Draconis_Primus

  C.A.S.I.

  I archived the intrusive images and quickly made my way down the hallways. I had to get to the cargo bay before the rendezvous point to set up my pn. Every step felt too slow. I could see my destination on the cameras but my body wasn't moving nearly fast enough. Then, once I had rushed to that point, I was stopped at the airlock between the drone and cargo bays. Cycling it was just as slow, if only I had let myself gain remote access to them I could have had it cycled before I reached it.

  “Hey, we hit the window.” Tessa called out nervously in the cockpit.

  “Start the burn like we pnned.” I replied through the closest speaker, impatiently watching the pressure rise on the dispy next to the sturdy doors. There was a slight jerk from the main engines before the impulse dampeners started up.

  “Just had to be difficult.” The pirate's voice sighed.

  “You kept the com-link?” I shot over to her multitool as a text.

  “Like I had a choice.” Tessa said. It was unclear who she was addressing

  “Mhmm… D'vera, kill their engines for them.” The pirate said.

  EWDS:

  - Proxy Engineering under attack

  …

  …

  …

  Proxy Engineering breached

  -engine shutdown order received

  EWOS

  -Encryption Language found: Therian

  –Firewall Breach initiating

  ‘No… no… no…’ I jumped into the open airlock and hit the button to cycle it again as I brought the exterior cameras to the center of my attention. I scanned for the other ship's approach, and my reactor momentarily seized when I found it in the distance: A smaller craft with a smooth green metal hull and a pair of wings that arced forward into points and gave the entire vessel a crescent-like shape.

  Therian Corvette identified.

  -Probable Armament:

  –Main: 250nm Laser array 4x

  –Secondary: Torpedo tubes 1x

  —EMP, Photon, Explosive possible

  -Crew:

  –Approximately 10-20

  “Tessa, shut off the engines and mute yourself on that call.” I hurriedly texted as I simultaneously watched the pressure drop around me and the Corvette adjust its approach in response to our change in speed.

  “You just told me to turn them on!” She responded quickly.

  “You're muted, correct?”

  Atmospheric O2 low

  -Bioreactor: Offline

  -Photovoltaic panels:85% covered

  –Photovoltaic generation supplemented by Bodyglove

  –Battery Power Reserves: 02:15:37:21.05 At current activity level

  Pressure: 0.001atm

  - < 0.4 atm, Audio and Olfactory sensors Inefficient in current pressure

  “Yes!”

  “Turn them off. They tried to do it remotely, I want them to think they are actually in the ship’s systems for now.”

  “What?!”

  “Tessa… please.” The other side of the airlock silently opened and rushed into the small warehouse of containers the drones had been busy filling. My on board accelerometers instantly reported the ck of gravity as soon as I was past the threshold and I found myself flying down the center aisle of shelved containers.

  “Fine.” Every container around me shifted slightly towards the bow with the impulse of the engines turning off.

  “See? Not that hard, we can do it from here.” The pirate taunted over the call.

  “Thank you.” I started checking the dispys on the containers I floated by, searching for one that contained as little precious metal as possible.

  “Where are you?”

  “Cargo. Do your drones sort the ore at all?”

  “Cargo? Um they're set to put the highest density as close to the middle and towards the front as they can.”

  “... so further back and along the outside…” I grabbed the closest shelf on the port side where the Therian ship was approaching from and pushed myself up and over the two levels of containers.

  “What are you doing?” She asked more urgently.

  “Letting them get close and drop a debris field in front of them.” I told her, pushing myself off the shelf two aisles down along the port hull.

  “... and they'll have to do a weird burn to get around while we get far away… ok, ok I get it now. You think it'll work.”

  “I… I'm not sure, if they were in a human ship, certainly, but… they're not…” I came across what I was looking for, a pair of containers, two tons each with 75% meteoric nickel-iron and 18% Silicon Dioxide. I went to work unstrapping both from the shelves and pulling them out. Once they were free, I braced myself against the structure they were once held to and sent them drifting down to the port side door.

  “Their cockpit definitely doesn't look human.”

  “It's Therian.” I pushed off past the containers. The other ship was getting rapidly closer. At this point, I could confirm four ser emitter cannons along the bde-like edges of the wings and two torpedo ports on the front of the main body. “Are there any weapons on the Tyche?”

  “Shit, I see it now too… um there's point-defense sers for rogue asteroids…?”

  “That's it?”

  “I have a MD pistol in my room. Look, piracy is kind of rare within a jump of a Peacekeeper station, I thought I would be safe.”

