Carter looked at the girl like she'd just sprouted three heads, which, to be fair, wasn't outside the realm of possibilities with this group. "Pirates are coming? Can't you shoot them down or something?"

The girl tilted her head as if in thought. "A ship that small? Easily...if we had a captain. Sadly, without a captain, we're locked out of all primary systems like thrusters and weaponry and only have access to secondary essentials, such as life support."

It annoyed Carter to realize they had him between a rock and a hard place. "Fine! Fine! I'll go get hooked up in that damn chair of yours!"

The girl smiled. "Excellent! I'm sure that will be the beginning of a fruitful relationship. However, you might want to see to those pirates first, as the procedure will take far too long for us to keep you safe while you are unconscious."

Carter resisted the urge to bash his head into the nearby wall...barely. "You're the ones running this haunted hay ride! Hell, you've killed everyone who set foot here in the last century! Can't you take care of a few measly pirates?"

The girl shrugged. "Well, we can help, but with restricted access, we usually just torment people until they kill themselves. Depending on how resilient they are, that could take a while, but if you don't mind waiting, that could work. Or we could just shut off life support..."

Carter could just hide in his escape pod, so that was definitely an option. "Where are the pirates landing, and where's my escape pod docked?"

The girl brought up a ship-wide map and corrected him: "The pirates have already landed here and are beginning to explore the vessel. My other selves have already begun their little games but have yet to get too overt in their favorite pastimes. Your escape pod is located in this hanger."

Of course, his pod was right next to where they'd landed, but that wasn't just dumb luck. He'd picked that spot for probably the same reason the pirates did. From the outside, it looked like the safest location to begin exploring the ancient ship. Still, "I just can't catch a break, can I?"

The girl shrugged. "Well, the good news is if you survive this, I don't think there will be any more complaints about you as our captain."

The look Carter gave her was full of all the exhaustion and apathy he could muster. "I'm sure there are things I care less about right now; I just can't think of any at the moment..."

Shaking his head, Carter decided to focus on more important things. "How many are there?"

The girl stopped and considered. "Fifteen."

Carter had two magazines left, minus the one bullet he'd "shot" the girl with when he first met her. So, if he was good enough to kill every pirate in only one or two shots, he'd be fine. In other words, he was screwed. He looked at the girl. "Okay, but I'm definitely gonna need you all to work with me on this..."

-

As Graham led the way down the hallway, he was starting to feel paranoid. They'd been down on their luck after the last couple of jobs had spiraled, but the boss said she'd seen this ship floating dead a while ago, and it would be easy pickings. However, Graham just couldn't shake the feeling it wasn't quite as abandoned as the boss had claimed. Maybe it was just his imagination, but it seemed like there was always something just at the corner of his vision or a whisper just down the next hallway, but whenever he looked, there was never anything there.

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The four men in his squad were looking through another abandoned room while he kept watch outside. That was when he heard the whispers, understandable for the first time, but the voice sounded off, wrong, as if a dozen voices were alternating speaking all around him. "Cockroaches. COCKROACHES. Cockroaches. Little scurrying pests. Searching through the shadows for our crumbs. What will you do when I turn the light on, I wonder?"

Graham turned to the others as they were leaving the room. "You guys heard that? What the hell was that?"

The other pirates looked at him like he was crazy. "What the hell are you talking about? Don't tell me you're on the pull already!"

Then the voices started again, louder this time, but still speaking like they were all around him again. "All alone! All alone! The little cockroach wonders why his friends don't want to play. He's all alone, and he'll die all alone. Will the other cockroaches miss him when he's gone? Or will they feast on his corpse?"

Graham grabbed his gun and pulled it out, looking around wildly, unaware of the looks the rest were giving him. "That! That's what the hell I'm talking about! Who the hell is saying that shit?!?"

The others looked back and forth among each other before one approached Graham. "Um, man, are you okay? Maybe go back to the ship and ride out whatever shit you're on."

However, Graham was too distracted by the voices to listen. "Little cockroach, little cockroach, I see you! I'm coming for you! I'm going to peel your skin from your still screaming corpse and feed it to your friends, little cockroach!"

Graham started pointing his gun at where the voices seemed to be coming from, and the others started ducking and diving as his gun waved wildly about. One of them reached up and tried to restrain him, but just then, the voice returned, a whisper once more, now sounding like it was coming from just behind him, accompanied by a horrendous stench of a decomposing body. "There you are, little cockroach!"

With pure adrenaline surging through his body, Graham shoved the other pirate away and turned, only to see a woman in red floating around the corner. Her skin was pale and rotting, and her eyes had been eaten by the worms now wriggling in their sockets. Once she saw them, she screamed, but the scream sounded like a thousand voices all screaming incoherently as she suddenly started flying toward them.

Graham unloaded his gun into the apparation, then dropped it and ran. He could hear the gunshots of the other pirates behind him, trying in vain to stop the nightmare made manifest. But he knew she was here for him, and he didn't want to hang around to find out more. As he blindly tore around a corner, there was the sound of another shot, much closer than the rest, and the world went dark.

-

After shooting the one pirate dead, Carter walked around the corner and made short work of the rest, who'd all emptied their guns and were either running or cowering. He got all five in only eleven shots. Pretty damn good as far as he was concerned, but now he was down to eighteen shots and still had ten pirates to go, not great odds.

After a quick search of the bodies, he was more than a little dismayed to learn none of them had any spare ammo on them. It looked like they'd only boarded the ship after running out of all other options. Carter turned to the vixen, who was back to her usual sultry-looking self, examining the pirates with her usual expression of contempt. "Pathetic playthings. They broke too easily..."

As he stood up, Carter couldn't help but ask. "Hey, how'd you do that thing where only one guy could hear you?"

The vixen looked at Carter with only slightly less contempt than she had the pirates. "It was a simple focused beam of sound waves. I can make it so you can hear me clear as day, but someone even a foot away won't hear a thing. I've found it to be an effective manner to induce paranoia and hysteria."

Carter shook his head. "There's something seriously messed up with you. You do know that, right?"

If the vixen cared, her expression didn't show it. "Oh, does the larger cockroach feel sympathy with the rest of the infestation?"

Carter shook his head again but kept his thoughts to himself as he replaced his mostly spent magazine with the full one, pocketing the used one for later use.