“So how long do you think the Grove will take to decide what you want to do?” June asked De’noke, as they lounged in the Toparian sitting room. Some of the Toparian Brothers were seated around the room, reading, while others had turned in for the night and went to nap in the grass of the Circle.

  “Oh, I shouldn’t think our deliberations will take too long, maybe a few days. It seems to me that most of our minds have already been made up, but Bi’candra will need time to commune with the other Mothers. Though they are still in the ecstasy of their Seeding, most of them are nearing the end of it and their faculties will be returning to them. All but, Pi’natha, of course. She’s just entered her Seeding and won’t be able to form rational thoughts for some time. She and I spoke at length about it, so I can confidently present her views when the time comes.” De’noke broke into a foolish grin every time he mentioned her name, the blush on his cheeks betraying the fact he was sharing in a portion of her rapturous energy, however tangentially.

  “So Inta, how did your friends at the lounge fair during the ‘Incident’? Have you checked on them recently?” De’noke asked, steering the conversation away from himself and the rising blush in his cheeks.

  “I’m talking to them right now, and it seems they found all sorts of ways to entertain themselves holed up in the lounge. If you ask me, I think they make a cute thruple," Inta chirped excitedly.

  De’noke furrowed his brows in momentary confusion, then spped his palm on his forehead. “Of course, you can be in more than one pce at a time. For a moment, I even forgot you are currently Seeding with Pi’natha!” He ughed loudly at himself. “You truly are a remarkable person. I’d say one of a kind, but there seems to be three of you at the moment," he chuckled.

  She ughed along with him. “Close, but not quite. There’s only one of me, but I’m in three pces at once, well four if you count everything I’m still managing on the Nestia. I’m an excellent multi-tasker.”

  “Of course. One of a kind," he said with a smile. “And I am lucky to have met you.”

  Inta’s beaming smile suddenly soured, and her change of demeanor instantly worried the others.

  “What’s the matter, Inta?” June asked in concern.

  “I don’t know yet. Something has happened to Trixie, the other waitress. I’m investigating now.”

  “Do you need help? We can get down to the Concourse in just a minute,” Will pressed, concern written on his face as he stood from the couch.

  “No, Will. They left a note that said go alone, and I don’t want to risk them hurting Trixie. I’m also not going to put you in any more danger," Inta said firmly.

  They waited a few minutes, and then Inta sighed in relief. “Okay I got her, she’s safe and mostly unharmed. I’ve brought her to Del and Joe, they’ll be able to care for her.” A look of worry crossed her face. “They were after the Nestia, and I don’t think they were alone.”

  Will was about to ask what Inta knew, when the entire room lurched, throwing them and anything loose across the room.

  De’noke untangled his limbs from Ti’me who had fallen on top of him, and got up from the floor. Scanning the room he asked, “Is everyone alright? Quick, someone needs to check on the Seeds and the Mothers!” Toparians scrambled to their feet and rushed out to check.

  As the rest of them got to their feet, the lights went out and the emergency lighting came on. Then they heard the Captain’s public address whistle, followed by a voice that wasn’t the Captain’s. As the voice said he was in control of the ship, and that everyone was going to be sold off as sves, a hush fell over the room. But in the poorly lit room, Inta’s eyes glowed bright blue, a fierce look of determination on her face. Will, June, and Ben looked at her and each other, feeling the heat of her rage.

  Ben grinned. “Those assholes don’t know who they just pissed off.”

  “Inta what can you tell is going on through comms and sensor sweeps?” Will asked, looking to gauge the situation.

  “With most of the Dals systems on lockdown, there’s only the point to point communications being broadcasted. Security is rallying and preparing for boarding action, and there’s a separate encrypted channel talking back and forth from the Bridge and Engineering. That must be where the hijackers are. I’m also picking up a lot of ships closing in on the Dals.”

  “How many?” Will asked tersely.

  “At least a hundred warships, of various sizes. Enough to carry several thousand men," Inta replied.

  “Dals’ heavy deck guns would cut them to ribbons though, right?” Ben asked.

  “Shit,” June said with a sudden realization. “That’s why they took the Bridge and Engineering section. From those two locations, they could shut the defense systems down completely. The Dals is a sitting duck.”

  Os’tryve came back into the sitting room, his worry written on his face. “The Seeds are okay for now, but their stasis pods only have backup power for about twelve hours. After that…” His words trailed off, and De’noke put a hand on his shoulder.

  “We’ll think of something, Os’tryve. We won’t let anything happen to them,” Will reassured the Toparian.

  Os’tryve smiled. “Pi’natha was wise to trust you all, it seems.” Though still worried, the panic in his voice was repced by hope.

  “The first thing that needs to happen is that the deck guns need to be brought back online,” June said. “The Dals isn’t close enough to any pnetary systems for help to arrive before this ship is completely overrun.”

  “Most ships this size use a dual key interlock system for overrides, one given to the Captain and one to the First Mate,” Will expined. “Given that they’ve taken the bridge and were able to use the public address system, it’s a safe bet that they have the Captain’s key.”

  “Which only leaves Thea’s,” Ben said, finishing the thought. “Inta, do you know where she is at the moment?”

  “Funny you should ask, she just popped out of a conduit in the Maintenance hangar with about thirty men. Looks like they’re about to take back the Engineering section.” A confused look crossed her face. “Something’s weird, the pirates don’t know that they are there, but are evacuating the hangar. Oh God…” Inta eyes went wide in horror. “The pirates just blew the hangar doors… spaced all of them.”

  Frantic, Ben grabbed Inta by the shoulders. “Was Thea… is she…” He couldn’t complete the sentence.

  “No, she made it through to the hallway connector for Engineering, but she’s pinned down in a firefight with the pirates. She’s lost two men already.”

  “Fuck! We gotta help her! Inta, give me a gun and send me to her location! Quick, before it’s too te!” Ben shouted frantically.

  “Don’t worry Love, I’ll get her,” Inta said, soothing his panic.

  ****

  Incoming fire was beginning to shred the cover that Thea’s team crouched behind, and two team members had already suffered for it. For every pirate at the far end of the corridor they killed, two more seemed to take their pce, and she was getting desperate. Yelling to the remaining strike group, “There’s no way we’re going to survive this pinned down like this, they’re just going to keep picking us off one by one. Our only chance is to rush them.” They furrowed their brows, then nodded grimly. “Gentlemen, it’s been an honor serving with you,” Thea said, then began counting down with her finger.

  Three. Two. Before she could signal to go, a silver form sprang from nowhere beside her and put a hand on her shoulder. “I’m going to get you all out of here," she said as another identical silver girl appeared next to the men crouched on the opposite wall.

  Inta took a ser bst to her bare shoulder, and she winced in pain but didn’t flinch. “Ready?” She asked.

  “Yes! Get us the Fuck out of here!” Thea excimed.

  “Okay, Hang on to your butt!” she said, then she seemed to melt and poured over Thea and the men crouched beside her. Inta’s other instance did the same, encapsuting the men on the other wall, then both shrank and disappeared into 4-D space.

  Two silver blobs appeared in the middle of the Toparian sitting room and grew shoving people and furniture aside until they occupied a healthy portion of the middle of the room. They stopped growing and poured back into the shape of twin silver girls, revealing fourteen extremely disoriented people, who promptly and in unison, vomited all over the white shag carpeting.

  Ben rushed to Thea’s side and helped her to a seat as Inta, the Toparians and the others helped the rest to get comfortable while waiting for the effects to wear off.

  “Holy shit, that sucked!” One of the rescued strike team members compined loudly.

  “Better that, than being a ser range target dummy,” said the man sitting next to him, giving him a swift punch to the shoulder.

  Ben held Thea as he handed her a rag to wipe her mouth. “I don’t understand… how did we end up here?” She asked, as her equilibrium slowly steadied.

  “Fourth-dimensional travel is just one of the things that make Inta special,” Ben expined as he rubbed her back. “She stepped over there, grabbed you all, and brought you back here.”

  Thea reached out and took Inta’s hand, and squeezed it gently. “Thanks for that. You saved our skins back there.” Then she paused, a fsh of inspiration striking. “Do you think you could do that again? Not to the same spot, mind you, but just behind them? We need to retake Engineering if we’re going to have any chance of repelling these pirates.”

  “I could, but moving through 4-D space is hard on 3-D people. You’d probably be just as sick as this the next time," Inta cautioned her.

  One of the rescued men chimed in. “We’re all seasoned fighter pilots, you surprised us, is all. We carry stim patches that suppress disorientation for when we’re in the Defenders, I’d bet that it’d get us through it able to act on the other side.”

  Fire lit up in Thea’s eyes and they darted back and forth, as she began to formute a pn. “Their main advantage now is that they can secure the choke points in the ship. We would need a force three times our size to take it, conventionally. But, if we can drop in anywhere we want, them holding the choke point becomes an advantage for us. Inta, how well can the Nestia’s sensors read what’s going on in the Dals?”

  “Now that many of the systems have been shut down, I can see what’s happening everywhere,” Inta said confidently.

  Perfect. We’ll need a team to retake Engineering, One to take the Bridge, and someone will need to rally the remaining flight crews to get out there and take the fight to the armada. If we can re-enable the Titan deck guns from Engineering and restart the unch systems, we can stem the flow of pirates onto the Dals. It’ll be a tough fight, but I think we can pull it off.” Thea looked around the room and the desperate defeated looks on their faces were repced with ones of hope and determination.

  The sounds of commotion out in the hallway penetrated the walls of the Toparian sitting room, and while they all looked at each other, Will got up and ran to the door. Opening it a crack, He saw a crew of thugs kicking the door into the converted accommodations next to theirs.

  “Inta we’re going to need our weapons. Bring over enough for everyone,” Will said softly shutting the door. She nodded, went over to a table, and pced her palms on it. A silver sheen spilled out beneath them, covering the entire table, then grew lumpy, mounding up over the middle. The silver flowed back into her hands, uncovering several dozen rifles and side arms.

  “They’re going door to door looking for someone,” Will said, strapping on the belt and holster for a side arm, Ben and June rushing over to do the same.

  “That would be me, I’m betting,” Thea said, checking her rifle over. “They need my key to disable the lockout. This ship is worth a lot, and they won’t have time to pick it clean if they remain in this spot. The navy will have heard the automated SOS and be here in a day or so. They’ll want to move it somewhere secure.”

  “We need to hurry,” De’noke said in a worried tone. “The Chilopodian Delegation is in those living quarters. They won’t stand a chance if the pirates decide to kill them.”

  Not wasting a moment, the Nestia crew, along with Thea and her men rushed out into the hallway and down to the door of the neighboring living quarters where angry shouting could be heard. They were there in a blink, and through the kicked-open door, they could see a rge centipede lying immediately in the doorway, dark green ichor dripping out of scorched holes punched in its carapace from ser fire. When standing it would have been three feet tall, and about five long, but now it could only lie there struggling for breath.

  Seven men, weapons drawn, were backing a dozen more of the Chilopodian against the far wall with their backs to the open door.

  “Last chance, where’s the Dals Commander? Where is she!?” One of the pirates yelled.

  From a box screwed into the chitin on the back of its head, a lythe, feminine voice said in a soft, almost sing-song voice, “Sir, we do not know where she is, please spare us!”

  Having heard enough, Will fired on the man threatening the unarmed Chilopodian, the gravitic ser hit him directly in the back of the head, atomizing it completely, explosively spraying what was his head all over his cohorts. Before they could spin completely around to face off against this new threat, a rain of red and purple beams peppered the pirates, dropping them before they could get off another shot.

  June rushed over to the Chilopodian crouched quivering against the wall and asked, “Is everyone alright?”

  The Chilopodian that had begged for their lives, spoke in its synthetic feminine voice, “Please, the Overseer…” waving an antenna at the fallen centipede by the door.