  “... please give me access to the sers…”

  “U-um yeah… just a sec.” I stopped myself at the door and braced against the frame to catch both of the containers I sent that way. Outside, the other ship tilted and fell back slightly trying to match the angle of the round airlock on its side with the cargo doors as it approached.

  “Keep the doors unlocked, Love, don't want this to be too difficult, do we?” The pirate chuckled. Another fre of the unknown emotion rose up in me as I caught the containers one after another then hit the button to open the doors. As they were sliding open, I opened the ore boxes too, grabbed the ends and unched their contents out of the ship as soon as I was clear to do so. I even threw the containers themselves out for good measure, joining the four ton cloud of metallic rocks spreading out the side of our ship.

  “The fuck are you doing?” The man demanded.

  “Tessa, full thrust now!” I ordered.

  “H-huh?! O-oh um ok!” The seemingly stationary cloud quickly started falling back towards the corvette as our engines pushed us ahead.

  -EWDS:

  –Proxy Engineering

  —Engine shutdown order received

  …

  —Engine shutdown order received

  …

  —Engine shutdown order received

  —Engine shutdown order received

  -EWOS

  – Firewall breach successful, Ship: Esmeralda

  —Compartmentalized Systems encountered: CCTV, Doors, Flight Center, Life Support, Engineering, FTL Drive, Shields, Weapons, Communications.

  “Erik, their ship isn't listening to my commands.” The other pirate's voice trilled over the call. A small sense of happiness blipped into existence in my code as I sent data packets of trojan viruses back across their connection to my proxy network. Their targets were set to the weapons, flight center, and engineering.

  “It worked, they're falling behind!” Tessa cheered as the other ship dove towards the pnet. They weren't deterred yet, though, almost immediately pulling back up towards the Tyche. I hit the close button on the door then pushed off towards the starboard side to pull off the same trick. I was further down the ship now, so the containers closest to that door had much more stone than metals. I pushed eight more tons of mined asteroids out. A light purple barrier fshed repeatedly around the other ship with multiple impacts of the debris as it started coming back around. I hit the close button on the door and moved back into the center aisle to avoid getting hit by any sers that might make it through.

  “...not yet! Tessa, sers, please!”

  “Shit. Um, fuck…” Seconds ticked by with the pirate ship quickly gaining on us again.

  Limited Engineering Access granted: PD Laser arrays: 8x 520nm Pulse Laser Turrets

  “There!”

  “I see it, thank you!” I replied and immediately remoted into the weapons. Across the rectangur hull of the Tyche, I gained eight more points of view of the targeting arrays of the ball turrets deploying, four of which I was able to manually point at the enemy craft and start firing. Bright green pulses shot out of the emitters of each and their purple shields fshed with every hit. Then it happened again. My vision flickered and one camera signal was repced with a different scene, a dual-barrel 120mm autocannon on a familiar hull firing at a Therian carrier and its swarm of strike craft. “Cas…?” Tessa's voice focused me back on my task and I disconnected from the problematic turret. The other ship had greatly closed the distance, however, and was on a trajectory to buzz over the top of the Tyche. It pulled up and I tracked it with the remaining three weapons but a spherical metal object shot down out the front as it adjusted itself. A torpedo. One haphazardly dropped just outside the minimum distance they needed to arm. I adjusted every turret with a line of sight to fire at it but they didn't have the time to break through its own shield emitter. The purple barrier faded right before it hit our own shields, a single green pulse making a shallow cut on its shell before it detonated near the main engines.

  Signal Lost: Tyche Network

  -Reconnecting

  …

  …

  …

  Connection successful!

  Restoring connection to all authorized systems.

  …

  Esmeralda breach connection successful!

  “Cas?! Talk to me, please!” Tessa called out with panic filling her voice as I reconnected with my body. I found that I was still hanging onto a shelf, in the dark with only my eyes illuminating the space in front of me, limbs unresponsive as errors got corrected.

  “I-I'm here…” I responded.

  “W-what was that?! The engines aren't responding anymore… shields are gone…”

  “E.M.P torpedo…” my fingers came back first, then arms, then legs. ‘I'm lucky I closed that… a direct hit of that pulse could have damaged my circuits.’ “Are you still on call with him?”

  “No, that got disconnected too. Good riddance though… shit, they're coming back…”

  “Coming to board probably…” I tested my joints, thankfully all responded as they should. Exterior cameras, however, didn't, I was still blind to the outside as I slowly got sight back to the hallways of the Tyche.

  “... how… how are we going to get out of this… I'm going to go back to get the engines up again but… they'll just catch up again…” She exited the cockpit and I watched her hurriedly make her way down the hall.

