Recovery
Pain filled Alwen’s senses, her eyes watered, her nose overran with runny snot and her lungs burned. She coughed and hacked as she tried to see straight. “What is this?” she cried into the opaque room before she held her breath. The pain in her lungs slowly subsided now that she wasn’t taking in steady lungful’s of poison.
“Vaxis, deadliest Union made chemical weapon.” the captain wheezed, though she seemed a little better off then Alwen. “Tastes like menthol, cinnamon, chili powder, and vaporized acids that cling to the lungs. Its why we need a special permit just to have Terran spices aboard”
“Fucking pepper spray!” Isabela groaned.
“Apparently mustard gas was to overkill for the Union” Astarte muttered, she lifted her PA and spoke into it. “All crew aboard the Coiled Strike evacuate, Ah’ared just did our jobs for us.”
Alices voice crackled over the speaker “uh Cap’n, I think you should hurry, we just found explosive latched onto a capacitor bank. Can’t disarm them.” she reported.
“Fuck!” the captain cursed before sending out a new comm “Everyone out, on the double.” she ordered levelly, despite the rage in her eyes.
They ran, everyone progressively looking worse as they sucked huge gasps of the galaxy’s supposedly deadliest poison. Alwen’s eyes burned from the exposure, but her natural ability to hold her breath for long increments of time saved her from feeling the worst of it.
Their group left the breach first and they helped pull the others out and direct them towards a safe alcove behind a supporting structure. When the last group was out the captain gripped Alwen beneath the knees and leapt off the ship, jetting forward on EM thrusters. They were meters away from Isabela and Gato’s outstretched arms when a piercing bang went off behind them and flung them into the group with enough force to break or bruise some of Alwen’s ribs.
“Alright, lets see what other bullshit life has in store for me today” Astarte grumbled from within the Terran pile of tangled limbs and groaning.
~~~*~~~
The deck plates of her ship were a slick, sticky, green, and a mess. And Astarte couldn’t help but think of the alien blood as snot, the color and consistency was just too on point. ‘Apes were in the process of dragging alien corpses out of the inner decks and tossing them over the side in an undignified manner. They stood up straight and saluted as she stepped aboard. She must have looked like fresh hell to them, missing an eye, covered in alien and human blood, torn armor, streaks of tears and snot from the galaxies greatest chemical weapon, and her hair was frayed and burned. But she couldn’t see anything but respect in their eyes.
She stepped up to the Bosun, a man who had been like a father or uncle to her growing up. None of that familiarity showed now though, he stood at full attention and gave every ounce of respect her position commanded “At ease Bosun.” Aster croaked, trying to sound strong through the fire in her lungs. “You all did commendable jobs in defending this ship; if we were a proper navy and had medals for valor each and every one of you would have earned it. Instead everyone here will earn a marked increase in pay, and a handwritten commendation to be added to your permeant files. Today we will clean, tomorrow we will mourn, and after that we will go to war. Those Egh’ahd bastards, and their Aunviry overlords will pay in blood. Dismissed.” she ordered: with a quick flick of her hand above where her left eye had been, she snapped a sharp salute.
Astarte and her impromptu and likely ill-advised boarding party descended below decks to see the green painted halls of the ships interior. It took her an embarrassing second to realize that someone hadn’t painted the halls in sickly green paint. The Eggad blood was just everywhere, coating everything for a good 10 meters in, the teak wood floors were likely ruined. “Bones, I expect you to have a very long day ahead of you. But I am ordering you to take thirty minutes to clean the blood and Vaxis off. Alice you are to make sure she complies.” She ordered without turning back.
“Captain” Alwen shouted from behind Aster, the captain turned and leveled a one eye glare at the blood soaked and shaken doctor. “If that’s the case then I must insist you report to the med bay in half an hour. Ocular trauma needs more attention than a quick cleaning and stitches. There may still be small fragments in your wounds, best to get it out of the way.”
Aster sighed “fine, but it’ll have to be an hour from now, there are things that require my immediate attention.”
“Not a minute more” Alwen ordered.
A smile tugged on Aster’s sore and broken face at the violet alien giving her orders on her own ship.
Aster turned and marched on towards the bridge, and her smile quickly faded away. She saw bodies lined down the halls, covered respectfully with white sheets. Wounded sailors tried to stand and salute her, until she gently ordered them to rest. She saw hundreds of little scars on her deck that denoted a fierce battle that had raged aboard while she played the revenge game. Men and women who might have been saved if they had the extra thirty odd marines to help shore up the defense. Bullets holes, plasma burns, and bent warped metal bulkheads from explosives, she felt pained as she saw each and every blemish on her ship.
