NASTRAGULL: Pirates (26 page)

Nosassa spoke to Hoff as if they were all alone. "The Silver Guard was rendered extinct!"

Hoff wriggled her body, giving the impression that various portions of it were under independent control...as if those parts were moving and sliding about, even as the aggregate was remaining still. To the normal eye, it was a nauseating sight.

Nosassa continued, "And that for a very good reason..." She whispered the last words, sweat trickling down her face.

The beautiful and lethal creature before Nosassa hissed back, "What once was is not what now is…" She spat a wad of something like thick, black saliva; and where it struck the floor, the marble blackened and began to smoke. "We rested, we did. Not die, we did." She emitted a long sibilant hiss, followed by, "Now back we are, to feed we come, on all we will."

The Marquessa De La Hoff emitted a short, almost girlish giggle, then turned and started for the exit.

"Wait!" commanded Nosassa, as she hurried after Hoff. She stopped behind the fey woman-thing, who was twice her size. All who saw her do so had to admit her sheer courage, while also decrying her foolishness. "Please, wait. We must talk; we must plan and organize..."

"We organize nothing." With lightning speed, Hoff spun and had her by the throat, as the Silver Guards formed a semicircle around the tableau, facing everyone in the room. The regular guards, still standing by their rows of pillars, dared do nothing; they merely looked at their commander with concerned expressions.

Nosassa looked at Hoff calmly, not displaying any of the fear she must have felt. After a moment, the tall woman let out an amused snort and let Nosassa go. She brushed her long fingers over Nosassa's cheek, and said, "Talk
we
shall not. Talk
you
shall. Gather us strength you will; feed off strength I will."

Nosassa blinked nervously as she said, "You are talking about funding your armies."

"Yes, yes. Rest is over; no more we sleep; now we hunt, so that others may sleep—some for a while, others for eternity. Talk we must not, talk is over, no more talk, if one talks one cannot feed. Feed one must or sleep one will. Your time to talk has made Florencia a dying nation. No more talk; let us feed or we will never thrive."

She removed her pale hand from Nosassa's cheek, and licked off a sheen of lavender blood. Nosassa lowered her stare, touching her cheek; when she brought her hand away, it was smeared with blood. Like a vampire bat, Hoff had cut open her cheek without her even noticing. She looked up at Hoff, her anger showing now; Hoff was smiling charmingly.

Nosassa murmured in her in her deep threatening voice, "You are not above me, you slavering beast. We are the same, you and I—or should we pay our God a little visit?"

There was nothing in Hoff's posture or expression that revealed whether or the threat had gone home. She only nodded towards Nosassa and whispered back, "Talk then we will, later..." She turned away again, as if to go.

Completely disregarding her audience, Nosassa demanded in a harsh whisper, "Tell me why you have returned, Hoff. You and I know the truth. Tell me as your equal."

Hoff bowed her head, her back still turned. Then she tilted her head and said in a low voice, "I do only two things in life: I serve God, and I conquer. You had your time. Now the time is mine."

Hoff glided out of the room, followed by her faceless Silver Guards, leaving Nosassa alone in the center of the Hall. The massive doors slammed shut in the warrior woman's wake, their clatter followed almost immediately by a loud crash of thunder from outside.

Chapter 16

The concussion from the blast swirled through the
Bitch
's cramped corridors like a hurricane, sending anyone upright flying. After a brief lull, pierced with the screams of the wounded and dying, both sides regrouped, and a hell of laser and magma fire filled the corridor.

It wasn't going well for the mutineers, who had repeatedly been forced to retreat toward the stern of the ship. At first they were able to withdraw in orderly fashion; but when a troop of guard androids joined the fight, the retreat turned into panic. The adamantine hides of the androids were all but impenetrable to standard weapons, from magma bursts to laser and particle beams. A plasma cannon might penetrate, but Myra's mutineers had none of those. The androids waded into the fray, slicing pirates in half and relieving them of their limbs with near impunity; none of the ancient laws that would otherwise have protected the pirates have been programmed into these andies. Before long the corridors of the good ship
Bitch
were awash with blood and ichor in all the bright hues that life had allowed for throughout the inhabited galaxies.