  “Med kit, now!” Thea barked and rushed over to the fallen Chilopodian. One of the men rushed over and handed a small box to her. Opening it, she took out a rge tube full of gray material, opened and squeezed the contents directly onto the gaping wounds of the centipede. It hissed and its body shivered as the goop first bubbled, then set like a hard resin. Thea treated the other two wounds simirly, then took out a rge syringe filled with a faint orange liquid, and jabbed it in between two chitin ptes. Squeezing the plunger, the Chilopoda immediately rexed, and its breathing became slow and steady.

  “The worst is over,” Thea told the other Chilopodian. “Can you take Overseer Sumarna and make her comfortable?”

  Several centipedes came over to the stricken Overseer, lifted her onto one of their backs, carried her to a soft depression set into the floor, and gently id her down. After making sure their Overseer was resting comfortably, one of the centipedes came back over to the group.

  “I am Tendana, the Overseer’s Second. Thank you so much for helping us. We were preoccupied, caring for our young when they kicked the door in; they wouldn’t have found us quite so easy to deal with if they hadn’t taken us by surprise.” Tendana’s voice from the centipede’s transtor was soft and flowed like water, but there was iron determination behind it.

  “The pirates are all over the Dals and if we don’t drive them off, what happened to your Overseer will seem mild in comparison. We’re about to counterattack, so when we leave, barricade your door, and don’t open it for anyone," Thea told the Chilopodian.

  “If you are fighting back, we will help. We are a formidable species, Commander. We can not allow you to take the risk of defending this ship alone.” Tendana’s face was expressionless, but the fire in its voice was pin to hear.

  “Thank you,” Thea said, “We’ll need all the help we can get.” Tendana scurried on its many legs back to the other delegation members and chittered amongst themselves for a moment, then it came back over followed by half a dozen other centipedes.

  “We will come with you to discuss the pn of attack while the others… dispose of the bodies,” Tendana said. Thea knew their species was carnivorous, and decided she didn’t need to know how they pnned on disposing of the pirates.

  “Okay, come back to the Toparian’s quarters with us and we will figure it out,” Thea said gratefully.

  They quickly convened their hasty war council, their diminutive numbers bolstered by the Chilopodians, eager for retribution.

  The Toparians, Chilopodians, and the Nestia crew formed a circle around Thea as she id out their objectives.

  “If this is going to work, we need to maintain the element of surprise and strike simultaneously in Engineering and on the Bridge. Once we have engineering, getting the unch systems operational will be key," Thea said.

  “I’ll lead the group taking back the Bridge,” Will volunteered.

  “I and several Brothers will go with you,” De’noke offered, putting a reassuring hand on Will’s shoulder.

  “I think I should head to Engineering,” Ben decred, “who knows what additional interlocks the pirates may have introduced. Someone may need to figure it out on the fly.”

  “We will assist in the assault on Engineering,” Tendana, the Chilopodian spokesperson added. “We can easily move through conduits and tight spaces and are also very good with systems.”

  “You’ll need my key, then,” Thea said, pulling the chain off from around her neck, handing it to Ben.

  He held her hand holding the offered key in his two hands, and looked into her eyes. “Why not you? It’s your key and your passcode will need to be entered into the system in order for this to work.”

  “We’ll need every avaible pilot for the Defenders," she said, “and I didn’t earn my commission from behind a desk.” Thea pressed the key into Ben’s hands, smiled briefly, then let go. “Memorize this: Alpha-Tango-Lima-195487-Zed. My passcode will activate the key’s decryption functions.” Ben recited the key back to her. “Good, you should be all set then.”

  Thea retrieved the first aid kit, and rummaged through it for a moment, then handed out little foil-wrapped packets to everyone. “These are the strongest anti-nausea patches we have. These should blunt the effects felt when Inta moves us to where we need to be.”

  Everyone tore open the packets, rolled up their sleeves, and applied them to their upper arms. Then weapons were checked and they were ready to go. “Okay folks, anything we missed before we pull the trigger?” Thea asked the assembled group.

  “Oh, Shit! What about the passengers? They’ve been sweeping the cabins and herding them down to the Concourse. As soon as it starts going sideways for them, they’re likely to start killing people," June said in arm.

  That paused everyone. “I don’t know how we can deal with that,” Thea admitted. “They probably have a few hundred pirates guarding several thousand people down there. We just don’t have the numbers.” The silence was thick as no one wanted to speak the ugly truth that a lot of those passengers were not going to survive.

  Inta broke the silence, “Leave that to me. I’ve grown a lot stronger in the st few days, thanks to Pi’natha.” The group was at first shocked when she told them what she had in mind, then as she expined her pn, they all grinned.

  “That could work,” Thea said, “You’ll have to time it perfectly with our assault. Can you handle that?”

  “Please,” Inta said, with attitude. “I’m the gaxy's best multi-tasker," she smirked.

  “Okay. When you’re ready Inta,” Thea said, as everyone assembled readied themselves for action.

  Inta smiled devilishly.

  ****

  Artona charged down the corridor behind her cn in a hail of ser fire, their mighty Urarc roars reverberating off the walls. Tiron the alpha fell, then another, and then they were among their enemy, rending flesh and tearing limbs from torsos. More ser fire, then silence. Her brother Artio, sat dying, slumped against the wall. His st words haunted her. “Sister…”

  “Pss. Wake up. Wake up.” A tiny voice called her back from the dream. Artona y on her side, hands and ankles bound with heavy steel cuffs, restricting her ability to move, her snout pressed against the floor in a puddle where she had been drooling. She ached all over, but her wounds had been dressed, however poorly, so that she was no longer bleeding. Dried blood still matted her fur, though it was unclear exactly how much of it was hers, or her enemy’s.

  Laying there, cuffed and wounded, her pride suffered the worst of all. There was no honor in capture.

  “Hey, are you awake?” The small voice said again, seemingly close to her face. Managing to open one eye that had been sealed shut with caked blood, she saw a one-inch tall, silver girl in a sundress, pressing one finger to her lips.

  “We don’t have very much time, so listen closely,” the tiny silver figure said. “We’re about to retake the Dals, but if you and I don’t do something, a lot of these people,” the tiny silver girl waved her arm, gesturing to the herded passengers, “are going to be killed. You’re an Urarc, right?”

  Artona nodded subtly. “Good. I hope your race's reputation as the Gaxy’s best fighters is true. I need you to sit up, and take a look around at the other passengers. Identify anyone who looks like they’d be good in a fight.” Confused and still a little woozy, she nodded. As she struggled to sit up, the little silver figure jumped up onto her chest and stuffed herself in Artona’s furry cleavage.

  “Hey, what are you doing!” Artona compined in a low hiss.

  “I need to stay hidden and see what you see. Stop whining and point out the fighters.”

  Artona bristled at the accusation that she was whining, but let it drop. Now was not the time for pride, not that she had any honor left to be prideful about. After struggling to a seated position without drawing the attention of the pirates guarding the captives, she scanned the passengers attempting to spot the dangerous ones.

  “Over to the left, do you see those three, two men and a woman?” Artona asked. A little, silver head nodded. “Watch their eyes. Those three are constantly scanning the area but never looking in the same direction as the other two. Clearly, they must have been on a fire squad together at some point. And just behind them and to the right. The man with the thick neck and broad shoulders. See how he seems like a tense spring, ready to strike the moment it presents itself? Over to the right. Do you see that woman…”

  Artona continued for another five minutes, pointing out the little details that gave these potential allies away. Having reyed all that she could see to the tiny silver girl wedged in her bosom, she asked, “Now what do you think you’ll be able to do against three hundred guards?”

  “I can take care of about a third of them; that’s what I need you and all the folk you just pointed out for. I’m going to cut you all loose, arm you, and when I give the signal, you’re going to fight like hell.” As the little silver pixy spoke, Artona’s eyes wandered to the passengers she just pointed out. They were all looking down at something, listening intently. Then she saw small glimpses of silver near each of them.

  “I’m going to cut your bonds, but you must pretend to remain bound for this to work. Can you do that?” The tiny silver girl asked.

  “Who are you?” Artona asked, now deeply curious.

  “A friend. Well?” The small figure in her cleavage asked.

  “Yes, I will wait for your signal," Artona reply. The tiny silver figure grabbed handfuls of fur and crawled out from between her breasts.

  “Perfect. Hang on a second," she said, slipping behind her back. Artona felt the bindings release from each other, but the metal bands remained around her wrists. She held them in pce and felt a metal coin drop into her right hand. “Hang on to that, no matter what.” Then the tiny figure ran down her leg to the bindings on her ankle. She id her small hands at the point where the two cuffs met, and a small band of silver encircled it. The silver shrank and disappeared taking a section of the binding with it, freeing her legs to move.

  “Remember, wait for my signal. When it’s time, I’ll repce that coin with a gun, then it’s up to you and the others," the tiny figure said.

  “Do me one more favor, Pixy,” Artona demanded.

  “What’s that?” the little figure asked.

  “Give me a BIG gun.” Artona gave her a rge, grin full of sharp teeth. The tiny woman smiled back and nodded, then shrank away to nothing.

  ****

  They waited in the Toparian sitting room for fifteen minutes while Inta did what she could to prepare the defense for the passengers already taken captive down in the Concourse. She hardly moved, looking deep in thought, then finally announced, “Okey-dokey, I think we’re ready.”

  Two more instances of the silver girl stepped out of 4-D space, each stepping close to one of the three teams.

  “Remember, we are severely outnumbered and are relying on the element of surprise,” Thea said, giving them a final briefing. “If things go bad, call for Inta and she’ll get you out of there. Good Luck everyone.” Thea checked her gun, looked at June and the pilots standing next to her, and then around the room. Every face wore a look of fierce determination.

  Just as the three instances of Inta huddled close to each group, ready to carry them to their targets, all three gasped out loud, and one excimed, “You’ve got to be kidding me, a giant cw?!”

  ****

  Standing on the bridge of his command ship, the Victoria Gloriosa, Cortez watched impatiently as his portside batteries pummeled maintenance hangar doors until there was nothing left but a gaping hole, exposing the interior. Through the twisted metal wreckage of the doors, he finally id eyes on the prize that had thus far eluded him.

  The Gleaming white hull was unmistakable, and the shape of the craft exactly matched that of the mystery craft he had seen in the video footage recovered from that isoted system inside the nebu. He had watched the footage a hundred times on a loop, the image of the ship etched itself into his mind.

  “Signal the Behemoth, and have them ready the recovery cw. Move us out of the way.” He commanded the bridge crew. With the Dals’ deck guns silent, his armada maneuvered zily, taking their time repositioning. As the Victoria Gloriosa slowly motored towards the aft sections of the Dals, the Behemoth, Cortez’s Carrier, moved into position.

  The Behemoth crept into the position that Cortez’s ship had just left, and then small maneuvering thrusters fired in uneven succession aligning its hangar bay with that of the Dals. The heavy doors on the Behemoth opened, revealing an enormous, if crude-looking cw, covered in fking yellow paint.

  Red warning lights fshed in the hangar of the Behemoth as a crane extended the cw toward its intended target. The cw reached in through the shattered maintenance hangar doors, and hovered over the gleaming white vessel, then lowered over the top of it. Fully surrounding the Nestia, the cw's teeth closed around it, and with a mighty tug, tore the Nestia from the mag-locks securing it to the deck. The crane retracted the cw, pulling the Nestia into the belly of the Behemoth, and as he watched the hangar doors close and the Behemoth slowly pull away from the Dals, Cortez stood on his bridges, grinning wickedly with his victory.

  ****

  “Shit, change of pns,” Will said hurriedly. “June, you need to get back to the Nestia and help Inta free the ship. Thea, you’ll have to do with one less pilot.”

