NASTRAGULL - Chapter 1

 

Bloody sweat poured down Alexa's face as she ducked the mercenary's blade. She kicked out toward his groin, but it wasn't there; instead she slipped on the blood-slick floor, a bright, sharp pain in her right ankle telling her she'd twisted it as she fell. She tried to crawl away, realizing that he was coming after her to press the advantage, bent on killing her or worse. His body-stink and heavy breathing warned her that he was much too close, so she reached quickly for her ace in the hole—or in the left leg holster, to be precise. She spun, kneeled, aimed, and pulled the blaster's trigger, grinning confidently.

Nothing happened.

In that instant, she realized that she was about to die. "Oh, shit," she hissed, still grinning stiffly, and saw the bastard grinning back at her; he understood her predicament, and was more than happy to exploit it. He kicked her hard in the face with one heavy black boot, sending her crashing into the bulkhead. Alexa spat out one of her front teeth, and blood oozed out between the fingers she instinctively put to her mouth; then her eyes rolled back, and she slumped to the deck. A harsh intake of breath resulted only in eye-watering pain as the cold air impacted the nerve in the broken tooth, but she betrayed nothing; she lay where she'd fallen, apparently helpless.

Alexa stubbornly refused to feel the pain; she was better than this. Instead of fear, her mind filled with anger: an anger that had been building, futilely, for the past ten years—from the very moment she'd been forced into piracy until now, when she might just finally die.

The mercenary grabbed her hair hard, and with surgical precision he made a small, deep cut on the side of her head. "Time to die, pirate," he grunted, "but not until I get me a souvenir or two." He yanked, and there was a ripping sound as he tore off part of her scalp, complete with several dreadlocks. Alexa screamed at top of her lungs as this new pain overwhelmed her.

The man was laughing now and shouting out loud, telling her in no uncertain terms what he would do to her. He swung her around, emitting a short victory cry, then forced her neck back and raised his knife for the final cut. For a just a second, he hesitated. The attractive little brunette was young, with a fine athletic body, a picture-perfect face, and dark golden skin. That gave him other ideas.

She knew it, too, and started struggling frantically. He ignored her as best he could and looked around for a more secluded area, where he could ravish her undisturbed. He started to pull her away from the bulkhead, and every time he looked at the little vixen he was all but blinded with lust. He moved his knife closer to her neck, hoping she would stop struggling.

Alexa spat out blood and fragments of her tooth, swearing and screaming, as if fighting desperately to survive—but she was craftier than that. She had more surprises hidden away, and a man who had to handle a hysterical woman didn't have time to pat her down for weapons. She saw from the corner of her eye a sudden reflection from his knife as it approached, and in one smooth motion she dove down, pulled out her own boot knife, and thrust the blade up and behind her, sticking the bastard in the gut. She pulled herself away from him even as his knife sliced into the side of her neck. She ignored the pain and the warm stream of blood dribbling down her neck; with all her strength, she shoved the knife deeper into his belly, twisting and turning it and jerking it around to inflict as much damage as possible.

His guts slipped out in a ropy red-gray tangle, his scream rising to a terrible pitch and then trailing off as his eyes went dull with shock and he crumpled, trying to hold his viscera in.  

Coup de grâce time. She jumped on top of the man, holding him down with her legs, and revealed a new surprise. She jerked her right elbow up and a foot-long blade, hidden in the seam and attached to a scabbard sewn into her battle fatigues, shot out from her sleeve like a giant switchblade. She cut the man's throat with the elbow blade even as she pulled the boot-knife from his belly.

She could feel the blood trickling down her neck as she got up, but decided she might as well continue the fight.

Alexa pushed aside a lock of hair and took a deep breath. One of the ship's passengers staggered around the corner, took one look at her, and instantly turned tail with a shriek. No surprise there. She knew she probably looked a fright, bloodied and bedraggled as she was. She knew from facing herself in the mirror that her eyes were those of a battle-worn veteran, far older than her 19 years, and her combat suit was ripped and singed. Add to that the bloody bald spot on the side of her head where the merc had ripped away his short-lived "trophy," and it was no surprise her looks scared people. Hard to believe she'd once been considered attractive. She leaned back against the cold bulkhead, catching her breath, and then slid down into a sitting position, her vision graying out for a second. When she came back to herself, she was looking at the dead man next to her. In one of his hands he still held part of her scalp. Snarling, she kicked the body sharply, then collected her scalp and tucked it under her waist belt. Her scalp would be no one's trophy but hers, dammit.

