Chapter 7
There were six of them on the bridge, and all of them were facing me. The one who had just pressed the button to seal the doors stood up first, and the rest of the aliens stood up a moment later. Soon, the entire bridge crew towered over me like sentient shadows.
For a long moment, the mantis-like creatures simply clicked their pincers together and stared at me. Even though their large, reflective eyes were so different from mine, I was still able to recognize some of the emotions that I saw. I could identify surprise and, worst of all, hunger.
This group was also as scarred and intimidating as the aliens who had boarded my ship, and I noticed that one of the aliens was missing one of its long arms. The missing limb gave it a lopsided look, and I had to wonder what kind of creature had managed that feat. It clearly hadn’t been a clean-cut, based on the jagged end to the stump and the way the hard exterior was cracked and still bore obvious bite marks. A part of me hoped it was one of their meals that had fought back.
I spotted another alien that had three deep gashes down its torso that looked to be from one enormous, clawed hand that had taken its anger out on that pirate’s chest. The rest of them were scuffed and scratched as well, but their bodies were intact, unfortunately for me.
Their antennae waved around above their heads, their muscles tensed, and one of them, who had been sitting in what looked like the pilot’s chair, took a menacing step toward me. Its clawed feet scraped on the bloodstained floor as it walked across the floor, and a sliver of fear ran up my back.
I looked around for another way out, but the sealed door seemed to be the only access. As I scanned the bridge, I could see even more discarded bodies lying in heaps on the floor, and I wondered how many lives had been lost in this very compartment of the ship. In the end, I decided it didn’t matter, because today was the day their reign of terror ended.
The captain took another step toward me and clicked its pincers together a couple of times. Its clawed hands flexed as it did so, and it looked ready for a fight. It clicked again and seemed to be waiting for some kind of response from me.
I tapped my ear in case the earpiece needed a bit of encouragement while the alien watched in confusion. I had the head section of my suit on, so it probably had no idea what I was doing.
“Come again?” I said to it as I pressed the earpiece.
It clicked a couple more times, but there was still nothing in my earpiece.
“Sorry, I’m not getting that,” I said. “Although, let me guess, you’re saying things like ‘We’re gonna eat you alive’ and ‘You look like you taste delicious’? I mean, really, I’m flattered you think that. How kind of you to say that.”
The captain clicked ferociously at that and turned back to its crew, and as it did so, I noticed a small piece of technology on the side of its head that looked somewhat similar to my earpiece. I was pretty sure it could understand me, but my earpiece wasn’t able to translate their language. Maybe my own translator thought the clicking sounds were just background noise, rather than a language. After all, I couldn’t imagine that the pirates frequented Aghoa very often, and I couldn’t remember seeing anything remotely mantis-like on the station.
“I still can’t understand what you’re saying,” I said.
I ducked right as the alien whipped out one of the purple guns and fired. The shot went over my head, and I spun around to watch it hit the back wall of the bridge. It must not have been set for kill because it left no dent or scorch marks on the wall. Or maybe it was like my Electro-Launch setting, and it was only effective when it hit a life form. If that were true, then I definitely needed to avoid getting hit by one.
It clicked at me a few times as it took a menacing step toward me, and I saw its finger press down on its trigger again. I dove out of the way and a moment later, it fired another shot, which only missed me by a hair’s breadth.
“You know, I don’t think I need to understand what you’re saying,” I said as I watched the gun recharge in its hand. I wanted to pull my gun and start shooting but I didn’t want to escalate things. Even if I was a fast draw, things could still go wrong so it was best to try to talk my way out of it for now. “Message received. Loud and clear.”
I looked around at the rest of the crew and realized that they now had machetes in their hands. The one I thought of as the captain was the only one who had a gun, which made sense, since none of them had expected me to be alive, let alone to make it all the way to the bridge to take them on.
However, they still had those long arms and overwhelming strength within their slender bodies, so this was no time to underestimate my opponents.
“Will, there is one behind you,” Francine said.
I glanced around the room and realized that I could only see five out of the six creatures in front of me. The one with only one arm was missing. Before any of the aliens could react, I pulled my gun out of its holster, spun around, and fired.
I hit the sixth crew member square in the chest. It had its arm above its head and a knife in its hand, ready to stab me from behind. The alien went down quickly, and then I spun back around to face the other five.
“In the back?” I snorted. “Really? You cowards.”
The captain clicked loudly and angrily, and then the oversized bugs charged at once.
The one with the three gashes down its chest reached me first, but I shot it in the head as it started to grab for me. It only managed to take one more step before it collapsed onto the bloodstained floor.
Two more were on me while the gashed one was still falling to the floor, and I managed to raise my gun again. But a clawed hand grabbed my gun before I could take the shot. The alien was strong and tried to wrench the weapon out of my grip while the second one came charging at me.