The bridge was inconspicuously silent as she entered, all available hands were needed for more important jobs than sitting in a cushioned chair. Kar was there however, slumped in her command seat, gently resting his head in his hands. “What’s the damage?” she asked without preamble.
“To the ship, its mostly cosmetic, some shrapnel from the Coiled Strike, warped exterior hull plates, but no breeches. 68 dead, maybe 200 wounded, but that number includes minor and major wounds.” He looked up and very obviously stared at where her eye had been. “I’ll add you to the list” he grunted.
Aster felt a stab of pain at the casualties, she knew objectively that it was Ah’areds fault, but she couldn’t help but think there was something she could have done, maybe if she had struck first it would have been better. “Okay,” she said softly before composing herself “clean out the enemy corpses, and prepare for our own funerals. I have a feeling that the SS is going to look for someone to blame and I expect a full search warrant will be issued shortly, make sure all our illegal toys are nice and tucked away. And ready the horseman. I need to clean this Vaxis out of me before I start to blister, but before that I want you to send out an emergency fleet wide command with the quantum-com”
The quantum com was a very expensive communicator with a low bandwidth, and only one use. It worked via quantum entangled atoms of helium, and other noble gases to send a short message when those entangled bonds broke. They were beyond the Terrans ability to recreate and impossibly expensive, only the galaxy’s oldest and richest company knew the secret and they fully abused that monopoly to charge exorbitant rates. As it stood, each ship only carried two on them, one for emergencies, and one to transmit when they were all dead. A morbid, but very necessary precaution.
“What do I send?” he asked cautiously.
“Alpha-3-3, Beta-Oscar-6-7-3, Zulu-Seirra-1” she cited with perfect accuracy. The code was short and referred to a list of contingency’s that every Hellworlder ship kept handy. This one in particular declared that the Astaroth had been attacked by other pirates, all ships were to meet up immediately at a predetermined point and to be on guard, we’re at war.
“Are you sure Star, we’ll be picking a difficult fight to win. Are you sure you’re thinking rationally about this” he said softly.
Astarte took in a deep breath, “I know I went off half-cocked before. I probably should have come straight to the ship. But this isn’t about revenge, not entirely. Half of all confederacy politics is about power and dominance, they accepted us into their ranks back then because of Astaroth and Lucifer’s tonnage. And they only respected us because we exterminated the old Terran pirate fleets, it was a bold move that they respected. Ah’ared was only so bold today because lately we haven’t been showing people why we’re to be feared. He thought we were soft and stupid, and the others might follow. We need to make a real show of force”
“Are sure its necessary?”
“Yes” she said firmly.
He sighed “Do you think your mom will approve?”
That gave her pause, the answer was obviously “yes!”. Her mom had been reckless enough to join a band of violent terrorists in pursuit of vengeance rather than raise her own daughter, she would fully approve of retaliating after this. Which is exactly what made her want to reassess her choice, because if her mom approved then it likely wasn’t the best idea. “Yes” she said less sure this time.
“And Bell?”
That one was trickier, the captain of the Beelzebub was much more stable and sound of mind than her mother, what would she say? This was a direct and open attack, precipitated by Aunviry attacks on their assets, they had no choice but to mobilize for war. “Yes.”
“And Modius?”
Not a question, his sister had been a part of that initial attack, and the Eggeds only attacked because rescuing his people made them look soft. He would feel obligated to join up with them on both counts. “Yes.”
“Alright, I wont argue if we have a presumed unanimous vote. I’ll leave you alone now.”
“Thank you.” Aster said as she passed him on her way to her room.
She didn’t enter the shower immediately, instead, covered in alien blood and a chemical cocktail that would choke any Xeno within ten feet of her, she checked herself in the mirror. Her good eye was red and puffy, and the absence of the other was stark, a gory red line now crossed where it used to be. There were several new gashes across her armor, and a scorch mark on her pauldron where a near fatal plasma blast had grazed her, an impressive feat given the incredibly advanced material sciences applied to make it the toughest and lightest plate mail the human race had ever known. She worked the straps and magnetic locks of her armor and let it fall to the floor in a pile, and slid her underclothes off to examining the other scars crisscrossing her torso and biceps. They were pale white lines that marred an otherwise granite like physique, one from a beating she had taken when she was ten, a burn from a burst steam pipe when she was sixteen on that piece of shit ship captain Greyson insisted was the greatest of the Terran pirate fleet. Bullet wounds, stab and slash wounds, and several other horizontal lines along her abdomen from invasive open gut surgeries done by men who were little more than butchers when compared to Bachir’s skill with a scalpel. She knew that below her skin laid the remnants of several different bone fractures and other internal scars.