Myra knew, by then, that it was over. She had gambled and lost. The opportunity had arisen to lead the crew in open revolt against Zuzack when the scans had revealed that there had been tritonium silver in Zuzack's stolen personal shuttle, loot that had
not
been shared with his crewmates. He had defended himself by first denying any knowledge of any tritonium silver; and when Mira proved him wrong by showing him what the scanners had revealed, Zuzack had begun to sweat and had changed tactics, claiming that that he was keeping it safe for his brother, the infamous Horsa. But that lie had been the straw that broke the camel's back for Myra and her followers; and when she cried mutiny, twelve hundred souls had joined her, sparking a battle royale which now appeared to be winding down.

When Myra saw the battle androids bearing down on her people, she cursed Zuzack silently. She and her co-conspirators had had no idea that Zuzack had battle androids hidden aboard the ship. Had they not been there, the mutineers might have had a chance; now they were being cut down like unarmed children in the face of the androids' overwhelming power. 

The saurian and several of her cronies took cover in one of the bigger observation lounges and prepared for another attempt to take the brig. That was when she noticed, through the huge, curved duraglass port, that several shuttles and runabouts had detached from the ship. As she watched, several blurred into near-light speed, no doubt headed for the nearest jumpgate. Some of her "loyal comrades," trying to save their own asses.

As a smallish shuttle was exiting the docking bay, the green atmospheric shield shimmered over to red—and the shuttle exploded. The explosion made the entire ship shake, and discouraged further flight that way.

Alexa and her friends had barely left her suite when they were accosted in the corridor outside. They had no idea which side attacked them; they didn't bother to introduce themselves first. Rolling her eyes, Zicci tossed a small grenade at their attackers, while Kirra opened up with a mini-gun; the attackers didn't last ten seconds. Alexa shouted for Nina and the others to start retreating down the curve of the corridor, bringing up the rear.

A hatch at the end of the hallway opened, and several pirates charged through under cover fire, harangued by a voice in the background that Alexa recognized as Hughes'. A magma blast struck Nina on the left shoulder; she looked comically surprised when she raised her arm and nothing happened, because the arm was no longer there. It was on the deck, twitching, still grasping her machine pistol so hard that it was triggering off the occasional round into the ceiling. The wound had been cleanly cauterized, so there was no blood. Cursing, she grabbed the pistol from the hand at the end of her detached arm, and started firing at her attackers.

Meanwhile, Tara's weapon had run dry. She threw it at one of the advancing pirates and launched herself into the air with a perfectly-aimed roundhouse kick—except that her target ducked, and as her flight continued, from out of nowhere came a better target: Hughes' face. Her
boot flattened his nose and drove him to the deck. She yanked the laser pistol out of his hand and shot him through the chest, then turned the gun on the next pirate she saw. Not realizing Hughes wore body armor under his jacket.

T
he rest of the girls continued to blast anything that approached; Alexa, Zicci and Kirra still had a little ammo, though it was running low, but Miska and Mohama had long since emptied their weapons and had been reduced to defending themselves with knifes and, when they could, striking lethal blows at their enemies with the bony blades on the ends of their tails.

Nina's adrenaline soon ran dry and she slumped to the deck, her weapon clattering to the steel as she went into shock. When Alexa realized her plight, she cried out and charged down the corridor to help her friend. By then, Tara was tangled up in a close-quarters, hand-to-hand fight with several pirates, and their mad melee brought them between Alexa and Nina just as one of the other pirates, a tall Oman who had more than a little alien blood, banged Tara on the back of the head, dazing her. Alexa stopped long enough to put two rounds into the bastard, who screamed as his intestines poured out from between his fingers.

"
Look out
!" shouted Zicci as the ceiling opened up and several Tilter dogs leaped down into their corridor, spraying immobilizer webbing in all directions.

