d know the second anyone ventured up the ramp.
I saw my first pirate a moment later when something inched toward the door. It moved on two legs, and it looked vaguely human in the darkness.
But when it stepped into the faint glow of an emergency light, I saw that there wasn’t much we had in common besides a torso with two legs, two arms, and a head. It had sharp edges and a jagged exoskeleton that looked like they were made of black lava. Its head was a similar shape to a praying mantis, with two antennae sticking out of the top of it, round, plate-like, bulging eyes at the sides of its face, and a narrow chin at the bottom. Its neck was bony, like an exposed spine, and its torso was scarred and hard, like a beetle. It had long, thin arms on either side that went down to its knees. Pincers stuck out from the bottom of its face, and they made a spine-tingling clicking noise as the pirate looked around.
I figured the clicking was how this species communicated, but the earpiece I had been given to understand different languages didn’t translate any of it for me. It raised one hand and grabbed hold of the doorway, and I could see its claws as they scratched the metal interior of my ship. The other hand held some kind of weapon that it could operate with the palm of its hand, rather than its claws.
Its legs were just as slight as its arms, and yet, there was a strength to its limbs that was probably due to its rock-like skin, or exoskeleton, I wasn’t entirely sure what the proper term was. Its feet were large and clawed as well, and scraped the floor as it took another step inside. I couldn’t see its back, so I wasn’t sure if it had wings or not, but since it looked like a strange insect-human hybrid, I wouldn’t have been surprised if two wings suddenly popped out from its back.
I also didn’t know if it could see in the dark, too, but that question was answered when it turned back to look out of the doorway. It made a few horrible clicking noises with its pincers and reached its long arm out of the ship. A handheld lantern was placed into its hand by someone else, and then it shone a beam of bright light into the storage room.
I stayed perfectly still and remained where I was behind the box as it quickly ran the light across the room. It only did a quick check, though, once the light landed on the ladder that led up to the living compartment. That seemed to pique its interest.
Clearly, they were looking to deal with me first, and then would go back through the ship to work out what kind of a haul they had scored.
The one in the doorway began to walk through my ship toward the ladder, its claws clicking against the metal floor as it walked. Despite the noise, it almost seemed to glide as it moved smoothly through the storage compartment.
When it reached the ladder, it put the lantern between its pincers and used one long arm to grab hold of the top rung while the other kept a hold of its weapon. Then, it pulled itself up with its arm until its head disappeared through the hatch. It was a haunting sight, and it hung there for a long moment as it studied my private quarters.
After it decided I wasn’t in the bunk room, it sank down until its head was back in the storage compartment and made some more clicking sounds. Some more clicking came from outside the ship apparently in response, and then another one of the pirates appeared on the ramp. It looked like the rest of the raiding party had been given the all clear.
Once it saw its comrade on the ramp, the first invader pulled itself all the way through the hatch, only using its feet to balance on the top rung as it stepped into my living area.
By the time the first one was on the upper level, the next one was in the storage room. They looked identical and had similar scarring as well. This one, however, was only armed with a sharp weapon that looked like a machete, not one of the glowing, purple guns like the other one had. This one looked hungrily around the storage compartment and eyed the boxes of Aghorian in the middle of the floor. It crept over to the stack and put both of its clawed hands on the top box. Its claws moved around and under the lip of the lid, and its arms tensed as it prepared to rip the lid clean off. But before it was able to, another clawed hand landed on its arm.
The greedy mantis creature looked over at the third pirate to enter my ship, and the newcomer clicked angrily as it tugged on the second one’s arm. The second one tensed again, ready for a fight, but then it dropped its arms to its sides and stormed over to the ladder. It reached up to the top rung and pulled its entire body up to the second floor, just as the first one had.
The third one was armed with one of the guns, and the fourth had one of the longer knives. Clearly, they had thought that getting rid of me would be easy since only two of them were armed with guns, while the others seemed to have brought their machetes with them more for decoration than anything. That was a decision they would soon regret.
I waited for the third one to go up the ladder before I made a move. I watched its clawed feet disappear, and that just left me and the fourth one alone in the storage compartment.
The fourth one didn’t follow. It stayed beside the doorway, and it was obvious that it had been stationed there as their last line of defense, in case I somehow got past the other three. It stood stock-still, but its antennae waved about as though there was a breeze, even though the air was still. I couldn’t be sure of how acute their senses were with those things to help them out, but I decided that it would be better to act first and ask questions later.
