Chapter 4: Fight or Die

‘ ... body ... on the ship ... landing for repair... ‘

‘Ship troubles.’ said Asitha. ‘Earth crew.’

Alain turned down the volume on the transmission. ‘Seems so. I tried contacting them but they didn’t respond, which could be caused by damage to their communications.’

‘How long?’

Alain looked at the printout. ‘Just over two standard days.’

Tiness sighed. ‘We’d better not make contact after today then in case they pick it up or see us on the hull.’

Alain twiddled his thumbs. ‘Yeah.’ he said and looked at the drooping ears of the girls. He imagined his ears would look the same if he were Silth and his chest tightened a little at the thought he couldn’t see them for a while, depending on the troubled ship coming. He stood up from the couch. ‘All the more reason to indulge ourselves now! Let’s eat and drink and watch movies until we’ve had our fill!’

The girls’ ears pricked up. ‘You’re right, let’s have fun!’ said Tiness and looked at Asitha. ‘I’ll help cooking, you set up the rest.’

Asitha chuckled. ‘All right.’

Asitha had chosen a horror movie because she was curious to see what kind of alien scared humans, and Alain chuckled silently when Asitha crawled against his side after the morphing alien appeared in its hideous form made from other aliens. She blushed at the end of the movie when she realised she had held on to his arm. ‘Sorry.’ she said and sat straight.

Alain smiled. ‘In our world, that’s what men are there for. To provide a safe spot for scared women to hold on to during movies.’

One ear went sideways. ‘Really?’

He chuckled. ‘Well, we hope to be anyway.’

Tiness giggled. ‘Then next time we watch something like this I want to sit next to you too.’

Alain took the remote. ‘I’ll start one that’s even scarier.’

‘Noo!’ she said and reached for to the remote across Asitha’s lap. ‘One is enough for today!’

He laughed. ‘Just kidding.’ he said and gave her the remote. ‘It’s your choice.’

She took it and pouted. ‘Bad human.’

He smirked. ‘Then don’t tempt me with getting wedged between two lovely women.’

The girls blushed and Tiness hit his thigh. ‘Human males are really bad.’ she said and quickly started the next movie.

Alain nearly dozed off and woke up with a nod. He looked at the girls and smiled softly at their peacefully sleeping faces. After a stretch to chase a little sleep from his limbs, he unfolded his wall bed, carefully lifted Asitha in his arms, laid her down on his bed, and did the same with Tiness. “I wonder if you’d let down your defence like this if we were the same species.΅ he though as he watched them for a moment. He pulled a sheet over them and settled on the couch to sleep.

***

Asitha woke up from a dream where she and Alain hid from a slimy alien monster and blinked her eyes until she could focus her vision and see she wasn’t in her own bed. She pushed herself up and looked around at the dim pod remembering watching a movie as the last thing, and at Tiness sleeping next to her. Her bladder urged her to get out and she waggled to the toilet, returning later to see Alain sleeping tight on the couch. She smiled softly at him. “Did you put us to bed?” she thought and wished she’d been awake enough to remember that. She returned to bed and snuggled up with the pillow smelling of him.

***

‘Hey, sleep well?’ asked Alain when Tiness sat up and stretched.

She smiled sleepily at him cleaning up the couch. ‘I want this big bed.’

He chuckled. ‘I’d offer to let you use it but I’d like to sleep in it as well.’

A fragment of the dream she had of snuggling with him popped up. ‘Of course.’ she said and blushed.

He moved to the kitchen. ‘I don’t mind you borrowing it on occasion like this though. It’s like waking up on a relaxed morning with friends or family for a day of leisure.’ He turned on the water heater. ‘Care for a bite to eat?’

‘Please.’ said Tiness and glanced at Asitha stirring and waking up. “It does feel that way, yes.” she thought and smiled.

***

Alain couldn’t recognise the class of vessel when it arrived but after a longer look he suspected he’d been right in his guess, the vessel was made from parts of different alien ships. The lower dish from the main hull came from a human explorer vessel but the larger dish on top was from another species, as were the two engines at the back between the dishes. He couldn’t be sure but the turrets on top of the hull were from yet another civilisation.

