“We now hold this Council Circle begun,” Bi’candra decred, borrowing her mate Os’tryve’s voice. The Brothers walked silently with slow, swaying steps into the circle of tree-like Mothers and sat on their heels, kneeling in front of their mates, facing the others in the circle.

  Their mood was upbeat despite the serious conversation they were about to have, mainly due to having their months-long sexual dry spell wetted spectacurly by the topic of tonight's council circle, Inta. The Brothers and Pi’natha all wore the evidence of Inta’s influence on their skin, the same silver markings Will, June, and Ben bore.

  Typically, the eldest Mother would preside over the Council Circle. Since the rest of the Mothers were currently Seeding and their minds temporarily lost to ecstasy, Bi’candra was the only one coherent enough to handle the job.

  Of those present in the circle of Toparians, only Larce and Ti’me seemed haggard and drawn out. While the Brothers had spent the time blissed out and resting from Inta’s ministrations, Larce and Ti’me had spent the past two and a half days fucking each other silly, only pausing when thirst compelled them, or exhaustion took them. They kneeled beside each other, Larce resting her sleepy head on Ti’me’s shoulder.

  The Nestia crew stood by Pi’natha slightly outside the inner circle. They were in attendance because Inta was the topic of discussion, and the Grove requested that she be present.

  “We are here to talk about recent events and how they affect the future of this Grove, and specifically our options in light of Inta’s recent involvement,” Bi’candra said, setting the tone and highlighting the topic of discussion.

  “May I start?” De’noke asked the Circle.

  “You may,” Bi’candra replied.

  “Our Grove is now feeling the result of a string of events, some unfortunate, and some fortunate,” De’noke paused and looked towards Inta, smiling.

  “We left Topar with ten Mothers, ten Brothers, and ten Maidens, the time-tested, ideal core around which every new Grove builds a new colony. We pnned our journey so that shortly after our arrival, our Sprouts would bloom, and the Mothers would be ready to Seed. When the deal we made with the government of Bedarius Four fell through, we were forced to scramble and select a new location much further away.

  The need to travel longer and Ti’me’s unexpected transition put a member of the Grove, Pi’natha, at grave risk. But fate guided us, and our meeting with Inta was not a matter of chance. Not only has she saved Pi’natha, who is Seeding with her at this moment, but she has also offered us a path to recim our forgotten legacy. Ages ago, the Andranari were symbiotes with the Toparians, and Inta represents the opportunity to be as we once were.”

  When De'noke finished, Os’tryve straightened his spine and responded.

  “Inta’s arrival was fortunate,” Os’tryve began, “But not without a steep cost. She has thrown everything into chaos; She could not control herself when she seeded with Pi’natha, and sent the entire popution aboard the Dals, including the Grove, into a sexual frenzy which we barely survived. Mothers and Maidens endure levels of ecstasy beyond measure in order to breathe life into the seeds, but Brothers are not usually capable of handling such intensity. The affected Brothers could have gone into cardiac arrest or suffered brain hemorrhages. Now we find half of our Grove Bonded to an almost complete stranger.”

  June’s face screwed up with anger, and she was about to vigorously defend Inta’s actions when De’noke turned and gestured for her to calm herself. When June had settled, he spoke.

  “Yes, a cascade of unusual events has brought us to this predicament, but ask yourself: Do you feel less for it? I, for one, feel enhanced by the intervention. It has only been a few days, but I feel stronger than I have felt since I was a young Brother. She provides me with energy and a connection like none I have felt outside of the Grove itself, and I feel reconnected to our roots, one that our ancestors knew intimately.

  It is common for a new Grove to adapt to the situations of a new colony. When faced with colder or hotter climates, a Grove will develop adaptations to cope with the adversity. In hotter climates, we grow more shady leaves; in cold weather climates, we might develop like conifers. This new adaptation, bonding with Inta, is in response to the challenges this Grove is facing, and I firmly believe that it is and will continue to be beneficial.”

  The Grove members murmured and spoke low to one another, discussing the points De’noke highlighted until Bi’candra spoke again, and then they quieted to listen.

  “This Grove is on the cusp of a decision point, that I believe reduces to this: With half of us now carrying this new connection to Inta which I believe can not be reversed, and half of us unchanged, do we proceed as we were, and continue to create a new colony? How will this affect the colony with half of the members connected to Inta and half not? Would the colony be sustainable in this fashion? Or would we need to fully bond with this echo of the past for the Grove to maintain its identity as a whole? Would Inta need to come with us if we decided to? What pce would there be for those who are now bonded?”

  Inta stepped forward into the circle and addressed the Grove directly. “I acknowledge that the price for saving Pi’natha’s life was extreme, and while I am sorry for how the course of events pyed out that brought us here, I am gd that it turned out the way it did. You are a beautiful species, and I am grateful to have been allowed to be part of your life.

  In whatever course of action the Grove decides, please know that I am committed to helping you in whatever you choose, those Bonded and not alike. You all are the closest connection to who and where I came from, a living, breathing connection to my people. I have consulted with my family,” she said, gncing at June, Will, and Ben, “we have agreed that in whichever direction you choose, we will help and support you.”

  The Grove murmured amongst themselves for a brief moment until Bi’candra spoke again. “We are grateful for your offer. We must carefully consider what to do next, so we will adjourn, meditate upon the choices before us, and reconvene in a few days to decide. May the spirit of the Great Forest be with us,” Bi’candra said, concluding the council circle.

  As the Toparians rose to their feet and went off in separate directions, De’noke walked over to where Inta and the crew were standing next to Pi’natha. “Well, that went about how I expected,” he said in a non-committal tone. “It’s a big decision and not one to make lightly.”

  He reached down and gently pced a hand on Inta’s silver cheek. “As for me, now that I am assured that Pi’natha is in good health and our Seeds are well looked after, for which I owe you everything, my Dear,” he said, stooping to give Inta a peck on the cheek, “I intend to do what I can to help you fully discover your past and where your people went to. I will travel with you to where your journey takes you.”

  “How does everyone else feel about that?” Will asked.

  “They understand my predilections for History and my ties with you and support my decision. They also understand how important this is and genuinely want to help you. They have blessed my decision to go with you; it was an easy choice for them to make.” De’noke said, smiling.

  “But what about your Seeds? What will happen when Pi’natha and Inta birth them?” Ben asked, concerned.

  “The Grove will care for them as they do all Seeds. Though a pair may conceive the Seeds, the Grove is their family and cares for all young ones together, Seed through Mother. Though we may be individuals, we are one Grove.” June smiled at the heartwarming sentiment.

  “And Pi’natha?” June asked, concerned.

  “She and I talked long about Inta, who she was, where she came from, and we agreed, even before Inta volunteered to stand in as a Maiden, that our fates were intertwined with hers. She will stay with the Grove, though she will never be far away; our connection to each other is deep and distance will mean little to our psychic link.” De’noke said, stroking Inta’s pregnant form beneath Pi’natha’s skin. “Come, let us go to the sitting room and discuss your next steps, and what arrangements need to be made,” he said, leading them from the Grove.

  ****

  Captain Ugaki accepted the tablet bearing the report from the Dals hospitality crew's Passenger Health and Wellness Office. “Thank you, Amanda, erm, Lieutenant Billings,” He said, forcing himself to return to established protocols.

  “Yes… Captain,” she replied with a groggy smile. Like the rest of the bridge crew and probably every other person on the Dals, the lieutenant was exhausted from the two-and-a-half day bender. The Health and Wellness Office had spent the st day trying to find what caused forty thousand people to become sex-crazy nymphomanics during what they were calling ‘The Incident.’ Still, their thorough analysis of the ship’s water, air, and food supply turned up nothing.

  The fact that the effects were felt across all species aboard discounted the possibility of viral infection, but mass psychosis couldn’t be ruled out; he and his bedraggled bridge crew were testaments to the delirium-soaked event. His mind drifted off, repying the recent memories of what he and his bridge crew got up to, and an inappropriate smile crossed his face.

  A voice calling, “Captain,” snapped his mind back to the present. Command Cirrilo stood beside him, her ordinarily crisp uniform a bit sloppy, suffering from the same ck of sleep as the rest of the crew, evident from the bags under her eyes and a small dopey smile curling the corner of her lips. Not that he was in any better state; his droopy eyelids and a half-tucked uniform shirt spoke volumes.

  “I thought I told you to get some rest with the other half of the bridge crew?” he asked her, half irritated that she had not done as directed but also grateful she was here to help.

  “I did. I caught a quick power nap. I can sleep properly once we’re not running a skeleton crew on the bridge,” Cirrilo answered tersely. And by the looks of the state you're in, you could also use a nap.”