I managed to swing my arm around despite the alien that was holding my gun around, and the alien crashed into its colleague. The pair stumbled off to the side for a moment, but it didn’t deter the creatures for long.
A clawed hand grabbed the gun again while a pair of long arms wrapped around my waist and started to pull me in the other direction. I was lifted off the ground and pulled in opposite directions like the wishbone from a turkey. I looked down at the second alien and watched its pincers open to reveal a wide mouth filled with gnashing teeth, and I realized the sick brute was going to try to bite through my suit and into my leg.
I lashed out with the other leg and kicked it in the eye. It let go of me and my feet landed back on the floor. At the same moment, I managed to put my finger on the trigger and fired at the one holding my gun. The shot hit the alien in the chest, and it stumbled backward, but there was no rest for me yet, because the next one had already reached me.
There were two more quick shots, this time to the head, right between the eyes. I realized that it wasn’t the silver balls of the Electro-Launch that were coming out of the gun anymore, and I risked a quick look at the dial to discover that the weapon was set to normal bullets. The other pirate must have moved the dial when we were wrestling for control of the weapon, and I growled in frustration.
The one I had shot in the head was dead, there was no doubt about it, but as I turned back to face the one I had shot in the chest, I watched it stand back up. It brought a clawed hand up to its chest, reached into the gunshot hole in the chestplate of its exoskeleton, and slowly pulled the small, lead bullet out of its body. A bit of dark brown slime came out with it, which looked sort of like brown tree sap. The weird goo oozed from the bullet wound as well and then dropped onto the floor.
“Well, damn,” I muttered as I realized I still had three to take down.
I tried to switch the dial back to Electro-Launch, but I felt someone try to grab me from behind again. I had no idea what my weapon was set on, and I had no time to check. I spun around, fired the gun, and watched in horror as the laser shot out from my gun and split the creature down the middle from its head to its pelvis.
A guttural screech erupted from it, but it was short-lived. The two pieces fell in opposite directions, and I was able to see the gory inside of its body as it poured out over the floor of the bridge in a gooey pool of clumpy slime and alien guts. A smoldering line was burned into the wall behind the giant bug as if I needed any more confirmation that my weapon wasn’t set to stun.
But there wasn’t time to celebrate the shot. I could hear the others moving again, and when I spun around, I saw the one I had shot in the chest had picked up another machete. It was already moving toward me, and the machete was moving swiftly toward my neck.
Even though the knife couldn’t do me much harm thanks to my suit, I knew that the impact of it would have hurt like a bitch, and that didn’t sound at all appealing.
I ducked out of the way as it swung its blade down toward me, but it stuck out its foot, and I fell forward onto the floor. My gun fell out of my hand, and I reached for it, but before I could grab it, the alien jumped in between me and the weapon and raised its gun again. I rolled out of the way and jumped up to my feet.
I raised my fists defensively, and just in time, too. The alien lost patience and lashed out with both of its long arms. I ducked under them, but I was reminded just how much longer its reach was compared to mine. I straightened up again and got ready for the next attack.
This time, the creature got low and swept its long arm along the ground in an attempt to sweep my feet out from under me. I jumped over the long limbs and even managed to grab one of the pipes that hung from the ceiling. I hung there for a second as the alien began to stand back up, and then I struck out with both feet and kicked it in the eyes.
It fell backward as it screeched in pain, and as it did so, the knife fell from its hand, and it let out a few angry clicking sounds from its pincers. I dropped down from the ceiling and ran over to it.
Its eyes widened, and it started to scramble backward away from me and toward the knife, which laid on the floor beside it.
I reached the creature just as the bug reached the knife. The alien captain grabbed the weapon with one hand, but I was already in motion. I pummeled my fists into its eyes, which seemed to be one of the only weak points on the angular body.
But the bug still managed to pick up the knife even as I attacked it, so I tried to grab its arm and pry the knife away from it. Despite the aid of the suit, though, I was no match for the alien’s strength.
The mantis put its free hand on my chest and pushed me off it. It was up in a flash, but so was I. It thrust the knife toward me again, so I dove out of the way and landed with a thud on my side. I rolled onto my back so I could spring to my feet, but the alien was already above me. It swung down with the blade, and I barely managed to scoot back enough to avoid a direct blow to the crown jewels. I looked down at the knife that was lodged in the floor and then back up at the alien, which clicked as though it was disappointed that it hadn’t hit something.
“Okay,” I said as I looked to the side, saw my gun on the floor, and grabbed it. “Now this is personal.”
The alien raised its empty hand in the air and grabbed one of the pipes on the ceiling. It pulled itself off the floor with ease and lashed out with both of its feet toward me. As it did so, I flicked the dial over with my thumb and fired. A normal bullet shot out of the end of the gun, slipped between the creature’s legs, and hit it exactly where the sun don’t shine. Brown goo exploded from its crotch area, and it curled up on the ground and whimpered.
