“Come nahw, come nahw.” Mustrek said through the green-tinted hologram, his muzzle turned and one of his large ears pointing down as a sign of his apologetic smile. “Ye kno dere’s a place for ya here right? Yer brotha is a captain in the blood moons, dere’s always a place fer ya here. Oh, yes-yes.” He said with his muzzle bunching up to show his fanged teeth, the Withri version of a smile.
Ezurt snorted. “I kno, I kno.” He grumbled. “But I'm captain of the Arbalest, wit my own crew an everythin. I’m leader of the rashka pirates.” He said with his races equivalent to a smirking sneer as he looked at his brother through the hologram.
Mustrek shook his head. “I don kno what ya have fer brains lil’brotha but ye kno yer welcome here.” He said shaking his head and sighing before turning off the hologram, leaving a smug Ezurt alone in his cabin. He stayed there for a while, enjoying the silence of his cabin for a time. His crew was almost two hundred strong now and silence was a luxury aboard the Arbalest.
Especially if the females went into heat, small Withri pups were loud handfuls with a tendency to bite things and places they really shouldn’t. What was worse was the number that would come about as each female could have up to six or seven pups.
He shook his head and scratched at the underside of his muzzle. Ezurt didn’t enjoy Mustrek calling him his little brother, mostly it was due to his size compared to Mustrek, but he was well into his twilight years now. His fur was greying and no longer that silk wine brown it used to be in his prime. Why had his mother had to have such a pup as her last litter? Strong, tall and about as well-spoken as Withri came and now a captain in the blood moon pirate fleet?! He would never live this down.
Ezurt was the firstborn, he’d beaten his litter mates with tooth, claw, cunning and a few knives or pistols here and there when there was a real need for it. He’d taken the Arbalest before he’d had his first mating and had been a successful pirate for the past six years. Now at eight years old, he was still going strong despite younger and sprier pups vying for his place as crew leader. Nothing a good spike bat or blastlock shot couldn’t fix though. And once one was made an example off the rest fell in line.
He got up off his chair and headed out of his quarters. Stopping as he opened the door as Izik stood outside his door about to chime the indicator. The female was young just reaching her first heat at two years old but she had proven herself competent and trustworthy and had quickly become one of the leading figures of the crew. She was the only one trusted with the communication equipment and regularly helped the navigation section of the crew as well.
“Captain! We have something new on the scanners!” She said in her foppish tone, most likely the only thing that irritated Ezurt about her, she didn’t speak like the other Withri, but in turn, she was the most understood one aboard the entire ship at times.
“What we got?” He nearly barked as he left his quarters, his hat placed upon his brow and captains coat with several medals pinned to it in place on his shoulders.
“A new type of ship captain, like nothing we’ve ever seen in this new system we found. The strange part is that it’s heavily armed and armoured but is almost non-functional.” She reported and Ezurt’s interest was piqued.
“A warship?” He asked with a toothy grin.
“I think so captain. We are almost upon it and it looks like only half of the ship is actually holding anything within it. Its almost like it’s half-finished but that isn’t the strangest part sir.” Izik continued. “It looks old, very old but also likes its been recently damaged after going through an ion storm.”
Ezurt slowed his pace as they had begun heading to the bridge of the Arbalest and looked at her. “Ye tink we c’n get it operational again?” He asked.
“That’s what the spirit told us.” She answered and he almost did a double-take.
“It got a ghost in it?” He asked wide-eyed.
“Yes, I think so at least. We have come in contact with the ship itself so I think it has a spirit core inside it.” She said but then she smirked wide. “It said it might be able to make you immortal, captain. Make you captain of it and you’d be able to rule the clans, it even told us it was building a huge shipyard in the asteroid belt of the system and we checked and it is. All we have to do is kill the current captain of the ship.” She said with a gleeful smile, Ezurt had to admit that her devotion to his continued well being and rule was what made him think of her as the daughter he never had. He had been too busy being captain to have taken part in many seasons and so had fewer offspring than many in his position would have but he suspected that Ezurt was one of his if not partly. Maybe a granddaughter?
But what she’d said made him suspicious.
“The current captain?” He asked with narrowed and suspicious eyes.