  “That I could, Commander, but we have a lot to deal with,” he said with a weary sigh. “Twelve hours into the incident, we missed a course correction and ran two days in the wrong direction. Now, there’s a star cluster that we’ll need to navigate around, which will dey us by three days. Also, Health and Wellness haven’t found anything that could have instigated the Incident; here’s their report,” he said, handing her the tablet.

  As she reviewed it, she noted that, along with the causal report, the Infirmary reported that they had treated nearly two hundred cases of dehydration and used half of their stock of creams and ointments for various abrasions and bruises.

  She didn’t allow herself a smile when she thought about her rug burns and how sore and achy her ass and pussy currently were. Holy fuck, Will and Ben had used her well. Though she gave as good as she got, she thought wryly.

  She turned her attention to the situation at hand. “Captain, why don’t you take fifteen in your ready room, then I’ll wake you before I head down to the Health and Wellness office.” He gave her a quizzical look. “I want to make sure that they have a sufficient stock of pregnancy tests, and that they’re ready to provide support services once passengers have fully taken stock of… recent events. It might also be wise to set up a voluntary DNA registry if passengers wish to be alerted of any surprise paternity.”

  “And that’s why you’re my Second, Commander, always finding the angles I miss.” Ugaki paused to consider, then looked up at Cirrilo. “I will take you up on your offer. You have the Con, Commander,” he said, getting up from his seat and heading to the ready room. Cirrilo took his seat, and though she held the report in her hands, her mind drifted far to Dals’ aft and the occupants of a peculiar ship berthed therein. Unawares, a small smile crept across her face.

  ****

  Wearing her waitress uniform, Inta tugged on the gss door to the Rainbow Starlight Lounge and was surprised to find it locked. She peered into the gss and thought she saw someone near the bar in the back, so she rapped on the gss, hoping to get their attention. After a moment, a bleary-eyed Del came to the door, saw that it was Inta, smiled, and opened it.

  “Well hello, sugar,” Del said, looking rexed but tired. “Come on in. We were just fixin’ some sandwiches and drinks, why don’t you join us?” She said, walking with Inta back to the bar. Trixie was sitting at the bar, bubbly as always, and she heard the sounds of someone working in the kitchen that Inta assumed was Joe.

  “Inta!” Trixie screeched excitedly, rushed to hug her, then held her by the shoulders at arm's length. “So tell me, what did you get up to during the ‘Fuck-nado’?” Del shook her head and groaned at Trixie’s antics. “Cum-pocalypse? Orgasmaclysm? Whatever you call the glorious st three days, I want all the dirty details.”

  Inta smiled at the excited blue-haired girl as they returned to the bar.

  “Well, if you must know, I got well acquainted with some Toparians,” Inta said, intentionally leaving out details. Some things, she decided, would just be too difficult to expin.

  “Oh. My. God.” Trixie reacted in delighted shock. “Is it true? I heard that Toparians are packing…” she said, holding her hands about shoulder-width apart.

  Inta winked. “And wide as my wrist,” she said, holding her wrist with her other hand, pumping it slowly in and out of her other hand suggestively. Trixie nearly swooned.

  Del ughed and mussed Trixie’s hair, then went behind the bar and got four gsses down. She mixed three strong-looking drinks, then asked, “Inta, care for one?” holding the empty gss up.

  “Just water please,” she replied.

  “One water, per usual,” Del said, filling the gss with clear liquid from a tap. As she handed gsses to Trixie and Inta, Joe came in from the kitchen carrying three ptes, each with a toasted pastrami sandwich, chips, and a pickle.

  “Oh, Hi Inta. I didn’t know you were here. I would have made a pte up for you.” He apologized, handing a pte to Del and Trixie. Del reciprocated and gave him the drink she had made for him.

  “Don’t mind us; we’re famished,” Joe said, taking a big bite. The three of them were disheveled, their clothes wrinkled, and looked like they had spent a few days balled up in a pile. While Trixie was chipper and energetic as usual, Del and Joe looked like they had just run a marathon, and Inta guessed that wasn’t far from the truth.

  “I suppose the lounge isn’t opening tonight,” Inta said, more a statement of fact than a question.

  “Naw, I reckon there won’t be any customers with enough energy to wander down to the Concourse tonight, maybe not even tomorrow. They only just cleared the Concourse outside of passed-out passengers a few hours ago, brought back to their cabins to recuperate.” Del said.

  “I heard things were wild all over the ferry. People were fucking in the corridors, lifts, and passenger cabins,” Trixie chimed in excitedly. “I heard that one cabin had so much cum soaked into the carpets, housecleaning had to relocate them and close the room until it could be rehabbed.” Trixie was giddy, sharing all the sacious gossip she had heard around Dals. “I heard there was a silk buyer’s consortium in negotiations with those half-spider people, the, Uh…” Trixie paused, struggling to remember.

  “The Linyphiidae,” Del offered with a loving smirk at Trixie’s antics.

  “Yeah, The Linphiidae. Well, I heard that they were just about to conclude their negotiations in one of the rge conference rooms when the ‘Fuck-nado’ hit. When the Health and Wellness teams found them, the conference room was wall-to-wall webbing, the Linyphiidae were passed out on the floor, and all twenty members of the consortium were wrapped up tight, hanging in the webs, stuffed so full of eggs they looked like Christmas turkeys. As Health and Wellness cut them down, they begged and screamed to be put back and stuffed with more eggs.”

  “Sounds like the negotiations went well,” Joe joked as he sipped his drink, smiling.

  “I only wished I could have seen the thousand-person orgy out on the Concourse,” Trixie mented, “that must have been a sight. Though I can’t compin too much, Joe and Del gave me such a going over, that I’ll be walking funny for a week.” Then she squirmed and moaned in her seat. “Aw fuck, thinking about all that is getting me wet again.”

  Del chuckled, looked at Joe, shaking his head, and said, “Darling, I think if you try to suck or fuck anything else out of Joe or me, all you’ll get is dust. You’re gonna need to give us time to get our fluids back up.”

  “Ah, that’s how you three spent the st three days,” Inta smirked devilishly.

  “Yup, we three were knockin’ boots,” Del said casually. “Spent the st several hours cleaning up after our fun.”

  “Mmmm, it was so much fun,” Trixie said. “Del’s the best carpet muncher I’ve ever met, and Joe, Holy Hell, that man can cum buckets! His balls are huge!” She said, her hands holding two imaginary grapefruit.

  A deep red blush rushed up Joe’s neck and enfmed his face. Then he retorted, “Well, because of you, now we need to restock the kitchen with vegetables. These pickles were the only spared because they were too soft for your liking.”

  It was Trixie's turn to blush. “I didn’t hear compining when I was shoving carrots up your…” She was interrupted by a rap on the gss door out front. She squinted and saw the vague outline of a woman through the gss; then, her lips turned down in a slight frown. “That’s probably Belinda,” Trixie sighed, then decred, “I’m going to have to let her and Daniel down gently.” She paused. “They were a lot of fun, but I think I’ve found the real deal.” Her eyes sparked when she smiled at Del and Joe, who smiled in return.

  “This may take a few minutes. I’ll be back shortly,” Trixie said, gulping down the rest of the drink Del had made for her. Then she went out through the front to talk to the woman.

  Del, Joe, and Inta made small talk while they waited for Trixie, and when fifteen minutes turned into twenty, Inta felt uneasy. “I’m going to go check on Trixie,” she said as she pushed away from the bar.

  Inta found the concourse deserted as she stepped out into the unusually quiet space. A chill ran up her spine as she walked towards some benches across the promenade from the lounge. She saw an envelope on the bench with her name written in flowing cursive lettering: ‘Inta.’ As she bent to pick the note up off the bench, she inadvertently kicked something under the bench, and when kneeling to retrieve it, she realized it was a syringe.

  Picking it up, she sniffed it, then flicked the tip of the needle with her tongue for a chemical analysis. She detected human blood mixed with a powerful anesthetic.

  Setting the syringe aside, Inta tore open the envelope addressed to her. The simple message on the note read, “Cabin 6386. Come alone. Trixie is waiting.”

  Dread chilled her heart as Inta realized that Trixie was in danger because of her. Dropping the note, she sprinted to the passenger cabin lifts. As Inta rode the lift up, she scolded herself for allowing her friends to be thrust into danger.

  The lift doors opened, and two men were waiting for her, backs against the far wall, heavy ser rifles pointed directly at her center of mass. Inta scowled at them, and they nervously shifted the guns in their hands as she stepped out slowly.

