“Where’s the rest of our team?” croaked Goss, dismayed.
“They got Mark IV’s all over them!” yelled Bis.
A war eagle came rocketing in on a killing vector. Helmsman Jordan jerked the controls in time to launch a photon blast out of starboard with enough precision to transform the war Orb into a flaming inferno. Two more came zooming in from above to take its place. Jordan swore, sent heat locks on the two. Bis clutched the controls, looking for more foes to lock onto.
“Weasels, prepare to die!” came Jordan’s triumphant shout. Both Orbs reddened, flattened, and flared into oblivion.
Goss pounded a fist into the central controls. “How did this happen?”
“Don’t know, sir,” said Bis. “Unheard of for Zikri to attack so close to secured Rdelnar space.”
They must be desperate, thought Goss. He remembered the firepower of the Orbs on Phebis. His human-attuned circuits could only register fear.
A sizzling flame arched across the central viewport and a nasty crackling hiss filled the air. Emergency power flickered on and off, bathing the ship’s bridge in a rich sepia gloom.
“We’ve no main power,” muttered Bis.
“Flash bomb,” grunted Jordan. “Knocked out our ship’s main conduit.” He bowed his head.
Goss swore. The crew would die when the ship’s battery-power and life-support failed. That or Zikri sweepers would force their way in to salvage what survivors they could for the Mentera tanks. The Zikri must be desperate to attack out in open space.
Goss signalled to Jordan and Bis, and they and the three junior officers donned protective helmets with limited oxygen reserves. Then they scrambled for weapons and armour in the kits strapped to the side walls. They sealed the door and barricaded it with instrument panels, seats, anything they could rip down, thus blocking the bridge’s only access point. While the ship floated lifelessly in space, thousands of kilometres from Rdelnar, men’s darkest fears welled in them and their hopes died. The pale orange globe of Rdelnar swung obliviously below.
“We sent a distress signal planetside to Rdelnar’s forces,” muttered Jordan.
“It won’t do any good,” said Goss, “they’ll never get to us in time.”
Goss and Bis, Jordan, and the junior officers crouched grimly in the murk in full battle gear, training their blasters on what they knew would be coming soon through that door.
They did not have to wait long.
A crippling blast sent the double-door curling inward in a mass of tortured metal. Goss and his men braced themselves. They opened fire, levelling blasters at eye level on the sea of smoke that poured in. Writhing shapes jumped through.
Thrashing tentacles seized the first unlucky men before they could get many clean shots off.
Some Zikri flesh fell charred and smoking to the floor. Goss’s defenders fell too, screaming curses at the invaders’ assaults.
Goss ripped at the slimy and strangling Zikri tentacles that flailed around him and buffeted the clammy bodies smacking into him. They expected to subdue him easily, not realizing what he was. Anguished shrieks and groans merged with the chitters.
As a cyborg Goss knew he was immune to the crushing force that would snap a human’s spine in seconds and he ripped Zikri limbs from sockets, flinging them every which way, pummelling alien flesh with his unusual strength. But such an advantage was short-lived.
Krin appeared, a hulking brute of a Zikri, brimming with wrath at the human shape that was unleashing such carnage on his soldiers. A useless waste of Zikri life. It was writ all over his polyped face and in three quick strides he glided forward and wrapped his muscled fore-tentacles around the synthetic’s neck and gave a savage twist. Off popped the head with its sparking wires and dangling components and thudded to a halt amidst the wreckage and gore. Goss’s headless body thrashed about the blood-drenched floor for several seconds before it lay still.
* * *
The Zikri invaders gaped in bewilderment and awe at the smoking heap of circuitry that they thought had been human.
“Pick up the pieces,” Krin growled. “Gather them and the humans, for Krake.”
* * *
On a signal from Bral, his personal backup, Krin boarded Mathias’s N-Juen vessel and lifted a muscled tentacle to warn his soldiers to hold off on the torture instruments. His eyes strayed to the viewing terminal Mathias had been examining lying on the comfortable leather divan before he had been brutally apprehended. His polyp rounded in a surprised exclamation. He would recognize that fierce and impassive face anywhere for as long as he lived. The killing machine aboard the Orb! But of course, no need now to torture the pitiful human lolling senseless at his feet. This advanced instrument enabled this human Mathias to track the man, his hired underling. He must have planted a homing device on him.
But how? It seemed impossible. Sewn into his armour? Why not take off the armour? Was the human not aware he was being tracked?
Krin stirred, pondering. Remarkable. Easy enough with the receiver in hand to back-engineer this technology. A fiendish light grew in Krin’s eye. He would trace the signal.
Bral clicked a button on the interface and the human’s facial profile spun in 3D on the console. Location: 692-V3 Jorek sector—the pirate sector, also known as the Dim Zone.
Krin grinned broadly. His wavering tentacle wandered to the red button stationed on the monitor. Depressing it, he saw the life form depicted in yellow on the visual pulse into hues of red and jerk spasmodically. A cold smile curled Krin’s mouth. It seemed Mathias had an ingenious way of spurring his minion on. He motioned his soldiers to take the machine and the unconscious Mathias aboard the Orb.
* * *
When Mathias came to, he found himself floating upright in a watery medium on an