Izik didn’t seem to notice as she nodded her head up and down. “Yeah, the spirit told us that after the last battle it had, only the captain was left alive on board. Life sign scanners even confirmed it.” She said and now Ezurt began to mirror Izik’s gleeful expression.
“Gather de deckmen, make em ready to board dat ship. I’m going to become immortal!” He said in triumph as he then ran to the bridge to see his new flagship for himself. A ship with an A.I. or spirit as the Withri called them, were very rare things and more often than not they were very old too. Some had malicious spirits or insane ones but this was the first time he’d heard of a friendly spirit so willing to give up its failure of a captain for a promising new one to take over.
Its promise of immortality was also not suspected as the ships with A.I. had no reputation of lying and more often than not were telling the truth in every sense one could imagine.
Once on the bridge, he looked from Rutzic, his second in command and his son, to the hologram of the ship they approached. It looked very old but sleek and deadly too. This was an ancient ship and those were always powerful things that were hard to repair but if the spirit of the ship would help them it might be easy to fix it. Not only that but it would come with its own clan nest and shipyards to build his fleet? This was a gift from the great wyrms, that was for certain.
His younger brother wouldn’t outdo him, if the spirit could make him immortal it could also make him the tallest, strongest and the best looking Withri alive as well. It must be able too. He would no longer be overshadowed by overachieving siblings, now they would be compared to him.
“Rutzic, grab the crew and get ready to board dat ship. If you do a good enough job and we claim it.” He paused and looked at his son, giving him a pointed stare. “You get the Arbalest, an will be a captain of the Rashka pirates.”
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His son smiled a vicious and toothy grin. “You getting a fleet da?” He asked and the vicious grin Ezurt gave him back made them both let out the rumbling hyena-like chuckle that their kind was known for.
As his son left he stood on the bridge and watched as one harpoon was shot into the hull of the unknown ship. The impact jolting the ship a little and both had to circle one another warily as another was loaded in. “Fire!” He yelled once it was fully loaded and they had lined the ships up airlock to airlock.
The second harpoon fired and the ships began to be dragged together. Something many ships were able to avoid or make the Withri suffer for using in space combat but something intrinsic to the Withri as a species. Never had a boarding action gone this well and without damage thought Ezurt, today was his lucky day.
It took just a few more minutes and both ships were aligned and the airlocks connected. Ezurt made his way down to command from the middle of his forces as a proper Withri leader should. Not from the front or the back but from the middle, with as many Withri between them and the enemy on all sides as possible.
The airlocks hissed and then opened their dirty brown and dimly lit hallways opening to the sleek black corridors of the unknown vessel. Its insides looked new to Ezurt and there was a thin white line along the walls to show the walls of each corridor but not much else for light. After a few meters in it just went black.
A short growl from Rutzic made two Withri jump forwards and walk into the ship. Ezurt groaned inwardly as he noted they didn’t turn on any lights but he couldn’t command them if he wanted his son to succeed him in command of the Arbalest.
It took only a few minutes for the two to come sprinting back as heavy footfalls echoed down the hallway. Soon two glaring fully red eyes could be seen in the darkness as the footfalls sounded closer and closer. One Withri finally got the idea to turn on his light source and shined it down at the creature that was the captain of the unknown ship.
Ezurt looked from the armoured figure holding a large mace in its hands. “A mystic?” He asked Izik who was next to him.
“None I’ve ever seen.” She replied as they both looked at the warrior before them.
Never had he seen such an armour that so clearly screamed physical mystic yet also called external mystic before. It was like a predator had stopped just on the borders of its territory and just looked at them as invaders, daring them to come forwards. Then it spoke.
It was harsh guttural and sounded like it came from a slightly faulty speaker with a predatory reptile as the speaker. The rumbling growl in the voice made Ezurt swallow.
When the creature seemed to realize it couldn’t be understood it groaned and pointed at them. This made one Withri flinch and fire his blastlock at the creature. Ezurt couldn’t believe what he saw. The hot plasma shot curved around the creature as it jerked to the side like it was protected by a shield. The angered growl that came next made them all flinch. Withri weren’t the bravest of creatures and unknowns were something they didn’t deal with well.