“Have a taste of your own medicine,” I said to it as I looked down and saw it clutching its destroyed private parts.
I switched the gun to Electro-Launch and shot the creature in the head, and then I sucked in some deep breaths as I turned to face my final opponent, the pirate ship’s captain.
We held one another’s eye contact for a moment, which gave me a bit of time to catch my breath before the inevitable showdown between me and this monster. It looked around at all of its dead crewmates, but the look in its eyes was not one of remorse, but rather of disappointment. Clearly, it felt no sadness about their deaths, but rather it was annoyed that they hadn’t managed to take me down. I wondered if all of their kind were just as devoid of any compassion, or if this was just a result of the lifestyle that they had chosen to live.
It still had its purple gun in its clawed hand, and I saw its hand twitch as it hovered over the button it used to fire it, but my gun was already raised, and we stood there in a standoff.
We began to circle one another. My blood pumped through my body and the adrenaline flooded my veins. Every muscle was tense and ready for a fight, and I could see that it was the same for the alien opposite me. Both of us were fighting for our lives here, and that fact was not lost on either of us. The only difference was that I had killed ten of its crew so far, five of which were in front of the captain’s eyes, so it was already aware that its odds of coming out of this with a heartbeat were low.
But then I saw its eyes flick to the gun in my hand. It had seen how I had used it and how effective it was, and it knew that if it missed the shot at me, then it would be curtains for it. So, it slowly put the gun down on its pilot’s chair and indicated that I should do the same. It knew it couldn’t win in a battle between our two weapons, so the cowardly bug thought it would try its luck with hand to hand combat instead.
I hesitated for a moment, but then instead of complying, I pulled the trigger.
The silver ball soared through the air and hit the mutant bug-creature right between the eyes. I dove out of the way as its body tensed, which caused the finger to press down on the button, and a wild shot fired out of its gun. It hit the carcass on the table in the rear of the room, and the carcass exploded into a cloud of rotten flesh and powdery bone fragments.
I turned back to the captain and found it lying still on the floor. It was dead.
I let out a long sigh of relief and pressed the section of the suit next to my neck so that the head cover retracted. The breathing tube stayed, of course, but once my head was free, I ran my hands through my hair and wiped the sweat off my damp brow.
“I believe in a fair fight as much as any other guy,” I panted. “But I also believe in an honorable adversary. I just fought off ten of his crewmates, which is already unfair as it’s ten against one, and then he has the gall to suggest we go fist to fist? The moment I put my gun down, it would’ve picked its weapon back up and shot me. I’ve seen it hundreds of times in movies, and while I care about honor, that thing didn’t know the meaning of the word.”
“I agree with your decision, Will,” Francine said. “It was kill or be killed. You did the right thing.”
I took a step back to move away from the body, but as I did so, I managed to step in some of the goo that had come out of the other alien’s body, the one I had sliced in half with the laser, and I almost lost my balance as my foot slipped out from underneath me.
“Oh, dear,” Francine said with an amused tone.
“Gross,” I said as I scraped my shoe on the floor to get the slime off. “We will never speak of that again.”
“Understood,” the AI replied.
“I would say that went pretty well,” I said as I looked around at the mess I had made and all of the dead aliens around me.
“It was still an unnecessary risk,” Francine said. “I’m sure we could have evaded their tractor beam once we were free.”
“Maybe,” I said with a shrug. “But it was the right thing to do. Besides, they would have come after me when I tried to return to Aghoa. Either way, we were going to fight.”
“That’s probably true,” the AI admitted.
“Let’s see what else they’ve got on this ship,” I said. “Maybe there’s something we could use.”
I walked over to one of the control panels and pressed the same button that I had seen one of the aliens slam its fist into when I had entered the bridge. Sure enough, the door slid open again and revealed the hallway behind it.
Suddenly, a shadowy shape appeared, and I raised my gun with my finger on the trigger, ready to fire.
But then, the shadow became a familiar bright yellow form, and the little robot pottered into the bridge. My companion beeped happily when it saw me, and if it had a tail, I’m pretty sure it would have wagged it.
“For God’s sake, Bob,” I sighed as I lowered my gun. “Don’t scare me like that.”
Bob looked around at the bodies and made a noise that, if he was human, would have meant ‘dang’, or something along those lines.
“I know,” I said. “I’ve been busy.”
It beeped again as it arrived beside me, and I patted it fondly as I tried to decide where to start.
“We should see what weapons and materials they have on board,” Francine suggested. “Since they’re pirates, they’ll have plenty of weapons. And they might have some stolen cargo still on board somewhere, if they haven’t had a chance to unload yet.”