  “We’ll make do," she said stoicly.

  “Nothing changes for the rest of us. Do your jobs, stay safe.” Will smiled at the rag-tag group assembled, then nodded to Inta. Each group huddled close to make it easier for Inta to envelope them as she melted and poured herself over top of them. The bracer on June’s arm grew and silver rolled up her arm and covered her body. Soon there were four blobs of silver that shrank and disappeared into 4-D space.

  June’s silver over-skin retracted and she found herself standing on the bridge of the Nestia. Being pulled through 4-D space was still miserable, but now manageable thanks to Thea’s anti-nausea medication. She hurried to the navigational controls. “Inta, are you ready to take over power core control from the ad-hoc computer? We’re going to need all the power you can give us.”

  “After this st month aboard the Dals, I’m stronger now than I have been in a millennia. I can give you a lot more than the st time we dealt with these guys,” Inta said over June’s earpiece.

  Down in the Nestia’s engineering bay, the consoles surrounding the spherical power core, turned on, one by one, each dispying various aspects of the status of the power core. A green light on the computer that had served them faithfully in running the core turned red, indicating it was no longer in charge.

  “I have control of the core,” Inta announced. “Ramping up power now.”

  The blue aurora light waving zily in the core, became more energetic as the shimmering darkness at the heart of the power core grew, and the thrumming lump of dark matter in the center expanded. Power level readings on the consoles rose and the low thrum of the power core became a hearty rumble.

  “Power levels are up, 165% from previous levels, 20% of total,” Inta called out. “That’s as much as I can safely give you right now.”

  “Good enough, we’ll make it work,” June replied. Looking at one of her external monitors, she noted some activity at the shuttle airlock door. “Oh, looks like they’re trying to cut their way in; not wasting any time, these guys, huh?” She said, sounding a little worried. “So what’s the py, Inta, Open fire and bst our way out?”

  “Well, we would free up a bit of energy if we release the gravity distortions and return to normal size,” Inta commented, leaving the implications unsaid. Then she giggled with almost maniacal ughter, “Oh wait, this carrier’s moving away from the Dals and we move about by tugging on spacetime itself. What would happen if we grabbed a tight hold on spacetime and metaphorically ‘dropped anchor’?”

  Inta’s ughter tinkled like a crystal chandelier in June’s ear. “Mmmm, that sounds like fun. Let’s do both at the same time. It’ll be a hoot.”

  “Wait, won’t that crush the Nestia?” June asked in arm.

  “Sweety, I had a mountain sitting on top of me for several millennia. A tin can in space will be nothing," Inta reassured her.

  The workmen in the Behemoth’s hangar bay had rolled up a set of stairs to the side of the captured ship where they were told a door existed. Door or not, they had ser-cutting torches and were determined to get inside, one way or another.

  The workmen clicked the buttons on the sides of their torches and a bright red beam extended out from the tip. As they applied the torch to the surface of the hull, the surface shimmered and a silver sheen quickly spread from stern to bow. Undeterred, they reapplied the torch beam, but as it got close to the silvered surface, the normally razor-straight cutting beam bent at strange angles.

  The next thing they knew, the stairs started to skitter backward as the hull of the now silver ship expanded, pushing the stairs as it grew. The giant yellow cw gripping the shuttle groaned in protest as its grasp was forced open by the increasing bulk of its test catch. Eventually, the shearing stress was too great on the main pin and the cw broke in half, scraping against the Nestia’s hull as it fell to the hangar floor.

  “Now, time to drop anchor,” Inta said as a purple glow enveloped the expanding, silver ship. The deck space in Behemoth’s hangar was quickly being eaten up by the Nestia’s expansion, the top fin coming closer to the ceiling. The bridge crew noticed considerable drag building on the port side of the Behemoth, causing it to wheel a zy circle directly into the path of a nearby pirate destroyer. Panicked, the Captain ordered increased thrust from the port side engines to compensate, adding to the internal stresses the ship was experiencing.

  The Nestia was about three-fourths of the way to her original size and finally ran out of room in their captor’s hangar. As she grew and before the top fin touched the ceiling, the gravimetric forces surrounding the Nestia folded and buckled the metal ptes of the ceiling, twisted and warped the girders of the super-structure, forcing the material of the Behemoth to part and make room.

  “Okay, let’s crank the ‘anchor’ up to eleven,” Inta said, with glee in her voice, and unfortunately for the Captain of the Behemoth, he simultaneously gave the order for full thrusters.

  The Behemoth fired its engines, pushing its way through space, at the same time the Nestia’s gravitic hold on spacetime increased. The Behemoth engines pushed against the retively stationary Nestia, causing the carrier to shove itself onto the silver ship. The Nestia held fast and the Behemoth pushed past and around her, bent by the intense gravity field surrounding the Nestia, sweeping around her like water around a boulder in a river.

  The Nestia sat near motionless, as the Behemoth parted around her. Walls, decking, girders, and crew were all crushed aside as the crew quarters, storage bays, and engine compartments flowed past. The Nestia had been situated off-center in the Behemoth. As the Nestia finally plowed past the engines emerging from the rear of the cored ship, the engines were pushed into odd angles, causing the Behemoth to vector wildly.

  Suffering massive damage from passing the Nestia straight through the ship, the Behemoth's engines sputtered, and died, followed shortly by the power to the rest of the vessel.

  By the time the Behemoth passed the Nestia like a kidney stone, she was at her full size. “Time to get to work,” June said as Inta released the anchor, giving June full control. The Nestia leaped forward, racing back to the armada surrounding the Dals to engage.

  ****

  Inta flowed back into her usual petite silver form, releasing Thea and her men from her protective shell. They were only dazed a moment before regaining their bearing.

  “We need to go talk to unch control. Thanks for the wild ride, Inta. Let’s not do that again," Thea said, only slightly green in the gills.

  “If you’re all set, I’m going to need this body elsewhere in a minute,” Inta told Thea. She then gnced down the hangar and spotted the pod that had been impounded when June had chased down the other hijackers. “When you unch, take our pod. It’s a little smaller than your Defenders, but it’s far tougher.” Thea nodded, then Inta smiled and shrank away, stepping back into 4-D space.

  Thea and her men rushed to the unch control room and found it in chaos. A man and a woman were arguing about the best way to bypass the lockout while several engineers had their heads stuck in control cabinets, elbows deep in wiring.

  As she entered, the room hushed, and someone yelled, “Officer on deck. Attention!”

  “No time for that,” Thea replied. “We need every avaible pilot ready in five. We’re taking back the Dals.” The expressions on the faces of the frantic men and women shifted instantly from worry and fear to awe and hope. “We unch on my signal.” A spontaneous cheer erupted from the pilots assembled in the small room. “MOVE!” Thea commanded, and everyone sprang to action.

  ****

  Will, six of Thea’s men, and four Toparian Brothers shook off the dizzying effects of 4-D travel as Inta reformed into her usual self.

  Inta got on her tiptoes and gave Will a peck on the cheek, then pulled De’noke’s face down so she could give him one too. “Stay safe, boys. I got to go.” They both gave her the same dopey smile as she shrank away into 4-D Space.

  “Okay, Inta’s scan showed that there were less than a dozen life signatures on the bridge. We should be more than a match for them," Will said, patting the gravitic ser Inta had brought over from the Nestia. Each of them carried simir weapons, though Inta had to do some quick custom gunsmithing to mold the trigger and grips to fit the Toparian’s rger hands.

  Will led the way down the corridor, which was curiously clear of guards. “Surely they would have set up some defense to protect against attempts to retake the bridge," he thought to himself.

  They came to the st junction before the hallway that led directly to the bridge, and Will peeked around the corner and then understood the absence of guards. At the far end of the corridor were two automated turrets that would undoubtedly shred anyone or anything that attempted to come down the hallway toward the bridge.

  “Turrets. No way we’re making it past those. Is there another way into the Bridge?” Will asked the group. They were all silent for a moment until one of Thea’s men, wearing a pensive look on his face, spoke up. “Well, the pirates seem well-informed of the ship’s yout and systems. It’s not inconceivable that they used the maintenance conduit that runs near the Bridge.”

  Will looked at him in puzzlement and surprise. “Before I was a pilot, I was on an engineering team," he expined. “I requested a transfer because I wanted a little more excitement in my life," he chuckled. “I guess I got that excitement I was looking for.”

  Will smiled and cpped him on the back. “Where’s this conduit and how do we get to it?” He asked.

  “Follow me," the engineer-turned-pilot said. They followed him back in the other direction, down a couple of twists and turns of the corridor, then stopped at a bnk spot on the wall. “The maintenance conduit runs past here towards the bridge, about a meter behind this wall.

  Will paused, staring at the bnk wall, and thought for a moment. “Anyone bring a cutting torch?”

  De’noke and the Brothers stepped forward. “Allow us to make a way.” De’noke and the Brothers felt along the wall until they each felt a seam in the pting. Then, like roots grinding boulders to pebbles, they dug their fingers into the walls, their combined strength causing the metal to shriek in protest as they pulled and tore a hole through the wall. Ripping and tearing, they bore a hole through the wall until they breached the space behind it.

  “Remind me not to get into an arm wrestling contest with you,” Will joked as he peered inside. It was low and cramped, but he could get through if he crawled on his hands and knees.

  “Looks like this is as far as you can go, De’noke. It’s far too small for you.”

  De’noke looked over his shoulder into the space and frowned. “I’m afraid you’re correct. There’s no possibility of any but the smallest Toparian fitting in there," De’noke frowned, feeling like he was letting everyone down.

  “Don’t worry about it. You opened the way for the rest of us.” De’noke’s expression brightened. “You and the other Brothers need to find an empty office and hunker down until the action is over. No unnecessary risks, okay?”

  De’noke pced a rge hand on Will’s shoulder. “You are a good man. The Grove will remember," he said, then gestured for the Brothers to follow him to find a secure pce to hole up.

  “Alright fels, let’s go give those hijackers a taste of their own medicine,” Will said, then climbed into the hole in the wall, followed by the others.

  ****

  “Contact the Behemoth,” Cortez barked. “I want to know why they haven’t left the system yet.” The pirate lord paced on the bridge of the Victoria Gloriosa, waiting for his comms officer to report with their reply.

  “They… they aren’t responding, Sir,” the nervous comms officer reported.

  “What!? What do you mean, ‘they’re not responding’?”, Cortez demanded, incredulously.

  “I’ve hailed them five times, sir, and they’re not responding,” the junior officer reiterated.

  “Scanners show there’s no power readings from the Behemoth either, Sir” came a call out from another.

  “Show me,” Cortez demanded. The rge front dispy switched from the forward-facing view to the rear, showing a ship, small due to distance, drifting away from the Dals. “Zoom in, I want a good look.” The crew complied, and the image of the ship in the distance grew until it filled the screen. The ship was drifting away from the Dals, with no lights on anywhere, the engines dark and cold.

  As Cortez studied the remains of the Behemoth, wondering what could have done that before giving them a chance to call out for help, something fshed across the zoomed-in view. “What was that? Zoom out. NOW!”

  The view expanded and what Cortez saw both excited and frightened him. “That’s it! That’s the target! Quick, open a channel to the fleet.” His crew rushed to obey.

  “Channel open, Sir.”

  “All ships, the Target is in system and closing on our position. Open fire and disable it. Do not destroy it, I want as much of it intact as possible. Ten thousand to the captain that delivers me that ship.” The channel closed and he watched the read-out dispying the position of the fleet as each ship turned to enable a clean broadside volley onto the incoming ship. “Fire!” Cortex commanded. A blizzard of heavy ser fire streaked out from the pirate armada, filling the space between them and their target. Cortez watched in amazement as the silver ship, pitched, rolled, and juked with the mobility of a fighter, dodging the first barrage.