So, I brought my gun up to eye level as slowly as possible. Since I was only wearing the protective suit, there were no clothes on my body that would rustle as I moved and give away my position. There was a second or two when the mantis creature looked toward my box like it had sensed something, but then it turned to look at the stairs again. As soon as it looked away, I pulled the trigger. It made a single clicking sound when it was hit, but it never made another.
The creature fell forward toward my box, hit the ground, and landed in a grotesque heap on the ground. I knew the others would be back before long to investigate the sound, but I quickly took the opportunity to peer around the box, so that I could get a proper look at these monstrous aliens that I was up against.
Now that I was up close, I could see its lifeless bug eyes and feel its jagged, rock-hard body against my covered hands. It was like it was made of stone or hardwood, and if I’d tried to punch it with my fist, I was sure the sound would have reverberated through the whole ship.
I decided to move the body behind the box to hide it from the others. I reached around my crate, grabbed it by the shoulders, and heaved it toward me, through the small gap between the boxes.
It was quite heavy, thanks to its exoskeleton, but I managed to drag it around behind the crate, and then resumed my original position. I had heard it make a clicking sound before it died, and it was likely that one of the others might have heard it, along with the thump as its body had hit the ground. I could hear their feet scraping around on the floor above, as well as sounds of them moving my gear around and opening cupboards, and they weren’t trying at all to be quiet about it, but I knew they would be down any second.
Just as I had expected, it wasn’t long before two feet reappeared through the hatch, followed by a pair of long legs, an ugly torso, and a horrific, nightmarish face. One of the aliens lowered itself back down into the storage area with one arm and looked around for its fellow thief. It stepped away from the ladder and made its way over to the doorway, where the fourth one was supposed to be posted. It looked around, checked outside the ship, and then turned back to the storage compartment. It looked over at my box, and then its head turned slightly to the right. I followed where its bug-eyes were looking, and I realized that one of the dead alien’s feet was poking out from behind one of the boxes.
I looked back over to the alien, only to see it much closer to the box and looking right at me, stunned.
Then, it came to its senses and hoisted its weapon in the palm of its hands. I saw the weapon charge up, as a purple light began to emanate from it. It was ready to kill, and I knew it wouldn’t hesitate if it saw me. So, I shot first.
My silver ball lodged itself in between two of the exo-skeleton plates on its chest. It looked down at it as it stumbled backward toward the doorway. Then, it stiffened, and its whole body twitched as the electricity pulsed through it. A moment later, it went limp and fell backward down the ramp and landed with a thud in the docking bay.
“Two down, two to go,” I whispered to myself as I turned back toward the ladder.
That one hadn’t made a clicking sound before it died, but its fall down the ramp had made a bit of noise. However, I wasn’t sure how much the other two were able to hear from upstairs in the ship. So, I debated whether or not to go up.
“Do you think they heard that?” I asked.
“It is possible,” Francine said. “But they are making noise up there, so maybe they did not hear it.”
“Do you know where the other two are?” I whispered.
“There is one in the cockpit,” Francine said. “The other is in the living compartment by the coffee machine.”
I saw red. Not my Goddamn coffee machine.
I went over to the ladder, holstered my gun, and scaled the rungs as quietly as possible.
However, I never got to the top rung.
Suddenly, two clawed hands grabbed me by the shoulders and yanked me up through the hatch and into the air. If it wasn’t for the suit, the claws would have gone straight through my skin.
I flew upward and found myself suspended, face to face with the second pirate creature. We stared at one another for a moment, its disc-like, reflective eyes locked on mine. My hand hovered over my holster.
“Hi,” I finally said.
It erupted with a cacophony of clicking sounds from its pincers, but its cry was short-lived. It let go with one arm just as I whipped out my gun. I shot it from my hip height before its arm came down and knocked the weapon from my grasp. The gun clattered onto the floor, but the damage was already done. The small, silver ball I had fired hit the beast square in the chest, and it fell backward. I fell to the ground and watched as it stiffened, and then it toppled backward, dead.
My shoulder ached slightly from the force of its claws, but I didn’t have time to recover. I spun around as the door to the cockpit was wrenched open, and there stood number one in all its hellish glory.
It seemed startled to see me standing there, and then looked beyond me and saw its dead companion. Its eyes flicked back to me, and it clicked at me a couple of times.
“Sorry, can’t understand you,” I said.
It clicked a few more times and took a menacing step toward me.
“Still nothing,” I said, although I was definitely getting the gist of what it was saying.
