Masha

A riot of emotions crosses the Lopen pirate's face. She was an ugly thing, not at all like the surprisingly refined Agenda Lilpaw that she'd seen a few pictures of. Agenda had her rough spots, but this particular bitch looked like some sort of mongrel that had washed up at a planet side space dock from the gods know only where. From what Masha had known, Agenda had been press ganged, then seized control of her fate back from her captors. The theft of her future remained the greatest crime in Masha's mind.

This creature though... This was her only option, and an innate cruelty and propensity towards violence, no slight amount of jealousy, coupled with an inferiority complex, drove this spiteful, hateful being. Masha would gladly have put money on it if she wasn't moments from sending this woman on to meet her ancestors.

The Lopen's face finally settles on eye bulging rage, practically barking at Masha with a mouth full of disgusting teeth that made Masha want to go scrub her own pearly whites. She couldn't smell the Lopen's breath, but she could imagine, and that was probably worse, even as the pirate captain launched into a verbal tirade against her.

"Undaunted? The fuck are the humans doing out here? What in the actual fuck? I chase down two fucking mutineers after they kill the boss and then we get jumped by two fighters, and now a freighter with guns that'd do a fucking battleship proud does an in system jump like they're damn pirates and blows a couple of what are about to be my ships out of the sky."

She snarls, lining up her plasma cannon which was apparently still functional.

"Well I don't give a fuck who you are or why you people are helping those bitches, I need to kill them and take the Admiral's job for myself, but since you wanted to get involved I'm going to goddamn skin you, have your tail cut off for soup and rape a litter out of your husband if you have one as recompense for getting in my way!"

The room goes silent for a moment. You could hear a pin drop, as the pirates wait to see what their adversary might say in response to that. Most of them clearly had the feeling their Captain was far more out of her depth than she thought. Even they didn't expect Masha to start laughing like a mad woman.

"Oh you've done it now."

Masha continues to laugh, eyes sweeping the crowd, burning with green flames as she brings her revolvers up.

"I was going to ask you to surrender, but you just signed your own death warrant. The rest of you slags can drop your weapons and I'll do my absolute best to not kill you. Rest assured if you still die it'll be because the girl next to you volunteered to get a sampler of Apuk warfire or human lead, so you can take it up with her in the afterlife."

There's a tension in the air for a few heated seconds, fingers itching on triggers... then the scent of ozone alerts Masha to an impending laser blast, and she accelerates ‘off the X’ as the humans called it before getting a stable shooting position and opening up with her revolvers. They were fun on the range, but this was something else! The .454 Magnum rounds were large, and fast, dumping tremendous kinetic energy into their targets provided Masha made her mark.

The Lopen dives for cover as a Gohb with a large bag of grenades ends up splattered across an entire nearby bulkhead. A few more rapid shots drop a selection of pirates as Masha tries to remove the biggest threats on the field in a hurry, quickly finding herself running dry. She shoves a revolver back in its holster and goes for a speed loader as she moves towards something solid to put between her and the enemy.

"I recognize that type of gun! She can't shoot! Get her!" A voice cries out among the pirates.

Someone had been doing their homework. Or at least watching human media.

A Horckha bounds out of cover and rushes towards where Masha is working to get a speed loader clear of its pouch. It was just a bit tight. She'd have to work on that.

The tusky woman bellows out a battle cry, raising a massive war hammer high... only to die confused as Masha raises her revolver and triggers the under barrel plasma launcher. The axiom structured plasma charge lands square in the Horchka's open mouth, leaving her slumped onto the ground in a heap as Masha throws herself behind cover.

"Out of ammo for now doesn't mean it's not dangerous."

Masha gets both revolvers loaded while staying behind cover from a fusillade of laser and plasma fire. The pirates were getting organized. She'd need to up her pace. She had to resolve this situation herself to maximize the prestige and show she was putting on to her potential husband.

Two shots center of mass drop another would be grenadier as girls run around to her left, constantly repositioning and shooting at her to force her to keep her head down. Masha sweeps the battlefield and catches the tell tale flicker of someone moving very, very fast towards her. She reaches for the axiom and refocuses her eyes in time to pick out a Snict coming in at lightning speed. Masha floods her right arm with axiom reinforcement and blocks overhand.