There was a crystal viewport a few feet away for the benefit of any passengers who happened to want to see what was going on in the void. Alexa levered herself to her feet, and hobbled up to it. She peered out through the foot-thick quartz and watched as the destroyer class vessel pressed the attack against the much larger transport cruiser, its missiles raising blooms of fire and destruction from the transport's hull, its X-ray lasers ablating away the ship's armor in massive clouds of metallic vapor as they poured fire into it.

Once the target had been softened up sufficiently, one of the destroyer's cargo bay doors irised opened and vomited forth hundreds of pressure-suited troops equipped with jetpacks, opening fire with handheld weapons as they closed the gap between the ships. The transport proved it wasn't quite helpless by picking off several of the troopers with its return fire, but most soon clanged down onto the hull of the transport and attached themselves to hatches, handholds, and other helpful protuberances. They soon broke through by means of tools and explosives, opening a half-dozen minor breaches in the ship's primary hull. Alexa gasped as she felt the pressure differential shift before the emergency bulkheads thudded shut, keeping the transport from depressurizing all at once. She hardly had time to catch her breath before the destroyer rammed the larger ship and attached itself with a massive cylindrical arm. That slammed her hard against the bulkhead opposite the viewport, and she went out like a light.

On the transport, yellow warning lamps were flashing, Klaxons were sounding, and the overhead lights flickered as smoke began to filter through the passageways, causing the passengers and crew to panic. They scrambled en masse for safety in the escape pods on the lower decks, as a small security detachment ran in the opposite direction, pushing their way through the crowd.

An explosion peeled back the transport's main hatch—which currently lay at the terminus of the destroyer's cylindrical connector—and hundreds of armed soldiers swarmed through, shooting and hacking their way through security personnel, passengers, and crew with equal ease. The attackers were led by an enormous figure dressed in a powered battle suit that gleamed gray in the flickering lights. In his hands were two massive particle-beam blasters, and attached to his forearms were several large blades—all of which he used to deadly effect as he sliced a bloody path through the crowd. His troops followed his example, and began to spread through the ship.

The leader pulled off his helmet and bellowed, "Don't bunch up," in a voice like thunder. Then he emitted a deep roar as he charged the room. He was over two meters tall and enormously broad; his bulging stomach was proof of his one weakness, food. His long black beard was matched in length by his hair, both reaching below his waist. His face was covered with hair and old scars. Foam and salvia poured from his mouth as he roared; and from his under jaw two pale fangs, one broken half-off, thrust out. Pure evil seeped from his eyes.

Pale yellow light pulsed through the wisps of smoke and vapor, making it difficult for Alexa to focus. She'd barely climbed back onto her feet (how many times was that so far today?) when a familiar voice cried out "Behind you!" A figure emerged from the gloom and discharged an energy weapon in her direction; Alexa ducked and glanced back in time to see a security goon topple, most of his head gone. "Thanks, Nina," she croaked.

Nina stopped long enough to help Alexa to her feet. She gave her a puzzled look that made it clear she'd noticed the bald spot on Alexa's head.                 

"You all right?"

"Had a little trouble." Alexa brushed dust and gray matter from her battle uniform, then quickly checked all the gizmos attached to her waist belt and combat vest. Once she realized her equipment and weapons were intact, she put her right hand on the bald spot and winced at the throbbing pain. "Little woozy, but I think I can handle it." 

Nina laughed in relief, and Alexa snarled back. Best friend or not, she didn't think this was a laughing matter, and she knew she looked like hell. Well, Nina didn't look much better. If anything, her battle fatigues were in worse shape than Alexa's—most of the right half was torn clean away, exposing the huge tattoo of two monstrous fighting beasts that covered most of the petite brunette's body. "Told you, you should cut your hair short like mine," Nina said. "Gives 'em less to grab onto."

"Yeah, yeah."

Nina jerked her head toward the fray. "C'mon, baldy, let's go!"

Alexa glanced from Nina to the dead man, and shouted back, "Where's the rest of the crew?"

Nina jerked her weapon up and fired past Alexa again; it was hard to tell if she'd gotten anything this time, because the smoke was turning the corridor into a yellow-tinged hell. "I dunno, but they better get here soon or we'll lose this prize! Who knew the bastards would put up this kind of resistance?"

There it was! Alexa snatched up her blaster from the interface of corridor and floor, checked the readouts for energy, and switched out the old magazine for a new one just in case. "Crap, if they keep it up there won't be much left to plunder," she muttered.