The battle was drawing to a close; Myra could hear the sounds of fighting receding, as her people were driven back, killed, or captured. So when one of the walls of the observation lounge imploded, she and her followers were ready; screaming at the top of their lungs, they were charging at the pirates on the other side before the debris had even thought of settling. Myra emerged from the dust cloud to meet Zuzack's horribly disfigured face. The two huge beings crashed together and began pounding on each other as all around them people died, smoke and dust billowed, and medical androids milled around like lost souls. Zuzack and Myra had long since lost their weapons; they fought each other with fingers, teeth, and determination, in a colossal wrestling match of unprecedented viciousness. Myra shoved her fingers towards Zuzack's eye sockets, even as he bit off a huge chunk of her ear.

Myra felt her right side tingle and go numb as a stun beam from one of the guard androids caught her a glancing blow. She fell to the deck, her former Captain on top of her—just like the old days. In a supreme effort of will, she managed to push him away and spun around, looking for a weapon of any kind to use against Zuzack. She noticed a dropped blaster and crawled toward it as best she could, sensing Zuzack close behind.

She'd only been brushed by the stun beam, so the effect had largely dissipated by the time she reached the weapon and spun around, squeezing the trigger, to no avail; the charge was dry. She cursed and hurled it at Zuzack, who was no more than a few meters away, then turned and dove into the thick pall of smoke behind her. A few steps brought her to a clear corridor, and she raced down it, followed by the sounds of pursuit and screams of rage from Zuzack.

For a little while, she believed that she might make her getaway—until she caught sight of something hurtling toward her from the corner of her eye. The next thing she knew, she was laid out on her back on the filthy deck, looking up at Lieutenant Grotech, who flashed her a chilling smile while wielding the firewhip in his hands with consummate skill. Somehow, she found the strength to lift her head, and saw that Grotech was gleefully slicing sections off her legs with the whip; he'd already gotten up to her knees. That's when he flipped a switch on the firewhip and let her feel the pain. The sounds of the mutineers around her throwing down their weapons and appealing for mercy was drowned out by her screams, which were driven more from the horror of what awaited her than from the exquisite agony Grotech was visiting upon her.

"Grotech! Round them up and have Zaxor's team secure the rest of the ship, and tell Hughes to get me a damage assessment ASAP!" Zuzack shouted. "And where
is
Mr. Hughes?" he demanded. He kicked a detached head on the floor aside, spraying blood on anyone who stood in the way.

"Here, my Captain, I'm right here."

"Where have you been? I told you to get Alexa and her friends to help us, and I didn't see you or them anywhere during the battle! Where were you, and where is my beloved little girl?"

Hughes looked dumbfounded as he tried to explain, "Um, Captain, I must regretfully inform you that Alexa and six of her friends must have joined Myra and the mutineers, because when we arrived they attacked us, killing eight of my men...well, and a few of my tramps, but who's counting?"

Zuzack grabbed Hughes by his neck and thrust him into a bulkhead; Hughes gasped for air, pawing at Zuzack's enormous muscular arm. "My princess was about to join up with the Clan!" Zuzack roared. "She would never revolt against her future family! Never!"

"I swear. I swear on the Holy Gull!" Hughes choked out. "I swear it to be true, ask any of my men!"

Eyes wide with rage, Zuzack tossed Hughes aside like a rag doll; the rat-like transgenic crashed to the deck, hands clutched to his throat as he shot a hateful glare at Zuzack's backside. Zuzack approached Hughes' surviving squad, who were, to a man, too afraid to meet his gaze.

"
Where is she
?" he hissed.

Hughes stood, regaining some of his courage. "Captain, she is in her quarters with the other mutineers we captured."

Without a word, Zuzack stalked down the corridors, trailed by Hughes, until he reached the Women's Quarter and swept into Alexa's suite. He found his adoptive daughter and her friends bound and gagged on the deck in the living area, guarded by three Tilter dogs. As the dogs paced around them, hissing and slavering, he looked around and noticed that there were a number of backpacks and bags stacked neatly against a bulkhead. Two other pirates stood near the galley, emptying bottles of wine into their gullets.