The Snict only has a second to register surprise at her arm blade being stopped by flight suit and skin before Masha rabbit punches her in the gut, doubling the taller woman over. The pistol is considered and discarded mentally. She needed to punish this hubris at daring to enter hand to hand with an Apuk. Some people were too stupid to live, and this Snict's funeral pyre would be a testament to that.

Masha's left hand snaps out again, grabbing the other woman's skull as she calls warfire into her palm. The bright green flames snuff the air out of the Snict's lungs in a second, and the life from her body a second longer. Masha simply stands there, taking a few glancing shots from laser weapons and waits as green flames engulf the Snict.

As the fire crackles and licks away at the Snict's body, the firing ceases. They know they're only annoying her at the moment... and the spectacle of the violent death of their former comrade is being burned into their eyes with green flames.

There are no screams, and that's perhaps all the worse, just a dreadful silence as war fire engulfs the former pirate's body and renders her down to ash in a few moments.

Masha yanks the skull from the flesh turning into ashes, saving it from the hungry flames. The bone is practically polished, glossy under the bright lights of the hangar. Dramatic perhaps, but Masha was putting on a show here, and she didn't just have to win this fight. She needed to utterly dominate. She needed to conquer.

Unfortunately for the pirates who had ended up in this mess while out on a milk run trying to make a power grab, Masha was primed to do just that. She didn't have a crown. She was not an Apuk battle princess in fact. She could have been if she'd worked on it, but wings had meant more to Masha than a title. Freedom more than royal duties to the Empire and throne. She was not an Apuk battle princess, but for trash like this? She didn't need to be.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

The skull drops to the floor, bouncing a few times before rolling to a rest.

"Now. Who wants Mommy's belt?"

Masha's sensitive nose detects an acrid scent of urine from somewhere in the hangar and can't help but smirk. One of these hardened pirates had just felt so much fear that they'd pissed themselves. They were exactly where Masha wanted them.

Her pistol came up in the blink of an eye, barking three times and putting two women and the crew served laser cannon they'd been struggling to set up on the ground. She spins her revolver back into her shoulder holster and quick draws the second pistol. The large bore weapon roars six more times in the blink of an eye, riddling more pirates with gunfire and laying them out flat before plasma fire chases down a seventh.

Weapons and bodies clatter to the floor even as Masha's brass bounce across the metal deck plates, followed by a now empty speed loader. As the cylinder clicks shut, the pirates finally begin to react. Total time since she started shooting? Probably three seconds. Not quite Jerry Miculeck standards, but Masha was getting there. Just needed a bit more axiom free practice.

A few of the smarter pirates visibly throw their rifles away, tossing pistols soon after and diving for cover, huddling in fear, both from Masha's wrath and potential reprisals from their comrades. A rock and a hard place, but the rock bearing down on them was on fire and seemed far more likely to butcher them all than their now former shipmates.

A variety of knives and melee weapons follow the energy weapons, and Masha half expected the women would start stripping down next, in case retaining their meager excuses for armor might offend their assailant.

That left approximately half the remaining pirates still ready to fight, including the Lopen woman, and her leg breakers.

Speaking of the pirate captain, she was furiously smacking at her plasma cannon, apparently Masha's shot earlier had damaged it. However, before Masha can react, a smack against the housing triggers a massive burst of plasma fire.

Masha side steps the ball of burning star stuff even as the weapon itself overloads and engulfs the Lopen in its flames in a spectacular explosion. Ragged screams erupt from the pirate scum's mouth as she claws at herself, desperate to extinguish the flames that were quickly ending her wretched existence. Part of Masha said to let the other woman burn, but instead Masha flourishes her revolver up into position and shoots the other woman clean through the head.

The Lopen drops like a marionette with its strings cut, the plasma flames on her flesh now acting as her funeral pyre.

The last of the enemies still stupid enough to stay hostile charge at her en masse. They clearly thought if they could close the distance they could somehow gain some sort of advantage.

Optimistic.

A mistake.

