The situation erupted into Chaos. Astarte ducked behind a road barrier, the SS officers didn’t even notice her move as they were all searching for the snipers.

CRACK!

An officer fell dead, head blown open.

The SS officers trained their weapons on where the sound had come from. Astarte paid them no mind; she knew that they wouldn’t find anything. She stared down at the metal cuffs in front of her.

CRACK!

Another officer down, this time the shot came from a different direction.

The metal of the cuffs where a silvery color, some sort of titanium alloy. Overkill for a normal human, but probably also more than strong enough to restrain her with her enhanced musculature. There was no way she’d break it open with her arms alone.

Fortunately Union cuffs had a flaw.

They were designed to be adaptable for almost all species, Terrans, Kaydic, even the strange Lithoid species. But that adaptability came with flaws, Astarte had flexed her muscles as the cuffs went on, and had purposely distracted the Kaydic officer called Inquisitor to make sure the cuffs were in front of her rather than behind.

CRACK!

Another bites the dust.

Astarte gripped her left hand with her right and gritted her teeth. There was a sickening crunch as her wrist came out of socket and the cuff slid off.

She huffed out a shaky breath. She pushed on her hand and the bone slid back into place. It didn’t feel quite right still, but it would have to do for now.

Clink.

Astarte looked over and saw her mothers cuffs drop to the ground.

“You only needed to do one wrist!” Astarte exclaimed in exasperation as her mother rubbed both of her wrists.

Lucile glared, “I don’t like to feel caged,” she growled.

Astarte sighed “Fair enough.”

“Plan?” Lucile asked.

“Same as always.” Astarte said as she put a hand over her own sword, Tenken.

Lucile grinned wolfishly. She picked up a rock and bolted from road barrier. she found her victim in an instant, a Gelid Officer with a large repeating pulse rifle. Her arm lashed forward like a whip, and the rock flew like a bullet, straight into the Gelid’s head.

Its skull cracked open and the officer dropped dead. The other SS Officers were too busy looking for the snipers to notice one of their own go down.

Lucile rushed forward and slid under the legs of a large alien, a Beven Astarte thought, and seized the Gelid’s fallen weapon. She turned it on the backs of the unsuspecting officers.

Aster turned her head to avoid what came next. Instead, she trained her gaze on the group of officers detaining Rachel. Hanzo was already looked?? away in different squad car.

Cooperating with the SS was out of the picture now, but the two disowned officers still had their uses. And if Astarte was being honest with herself, she didn’t want Rachel to be dragged to a Union prison. Cops never lasted long in prison.