An explosion erupted far down the corridor, followed by shudder that all but knocked the two female pirates off their feet. That would be the second cylindrical arm breaching the transport.  A howling maelstrom rushed past them as air, smoke, and loose debris rushed out of the ship; then the foam sealant that had deployed when the ships collided hardened enough to seal the air in. Now that the smoke was more or less gone, Alexa noticed, from the corner of her eye, a hint of distant movement through the viewport as several people—passengers, probably—gasped out their last few seconds, twisting in the void.

Collateral damage.

"There's your bloody reinforcement," Alexa shouted over the fighting. For a second, she forgot about the ongoing melee as she caught her reflection on a large wall mirror, placed on a pillar as décor. She snarled; she looked worse that she thought. She kicked the dead man's head hard with her boot, but it didn’t make her feel much better.

They set off carefully toward the sounds of battle, their eyes trying to take in everything at once, blasters held at the ready. As they got closer to their comrades' position, Nina cursed long and hard, as only a pirate can. "The hairy idiot Captain is late as usual," she spat, gesturing towards the end of a hallway leading into one of the ballrooms. A voice from her wrist com confirmed Nina's comment.

Alexa gave Nina a tired smile and replied, "Don't let Zuzack hear you! You can only call him Captain because you're a pending crew member."

"I know. I know, my dear owner." Sounding very sarcastic, Nina gave Alexa a short bow.

"Don't call me that," Alexa warned. "I hate it, and you know it."

They ducked into a niche that, until recently, had apparently been an inset display case for some kind of ceramic art; it was just so much crushed powder now. As they caught their breath, the sounds of minor explosions and blaster fire ripped through the cramped space, accompanied by ragged shouts and screams from the injured or dying. The smoke was becoming dense again, hurting the eyes and making it almost impossible to tell friend from foe. Alexa knew from experience that some of the dead and injured on both sides of the battle would be the result of friendly fire accidents; but that was the fog of war for you. A strange stench spread throughout the ship; probably some kind of coolant, or possibly burning insulation. Probably the odors of blood and burning people were mixed in there, too.

Zuzack and his followers charged through the ship, herding several species of people ahead of them, shooting and cutting down anyone putting up resistance. The security goons and mercs were all but gone by now. There was little doubt who had the upper hand; the story was told by the corpses, fragmentary and whole, that littered the corridors. Very few wore the gray of the pirates' battle fatigues.

Still the magma rifles and blasters pounded away, taking out the last of the resistance. Small fires sprang up as volatiles took hits, and in a few cases even the metal burned; magma rifles weren't exactly subtle, precision weapons. They were made to destroy and kill in as little time as possible. The smoke grew thicker and, combined with the incessant honking of the Klaxons, made it almost impossible for anyone without the right imaging equipment (which of course Nina and Alexa didn't have) to know stem from stern. To make matters worse, the emergency sprinkler systems finally kicked in, dousing the women with water as they emerged from their alcove.

Cursing fluently, Alexa slogged back to the crystal viewport and pressed her face against its chilly surface, holding her breath against the smoke. The sprinklers were starting to put out the fire, so the smoke was dissipating, but it was being replaced with steam. Dammit, the port was fogging up. Rubbing the side of her hand against the quartz, she cleared it off enough to peer through into space. A few escape pods were vectoring away from the transport, only to be intercepted and captured by several small unmanned cutters, which were radio controlled by crewmembers inside the destroyers.

Nina joined her at the port. "Alexa, let's go. We gotta hurry, it's not over yet." She shot Alexa a concerned look.

Alexa stepped back, fingering her bald spot, still pissed at the mercenary she'd killed. She looked at her own ghostly reflection in the port until the steam fogged it over and finally replied. "Yeah, I know, it's just..." She grinned. "You know, I kicked the guy's head as hard as I could, and you wouldn't believe how much I hurt my foot..."

Nina was confused by her friend's remark. "It's just what, Alexa?" She laid her hand on her friend's arm, eyes narrowing with concern. "C'mon, now, we need to hurry or we'll lose some of our share. You know how the hairy bast...I mean, our Captain gets. He's gonna take all the good stuff for himself." She gently shoved Alexa toward the action, and once she was moving, they both started to run towards the fighting.

By the time they got there, there wasn't much resistance left. The two women moved through the ship with the rest of the pirates, collecting anything of value and gathering up prisoners. They brought their loot to one of the ship's largest rooms, the main ballroom. It was itself a work of art, decorated beautifully in gold and silver, offering the impression of a palace. Like most of the spaces inside the ship, the ballroom was more or less intact; the less damage there was to the ornate rooms, the less damage they'd have to repair later— and the more money the ship would bring when it was sold. Alexa and Nina marked their spoil with small patches that both kept in pouches hanging from their shoulders. When they were done, they hurried away to find more loot.