  “All ships, fire at will. Bring me that ship!”

  ****

  “That was probably the weirdest feeling thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Ben said as he disentangled himself from the several hundred limbs of the centipede-like Chilopodians.

  “Your hairy legs are so ticklish!” He whispered.

  Inta smiled at Ben’s antics, shook her head, then put a serious face on. “The main engineering controls are left down this corridor about thirty feet, then right for another twenty. The two main entry points are this corridor, and where they breached the hull, down the hallway on the far side of the control room about forty-five feet. You’ll want to seal both off if you can.”

  Inta gave Ben a long hug. “Stay safe, my Love," she said then gave him a peck on the cheek. She stepped back, gave him a wink, then shrank into 4-D space.

  “Alright team, let’s do this,” Ben said to the centipedes surrounding him, trying to sound braver than he felt. Peeking out, he gestured for the Chilopodians to follow behind him down the corridor towards their target. Even with their multitude of feet, the centipedes were silent, and Ben thanked the stars they were, because as they crept to the control room, they saw a dozen pirates, either at the controls or standing around zily leaning against a wall, their guns leaning next to them.

  Without a word, Ben looked to the centipedes behind him and held up three fingers. He silently counted down on his fingers; three, two, one, then he made a swift hand gesture for go. From behind the cover of a corner, Ben opened fire on the unsuspecting pirates, purple bolts of intensely twisted gravity shot across the space, and then through his targets.

  As the gravitic ser punched hole after hole into each successive pirate, the matter caught in the beam violently exploded, forcefully spraying the men standing next to the stricken pirates with blood and gore. While Ben fired on the hijackers from around the corner, the Chilopodians took to the walls and ceiling, scurrying across the non-horizontal surfaces with astonishing speed.

  The pirates stumbled around terrified as the Lovecraftian nightmare came to life as dozens of giant centipedes fell from the ceiling and flung themselves from the walls, tearing flesh and limbs from the screaming men. The st pirate managed to scramble down the hallway toward the hull breach, smashing the button for the emergency bulkhead as he went. It smmed shut behind him as he ran off.

  Ben was going to do precisely that anyway, so he walked over to the sealed door, located the controls and opening mechanism, and fired his rifle destroying the ability to re-open it. He ran back over to the side of the room where they had entered and engaged that bulkhead door, then disabled it in the same fashion.

  Only after they were secure inside, did Ben’s nerves catch up with him, his shaking knees forcing him to the ground. He panted as the adrenaline rush subsided and he finally got the full view of the room. One side of the room was completely occupied by panels and dispys controlling the engineering systems of the ship. However, on the opposite wall, were twenty or so bodies of the sin engineering crew, thrown in a corner in a haphazard pile, dead eyes staring into infinity.

  It was too much for Ben, and he turned and vomited on the floor, retching and retching until mercifully he stopped dry heaving. “Those evil bastards…” was all he could muster. Then he remembered that he was to give the signal to the other teams. “Engineering control is clear. Go, everyone!”

  Shakily, Ben got up off his knees and walked over to the control panel. He searched across the console until he found the key switch indent intended for Thea’s command key. He quickly jammed it in, but before he could enter the code, a loud bang sounded in the room, coming from the sealed door blocking the way from the hull breach. “Fuck," Ben said as the bulkhead door screamed metallically as it was forced up an inch.

  He quickly turned to the Chilopodians, “Get ready, here they come!”

  ****

  Will’s knees ached from their slow crawl, and like him, the five security officers behind him suffered their discomforts in silence. They moved along the cramped conduit until Will saw light pouring through an enormous hole blown out of the side of the passageway, undoubtedly the pirate’s exit point onto the bridge. The sounds of harsh ughter of men and women sobbing drifted through the gash in the wall. The occasional wet crunch accompanied by a gasping grunt punctuated the symphony of misery coming from the Bridge.

  Peeking in, Will saw four men, one obviously in charge by his demeanor, standing around the tactical dispy, showing the hundred ships of the pirate armada surrounding the Dals. From the glimpses of the dispy from between two of the pirates, something had caught the attention of the fleet as they repositioned to deal with it.

  While most of the pirates were occupied with the dispy of the fleet, two of the men currently in control of the Bridge, both rge individuals who were half-dressed and covered with scars, were harassing the surviving bridge crew. One was beating a bound ensign, while the other fondled a simirly bound female lieutenant. Two other women were lying curled in the fetal position, clothes torn. They sobbed quietly and held each other for a small measure of comfort.

  Will silently pantomimed the enemy numbers and rough location to his assault team, and they readied themselves and disengaged the safeties on their weapons.

  “What the F…” the nearest pirate uttered as Will and the security team burst into the room, Will firing the shot that silenced the questioner. Each of Will’s team swiftly located their targets and got off several shots before the pirates could react.

  The bruiser beating the ensign caught a bst in his center mass, and he fell with a heavy thud to the floor, a neat hole burnt through his chest still smoking and sizzling.

  The pirate molesting the lieutenant, turned just in time to receive a gravitic ser bst to the face, obliterating most of his head, spraying it on the wall behind him.

  Three of the four pirates around the control console were quickly hit with lethal shots, dropping them where they stood, but Compaan twirled at the first sound of commotion and took a red ser bst in the shoulder, and threw himself to the floor.

  Will and the security team swept in, taking up positions around the room, cutting off any avenue of escape. Though wounded, Compaan fired his sidearm blindly around the corner of the console he hid behind. “Fuck!”, Compaan cursed, pinned down behind the console and unable to do anything else. He peeked out around a corner quickly to see where everyone was and saw it was Will.

  “You!” he barked through gritted teeth, recognizing Will as the man who had foiled him practically every step of the way and forced him into this situation.

  Incensed and losing blood, Compaan had nothing left to lose. Growling, he leaped out from behind the console, and with his good hand, fired his parting shot, catching Will in the gut. Will howled in pain and fell back, writhing on the floor.

  The rest of the security team opened fire on Compaan, riddling him with smoking holes. Crumpling down, Compaan saw Will’s stricken form on the floor, and with his st breath, he spat blood-den saliva in Will’s direction. A grin crossed his face as his blood pooled on the floor and the light left his eyes.

  ****

  June jerked the controls hard to the left, dancing the Nestia in a spirally roll dodging a stream of ser fire from a nearby pirate corvette. So occupied by maneuvering, the single shot she fired in return grazed a single engine of the corvette, bsting off the outer pting. “Damn, I sure could use another set of hands… FUCK!”, she swore, as the Nestia took a direct hit. The shields deflected most of the bst, but it shook the ship ominously. “If I don’t get some help here soon, these bastards are going to get off enough lucky shots to really do some damage," she said, pulling a split ‘S’, reversing direction zipping in between two frigates. They both fired broadside volleys attempting to hit the Nestia as she passed between them, but June hit a hard ninety-degree turn down and their crossfire only hit each other.

  “Inta, where are those damn Defenders! I need help out here!” June pleaded.

  “Ben’s still fighting for control of engineering and hasn’t had a chance to re-enable unch control,” Inta reported.

  The Nestia streaked along the surface of the Dals, and the blown open hangar doors where the Behemoth’s cw dragged the Nestia out, zipped past the view screen.

  Inspiration fshed in June’s mind. “Inta, tell Thea and the Defender pilots to get ready and have them clear the hangar. I have a crazy Idea.”

  ****

  “She’s going to do what?!”, Thea excimed over the comms of the impounded Nestia pod she was currently strapped into. “Fine, wait for my signal," she replied to Inta. Hopping out of the pod she sprinted to the flight control office. Bursting through the door, “Everyone to their fighters! Clear the hangar and prepare for explosive decompression! Move!” The command was reyed around the flight deck and the pilots ran to their Defenders.

  As Thea ran back to the Nestia’s pod, she received the confirmation through her helmet’s comm system, “All hands clear on deck, flight crew ready.”

  Jumping back into the pod, and securing herself inside, Thea called out to Inta, “Okay, Inta, tell that crazy bitch we’re ready to go.”

  ****

  “They are set, June,” Inta informed her. “You sure about this?”

  “Nope, but it worked for the pirates, so let's give it a try too,” June said.

  She zigzagged through the pirate armada, taking more fire, as they unleashed a maelstrom of ser bolts from every direction, that no amount of maneuvering would allow June to dodge. She raced alongside the Dals again, and just as she was about to blow past the hangar doors of the Defender flight deck, she yelled out, “The Anchor, NOW Inta!”

  The gunners aboard the pirate ships had begun to lead her movements in their attempts to nd a hit, and their targeting kept sweeping forward when the Nestia was suddenly motionless.

  Without missing a beat, the instant the Nestia hung motionless outside the Defender hangar door, June let loose a barrage of firepower the pirates hadn’t yet seen from the craft that up till this point, where June was only able to flit and dodge fire.

  The hangar door disintegrated under the withering firepower of the Nestia’s gravitic sers, bsts perfectly pced around the weakest points around the edges of the hangar doors. No longer capable of holding back the pressure of the atmosphere inside, the door blew off, thrown clear of the Dals.

  As soon as the purple ser bsts nded, June punched the gravity drive hard again, and unched forward like a bullet, just missing the hangar doors as they were ejected outward.

  “Defenders, Go, Go, Go!” Thea commanded, urging them into battle. In the Nestia’s pod, Thea punched the accelerator and was startled by the raw acceleration of the small craft. Though half the size of the Defenders, she shot past them and wheeled it around trying to get a feel for its capabilities.

  “Holy Hell! This thing is maneuverable!” Thea excimed as she raced into the fray with the rest of the Defenders. Turning her attention to the objective at hand, she called on the comms to the rest of the pilots, “Okay, boys and girls, target all shuttles heading to the Dals. Make them think twice about sending any more reinforcements.”

  Close to two hundred Defenders swarmed the space between the pirate armada and the Dals, and raced towards the incoming boarding craft. “Don’t fire on any vessels leaving the Dals, we don’t know if they’ve started moving passengers yet, but we can’t risk hitting them,” Thea warned.

  The Defenders weaved in and out of streams of fire from the rger vessels of the pirate armada and easily avoided being hit. As they streamed past, boarding craft exploded left and right under their scathing ser fire.

  “Break into four attack groups and sweep each quadrant of the Dals!” Thea ordered, and the Defenders split in well-practiced formations, heading off to scour their ship of the parasites afflicting her.

  After their first pass, the Defenders decimated the incoming boarding craft, reducing the number of boarding vessels attempting to attack by ten percent. They returned fire but were slower and lightly armed, no match for the vicious Defenders and their skilled pilots.

  “Nice work, teams, swing back for another pass!” Thea said, rallying for another charge. As Thea and the pilots swung around for another run, the carriers in the pirate armada began unching swarms of fighters, challenging the Defenders. “Fighters, twelve o’clock! Engage!” Thea cried, leading her squadron wing into the fray.

  The pirate attack fighters were smaller and lightly shielded, but they made up for it in sheer volume, outnumbering the Defenders three to one. The fighting suddenly became fierce, as everywhere Thea looked, pirates were firing on the Defenders.

  “Commander, I’ve got two on my tail! I can’t shake them!”, One of Thea’s wingmen said, calling for help. Thea jerked the stick, and pulled an Immellmann so tight, she practically turned it in her own radius.

  “Damn, I’ve got to get me one of these!” Thea excimed, bearing down on the pirates harassing her wingman. Another impossibly tight turn ter, and she was directly behind the pirate fighters. “Take this, you fuckers!” she cursed as she fired on one. A purple beam nced out and cut straight through the fighters and it immediately exploded. The second banked, and accelerated to disengage, but the Nestia pod Thea piloted was far too maneuverable to evade, and Thea locked in behind it. Another purple beam sliced through this fighter’s starboard engine, causing it to careen out of control, exploding as it crashed into the side of a cruiser.

