Boarding Actions

Alwen cleaned the captain’s wound and checked her for any other less visible injuries, the maroon armor took on most of the damage, but a little prodding revealed some bruised ribs and some clotted puncture wounds just a few centimeters away from a major artery, beyond that and the entire missing eye, Captain Astarte seemed fit and able. It made her wonder if the grenade had been underpowered, or if the captain was just that sturdy. She had access to her medical records, and she had noted with shock and a little discomfort all the extensive modifications. Micro lattice reinforcements along her skeleton, eight different material used to improve and enforce her ligaments. Artificial tendons and muscle tissue so advanced it toed the line between bionics and straight up artificially grown muscles tacked over her body, even more surprising was that it was all done without butchering her over a surgical table. Intravenous solutions and other abstract eldritch medical techniques Alwen had never heard of, had organically replaced her preexisting muscles with the artificial ones that acted as an upgrade in every metric. All cutting age advancements that were the pinnacle of Terran medical technology adapted from Union knowledge.

Most of the crew sported some sort of augmentation, the marines most of all. Which told Alwen that the three months she had spent getting to know Terrans and understanding their limits, marveling at their feats, wasn’t exactly baseline Terran ability. They were even trying to persuade Alwen to do the same thing to her body, and despite the noninvasive treatment something about it rattled Alwen. If she replaced all her body with artificial muscles and tendons, would she still be Alwen, or the super lifelike machine that had now moved into her skin?

She knew that was a ridiculous thought since her brain and soul would still be Torweni. But something about it seemed like a step too far. A step she could never go back on.

The rest of the surviving Terrans had much less severe wounds, cuts, scrapes, bruises, and jittery nerves.

Another group joined them, and the captain without any other prompting began to lead them through the twisty maze of subway sized tunnels. Their labyrinthine path required them to make leaps that shouldn’t have been possible but under the lower effects of standard gravity, were easy to achieve. Only a few times did the group have to rely on their augmented muscles to cross, when that happened two Terrans would leap across and another two would boost Alwen across the fissure to be caught on the other side. They moved through the tunnels like trained acrobats and traversed the station far faster than going by normal means could ever achieve, even when the world outside wasn’t on fire and in chaos.

They once passed a huddled and shivering group of terrified aliens who had found refuge in the tunnels. One shrieked as the Terrans bounded by, and they scrabbled at the door trying to get away. Alwen wondered what they had seemed like to them, deathworlders surely had a monstrous reputation amongst the galaxy. She would have reacted the same way if a flood of flying insects had burst through the tunnels as well. Their reaction still hurt though.

After only five minutes they burst out of hatch into the massive internal docking bay were gravity plating was only used along the walkways. The rest of the space was a zero-g expanse that allowed for ships to slip in and out with ease. Without hesitation Astarte leapt through the void at a shallow angle that would allow her to intercept with the small field of artificially generated gravity generated by a gargantuan freighter. She floated briefly before landing on the ships roof with a light step. Before Alwen had a chance to think she was tossed out onto the same course that the captain had taken, as insulting as being thrown was, Alwen knew it was for the best. She had zero EV experience and likely would have overshot the ship.

She at least oriented herself feet first before she entered the gravity, her momentum shifted as she entered the two-and-a-half-meter field that extended above the ship for repair work, and she fell the short distance and stumbled a little as she landed. Seconds later the rest of the team had joined them. Astarte walked to the edge and dropped off the side, gracefully borrowing a little downward force from the gravity field to drop down onto the next ship. They moved across the hulls of four different ships until they stood above one ominous ship. Its shape was vaguely threatening to Alwen’s sensibilities, and she knew instinctively that this was the pirate’s ship, the Coiled strike.

They waited a few minutes as a group of three fully armored marines joined them. They traveled from the general direction of the Astaroth and were each laden with two heavy duffle bags. Unlike her group these marines were fully armored, all the bells and whistles as the Terrans said, active plasma shielding that would have saved Wraith, EM maneuvering thrusters to make traversing the docking bay easier, and helmets with advanced sensors and heads up display. Alwen didn’t recognize two of the marines under their helmets, but the third with conspicuous alterations to allow for large black curly segmented horns was Kate. The other variant human aboard who just also happened to be named Kathrine, though everyone else distinguished them by calling them Kat and Kate.

“Christmas came early!” Kate said cheerfully as she tossed one of her bags to Alice and inside Alwen saw the large gauss weapons the Terrans always preferred. They had some sort of negative stigma about using pulse or plasma weaponry, for some reason they didn’t like turning their battle fields into a literal burning hellscape from their weapon fire. It didn’t fit their whole personal esthetic, but if there was one thing Alwen had learned from these people it was that practicality always outweighed style.