Then, it raised its weapon toward me, and I saw the purple light begin to form. Before it could fire, I charged the beast and rugby-tackled it to the ground. Its weapon flew out of its hand as it fell and slid across the floor of the cockpit, out of even its reach. I landed on top of it and immediately landed a punch right between its eyes, but it threw me off a moment later. I flew backward, stunned by the force of its arms, but fortunately, I landed on the bed and bounced right back up.
I couldn’t see my gun, but now the creature was disarmed as well. It stood up, too, and readied itself for a fight.
“Now it’s a fair fight,” I said.
The alien ran at me, and I bounced on the bed and flipped over its head. I stuck the landing, spun around, and planted a sidekick into its back, which sent it stumbling forward, tripping over its friend, and into the back wall.
It pushed off the wall and rounded on me, angered that I could put up a fight. Its pincers clicked violently as it struck out with one arm, and I had to limbo under it to avoid losing my head. I grabbed the arm as it whistled past my ear and used the momentum to launch myself toward the alien. I planted both feet on its torso and kicked it back into the wall again.
A normal human would have had crushed ribs after such a blow, but thanks to the built-in armor, the giant mantis was hardly phased. It lashed out with one arm and pushed me aside, and I fell through the hatch to the storage compartment below. I landed with a thud, but was unharmed thanks to the suit.
I thought the man-bug would leap down on top of me, but I heard it move toward the front of the ship instead. It was probably looking for a weapon, and I had to stop it before it could find one.
I scrambled up the ladder and emerged out of the hatch to find the alien in the cockpit. It was reaching for its weapon, which was lodged under my seat. I looked around and saw my gun under one of the cupboards, and I dove for it.
I grabbed the gun, rolled onto my back, and fired.
The alien had its purple, glowing weapon pointed right at me as well, and if I had pulled the trigger a split second later, then it would have been me that was dead, and not it. I watched it fall to its knees and then onto its front. The weapon fell from its hand, and I was once again the only living being on the ship.
I holstered my gun and grabbed the alien by the shoulders. I pushed the first body through the hatch and did the same with the second body. Then, I climbed down to the storage compartment and dragged the two aliens across the room and down the ramp. Then, I grabbed the other one that was behind the boxes, and brought it out into the docking bay, too. The fourth was already out there from when it had fallen down the ramp after I had shot it, so at least that meant one less creature to drag out of my ship.
With the aliens cleared from my ship, I just needed to make sure that I could leave the docking bay without getting tractor beamed back in, and that meant a visit to the pirate ship’s control room. I took out my gun again and crept over to the door at the back of the room.
The door opened as soon as I got close to it and revealed a dimly-lit, dirty hallway beyond. Purple, glowing bulbs provided the only light, but it was enough that my visor switched back to normal vision. The air smelled like rotting meat, but luckily, the breathing tube in my nostrils cut out most of the stench.
As I crept along the hallway, I could see wiring that was inexpertly strung along the top of the walls, and I noticed that some of the walls themselves were cracked, scuffed, or were missing panels. The metal floor was dusty and stained, with years of grime embedded into the grooves.
I reached a junction and peered around the corner. The corridor was empty, but it was better lit, and I could see touchpads by the doors.
“Francine,” I whispered. “Is there anyone in these rooms?”
“Scanning,” the AI replied. “I am not detecting any life signs in this corridor.”
“Okay,” I said.
I took a deep breath and jogged to the end. There was an open hatch to the next level up, but there was just a single rung set just below the rim. It made sense after watching the creatures pull themselves up with one arm inside my ship, but it didn’t make it any less inconvenient for me.
“For crying out loud,” I sighed.
I holstered my gun, crouched down, and pushed off the floor as hard as I could. I’d never been much of a leaper, but the suit gave me an added boost of strength in my legs, and it was just enough that I could grab the rung with one hand.
I dangled there for a moment, and then I began to pull myself up. I did most of it myself, though the suit did give me the added strength that allowed me to pause for a moment once my head was through, to check that I was alone. But all I saw was another empty corridor, so I pulled myself up until I could fold myself in half and rest my chest on the floor. Then, I swung one leg up, got onto one knee as I pulled the other one up, and then got to my feet.
The smell up on this floor was a lot more pungent, and I found myself taking shallower breaths just to keep my sandwich down. What was worse was that I soon discovered what the source of the smell was.