Their last mistake unless they got very lucky indeed.

Masha holsters her revolver and charges into the fray. It was time for the grand finale.

Masha pulls on the local axiom and feeds the furnace in her core, her eyes glowing malevolently as she drinks deep of the universe's power and turns it into a brutal, punishing force. She accelerates herself, moving as fast as she can, sliding in low and grabbing one woman by the ankle and throwing her into a nearby wall hard enough to dent the bulkhead. Possibly survivable, but only if she got immediate medical attention.

The next has her rib cage collapsed by a brutal punch, and the third and fourth find themselves taken by a mix of cutting claws, crushing blows and burning, ever burning warfire.

The last of the leg breakers drops to the ground and holds up her hands.

"Mercy! I ain't getting paid enough for this!"

The Nagasha woman collapses into a quivering pile of coils as fear rips through her body more ruthlessly than perhaps even warfire. Yet another pirate’s courage fails completely, soiling herself to Masha's amusement as she rises and kicks the woman's weapons away well across the hangar.

"The rest of you bitches get out here with your hands up. Kneel down here in the center of the bay. I see you go for a weapon and you'll become one with the universe, is that clear?"

Masha doubted she had really put the fear of the goddess in these fools, but the fear of death in those who thought themselves immortal was close enough.

Finally, task all but complete, and display made, she triggers her communicator.

"Gaucha to ship's security. Get those teams into the hangar bay I'm in. I have around a dozen prisoners to pick up... get a Corpsman down here, they have wounded. Might also have a hostage to rescue."

"Aye aye ma'am, we're getting the doors unsealed now."

Masha strides over to the wrecked drop ship, bounding up the hull in a single axiom enhanced hop. She pokes her head into the structure, sniffing, feeling for signs of life.

"Babydoll? Are you in here somewhere?"

Masha drops into the drop ship even as the sound of boots on deck plates fill the room behind her. Her rear was now secure. Slowly she moves through the unstable and unsteady drop ship, the metal groaning under the strain of maintaining its shape after the severe damage it had sustained.

Finally her sensitive ears pick up sniffling, stifled sobs nearby. She ducks into a door and finds a young looking Gravia woman in some sort of fetish wear chained up in what looks like it had been a computer room of some kind, the slave collar gleaming on her neck.

"Babydoll?"

The Gravia startles and flinches back hard deeper into the room, clearly trying to find something approximating cover between her and whatever horror had come for her. Panic is written plain on her face before she looks up, focuses, and calms just a bit, shifting through what could almost be graphics settings. One minute she’s abstract 3D shapes, the next she’s ultra high rest, almost too beautiful, then she’s down to a rough outline like the rig of a 3D model. What Masha can see clearly however is panic being replaced by confusion.

"Y-you aren't the Captain."

"Nope. I'm here to rescue you I think..."

"You think?"

"Well you look like you're in trouble to me. Are you in trouble?"

"Y-yes." The younger woman more or less sobs. "Buh-but the Captain she'll hurt me if I..."

"She's never going to hurt you again. I can promise you that. Come here sweetie, let me get you out of that collar and we'll..."

The glimmer of hope offered to the Gravia was apparently a very powerful drug to her, and a surprised Masha nearly finds herself off balance as she's practically tackled by the now sobbing Gravia.

"They took me! Did things to me! They made me do terrible things, I-I..."

"Shhh... it's okay sweetie, you're safe now. What's your name?"

"I-I uhm." She tries and fails to control her stutter, face still streaming with axiom tears. "xXxBabydollxXx GLn(k)"

"...I'm just going to call you Babydoll if that's okay with you."

"Y-yes."

"Great, now you just let go Babydoll, and I'll get you out of those chains. Then we can find you a blanket to cover yourself up and get you somewhere warm, and maybe get you some food. Does that sound nice?"

"Yes."

The Gravia wavers on her feet, slumping against Masha as she mutters a word that Masha knows to mean big sister in the Gravia tongue.

Whether that was referring to Masha herself, or to a long lost sibling the Apuk wasn't sure, but she was sure that the pirate Captain who did this to this poor girl had better be thankful she was already dead.