“Thank goodness.” Alice muttered “I did not like the idea of taking on a whole ship with swords and spite.”

“It would have been cool though,” Gabriel opined “imagine tearing through their ship with just blades in hand, it’ll be just like that time on Parox, right Wrai-” Gabriel stopped short as he realized his friend was dead. Alwen watched his face warp with grief, and watched that grief darken into rage. His shift marked a change in everyone’s mood, they geared up in silence.

The captain turned towards Alwen, then turned a little more since Alwen was standing on her left and she wasn’t fully used to the loss of peripheral vison “Strip down to your underclothes” she ordered.

“Why?” Alwen squeaked, a little embarrassed at the idea.

Her face ticked with annoyance as Alwen once again questioned her. Alwen still felt dread when she recalled how dark and murderous Astarte’s face went back in the maintenance tunnel “Because body armor doesn’t fit over clothes that well, the shirts already ruined so toss it off the side when you’re done.”

She then kicked a bag over to Alwen; the bag was filled with a Kevlar and chainmail vests and other defensive modules she didn’t understand. Alice got there first and pulled out a black vest as Alwen pulled her shirt off, Alice turned and then openly stared at Alwen along with the captain and the other marines.

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“I said leave your underclothes on” the captain snapped after staring as well.

“She doesn’t have those Sir” Alice said as she got over her shock and started shoving the vest over Alwen’s head “Torweni don’t have the concept of bras, hell, I think we’re lucky she even wears a shirt.”

Alwen scowled as Alice forced the vest over her head “I told you that’s just an islander thing.”

The captain grimaced “Sorry for snapping then, you’ll just have to deal with violently chaffed nipples.” She turned her back on Alwen and faced towards her quarry.

~~~*~~~

Astarte knew she needed to calm down a bit, but Gabe reminded her that these bastards had killed Wraith and that got her on edge. It didn’t do good to snap at people who were trying their best to manage a wildly chaotic and scarry situation. Alwen herself had pointed out that she was not a combat specialist, and would likely be a hinderance.

But Astarte had seen the red blood on her hands, she didn’t know for sure that it was Wraith’s, it could have been her date’s for all she knew. But that didn’t really matter, someone had died in that girls arms as she tried to heal them, died because some cowardly Xeno had gotten the drop on them. She needed a good blooding, it would hurt and haunt her, but the scales of life and death demanded enemy blood to be balance out the blood of fallen comrades. It was Alwen’s duty to Wraith and the others to take part in this battle and avenge them, just like it was for the rest of them.

The girl could heal and process the grief later, there was killing to do first.

Astarte pulled out a laser designator and aimed it at a point of easy access on the Coiled Strike. She tapped her com “Karega, I need a laser guided Bodkin.”

Static crackled on his end “On it!” he said over the concussive sounds of repeating gauss- rifles.

Seconds later from above them, a small cylinder dropped from the port side missile tube, it fell gracelessly until it reached a safe point to kick off its chemical booster. Then it lit up and roared with all the furry a missile should have. Targeting equipment traced her laser and the Bodkin self-corrected and hurtled into the side of the enemy ship.

She could have launched javelins and pulse cannons at the enemy ship, at this ridiculous short range there was no chance of missing its ugly hull. But launching small warheads in an enclosed station risked being caught in the blast, and anything more powerful also risked ship sized shrapnel setting off a chain reaction that would certainly hit the Astaroth. Besides, she would prefer that the crew of the Coiled Strike to just mysteriously die, with nothing to tie them directly to her and the Astaroth.

“GO, GO, GO!” she roared, dragging the doctor behind her as she leapt into the flames. Small electromagnetic thrusters that Kate had brought pushed them at speed through the new 4-meter-wide hole in the hull, active heat shielding modules activated making them suddenly immune to the heat of the flames and twisted metal by preventing any of the energy transferring to their bodies for a few seconds. Aster didn’t fully understand how it worked, she only knew that it operated on a quantum mechanics level and had something to do with entropy. It was all beyond her street urchin upbringing and ultimately didn’t matter to her, so long as it worked.

Kate had brought guns, grenades, shaped charges, transparent riot shields, and small arms just to be safe. Astarte ignored using any of those much more sensible options and instead relied on her archaic sword and primordial Hellworlder muscles and reflexives. Eggads had great eyes for far off prey, it was how their ancestors had stalked large game over the course of days, and up close their vision was on par with human 20-20 vision. But they had immense difficulty tracing anything that moved too fast, it was why they made shitty pilots without extensive computer assistance. Video recordings of their precontact fighter pilots looked outlandishly graceless and slow to any Terran observer.

So as Astarte rushed through the wide, too tall, galactic standard sized corridors, it would have appeared to the unsuspecting crew that she had teleported across the short distance and decapitated them in an unseen slash.

Impressively whenever one snuck past her guard on her brand new and frustrating blind spot for an up-close and personal strike, Alwen was there to sink four-five shots into it. And whenever a more distant foe tried to fix her in their sights, Alwen put several burning shots into their flank. Astarte was genuinely impressed with her accuracy, even if her ammo usage was appalling. She was glad Kat had given her a pulse gun with literally hundreds of shots between charges.

The twins followed up behind Astarte and Alwen, clearing side rooms as they passed. The rest had broken into four-man teams to sweep through the ship like vengeful ghosts, leaving only corpses. And even then the bodies didn’t last long, Kate had developed a chemical weevil that reacted with the six most common intergalactic proteins to activate its own custom self-destructing fungus. It feasted on those proteins before then feeding on itself, leaving only a pile of dust. Unfortunately it couldn’t actually effect a living person, not without become a viral epidemic that threatened all life. And as brutal as Astarte was, engineering a super fungus that consumed everything in its wake was not something she felt like introducing to the galaxy, that duty belonged solely to Mother Nature. It had actually been am Earth native flesh-eating fungus that they had used as a base for the weevils.

It made for a convenient and easy way to dispose of bodies when anonymity was key. And she rarely ever authorized its use, just in case some foolhardy person decided to recreate it without the genetic constraints.

They reached the bridge in a matter of minutes, the twins armed shaped charges, and Astarte handed Alwen a grenade with terse instructions for its use. The young girl was still hesitant about killing, everything before had been spur of the moment actions, this was very much premeditated. The charges drew the hatch off its hinges and grenades followed seconds after, they held their ears as the twin bangs of fragmentation grenades tore up the inside. Seconds after the explosions they burst through the still smoking door and swept through the room with a practiced ease.

There were sparks from damaged consoles, smoke, and a disturbing lack of bodies or panicked attackers. They swept through the room and found nothing. Astarte felt confused, then she felt enraged, and then she felt panicked as a hissing sound came from the vents, and a green sharp smelling vapor filled the ship. Her eyes began to water, and her throat stung from the galaxy’s most lethal nerve agent, Vaxis. She bellowed in rage as she realized that she had been lured into a trap.

