As I made my way up the ramp, I caught a glimpse of my first Faiurae—barreling towards me. It looked even more desiccated out of its suit—like a roughly-manlike effigy made of gnarled vines. The Faiurae had clearly been surprised by my presence. It barked an aggressive threat at me. But the Faiurae wasn’t armed, so I blasted it with suppressor strands.
One down, and it would stay down for half a day. Maybe more. I wasn’t a hundred percent up on Faiurae physiology.
At the top of the ramp I emerged in the mid-level core of the ship, which ran along its length like a spine. My suit’s optical visor had real-time visual processing, so it was able to translate the Faiurae words emblazoned on the various doors and passages that I passed. I appeared to be near the main launch bay and engineering. It was reasonable to assume that they’d have crew members in this area, so I launched a micro drone with a 360 video feed paired to my visor’s display. The drone hugged the ceiling, skimming along cables and conduits, all the while sending seven different bands of data back to my suit.
I hit the jackpot: three Faiurae commandos sitting in a ready room in the engineering bay. I could have jumped in there, guns blazing, but I was a little afraid I wouldn’t be able to take all three out before someone sounded an alarm.
So I cheated.
I tossed a guided bonerattler sonic grenade into the room, then dove behind a wall. A flash of light lit up the room and I heard screams of pain as the Faiurae’s nervous systems were wracked by sticky electrical vortices. They convulsed for a few more seconds and then lay still on the ground unconscious.
Three more down. Just a few to go.
Moving as quickly as possible, I peeked into hallways, bays, compartments—whatever spaces I could find.
Unfortunately my room-to-room search of this level yielded no sign of Chiraine or the other Faiurae. They must all be in the bridge area.
I snuck upstairs, a few meters behind the micro drone, and found myself in the aft hall. It was empty, but the prominent security cams and sensors didn’t make me feel very confident that I wasn’t being observed right this second.
The hall led to a galley area, which appeared to be empty. But I only managed to get halfway through the room before all hell broke loose.
A half dozen meters in front of me, two panels in the corridor wall slid open with a pneumatic whoosh and a pair of security bots rolled out. They were less than a meter tall, but bristled with weaponry. And they came at me fast. Way faster than I could move.
I knew they wouldn’t fire blasters or large-caliber rounds at me. They were programmed to avoid damaging the ship, so they were going to attack at point-blank range. Probably with some sort of stun weapon like the bonerattlers I had used on the Faiurae downstairs. I, of course, didn’t give a shit about blasting a hole in the ship. Especially because I was wearing a nice comfy armored exosuit.
I dove behind a cushioned bench as one of the bots raced towards me. In my peripheral vision, I saw two more emerge from the hallway behind me. They were boxing me in.
I jumped on top of a dining table, swung up my railgun, and blasted away at the bots. Bits of bench exploded in a shower of sparks as I zeroed in on one of the bots, leading it as I fired. Boom! My direct hit exploded the bot into a million burning pieces. I glanced back just in time to see one of the others peek between two chairs. I tapped the trigger to activate pulse mode and squeezed out a burst of 12-millimeter explosive-tip armor piercing rounds which cut that security bot into a spray of parts.
But one of the other bots had made it to my table. A long, whip-like appendage shot out from its body, sizzling with electrical energy—enough power to fry my nervous system—if it could get through the dispersement web of my suit.
I leapt towards the wall, just as the bot’s coiled appendage smashed down where I had been standing. Thank Dynark there was some ferromagnetic material in the wall. I hit it with a thunk, but my suit’s magtouch unit kicked in and prevented me from falling right above where the remaining two bots were waiting.
They didn’t wait long to react. The one shot out its stun-whip again, while the other sprayed liquid webbing at me.
But I was already on the move. My boots instantly reversed the polarity of the magtouch—which propelled me to the other side of the room.
As the bots swiveled to track me, I pumped them full of APs, which left a nice debris-field of robot parts in the galley.
That kind of cheered me up a little.
What didn’t cheer me up were the blast doors which clanged down from the ceiling in the middle of the fore deck, cutting me off from what I presumed to be the bridge. That was probably where the last three Faiurae were holed up—with Chiraine.
Crap.
I tried Xooth’s donokkal on the door, but no luck. The locking mechanism must be protected up in the ceiling. Even with a plasma torch I’d need a few hours to cut my way through.
Time for a new plan.
12
I raced back down to the lower level—blasting my way through another couple of security bots in the process. By now I was getting the hang of my weapons and my suit. That plus nearly twenty years of training helped me deal with anything the Faiurae threw at me.
Luckily, the Faiurae’s engineering bay was like every other engineering bay on every other ship in the galaxy. It had a large standalone schematic mounted on one wall. My suit’s visor did the translation for me, so I was able to figure out what I needed.
As a bonus I had