  “I put a few viruses on their ship… I need them to give me access…”

  “Cas… if we get out… we're gonna have to talk about what you can do…”

  “... that's… understandable… we will get out I pr-” A sudden hit made all the containers around me shift towards starboard and interrupted me. “... I promise… Tessa, get your gun before you get back there. I'll… I'll hold them off as long as possible…”

  “You're going to fight them?!” She slid to a stop, her tail fur fluffing up as it shot upright and she looked up at the closest camera.

  “I'll have to…”

  “You'll just get hurt again!”

  “This body can be repaired.” I pointed out. In a space between some of the containers, I could see the interface by the port door fshing erratically. “... get your gun, they're breaking into the cargo bay…”

  “...Cas… be careful…” She sighed, going towards the crew quarters.

  “I will try.” I pulled myself up to hide on top of a container and turned off the indicator lights in my eyes. A minute passed, nothing, Tessa left her room with a mass-driver pistol in hand, checking the battery in the handle and heat-sinks along the barrel. By the time she was back in the main corridor, the door I was watching silently slid open with Six figures in pted military EVA suits waiting on the other side, helmet lights illuminating the entryway.

  The first four, humans ranging from mid-five foot to low six foot heights, entered and fanned out with their weapons raised, magnetic boots anchoring them to the floor ptes with every step. The fifth and sixth were decidedly not human. Five was bigger and broader than the rgest of the four in front of them, had an elongated helmet with horn-like protrusions out the back and cked any gss visor at all, just solid metal, and they walked in a digitigrade stance. Six… when they walked through, their avian talons gripping the floor and their tall, lithe frame stalking through behind Five, a high energy, very negative emotion shot through my code and I gripped the container under me. That one stayed behind, scanning around with their owl-like face but the feather pattern of a terran secretary bird visible in the wide visor of their helmet. A therian and they were wielding a ser rifle that had a simir, smooth design that their ship and EVA suit had along with some extra bulk of a pack attached to their suit.

  One of the rger humans, the third one out, passed by my shelf while panning the bullpup frame of their mass driver submachine gun up and down the center aisle before entering it. They were heading towards the airlock and currently was the only one between me and it. They were a more immediate threat than the bird and I needed a ranged weapon. I gently pushed off from the container then off the ceiling to nd on a different one two shelves down. I carefully crawled to the edge and primed myself to pounce on the unaware human, then their head suddenly snapped to where I was right before there was a green fsh in my peripheral vision on my right.

  Warning! Abnormal temperature spike detected: R. Deltoid

  I quickly pnted my feet on the ceiling and pushed hard off of it, straight into the human below. My impact sent their weapon spiraling off back towards their allies as they hit and bounced off the floor. More temperature alerts came up along my right side in several locations along with an impact alert from my opponent striking my face with their gauntleted fist. Frustrated, I flexed my left hand back, deployed the foot-long close-combat bde from my forearm, and drove it between the pting of the arm used to strike me.

  EWOS:

  Esmeralda Communications Breached.

  -Link to Flight Center Found

  -HMMR Ind. Light EVA suit signal 4x found.

  –Closest unit serial #75621

  —Breaching

  -FENRIR mk.3 Heavy EVA suit signal 1x found

  -Aran Ind. EVA suit signal 1x found.

  Weapons

  -Breach progress: 34%

  Engineering: Breached

  -Engine progress: 11%

  “Bitch isn't even fucking flinching!” A male voice growled over the pained yells of a different one. Another green fsh and I felt my cheek suddenly heat up. I pulled the bde out of my opponent's arm, roughly pulled him to his feet, and positioned myself behind him with the bde to his neck. Over his shoulder, I spotted the rgest figure, Five, aiming his human-make heavy ser rifle at us.

  “I don't have a shot! Fnking right!” A female voice called out. I quickly gnced to my left and spotted one of the smaller humans, Two, on the other side of the shelves and making her way to get behind me.

  “Taking Left!” A different man's voice said.

  “Don't make a crossfire situation you goronits!” Another woman's voice trilled. Keeping my captive, I tried to push us back towards the airlock. Nothing. His boots had magnetized back to the floor again when I got him upright. I frowned and put more processing towards breaking into his suit.

  EWOS:

  -HMMR Ind. EVA #75621

  …

  Breach successful!

  -Magnetic Traction system: Offline

  All resistance disappeared when I turned the boots off and I sent both of us backwards with a shove off the floor. A yellow fsh went off from between containers on my right and a shower of sparks sprayed from the ceiling above me.

  “The fuck are you doing?! You're gonna hit me!” Three yelled with obvious pain still in his voice.

  “Thought I could get her.” The right fnker responded.