He didn’t like the feeling in his gut when it came to a standstill at a straight angle to the Walkurea and the top of the dish made it look like a moon at the horizon. Soon enough two space suits appeared and headed his way.

He opened the airlock and watched as the two figures in worn and patched suits stepped inside. They took off their helmets and the first thing that came to his mind was henchmen. The unshaven man with coarse black hair and thick eyebrows grinned at him. ‘Hey there. We need some parts to fix our damaged ship. I’m sure you won’t mind that we take the cargo drone as a contribution to pay for them.

‘Hey now-’ began Alain but the younger man with dark blonde long hair pulled a modified gun from his front pocket. ‘Sorg said you won’t mind. Then don’t.’

Alain froze. ‘This is military property, you can’t just take it!’

Sorg laughed. ‘And who’ll tell? You’re alone here and the Silth don’t care about what happens as long as they’re not bothered. If anything they’ll get the blame for your death.’

Tiness gazed wide eyed at Asitha as they heard the conversation in their own pod. ‘They’re going to kill him!’ she said while her heart pounded in fear.

Asitha drew marks in the table top with her claws. ‘If we didn’t have our open channel we’d never have heard of it.’ she growled. ‘We have to save him.’

‘But what can we do?’

Alain gritted his teeth but he saw no way to overpower the two or call for any help that could arrive in time. Even if he’d taken the emergency pistol, he knew he’d be no match for an experienced shooter.

The younger one gestured with his gun for Alain to step back. ‘It’s going to be a while so you’d better relax and don’t try nothing. You wouldn’t want to spend your last day or two in pain, eh?’

‘Hang on, Lio.’ said the first. ‘The captain wants him to guide us to every weapons locker to see if there aren’t any accidentally left behind.’ he said and grinned at Alain. ‘Looks like you’re going to earn being alive for now.’

‘I’ve checked, there are no weapons on board.’ Alain said.

‘The captain says there’s a weapon locker at the rear of the ship that has a specially hidden compartment for emergency access to weapons, and we’re going to make sure whether it’s been emptied or not since only a few select people know about it.’ He gestured at Alain’s suit. ‘Get going.’

Asitha grabbed her tablet and opened a secure file. ‘We need to get there first.’

Tiness saw the blueprints of the Walkurea on the screen. ‘You have this information!?’

‘It was given to me to be an advantage in case we got the opportunity to use it. And now we have an opportunity to use it to save Alain.’

***

‘Are you leading us around in circles!?’ said Sorg when Alain turned another corner and led Sorg and Lio through another corridor.

‘Some power units were damaged during the impact. If you want to pass through lethal radiation be my guest. I’ll take the safe detour.’

Sorg grumbled. ‘Just hurry.’

Alain halted at a door near the back of the ship. ‘Here.’

Sorg opened the door and looked inside the mostly empty room apart from a few empty racks at the walls. ‘This doesn’t look like an armoury.’

Alain shrugged. ‘This should be it. I didn’t design the ship, I just remove components.’

Sorg went inside and pulled out a scanner. It sent out a pulse and the screen pointed towards one of the racks. He moved closer and examined the sides. ‘Get in here, there’s a compartment behind this rack.’

Lio pushed Alain inside and Sorg gestured for him to take the other side of the rack. ‘There are release mechanisms at the sides, pull them loose.’

Alain took the handle near the bottom of the rack and after a couple of jerks it moved, and the rack came loose from the coupling to the floor. The one on top was easier to free and he pushed the rack away from the wall with Sorg. Behind it was another door and Sorg examined it. ‘No lock?’

‘Maybe they thought it wasn’t necessary or would get in the way if someone needed these weapons.’ Lio said.

Sorg hummed in doubt but opened the door. The room beyond wasn’t big and all that was left was a large steel chest at the back. He pushed himself towards it and fumbled with the latches to open it. ‘What the.’