As I rounded the next corner, I saw dark piles on either side of the hall and some kind of dried liquid on the floor. In the purple lighting, I couldn’t be sure what color it actually was, but I knew it was probably some unlucky creature’s blood. Then, as I turned my head to the side, I realized what the piles on either side were.
Bones.
It was mounds of bones with almost all of the meat stripped off them. A sick feeling gurgled in my stomach, and I swallowed to stop it from coming out. The smell of old flesh was coming from these bones, some of which still had some muscle or sinew attached to them that was moldy and rotten. And it wasn’t just a few bones.
There were hundreds that had been piled up on either side of the hall, discarded like garbage by the side of the road and not the remains of whatever unlucky alien they had captured before. I found myself feeling very fortunate that I hadn’t met the same fate, and I hoped the victims had been dead before the mantis creatures had started to dine, although, from the amount of dried blood on the floor, I wasn’t sure that was the case.
So not only were they stealing the cargo from spaceships, as well as the ships themselves, but they were also eating the pilots. Now that was something I hadn’t seen coming.
I swallowed hard again, but before I could move, I heard a familiar scraping sound from just around the next corner. One of the aliens appeared, apparently oblivious to me. It froze when it saw me, but I already had my gun out and aimed at its torso.
The alien went down like a sack of shit. I holstered my gun, and I pulled it over to one side, on top of the rest of the bones. It seemed like a fitting place to leave it, though the victims may not have agreed.
“A bit of warning would be nice, next time, Francine,” I whispered.
“Apologies,” it said. “I was scanning a room up ahead. It seems to be where the rest of the aliens are. I believe it may be the control room.”
“They must have sent this one to see what was taking the first four so long,” I said as I looked down at the dead alien beside me.
“Then they will get suspicious soon,” Francine said. “Why not go back to the ship and leave?”
“Because we need to be sure they don’t just tractor beam us in again,” I said. “And if we just leave, these guys will keep stealing cargo and then killing and eating innocent people. If we can stop them, we should.”
“We already have a mission,” Francine said. “And if you are hurt or killed--”
“That won’t happen,” I replied. “And we still need the upgrades to complete our original mission, so….”
“So,” the AI sighed. “We destroy the pirates.”
“We destroy the pirates,” I agreed.
I pressed on toward the next corner. As I reached it, I peeked around it, only to quickly withdraw out of sight again.
There was a doorway just around the corner that was open, and I was able to see inside. It was one large room that was separated in the middle. The first section of the room closest to the door was empty and had a large table and several chairs in the center. The table, just like the hall floors, was scratched and stained with blood, and there was an old rotten carcass on top of it. Clearly, whatever those bones belonged to was their last meal.
Beyond that room and up a few steps was what looked like the bridge, where the rest of the aliens watched the asteroid belt or worked at their respective control panels, all of which faced away from the doorway. I hadn’t been able to see how many there were in there since I had only had a quick glance, but I was sure that I could kill them all if I moved fast enough.
So, I poked my head out around the corner and took a second look. The first room was definitely unoccupied, and the aliens on the bridge still hadn’t seen me. It wouldn’t be long until they started to wonder where their crewmates had gone and why it was taking them so long to kill me and take inventory of my cargo, so I knew I had to move in now.
I crept quietly into the first room, careful to stay close to the walls so that my dark suit might offer some camouflage if one of the aliens happened to look up. I started to tip-toe around the table, and my eye was drawn to the remains still scattered across the top. Most of it was just rotten meat now, but I recognized the scaly skin as belonging to some of the aliens I’d seen at the station. I grimaced and shuddered, and I knew then that I absolutely had to stop these bastards.
The aliens clicked at one another as I inched closer, and I could hear a couple of their claws tapping on the ship’s controls, but none of them appeared to be aware of my presence.
I reached the few steps that led up to the bridge and took a deep breath, despite the stench from the nearby carcass. There was no concealing myself now and no going back. I started up the steps, my hand hovering over my holster, but about halfway up, I realized that my reflection was in the main viewer.
But the aliens were so engrossed in whatever they were doing that no one noticed until I got to the top step. One of the grotesque creatures looked up at that moment, and I saw a glint of recognition in its eyes. It moved its pincers and let out a single resounding, condemning click.
Suddenly, all of the aliens spun around. A couple of them were armed with curved blades, while others flexed their claws in my direction.
“Shit,” I muttered.
One of the aliens brought a clawed hand down on a button in front of it, and I heard something start to slide across the floor behind me. I turned back to look at the door, my only way out, and saw it slam shut.
I was trapped.