“You’re right,” I said. “What do we do about these bodies?”
“Cleanliness is clearly not a concern they have,” Francine noted. “But they must have some way of disposing of… things.”
I returned to the table area, since that seemed to be some sort of dining area, and looked around. It was hard to see anything besides the bones and rancid meat, but then I spotted a small panel with a couple of buttons above it. It sort of reminded me of a garbage chute, so I kicked a small bone close to the panel, stepped to the side, and pressed one of the buttons.
Nothing happened, so I pressed the second button and was rewarded with what sounded like a vacuum cleaner coming to life. The panel slid open, and the bone along with several other smaller items were pulled inside.
“So there is a system for cleaning the rooms,” I mused as I looked around at the rotting carcasses. “I guess they kept the bones around because they liked the smell?”
“A disgusting thought,” Francine said.
“I’m just glad I didn’t end up on the menu,” I said with a shudder. “Well, I doubt anyone will want their bodies, so we might as well clear them out of here so we don’t have to smell them while we look around. Alright, Bob, I need your help dragging all these bodies over to the chute.”
Bob let out an affirmative, if slightly reluctant, beep, and then joined me as I started to tug the bodies toward the chute.
Once they were in place, and I was sure Bob was out of the way, I pressed the button and watched as the corpses were sucked into the chute. When the six aliens from the bridge and the one from the hall had all been sucked away, I gave Bob another pat on the head and then walked back to the bridge to study the various control panels.
“We need to figure out how to open the docking bay once we’re back on our ship,” I said.
“One moment,” Francine said as the AI took in the panel in front of us. “I believe I will be able to control this remotely, now that I know what operating system is being used.”
“Are you sure?” I asked.
“Yes,” the AI replied. “It is very simple technology compared to other ships in the galaxy. I will be able to access the controls without too much resistance.”
“Perfect,” I said. “I’ll take a quick look around to see if there’s anything worth salvaging, and then we should get back to our mission.”
Bob and I made our way back through the ship, and as I helped him down through the various hatches, I kept myself entertained by trying to picture the little robot as it tried to work out how to climb up and find me. He must have had to run at the wall, then use the surface as a launching pad so he could grab hold of the single rung with his little mechanical arms. It couldn’t have been easy, but at least he had made it.
We checked every room as we made our way through the ship, partly to search for anything interesting, but also to make sure we hadn’t missed any pirates. We found the captain’s private quarters as well as shared quarters for the rest of the crew. There was a space I would have described as a living room, though it stunk of rotting meat. The furnishings included a large cage that looked to be where they kept some of the unlucky travelers that they caught with their tractor beam. I shuddered at the thought of the poor souls who had spent the final hours of their lives trapped in that cage waiting to be eaten, and I hoped that it had at least been quick once their time had come.
Eventually, I found their storeroom, which was beside an engineering room. Unsurprisingly, those two rooms were the closest to the docking bay, one level up. It wasn’t full at the moment, though that made sense. Any decent pirate would sell the booty as quickly as possible to avoid being caught with stolen goods.
However, I did find a few useful bits and pieces lying around, such as some extra tools, some sturdy sheet metal, and even some credits that I could use to buy some stuff in Aghoa. As I delved deeper into the hoard, I found old blankets and clothes, though the clothes were definitely for a creature with far more arms than me, judging by the number of sleeves on it.
At the back of the room, I found even more useful stuff. There was another long length of that industrial-strength rope, similar to the one they had used to wrench open the back door of my ship. But it was what was in the room beside it that I was interested in.
I walked into the engineering room, which was more like a maze of different machinery, exposed wires, and rusty pipes than a proper, functional room. I was pretty sure that I even saw some sparks fly off something near the back of the room at one point, but I decided that ignorance was bliss and to not go looking for trouble. Besides, it was one of the machines that was near the front of the room that I was the most interested in.
“Is this what I think it is?” I asked as I walked into the engineering room and my eyes fell on a certain mechanism that the aliens had used to drag my ship into theirs.
“If you think it is a tractor beam, then it is what you think it is,” Francine said.
“Awesome,” I said. “I think one of these would go nicely on my ship, don’t you?”
“I could not agree more,” Francine said.
“That’s settled then,” I said. “How do I detach it?”
I walked over to a box at the side of the room, opened the lid, and found a whole bunch of tools that had been thrown inside it. Francine told me which ones I needed, and then I headed back over to the tractor beam.
Francine talked me through how I could safely detach the tractor beam without electrocuting myself, and once I had wrenched all of the tightly secured bolts and screws off it, it was free. However, it was far too heavy to carry, which I learned the hard way when I tried to pick one end of it up. Even if I was to share the load with Bob, it would probably just crush both of us.
“Right,” I panted. “That’s not gonna work.”
“But this might,” Francine said.
