Held by Luna Voss

12

Barion

“How long until the mining ship flies past here?” I ask Korva, tapping my fingers nervously on the viewport.

He checks his communicator. “Two minutes, if it’s on schedule.”

Bart leers at me, cradling his plasma pistol. “Nervous?”

I shake my head. “Just getting ready.”

The Epeshi makes an expression I don’t fully know how to read, but it doesn’t seem friendly. “You ever been in a fight before, Voorian?”

I give a very long pause, then nod. “Yeah, I’ve been in a fight or two.”

He laughs, or at least I assume that’s what that sound is. “Good. Try not to piss yourself once the shooting starts.”

Korva and I share an exasperated look. These pirates are seriously grating.

It will be a relief to kill them when all of this is done.

“Remember,” says Captain Tog, assuming a leadership role I don’t remember discussing with him, “there are four of us and four of them, but we have the element of surprise. Now, these Rangasta crewmen won’t be expecting an attack at all. The faster we get in, the better chance we have of catching them with their pants down.”

“Getting in there fast is what we’re paying you for,” I say through gritted teeth. “But I’ll be the first through the door the moment you lock us onto their maintenance hatch.”

I’ll admit, there’s a part of me that’s excited to witness this. The capabilities of Epeshi pirate ships are legendary, and boarding another vessel in space is a hell of a thing to do.

Suddenly, right in front of the main viewscreen, an enormous spaceship blinks into place. It must be at least 20 times the size of our own.

“There it is!” I hear Melyta gasp behind me.

“Got ‘em,” Tog rasps, tapping a button on the control panel in front of him. “They won’t be going back into hyperspace anytime soon. Starting boarding procedures.”

I watch in amazement as Captain Tog pilots us over to the other ship’s emergency hatch, a large, square door that’s only supposed to open when the ship is docked in atmosphere.

“Watch this,” Tog says to me, and as he works the controls, something that looks like a huge claw extends from the front of our ship and clamps onto the emergency hatch. A moment later there’s a loud squelching noise as our two ships form a seal.

“Hurry, now,” says the captain with a wink.

Korva and I are both already out of our seats, weapons in hand.

“Be safe!” Melyta calls to me, her voice worried.

“And you stay put,” I growl over my shoulder. I know I’ve told her that at least a dozen times, but one more can’t hurt. I do not want her anywhere near the shooting.

Korva and I burst through the boarding hatch and onto the mining ship.

“Bridge is this way! I’ll take point!” he barks, running down the hall to our right. Unlike the Epeshi ship, there’s actually room to move here.

I cover his back as we go down the hall. We assume all the crewmembers are in the same place, but we don’t want to take any chances. To my intense annoyance, Tog and Bart follow a good distance behind. For all their tough talk, it’s clear that they would much rather let us assume all of the risk.

Fucking pirates.

“I see them!” screams a voice, and it isn’t one of our crew. A second later a plasma bolt screams past my head, barely missing me. Korva’s gun makes a loud crack, and I turn just in time to see a young man in Rangasta uniform slump against the wall, smoke trailing from the charred hole in his chest. As we sprint past him, I see that the poor guy doesn’t look a day older than 18. Probably never even expected to use the gun they issued him.

He picked the wrong line of work.

I chose better.

More plasma bolts spray out of the room at the end of the hall, which I realize must be the ship’s bridge. There seem to be to crewmembers taking shots at us, alternating as they duck behind a console.

“You want to fucking help us out?” Korva yells at the two Epeshis behind us, who seem to lack any of the urgency this situation requires.

“That’s why we’re here,” says Tog, spraying plasma through the door, although he and his crewmen still hang back a notable distance behind us.

Korva rolls his eyes at me, and I shrug. We’re going to kill them when this is done in any case. I don’t think it really matters much whether or not they pull their weight.

Although we are paying them, the bastards.

I take aim at the console, waiting for one of the crewmembers to pop their heads up to take a shot. The moment it happens, my finger squeezes the trigger, and I hear a scream.

“I’m hit,” gasps a voice from the bridge. “Fuck, fuck…”

Korva and I make eye contact, and he nods at me. We don’t need to share a word to know what the other is thinking. This is our opportunity to advance.

At the exact same time, we both sprint onto the bridge, firing blindly, capitalizing on the moment of distraction. There are two Rangasta crewmen huddled behind the console, one of them injured, the other one desperately trying to fend us off with a pistol it looks like he barely knows how to use.

Korva and I gun them both down without a moment of pause.

“There were supposed to be four of them,” I growl. “That was three. Where’s the other?”

* * *

Melyta

Jenyta and I huddle in the Epeshi pirate ship, listening to the sound of plasma weapons.

“Fuck, that sounded close to us!” Jenyta gasps, glancing nervously at the maintenance hatch.

“It’s going to be fine,” I reassure her, even though I’m incredibly anxious myself. “They know what they’re doing.”

“I hope so,” she mutters. “I didn’t just get my pilot’s license to die in the middle of nowhere on a pirate ship.”

Both of us are clutching plasma pistols Barion gave us, but I’m really, really hoping we won’t have to use them. He made it clear that he has every intention of keeping the fighting far away from the maintenance hatch and the pirate ship.

Both of us look up anxiously as the sound of footsteps approaches. It sounds like only one person walking. Barion, hopefully?

But no. It’s a grown man in Rangasta uniform, a human. And he’s holding a plasma weapon.

“What do we have here?” he growls, his eyes narrowing.

Immediately, Jenyta and I open fire at the open door. The human ducks into the hallway, covering himself.

“Come out, come out, ladies!” he jeers in a singsong voice.

“Watch this,” I whisper to Jenyta, focusing all of my energy on the man and trying to slam him as hard as I can into the opposite wall.

Nothing happens.

I try harder, giving it everything I have. Nothing. No telltale thump. No yell of pain.

Instead, he sticks his gun around the corner and starts spraying plasma into the pirate ship.

“Get down!” I yell to Jenyta, pulling her down to the floor next to me. We huddle behind a bulkhead as burning plasma starts singeing off of every surface around us.

And then I do hear a yell, accompanied by a terrible gurgling sound. Peering out the doorway, I see the human’s body collapse, blood starting to run down the floor.

Barion emerges, flicking red liquid off of his claws.

“Sorry about that,” he says fiercely, a trickle of blood that isn’t his running down his handsome face. “We’ll have all of this cleared up in a moment.”