FIGHTER
Once upon a time they had called him Ahmedabad. Entire worlds had trembled at his name; governments had sold out their own citizens in order to win favour with him. He had been treated higher than any monarchy in the known universe and had wanted for nothing, yet as he clutched at his chest with broken fingers and felt the warm movement of blood cross the palm of his hand he became almost painfully aware of his own mortality.
He coughed loudly; blood welling behind the metal grating that covered his mouth and staining his chin. Somewhere in the back of his mind he felt something akin to shame that his precious gold armour should be so tainted. He had been bound to the armour when he was six years old as was custom amongst his people. The shining soft metal exoskeleton identified both as royalty and as a warrior. If his father could see the state of it now he would have turned away and wept.
A sudden sorrow swept over him and he knew that he would die here upon the remains of his once beautiful star-craft, the fallen bodies of his loyal soldiers lying twisted and awkward across the length and breadth of the ship. He would never go home, never again feel the warm sand beneath his metal footplates and glory in the triumphant tri-pointed architecture of his people. A grim smile spread across the blood stained flesh beneath the mask as he suddenly recalled that even if by some miracle he was to escape the dying ship, he had murdered his own family and turned his home world into a slave world from which the raw resources had been torn out centuries ago. How strange that time plays such tricks with memory.
Faint laughter escaped his lips and he looked up, his image blurred by tears. His body screamed in agony, protesting against the movement as pain wracked every aspect of his physical essence. The lights flickered, sparks showering the scorched corridor floor and the buckled doors at the far end. Several of his brave foot soldiers lay prone upon the ground, arms wide and faceless masks now forever turned towards the flickering lights above. Each soldier wore similar fatal wounds, one in particular had received his final blow across his face, the flexible orange armour shorn in two and the face beneath now replaced by a disfiguring gash.
He felt sick to his stomach. To think it had come to this, to think that after centuries of prosperity and wealth that he, like those other best unnamed pirate clans, would at last fall. A guttural scream filled the air and trailed off into the faint gasps of retching before eventually falling silent. He blinked the tears from his eyes and focused upon the doors once more. Framed by the buckled and twisted metal of the reinforced, and now redundant, door was the enemy, a silent and pained soldier clawing at the wound in his throat before falling at her feet with the sound of skin tearing open. She was majestic in a way, Ahmedabad reflected. With a single weapon she had boarded his craft and proceeded to kill every man aboard. Now, standing before him in her rags, the blood tainting her face and hair, and her cloak dancing softly in the breeze of the damaged air conditioning there could be little doubt as to what she wanted.
He sighed loudly and knew that she would kill him, just as she had killed the masters of seven previous pirate clans over the past year. After her arrival on the ship he had hoped he could buy time with the lives of his men and make his way to the escape capsule. He had received the armour-rending scar on his chest for his efforts. Not one of them stood a chance, not his soldiers, not him and not any of the once expansive family of pirate clans.
"Greetings, princess," He announced, his voice heavy with fatigue and pain. "You'll forgive me if my craft is not perhaps as cleanly as it should be but we are unused to unexpected guests here. Perhaps this is something I may chastise myself for falling to foresee later."
"I'm not your princess." She announced emotionlessly, stepping over the fallen body of the soldier.
The blade of the sword gleamed in her right hand and Ahmedabad was relieved to see that it was not a Quasar Sabre though, for the life of him he could not work out why.
"Ah, but you'll always be a princess to us, little Astronema." He laughed mirthlessly. "We're like one, big happy family here."
She walked calmly forwards, her face remaining expressionless as her long, blonde hair moved softly in the breeze. She stopped in front of where he knelt, forcing him to move his neck in order to look up at her.
"It's actually quite funny. I really do think they could have made you the new queen, really I do." He laughed again. "I mean, at the end, it wasn't as if there was really anyone left to oppose you."
With unrivalled speed and savagery the silent enemy moved suddenly forward, slamming the hilt of her sword into Ahmedabad's metal facemask.
He fell backwards, his head spinning as he staggered against the wall, only just managing to hold himself upright. Blinking the tears and blood from his eyes he looked up once more, revealing the new damage done to his golden masque.
"Don't call me Astronema." She warned, her voice little more than a whisper.
Ahmedabad laughed heartily before his brief mirth soured and dissolved into a fresh bout of coughing that brought with it more pain and more blood.
"My, how quick they grow up nowadays." He muttered, his speech slurred from pain. Slowly he raised his head and looked at her. "I remember the day Darkonda brought you home. Oh, there were celebrations then, I can tell you...of course they refused to admit us mere pirates into your presence. Ironic really as you seem to have developed a natural affinity with our ever-decreasing way of life. How many clans is it you've wiped out, again?" He coughed, the pain from his wound burning with every movement. "The irony is almost too much to bare. The story of the little princess who became a pirate queen."
He watched her for a moment, trying to read the blank expression she wore beneath the blood and the loose strands of fine blonde hair. In the flickering of the lights her eyes seemed impossibly enlarged. Yes, he could see now why Ecliptor had been so desperate to protect her all these years...and why Darkonda himself had slowly learnt to loathe the child he brought amongst them.
She remained motionless before him, silent as if his words had not been meant for her. He blinked and sensed movement, swiftly opening his eyes once more and glaring at the silent, unmoving form of the former pirate princess. As his eyes travelled from her face he suddenly realised that she had in fact moved and that her right arm was extended towards him. The pain in his chest seemed to double in that moment, his heartbeat rising frantically. He looked down and saw her arm and the sword it ended in.
The blade had penetrated his armour and gone right through his flesh ending abruptly where its tip was now embedded in the wall behind him.
He gasped for air and found his mouth filled with blood, choking him as he struggled to draw air into his lungs. Desperately he tried to shrink back as she leant in close, so close that her breath created patterns of warmth upon the damaged gold of his masque.
"It's bastards like you," She hissed through gritted teeth. "That took my life away from me. You tore me from my family, destroyed my home and stole my identity." She turned her head away for the briefest of moments, tears glistening in her eyes. "Do you know what its like to be reunited with your brother and feel so ashamed of what has happened to you that you can't even manage to look him in the eye? When I learnt who I'd been, I promised I'd try and make up for all the sorrow that I caused." She looked back at him, the tears gone and the anger rising inside her. "And that is exactly what I'm doing here"
She twisted the blade and it turned in his stomach, screeching against the metal it was anchored to and threatening to snap in two. Blood streamed from his nose and mouth as his body convulsed with pain. He screwed his eyes shut and tried to block it out but to no avail.
"For better or worse I'm doing what I can to try and make the universe a safer place." She whispered close to him. "Goodbye Ahmedabad, give my regards to Mutiny when you see him."
With a final savage movement she tore the sword lose from its moorings and upward, tearing Ahmedabad's body in two in a single arc. He screamed out, gurgling blood and bile as his head opened to the world and then fell silent.
She stood for a moment, emotionless and distant and then silently Karone turned away. The remainder of the space pirate slumped forwards and stained the floor but she didn't look back. High above her the air conditioning whined irregularly and the lights flickered.
She paid them no heed.