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Her path had been a hard one, from birth to now. She knew pain, it was an old friend, and she welcomed its occasional visits. But these stark reminders on her body made her feel a different kind of pain, one she wasn’t unaccustomed too, and that made her scared. She feared that one day the tally of wounds would grow to great, that she would break and abandon her path after all she had sacrificed to get this far. And now she had lost a vital organ, one of her most vital organs in fact. This wound wasn’t fatal, but it now made her weaker than ever, and being weak was unacceptable. Her fear of weakness was why she wore her armor at all times, why she trained harder than the rest, why she had torn her body apart and replaced the weaker flesh with stronger synthetic flesh, it was why she had surrounded herself with the steal and bristling weapons of her beautiful Astaroth, it was why she took on the visage and marking of a demon. Because a weak little gutter born whore’s daughter didn’t have what it took to be strong.
It was why she fought like hell. And she would continue to so. Until her personal war on weakness was won.
~~~*~~~
Chief Kera’keck, commander of Femeri station security forces, had been woken from his second short daily nap by an explosion followed by pulse fire. What had followed was a fierce battle in the station security headquarters that lasted the whole raid. It only ended when the last of the pirates were killed and no more reinforcements came. He emerged to witness the pain and devastation inflicted on his station, nearly a third of all station security had been eliminated by either the pirates or poor panicked crowds. There were apparently several demands from the governor for Kera’keck to report in, but before he could stand in front of the governor he needed to have a real explanation for what had just occurred.
So when he received word from an aid that a particular Hellworld vessel was in port he jumped on it. What then unfolded before him was a very clear-cut pirate gang war waged across his station, with innocent civilians caught up in the middle of it.
He had long suspected the Astaroth of piracy, even before that piece of shit Gaw had presented some very compelling evidence. The ship had first emerged after a mysterious disappearance of the many known Terran pirate ships and pirates, directly after the ship had been launched from the Terran shipbuilders on Mars there was a massive uptick in piracy along the Sol-Parox hyper-lane, and as freighters and cargo ships abandoned the barely profitable Sol routes a new Terran owned transport company arose out of nowhere, the Charon Shipping Co. Named after the old Terran God who brought souls to the underworld, it wasn’t lost on him that the company transported goods and people to the only class 14 ‘Hellworld’ in the Union, that may have been the joke.
It took a little digging on his part, back when he was just an investigator, there were several ‘shell companies’, a Terran invention, that he had to dig past before he found Astarte’s name. The same woman who owned several weapons companies that didn’t seem to have any business dealings but still built and shipped missiles, guns, and other weaponry to seemingly nowhere. And the same women who also owned a heavily armed ‘cargo ship’ that seemed to disturbingly appear shortly after major pirate raids.
He had only investigated Charon Shipping because some of their paperwork was out of order and they didn’t list any headquarters, only to accidentally stumble onto the Femeri Sectors greatest pirate organization to ever plague the interstellar void. Femeri had always been a hub for pirates, ever since the sector was formally declared, but none of them were this organized, efficient, or untraceable. Because despite his hunch and some supporting evidence he didn’t have any solid proof, and without that he could neither get permission to open a real investigation, search their ship, or arrest all of them on charges of piracy. The most he had evidence for was a small fine for the improper paperwork, and he didn’t want to act on that because then they might clean up their books wholesale and he would lose any chance at catching them.
He had presented his suspicions to his superior at the time, who was the Chief of security back then, only for the foolhardy man to blow the investigation and illegally seize the ship. Which had been the final nail in the coffin for that man’s career as ghoulish pale human lawyers descended upon the station and issued suites to every department run by the station security. They almost had to disband the whole force after that grievous wound. And all of the sudden Kera’keck found all his immediate supervisors who were in line for the old boss’s job were now being brought up on serious charges and the mantel had been thrust upon him out of necessity.
But this open and blatant gang war was exactly what he needed to bring Astarte in, or at least search her ship for evidence of criminal activity. He had stood before the governor explained why the Astaroth was the most likely culprit, got his search warrant, and marched his whole force down the shipyard.