  The lift doors closed behind her, and one of the gunmen jerked his head to the left, directing her down the corridor. They kept their guns trained on her as she passed but did not follow her.

  Two more armed men stood down the hallway, just in front of a cabin with the door open, and they also watched her nervously, guns drawn as she approached. Gncing inside, she spotted a man and a woman whose dark bck auras told Inta everything she needed to know about the two.

  “Come in, don't keep Trixie waiting,” the woman called in a mocking sing-song voice. The hackles on the back of Inta's neck raised at the taunting invitation, but she slowly entered the cabin anyway, her steely eyes glowing bright blue.

  Entirely in the room, her eyes went wide at the sight of Trixie secured to a Saint Andrew's cross, naked and gagged. Her head lolled weakly to one side, one eye bckened and swollen shut. A leather strap circling over the top of her head secured a small device tightly under her jaw, pressed tightly against her throat.

  Before Inta could say anything or move further into the room, two solid sheets of ser light snapped across the space just in front and behind her, blocking her advance and retreat.

  “You must be Daniel and Belinda.” It was a statement of fact and not a question.

  “Indeed,” Belinda purred. “You should have come to py with us when Trixie offered; things would have gone more smoothly for her. She’s not having as much fun this time on the cross as she did the st few times,” She said, reaching over and twisting one of Trixie’s nipples hard, eliciting a cry of pain muffled by the gag in her mouth.

  Daniel grinned wickedly, then held up the device in his hand. “This is a dead man's switch. Too little or too much pressure and the explosive strapped under your friend's chin will blow her head off. Same goes if you cross either of those sers. Boom.” Daniel pantomimed an explosion with his free hand.

  “What do you want?” Inta asked defiantly, eyes darting around the room for any advantage.

  “You, my dear, and ultimately your ship. We’re betting that your friends care enough about you that they’ll give it up quietly and without a fuss.” Belinda said as she sashayed up to Inta on the other side of the ser pne. “ Now here’s what you are going to do; you see that box? You’re going to climb inside.” Inta looked to her left, and in between the two ser barriers with her was a heavy-looking titanium box, several inches thick, looking every bit like a coffin.

  “We know how strong you are and what you are capable of, but I’m pretty sure you won’t be forcing your way out of that.” Daniel hissed. “Now, in you go.”

  “I’m not doing anything until I know that Trixie is safe.” Inta countered, pcing her hands on her hips.

  “Darling, we hold all the cards. We know how much you care about your friend, so unless you want her brains painted all over the walls, you’ll do as you’re told.”

  “You promise not to hurt Trixie and that you’ll let her go if I cooperate?” Inta asked, stalling while focusing intently on the explosive strapped to the underside of Trixie’s chin without looking at it directly.

  “Would you believe us even if we did? Probably not,” Belinda said mockingly. “Your best option is to py along and hope for the best.”

  Inta paused, making it look like she was torn and hadn’t already devised a pn of action. Then, slowly, making sure both their eyes were on her, she walked towards the coffin-like reinforced box and stepped inside, looking out at them.

  Triumphantly, Belinda produced a small device from a pocket and pressed a button, causing the heavy lid to begin sliding into pce. The two abductor’s eyes were glued to the closing lid, and they didn’t notice the film of silver covering the explosive under Trixie’s chin.

  The heavy lid clunked shut, and a dozen bolts and tches screwed down and secured the lid in pce. The ser barriers winked out, and Belinda and Daniel stepped over to their now-contained quarry. The lid had a small, reinforced, transparent slit through which they saw Inta peering back at them, only her glowing eyes visible. Their gaze fixed on their prize, they did not see the small, silver-covered explosive under Trixie’s chin slip quietly into 4-D space.

  Belinda stroked the transparent eye slot of Inta’s prison and said, “Poor dear. It’s unfortunate that you and your friend got caught up in this. If you had only let us take your ship earlier, neither of you would have needed to die.” she said with fake pity. The smile she saw in Inta’s eyes confused her and suddenly made her feel uneasy.

  Just then, two silver girls stepped out of 4-D space into the cabin, one directly in front of Trixie and one blocking the open door. Both of Inta’s newly arrived instances sprang instantly into action. As the one next to Trixie shielded her with her silver body and tore the restraints off the Saint Andrew’s cross, the other Inta smmed the cabin door shut with a kick and unched herself at the two kidnappers.

  Daniel reacted instantly, and before Inta could take a step in their direction, he simultaneously triggered the deadman switch in one hand while drawing a ser pistol from beneath his jacket and leveled it at the Charging Inta. He didn’t have time to register the ck of noise when he released the deadman switch because Inta was on him in a fsh and, with a downward chop of her hand, shattered the bones of his forearm holding the gun.

  In one fluid motion, Inta followed up the bone-crunching chop with a solid blow to his chest, flinging him across the room. This gave Belinda time to draw and aim her weapon. She fired several shots, all of which missed the attacking Inta, who almost moved in a blur. Instead, she struck Inta, who had her back to the action, freeing Trixie.

  Inta’s face contorted with pain as the ser fire scorched and bckened spots on her back, but she didn’t react otherwise. Having freed Trixie, she quickly melted and engulfed the surprised blue-haired girl, then stepped into 4-D space, carrying Trixie with her.

  Holding her gun out in front of her, Belinda fired at the charging Inta, who bobbed and weaved the shots fluidly like a prize fighter dodging an opponent's rain of punches. Belinda gnced briefly through the eye slit of the Inta Containment Vessel and saw it was empty. Before she could register her surprise, a vice-like silver hand gripped the back of her head and smmed her face-first into the wall. She crumpled like a scarecrow freed from his post onto the floor.

  Behind the two Intas, Daniel weakly pressed a button on the communicator on his wrist and was able to gasp out one word, “Failure…” before he passed into unconsciousness.

  Out in the hallway, the armed men guarding the door were surprised when the door smmed and armed when they heard ser fire, but by the time they burst into the room with guns drawn, the only people in the room were the two beaten and unconscious kidnappers.

  ****

  Compaan squatted, bent over in the low service way, watching the proceedings from cabin 6386 through several cameras hidden around the cabin on the small tablet he held in his hands.

  “Fuck!” he swore as he watched the silver girl efficiently take apart his two operatives, then blinked in confusion as they vanished. Yet another factor he hadn’t accounted for, he chided himself, his brows furrowing, trying to decide how this wrinkle affected the overall pn. Deciding it didn’t, he said out loud, “All right, then. They didn’t want to do it the easy way, so the hard way it is.”

  He tucked the small tablet away in his jacket, then pulled out a communicator. “All teams; execute ‘Full Stop.’ Weapons hot, we’re doing this hard and fast.” Then, he waited for execution confirmation.

  Strategically scattered around the ship, several small devices with blinking green lights were attached to power regutors feeding the FTL power core. All the green lights turned red, then simultaneously exploded, destroying the power regutors with precisely sized explosions. The FTL power core levels began to fluctuate wildly, setting off arms, and ultimately, the fail-safes tripped the core offline to prevent a core runaway.

  The Dals lurched hard as it abruptly dropped out of FTL flight, flinging items off tables, spilling drinks, and throwing those standing to the floor all over the ship. The lurch was Compaan’s signal, and he was prepared for it when it arrived. A moment afterward, he gave the order: “Blow it.”

  On the Bridge of the Dals, the skeleton crew scrabbled to figure out what caused them to drop out of FTL.

  “Captain, FTL core is offline,” shouted one lieutenant.

  Another lieutenant said, “Engineering reports that power regutors, FT64 through FT73, are not functioning. They are investigat….” Midway through his report, the portside wall of the bridge exploded, sending shrapnel and debris into the room. The lieutenant reporting on the status of the power regutors had been standing at a terminal in the bst zone and was blown off his feet, spraying bloody chunks of him all over the consoles along the far wall.

  The Captain and the remaining bridge crew were dazed and concussed by the bst, and in the short time it took them to regain their senses, Compaan and his men poured through the breach. Time slowed for Ugaki as he surveyed the scene on the bridge—HIS bridge. Smoke filled the room as the attackers entered, and his crew bent over, holding their ears in shock. Though academy-trained, most had never seen combat and were severely disadvantaged.

  Franklin Walker, Ensign second css, watched Compaan and his mercs enter through the breach. His eyes went wide with anger. He lunged for his pistol mounted under a desk and whipped it out.

  Compaan’s men were on him before he got off a shot, ser fire riddling his body with holes until his smoking body fell to the floor. In the fraction of a second that everyone’s attention was on Walker’s st act of bravery, Ugaki lunged for the control console, punched through the thin gss protecting the ship’s emergency lockdown switch, and engaged it.