Then the creature did something to the mace and all of the sudden hard light blades came out of the flared part of the mace. Creating a great axe with a curved blade at the other end, like a claw-shaped spike. The inside of the axe was a roiling dark red while the outline was a hard light of a golden colour that made a strange reddish light fall around the weapon.
The creature seemed about as surprised about the transformation as the Withri were but then they all felt it. As the creature began to chuckle in predatory satisfaction the Withri got ready, they couldn’t flee anymore after the way they boarded so now all they could do was fight.
They took out their weapons, ranging from knives, sharpened or heavy tools for melee and blastlocks for range. As they all aimed their blaslocks at the creature before it exploded into motion.
What followed next could only be described as violence of the most horrific nature. It was clear the creature was trained for combat with the way it moved in a serpentine manner to throw off the Withri’s aim but how it moved its body was the strange part. Like it was used to making the movements just not with its current body. Nevertheless, the creature made the short fifteen meters of the airlock tubes length seem like three steps with its speed.
And once it had reached them the axe swung. Screams came in a cacophony as limbs were sent flying, the wounds cauterized as they were sliced through like air. Many had lost heads along with parts of their torsos as the axe cleaved through a group of them, then the monstrous creature pushed at them with the handle of the weapon with such strength that the first three rows of Withri stumbled back or fell over entirely.
“Dat spirit was no spirit.” Ezurt said in horror as he saw the creature grip the legs it had cut off one Withri and beat another to death with it while swinging its axe at the rest of them. “Dat’s a demon!” He began to yip and call for a retreat to try and fall back to a better defensive position but the way blastlock fire curved around the creature at worst or splashed off it to make it step back at best made him realize their only hope was in melee. But to do that he’d need to have it come at them at a place of their choosing were the narrow corridors of the Arbalest weren’t as much a funnel as it was now.
In such a confined place they couldn’t bring their numbers to bear safely maybe three at a time and the creature was strong enough to overwhelm that number with ease. As they all fled back and headed towards the cargo holds the creature gripped Rutzic’s throat as he headed at it with his blade. The last Ezurt saw of his son was the creature ripping his head off with its bare hands after turning the axe off and embedding it in the Withri that tried to save his son. Then it let out a primal roar that shook him to his core.
He swore vengeance as his eyes burned wet and hot. As they made it to the cargo hold he looked at Izik and didn’t want the same fate for her. “Izik! Get the clan’s ivi’s and get to the back. Send all warriors here!” He commanded to her in as crisp a tone as he could and she looked at him with her legs shaking, she like many other Withri had soiled herself in fear at the carnage they had witnessed.
He backhanded her and commanded her again. The light of recognition coming to her eyes after that and with a sad nod farewell she ran off into the deeper parts of the ship to gather everyone together. Ezurt then looked at the forces he had with him in the hold.
He’d only brought about thirty men with him out of almost a hundred and thirty men he had available. He’d thought he’d only need that many to finish off a single combatant onboard that unknown ship. It should have been more than enough but the thing was immune to blastlock fire somehow!
He breathed in deep and let out his warrior musk, the scent calming and steeling his warriors as they watched down the corridor the heavy footfalls were coming from again.
“Get ready boys! We have a fight on ou’r hands so let’s get it!” He called before a blastlock came flying out of the corridor, it was cracked and soon it exploded in the middle of a group of his crew.
Before the smoke cleared he saw the creatures shadow enter the cargo hold and the crackling snap-hiss of its axe turning on again tinted the entire smoke in that red colour, making the visibility even poorer. Ezurt could barely see through the smoke as two more cracked pistols went off to cause even more chaos and smoke before the creature was on him.
It towered over him staring at him for a second before it then sliced through his lower body without him even being able to react properly but he did manage to slash out with his cutlass and making a scar down the creature's armour.
The eyes on the mask widened a little and he realized he’d found it’s weakness but before he could spend the last of his strength to call it out the creature gripped his muzzle in its grip. It then proceeded to slam what remained of Ezurts broken body against his men and used him as a shield from their fire. All without even the ability to scream what he knew through its grip.