Kera’keck was greeted by hundreds of Terrans. It was odd really, hundreds upon hundreds had gathered on the ship’s upper deck, packed tightly out to the railing, some had even managed to find a seat on the barrels of the great cannons that dominated the deck. There was a blank spot in the center where the dark-skinned lieutenant stood speaking in the Terrans guttural language that he couldn’t understand. What were they all doing there?
He led the march up to the ship’s ramp where the armored captain stood with her arms crossed, white bandages covered half of her face and would have half blinded her, though Kera’keck suspected they were there because she was now half blind.
“Your interrupting a memorial service, leave” the human ordered.
Kera’keck made a screeching caw that was his people’s version of a laugh. “You kill hundreds of innocents then hold a service for the pirate scum who died” he clicked mirthfully.
The human women cocked her head to the side as she puzzled out the meaning of his words. Cék’ek were one of only a few species not capable of harmonic vocalization, they had to rely on a system of clicks and pauses to communicate in common rather than there much more natural hooting and cawing. For people not intimately familiar with their speech it always took a moment for them to piece together what he had said.
She finished puzzling out his words and scowled at him. “My people were killed and even maliciously targeted in that attack. I’m not holding a service for those pirate bastards; I am holding a service for my innocent crew who were killed.” She growled.
“Lets not pretend anymore human, you all are pirates as well. I have search warrant here for your ship and permission to arrest all of you.”
“I hope” a voice croaked from behind the captain, a pale and gaunt human man turned and stood beside the captain “that it is in that order, and only if you find evidence” he wheezed in a horse croak.
Kera’keck felt a shiver crawl up his long neck “And you are?”
“You can call me Mr. Famine, I am one of this ship’s lawyers” he said softly as he leveled a menacing gaze on Kera’keck and all the guards behind him, his men shuffled back under the lawyers withering glare. “And furthermore you will not interrupt this service, or you will find yourselves violating many different laws regarding cultural respect and deference. We are legally entitled to our time of mourning, I myself lost a dear associate in this attack.”
“Mr. Death will be dearly missed” the human women put a conciliatory hand on his shoulder.
Kera’keck felt angry at these pirates once again using the law against the laws enforcers, but he had no choice but to step back and let them finish. He had seen first hand what happened to security chiefs who disregarded the law around these Hellworlders.
They mourned for hours, maybe all Terran services were this long, but Kera’keck got the distinct feeling they were prolonging things to embarrass him and his troops. Standing in full body gear for hours drained his men of their energy and vigor, until eventually the service came to an end. Only after that was he allowed to send his own forces in to thoroughly tear the ship apart looking for illegal weapons, ships records and proceeds, and anything else that could incriminate them. Kera’keck knew better than to get in the way of his officers of the law, they were highly trained, and he would only get in the way. Instead he stood on the deck as his men carried out their investigation.
The human woman and her second in command stood next to him glaring daggers at him, he felt an instinctual flutter of fear at having their fierce predatory gazes looked so firmly on him. The female’s rakish gaze felt especially dangerous to his primordial instincts, like a Set’ick raptor had fixed its eyes on him and was readying for the kill. But he had been an officer for many years, and he had dealt with Terrans before, he knew how to handle these creatures. His own handgun was loaded with a taser dart that would shock their systems with continuous bolts of electricity, such things could leave these fearsome beings quivering on the ground for hours until he shut it off.
“What evidence do you even have to base this warrant on?” the dark-skinned man asked.
“Besides the carnage all around the station?” Kera’keck responded testily.
“Carnage that we had no part in causing” the woman countered. “We were victims just like everyone else.”
“We’ll see.” Kera’keck added darkly.
Hours of thorough searching went by, and as every successive minute ticked by, he began to feel nervous. His men were sweeping through the ship and couldn’t find anything illegal or incriminating. His cyber squad had searched the ship’s main computer, but the worst they had found was several terabytes of interspecies pornography, disgusting and depraved, but not illegal. Another group had come bearing poisons and toxic chemicals with a short haired women barking at them as they brought a full crate of them above deck. The Terrans however simply claimed they were food seasonings from their home world, and demonstrated how they weren’t poisonous to their species by actually tasting them. Just the little whiff Kera’keck got made him wheeze in pain.
They returned the seasonings and spices to the cook and went back to searching the ship. Hours ticked by and eventually his men had to come out empty handed. The ship was squeaky clean, their reactor material was perfectly standard and not usable for fusion weapons, and while their weapons were fierce they were perfectly legal under the Unions anti-piracy laws. Laws that allowed for armed cargo vessels as a means of repelling pirates, though Kera’keck suspected it aided them more than it hindered.