  The control consoles turned magenta as Ugaki engaged the lockdown, indicating view-only access to Dals’ systems. Inwardly, he allowed himself a small mental sigh of relief. As the smoke cleared enough for Compaan to see the Captain standing next to the console, he scowled at him, knowing his job just got more complicated.

  The pirates leveled their nasty-looking rifles at the crew. “If any of you fuckers so much as twitch, you’re dead.” Compaan barked. “Hands where I can see them.”

  Slowly, the crew raised their hands over their heads in surrender.

  Compaan stormed over to Ugaki and struck him hard in the mouth with the butt of his rifle. “Which one of these pieces of shit is your second?” he growled. Captain Ugaki steadfastly refused to answer. Compaan struck him again, sending him to the floor. “Who is it?!”

  Picking himself up to a kneeling position, Ugaki spit blood and a tooth out onto the floor. “Not here,” he answered.

  Compaan flew into a rage and began beating the Captain until he y panting and bloody on the floor. “Why did you have to go and do that, Old man? Now I have to make things hard for you. Give me your key, passcode, and the whereabouts of your second, so I can get theirs too.”

  “No,” Ugaki said in simple defiance. “And don’t bother to threaten the lives of anyone in this room, we’d all gdly die to protect the Dals.”

  Compaan looked amused. “And so you shall. I will kill you, then your crew, but maybe after the boys have had a little fun, first.”

  Ugaki recognized he had no leverage, so he decided to try to change the dynamics. “The Commander is not here; these are just the lieutenants under her. I just sent her down to the cargo bays to deal with an issue the Quartermaster is having.”

  Turning his head, the business end of his rifle never drifting from Ugaki’s position, he said, “Send a team to the cargo bays to retrieve the wayward Commander,” Compaan ordered one of his flunkies. “First smart thing you’ve done today. Gonna give me the passcode?”

  “I can’t do that,” the Captain said, sitting on the floor, holding his mouth as blood ran down his face. Then, mustering his courage, he antagonized the brigand. “how do you expect to take the ferry with thirty men? The Dals security detail is a thousand strong. You can kill me, but you won’t take the Dals.”

  The Dals proximity sensors started beeping warnings from the control console, and Compaan's face split into a wicked grin. “I will, with a little help.” The warnings kept chiming, indicating ship after ship was dropping out of FTL and closing in on the Dals’ current position, which was close to a hundred in total.

  Ugaki’s eyes went wide, realizing the magnitude of the threat. With a hundred ships bearing down on her and completely disabled, the Dals would be quickly overtaken and lost. He momentarily thought about the forty thousand souls on board and realized the worst was inevitable.

  Seeing the defeat in his eyes, Compaan gloated. “That’s right, Captain. You’re days off course, overwhelmingly outnumbered, and any possible help won’t get here for some time. When the Navy finally arrives, they’ll find the Dals completely stripped of anything of worth, and half of your crew and passengers will have already been sold to the sve markets.”

  Ugaki despaired but intended to fight to the st. He would resist with his st ounce of strength.

  With an aire confident of his impending victory, Compaan barked an order.

  “Bring me the Extractor,” he said, and for the first time, the Captain’s facade crumbled, and he was visibly shaken. One of the attackers handed Compaan a ft box, which he opened slowly. Inside was a metallic circur band, with several pads along the inner circumference and wires and assorted electronics on the outer perimeter of the device.

  “Last chance,” Compaan said coolly. He leaned down, right in Ugaki’s face. The Captain spit a lump of congealing blood at him, which nded on Compaan’s shirt. He growled, and Ugaki braced for another blow, but instead, Compaan reached into Ugaki’s shirt and ripped off a crypto-key dangling with his dog tags.

  Pocketing the key, Compaan barked, “Hold him still,” and two of his ruffians gripped the Captain by the shoulders and held him. Compaan took the circur band out of the box, pced it on Ugaki’s head, and pressed a button on the side. Immediately, it made a slight whining sound as it cinched on the Captain’s skull, locking it in pce.

  Then the device activated, glowing green and sparking violently, and Ugaki let out an inhuman shriek. He shook violently, and the henchmen struggled to keep a hold of him. The device whined louder, and Ugaki’s shrieking grew as smoke started rolling off his scalp. Then suddenly, his eyeballs burst into fmes, and he slumped lifelessly in the two goons’ arms.

  The remaining bridge crew looked on in horror, and one of the younger lieutenants vomited, losing her lunch on the floor at the sight of Ugaki’s twitching corpse. Smoke still pouring off of the Captain’s head, Compaan casually took the circur band from Ugaki’s charred skull and removed a small chip from one of the pieces of electronics. He then inserted it into a box slot containing the band. A long alphanumeric sequence was then dispyed on the inside lid of the box. “Thanks for the passcode, Captain,” Compaan jeered at the corpse.

  Compaan walked to the console, inserted the Captain’s crypto key into its slot, and punched in the alpha-numeric passcode forcibly removed from the te Captain’s mind. Per protocol, only the communication functions returned to life with one key. Compaan grumbled a little, then, composing himself, he pced a call.

  “Compaan to the Victoria Gloriosa, do you read me?” He waited for a response.

  “We read you,” came the reply, sounding eager, like a fox just outside an unguarded henhouse.

  “Put me through to Commander Cortez at once,” he barked.

  A few short moments ter, the impatient face of a man used to getting exactly what he wanted appeared on the screen. “This is Cortez. Give me the situation,” the pirate lord ordered.

  Compaan knew he pissed off Cortez with his earlier failures to capture the shuttle and had only barely been able to convince him of this course of action due to the enormity of the payday. He still had to tread carefully with this man who had a reputation for disemboweling those who disappointed him.

  “The Dals is on lockdown, the Titan css, heavy ser deck guns, have been disabled, and the ferry’s hangars and unch systems for their attack fighters have been disabled. With their defenses down, you’ll only need to contend with Security. My informants within the Dals crew say the full complement of Security personnel is just shy of a thousand, and only three hundred are flight-rated for the fighter squadrons. I’m transmitting the details now, with the best entry points for your boarding teams.” He took a data stick out of his pocket, inserted it into the comms console, and transferred it.

  Cortez held the comm link open as he reviewed the transmitted data cursorily. Then he leaned forward, suddenly looking hungry. “ And the primary target? Where’s my ship?”

  “Maintenance Hangar ‘B’, noted in the transmission. Size confirmed at seventy meters, a small shuttle, crew of five. The st report I have, as of five minutes ago, says that they are all elsewhere aboard the ferry and not with the shuttle,” Compaan reported.

  “Any word on the ship the shuttle came from?” Cortez asked, revealing the actual target of his desire.

  “None. My informant on Penrose station only ever saw the shuttle,” Compaan said nervously. It was perilous not to give this capricious man precisely what he was after. He could only hope that the bounty the ferry presented would satisfy him.

  After a moment of consideration, Cortez responded. “Good enough. The armada will close the distance and begin boarding at once,” He said, seeming satisfied, then added, “Get me control of that ferry. We are perilously close to Centrailia-controlled space and I don’t want to be here when their Navy arrives. Also, I want you to make a ship-wide broadcast. Announce that you’ve taken the Dals. I want as much chaos as possible. Frightened sves are easier to manage,” then his mood shifted, startling Compaan, “What the fuck are you waiting for? Get it done!” Cortez barked, then immediately cut the transmission.

  Compaan gred at the now-bnk comm screen at being spoken to dismissively, but he was wise enough to keep his composure with Cortez. The Dals, its crew, and passengers would suffer his wrath instead.

  Compaan found the broadcast controls and opened a ship-wide hail. “Attention all passengers and crew of the ferry Dals. This ship is now under new management, the Cortez Organization. This ship, its cargo, crew, and passengers now belong to us. Most of you will be sold at Market, the rest will be disposed of as we see fit. Any resistance will be crushed and offenders summarily, tortured and executed.” He paused for effect. “Today was your st day of freedom. Compaan, out.”

  Compaan walked over to the vacant command chair, dropped into it, and sat in it crookedly, throwing one leg over an arm of the seat. Over his shoulder, he casually said, “Okay boys, you’ve earned some time to py. Go have some ‘fun’ with this pathetic lot.”

  Evil smiles spread across the faces of Compaan’s men as they backed the terrified crew into a corner of the Bridge.

  “You fuckers are in for it, now,” one of the men said, giving them a wicked grin. The remaining senior lieutenants, Isabel Montgrove and Jacob Henrick, stared back defiantly, but the two female ensigns behind them held each other, terrified, understanding what their fate would soon be.