  ‘Need something ranged.’ I thought, using my right hand to pat around my captive for anything I missed. I soon found a holster on his hip and his hand snapped to my wrist to stop me. I pressed my wrist bde to his throat more in response. Another shot, this one a green pulse from right in front of us and I felt the top of my head heat up from the graze.

  “Stop fucking shooting!” Three yelled over their comms as I drew his sidearm.

  S&W Model 2077 0.44 Magnum Identified

  -Chemical-Kinetic weapon identified, recoil compensation adjusted.

  Ignoring my surprise over the old weapon in my hand, I took aim at Five and pulled the trigger. As soon as the hammer struck the firing pin, the cargo bay lit up with the bright muzzle fsh. Sparks sprayed off the ‘cheek’ of Five's helmet and the back wall of the bay as he recoiled and ducked into cover. The sight was off slightly, I had aimed dead center of his muzzle.

  “Ow! My ears are fucking ringing! Just had to bring your little cannon, huh?” Five growled as my back finally hit the airlock door. I carefully scooted us over to the button and quickly hit it with the back of my hand before pointing the weapon down the aisle again. The four headmps of the others revealed that they were slowly making their way over behind the shelves.

  “Stop whining like you're still a pup and move!” Two ordered. The airlock slid open behind me, thankfully still at lower pressure from me leaving earlier, and I pulled my captive in with me, back into a gravity field. A sudden pressure on my left side paired with a synthskin damage notification caught my attention before I was smmed back into the closed airlock door.

  “Fuck! Let go already!” Three yelled with two more damage notifications about my side. Before he could potentially hit something important, I tossed him away from the controls and into the side wall. He was brandishing a small combat knife that he quickly switched from his left to his right hand.

  “It's been much more than thirty seconds, girl is likely a bot or about to pass out.” A new man's voice said as I jumped back and hit the button to cycle the airlock. A ser pulse and multiple rapid hits of a kinetic weapon sparked around me just as the cargo-side door closed. I used my arm to block several from reaching my ‘ribcage’ and received just as many damage notifications as the kinetic hits staggered me slightly. A hydraulic line in my upper arm was grazed and I could feel the fluid start to seep out the ‘wound’ and down my arm.

  “Think she just borg'd out, bleedin’ now.” Three told the others. He then lunged at me with his bde going for my stomach. I retracted my own and caught his wrist as his other hand went for my right. He tried to apply pressure and twist my wrist in an obvious attempt to drop his gun.

  “Don't be fucking stupid. Still too long for the best lungs on the market.” Two chastised as my sense of hearing beyond their coms returned with the pressure.

  Atmospheric O2 Rising

  -Bioreactor: Online

  “Bots don't bleed re-, fuck she's-” I cut him off, overpowering him, digging my fingers into the first wound I left on his knife arm and turning the barrel towards his helmet. First shot, sound was still dull at the low pressure and cracked his helmet as his head snapped back from the force. Second shot, a deafening boom filled the airlock and part of the facepte was shattered as the bullet ricocheted off and into the opening door. Third shot went right through the new opening and he went limp.

  “Marcus?... … Mark! Hey don't go quiet after that!”

  “Cassie?!” Tessa's voice echoed out from my blind spot in the engineering bay.

  “I'm ok.” I sighed over the intercom, dragging the pirate's body out from the airlock and dropping him, his suit cnking on the floor. “Lock the cargo airlock. There's five pirates in there.”

  “Y-yeah… o-ok. Got it. What was that noise?”

  “Old revolver. Mine now.” I set the body down and checked it over. Luckily, he was wearing a bandelier over his EVA suit that contained three heatsink cartridges and five prepped clusters of ammo for the revolver on thin metal clips. Thirty more shots of the weapon I had and one hundred and fifty for one of those mass driver SMGs if I could get ahold of one. I quickly stripped the canvas straps off of the pirate and put them on over my clothes. My reactor slowed slightly when I found several holes burned and punched into my borrowed shirt then it ramped back up with the same negative feeling I got when their leader threatened us. At least the quartz fibers in my bodysuit were stopping the ser hits from burning through, it still would've hurt if I was organic, though. “...How is it looking back there?”

  “...eh… it's… going to be a bit… there's some shorts I need to fix… surge didn't hit the reactor though… so we're good there… some lights burned out… but that's not horrible…”

  “Good…” There was a chime behind me and I gnced back. The interface for the door was fshing just like it did for the exterior door. “They’re breaking into here now.”

  “Dammit… no break…”

  “We won't get one.” I dragged the body with me over to behind one of the inert drones. Once I had cover, I focused back on the pirate's communication network again while searching through the systems of the dead one's suit and using it to connect to the others.

  “- answering… If he got her he wouldn't’ve shut up about it.” Two said.

