NASTRAGULL: Pirates (2 page)

When they reached the main hall, they dropped the robes. Both of them wore high-tech black battle armor underneath, similar but with different engravings and decorations telling their respective life stories. The engravings emitted a dim, bluish light, enhancing the contours of their armor. Releasing each other's hands, they put on their helmets. Each took the form of a monstrous creature out of a madman's nightmare. When they were properly caparisoned, they turned to face their troops: thousands of soldiers standing there quietly, all wearing burnished silver armor.

"Husband, where is our carpet?" she asked while donning her battle gloves. He gestured with his arm to a waiting officer.

The officer shouted, "Prepare the red carpet for our Queen!"

There were one hundred steps on the giant staircase. On each step, two prisoners faced each other, kneeling with their hands tied behind them. Each wore worn battle fatigues. Standing behind the prisoners were guards, waiting patiently. When the call went out, the eerie sound of two hundred sharp blades leaving their respective sheaths echoed through the hall. The queen walked down the one hundred steps, followed by her husband. For each step she took, guards cut the throats of the two prisoners on that step. A red carpet of blood spewed onto the white marble and onto the uncaring Queen as she descended.

When she reached the bottom of the staircase, the soldiers in the great room bowed their heads. In front of her lay an enormous beast with a saddle, waiting patiently. Its body was covered with scales and a thin fur, like silky grass. The eyes were blue, and they emitted a faint glow. The mouth was filled with long fangs; as it grunted, dark saliva dripped onto the floor, where it melted into the marble like acid. The beast used its long tongue to lick blood from the floor as it flowed into its range.

She mounted the beast. It stood up, and her husband handed up a battle standard made of white metal with a large down-pointed triangle on top. The Queen turned to her bodyguard and said, "Now, let there be thunder."     

From outside, there came the din of horns and drums.

The Queen smiled coldly, then rode out, followed by her bodyguards. Her husband accompanied her on a smaller beast. They moved fast through a raging battle, ignoring friend and foe alike, headed towards a monument in the distance that had a thirty-mile radius and was as high as a mountain. Atop the monument was another beast bearing another rider, heading towards them; when the Queen dialed up the magnification of her helmet optics, she could see that the rider held a standard bearing a large eye. She nodded.

"Husband," she said after a while, "did you ever finish the story for our children?"

"No, my Queen, I did not. The end was too quick."

The Queen reined in her mount and looked at her husband. "Then let us finish the tale here and now, for all time."

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.