RavensDagger

  Chapter Thirty-Fatling Gun Blues

  A modern spacecraft ieoving art. A mae that allowed mortal man to master the most inhospitable of enviros. It unlocked the sor system, and maybe one day the stars.

  Some were venerable as, mistreated and uncared for, but still valuable. They were a stepping stone oh ress. Or so an overzealous museum curatht say.

  The Valkyries treated their ships with due resped were diligent about maintenand keeping them in w order. These weren't cargo vessels, sent across space to deliver p-made crap. These were pirate ships. Warriors of the void. A single fault could cascade into a disastrous failure leading to a lost ship, and a loss of piratical profits.

  So Ivil expected that the Sappho would be iy det ditiohey got to it. Whether or not they'd be able to take trol of the ship with just four people, only two of whom had proper experie the helm, was something else entirely.

  The Sappho was berthed retively close to the tre of the station, only a few corridors away. Ivil and her panions took their time getting there, however. She wao give the others time to catch their breath, and recuperate otherwise.

  "Is that it?" Twenty-Six asked as they walked through a corridor, one wall was lined with gss, and a ship was visible through it.

  Ivil sed the ship at a gnce.

  The Sappho was ah-pattern ship at its core. That was to say, its decks were id out 'long' as opposed to 'tall.' The bridge sat at the middle-rear, c a trio e engines. Before it was a ft de which a rge turreted on sat.

  Ivil figured she would have time to i it better ter, but at a curshe Sappho was a detly-armed light warship. Its designation as a destroyer robably deserved. It was too light to be a pocket cruiser, and too bulky for a frigate or blockade runner.

  Then again... she was thinking in Martian ship cssifications. No two nations in the sor system could agree on a proper cssification system for warships, and some systems tradicted themselves.

  After the first inter-system war, Mars ah both sigreaties outwing the stru of cruiser-and-rger ships.

  Then they both immediately started building massive carriers that fit one loophole or another ireaty, then turned around and called them everything from 'light auxiliary battleships' to 'war-capable utility ships.'

  In any case, the Sappho was a tidy-looking little warship. Bigger tharol ships and corvettes that swam around the void near Mars, but not by too much. It was a respectably-sized vessel for pirates and ne'er-do-wells who likely couldn't afford the infrastructure to operate rger, capital-css warships.

  "She's geous," Twenty-Six said.

  "She'll do," Aurora replied. "Assuming ilot her at all. And that we eventually give her a fresh coat of paint. Maybe bd bronze?"

  "Aren't those the Phobos colours?" Missy asked.

  "Yes," Aurora replied. "If, hypothetically, we mao keep the ship, then we'll ister it somewhere."

  "And you're the only oh the clout to do that. I get it," Missy replied. "I could probably get a Haumea registry, if I called in a lot of favours."

  Twenty-Six turned, blinking ily at Missy. "I... don't think she'd look good with a nose."

  Missy sighed. "Not every... urgh, nevermind."

  Ivil smiled. With the tension of assaulting the are leaving the others, and the impression that they were almost out of here rising, the others had started to rex a little. They were bantering, talking about insequential things.

  Ivil... wasirely sure how to i herself into all of that, but for now she was tent to stand aside and enjoy it.

  They came around a er, and Ivil reached an arm out, stopping them.

  The corridor was empty. This was the loading passage that ran parallel with the Sappho. It was simir to the room they'd stepped into when they left the Held Together. A rge space, with racks and ste for tools at one end, and loading vehicles sitting idle in the tre.

  Crates of supplies waiting to be loaded onto the ship sat there, hooked to the floor, and Ivil noted a s with a list of mainteimes and a schedule on the far wall.

  Anyone leaving the ship would pass through here, but sihey were all ostensibly pirates as well, there was no real security in pce.

  "What is it?" Missy asked. Her borrowed gun came up and she went on the defehere was a very faint shift as the sound around her ged, just a little.

  "I don't think we're as alone as we'd want to be," Ivil said.