I turned around just as a hovercart trundled into the room and parked up right beside me and the tractor beam.
“God, you’re good, Frankie,” I chuckled. “Okay. Let me get this loaded up.”
I grunted and groaned as I lifted one side of the tractor beam onto the hovercart. I could feel a bit more sweat on my brow as I trudged around to the other side of the beam. This end was wider and far more dense, so Bob hurried underneath it as well while I lifted it up, and took a little bit of the load as we shifted it across onto the hovercraft.
I let out a sigh of relief as I put the other end down on the craft. It wobbled under the weight for a moment as it got used to the heavy load, but it remained suspended in midair while I took a moment to recover.
Then, we made our way back down to the docking bay and walked up the ramp, with the hovercraft floating behind me. I unloaded the beam into the storage compartment and put everything else I had taken in there, too, for when I had time to take a closer look. I then did a quick check to make sure the Aghorian was still in good condition, and I was relieved to find that my cargo was still intact and ready to be taken to the X-13 space station.
Francine disposed of the hovercraft, and then it was time for us to get going.
“Come on, Bob,” I said as the little robot trotted up the ramp with a few last components.
Then, I detached the hook at the end of the rope that the aliens had used to wrench the ramp open and followed Bob inside. The ramp closed after me, and Francine switched the lights on just as it closed.
“Will it make it to the space station?” I asked as I studied the bent ramp.
“It should,” Francine replied. “But we’ll need to have it smoothed out and the seals repaired before we attempt anything longer.”
“How long will that take?” I asked.
“Not long,” Francine assured me. “There should be someone on the station who can make the repairs while we wait for clearance to leave.”
I helped Bob up to the next level and then climbed up the ladder after him. Once we were in the living area, I sighed at the mess the aliens had made as they had rooted through all of my belongings and then made my way into the cockpit. I strapped myself into the pilot’s seat and began to get the ship ready to fly. As I did so, I looked out of the front window at the door of the docking bay, and an idea began to form inside my head.
“Hey, Francine?” I said.
“Yes, Will?” the AI replied.
“Hypothetically, do you think you could fly the pirate ship remotely?” I asked.
“Possibly,” it said.
“Remember the location of this ship, then,” I said.
“Why?” the AI asked.
“Because we’re gonna come back for it after we drop off the Aghoaian,” I replied.
“Why would we do that?” Francine asked.
“Because I’m sure the Aghoan Space Station would like to know that at least one of the threats against its delivery drivers has been eliminated…” I said. “Plus, someone might make use of the parts. I’m sure we could collect a lot of credits for this ship.”
“That we could use for upgrades,” Francine said. “I like the way you think, Will Ryder. Preparing to open the hangar door.”
“Are you holding on, Bob?” I asked.
The robot beeped affirmatively.
“Good,” I said as I watched the door of the docking bay begin to open. “Ready to move out.”
The moment the door was wide enough, I fired up the engine and launched the ship back out into the asteroid belt. The pirate ship had moved back in among the rocks while I was busy killing off the crew, but at least I could still see the light reflecting off the station. With the ramp damage, I tried to be more careful as I flew through the rocks, though it was impossible to avoid everything.
After a jaw-clenching flight through the remainder of the asteroid belt, I emerged on the other side and made my way over to the space station. Francine guided me toward the Deliveries level, and I joined the extremely short line of ships waiting for a place to land.
It was no surprise that the queue was so short and that the space station wasn’t busy, given what a treacherous journey was required to get here. Still, a few lucky pilots had managed it, though a couple of the ships looked like they had been involved in some close calls with the pirates and rocks in the belt.
I was dreaming about a cup of coffee when we were told where to land, and I braced myself for another round of close scrapes with the other ships. But there was plenty of room in the hangar, so I dropped into the spot without having to dodge out of the way of a single vessel and then made my way to the back counter to drop off my boxes. An alien with yellow skin and a large, lightbulb-like head watched me set the crates down, but he didn’t offer to help and didn’t ask for any information.
“From Darak on X-8,” I finally said.
“Ah, perfect,” the guy said as he handed me a small card with a black mark on it. “Give this to Darak, and you will get paid.”
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll try not to lose it, then.”
“Yeah, because you won’t get a second one,” the alien said as it picked up the Aghorian and sauntered off into the back room with it.
“Nice doing business with you, too,” I said as I tucked the card inside my suit for safekeeping.
Francine hadn’t exaggerated about how quickly the ramp could be repaired. By the time I sauntered back, a hunchbacked creature with four eyes and four arms was pounding on the metal while Francine complained that he was using too much force. Clearly, it was a free service courtesy of the space station, seeing as the way to get to it was such a hazardous one. I let the alien work in peace, and soon, the ramp looked almost new. The alien checked the metal and the seals, waited while I double-checked his work, and then I thanked him before he skittered on to his next assignment.