  As she locked onto another enemy fighter, Thea caught a glimpse of the Nestia from between two pirate destroyers, dancing around the seemingly unending stream of heavy ser fire from nearly all the ships assembled in the pirate armada. A single massive purple beam nced out, carving a rge gash in the side of a destroyer.

  “Give ‘em what for!” Thea cheered June on, then concentrated on chasing down the pirate fighter in front of her.

  When the Dals Defenders entered the fight, the pirate armada suddenly had a couple of hundred more targets to deal with, and the fire on Nestia sckened a small amount, presumably not wanting to hit their own fighters. It was just enough so that June could be more deliberate with her fire control.

  “Finally, some breathing room! Ready for payback, Inta?” June asked her currently out-of-sight co-pilot.

  “You know it!” Inta said jubintly. With less incoming fire, June found time to line up clean shots against the enemy ships. Running out through the armada out into open space, then circling back and running parallel behind their line, she scored hit after direct hit, on the pirate ships rge and small. The purple beams of the gravitic sers sliced through their shields, tearing through their armor pting as if made from tissue paper.

  June flew the Nestia past a corsair and struck a direct hit on their engineering section, and a moment ter, it shuddered with several internal explosions, as their power core went offline and plunged it into darkness. She scathed the engines of a destroyer with several purple beams, struck a reactor, and the entire aft of the ship exploded as their reactor went super-critical, and in a chain reaction, caused its other engine reactors to ignite, incinerating the entire ship, throwing debris and shrapnel into two nearby ships, severely crippling them.

  “YEAH!” June whooped, as she continued to dish out retribution.

  ****

  Artona knew the wisdom that patience in battle was often the deciding factor in victory, but she found her patience tested as she sat quietly, fingering the token coin the silver pixy had given her. She knew that several other passengers were also waiting for the moment to strike back to arrive, and that she would soon have her chance to avenge her fallen cn.

  She held her freed wrists and ankles together to give the impression that she was still bound, but she kept constant watch of her captors. When her opportunity to strike arrived, she would fall on them like thunder.

  She was warned that her waiting was almost over when the token in her hand began to gently vibrate. She closed her eyes for a moment and cleared her mind. Everything but the current moment faded away. Her senses sharpened, and her heart rate slowed, as she steeled herself for action.

  The token in her hand ceased to vibrate, then to her astonishment grew rger in her hand. It became bulky and began to elongate until she could no longer hold it in one hand, and the only way to hide its bulk was to sit on the floor with her knees raised, embracing them as if they were in pain. The silver poured off the surface, retracting into the handgrip of what was now a nasty-looking rge-bore weapon. Artona grinned, her fangs in prominent dispy: the moment had arrived.

  She quickly gnced around at the others who she had identified to the pixy and saw them find her gaze. They nodded their heads slowly to her, and she returned their nod. Her heart raced in anticipation of the impending battle, and just as she was about to spring to her feet, she was dealt another surprise.

  The three hundred or so guards, scattered around the corralled passengers, were all standing with their focus on the sea of bodies seated on the floor, towards the center of the space. Artona watched in amazement as a hundred rger versions of the tiny silver pixy appeared behind the backs of many of the guards.

  Curiously though, when the silver pixies sprang into existence, they all had four arms. Then it became apparent why; in unison, each four-armed silver girl grabbed both wrists of the guard she was standing immediately behind, and with her other two hands, viciously chopped down down upon their restrained limbs with a knife-hand strike strike, simultaneously breaking both arms of the guards, effectively incapacitating them.

  The screams of the broken armed men echoed through the wide open space. This was the signal. Artona roared and jumped to her feet, ignoring the pain in her wounded legs. She leveled the massive gun in her hands at the nearest uninjured pirate and fired. As the purple beam nced through him, his midsection exploded in a satisfying shower of blood and gore, covering the guard next to him. She charged and cut him down as well.

  The other armed passengers rose to their feet and began firing on the completely surprised guards, and dropped dozens before they could even register the threat. The other passengers screamed and cowered behind anything they could take shelter behind as the firefight began in earnest.

  Artona bsted another pirate, exploding his pelvis and sending his legs cartwheeling in two different directions while the rest of him dropped with a wet thud to the ground. Everywhere she looked, it seemed, the silver girl was cracking a head against a wall, shattering a jaw with a well-pced uppercut, or adding pivot points to legs with savage low kicks, making them bend in directions nature didn’t intend. The ass-kicking the multitude of silver girls were delivering was a warrior’s wet dream, flowing movements and devastating strikes bringing destruction upon her enemy as compound fractures spttered her silver form with blood and marrow.

  So enthralled Artona was watching the silver girls in their dance of destruction, her attention waned and she failed to notice the enormously brutish man step out from behind a column and level his ser cannon at her.

  Time slowed. Artona turned her head and saw her doom grinning at her, the Brute eager for the kill. There was no time to swing her weapon around on him as his finger eased the trigger back. She watched, almost impassively, as energy gathered at the tip of his wicked rifle aimed for her center of mass. Lazily, the red beam of energetic light reached out for her, but she didn’t close her eyes, wanting to meet her end with a warrior’s dignity.

  Then a silver form darted between herself and her end, and time snapped back to normal speed as the silver figure took the entire ser bst to her chest and crumpled to the floor. Before Artona had time to react, another silver girl ran towards the brute and received a second bst, throwing her back several feet with a smoking crater in her center.

  As the brute turned to face Artona again a third silver girl stepped inside his guard and surprised him, striking him hard in the hands, batting his rifle away with a backhand.

  “That really hurt!” She yelled at him as he took a step back whipping out a bowie knife as long as her forearm.

  The brute sshed, and the silver girl dodged. He swung again and again, missing each time. She dodged each ssh and thrust like a slippery prize fighter backed into a corner. He faked a backhanded ssh, only to shift to a fully committed thrust, and grinned like a devil as his bde pierced straight through her.

  But then a look of confusion crossed his face when she only grimaced but didn’t fall. Then she grabbed both his wrists.

  As the fighting died down all around her as her other instances and armed passengers cleaned up the rest of the pirate captors, she looked deep into the soul of the Brute and saw only the lust for pain and suffering. Still cmping his hand on the knife in her chest, she forced him to slowly draw it out and bent his arm turning his knife-wielding hand around to face him.

  His eyes went wide with disbelief as this silver girl, half his size, easily overpowered him, and like an irresistible force, slowly pressed his hand towards his chest. He struggled to free himself to no avail; the tip of the bde pierced the armor he wore on his chest, and when it penetrated his skin, he growled like a feral beast. Only once his bde was as deeply embedded into his chest as it was into Inta’s just a moment prior did she release his hands.

  He opened and closed his mouth like a fish not making a sound, then yanked the bde out. Falling to his knees, blood sprayed from the gash in his chest covering Inta and the ground she stood on. Still unbelieving, he looked down at his blood-covered bde, then up at Inta, and fell over sideways, dead.

  The fighting was done. Artona watched the blood-covered silver girl in fascination and awe, as she went up to her and put her hand on Int’a motionless shoulder. The silver girl spun around instantly, her blue glowing eyes locking onto her with a look that ignited fear in Artona. Not just any fear. It bubbled up from a deep pce, born of the primal terrors her ancestors fled from and only survived by hiding like cowards. Whatever was looking back at her from the eyes of this silver girl was ancient and so terrible, that for a few heartbeats Artona felt her doom was upon her.

  When Inta plunged the Brute’s own bde into his chest and was bathed in the spray of his blood, a memory surfaced as strong and all-consuming as the one De’noke had elicited the first time she saw him in the crowd.

  She stood on a small hill in an open field, dark gray clouds covered the sky. She was covered in entrails and blood, and at her feet, a thousand bodies y dead and dying, moaning, begging, and crying out, for help or oblivion. She looked to her left and to her right, and she saw dozens of other silver girls, covered in just as much blood, making their way through the carnage, extinguishing the st bits of life remaining in the field of death. One of them looked up from her work, and directly at her. She wore Inta’s face but there was a blood lust in her eyes, a deep desire for death and destruction that scared her beyond all reason.

  Inta returned to the present, and the female Urarc, Artona, held her by her shoulders. “Are you okay, are you hurt?” She asked Inta.

  “Ye.. Yeah, I’m okay,” Inta stammered. Her other instances slipped off into 4-D space until there was just the one blood-covered Inta.

  “That was… impressive,” Artona said. Whatever had caused her to feel terror at the sight of the silver girl was gone; now she had the same look that some warriors had when returning from battle, a look of someone who had seen something they desperately wished they could unsee. “Here, come with me, let me take care of you,” Artona said, sitting her down on a bench.

  She had no other words for her, nor did the silver girl look like she would be able to hear it. So she did as she would have any other member of her cn struggling after a battle; she sat beside her, put an arm over her shoulder, and comforted her like comrades in arms.

  ****

  Ben listened to the sounds of at least a dozen angry pirates arguing and swearing, as they worked the manual control for the bulkhead doors, resulting in it rising another half inch. His heart pounded in his chest as he frantically searched for a solution.

  He suddenly remembered the Nestia’s gravitic sers bsting straight through the pirate ship when they fled from that isoted star system hidden in the nebu.

  “Stand back over there,” Ben instructed the centipedes, “if this goes poorly, I don’t want you to catch any shrapnel.”

  “Understood,” Their soft feminine voice replied from the transtor box, fixed to their chitin exoskeleton. The bulkhead door crept up another inch. Once all the Chilopodians were behind him and out of harm's way, Ben blindly fired through the thick door, hoping to at least scare the pirates to back away and give him a few moments to use Thea’s key and passcode.

  He fired off several shots in spots he guessed pirates might be standing, then peppered the door with random fire. Small bore holes appeared where the purple beam struck through the door, and Ben heard screams and curses from the cracked open door. The thick door rang out with the sound of returned ser fire, but their photonic sers had nowhere close to the penetrating power of Ben’s gravitic gun. He continued to fire, evenly spacing his shots until the far side of the door was quiet.

  Ben ceased firing and carefully approached the door from an off-angle until he was right next to it. Still hearing no sounds, he looked through one of the holes his bsts punched through the door.

  The hole his gravitic ser cut in the door was small and circur, and he noticed that it became conic, expanding in radius as it traveled through the material. Looking through it, the scene of devastation caught Ben off guard. As each gravitic ser bst passed through the door, it had twisted and deformed spacetime itself in its path, turning the chunks of the door into grapeshot, traveling at near retivistic speed, tearing through everyone and everything in its path. The ensuing hail of near-light speed debris turned the twenty or so angry pirates into a rge pile of bloody hamburger, spread evenly down the hallway, embedded in the equally torn-up walls, floor, and ceiling.

  Ben dry-heaved for a moment at the level of carnage he had just delivered. “Well, at least that should deter them from trying that hallway for a while," he said to the Chilopodians. He hurried back to the console with Thea’s key inserted. “Will, come in. Is the Bridge secure?” He asked over the Nestia earpiece. No response. “Will?” Ben called again.

  “He’s not responding,” Inta said with dread in her voice over the comm. “Something wrong.”

  Ben found the inter-ship communication controls on the panel he was at and dialed the bridge. “Bridge? This is Engineering. Are you okay up there?”

  “This is Lieutenant Montgrove,” a woman’s voice replied, sounding hopeful. “Have we retaken Engineering?”

  “For now. I’m about to re-engage the ship’s systems with Commander Cirrilo’s security key. Get ready with the deck guns.”

  “You got it," she replied excitedly.

  “One of my friends was with those who went to recapture the Bridge, his name is Will, where is he?” Ben asked, now worried.

  There was a slight pause before Montgrove responded. “He’s hurt. Took a ser bst to the gut. We’re providing first aid now, but it's serious.” Her words hung heavy in the silence.