  As the screaming behind him began, Compaan smirked as he watched the monitor dispying the ships surrounding the Dals disgorge dozens of boarding craft.

  ****

  “We were able to treat and discharge most of the passengers and crew that came through the clinic after ‘the Incident’ fairly quickly, only needing to keep a handful for further observation,” Karen Bardet, the head nurse, expined. “I think your recommendation for a DNA registry is a nice touch, considering the nature of the event. I’ll need to check with our systems admin, but I believe we have the server space to host the registry on our department servers, which will keep all the patients’ data secure under medical privacy directives.”

  “Thank you so much, Karen,” Thea Cirrilo said gratefully. I appreciate your professionalism and the expediency you and your staff have handled everything. My report will include a commendation for your and your staff’s efforts.”

  “Oh, thank you. We were simply doing our jobs, but appreciate the recognition,” Bardet said, pleasantly surprised.

  “Well, it seems like you have things well in hand, and I have other things I need to attend to, so I’ll leave you to it,” Thea said, extending her hand.

  Karen shook the offered hand vigorously as Thea thanked the chief nurse for her hard work and dedication.

  Having completed her abbreviated rounds, Thea headed for the tram that would take her aft to the Maintenance Bay. Somewhat out of character, she leaned against the wall of the speeding tram and dreamily recalled the st few days, trying to think up excuses for why she needed to stick around Ben and Will and perhaps reenact the carnal events of the previous few days.

  Lost in her daydream, Thea was caught completely off guard when everything lurched and threw her across the tram, bouncing off the far wall and falling to the floor. She y on the floor for a moment, dazed, then grabbed the waist-high handrail and pulled herself back to her feet.

  She reached for her communicator to call the bridge to find out what had happened. Still, just as she was about to call, the emergency lighting came on, magenta blinking on and off in a steady rhythm as the tram rapidly slowed, then came to a gentle stop about halfway between two boarding stations.

  The magenta warning lights were used in only one scenario: someone had engaged the ship-wide systems lockout. A cold chill ran up her spine. Something caused the ship to lurch violently, followed shortly by a lockout. She ran through a short list of possibilities in her mind, and the only one that fit was that Dals was under some sort of attack, and someone had tripped the lockout.

  All thoughts of mischief with the boys were driven from her mind as she considered the protocol for this situation. She and the Captain were the only ones with the keys needed to disable the lockout, and until the all-clear was sounded, they needed to be separated from each other. He would still be on the bridge at his post, so she needed to remain away from the bridge until she could confirm the coast was clear.

  Then, the Dals public address system crackled to life. “Attention all passengers and crew of the ferry Dals. This ship is now under new management…” Thea knew the face broadcasting on the PA system. Compaan was a well-known pirate and hijacker with an expansive list of heists to his credit and a reputation as a ruthless son of a bitch. Thea realized he must have also been responsible for the first thwarted attempt on the Nestia. He was known for never failing to capture the ship he was after, so Thea reasoned this escation was still an attempt for the Nestia.

  Pressing her face against the tram's gss, she could just make out the markings a little way down on the tramway wall. She was partway through the ‘A’ Section hangars near a Security station. Thea pulled a panel off the wall next to one of the doors, uncovering the manual door release. She reached for the handle but paused as a thought crossed her mind. If the Bridge had been taken, then the Captain, along with his set of keys, was possibly already compromised.

  Both his and her set of keys would be needed to restore control, so whoever was attacking would likely be looking for her, and the communicator she carried would tell them exactly where she was.

  After a moment of consideration, she pulled the release handle and shoved the sliding door of the tram to one side. Squeezing into the narrow space between the tramway and the tram wall, she shuffled until she was on the forward side of the stalled tram, then dashed down the tramway, heading forward up the ship. After running for a few minutes, she stopped, dropped the communicator onto the tracks, and brought the heel of her boot down hard on the device, smashing it to pieces. Satisfied that it would look like she was heading up to the front of the ship to anyone monitoring its position, she turned around, ran toward the aft of the Dals, squeezed past the tram, and continued heading for the Security station.

  ****

  Inta stepped out of 4-D space right next to the bar in the Rainbow Starlight Lounge, startling Del and Joe.

  “What the hell?” Joe excimed as Inta disgorged Trixie, naked and bruised, onto the floor, where she promptly vomited.

  “Oh my God,” Del cried, hurrying to Trixie’s side to see if she was okay. “Inta, what happened to my Trixie?”

  “Kidnapped. I’m so sorry, Del. They used her to get to me,” guilt washed over the silver girl, and now that they were retively safe for the moment, she could release the tears she didn’t know she was holding back.

  “Shhh, It’s not your fault, hun. You brought her back to us safe, that’s what’s important.” Del said, trying to comfort Inta while cradling Trixie in her arms and wiping her mouth with a towel.

  Joe reached the front of the bar, crouched, and held Del and Trixie tight. “Who did this?” Joe asked Inta, with fire in his eyes.

  “It was the couple she had been seeing, apparently a set up,” Inta said, her face filled with sympathy. Joe got up, fetched his light jacket from a coat hook in the back, and put it around Trixie’s shoulders.

  Trixie started to come around, so Del asked, “How are you feeling, Sweety?”

  “Better, thanks,” She replied in an uncharacteristically small voice. Then she gnced at Inta, reached over to hug her, and started sobbing. “Thank you, Inta. I was so scared. I trusted them, and they were going to…” Trixie’s voice trailed off in a torrent of sobs. Inta held her tight, and then Del and Joe wrapped their arms around her.

  “You’re safe now,” Joe said gently. “We’re never going to let anything happen to you again.” He and Del kissed her tear-streaked cheeks, and Trixie gave a small ugh through her hitched breathing, “I love you guys,” she confessed.

  Del and Joe smiled and, in unintentional unison, said, “I love you, too.” Then they looked at each other and ughed, tears forming in the corners of their eyes. Inta smiled at the three's open dispy of affection.

  As they huddled on the floor, the stretched rainbow starlight streaming by the rge viewpoint in the dining area suddenly snapped back to a stationary star field as the Dals lurched out of FTL flight. The huddled lovers were thrown up against the bar, knocking over several stools, and the carefully organized and hung gsses over the bar flew into the mirrored wall behind the bar, sending a shower of broken gss and mirror to the floor.

  “What the hell was that?!” Joe yelled in surprise, then turned to check on Del and Trixie. They had been banged up from the violent stop, adding to Trixie’s recently acquired bruises, but otherwise unhurt. “We’ve stopped? What happened to the inertial resistors?” He asked, bewildered.

  “If it wasn’t for the inertial resistors, we would have been a red stain on the wall,” Del chided him. “What’s going on, Inta?”

  Inta quickly had the Nestia perform an interstelr positional check and left the sensor array on full sweep. “I don’t know. according to June’s star charts, we’re still a couple of weeks out from Centrailia Station and at least a few days from the border of Centrialia-controlled space. There’s no reason why we’d be stopping in the middle of nowhere.”

  The power cut out, and the emergency lighting came on, along with a pulsing magenta-colored warning light. “What does that mean?” Inta asked.

  “It means someone has initiated a full lockout of the Dals systems,” Joe said ominously. Moments ter, the Nestia’s long-range sensors picked up the signatures of hundreds of ships heading directly for the position of the disabled ferry, not one of them broadcasting a transponder signal.

  “Shit,” Inta cursed, “it’s pirates. A whole lot of them.” Seconds ter, Compaan issued his ship-wide broadcast, eliminating all doubt.

  “We’ve got to get the Cabins, barricade the door or something,” Joe said in a panicked voice, trying to think of somepce to hide his loved ones.

  “That’s no good,” Inta countered, “These scum are svers, and will be sweeping the cabins looking for all the passengers.” She turned over the possibilities in her head and then had an idea. “Quick, to the storeroom!”

  She shepherded the three through the bar area into the kitchen. It was a mess; when the Dals lurched out of FTL flight, all the ptes, silverware, and cooking implements had been tossed all over the kitchen, making it look like a mad chef had a rampaging temper tantrum there.

  She hurried them to the back of the kitchen where the rge stainless steel, free-standing refrigerator stood next to the storeroom door. “Get inside, close the door, and don’t make a sound. I’m going to put the fridge in front of the doorway. Barricade the door from the inside. Don’t open the door for anyone but me.”

  Before they could object or ask how she pnned to move the heavy refrigerator, she shoved them through the storeroom door and wrapped her thin silver arms around it.

  The three were gobsmacked as the fridge groaned in protest when Inta easily lifted the enormous appliance and set it in front of the storeroom door, completely obscuring their view. After staring at the back of the fridge for a moment, they closed the door and pushed a shelving set in front of it.