“Now that you see we’re a clean and law-abiding vessel I must kindly insist you fuck off!” the pirate captain made a flicking motion with her hands.
“This isn’t over, you and your crew are still suspects in an ongoing investigation and I am impounding this ships” he clicked angrily.
“I will have to insist that you don’t do that” a mysterious voice said behind him. A large four-armed short white furred Carkic knuckled his way across the deck. Something about the way he held himself denoted pride, passion, and a bitter sadness. This primate man in particular was someone Kera’keck recognized from a few dinners at the Governors palace along with his brother. They were both very important people, though he wasn’t exactly sure why. The two brothers were always deeply well informed, seemed to have a hand in everything around Femeri, and smelled pleasantly of Uq’ot. “You see these Terrans aren’t your culprits. The band of marauders responsible for yesterday’s catastrophe was led by an Egh’ahd male by the name of Ah’ared, he and his crew are on the most wanted list in several core world sectors.” He passed a data pad to Kera’keck with one of his prehensile feet.
Kera’keck did a quick search through the information presented, news clippings, official warnings sent out to the outer sectors, and some of Femeri’s public logs showing that the male in question had docked here several times without tripping any alerts. He thought for a second, the majority of bodies recovered and examined had been Egh’ahds, in fact it was blaringly obvious that no human bodies had been found among the crowds of killed pirates. “You seem to be well informed of these criminals, why didn’t you tell the station security about this before.”
The Carkic’s face dimmed “I didn’t know before, but when pirates kill your brother its hard to not look for the facts. But you Chief seem to be happy to just point digits at anyone, anyone but the real killers!” he growled the last words and flashed his long fangs aggressively.
Kera’keck felt like talking back but the pirate women interrupted him “You’ll be hearing from our law offices again for this gross misconduct of justice. After all we have suffered you think you have the right to judge and harass us? After having to repel those very same pirates right here on this ship? Its time you people learn that us Hellworlders are not to be messed with.” She growled, flashing each and every one of those stark white teeth at him. Her teeth were much smaller than the Carkic’s fangs, but Kera’keck felt much more afraid of the violence a Hellworlder could do than a fellow core worlder. He had seen the aftermath of what happened when a human went on a rampage, and knew that this smaller women could break all of his bones without breaking a sweat.
Kera’keck felt fury build up within him, but he couldn’t afford to make things worse for himself. He turned and left in a huff.
~~~*~~~
“Thanks for the assist” Astarte said, she wasn’t sure if they could have actually peacefully dealt with that fool. If he had insisted on holding them, then they would have blasted their way out.
“Bah” her rescuer barked “You are the only people in the galaxy who can actually avenge my brother. Not that idiotic tool of the Union.” He chuckled.
“Sorry about you brother, it was quick though. The first explosion killed him and flung me across the room.” Astarte said solemnly.
“Yes, I got your earlier message, thank you. Could you tell me his last words?”
Astarte felt her smile tug at the edges of her frown “I believe we were discussing how good coffee was, I think he really enjoyed a real cup of joe”
He chortled “Bah, heresy, no wonder the gods saw fit to punish him” he chuckled before falling quiet again. His shoulders sagged “maybe I’ll try some, just so that a I can tell him how foolish he is when I join him”
Aster put a concerned hand on his complicated two armed shoulder joint.
“Oh don’t worry.” he reassured “I’ll tell him off when its my time, not before.” the towering monkey man ruffled her hair affectionally, a completely demeaning gesture among humans, but to Carkic it was like a heartfelt goodbye hug.
She watched the contact’s brother leave, and felt a new stab of pain in her heart. Her rage at the SS had kept the grief at bay briefly, but now that they were no longer molesting her ship she felt it return. 68 of her crew was dead, that number included Wraith, Bull, Crossroads, Mr. Death, and others she had grown to care for deeply. Their ashes and personal effects were being held here until Arachne made her way to the station to properly lay them to rest on Terra, Luna, and Mars.
As the grief washed over her, Astarte quietly cursed rule 8. A good tumble was exactly what she needed to feel alive and well again, but that need was part of why rule 8 existed. She had tried to fill the hole in her heart like that before when she lost friends, tried to fill it with other things as well. They always made her feel better temporarily, but eventually a sense of shame would wash over her.