  Her words hit Ben like a punch to the gut. He imagined Will lying grievously wounded, stacked in a corner like the bodies of the engineers behind him, and it turned him inside out.

  With tears stinging his eyes, “Take care of him, please,” Ben pleaded.

  “We’ll do what we can. He needs proper medical attention. But we have to deal with these pirates or everyone on this ferry will fare much worse.” the level-headed lieutenant reminded him.

  “Yes, of course. I’m reenabling deck gun fire control now," Ben replied, fighting back tears. He punched in the security code Thea had him memorize, and the blinking magenta lights turned off and the lighting returned to normal. “Give those bastards hell,” Ben said through gritted teeth.

  On the Bridge, the remaining officers scrambled to the fire control station and began targeting the armada sitting well within the Dals’ range of fire.

  ****

  “Can’t any of you idiots hit that damn ship?!” Cortez roared as the silver ships bobbed and weaved in and around his armada, the occasional shots it was able to get off doing significant damage. It had already destroyed two of his ships, and crippled several others, making him furious, and simultaneously desire to possess it more.

  The Victoria Gloriosa fired a full broadside as the silver ship shot past, only nding a couple of gncing shots. The one shot it returned tore straight through the side of the Victoria Gloriosa, piercing through several decks. The ship shuddered, and Cortez grabbed the back of the pilot’s seat so as not to be thrown off his feet.

  He watched the dispy as the silver ship disappeared amongst his fleet. At this rate, it was going to cost him half of his fleet to bring down that ship. It had become his white whale and he would possess it, even if cost him everything.

  “Oh shit,” one of Cortez’s bridge crew cursed. “Commander, the Dals’ deck guns are powering up," Cortez, watched in arm as row after row of the defensive weaponry pivoted for firing solutions on the surrounding fleet. His fleet was in point-bnk range of the Titan deck guns, and the city-sized Dals had enough of them to pulverize a fleet twice the size of his. He did the quick math and realized the day was lost.

  “God Damn that useless fucking Compaan!”, he cursed angrily. “Disengage and make for the nearest open spot so we can jump out of here. NOW!” Cortez stormed to his command chair and dropped into it heavily. “I’m going to kill everyone Compaan ever knew!”

  “Should I broadcast a retreat to the fleet, Commander?” one of his bridge crew asked.

  “No. They will provide us cover for ours," Cortez said, cooly. He had poured every resource he had avaible into this operation. The losses here would set him back decades. As the Victoria Gloriosa passed through the fleet to withdraw, he contempted how weak his organization would be after this debacle. Every two-bit warlord for light years around would be circling like vultures, picking off pieces of his hard-won empire until he had nothing left. He slumped in his seat, head in his hands.

  ****

  The Nestia shook as she took a direct torpedo strike from a destroyer. June clung to the control console until the shaking stopped. “Inta, damage report?” she asked, as she threw the Nestia into a tight half loop around the offending destroyer, getting off two successive shots, and watched as their maneuvering thrusters stopped firing and the ship went dark.

  “Hull breach on deck eight. Atmo shielding is holding. No major damage otherwise,” Inta reported. “June, look!” Inta excimed. On the dispy, June watched the Dals deck guns swing outward taking aim at the pirate fleet.

  “Inta, inform Thea that the Dals defenses are active and to stay clear of the rger ships,” June said decisively.

  Thea lined up behind a pirate fighter, and fired two purple ser bolts in quick succession, blowing it to pieces. “Mmm. If all our pilots had one of these, we’d have already wiped them out,” Thea thought to herself. With incredible maneuverability, she pulled hard to the right, and easily got on another fighter’s six, and lined up her shot.

  “Thea,” Inta’s voice rang out in the pod. “The Dals guns are active. Tell the Defenders to stay clear of the big ships.”

  A wide smile spread across Thea’s face, knowing that Ben had successfully re-engaged the Dals controls. “Will do," she replied to Inta. Clicking on her helmet comms, “All Defenders, keep clear of the pirate armada. The Dals will take care of them.”

  A brief round of cheers came back across her helmet comms from the other pilots but quickly subsided as they continued engaging the enemy fighters.

  The pirate armada was singurly focused on the elusive silver wasp of a ship, continually stinging them as it danced around their streams of ser and torpedo fire. Therefore it came as a complete shock to the pirate captains commanding their ships when the Dals batteries opened fire.

  A hail of heavy ser bolts struck the closest ships, obliterating the smaller corvettes, and crippling the rger vessels in a withering first salvo. Panicked and without coordination from Cortez, the unified pirate armada fell apart. Some, already board to board with the Dals, fired broadsides hoping to disable the guns before they themselves were destroyed. Some conveniently maneuvering on the fleet's outer periphery, turned and ran, hoping to put enough distance between them and the Dals to enable them to jump to FTL before being fired upon.

  The pirate’s sers crashed against the now active shields of the Dals, inflicting only superficial damage, while the Titan cannons of the Dals, pummeled and shattered their shields. One of the destroyers, already weakened by strikes from the Nestia, had already lost its shields and the incoming fire tore into its hull, exposing several decks to the vacuum of space. It stopped firing and hung there motionless, the entirety of its crew dead.

  “Yeah!” June whooped, as the Dals opened fire on the armada. Now hunted turned hunter, June swung the Nestia around to chase down the disorganized and fleeing pirates.

  “June, nine o’clock. The ship that blew open the Maintenance hangar, it’s getting away!” Inta alerted her.

  “I don’t think so,” June said grimly and punched the throttle, giving chase.

  ****

  “One minute till we’re clear and can jump, Commander," The pilot of the Victoria Gloriosa reported.

  “Ramp up the power core and jump as soon as we’re clear,” Cortez ordered. As he fled, he watched the battle continue behind them, the Dals methodically dismantling the armada it had taken him nearly a lifetime to build.

  His heart sank as he noticed the silver ship had disengaged from the battle and was hot on their tail. “Fire all rear-facing torpedoes and sers!” He barked, his voice cracked, no longer steady and sure. “We need to hold it off!”

  The silver ship easily dodged their fire and rapidly closed the distance. “Twenty seconds until we’re clear to jump," The pilot called nervously. “Ten seconds. Five. Four. Three. Two. One. Engage!”

  Just as the FTL engines ramped, about to unch them to safety, a single purple bolt nced out from their silver pursuer, striking their rear. The automated failsafes of their FTL drive didn’t have time to engage and fired anyways, unching the Victoria Gloriosa into FTL and safety.

  Cortez let his head fall back in his command chair and rexed, as they made good their escape. His ease didn’t st long as the ship started to tremble and shake. “Report! What’s going on?”

  “We took a hit to the FTL control system! The Core is running away, I can’t shut it down!” Cortez’s command crew scrabbled at their controls trying anything they could think of, but it was no use. The shaking intensified, and his crew was thrown from their seats as their consoles tore loose in a shower of sparks and fire. Cortez clung desperately to his command chair as the Victoria Gloriosa shook herself apart.

  The lights went out and the emergency lighting came on, as the violent shaking increased. Cortez snarled, hate burning a hole in his gut, the image of the silver ship was the st thing in his mind as the Victoria Gloriosa’s FTL core exploded, leaving wreckage thinly spread over several lightyears of empty space.

  ****

  “Damn! They got away,” June cursed already wheeling the Nestia around to rejoin the battle for the Dals.

  “Nope, I don’t think so. Long-range sensors just detected a massive explosion along their escape vector, and I’m no longer picking up signs of the FTL wake. That parting shot must have hit something important," Inta told June.

  “Good. We’ve got to get back, though. With their leader gone and the Dals’ guns active, it won’t take long for the rest of them to do the math and try to flee,” June stated, “We’ll need to keep them from getting away. We can’t let them do this to anyone ever again.”

  Just as June had predicted, as the Dals heavy guns pummelled the now headless fleet, one by one, they began to turn and flee. Like a prowling wolf, as soon as a ship separated from the armada, the Nestia was on them and now that the entire fleet wasn’t firing on them, June could focus less on evasive maneuvers and more on weapons fire.

  Purple ser fire nced out from the silver ship, unchecked by the pirate ship’s shields, and tore into their hull, carving long deep gashes into them.

  “Try not to hit their power core,” Inta warned, “an explosion this close could hit the Dals or their fighters.” One more shot into their mid-section and the fleeing ship’s lights went dark and drifted slowly away on their st vector.

  The ser fire from the Dals relentlessly hammered the pirate fleet. A cruiser turned to run, exposing their engines to the Dals’ withering fire, and was quickly disabled as their shields were overwhelmed and their engines were obliterated.

  The pirate attack fighters, no longer receiving support from their armada, saw the writing on the wall and abandoned the fight, fleeing in every direction.

  Thea seeing the tide of the fight turn, called out over her Dals comms, “Dals Control, patch me through on all broadcast channels.”

  “Aye, Commander,” came the reply from the Dals. “Channel open, Commander.”

  “Attention all attackers of the Dals, among the armada and aboard the ferry; you have lost. You have one minute to completely surrender, power down your systems, and y down your arms. Those who do not surrender will be destroyed.”

  Thea and the Defender pilots continued to chase down active pirate fighters as the Dals hammered the dwindling armada, waiting to see how many if any would indeed surrender.

  “Commander, watch out! That corvette is powering up its FTL core!” Came a warning from Dals control. The captain of a corvette, boxed in by the Nestia and the scathing ser fire from the Dals, decided to risk an attempt to jump to FTL while it was in between a badly damaged carrier and a frigate. It jumped, and being that close to the rge mass of the two ships, caused the FTL wake to shred the two adjacent ships, simultaneously breaching both their power cores. They exploded violently sending debris hurtling into neighboring ships.

  The corvette faired no better, the FTL wake reflected off the mass of the two ships on either side of the the corvette, and the corvette was instantly atomized, firing retivistic debris along their intended vector of escape.

  A few ships in the armada powered down their weapons, and transmitted their surrender, but most of the pirates recognized that a fair trial still meant their death by execution for piracy, so chose to fight to the death.

  It did not take long for the combined firepower of the Dals’ heavy deck guns and the Nestia pying goalie, to cut down the remaining ships. Soon, only the small fraction of the pirate fleet that had surrendered, remained.

  “Dals, this is Commander Cirrilo. It’s over. We’d like to come home," Thea called over her comms.

  “All Defenders, we’ve made room for you in Maintenance Bay ‘A’,” called out Dals Control. “Come on home.”

  ****

  Inta leaned into Artona, the fur of her side warm and soft over the iron-hard muscle beneath. Artona rubbed the silver girl’s back, providing what comfort she could.

  They sat for a long while on the bench as the armed passengers and Dals security coming in from other parts of the ship secured the perimeter of the Concourse. Artona and Inta watched silently as spouses separated by the pirates, ran into each other’s arms sobbing with relief that the other survived.

  Soon, medics were streaming into the area carrying the wounded to the infirmary, where they soon reached capacity, and began setting up cots out in front, for the influx they knew would arrive. Artona was startled when the silver girl in her arms spoke.

  “Do you have family on board?” Inta asked.

  Artona paused, the ache in her heart still raw. “I did. They were killed in the fighting; It was a good death," she responded. She looked down at the silver girl and knew she was worried about her family. “I’m sure that your family’s okay.”

  “Will is the only one who isn’t responding to me, but he’s coming this way,” Inta said, her voice small. “I can feel that he’s hurt, but alive. He’ll be here in a moment," Inta was visibly shaken by what his silence might mean. The steady stream of medics filled the waiting cots with the wounded, as the team from the clinic scrambled to find more beds.

  Inta perked up her head. “He’s here," she said and Artona stood when she did and followed her into the crowd. The injuries suffered by the passengers and crew ranged from broken bones to gaping chest wounds, and the medics quickly triaged the influx tending to the most severely wounded. Then she spotted four bedraggled security officers with weapons from the Nestia slung over their backs. They were rushing towards the clinic carrying a litter with a wounded man, covered in blood.