  Del hit the wall switch and turned out the light, and then the three huddled together in a corner, trying to get comfortable while they waited for Inta's return.

  Inta quickly walked to the front of the restaurant, determined to check on her family and make sure they were okay, when she heard screams and gunfire from the Concourse. Peeking through the gss door, she watched horrified as the few people still in the Concourse gardens ran in a panic, followed closely by hundreds of armed, nasty-looking men. They were firing ser bursts over the heads of the fleeing passengers and chased them, ughing wickedly.

  She stepped back from the gss before being spotted but knew they would soon sweep through all the storefronts, looking for victims. Inta cast her gaze back towards the kitchen, and deciding that her friends were safe for the moment, she shrank and vanished into 4-D space.

  ****

  The loud thud of the boarding craft’s magnetic cmps locking onto the ferry’s hull could be heard inside the back room of the little market set up for passengers on the Concourse. A moment ter, psma-cutting beams pierced the wall, cutting an entrance through the wall in a wide circle, the heat of the torch setting some of the sundries stored there on fire.

  When psma beams completed the circle, rams on the far side of the wall shoved forward, sending the cut-out section of the wall crashing to the floor. Once the way was opened, thirty armed men ran out of the breach and poured out of the back room, startling the shoppers, picking up odds and ends to bring to their cabins.

  “Nobody do anything stupid!” A tall, muscur brute of a man with scars running down one side of his face yelled to the market of unsuspecting shoppers. “Do exactly what I say, you’ll get to live.”

  A couple who had just checked out and were heading toward the door with their arms den with groceries saw the charging gang, turned, and ran for the door. As if in a surreal scene, ser fire erupted from the horde, obliterating one checkout as the clerk standing there screamed and dove for cover. Dozens of ser bsts struck the couple, and fell to the floor. Screams erupted throughout the store as people ran for cover. Laser fire was unleashed in every direction, cutting down anyone who ran.

  The gunfire stopped, and the store was silent again for a moment. The rge man walked to the front of the store, followed closely by his crew, to where the couple fell. The husband, burnt, bloody, and riddled with scorched holes from ser fire, feebly crawled towards his wife, who y motionless on the floor next to him.

  The Brute walked up to the dying man and stepped down, crushing the bones in his hand as he reached for his dead wife, causing him to scream in agony. As the man screamed, the brute aimed his rifle at his head with callous indifference and bsted a hole through the back of his skull.

  “Come on, you zy bastards!” The brute yelled to compatriots, “Our orders are to sweep the passenger cabins. Get a move on!” They emerged en masse into the vast open Concourse about the same time several other raiding parties exited shops where their boarding vessel had breached the hull.

  Grinning, the Brute looked to the leaders of the other raider groups and nodded his head toward the lifts. They responded with their nasty smiles, mouths full of yellowed and broken teeth. Then the Brute bellowed like a bull and charged through the manicured garden walkways of the Concourse. His crew and the others followed his lead and swept through the Concourse, a terrifying wave of death and destruction.

  ****

  “They’re breaching the hull at the Concourse!” a frightened-looking ensign yelled, sitting in front of his monitoring terminal. All around him, officers hurriedly checked their weapons and put on body armor. The Central Security office was frantic as they prepared to engage the marauders.

  One tall, broad-shouldered man with salt and pepper hair strode through the frenzy with steely purpose and looked over the ensign’s shoulder at the dispy. “Show me the breaches,” demanded Lieutenant Commander Nichos Alger, cutting an imposing figure.

  The ensign focused his dispy on the Concourse and zoomed in on the active breaches. “They’ll be through in less than a minute!” He said, visibly shaken.

  Alger put his big hand on the ensign's shoulder, “We’ll stop them.” he reassured the ensign. Then he turned to the gathered officers finishing their preparations. “Listen up!” his deep, even voice boomed, cutting through the din, “We are the only thing standing between these assholes and the innocent people on this ship. I know you all: fierce, determined, and a force to be reckoned with. You’ll go out there with me, and we’ll send them to Hell.”

  Fire shone in their eyes as they listened to Alger. “Alpha team is coming with me down to meet them on the main deck, Bravo will encircle the mezzanine and fire down on them. Delta team will hold back and reinforce Alpha and Bravo as needed. This is our moment, folks. This is what we trained for. Let’s go!”

  Pouring out of the Central Office, the Bravo team took up positions along the mezzanine while Alger led Alpha down, found covered positions, and waited. They didn’t have to wait long to hear the roar of bloodthirsty yells of the pirates as they charged across the width of the Concourse.

  As soon as the sweeping mob of marauders came into view, Alger roared, "NOW!” and opened fire. Laser fire shot across the open space and bsted into the charging pirates, stopping them cold as dozens fell and they took cover. The pirate ineffectively returned fire on the defending officers in the cover positions, inflicting minimal casualties in the first exchange.

  Laser fire flew back and forth in the space between the two groups, filling the air with streams of glowing red bolts. The ferocity of the defensive fire surprised the pirates, who fell back behind the rge pnters of the manicured garden in the center of the concourse.

  The Bravo team opened up from the mezzanine and rained down ser fire, adding their strength to the withering defensive onsught.

  Pinned down behind a pnter, the Brute turned to the horde at his back and bellowed, “Heavies, fire overhead!”

  A rank of pirates wearing bulky packs and shouldering massive cannons stepped up, took a knee, and fired into the defenders on the mezzanine. Huge bolts of energy shot out, striking the railings above and easily cutting through them, and the defenders crouched behind. Explosions tore through the suspended structure as everything the heavy beams touched vaporized, sending showers of debris and pink mist in every direction.

  The heavy fire quickly reduced the number of defenders on the mezzanine, forcing those remaining to retreat. Severely weakened, the mezzanine structure groaned and cracked under its weight, then broke loose and fell on the defenders below, crushing many of them beneath it.

  Out of targets overhead, the heavy sers turned on the defenders on the lower level, tearing through the support columns and cover the defenders ineffectively sheltered behind. The cries and screams of pain and agony from the Alger’s troops emboldened their attackers as they pressed their advantage. The attacking horde advanced under the cover of light and heavy ser fire.

  Through the carnage and ser fire, Alger could see more pirates behind their firing line streaming in to reinforce them. His security teams were rapidly being outnumbered and outgunned. He gritted his teeth in anger. “Retreat! To the hallways!” He called out.

  The remains of his beleaguered team backed down into a hallway, providing rotating cover fire as they withdrew. Alger grimaced. Things looked bleak, and as the st man to fall back into the hallway, he watched in horror as an enormous explosion rocked the mezzanine above the Concourse. Fming debris was forcefully ejected through the gaping hole that was once the central security office and showered down on the ruined gardens, now a burnt and scarred battlefield. He knew immediately that the team assigned as reinforcements couldn’t have survived that bst and that he and his team were all that remained.

  Once he retreated with his men to the retive cover of the corridor, he urged the surviving members of his team further down, searching for a defensible position. They hurried along, continuing to fire back down the hallway as they fled. They approached a tee in the corridor, but before they could take cover around the corners, more attackers appeared before them, apparently having breached the hull on the opposite side of the ship. They poked out around the corners of the intersection in front of them and began firing, cutting off their means of escape.

  Now caught in a deadly crossfire, Alger and the small remains of his beleaguered team could only crouch on the sides of the hallway with no cover from either direction. Too quickly, they fell, screaming only to be cut off in a gurgle as the intense ser fire finished them off. Alger cried out as he took a bst to the gut and fell to the floor. Still gripping his rifle, he continued to fire until another shot hit him in the shoulder, vaporizing it and blowing his arm off.

  The ser fire stopped. Alger y there, drawing rough breaths in a pool of blood that once flowed through the members of his team. As his sight grew dim, he heard the crunching of boots on the debris-strewn floor, then looked up to see the rge, brutish man standing over him, grinning wickedly.

  “Fuck … You,” Alger uttered with a strained effort. Without a word, the Brute withdrew a rge bowie knife from his belt, reached down, and cut a rge gash across Alger’s throat. He watched impassively as the light left Alger's eyes.

  The Brute barked orders at the pirates without another thought to the carnage they had just wrought. “Alright you shitheads, there's more work to be done. Room to room sweeps, double time! We're gonna pull so many sves from this ship, we'll live like kings! But only when we get them to market.” The rge man called out to his ckeys.

  ****

  As Thea rounded the corner in the short hallway to the Security Station, she was met with a sharp command of “Halt! Stop where you are or be fired upon!” as several officers leveled ser rifles at her from behind barricades erected just in front of the doors to the station. She stopped where she was, held her hands out, and waited for them to recognize her.