  "Heh."

  The noise echoed out across the corridor. Ivil narrowed her eyes, feeling out ahead. It took her a moment to realise that there ot in the room that her senses weren't peing.

  It was a strange effect, but not oogether unfamiliar to her. It was something akin to a non-smell. An odour that distinctly had no odour, and which therefore could only be noticed by the abse left.

  She hadn't been on the lookout for something quite so potent against her own particur senses.

  In a battle against A and even B cssers, it was only prudent to expect that the enemy would have a bnk-like ability to disguise themselves. This wasn't that kind of situation. Or so she thought.

  "Step out," Ivil said. "You've got me curious."

  A shield appeared, faint and shimmering, a half-sphere that popped into being behind a crate, then a familiar woman stepped out from behind it.

  It was the pirate that had accosted the Held Together, Rouge Herring. "You know, when I caught you, I didn't expey fight at all. Just anroup of poor souls, with too good of a pri their heads to pass up. A few dolrs of profit for me, for a disho day's work," she said. Her voice was still warm honey, even slightly ed by the shield and eg across the room. "Then you had to be a problem."

  "I've always strived to be an issue," Ivil said. "I'm gd I was one for you as well."

  The pirate reached down, then raised up a on. It was a rge gun, the sort desigo be mounted on a turret, or in a fixed position, not the kind of o to be used by one person, or used within a station at all.

  "You really were. Now, what sort of trouble are you pnni? About to steal a ride out of here?"

  "Yes, actually," Ivil said.

  "Figured as much, as soon as I saw the cmps e off on this one," she replied. "But I'm afraid you 't have her."

  "I'm afraid you 't stop us," Ivil said.

  The pirate grinned. "Too bad about Aurora. The bounty ectacur." Then she swung her gun around while squeezing the trigger.

  Twenty-Six and Aurora both screamed while Missy hit the deck. Bullets the size of small soft drink s thumped across the room, smmed into the walls, and then tinued onwards without a care.

  Ivil caught those headed their way, and the shells shivered in the air for a moment before detonating under her trol. The explosions created swirling balls of dust and smoke that raced out across the room, then started to rush towards the holes the pirate had pumped into the walls behind Ivil.

  "Okay, that's enough of that," Ivil said.

  "You 't hurt me!" Rouge Herring screamed.

  Ivil detonated all of the explosive ammunition in her gun at once, proving that she could, in fact, hurt her.

  The shield winked out and Ivil traced the course of the woman's corpse as it was flung across the room. She plucked it out of the air and then tossed it towards the ship's entrance airlock with a thought.

  The others might find it distasteful to carry a corpse with them, but Ivil didn't think they had the luxury of time to wait and have all of the pirate's cores seep out of her body.

  "Well, that was certainly something," she said as she brushed some dust off her pants. "Let's get going, shall we? Before we have to deal with even more diversions?"

  Twenty-Six raised her head. She was c he ground, her instinctual foetal position not quite w in zero-g. "Wha?" she asked smartly.

  Ivil suspected that she might have made a mistake, not killing the pirate right away. Twenty-Six and the others clearly had a bit of tinnitus after all of that.

  She reached down and scooped Twenty-Six up. "Let's get going, I said," Ivil repeated. The soohey were off, the better. The Sappho would have to prove it's worth as a warship, one way or the other.

  ***

  RavensDagger

  New fiorrow! Some of my stories are on TopWebFi!-amon Bun-Stray Cat Strut-Lever A-Dead Tired-Heart of Dorkness-SpeddonVoting makes Broccoli smile!

  The following books are avaible as paperbacks (and as Ebooks) on Amazon. Oh, and there’s like, a billion audiobooks of my stuff now!

  (The images are links!)

  All proceeds go to funding my addi to buying art paying for food, rent, and other ies!

  Thank you so much for all your support everyone! And thank you extra hard for allowio do this for a living; I’ll do my best to keep you eained!