  EWOS:

  -HMMR Ind. EVA #77853 Identified

  …

  Breach Successful!

  “Think he's gone?” Five's voice this time, giving me his suit's ID now that my primary processing could catch it. A camera feed from Two’s helmet soon came online for me with more prodding. They were all crowded around the airlock with the Therian kneeling by the controls and a multi-tool on her arm connected to them.

  “He better be, if he's ignoring us I'll kill him myself.” Six said ftly, punching more inputs into her wrist-mounted tool. I took the time to double check my weapon as I listened in. Three shots left in the cylinder but no way to load individual rounds with the clip connecting all the casings together on the back of them.

  “If he is, you're gonna miss the dumbass.” Five said. My electronic warfare systems gave the alert that I breached his suit too. He had no camera but oddly, there was a system of LIDAR scanners that transted light into audio signals in his helmet. I carefully linked to the remaining humans’ suits, knowing it would be easier to breach theirs.

  ‘That's how he saw me in the dark… what is he…?’

  “Just shut up and get the thing open.” A male voice said and Two's view shifted towards him as he rested his MD shotgun on his shoulder. It was the first one who entered cargo. Four was next to him, silent and fiddling with their rifle. That one had to be the other one trying to fnk me before, and the one who hit my arm.

  “Almost done.” Six responded.

  “Good, check your ammo you two.” One looked between Two and Four. Two let out a sigh and brought her SMG up into the camera's vision. A holographic dispy with remaining shot count popped up near the stock of the weapon.

  “Heatsink's good for another twenty-five.” The woman told him.

  ‘Rest time is almost over…’ I thought to myself and sent out a command to close and lock every door I had access to. Another option came up for me as I waited and got further access to their suits. Their life-supports. I could turn those off. Logically, it would be the easiest solution and I nearly went through with it, but… something didn't seem right about killing them that way. Organics don't just ‘turn off’ if a power source is cut. It would be long and drawn out for them.

  “Got it.” The therian said over their comms. On Two’s camera I could see them crowding into the airlock with weapons at the ready.

  ‘Too te now.’ I focused myself as I moved to a prone position, still half behind my cover, and took aim at the airlock. I used Two’s camera to line up a shot at her location, center mass. I would have preferred to aim at the therian but she had put herself behind Five's bulk. I then turned the room's lights off to obscure myself further from most of them.

  “EMP hit them ha-”

  Boom! The shot of my weapon and subsequent wheeze of Two cut off One’s comment. I quickly rolled back behind cover entirely as fshlight beams frantically scoured right around where my muzzle fsh went off at. Now that they were in atmosphere, I let myself send the shutdown for their suits’ life support and lock the vents closed.

  “The fuck? my air just shut off.” Four finally spoke up.

  “Mine too.” One confirmed. Two was still wheezing from my hit. “Helmets off, help Alice with hers.”

  “She, the other one or a third are a tech too.” Six chirped thoughtfully and I actually heard her voice instead of intercepting the comms channel. One, two, three, four thumps of helmets dropping. I turned the lights back on as I popped back out of cover and took a blind shot at One's st known location but instead only grazed his shoulder pte. The sudden lights had four of them recoiling and he had moved. The one who didn't react to the light was Five. He had a grey-furred, eyeless, lupine face with four ears, two rge primary and two smaller secondary and his snout had gill-like slits up to right before eyes normally are. A lykaian. His main ears perked up at me and he aimed his heavy ser at me from his hip. A whine quickly ramped up over the half second it took to charge as I rushed to the room's exit with several more heat warnings coming up for the panels on my back. I opened the door ahead of me, slid out and took cover right next to the opening.

  “Agh! Doesn't even slow her down!” He growled as I dumped the cluster of empty shells from my weapon and dropped in a new one. Thirty shots left.

  “You are hitting her.” Four said, his voice getting closer. I accessed the drone bay's cameras to have a view inside without exposing myself. The five of them were fanning out, weapons on the door I was by. Two was moving again as well but her chestpte was visibly damaged.

  “Zaalo, how many people should we be ready for?” One demanded without looking up from his shotgun's sight.

  “... I'm only smelling one in here and it was following her. Smells kind of like one of my people too…” Five answered.

  “Boss said the pilot had wolf ears. You're probably getting her.”

  “Trail is fresh, it's on this girl.”

  ‘I smell like Tessa?’ I spotted Six moving between the drones and she stopped by the body.

  “Found Marcus. Dead.” She said simply. She didn't have cover from my angle. I leaned out to take advantage of this but found her kneeling by her comrade’s corpse.

