CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN
JAI
The instant the door was open, I vaulted through the gap, sending myself careening towards the ceiling.
I fired twice at the two pirates to the left of the door, killing one and injuring the other.
I plastered myself against the ceiling, the Anicrian’s body shielding me from below, while I took half a second to finish off the injured pirate – a Polvron whose head exploded in a mushy splat as I shot him between the eyes.
I kicked off the ceiling, heading in a rapid spin for the console that the two dead pirates had been using, intending to take shelter behind it.
As I was crossing the room, though, I also got three shots off towards the pirate on the right side of the door.
He had his gun out by now, startled shouts echoing across the room, and he fired rapidly at me.
Two shots hit the dead Anicrian squarely, and another grazed my left calf – not close enough to do any real damage, though I did feel the sting as it seared a thin line through my pressure suit and across my scales.
Just before I landed, I saw him flinch and a spray of blood ejected from his shoulder. Injured, but not dead.
Once on the floor, I shoved the dead body under the desk – convenient storage in case I needed to use it again later.
Then I thrust myself silently towards the end of the desk, peering out for just half a second – long enough to fire at the injured pirate again, and hit him in the head this time. Three down, two to go.
Unfortunately, the time it had taken me to kill the first three had given the other two more than enough time to have their weapons out and to have taken cover behind their consoles.
I dared to glance over the top of the desk, and was already ducking down again when a rain of laser fire scattered over the console, searing small burn marks into the metal wall behind me.
One Polvron and one Anicrian were left, and since using any kind of flash bombs or grenades in zero gravity would be as good as suicide, we were down to laser guns and wits.
I glanced out of cover again, seeing one of them peering out of one end of the wide console they’d been working at, while the other was at the other end.
None of us were creating much of a target to be shot at, so if I wanted to win this, it was going to come down to timing-
“Fuck!” Half the console in front of me disintegrated in an explosion of dust and metal, and I vaulted sideways, then launched myself across the room, taking momentary shelter behind one of the dead pirates.
I kicked off the ceiling again, grabbing random chunks of debris to hurl at the pirates.
Stars above, one of them had a pulse projector!
It was sort of like a laser gun, but far more powerful, and a single shot was enough to liquify an entire person.
But they also worked reasonably well at demolishing solid objects, and apparently, this pirate had no qualms about pulverising significant chunks of the bridge in order to kill me.
I had no idea how to counter such a powerful weapon in such a confined space.
I managed to reach the console on the right without being hit, though a few pieces of debris crashed into the main console.
With the engines dead, there was a limit to how much trouble I could cause, which, in a way, was a good thing.
It meant I couldn’t inadvertently change our course or send us crashing into the moon.
But it also meant there was going to be a hell of a repair job once we had things under control again.
I edged up to the end of the console, bracing myself to have to move again if the pirate with the pulse projector took another shot at me. “You’ve got no chance, you bastard,” he called out. “All your friends are locked up, and we’ve got you out-numbered and out-gunned.”
Interesting that he’d take the time to tell me that, rather than just trying to kill me again.
Perhaps he didn’t actually want to blow up the rest of the bridge?
It would certainly make it more difficult to pilot the ship to wherever they were going.
I didn’t answer him, instead trying to calculate the angle I’d need to get a decent shot at him.
But before I could move, I heard a light, rasping sound.
I barely had time to figure out that it was the sound of a door opening before a sudden rain of laser fire spread over the entire room, like sparks from a grind stone.
One of the shots caught me on the shoulder, before I managed to duck back behind the console, and then another caught the edge of my boot, sending up a thin trail of smoke.
The shots were coming from the doorway, though I didn’t dare look out from my shelter to see what was going on.
Instead, I took a quick glance at my map…
and sure enough, the cluster of purple dots was now crowded into the doorway of the bridge.
On one hand, I was profoundly grateful to have help dealing with the pirate with the pulse projector.
But on the downside, the crew didn’t know who I was, and from the looks of it, they were not taking any prisoners.
I turned myself around and edged up towards the other end of the console.
From this angle, I might have a better shot at killing the other pirates – though at the same time, I’d also have a greater chance of getting my own head blown off.
I could see the lower half of the Anicrian, his hind legs sticking out a little as he concentrated his fire on the group by the door.
That worked for me. I fired a series of shots straight into his ankles, which made him scream and writhe.
He bumped the floor with his legs, which gave him enough momentum that his head rose above the top of the console, and a moment later, he was dead, caught by three or four different shots in the scattering of fire still covering the room.
Next, I heard a muffled yelp, then the pulse projector floated out from behind the front console.
I guessed that the crew had managed to shoot the pirate’s gun hand, and he’d had to let go of the weapon.
“Okay, okay, I surrender,” he barked out, but a moment later one of the crew members darted forward, shooting the man in the head.
His head kicked back, then his body went limp, the bulbous shape of a Polvron floating out from behind the desk.
Well, that was good, because all the pirates were dead, but bad, because the crew still thought I was a pirate as well, and had just proven that they were perfectly willing to kill me.
“Alliance military!” I called loudly, even as the laser fire continued. “I’m Corporal Jai Hill. I’m with the rescue teams.”
“You’re not Alliance,” one of the crew called back. “Wrong species.”
Damn it. He’d seen me displaying my black scales. My master had said before that it was convenient for me to be mistaken for a Solof, with purple scales, but it was too late to do anything about that now.
“I’m Vangravian,” I called to the man, hoping he gave me time to explain before trying to kill me again. “I’m the registered dimari of Commander Aiden Hill. I can prove it, if you give me the chance.”
Finally, the laser fire died out, and I hoped the man was at least willing to consider what I’d said.
I heard quiet muttering amongst the team who’d arrived.
A chance to prove who I was could also mean giving me a chance to kill them, if I was lying, so I didn’t begrudge them their caution.
“I can show you that I can change colour,” I called, growing impatient for a reply.
I didn’t want them sneaking around the console and shooting me by surprise.
“None of the pirate species can do that.” Without waiting for a reply, I tugged the glove off my left hand and lifted it to where they could see it – specifically the left one, since it was my non-dominant hand, and if they did end up shooting a hole through it, I would be slightly less disabled by it than if they injured my right hand.
That sort of brutal mathematics had been drilled into us during training; very often, we would be presented with two bad options, and it was up to us to figure out which one was slightly less terrible.
Once they had a clear view of my hand, I changed the black scales to purple, then to green, and finally to my natural blue.
I left my hand where they could see it, this time giving them all the time they needed to make a decision.
“Stand up slowly,” the man ordered me. I hastily re-activated my mag boots, setting them carefully on the floor, then stood up, placing my gun slowly and deliberately onto the desk in front of me. “I can send you my Alliance credentials,” I offered.
“Do that,” the man said, so I did, sending the little information packet to every Alliance comm in the room, since I had no way of knowing which electronic signature was his.
The leader of the group kept his eyes and his gun trained on me, while the woman to his right checked the message that had appeared on her comm. “It’s legit,” she reported. “You can put your gun down.”
The man breathed a sigh of relief, holstering his weapon and activating his mag boots at the same time.
He landed on the floor with a soft thud.
“Well, in that case, thank you,” he said to me, eyeing the other dead bodies floating around the room.
“I didn’t think we were going to come out of that one alive. ”
“The rest of my team should be arriving soon,” I told the group, as I checked the map on my comm.
The first few members of the group were only about thirty metres from the bridge, while the larger portion were still working on surrounding the last group of pirates, a way back from them.
“So don’t panic if they come bursting through the door. ”