  “Will!” Inta screamed and ran to intercept them, Artona rushing to follow. Inta caught up to the officers bearing Will’s litter and cpped her hand over her mouth in horror. Will’s eyes were closed, his face a deathly gray, his shirt had been cut off him, and wide bandages had been wrapped around his midsection just below his ribs. They were soaked in blood, which continued to drip through and wet the litter on which they carried him.

  “Out of the way,” one of the officers said gruffly to Inta, “This man needs surgery immediately! It’s a miracle he’s still alive at all!”

  “He doesn’t need surgery, HE. NEEDS. ME!”, Inta’s voice boomed, startling the officers and those standing nearby. “Put him down here," she commanded, indicating an empty cot nearby. At a loss for words, the officers did so.

  Inta carefully peeled back the bandages around Will’s midsection, revealing the gaping wound, slightly charred around the edges. The underside of his ribs, internal organs, and intestines were all visible and badly mangled. Her breath hitched at the sight of his grievous injury, but she didn’t hesitate and immediately stuck a hand into the blood pooling in the crater in his gut.

  She closed her eyes, and silver flowed out of her hand, pushing out the pooled blood, until it filled the wound. Her eyelids snapped open and the officers covered their faces as bright blue light shone in her eyes. Electric discharge traveled down her arms and into the precursor fluid until sparks flew off it as well.

  Artona stood just behind her, eyes wide, as she watched the edges of destroyed flesh around the silver begin to regenerate, and push the silver fluid out of the wound, dribbling down his side, and spilling onto the floor.

  In a matter of minutes, the regenerated flesh sealed itself up, and Inta pulled her hand from Will’s stomach, leaving pink, tender flesh where once there was a gaping hole. Will’s bored breathing eased, and the blue sparks ceased. Inta’s knee went weak from the effort, and she wobbled while stumbling backward, but Artona caught her before she could fall.

  Regaining her bance after a few moments, Inta pushed away from Artona and rushed back to Will’s side, stroking his blood-matted hair. His eyes opened slightly. “Inta?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper.

  “I’m here, my love. Rest," she said, holding his face and weeping tears of relief. “. It's going to be all right.”

  Artona couldn’t believe what she had just witnessed. She stood beside the astonishing silver girl and id her hand on her silver shoulder. Inta turned her head and smiled at her, pcing her small silver hand on her rge fir-covered one. Artona couldn’t help but think that the Great Mother had pns for her yet.

  ****

  June smiled back at Inta and stepped through the docking seal joining one of the Dals’ cargo loading docks to the Nestia’s cargo hold, the only pce left where the Nestia, now full size could berth. The aftermath of the pirate attack was evident even here; stacked pallets of cargo had been tossed around when the Dals was forcefully dropped out of FTL, and bck marks scorched the walls from ser fire.

  As she entered the loading dock, the logistics crew raised a cheer and rushed to congratute and thank her. The Quartermaster pushed through the crowd and shook June’s hand. “Hell of a job, good work. Let me be the first to properly thank you. You saved a lot of lives today," he said, gratefully.

  “There were a lot of people who fought hard today, we were only a small part of it,” June said modestly.

  “My wife and I were in the Concourse when your friend and other passengers freed us. You were more than just a small part of it," he said, clutching her hand tight.

  June smiled and patted his hand. “I need to go find the rest of my family," she finally said, releasing his grip.

  “Of Course!” the Quartermaster responded, and immediately sprang ahead of her, “Clear the way, let her through!” He yelled, parting the crowd so she could head to the Concourse. She was stopped several times to accept people's praise and gratitude, and when she finally made it to the Concourse, June was shocked at the sight.

  The graceful gardens and promenades had been destroyed by the intense fighting, and all of the open space in front of the clinic had been filled with cots, converted to a makeshift infirmary. Hundreds of people loitered, either recuperating, being attended to, or waiting to be seen. Across the sea of patients being triaged, Ben, Thea, and Inta spotted June.

  Ben rushed through the crowd, Thea following close behind, and embraced June, grateful she was unhurt.

  “You were incredible out there,” Thea said as she hugged June.

  “So weren’t you! Those pods are something else, am I right?” June replied excitedly, hugging Thea back. Then she turned to Inta. “Where’s Will?” June asked, concerned.

  Inta’s smile dimmed slightly. “He’s here in the infirmary, recuperating. He gave us quite a scare.” Inta led the way through the sea of cots until they found Will lying comfortably, cleaned up, and covered in a light bnket.

  “Hey June,” Will said softly, still weak from his trauma. June rushed to his side and hugged him tightly. “Not so hard, I’m still a bit sore.” She released him and spped his shoulder.

  “Don’t ever scare us like that again, do you hear me!” she blurted, then her anger softened and she stroked his cheek.

  Standing behind Inta at Will’s bedside was a six-and-a-half-foot-tall Urarc woman, an imposing wall of furred muscle. “Hello, I’m Artona,” the bear-like woman said sheepishly.

  “Ah, hi Artona,” June replied, not sure what to make of her.

  “I’m just making sure that Inta’s going to be alright after the fight is all.” Artona, gestured with her head for June to step away from the others for a moment. They walked a few steps away so they could talk.

  “The fight in the Concourse took a lot out of the little silver girl," she eborated. “She saved my life; I owe it to her to make sure that she’s going to be okay.”

  “Inta’s made of tough stuff, I can’t imagine her getting hurt,” June said, less wary of Artona’s imposing figure.

  “Physically I’m sure. But something deeply disturbed her, and me too, if I’m being honest. For a moment, she had a look on her face…” Artona couldn’t articute exactly what she saw. “In any case, I need to do what I can to see that she’s safe.” June paused, gathering her words to recognize Artona’s concerns: “When a warrior returns from battle, not all scars born can be seen with the eyes.”

  June and Artona watched Inta for a moment as she joked and ughed with Ben, Thea, and Will. Even though she tried to put a brave face on and hide it, June could feel the hints of pain Inta was hiding from the others. She turned back to Artona.

  “And what about you? Are you traveling with anyone?” The immediate look of pain and regret on Artona’s fierce-looking face said everything. June’s heart wrenched at the look on her face, and pulled the enormous woman into a hug, even though she couldn’t get her arms around her waist. “Oh honey, I’m so sorry…” June held her tight and buried her face in her fur. Artona wrapped her rge arms around June, accepting the soce given.

  With a tear in her eye, June looked up into Artona’s face without releasing her. “You can stay with us for a while if you want, while you sort things out. No one should be alone after losing someone,” June offered.

  “Th- thank you,” Artona replied, trying and failing to keep her emotions in check. She sniffed, then straightened her spine. “Besides, I am honor-bound to stay by her side until the time I can repay my debt.”

  “I think Inta would like that,” June said, and Artona smiled.

  ****

  Commander Thea Cirrilo sat in a folding chair in the hallway outside one of the Dals conference rooms that had been converted to offices for the Inter-Pnetary Ferry Services incident investigation team. The two weeks following the pirate attack had been a whirlwind of activity and stress for her. With the Captain gone, she had to be the one responsible for managing the Dals’ response to the aftermath of the crisis.

  She had managed the sweep of the entirety of the ship, stem to stern clearing out any pirates who thought they might be able to hide and slip the grasp of justice, handled the surrendered prisoners, and began repairs when the Centrailia fleet finally arrived in response to their SOS. But most importantly, she personally consoled as many families who lost loved ones as possible, knowing that even if she couldn’t do much to salve their pain, it was important that they knew that the Ferry Service would be there to help them during their time of need.

  Several fleet Admirals made up the incident investigation team, and she was expecting to be grilled on any failings that they found in the lead-up and handling of the crisis. The door opened to the conference room, and an assistant stepped out into the hallway. “Commander, they will see you now," she said, holding the door open for her.

  Thea sighed, resigned to her fate, and tugged down her jacket, straightening her dress uniform as she stood. “Thank you," she said to the assistant and entered the conference room. The five admirals were seated behind a long table with stacks of notes and tablets full of reports, many of which she had filed herself, strewn across the table. On the opposite side of the table was a single chair, facing them.

  “Please sit,” Admiral Bennet said, seated at the center of the table, gesturing to the empty seat across from her.

  Thea sat, spine straight, and held her breath waiting to be dressed down.

  “This body has reviewed all the avaible data regarding the incident and your performance before, during, and after the crisis.” Admiral Wherther, seated to Bennet’s left, began as he picked up a tablet from the table and read out loud.

  “During this one voyage, several deficiencies have been recorded. Known criminals were able to slip through security screening and board the ferry. You somehow navigated three days off course in the middle of a shipwide epidemic, the cause of which has yet to be found. There were not one, but two attempts on the lives and property of passengers entrusted to your care, and you allowed passengers to take up arms and put themselves in harm's way in defense of this ferry.” Wherther set the tablet down and the assembled Admirals were silent for a moment.

  Bennet cleared her throat and then smiled. “And you met each and every one of these challenges with grit and determination, all with the safety and security of the ferry and passengers entrusted into your care at the forefront of your intentions.”

  Thea stared at the Admirals in confusion. Was this how demotions usually worked?

  “We have found you to be an exempry officer, going above and beyond the call of duty in the face of extreme danger. Your actions directly saved thousands of lives, and the compassion you dispyed for the affected passengers reflects well on your character as an officer and as a person.

  It is the decision of this board to recommend you for promotion, and have already filed a commendation for your acts of bravery and selflessness. Congratutions, Captain Cirrilo.”

  The assembled admirals and their support staff present appuded, as Admiral Bennet rose from her seat, walked around the table, and approached Thea. She was stunned as the Admiral pinned the pip to her colr and shook her hand vigorously. “Come, walk with me. Let’s go get a drink,” The Admiral said, escorting Thea into the hallway.

  Not knowing what to say, Thea tread silently beside Bennet as they walked down to the Officer’s lounge. “That was probably not what you were expecting, right Captain?” the Admiral understated.

  “If I’m being honest Ma’am, no, not really,” Thea replied. They walked into the lounge and when they got to the bar, the Admiral ordered drinks. “Two gsses of the best scotch you’ve got, for the Captain here,” Bennet said to the barkeep. He plunked down two gsses, dropped in ice cubes, and poured a generous shot in each. “Congratutions, Captain," he said with a smile.

  “Thanks,” Thea said taking a sip, grimacing as the drink burned as it went down, warming her belly.

  “You know, Cirrilo, I’ve seen officers with decades more experience completely fall apart when faced with simir situations,” the admiral said, taking a sip of her drink. “Officers with your kind of spunk are few and far between and are sorely needed. I want you to know that I personally want to thank you for everything you’ve done aboard the Dals.

  But like I said, dealing with a crisis like this takes its toll. I’ve reviewed your service record; it doesn’t seem like you take much R&R, not particurly healthy, in my opinion.” She took another sip. “The Dals will need repairs, and was due for a refit anyways, so while she’s in dry dock, I’m ordering you to take some time off to deal with everything. The Dals is nearly ready for FTL flight again, and now that most of the passengers have already been brought to Centrailia station, a temporary flight crew is on their way to bring her in.”

  Thea was about to object, but Bennet cut her off. “This is not a statement of your command effectiveness, but rather an assurance for the fleet that you remain effective. You have served well, and I’m proud of you. Find somepce nice to unwind, and when you and the Dals are ready, I will expect you to come back, as her Captain.”

  “Thank you, Ma’am. I appreciate the vote of confidence. I won’t let you down,” Thea said, beaming.

  “I know you won’t. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have other matters I need to attend to. Good luck, Captain.” With that, Bennet left Thea to finish her drink alone.