She rushed forward.

~~~*~~~

Rachel’s heart was pounding. She had been apart of raids before, seen combat, but each time it was as the aggressor. She didn’t know what it was like to feel harried on all sides by an unknown enemy.

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

Officers panicked, the herd officers instinctively formed a circle and began to fire upwards. Rachel didn’t see what they were shooting, but from the disorderly scatter Rachel assumed they weren’t actually aiming at anything.

“Hold your fire,” She barked out authoritatively. “The pirates must have some sort of active camo, form up and deploy your shield sticks.”

The Officers stopped firing, and looked like they were about to obey, but then they glanced down and stopped.

Rachel followed their gaze and saw what they were staring at. A pair of titanium cuffs around her wrists.

Rachel had forgotten about them, she had been so caught up in the action that she had forgotten that she was no longer an Officer in the Stations Security forces. She was a criminal, under arrest for conspiring with pirates.

“She’s with them!” One called out, their pointed digits shaking in fear, and also fury.

Rachel held up her hands, “I’m not, this is all a mistake.” She pleaded.

But it was pointless, they were panicked and without the real enemy in sight they focused all their ire onto her.

A Cék’ek officer with vermilion feathers pointed their pulse pistol at Rachel. She stared down the glittering mirrored barrel of the gun.

“Die Hellworlder!” It clicked softly.

The talon moved, and Rachel closed her eyes.

She waited for the end, and hoped it would be fast.

Something warm and wet splattered across her face, and Rachel flinched. Then she felt more liquid splash against her, her mouth had been open and some of it got on her tongue. It was thin and tasted of iron.

Slowly Rachel opened her eyes and saw a grizzly scene.

Four officers were slumped dead around her, including the crimson Cék’ek whose feathers were now matted with a different shade of red.

The others had forgotten about her as death moved in through their ranks. Whirling steel and maroon flashes was all Rachel could make out at first. Then she caught a glimpse of silky black hair stained in the blood of several different kinds of blood. Green, blue, red, and even luminescent blood was staining Astarte’s form as she sliced through the officers surrounding Rachel.

Rachel’s mouth went dry with aghast horror. She had seen deathworlders on a rampage, she had seen a teenage human girl in the throes of puberty rip apart a person four times her size, she had seen a man rip a Zxx’thi’s arm off. But this, this was different.

Astarte was death incarnate. A spirit of slaughter in form the form of a beautiful, mischievous young woman that made Rachels heart race for all the wrong reasons.

It was horrendous, it was disgusting, it was… it was… beautiful.

Astarte whirled and stepped as if she were just a dancer on a stage. Each step was flawless, and the movement of her blade was elegant.

Rachel wanted to close her eyes, and yet she couldn’t look away.

A Gelid officer tried to shoot her, but a gentle push from the pirate put a Carkic officer in the way. The Carkic went down, killed by his fellow officer, and then all that was left was Astarte and the Gelid.

It pointed its gun at her, but Astarte didn’t move out of the way. She just stared at the Gelid with unflinching dark eyes. The Gelid kept the gun aimed at her, but couldn’t pull the trigger, its stubby legs began to shake.

Astarte stepped forward, not quickly, or even aggressively. Were it not for all the blood she would have looked like she was just going for a stroll. But with each step the Gelid shook even harder, until she was right in front of him.

She pushed the gun out of the way and looked up at the terrified officer. The Gelid loomed over her, and by all conventional logic should have been the most intimidating one there. But conventional logic didn’t apply to the sheer terror Astarte inspired in the officer.

She whispered something Rachel couldn’t hear. The officer dropped his gun and ran away at full speed, he tripped several times and frantically scrambled to get up each time. Running as if the Devil himself was on his tail, which might not have been far of the mark.

Astarte turned, and Rachel saw a familiar smirk on her lips. It was her mischievous smirk, the one she used when she was teasing Rachel, it looked so wrong to see it here.

Astarte stepped forward and Rachel took a step back.

Astarte stopped, she looked down at Rachel’s feet and frowned. Then, quick as lightning, Astarte lunged forward and swung down.

This time Rachel didn’t have time to close her eyes as her death came.

Time slowed, the blade lashed down at her head, she saw her wide eyes reflected in the steel, the tip was so close to her eyes.

And then the blade passed by her face, and she felt a tugging on her wrists followed by a sharp metallic ‘clink’ sound.

Rachel blinked as she looked down at her shaking hands, the chains of the cuffs no longer binding them together.

Astarte withdrew a cloth and cleaned her sword of blood before sheathing it. “Hanzo’s in that squad car, get him out and regroup with us so that we can escape.” Astarte commanded.

Rachel stared dumbfoundedly. “You killed them.”

Astarte nodded. “I did, that makes this the third time I’ve saved you.”

“You didn’t even hesitate,” Rachel accused.

Astarte frowned. “If I hesitated you would have died.”

“But they were people.”

“People who would have killed you without hesitation.”

Rachel shook her head, how could she not see it? “You’re the reason they fear, people like you are why they hate us.”

The pirate snorted derisively. “Let me, let you, in on a little secret. It doesn’t matter what we do, they’ll always hate us. They hate us because they fear us. And that’s alright, because they have good reason to be afraid.”

“It doesn’t have to be this way.” Rachel pleaded.

Astarte nodded. “You’re right, it doesn’t. Instead of fighting back or protecting yourself you could just let them kill you. Kill us all. Then they’ll have nothing to fear anymore, at least not until the next different and scary threat appears.” The pirate leaned, uncomfortably close. “They fear us for who we are, there is nothing we can do to fix that. They’re the problem, not us. And I refuse to let their fear get us all killed. Now are you going to save your boss or not?”

Rachel stared past the blood, past her own teary vision, and into Astarte’s dark eyes. Dark, just like Hanzo’s, but unlike Hanzo there was no mercy. They were hard, just like the stunning blonde woman’s.

“What did you say to that last officer?” Rachel asked hoarsely.

Amusement entered the pirates eyes. “Boo.” She said simply.

A staccato thumping of automatic gunfire drew the pirates attention away from Rachel.

Rachel looked towards the gunfire and saw six or seven indistinct shapes drop from the air. The retroactive panels of LCD’s on their armor cut out and Rachel saw the bulky samurai inspired armor of the pirate’s fighting force.

Rachel’s eyes went wide. “Those are your people, you had them follow us?” she asked incredulously.

“Technically no, these marines are all from the Lucifer.” The Pirate explained as she drew her sword again. “But of course, I had backup, you really think I was dumb enough to come to this thing unprepared? Now free my uncle, I think we need to discuss the terms of our cooperation given the new realities.”

The pirate stepped up next to the armored marines and began to bark out orders. The small squadron of security officers had already fallen back in the face of the pirate sneak attack, but Rachel could hear sirens in the distance and knew reinforcements would be here soon.