Saketa cut down her ninth member of the crew, then the tenth. The ship’s interior was a poorly laid out mess; the result of multiple refits and renovations done without any thought to a bigger picture. The result was that she honestly didn’t know which way to go to reach the bridge. If there were wall-maps, then she had passed them without noticing. And there was no time to question anyone.
An unwashed-looking dock dreg stepped out of a doorway with a yell and aimed a large pistol at her. Saketa didn’t have complete faith in her ability to disable it, and so she threw herself to the side, behind a pillar. The bolt went past her, to burn through who knew how many layers of metal before stopping on hull armour. The second bolt was aimed at the pillar, and of course went right through it. Saketa had already shot back out, and cut the man’s hand off before he could fire a third time.
Pure instinct sent her arm into a second slash that severed his head, and then her left hand snatched the gun off the floor.
The latest corridor was wide enough for two people to walk abreast with room to spare, and that was how the Muans came at her; the two swordsmen side by side, ready to bring three blades against her single one.
She still couldn’t Shift; their runework had been quite thorough, so she went with a simpler approach and fired the gun.
She wasn’t much of a markswoman, but at this range she didn’t need to be. But their armour, worn and piecemeal though it was, held. She aimed higher and fired at the face of the one with the two blades. He raised his arm, and the bolt burned up against more armour. And with that she had no time for a third try.
She started running again. More crewmembers came into view, around a corner, and she fired at them. She didn’t check the results of her shot; just kept on going, dodging their return fire by diving through a wide set of swing doors. The existence of swing doors on a starship spoke volumes of the level of care at play here, but she had bigger concerns.
She was in what seemed to be a secondary engine room, judging by the size. She spotted a handful of scared-looking people at work, but they neither looked nor felt dangerous.
The engine was before her, rising halfway out of a pit in the floor. The idea of placing herself in front of it occurred for a moment, but only for a moment. The crew just might be panicked and amateur enough to fire plasma through someone and into their own ship’s engine. And besides, there were the Muans.
So instead she ran for a set of stairs that led up to a dimly-lit walkway, as the pursuing crew barged through the ridiculous swing doors. One shot was fired, and missed, before the Muans came up behind the crew and started killing them.
Saketa wasn’t surprised, as she looked over her shoulder at the sight of the three men slashing wildly through the people they were ostensibly working with. Their blood was up, they had a target, and they would brook no obstruction.
Saketa reached the walkway as the man with the single sword arrived at the steps, and the dual-wielder went for the steps on the opposite end. The axeman got a bit caught up in butchering the surviving crew.
She awaited the swordsman, ready to fight him with the benefit of higher ground before either of his comrades could join him. But mad though they were, Muan Ragers had an odd way of holding on to their warrior’s instincts through it all. And so he drew a knife from his belt and threw it at her, a moment before coming into her reach.
She could deflect it, but that would leave a momentary opening. So instead she was forced to sidestep, which of course let him up onto the walkway.
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He swung at her, she parried and countered, he parried and tried to ram into her. She fell back, to keep his greater size and weight out of the equation. Down below it sounded like the axeman had killed his fill of hapless crew, and further away the two-blade man was coming up.
Something had to change, and fast. Saketa retreated with several quick steps. The swordsman followed, of course; defensive fighting was not their style. Saketa then slashed upwards, destroying the sole light that illuminated the walkway.
The swordsman didn’t falter or slow; his instincts guided his blade through the dark. But Saketa had more than that to guide her movements, even though she was weakened. And so she made it past his blow, and drove her sword through his neck.
She withdrew it immediately. The man turned and continued to swing, even as his blood fell on the walkway like rain. The two-blade man was coming, his footsteps rattling the rickety structure, and Saketa hopped down.
She landed in a roll, and bounced out of it towards a solution to her problems; one of the crew had made it so far as to open an elevator door before dying at the hands of the frenzied axeman. A list of decks above the opening confirmed that it went all the way to the bridge deck, and so Saketa headed there.
She almost made it before the axeman intercepted her.
He opened with a swing that would have bisected her at the waist, had her sensitivity not pushed her into a dodge. He swung again, before she could mount a response, as behind him the bleeding swordsman flopped down onto the floor, in his death throes. And behind him came the third man.
Saketa made a gamble, drew on what power she could, and focused all of it through the sword. It all went into one blow that met the third axe-strike, and cut clean through the metal of the handle. The blade bounced off her arm, cutting it slightly. She didn’t feel it at all in the split-second before the man simply rammed into her. She couldn’t get the sword up between them in time, and the man’s strength and momentum threw her backwards into the elevator.
It was a small thing; probably not a main elevator, and from her spot at the back wall Saketa poked a button with her sword. The door began closing, but true to the overall state of the ship, it did so slowly. The axeman made it through first. A gloved hand batted her blade aside, and he was on her. He didn’t try to wield the long handle in the cramped confines. Instead he dropped it, and seized her in a grapple.
The door closed before the third man could reach, and they started a slow ascent.
# # #
Zamm’s world was speed and plasma and hair-trigger reflexes. He had taken hits, but his suit had held… at least for the most part. He risked more hits on a bold dash. The surviving Scorchspacers were, to a man, bolting for their ship. Their ship with its thick armour and huge guns. And so, with plasma streaking by him from two directions, Zamm made another pass, a bit slower than before, and picked off the fleeing men.
One, two, three, four, five, and then he was past the ship itself. His feet steered the bike into a sharp turn around the vessel, his passage kicking up a trail of sand. As he completed it, the men were nearly at the ramp, but had their guns drawn and fired the moment he emerged. But that was their doom; not taking a split-second to aim. Zamm did, and so his left Twin killed number six, the right Twin killed seven, and the eighth and final took the front of the bike to his upper torso, and went underneath it.
Zamm didn’t stop to see if the man had died; if he wasn’t, he was at least gravely injured. He just detached a grenade from an armoured pouch, and tossed it through the ship’s open door in passing. There was a great hiss, and a fireball blasted out.
Just in case any had made it inside. Or simply never stepped outside at all.
He automatically did some more weaving before he even looked towards the raiders again. By that time, he found their ramp closed up, and the engine humming.
They were taking off. In a ship about as big as that of the Scorchspacers. Far bigger than the little service ships used during the raid. And from the air, they could just blast him into nothing.
But the anti-air gun. It remained exactly where the Scorchspacers had left it. And so Zamm blasted towards it. A sizeable side-gun on the ship fired a shot his way, turning sand into superheated particles very close to his passing. But not close enough.