‘What is it?’ asked Lio.

Sorg held up a food container. ‘This is Silth food.’

Lio leaned into the doorway. ‘What do you mean, Silth!?’

The next moment he was hit hard from behind and tumbled and rolled towards Sorg. He caught a glimpse of a Silth space suit just before the door closed and he was trapped with Sorg.

‘Thank you.’ said Alain. ‘You saved me.’

‘To quote the last movie we saw, what else are friends for?’ chuckled Asitha.

Tiness put her hand on his shoulder. ‘I’m really glad we could set this trap just in time.’

Alain grinned. ‘Good thing they took me along so I could talk to you in my suit without them noticing.’ he said and knocked on the door. ‘And a good thing there was this interference free room for electronic repairs near the back. They can’t send or receive any signal.’

‘What do we do about the rest?’ asked Asitha.

‘First we see if what they said is true and see if there’s a hidden compartment at the armoury. If there happen to be weapons left behind I don’t want them to get into their hands, and we can arm ourselves. Did any of you receive any training in weapons?’

‘I had a brief military training and fired a weapon a few times.’ said Asitha.

‘I never touched one.’ said Tiness. ‘I wouldn’t know what to do with them.’

‘All right. I only have knowledge about them but never fired one, so we’ll avoid a firefight as long as we can.’ he said and went with the girls towards the armoury.

The armoury itself was empty and after a thorough search Tiness found a lever behind a narrow grate near the floor at the back wall. She pulled it and a section of the wall snapped forward. Alain pulled it open to reveal a walk-in closet stacked with arms and ammunition. ‘Fucking crap on a stick! They were right!’

‘What do we do with these?’ Asitha asked.

‘For now, let’s box them up apart from one each that we’ll keep for ourselves.’ Alain said. ‘Tiness, I’ll give you one with an empty magazine so you won’t have to worry about firing while still looking threatening enough.’

She was glad to not have to handle a dangerous object while not looking defenceless. ‘Yes.’

‘This is the last.’ said Asitha and closed the last box with the closet’s contents.

Alain secured one handle of the box to another with a short chain. ‘Good. I think these are safest stored somewhere on the Amaroth where they won’t suspect them.’

‘I know a compartment at the impact zone where we can hide them between other debris.’ said Tiness.

‘All right, lead the way.’

***

‘Think they’ll have noticed by now?’ asked Tiness while she looked at the bandit ship through binoculars from a window of one of the structures at the front of the Amaroth.

‘If not, they’ll suspect something soon.’ said Alain. ‘Then they’ll come searching for those two guys and me.’

‘We put the rack back, I doubt they’ll ever find them.’ said Asitha. ‘There’s a good chance they’ll come to see us since they don’t worry about killing.’

‘Which means we’ll have to take them out any way we can.’ Alain said. ‘Maybe I can get a peek at their systems.’

‘How?’ asked Asitha. ‘You can’t walk up to that ship and plug in.’

‘No, but maybe I can connect remotely. Since that ship is made up from different parts it’s highly likely they had to disable or lower security protocols to connect the different systems. That would create the hole needed to connect to their core infrastructure. I just need a few things from my pod.’

The three kept to the backside of the pod and out of sight of the ship, and Alain was glad it was still empty. He went around and into the airlock as quick as he could, retrieved his equipment, and returned to the girls quickly again. ‘I have what I need. We can head over to an observation deck where I can target the ship without being seen.’

The girls followed him through the Walkurea and to a compartment with a reinforced glass dome large enough to sit under and get a view along the side of the warship. The bandit’s ship could be seen from the side and Tiness noticed people working near the engine. ‘So they really need repairs.’

‘Which means they won’t leave soon and need at least one or two men to do repairs while the rest might come after us.’ said Asitha.

Alain opened up a terminal window on his portable workstation and probed for a remote connection. ‘Got it!’ he said. ‘I was right, they had to disable security to make things work and never imagined it could become their weakness.’ He typed several commands and other windows appeared with status views. ‘The ship’s name is Lady Wind, registered as a trading vessel at a lot of nations. They’ve been going around a lot apparently.’