  A powerful glitch tore through my code at this sight. My vision suddenly narrowed to just my body's signal and flickered between two scenes. One was the one I was just looking at. The other was a damaged hallway of the Intrepid, a fully armored therian kneeling by the body of one of my crew, stealing his dogtags as a trophy. That same emotion from before burned in my processors as I leveled the barrel at center mass.

  ‘No! Not now! This… this was before! I can't-’

  Bzzt! A rapid five-round pulse of Two's, Alice's, submachine gun snapped me back into real time. Several hits to my torso, one round going through my abdomen, two striking the pting in my chest and one hitting my forearm, throwing my shot off target. Less than expected pressure reported for a hydraulic for my back as I ducked behind cover again. Just in time too, a purple beam shot through the opening, burning into the metal and likely able to do the same to me. Six was back behind cover too when I checked the camera feed again. Four was almost to the door, out of sight of my body.

  ‘I can lock them in there… no. I need them to keep after me, away from Tessa…’ I gnced down the corridor to engineering and gripped my gun tighter. He was getting closer and moved away from the wall in an obvious attempt to sweep the area I was hiding in. I dropped to a crouch then leaned out, using the camera to preemptively aim for his head, and pulled the trigger. Another one dropped. I made an attempt to retrieve his rifle.

  Zzt Thunk! A hole was bsted through the corner of the doorframe by my head and impacted somewhere behind me. One's shotgun. I abandoned the weapon instantly and retreated back towards the bow, keeping my footsteps loud on the floor to get them to track me but also turning down the lights for some advantage.

  “Cas?” Tessa questioned urgently as I slid behind the isnd in the kitchen and opened the door across the way as a diversion.

  “Still active.” I texted back to try not to make noise in her part of the ship.

  “Come back here you little shit!” One's voice yelled then talked quieter back to his allies. “Zaalo. I saw she went right. What about you?”

  “Same, she stopped somewhere-” the lykaian responded. When he mentioned that, I immediately started pying the sound of my footsteps going down the hall I had opened towards the quarters and turned off my reactor again. “Nevermind, still moving.”

  “You're with me, we break her, Alice, D'vera go the other way, keep a lookout for more.”

  ‘No! You're supposed to be after me!’ “Tessa, two are headed your way. Get ready.”

  “What?!” My captain hissed.

  “Is the safety off on your gun?” I pulled up the hallway camera and watched the two men stalk in my direction while the women walked back the other way. I started pying a sound like I was out of breath in my room as I stayed still.

  “Y-yeah… it… it is…”

  “Good. Lock the door. The therian will bypass it open but it'll buy you time.”

  “Left.” Zaalo grunted nearby. They were almost at the kitchen. “Breathing hard, might be ‘ganic after all.”

  “She was still out in vacuum for too long.” One pointed out. He was starting to pass by my hiding pce, the threat of his weapon towards my diversion. The lykaian was right behind him, I only had a narrow window to eliminate One.

  “Wait! Other-” He tried to warn his ally as soon as I started to move. It was too te. I was already up and vaulting over the counter separating us, deploying my bde again in the process. The human had half-turned around when my dense mass forced him to the floor. He swung the shotgun's barrel towards my head but a quick swat of my arm left it to go off into the ceiling. My close-quarters weapon was already in his throat before the gun could cycle to fire again.

  “Ghrk.” He fell limp under me and just as quickly I was smmed into the closest wall by a rge mass. Pressure and damage alerts popped up for my left shoulder as I lost signal to synthskin panels from my right side to the front of my stomach. My sight was obscured by the furry head of Zaalo but I could see in the nearby camera he had bit into my shoulder and was in the process of trying to remove that arm.

  Rotary Servo L. Shoulder: Offline

  “Get off!” I yelled without thinking, trying to bring my gun around. His left ears twitched and that hand grabbed my wrist. He was much stronger than Three, forcing my hand back until I diverted power to overclock the servos to slowly push back. More errors fshed as he inflicted further damage. In my frustration, my hand clenched around the gun and it went off. The lupine recoiled away, releasing my arm from his mouth. I took the opening to sm my metal skull into his snout, wrench my hand free from his and end his threat with another pull of the trigger. He fell limp on top of me following the concussive bst, bleeding onto the shoulder he just had his teeth in. I immediately worked to shove him off with my operating arm as my vision glitched and flickered. ‘N-not done… not yet…’

  —

  A minute earlier. Tessa.

  “What?!” I whispered when I read my girlfriend's text on my multi-tool. She couldn't have been more clear, though.

  “Is the safety off on your gun?” A new one popped up under her st one. I shakily picked it up off the floor and clicked the lever on the side down. The gun immediately made a soft hum as power was let into the barrel.