They avoided elevators, and soon found themselves approaching the living quarters for the first class passengers. Along the way, however, they ran into several surviving members of the security team.

Alexa fired her blaster a split-second after Nina opened fire with hers. The blasts cut down three of the enemy soldiers. After a short firefight, the rest of them took off toward an elevator. Alexa motioned to Nina for her to ignore them, and then gestured towards one of the VIP hatches next to her. Alexa positioned herself with her back next to the hatch, while Nina blew the lock and forced it open. Alexa tossed in a concussion grenade; and once its blast had shaken the walls, they jumped into the exclusive suite with their weapons held ready.

Someone shouted out desperately, "Please, don't kill us!"

There were seven of them, all civilians: a well-dressed man, woman, and boy, and four others, probably their servants. They were down on their knees, trembling, with their hands held high in surrender. There was naked fear in their eyes, something Alexa and Nina were used to. Alexa felt for the frightened passengers, but she hid her own personal feelings behind a cold mask, as Nina did. It was something they both had to do in order to survive in the situation they found themselves in. So neither one of the girls' eyes displayed any emotion or mercy, only hard, cold ice.

The civilian woman covered her face with her hands, weeping openly, collapsing in a trembling ball onto the floor. Covering them with her weapon, Alexa motioned to Nina, who produced several tag collars from a pouch and quickly moved toward the group.

"Spare us, please," the man said, "My name is Af De'Lac. I am a colonial governor from the Florencia Federation."

"Shut up, you annoying toad," Nina said harshly. She locked a collar about the man's neck.

"Don't do this," the man cried, his voice sounding more desperate by the second. "I can make you wealthy. I'm worth millions of Galactic credits. Leave us alone...help us, and you will be set up for life."

"Don't bother Master," one of the servants said coldly. He showed no sign of fear, and stood up in defiance when Nina reached out towards him with a collar. Alexa aimed and fired one round at the man, separating his head from his neck. The head bounced off the ceiling and bulkhead, hitting Nina on her head.

"Watch it, bitch, that really hurt," Nina complained, rubbing her forehead. Alexa only rolled her eyes and gestured for Nina to hurry.

"I beg of you," the Governor pleaded. "Spare me and my wife; you can have our servants..." For a moment there was an eerie silence in the room. Governor Af De'Lac looked around and then continued, "And my son."

Alexa looked at the kneeling man in disbelief, and a sudden anger washed over her. Nina noticed her friend's reaction and stepped between them. "Alexa, let it go, we need them."

"Bullshit!" Alexa whispered threateningly. "That one hit too close to home. Step aside, Nina."

The Governor's wife had stopped crying when she heard what her husband had said, and looked at him now in disbelief. A loud argument erupted as she let her husband know in no uncertain terms what she thought of his base cowardice. Their son's eyeballs seemed ready to pop out from their sockets.

The Governor seemed to shrink down into the floor. "Don't hurt me, don't hurt me!" he wailed. "Take my wife too!"

"I said, shut up."

Nina kicked the man hard in the face, causing a stream of blood to jet from his nose. That shut him up: his eyes rolled back, and he slumped to the floor unconscious. The boy cried out, and the woman screamed and wept even louder. Nina never took her eyes off Alexa, and didn't stop staring until she had calmed down. She glanced threateningly towards the rest of the prisoners. "You shut up too, or you get worse."

Alexa stood there watching the prisoners with professional detachment, letting Nina affix the slave collars to the rest of them one at a time. The servants didn't appear discomfited—they were probably used to being chattel—but the boy and woman looked as if they might faint when the locks clicked home. When Nina was finished, she nodded to Alexa, who activated the collars from her wrist computer. Each of the five hostages who were still awake immediately passed out.

"Should have done that right away," Alexa mumbled.

The two young pirates proceeded down the long corridor, capturing fifteen more VIP prisoners and about twice as many servants. When they returned to the first suite, they noticed a small group of male pirates attempting to remove their slave collars. Nina shouted, "What the hell are you doing, you bastards?"

She and Alexa knew exactly what was happening. Stealing from each other was the worst thing any pirate could ever do, but it happened all the time. Nina glanced at Alexa, who gave her a hard look back. Even though the two were still teenagers, their looks could have turned a blue-white star to ice.