We left the station not long after that, and Francine directed me back toward the pirate ship. As we got closer, I realized I could see one of the alien bodies floating out of the docking bay. A thin layer of ice already covered its body, and I knew it wouldn’t be long before it was frozen solid. The ship itself floated, unmanned, in the middle of the belt, with the door to the docking bay still open.
“Alright, Frankie, do your thing,” I said. “See if you can fly it from here.”
“This may take a moment,” the AI replied.
“I’m not in a rush, are you?” I chuckled as I sat back in my seat.
“Their ship’s computer system is archaic, I’m having difficulty communicating with such barbaric technology,” Francine sniffed.
For a few minutes, nothing happened. I alternated between watching the floating ship just to make sure we didn’t crash into it and checking the scanners for any more pirate ships. But the belt remained quiet, and I wondered if these pirates had territories where they marauded, like street gangs back on Earth, and maybe that was why I hadn’t been bothered by anyone else yet. It made sense if that was the case, and if Francine was able to gain control of the ship and get it to fly, then maybe no other pirate ships would bother us on our way back to Aghoa.
I was pulled from my thoughts when the lights suddenly flickered back on both outside and inside the pirate ship. The docking bay closed, and then the ship began to move as though someone was on the bridge flying it.
“No way,” I laughed triumphantly.
“Yes way,” Francine replied. “I have control of the ship.”
“Awesome,” I said. “Well, by all means, lead the way. That ship’s got a battering ram and better shields, so feel free to knock some of the smaller asteroids out of the way as you go.”
“Understood,” the AI replied.
Our trip back through the asteroid belt was a little smoother since Francine used the pirate ship to clear a path through the rocky debris. The scanners remained clear as well, but I didn’t take a calm breath until we’d cleared the other side of the belt and set a course for the station.
I took the lead once we were out of the belt because I didn’t want the people at the Aghoan Intergalactic Space Station to think that it was under attack from the pirates. There was some confusion when I requested two landing spots on the Deliveries floor, but the controller finally gave in and gave us two spots that were next to each other.
The crowd of onlookers started to gather near us before we’d actually set down, and I noticed that many of the drivers were armed and looked ready for a fight. They clearly recognized the ship as a pirate ship, and they were probably afraid that I’d just brought the enemy into the base.
As I climbed out of the ship and retrieved my card with my proof of delivery mark on it, Darak appeared at one of the doors. Obviously, one of the drivers had gone to get him, and the hefty Snooli looked impressed as he traversed the hangar and arrived beside me and my new cargo.
“You were right about those pirates,” I said to him as I handed him the delivery slip.
“I can see that,” he said as he took the slip and glanced at it, before he turned back to the pirate ship beside us.
Everyone else in the hangar simply gawked at it, and it was obvious that none of them had gone up against a pirate ship and won. Of course, some of them had suffered injuries but made it out alive, but it was clear from the expressions on their faces that everyone was stunned by what I had just achieved. It was almost as though the pirate ship was a trophy, or maybe a glimmer of hope for the other drivers who would one day have to cross the asteroid belt again.
“Do you want to explain this to me?” Darak asked as he pointed his trunk at the pirate ship.
“They tried to steal the cargo and kill me,” I replied. “So, I returned the favor.”
“I see,” he said, and I could hear a newfound respect for me in his voice.
“How much is it worth?” I asked. “Do you have any use for the parts?”
Darak quickly cast an expert eye over it and checked underneath it as well. I was pretty sure I had seen my grandpa do the same thing when he bought me my first car.
“Well, it’s not much better than a bag of bolts,” Darak said. “But even a bag of bolts can be useful. How does one hundred thousand credits sound to take it off your hands? Along with the five hundred thousand for the trip?”
“You’ve got yourself a deal,” I said, and I almost went to shake on it before I remembered he didn’t have hands. “Although, I should probably warn you that there are some unpleasant sights in there. I didn’t have time to clean up.” I pictured the piles of bones inside the ship and shuddered.
“I’ve seen some shit in my time, don’t worry,” Darak said.
“I’m not sure if it’s anything like this, but as long as you’re fine with it,” I said. “I do have one more question.”
“Sure,” Darak replied. “What can I do for you?”
“I need you to tell me who the best mechanic on this space station is,” I said. “My ship needs some upgrades.”
“That’s easy,” he said, and he turned around to the group behind us. “Jeelie, get over here.”
One of the aliens, a sort of lizard-like being that walked on its hind legs, made its way over to us. It had six other arms as well as its legs, and it had four eyes on its scaly face that were a light orange color.
“This is Jeelie,” Darak said. “She’s the best mechanic I know, and I know a lot of people. She’ll get your ship in perfect condition.”