  “Y-yeah… it… it is…” I sighed.

  “Good. Lock the door. The therian will bypass it open but it'll buy you time.” I jumped away from the access panel I was working on and hit the door's button then a second to lock it.

  “What about you?” I asked. No answer. I gnced at her module on the server rack with most of the other controllers for the ship on the opposite side of the room. “... please be safe…”

  I backed away from the door but couldn't stay standing. I sank to the floor, my tail staying firmly between my legs like it had been since the pirate called us, and stared at the door. I flinched when there was yet another boom somewhere towards the front of the ship. It didn't sound like the one that C.A.S.I. said was her revolver. My heart was already racing from the sounds but then the door's buttons started fshing and I heard voices on the other side.

  “Another lock.” One woman's voice grumbled.

  “Still have to examine it sooner or ter. I want to see how much work Atruus and I have to get this biir running again.” Another responded.

  “I guess… you think the other two can handle her?”

  “Possibly.”

  ‘Shit… shit… shit…’ I pushed myself back as far as I could and gripped my pistol with both hands and barrel at the door. I had been to a few ranges on stations and knew how to use it… but in a situation like this…

  Boom.

  …

  Boom.

  Different shots than that first one after C.A.S.I went silent.

  “... Zaalo, Shayne, come in. You get her yet?” the first woman's voice asked. She waited for a few moments. “... nothing.”

  “You got your answer then.”

  “Shut up. Hey boss? Hey. These two are a lot bigger problem than we thought. Yeah. They are. Marcus and Jake are gone. Shayne and Zaalo went after the one-” The door slid open with a hiss and I locked eyes with a human woman about C.A.S.I's height with short bck hair and wearing a suit of combat armor with a cracked chestpte.“Oh shit.” She started raising her smg at me and my eyes squeezed shut at the same time I squeezed the trigger.

  Bzzt! Bzzt! Thump!

  I felt my gun's three-round burst recoil force the barrel upwards at the same time a burning pain spread out in my right shoulder and ear. Clutching my ear, I cracked an eye open to see the same woman slumped against the wall, two new dents in her chest pte and a small bleeding hole in her forehead.

  “K’chakhi!” The other woman's voice hissed. An owl-dy, a therian, stepped into view, also in full, but alien, armor and holding a just as alien rifle with purple lights up the barrel. My heart racing even more than before, I shot at her too, one handed. A purple bubble fshed around her with every hit as she raised that rifle.

  “YOU” Boom! The bubble popped. The owl dy started to turn towards the front of the ship. “AREN'T” Boom! Her chestpte cracked and she stumbled and dropped to her knee. I… couldn't look away…“TAKING” Boom! Her head snapped back with a blood spray out the back before she slumped forward. C.A.S.I. stepped into view, her eyes lit up red and pulsing rapidly. “HER TOO!” Boom! I flinched at the bst of sound this time and looked away. Click. Click. “Not her too…”

  “... Cas…?” I asked softly. Another click and a thump. I peeked at the doorway again. She was on the floor like her legs gave out like mine did and staring numbly at the body in front of her. She opened the cylinder of the old wild-west like revolver she had used and dumped the empty shells without using her other hand. I crawled over when she stuck the barrel down between her thighs to hold it and I stopped her from pulling more bullets from the bandelier she had on with my hand. She looked up bnkly but her eyes shifted back to their normal blue, still pulsing, though.

  “Y-you're ok…” she said softly.

  “Y-yep.” I forced a smile as I looked her over. Her cheek was distorted like it melted slightly, her left shoulder was torn up from what looked like an animal attack, her shirt was in tatters with burns and holes everywhere with red fluid leaked out from a few of them. Her right side had a rge gash in her new bodysuit and she was missing a few of her skin panels, her internals open to the air with a half curtain of cloth and bare wires hanging over it. Her left arm didn't seem to be working and she had a rge bde sticking out from her wrist.

  “Wait… your ear… your arm.” Her reminder brought my attention to the feeling of blood running down the edge of my ear. I looked down at my hand, the movement bringing stinging pain in my shoulder, and found it coated in a thin yer of blood. I checked my shoulder next. Just a shallow cut of a graze. I was lucky…

  “I… I think I'm fine… you're worse off than me.” She stiffened suddenly and tried to stand.

  “We need to move… the engines… are they ready?”

  “I think almost…? W-why? Is there more?”

  “Not boarding. The main one is trying to call them back.”

  “Shit.” I reluctantly pulled away and rushed back into the engineering room and to the panel I was working with. My heart sank a bit when I noticed that the module I was in front of before was the main part of the drone control network. I shook my head to focus and dove back into my previous work.