  “Wait! It’s Commander Cirrilo! Boy, I’m gd to see you.” One of the defenders said, lowering his weapon. The others followed suit, and then Thea approached.

  “What’s your name, Ensign? What’s the situation?” Thea demanded as she stepped around the hastily erected barricade and entered the security station, with the officer following just behind.

  “Mike Beigel, Ma’am. At least a hundred pirate boarding craft have breached the hull all over the ship and have begun sweeping through, deck by deck.” He reported breathlessly. “The Bridge was taken, as I’m sure you’re aware from the pirate’s announcement, and we’ve lost communications with Engineering; we’re assuming that it has been captured as well. We’ve had reports of fierce fighting in the ‘B’ Squadron barracks.” Then the ensign cast his eyes downward. “The main security office on the Concourse was overrun about ten minutes ago. There were only two survivors.”

  The main security office was usually staffed with about a hundred and fifty officers. Thea put her hand on the ensign’s shoulder and looked into his face with fire in her eyes. “We’re going to make those bastards pay. Round up everyone in this station and empty the weapons locker. We’re going to meet up with ‘A’ Squadron and give these assholes hell.”

  Buoyed by her fierce words, he rushed into the small stations and spurred the dozen officers posted here into action. They gathered their supply of weapons and assembled within ten minutes.

  With the small group gathered, they headed to the squadron ‘A’ barracks. They were all young officers, and Thea could tell by their scared, nervous expressions that they hadn’t seen action before. As they jogged down the corridors to the barracks, they met up with another group of security officers jogging in the same direction.

  The two groups joined as one and continued to zig and zag through convoluted passageways until they arrived at the barracks, panting. The scene that met them was one of controlled chaos. Squadron members were running here and there, some carrying messages, others hurrying to their assignments. A long row of junior-grade lieutenants were sitting at a work table, hurriedly servicing ser rifles in preparation for the upcoming battle.

  “Where’s the Lieutenant Commander?” she asked of the first squadron member’s path she crossed. The young officer pointed down a short hallway off the main room, “Down there, second door on the left.” Thea thanked her and strode in the direction indicated with urgent purpose.

  Thea entered the indicated room and found the Lieutenant Commander examining a yout of the Dals hangar bays with several of his lieutenants. Recognizing the man, she approached the table and addressed him. “Stevens, what’s the situation?”

  “Commander.” He acknowledged her as he stepped to one side, allowing her a spot next to him at the table. “The pirates have a dozen boarding craft that have breached the hull, here, here, and here,” he indicated, pointing at several points around engineering, just aft of the ‘B’ Maintenance bays. “And currently have control of all engineering. Launch control is locked out, so we can’t get out there and stem the flow of boarding craft and enemy reinforcements. They’ve taken Maintenance ‘B1’, both the bay and machine shops, and are currently pushing towards the ‘B’ barracks and ‘B2’ maintenance facilities.”

  Stevens paused and ran his fingers through his short, brown hair. “ ‘B’ squadron is holding them, for now, but it won’t be long before the pirates have enough reinforcements to overrun them.”

  “It looks like our only option is to leave Squad ‘B’ holding them back as best they can, while Squad ‘A’ pushes past and attacks engineering directly to re-engage the Defender unch controls,” Thea said with a furrowed brow, analyzing the situation.

  “My thoughts, exactly,” Stevens concurred. “We need to have the Defenders out there stopping the flow of incoming if Security is going to have any shot of fighting them off.”

  “Any word on how they’re doing in the Forward sections?” Thea asked, thinking about how the remaining Security teams were the only thing standing between the passengers and svery at the hands of the pirates.

  Stevens’ expression turned grim. “Not good. But if we’re going to have any chance of helping them, we need to be able to unch the Defenders. If they get enough of their force onto the Dals, we won’t be able to stop them.”

  She pushed the thought of the passengers' fate should they fail from her mind for the moment and asked, “How close is the strike team to being ready?”

  “We’ll be ready in five,” Stevens replied, his voice iron.

  “Good. I’ll need some gear.” Thea said, matching his determined tone.

  ****

  “Jake, you take a crew and set up some pens in that big open space for sorting. Hank, take a crew and get ready to corral the sves to the pens. The rest of you, you're with me; we're gonna go knock on some doors,” the Brute ordered.

  He marched his motley crew up to the first deck of passenger cabins and divided them into two, one handling the doors on the left and the other on the right.

  Falling behind the left side group, He waited as his men kicked the door in and entered. The Brute leaned against the wall, studying the dirt under his fingernails as yelling, a short scuffle, and a ser bst followed by a woman’s scream echoed from the open door. The men came out, half dragging a hysterical woman, tracking blood on the carpet of the hallway. The body of her husband y in a pool of blood, visible from the corridor. The scene at the next cabin door was simir, with thugs dragging a couple out, the woman’s dress torn at the shoulder, and blood running down the man’s face.

  Cabin after cabin was emptied of occupants until the hallway was choked with a shambling line of beaten and bloody passengers shuffling toward the stairs. Gunmen lined the way, reminding them exactly what would happen if they resisted in any way. As they passed the bodies of the sin security officers, some women shrieked or cried uncontrolbly. Some men vomited at the tacky, pooled blood they were forced to walk through, but most had a shocked, unbelieving look on their faces like this wasn’t really happening, and they would soon wake from this much too realistic nightmare.

  Once down to the battle-scarred Concourse, the men and women were separated into two different holding areas. More than one husband was on the receiving end of a rifle butt to the face or gut before watching mournfully as their spouse was separated from them.

  The flow of passengers into the concourse continued, filling the air with sounds of weeping, the atmosphere full of despair.

  ****

  “Get a move on! We’re almost done here,” the pirate left in charge of this passenger deck said, “There’s five more after this, and then that’s it.”

  “Alright, alright, don’t get your panties in a bunch; I was just takin’ a breather,” Jerry, a gaunt and sickly-looking pirate, said. Turning to his partner, “Come on, Stan, let's get to it before we get our asses beat again.”

  Stan, his portly companion, wiped his stained shirt, grunted as he picked himself up from the floor where he was resting. “Ok Jerry, right behind ya,” he said, picking up his weapon to resume evicting passengers.

  Using the butt of his rifle as a battering ram, Stan broke the tch on the next cabin door, then he and Jerry drug out another crying couple, sending them shuffling on their way to the holding area in the Concourse.

  “Jerry, what’s the first thing you’re gonna buy when we hit payday for all this?” Stan asked as they moved down the hallway towards the next cabin.

  “That’s easy,” Jerry replied, “I’m gonna buy myself two ‘A’ css women at the market, chain ‘em to a wall, and fuck ‘em till they bleed.” He grinned wide at the thought, dispying the three crooked teeth still in his mouth.

  They came to the next cabin, and Stan paused before battering the door. “Looks like these ones want to make it easy for us,” he said, noticing the door was slightly ajar. He raised his boot to kick it open, but before he struck, the door was flung open wide from the inside, and a long knife the size of his forearm was flung out, striking him in the chest. His eyes were wide in surprise as blood poured from his chest, adding to the stains already accumuted on his shirt.

  Jerry watched in shock as Stan fell over, which was enough time for a massive furred hand to grab him by the face and quickly drag him in through the cabin door. Through the fingers of the impossibly strong hand gripping his head, he saw eight enormous bear-like forms of the Urarc occupants springing their ambush. In the moment it took Jerry to register how deep into the shit he had just fallen, the Urarc gripping his head tore it easily from his shoulders, tossing it across the room onto the floor.

  Without missing a beat, the cn rushed out of the cabin, cimed the two rifles the dead men dropped, and hurried down the corridor. They were on the next set of pirates herding passengers to the Concourse in a fsh, and the unarmed Urarcs tore their throats out before they could raise the arm.

  Silently, they grabbed the weapons of these two as well and continued their rush down the hallway.

  The next set of pirates were a little further down the corridor and turned to see the angry group rushing their position. Stealth no longer an option, the Urarcs roared and began firing.

  “Shit, shit, shit!” The terrified pirates screamed, scrambling to level their weapons at the wall of muscur fury now sprinting their way.

  The Urarcs fired, bsting smoking holes in the pirates, but didn’t slow their advance. Passengers screamed and fell to the floor to avoid the ser fire; the Urarcs leaped over them as they plowed into a group of pirates bunched up at the end of the corridor near the stairs.

  In close quarters, Urarc had a reputation as some of the fiercest fighters in the gaxy, and this cn demonstrated the truth of it. Descending on the pirates with a roar, they ripped limbs from sockets, disemboweled, and shattered skulls, roaring as blood and gore sprayed the walls and soaked their fur. One of the two unarmed Urarc women grabbed a pirate by the shoulders and snapped her jaws around his face, tearing flesh and parts of his skull from his head, blood spraying everywhere.