  ‘Rest and Rexation’, the admiral said. Thea despised both, admitting that you required either showed how weak you were. But orders are orders, and the Dals would be out of action for several months at least.

  Thea finished her drink and signaled the bartender for another. Drink refreshed, she continued her musing. Other than the Dals, she had no proper home to return to, and the pointless frivolity of spa resorts chaffed her work ethic in the worst possible way. She went to pay for her drinks, and the barkeep told her that all drinks were on the house for one of the ‘heroes of the Dals’. She thanked him politely and decided a walk would help clear her mind.

  Laser bst scorch marks still scored the walls but loose debris had been cleared. The damage to the Dals was extensive and only the main systems were being repaired before arriving at dry dock. She wandered through the nearly deserted Concourse, now cleaned up, but its condition still a far cry from its previous beauty.

  Thea walked past the Rainbow Starlight Lounge and paused. Inside Inta and three other people were at the bar chatting, so she went inside.

  “Thea! Come and join us for a drink!” Inta called out to her as soon as she saw her enter.

  “What’ll ya have, Commander?” Joe asked her from behind the bar, then noticing the extra pip on her colr, “Or should I say, Captain? Congratutions! You sure as hell earned it.”

  “I’ll have a vodka tonic, and thank you,” Thea replied. Joe quickly mixed up her drink and slid it over to her. “You know, I would have expected most everyone to have taken one of the naval transports to Centrailia by now," she commented at the three of them behind the bar.

  “We’re scheduled for the next one out,” Del answered, “But we wanted to say goodbye to the old girl one st time before we did," she said, gesturing to the lounge. “After all, we have a lot of good memories of this pce.”

  “I’ll say,” Trixie chimed in, a mischievous look in her eyes. “After all this is the pce where we met and it seems right to say ‘so long’ properly.”

  They chatted about their pns while they sipped their drinks. The thruple intended to head to Centrailia and rex a bit. They weren’t sure if they were going to stick around Centrailia and set up shop or wait for the Dals refit to be complete and retake their posts at the lounge. They would decide that when the time came.

  “Well, it’s about time that we close up and get going, or we’ll be te for that transport,” Del said, looking at the time. “I wish you and Inta good fortune where ever you end up.” Then she came around the bar, shook Thea’s hand, congratuted her again on her promotion, then gave Inta a big hug. “Take care of yourself, Darlin’.”

  “I will. The same goes for you three," Inta said, pulling Trixie and Joe into a hug as they came around the bar too. Thea smiled at the ease with which Inta expressed herself and inwardly sighed. Honest expressions of emotion always made her feel awkward, half the reason for her tough and cold facade.

  Inta and Thea wished them well one st time, then left the lounge as the trio turned off the lights and locked up one st time. “Do you mind if I walk with you for a bit?” Thea asked Inta.

  “Of course not. I’d be gd for the company. We’re about ready to leave, too. I’m sure everyone would love the chance to congratute you and say their goodbyes.”

  “Thanks,” Thea replied. They walked down the Concourse in silence, heading to the loading docks where the Nestia was still docked. As they walked they passed a dozen closed-up shops and boutiques, and then Inta paused at the darkened bookstore. The door had been left unlocked and slightly ajar, so Inta pushed it open and went inside. There were still books scattered on the floor from when the pirates had rampaged through, so Inta gathered a few up in her arms and carried them to the counter.

  Setting them down, she noticed Gary’s dog-eared copy of ‘Don Quixote’ sitting in front of his usual spot behind the counter. Inta picked up the old book and turned to Thea. “He had a fascination with all literature from Old Earth," she said with a sad smile. “He told me he liked to read this one once every year or two. But now…” Inta became emotional at the thought of the loss of the kindly old bookstore keeper and wept.

  Thea went over to hold the trembling silver girl, as she sobbed into her shoulder. She held her for a while until her tears spent themselves. Sniffling, Inta asked, “Do you think it’s alright if I keep this, to remember him by?”

  “Of course, Inta. I’m sure he would have wanted you to have it," Thea replied gently.

  Inta smiled softly up into Thea’s face. “Thank you. Not just for this, but everything.”

  Thea felt a rush of conflicting emotions. In equal measure, she wanted to run and avoid opening herself to such vulnerability, and at the same time felt the need to embrace it. Instead of doing either, she simply said, “You’re welcome, Inta.”

  They stood in the darkened bookstore for a few more minutes, and then Inta led the way to the door. She closed the door and rested her palm on the doorframe. “Goodbye, Gary. And thanks for everything.”

  As they headed to the lifts, they came across a group of passengers hurrying to the tram to the Dals hangars. One couple, a fiery redhead and her horned, green-skinned companion spotted Inta from across the distance.

  “Inta!” They shouted in unison then rushed over and embraced her.

  “Amelia, Jyrra, I’m so happy to see you!” Inta replied through their smothering hug. “You seem okay; were you hurt during the attack?”

  Jyrra shifted on her feet, looking a little uncomfortable. “Aside from being scared out of our minds, we managed to get through it unscathed. Though the thought of how close we were to being sold off as sves still gives me nightmares.”

  “But fortunately we have each other, and we help each other cope,” Amelia said, wrapping her arm around Jyrra’s waist. “It made us realize how fragile some things are, and what is really important," she said, looking lovingly into Jyrra’s eyes. “That’s why when Jyrra proposed, I said yes.” They both smiled and squeezed the other tight.

  “Oh my word, that’s fantastic! I’m so happy for you!” Inta said, then hugged them both. They held each other for a few moments, then Inta pulled back and asked hesitantly, “What about the others? Have you seen them since…”

  “Everyone’s fine,” Jyrra cut Inta off. “They left on earlier transports. We had brunch on the st day they were aboard before the shops shut down. Sujia’s husband got a nasty-looking bck eye but otherwise was unhurt. They’re still heading to their conference. Zoraya decided to go with the sisters to their grandmother’s pce; I think the three of them are becoming something, and Mary said she needed another cruise to unwind from this one.”

  Inta breathed a sigh of relief knowing that her book club friends were okay.

  “Inta, I want you to know how special the time with the book club was, to all of us. It will be something we carry with us for the rest of our lives. Thank you for being you,” Jyrra said, tears building in the corner of her eyes. “I’m going to miss you.”

  They hugged for a while longer, and then the tram doors opened and people started boarding. “We gotta go, bye Inta, take care!” Amelia said over her shoulder as she and Jyrra rushed to catch the tram before it left without them.

  Smiling, Inta and Thea continued in silence, and while they were waiting for the rge lift that would bring them down to the loading docks, Inta slipped her small silver hand into Thea’s.

  Thea looked down at the silver fingers entwined with hers and surprised herself when she discovered that she didn’t want to let go.

  They rode the lift down, and the doors opened to a flurry of activity. The logistics team was busy moving and securing freight in preparation for the Dals’ return flight to Centrailia. Inta and Thea walked close to the walls allowing the busy forktrucks zipping back and forth room to work. When they finally made it to the rge cargo bay door that the Nestia was berthed at, they found Will, Ben, and De’noke chatting animatedly, while Artona rested her rge frame against a wall nearby, eyes darting this way and that, alert for danger.

  Artona noticed Inta and Thea first, growled low to herself, and marched past the others to meet them. “Now how am I supposed to protect you when you don’t let me know when you leave the ship?” She grumbled to Inta.

  “But Artona, I am on the ship. Right over there,” Inta said pointing to the open hangar door, and another Inta set down a heavy crate and waved back from the distance.

  “Arg. You’re impossible,” Artona huffed, then resumed her self-imposed post, leaning watchfully against the wall.

  “Thea!” Ben excimed and rushed over. “I’m gd you stopped by. I was hoping to see you one st time before we shoved off.” He hugged Thea, and she returned it, enjoying the warm embrace.

  Ben released her, then asked, “So what are you going to do while the Dals is in dry dock? I don’t imagine the shipwrights will want you getting in the way while they work.”

  “Good question. I don’t know yet,” Thea answered truthfully. “I’ve been ordered to take some time off until the Dals is ready again, then I’ll come back as Captain.”

  “Wow! Captain Cirrilo, that has a nice ring to it,” Will said, impressed.

  “And how are you feeling?” Thea asked Will.

  “Two weeks of Inta’s ministrations and I’m almost back to one hundred percent," he said, with a slight blush.

  “Ministrations, huh?” Thea asked, poking a little fun.

  “Yeah, but she wouldn’t let me help De’noke and the Grove with their relocation to the Nestia, even though I keep telling her that I am well enough," he said in a pintive tone, looking at Inta.

  “No way. Strict rest until you’re fully healed. I don’t need you popping a seam or anything," Inta chided him in jest.

  Thea turned to De’noke. “So how are the new accommodations? Do they fit your needs?”

  “My goodness, they certainly do. Not to disparage the facilities provided by the Dals, but Inta has set up the Nestia perfectly for our needs. The Nestia can provide the ideal environment for the Grove to flourish. Every environmental variable is tightly controlled to our exact specifications. Once we’ve fully settled in, we pn to release the Seeds from their stasis and allow them to sprout. It’s a very exciting time for the Grove. How I miss having young ones underfoot.” De’noke’s glowing expression spoke volumes.

  “So how are you managing to accommodate the entire Grove for the Toparians? More 4-D trickery?” Thea asked Inta.

  “Nothing like that is needed this time. We’ve remodeled the cargo bay and a rge portion of the hangar bay and turned it into living quarters for the Grove. We only have one shuttle and a few pods, so we had lots of underutilized space. It worked out perfectly,” Inta said with pride.

  “Yes, once again, Inta has provided for the Grove in our time of need, which was yet another factor in the Grove’s decision to Bond with her. These are exciting times, indeed," De’noke said, with a glimmer in his eye as he gnced at the silver girl.

  “How are you going to be able to support such an operation? When you boarded the Dals, you barely had enough to purchase passage in the Maintenance bay," Thea asked, deeply curious.

  “Well, as it turns out,” June answered as she stepped out through the cargo bay doors, joining the conversation, “there was a sizable bounty on the Victoria Gloriosa, ‘Scourge of the Sector’. Once the Centrailia Navy confirmed its destruction, we received the half-million dolr reward. That should be enough for us to get by on for some time until we can figure out something.”

  “It seems you’re all set then. I’m happy for you," Thea said, not allowing her conflicted emotions to surface. “I still have a few things to attend to before I go on my sabbatical, so I’ll leave you all to it, but first let me say thanks for everything. I’m gd I met you all.” Before she could turn to leave, Ben, Will, and Inta jumped her and pulled her into a group hug, while the other watched, smiling.

  They released her, and smiling, she turned and went back to the lift, heading for her cabin. As she rode the lift, a dour mood struck her. What was she going to do? Where would she go? She continued to ponder these questions as she entered her cabin. She kept it sparsely furnished, almost spartan in its decor. Sterile. Lonely. Then it struck her; most of all she was lonely. And when she was with Ben, Will, and the others, she wasn’t. They accepted her, unflinchingly and without reservation.

  A smile crossed her face as she made up her mind. She threw her meager personal possessions into a duffle bag, then sprinted from her room. Running as fast as she could she hurried back to the lift, and when the doors opened to the loading dock, she broke into a sprint, nearly running into a forklift on her way.

  Ben and June were standing just inside the Nestia’s cargo bay doors while it was slowly closing when Ben spotted Thea sprinting hard for the door. He hit the controls and the door paused, and when Thea got there, in between panted breaths, she blurted out, “Can I come with you?”

  Without hesitation, they both stepped out and gave her a big hug. “Of course, you can. I was hoping you wanted to," Ben said, a rge grin pstered on his face. Then June and Ben led her inside where Inta was waiting, her enormous furry shadow standing nearby.

  “Welcome, Thea," Inta said, leading her up to the living quarters, as the cargo bay doors closed fully.