Several stealth raiders came out of warp like banshees and flanked the station. Long beetle-like prows with glass eyes surveyed the station with predatory menace. Their tapered purple-grey hulls pulsed with malignant energy.
The emergency alert was as useless as tits on a bull.
A group of frightened souls snarled curses at the vanguard. White fingers gripped wrists; pale-faces goggled at what faced them.
The battle cruisers came arching into view. The lead craft glowed an ominous grey with triangular nose and bulkheads racked on an octagonal rear body like a souped up war freighter. The Galaga.
“Holy mother of god—” a bystander cried. “That’s Mong’s devil ship. Enough firepower there to wipe out half of Veglos.”
More and more of that name ‘Mong’. It tinkled in the back of my mind like a shaman’s death rattle. Hoath. That two-bit guard. He’d dropped the name. Some star lord or mega star-mogul.
A black-bearded man, clutching a bag of drypak meals, crowded close to the glass. The man looked like a pilot, judging from the eagle logo on his blue spacer uniform. “He’s an ugly brute. Some kind of cult leader. Whatever the case, you don’t want to mess with him.”
“Founded the Temple of Tirith on Ciros, I heard,” croaked another. “Priest, nomad, witch-hunter, warlord, jack of every trade. With some weird kind of powers to boot.”
“Like what?” I snarled, whirling on him.
“Don’t know, like moving stuff with his mind. Weird shit like that.”
“That’s all crap,” I scoffed. “He’s just a flesh-eating shitter like the rest of us.” But somehow I knew not, and my greatest fears were realized, remembering the tales of blood and rapine that Ging fellow on Hazzerot had committed. But it had been so long ago.
“Maybe, but that’s what I’ve heard,” said the outworlder. “Whatever, you don’t want to mess with him.”
Seems as if I already had, if Baer was mixed up with him—and I had provoked him by rifling his secret stash and blowing off his arm.
I moved off with a grunt, feeling a tremor of sick unease crawling up my gut.
“Rusco, we should—”
I waved TK off.
Without warning all hell broke loose. It seemed any communications’ parley had failed. The wasps surged in with amazing dexterity, making retaliation impossible.
The security docker opened fire but stood no chance against so many enemies. The attackers pounded it to chipboard, its shields blinking red before dying.
The security vessel and companion ships rocked under the firepower. The enemy looped around them like blackflies circling a wounded deer, peppering them with rays, penetrating shields and shearing cannons.
The flagship blew the main security docker ship to dust. That gray-bloated pig with antennae, towers and cannons was no more.
TK paled. “They just nuked the main security vessel.”
“No kidding,” I growled. “The thing’s really just show and glitter. A sitting duck for those smaller spitfires. See?”
The wasps roared over the last of the defenders, taking out crafts, military and civilian.
“Why? What’s their purpose?” cried Wren. “Why take a station when they can have a planet?”
I shifted uncomfortably. “For show, kicks, greed? Teach the refugees there’s no safe place to hide?”
I stood in helpless awe as the invaders employed that blitzkrieg technique TK’d mentioned. It was devastatingly effective.
“Get to Starrunner, before it’s too late,” I mumbled.
The first smart bombs struck the upper decks of the Run, rocking the floor under our boots and knocking us off our feet.
Screams rose from all quarters. Metal crumpled around us, glass shattered, and smoke rose in a shower of sparks, spraying me with debris.
I picked myself up and ran with Wren down the littered terminus, picking my way through the stampede, against the flow.
Pandemonium hit the rotunda. Most tried to scramble for the main avenue to the emergency bay—a mistake, and soon it was a clot of writhing, fighting hordes, crammed against themselves like lemmings.
I grabbed Wren and pushed TK forward. “Back to the ship—”
“But they said—”
I waved him off. “Forget it. Follow my lead if you want to live.”
I ran right into a checkpoint station guard crouching, holding an R2 at my chest. “Get back. You can’t go in there!” he bawled. “Lock down.”
One thing I hated was protocol during life and death situations. I pretended to bow my head in submission, then upended him in the chops with an elbow, knocking him flat on his ass. I kicked the weapon out of his reach and lifted my pen blaster.
His buddy crouched and aimed for my head.
Wren lifted her pen and blew the man’s head off without a second’s hesitation.
I blinked. “Let’s go.”
We raced past the checkpoint for the A2 dock where Starrunner berthed; fortunately she hadn’t been destroyed, only trembling to explosive rumbles and flecked with silver metal plates fallen from the ceiling. Smoke curled from down the hall and cries of the dying reverberated with sparks raging and metal beams crashing down.
The docking arm still hung clamped to our bow. I swore and jerked open the hatch, raced for the bridge, got the engine running. The others were not far behind me. I pulled Starrunner out, breaking off the docking struts and the arm. The water connection severed, sending pipe and water spewing like a fire hose. Sparks flew where pieces were still attached. I turned the cannon and blasted a hole in the stubborn berth gate. I gunned the engines and she ripped through the jagged opening and under impulse power shot up on a ninety degree angle straight out of there. Pulse rays tore across our beam and flared around us like firecrackers with enemy ships on our tail. Bug-shaped marauders with two wings fore and aft, like two ice picks end to end.
Odd sounds streamed from Billy’s mouth in a disturbing manner. Wren, flush-faced and grimacing, manned the starboard guns.
“The hostiles are coming too