“You just tell me what you want done, and I can do it for you,” Jeelie said. “And by the sounds of it, you’ve got the funds for the best materials.”
“I sure do,” I said before I turned back to the Snooli. “Thanks, Darak.”
“No,” Darak said as he glanced at the pirate ship. “Thank you.”
He turned and made his way back toward the door to the Deliveries level, and the crowd followed reluctantly after him.
“I’ve never seen anything like this before,” Jeelie said as she looked up at the pirate ship.
“It wasn’t easy,” I said. “They put up a fight.”
“But you won,” she replied with a smirk. “Not bad.”
“Thanks,” I laughed.
“Now…” she said as she turned back to my ship. “I see we’re working with a very basic model… no offense.”
“None taken,” I replied. “The planet I come from isn’t exactly filled with experts when it comes to interstellar space travel, so I had to make do with what I had.”
“Well, it’s a good starting point,” Jeelie said as she took a look at the framework.
“See?” Francine said. “That’s exactly what I said.”
“Whatever,” I said.
“What?” Jeelie asked.
“Nothing,” I replied quickly. “So, I’m thinking we’ll need better shields and weapons, and I also noticed that the sub-light engines are not very quick compared to the other ships out there, so if you can do anything to increase the speed, that would be great. Oh, and there’s a tractor beam in the storage compartment that we took off the pirate ship. It would be nice to have that installed.”
“So, you basically want everything upgraded?” the mechanic said.
“Pretty much,” I chuckled.
“As for the speed, I can only do so much,” Jeelie said. “They don’t allow nuclear-grade material on Aghoa, which would improve the speed by a lot. But I’ll see what I can do.”
“Sounds good,” I said.
“Leave it to me,” she said.
“Do you have a team, or…” I began, and then she wiggled her six arms at me.
“Who needs a team when you’ve got these,” she said. “It’ll take me a few hours, but I’ll be done as soon as possible.”
“Thank you,” I said.
Darak returned some time later with my credits and said that he’d take a look at the pirate ship once he’d sent all of his drivers out on runs and completed his quota.
In the meantime, I shadowed Jeelie and learned a lot about the mechanics of the ship from her. She called one of her friends, who quickly arrived with a hovercraft filled with tools and materials, and then she got to work. It was incredible to watch. Her six arms all worked independently of one another as she screwed, tinkered, wired, and rewired things, and I couldn’t even fathom the mental power that it must have taken for her to do six things at once. And she did it all while explaining everything to me. It was truly a sight to behold.
She worked tirelessly on the ship, and soon the twelve hours I had needed for the folding engine to recharge were almost up. I went inside the ship to clear up the mess that the pirates had left behind and made sure to check that my beloved coffee machine was still intact. While it brewed, I put everything back in the right cupboards and cleaned up any mess, until finally, the ship was spotless and felt like home again.
About an hour later, I went outside to check on Jeelie, and at the same moment, she turned off the torch she had used to weld one of the panels back together. I waved hello to her, and she lifted up her mask with one hand, kept hold of the torch with the other, and then waved at me with the remaining four hands she had at her disposal.
“Thank you so much,” I said. “I know you must have had other work on your schedule, and I really appreciate how quickly you’ve done this.”
“You’ve got state-of-the-art shields and weapons now-- at least for a ship of this class-- I’ve attached that tractor beam that was in the storage compartment, and I’ve done what I can with the speed,” she said. “I also upgraded some of the wiring and mechanics. It looked like some kind of ancient technology, and it probably wouldn’t fare too well in a real battle.”
“It did okay against the pirates,” I chuckled. “And besides, that’s the best you can buy where I come from.”
“I would be a genius in your world then,” she laughed.
“You’re a genius here, let alone where I come from,” I said. “How much do I owe you?”
“With materials and labor… four hundred,” she said. “Some of that stuff isn’t cheap, but I got you a good deal on the parts.”
“Call it five,” I said and held out my hand for her to shake. “You’ve done me a huge favor today, and you deserve to be paid accordingly.”
“Well, I’m not going to argue,” she said as she eyed my hand. “Um. What are you doing?”
“Oh,” I laughed. “Where I come from, you shake hands when a deal is made.”
“I see,” she said as she reached out a hand and gently shook mine. “How strange.”
“Yeah, I guess it is,” I chuckled.
I gave her five hundred thousand credits for her work, which meant I still had a hundred thousand that Darak had given me for the pirate ship as a backup, plus however much I took from the aliens’ cargo. Not a bad day’s work.
She thanked me and then scurried away, probably to the next job she had to do. I could see why Darak had told me she was the best in the business, and still, she had offered me a good price for her efforts.
“The folding engine is recharged, Will,” Francine said as I climbed back into the cockpit. “We can make our next jump.”