A small, ugly pirate with large flapping ears turned around with an angry grimace on his face and shouted back, "Mind you own business, bitch, and we'll mind ours." His comment was supported by laughter from the other four pirates with him.

Nina tilted her head and looked at the pirate questioningly, then shot him in the face. The head exploded over his friends, who only stood there staring, stunned from shock. Alexa raised her own gun and fired—but nothing happened. Cursing, she dropped it immediately and yanked a small cord on her sleeve, sending one of her elbow blades flying into the group of claim-jumpers. It hit one in the gut, and he went down immediately.

One of the pirates leaped forward before Nina could react and slashed at her gun hand with a machete, sending pieces of two fingers flying. Nina screeched and dropped the gun, then grabbed her injured hand, looking more angry than upset. Alexa dived onto one of the pirates and bit down hard on his throat.

A high-pitched squeal overrode the sound of the fray, drilling into the eardrums of the battling pirates. They all stopped fighting immediately and looked toward the hatch, rooted to the deck in fear. In the doorway stood a huge man, a boson's pipe in his mouth: Zuzack, the Captain. "What's going on here?" he demanded.

Nina held onto her bleeding hand and attempted to stand at attention while giving a brief report. Alexa spat out part of an Adam's apple and wiped a sleeve across her bloody mouth. Before Nina could get more than a few words into her explanation, Alexa blurted out, "We were protecting our investment, Captain! These prisoners have our collars, and Lebba and his friends attempted to remove them, sir!"

Zuzack looked suspiciously at Alexa, and then at Nina, who nodded vigorously. He turned cold eyes to the surviving group of male pirates, now pared down to two. "Is this true?"                 

The men shifted, uncomfortable. The Captain walked up to one of them, then glanced down to where a tool set lay on the floor, next to one of the prisoners. It was clearly marked with Lebba's sigil. Zuzack smiled at the pirates and said, "Weapons, please."

Lebba and his surviving helper, sweating profusely, meekly handed over their various guns and blades to their Captain, who stalked over to where the girls stood, nodded, and said to Alexa, "Carry on, my dear."

Nina and Alexa walked up to the last two pirates and cut them down with their own knives. Neither dared resist; they died helpless, staring at their Captain with horror.

The Captain smiled like a proud father at the two young girls. "Ah, I should have known that the two of you would have gone for the VIP section, while the rest of the idiots went to the dock and the cargo hold to make their claims! Now get back to work. There's much more that needs to be done."

He gave each of the girls a hard slap on their buttocks. Alexa and Nina saluted their Captain as he left the stateroom ahead of them. They struggled past a clutter of Zuzack's personal bodyguards and staff officers, most of whom smiled approvingly at the girls. Some of the older pirates even made some positive remarks about taking care of thieves.

When they were gone, an officer who looked like a skinny, furless rat with an unnaturally large nose walked up to Zuzack and reported, "Captain, the ship is under our control. Major Grotech also reports that we can fly this ship with no problem. The Captain apparently surrendered at the bridge."

"Good! Have all prisoners assembled in the main ballroom; the ones in the coolers can remain with the ship. Then have a prize crew take command and follow us later. By the way, I would like a word with you in private, Hughes." Zuzack motioned to his guards and other officers to remove the unconscious prisoners in the suite and then to give him the room. When they were alone, he turned to Hughes and said casually, "My friend, next time we ram a ship, you'd better have the shield coordinates right."

Hughes opened his mouth as if to say something, then intelligently thought better of it when he saw the way the Captain was looking at him. He started to tremble, but the Captain only motioned for him to continue.

"Captain. Sir. Umm, to calculate the velocity and match trajectory while closing in on a ship while both ships are firing is extremely hazardous and difficult." Voice wavering slightly, Hughes said, "Again, sir, I must recommend that we stop ramming our intended targets and go back to the old method, where we used infiltrators and hijacked the ships. The slightest error when calibrating the shields on a target ship while traveling at superluminal speeds..."

Zuzack gave his lieutenant a warning look. "Whatever, Mr. Hughes. We will stick to the ramming-and-boarding method. All that infiltration crap takes too long, and time is something we don't have." He walked over to a large crystal viewport on the far wall of the suite and looked out into space and down at his own ship, the Bitch. "This tour has taken too much time, and we must hurry back to my brother—or there will be hell to pay." Oddly enough, a tear trickled down Zuzack's hairy dark face when he mentioned his brother. He kept looking out into space, making sure Hughes wouldn't notice the tear. With his back still turned, he motioned with one of his large muscular arms for Hughes to move on. Brother, I miss you so, Zuzack thought, while peering into the Big Dark.