‘Trading is a good cover for robbery.’ said Asitha.

‘Looks like they’re faking flight logs as well. Their arrival here isn’t logged.’ Alain said and checked another stream of data. ‘Someone has stored crew photos. We can see how many of them there are.’

He ran a viewer on the data and it displayed the collection in sequence. ‘Those two are Sorg and Lio, the ones we trapped.’ said Alain and pointed them out.

‘A dozen men.’ said Asitha after several photos. ‘The guy with the fat neck seems to be the captain.’

‘That would be Don Sax according to the ship’s manifest.’

‘What’s?’ said Tiness, then growled at the photos appearing on the screen.

‘They’re worse than beasts.’ growled Asitha.

Alain closed the viewer quickly. ‘This is how low some people can go.’ he grumbled. ‘A thousand years in excruciating pain is too good for them. At least now we know we don’t need to hold back.’

‘Yes.’ said Tiness between clenched teeth.

***

‘What do you mean, disappeared!?’ raged Don.

‘We can’t make any contact and Rodge and Sto didn’t see any sign of them when they went around scanning the ship.’ said Dural, his second in command.

‘Then he must’ve gone to the Amaroth!’

‘That should’ve triggered a reaction from the Silth. Their sensors would’ve detected him and set off an alarm.’

‘There’s a possibility that he made contact and they’ve turned off their sensors.’ Don said and looked out towards the Amaroth from the bridge window. ‘What’s the procedure at an alarm?’

Dural thought for a moment. ‘The Silth would send out a military vessel. Depending on how close one is, arrival would take at least two weeks for their fastest ship.’

Don turned towards him. ‘Send men to the Amaroth. Kill the Silth after making sure they had contact or not.’

***

‘‘Do you think those cats might be involved?’ asked Sto on the way to the Silth pod after crossing the wreckage...

‘I don’t think so.’ said Rodge. ‘They’re just way too happy to see us humans getting killed.’

‘They’d like nothing more than us killing each other and then take over our territory.’ said Fitch. ‘Fucking beasts.’

Rodge chuckled once at the memory of how they played with the crew of a small Silth vessel a while ago before putting them out of their misery. ‘Beasts, indeed.’

‘Look!’ said Sto when he spotted movement at the Silth pod. ‘Those two are leaving.’

Rodge waved but didn’t get a response. ‘They didn’t see us.’ he said when the two suits moved towards the back of the Amaroth. ‘Maybe for the better so we can surprise them.’

Sto sniggered. ‘They’ll be surprised for sure.’

One of the two suits went down into a service hatch while the other stood at the edge and hadn’t moved while the three thugs approached it from behind. Fitch gave the suit a push against its shoulder. ‘Huh?’ he said when the suit bent forward while the feet stayed put. ‘What’s this?’

Sharp pain shot through his upper body while red streaks flashed in front of him. He turned around just in time to see Rodge and Sto roll forward with their suits full of holes and their blood making red trails, and a human and a Silth suit holding guns. Darkness enveloped him. ‘Fu-.’

Alain and Asitha tried not to think of the images they’d seen when they pulled the trigger but it was futile. Alain felt his arms tingle all the way to his fingertips. ‘You all right?’ he asked.

Asitha took a deep breath to calm herself and told herself this was the right thing to do because they didn’t deserve to live another second. ‘Yeah. Trembling but all right.’

‘I know how you feel.’ Alain said and took her arm. ‘Let’s move before they send the next guys.’ he said and glanced at the stuffed suit Tiness had used before its arm was damaged.

***

‘‘Five down, seven to go.’ said Tiness while she, Asitha, and Alain took a breather inside an emergency pod.

‘Assume there are more.’ said Alain. ‘We can’t be certain of how many there are of them from the few photos we saw.’

Tiness nodded. ‘What’s next?’

‘What would they do now?’ said Asitha. ‘My bet is they want revenge and will hunt us down.’