~~~*~~~

Ah’ared was the second in command to the Galaxy’s most feared pirate fleet, the Aunviry Marauders. His predecessors were now the leaders of great law-abiding dynasties after making their fortune as pirate. Ah’ared didn’t rise to the top of the Aunviry Marauders by being stupid or reckless, and certainly not by letting some Hellworld bitch only a quarter of his age push him around.

He had judged that the Femeri Sector was a bust, his clients were all gone thanks to her. And the shadowy guild of contacts and informants from the shadow league refused to do business with him on fear of pissing off the Hellworlders. Astarte and her ilk had proven to be tenacious leeches in his side, but they simply weren’t vicious enough for him to respect as real pirates. The human girl had put up a good façade, but he had seen through it by looking at her past actions. Rescuing slaves, hunting drug lords, decimating Gaw, they were all the actions of a soft hearted and self-righteous person, not a real pirate. He determined that there was nothing to fear from her claims, and if her crew survived then he doubted that they had the thickened hide to take him on in the confederacy’s courts.

Still he was impressed with their tenacious ability, and sturdy defense. He had meant to take that glorious ship of hers and make it his own private trophy. It outclassed his newest vessel, the Venom, by many parsecs and would have been an excellent new command ship. With a ship like that he could have overthrown Kazlum, and taken his place as the leader of the Aunviry Marauders. Alas their boarding had failed several times now, and his crew had almost finished loading the station’s loot into the holds of his other ships, he would need to leave soon.

It was a shame to leave the Coiled Strike behind, but he had set it up in advance on the off chance that they chose to strike back. It had irked him to see that Hell-bitch leading the charge. Apparently ten trained raiders and his own lieutenant weren’t enough to take on a single woman, apparently the element of surprise wasn’t enough for them. Still it was satisfying to watch her jump from ship to ship, only to fall into his well-placed trap. Her enraged roar had sent delighted shivers down his spine. He had also armed the ship with explosives just in case, but he couldn’t detonate them just yet, not while his fleet was still here.

“Are we nearly done yet?” Ah’ared snapped at his new lieutenant.

“Nearly, we have a few crews still making their way back.” the lieutenant responded respectfully.

“Leave them, they should have been quicker, its survival of the swiftest.”

“Yes captain” it responded evenly, not a hint of concern for the stragglers.

“Once we’re all out of here detonate the Coiled Strike. Set a course for the great confederacy station.”