  With the hallway cleared, cn Alpha yelled to the passengers on the floor, “ Don’t just lie there, run!” Then he turned to his cn. “Anyone hurt?” They shook their heads. “Good. Let’s make these weaklings wish they had never come.” He grinned, pirate blood and gore dripping from his fur.

  Now that the entire cn was armed with weapons from their fallen foes, they fell quickly into a tight fire squad formation and entered the stairwell. Almost immediately, poorly aimed ser fire hit the walls around them, coming from around corners, up the stairs, and down.

  The Alpha gave his cn hand signals, and they began their descent. Those in the back sent cover fire up the stairs to cover their backs, while those in the front led the way down. With deadly efficiency, they carved bloody swaths through the pirates. With expert aim, each Urarc ser bst found its target, a perfect center mass shot or a clean headshot when a pirate poked his head around a corner.

  They fought their way down three levels, and as they passed the door to the passenger deck, it exploded, instantly killing two of the Urarcs, sending their bodies over the railing, and falling to the levels below. The Urarcs pivoted and took up positions on either side of the gaping hole where the door once stood and saw several dozen pirates in a firing line several men deep, perhaps forty in total. They heard hundreds of stomping footsteps coming down the stairs from above and just as many rushing up the stairs from below.

  The Alpha looked to his remaining cn, grim determination in his eyes. They all nodded, sharing his understanding that there would be no victory today. “May the Great Mother give you a good death,” He said to them, and as one, they narrowed their eyes and leaped into the hallway.

  They were met with a rain of ser bolts as they rushed the pirates assembled in the hallway, firing as they charged. The Urarc’s unerring aim took out the first line and the second, as the Alpha, leading the charge, was riddled with smoking holes and fell in a furry heap. The remaining Urarcs roared again, berzerker fury overtaking them, as their ser fire took down another row of pirates.

  Two more Urarcs fell before the st three bowled over the pirates, no longer firing but rending flesh with their bare hands. Laser fire petered out until only two Urarcs, badly wounded, stood among the piled bodies of their foes. The male Urarc had taken a hit to the chest and wheezed weakly as the woman limped to him with fur still smoking from a parting shot to her thigh.

  “I’m sorry sister,” he said, slumping against the wall. He fought to keep his eyes open but was losing too much blood to st much longer.

  “Do not worry,” she said, kneeling on her good leg and holding his hand. “Your’s is a good death.”

  He smiled weakly at her, pressed his hand to his wound, and drew lines with his blood on her face. “May you have a good death, sister.” Then his hand fell to the floor, and the light in his eyes went dim.

  As she knelt down the hallway, pirates rushed in from the stairwell. She scowled at them, picked up her brother’s weapon, and fired a rifle in each hand at the oncoming pirates. She hit several, then was struck in her good leg and an arm, then fell to the floor, dropping her weapons.

  They rushed upon her and struck her several times to the head with the butts of their rifles, then staring down the barrel pointed at her face. She said, “Do it.”

  “Wait!” Came a command, barked from behind the mob of pirates. “She’s worth more alive than dead.” A rge, brutish man pushed through the crowd and looked down at her, seeming to calcute precisely how much. Through her pain, she snarled at him. “Still feisty, good. They’ll pay a pretty penny for an Urarc in the fighting pits. Bind her and see that she doesn’t bleed out,” he ordered someone standing close. She watched him sneer at her, then struck her squarely between the eyes with the heel of his boot, and her vision faded to bck.

  ****

  Thea crawled through one of the maintenance conduits that ran through the spine of the Dals, followed by half of the team that Lieutenant Commander Stevens had assembled to retake Engineering. The pn was straightforward: They would split the thirty-man team and use the conduits to get the maintenance hangar, which would give them straight-shot access to Engineering. Once there, she would reactivate defenses and unch controls. The Dals pilots would then be able to engage the pirates boarding vessels while the deck guns pummeled the pirate armada.

  “Two minutes until we reach the hangar,” Stevens reported over his communicator.

  “Roger. Same here. Hold for my signal,” Thea replied. Closing the comm link, she continued crawling until she came to a grating over her head, leading up to the hangar. “Stevens, we’re in position.” As she waited for a reply, she heard running feet growing quieter, moving away from her position. “We must have some luck; it sounds like they’re moving out.”

  “We’re ready here,” Stevens called over comms.

  “Okay, let’s go, but keep it quiet. With luck we can slip past them into Engineering without a fight,” she said, not optimistic about their chances of crossing the hangar unchallenged.

  She signaled to one of the men behind her, who brought a small ser-cutting torch. He clicked it on with a hiss and began cutting out the bolts holding it. Finishing his work, he clicked the cutting torch off with a pop and slid it back into his bag.

  ‘GO,’ Thea signaled silently, and the man delicately lifted the grate, gently set it on the hangar floor, and popped his head up. Dropping down for a moment, he signaled, ‘All Clear,’ then climbed up through the opening. Thea climbed through next, quickly sweeping the immediate area with her gun and signaling to the rest to follow her up.

  As her team climbed out of the conduit, Thea noticed the hangar bay was far too quiet to be occupied by a group as notoriously raucous as pirates. Thea peeked out from around the stack of crates they were currently behind to survey the scene. They had popped out from the conduit about two-thirds of the way down the hangar, and the gleaming white top find of the Nestia was just barely visible next to the far side hangar door.

  She smiled momentarily; the memory of her pleasurable time on the ship warmed her. She refocused on the task at hand and saw what seemed to be the st of the pirates hurrying through the entrance to the tram, the heavy door hissing sealed as it closed. She suddenly had a bad feeling about their situation, though she couldn’t pce the issue.

  “Stevens, you in the hangar yet?” Thea called softly into the comms.

  “Just through now. Seems quiet,” He commented, Then she saw him come out from behind a maintenance pod almost next to the Nestia. “I don’t like it. Let’s get a move on,” he said, starting to make his way to the entrance to the Engineering section, just in front of Thea’s group.

  She signaled for her team to go, and they crouched as they carefully crossed the open space of the hangar, heading towards the door leading to Engineering. When her squad got about halfway across, warning sirens and lights fshed and bred as the unmistakable sounds of heavy ser fire began coming from the closed hangar bay doors near the Nestia. In horror, Thea looked down the hangar and saw the rge bay doors begin to heat and glow as they deformed from the barrage it must have been receiving from a warship outside.

  “RUN!” She yelled at her team and over the comms, as it was evident that the pirates intended to open the hangar doors by bsting them open, the only means they currently had.

  Her team made it to the door to Engineering as the pummeling heavy ser bster finally punctured a hole in the bay doors, sending molten debris raining down all around it. The atmospheric shielding held but began to flicker as she held the door open, quickly ushering her team inside.

  She entered the door, holding it open as Stevens’ team rushed to her. The bombardment continued, blowing rger and rger chunks of the bay doors off until she could finally see the ship holding position just outside, causing the damage. She recognized the ship as the Victoria Gloriosa, firing one broadside after another, efficiently tearing the bay door to shreds.

  Stevens and his team were running hard, sprinting to her as fast as they could. When they were only about 20 meters from her, the atmospheric shield finally gave out. The emergency bulkhead in front of her instantly smmed shut, sealing off the hangar. She watched helplessly as the hangar explosively decompressed.

  Through a small window in the bulkhead door, Thea watched as Stevens, his team, and countless crates and unsecured maintenance pods were violently tossed out the gaping hole in the hangar door into the cold vacuum of space.

  “NO!” she cried out, banging her fists on the door impotently. Then, she ducked for cover as a stream of ser bsts streaked down the hallway, missing her by inches. From behind the small amount of cover provided by stacks of equipment left in the corridor, she could see the pirates firing on her position from behind a hastily made barricade, pinning her team down.

  They fired back, but it didn’t look good. They couldn’t retreat or advance down the corridor, now a long kill box. As Thea crouched down with the remains of the assault team, a desperate, determined thought crossed her mind: if she was going to die, she was going to take as many of those bastards as possible with her to the grave.

  The darkened corridor in which Thea’s team was currently pinned down was illuminated red by the exchange of ser fire, streaming in both directions, casting a hellish light on what was sure to be Thea’s st stand.

  They were pinned down, had no means of retreat, and were out of options. Thea bitterly realized that it was over; Dals had fallen and wasn’t going to be retaken.

  Her team continued to fire back and fight valiantly, but she knew it was only a matter of time.