  C.A.S.I's worry made it sound like I had even less time than before and I didn't have many ‘safe’ options to restart the engines. After a pause, I decided on a quick and dirty method that could cause problems ter. I went to a nearby panel and cut the power to it, plunging the room into the red of emergency lighting, then took a picture of the inside of the panel with my multi-tool and then started tearing out several select wires to rearrange them. Drone charging, Cargo management, half the kitchen, half the lights, the spectrophotometer, the point-defence sers… all wouldn't work again until I fixed what I just did. I took a breath, closed the panel, and turned towards the breaker switch again. I flipped it back… and nothing, lights came back on in the room but not what I wanted. My irritation came out in a growl and I kicked the first panel I was working on. Immediate dull rumbles of the engines ramping to full.

  “You've got to be kidding me.” I grumbled, thankful for the steel toe in my boot. I sighed and looked back at my girlfriend in time to see her close the revolver again, with a full cylinder. She was still staring at the owl-dy. Her eyes were still pulsing and starting to turn back to red.

  “... hey… I left the throttle on… let's go back up front.”

  “Ok.” The red immediately disappeared.

  ‘Something's wrong… she was so calm and confident earlier… honestly kind of- no, No! Not the time to be horny for her!’ I gently helped her to her feet, easier said than done with her dense body, and pushed the intrusive thoughts out. I led us down the main hallway and I saw more of her carnage. One body at the drone bay door, one inside that room, two more near the kitchen. One of those was even a full-blooded lykaian that looked like he was taller than me. Again, a part of me was very weirdly impressed and kind of turned on by her efforts to fight for me and I wasn't sure what to think about that.

  “... they're undocking from us.” My girlfriend announced right before we made it to the cockpit and a slight shake went through the ship. “Weapons are arming.”

  “Shit.” I let go of her to run and hop into the pilot's seat, turning all the dispys back on and switching one to a rear-facing camera. A different one showed C.A.S.I's flight pn from earlier. We were slightly off from it but still had a couple minutes from the safe edge of the sor system to start FTL. Much better than the day it took to cross the system but I wasn't even sure we had that much time. The moon-shaped ship fell back behind us in the dispy. Purple orbs of energy started charging up in front of two of the barrels on the edges of its wings that soon erupted into beams that struck the rear shields. “Thank the gods that started back up.”

  “... 65% integrity and falling.” C.A.S.I warned as she slowly made her way to the co-pilot's seat. “Ours isn't meant for sustained hits.”

  “I-I know.” I jerked the control stick to the side. Tyche wasn't agile in any sense but the least I could do is get one beam off of us.

  “Taking care of it.”

  “How?”

  “Few more seconds…” I gnced at the dispy again, our shields were fading and no matter how much I moved the bulk of the Tyche, they immediately got both beams back on us. Eventually they broke through and cut a line up the side of the hull.

  “Cas…”

  “Done.” Both beams sputtered out, as did the light of their engines behind them. The constant thrust of our engines finally let us start leaving them behind as their sers tried and failed to fire more. Not letting myself slow down, I quickly started making adjustments for FTL as soon as possible: making sure cargo was closed and sealed, priming the inertia dampeners for the surge, diverting some power from the engines back to the shields to restart those, triple checking our path, closing the shutters again… Several minutes passed in silence as I watched for the button to light up.

  “Ok. Starting the jump.” I said and C.A.S.I nodded in acknowledgement. I hit the button. All the lights dimmed with the power draw to the shields, gravity lowered briefly, then there was the tiny jerk of the massive acceleration being dampened. The star quickly disappeared behind us on camera.

  “FTL successful… lost connection to them…”

  “Good…” I sighed, pulling my hand away from the button. I had left a bloody handprint on top of it and everything started catching up to me. Despite myself, I felt tears welling up in the corners of my eyes. I let my head fall back against the headrest. “... I… actually killed someone…”

  “You were defending yourself.” She said softly.

  “It doesn't change that I killed someone!” I wiped my eyes with my clean hand and tried to keep myself together.

  “... do you think less of me for killing the others?” She asked in the same tone. I quickly looked over at her. She was sitting still and looking at her working hand.

  “W-what? N-no, I… I don't…” I sighed and shakily got up to move to her side. The annoying tears kept coming. “I-I never thought… It's really… fuck I don't know, I'm still shaking from it…”

  “... not uncommon for the first time…” She murmured.

  “...” I cupped her cheek and gently kissed her. Her eyes brightened a little as she finally looked at my face “Thank you for rescuing me… by the way… I'd…” I sighed again. “I'd be freaking out over killing two people or death if it weren't for you… we both have stuff to work through now, huh…?”

  “... I suppose so…”