“Well, it’s lucky I haven’t eaten in a while,” I chuckled as I strapped myself into the pilot’s seat and fired the ship up.
The rumble as it came to life was way louder than it had been before, and I laughed out loud in pure joy at the sound of it.
“Now that is an improvement,” Francine said.
“Hell yeah!” I said excitedly. “Get me out of this hangar. I wanna see what this thing can do!”
I made my way out of the hangar and shot off into space, away from the space station. The difference in the speed of the ship was noticeable, though I still wasn’t the fastest thing in the sky. However, the shields that shimmered around the ship looked impenetrable, and I had several new modes on the controls to operate the various weapons that I had at my disposal. The ship was a new and improved version of itself, and yet it hadn’t lost any of the handmade feel that it had to it.
“Hey, Frankie?” I said.
“Yes, Will,” the AI replied.
“Talk me through the new weapons again, will you?” I asked.
“Of course,” Francine replied. “Jeelie has installed three types of weapons systems into the ship because one can never be sure of what defense systems another ship has. For example, one may be well protected against laser fire, but weak against plasma bolts. Or perhaps their defenses are strong against both of those, but weak against armor piercing rail guns.”
“Makes sense,” I replied. “I saw her installing the pintle mounted laser turrets on the top and bottom of the ship. She said it would give us almost a three hundred and sixty degree range of fire.”
“That is correct,” Francine said. “Each wing also has plasma cannons mounted on the ends, but unlike the lasers they can only fire forward. Under the nose is a direct fire proton accelerated rail gun.”
“Try saying that three times fast,” I chuckled.
“Direct fire proton accelerated--” Francine began.
“Not literally,” I laughed.
“Oh,” Francine said. “Well, the rail gun is designed to punch massive holes in targets that rely on heavy armor for defenses, but it would be ineffective against any ship with energy shields that are similar to yours.”
“Noted,” I said. “So, lasers are for fast moving ships. They can be absorbed by energy shields but penetrate armor.”
“Indeed,” Francine said. “The plasma cannons are for slow moving targets and they can bypass shields, however they have trouble penetrating heavy armor. The rail gun hits fast targets and can punch holes through almost any armor, but is less effective against shields.You can switch between the modes using the switches on the third joystick that Jeelie put in on the control panel.”
“Good to know,” I said. “Thanks, Francine.”
Once we were far enough away from the space station and any other spacecraft, it was time for the next jump.
“Where to this time, Frankie?” I asked.
“Well, you heard what Jeelie said about using a nuclear grade material to increase the ship’s speed?” Francine said.
“Yeah,” I said.
“Well, I know somewhere we may be able to find a lot of uranium, which would be perfect for just that purpose,” the AI said. “If we succeed, we will be able to reach my homeworld in one more jump.”
“I like that plan,” I said. “Let’s do it.”
“It is not located in a very safe part of the galaxy,” the AI warned me.
“I’m not sure there is a part of the galaxy that is safe,” I said. “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”
“I will input the coordinates,” Francine said. “And begin to power up the folding engine.”
“Okay,” I said as I made sure that all of the straps on my seatbelt were as tight as possible before the jump. “Just let me know when you’re--”
“Activating folding engine,” Francine said.
A moment later, everything in front of me stretched out as though it was being pulled in two different directions, and then I was thrown back in my seat as we shot through the folded part of space in front of me.
This time, I managed to hang onto the joysticks, but only barely. And I managed to refrain from shouting obscenities, but again, only barely. Every part of my body was clamped to the chair, and all I could do was watch as the light beams that had originally been tiny, glimmering, dot-like stars shot past me like bullets. The colors were incredible, the sensation indescribable, and a moment later, we were spat out the other side like a racecar off a starting line.
I was thrown forward again, and it was only the seatbelt that kept me in my seat. The now-familiar sick feeling crept into my stomach, but at least this time it was less intense.
I took a few deep breaths to settle my stomach, and then I looked through the front window at our new location.
I could see a few planets in very close proximity to one another, and some dark shapes moving between them. At first, I thought that it was more asteroid belts, but as I edged toward them, I could tell that the shadows were ships. The HUD confirmed that, but there wasn’t any more information than that.
Suddenly, several red light beams shot out of one of the ships and smashed into another one. The damaged ship exploded into thousands of pieces, but the fireball that had been inside it disappeared quickly thanks to the vacuum of space. A moment later, another volley of red light pierced the darkness as some of the other ships joined the fight.
“Are they pirates?” I asked. “But… they seem to be flying in formation, and the ships have the same basic design….”
“Yes,” Francine said slightly sheepishly.
“Wait…” I said as it all clicked into place. “Have we just flown into a warzone?”
“Well…” Francine began.
A stray shot suddenly powered toward the ship, and I only just managed to swerve out of the way of it.
“Shit,” I sighed.