Chapter 8: Desperate Measures
Michael's words hung in the silence that filled all three ships, somehow louder than any amount of shouting could ever be. Kursed looked through her canopy, past the slew of rocks floating in her vision, out towards where she knew the Intruder was lurking. Attacking a much larger ship, that was designed to destroy craft like the ones she and Omega Squad operated, seemed borderline suicidal. And yet, they had to succeed, or all of them would die. A small part of her whispered that there was no profit in staying here, that it was time to cut her losses and leave, but the rest of her shouted that she couldn't abandon these people.
"There has to be some way we could slip by," Amber said into the silence. Her voice was a little tinny, probably because she was a fair distance away from the comm's microphone.
"Not very likely," Shadow said over the comm channel. "Patrol corvettes have some very elaborate sensor systems, and in the shape the Infiltrator is in, we'd never be able to sneak it past them. Besides which, they also have a few fighters along to help cover possible exit routes."
"What about taking it out, like Michael said?" Kursed asked him. "If the shields on that ship are like the one on those starfighters, then it shouldn't take much time to cut through them."
"The shields on those starfighters were so weak, comparatively speaking, because they can't produce the power necessary to run them at full strength," Michael's voice came from the comm. "Capital ships, on the other hand, carry a completely different type of generator, and have more than one power plant on board. The shielding in even a small ship like that is much too strong for the weapons we have with us."
What about the Harpy?" Kursed asked. "You did say that it was designed to take on capital ships."
"Yeah, that I did," Shadow agreed. "Problem is, I don't have any torpedoes, or even missiles; and Harpies were supposed to be used in squadrons when engaging something this size. We have just this one, so unless you've got something incredibly powerful hidden on board your starfighter, I think we're stuck."
"I just might," she said, almost more to herself than to anyone else. Kursed tapped a few buttons on the flight console and brought up an ordnance report. If she remembered correctly… yes, there was a Nova Bomb left in the ordinance bay. Over the course of her career, she had modified the Cloud Runner to carry and utilize a variety of weapons, ranging from missiles to mines to everything else that could be launched through the port, yet she had never used the one Nova Bomb that it carried. She had almost forgotten about it, intending to save it as for emergencies only, a last-ditch surprise if she ran into a more powerful opponent, yet somehow, it had never been needed…until, now that was. "Yes, I think I have what you need," Kursed said simply. "I just need to get in close to that corvette, and this little device should take care of it."
"Okay, I'll cover you," Shadow said. "Get ready to-"
"Wait, hold it," she interrupted. There were enemies approaching… "I think they're sending the surviving starfighters in to try and flush us out."
"I can't find them," he said a little worriedly. "Where's their attack vector?"
"They aren't attacking just yet," she said. "They're trying to sneak in close, using the asteroids for cover before they launch an attack."
"Oh, really?" he said, and the tone of his voice told her that he had something very nasty in mind for their attackers. "I don't suppose you could tell me which direction they would be coming from, and how close they are?"
"I could," she said, wondering what exactly he had in mind, but then the Cloud Runner's sensors detected a massive surge of energy coming from the Harpy's bow. She at first thought that using the energy canon would be phenomenal overkill unless he managed to hit all four surviving fighters at once, and they seemed too savvy to allow him that sort of easy shot. Then she realized what his target actually was, and almost laughed at the audacity of his plan.
"There," she told him, using a short burst of laser fire to illuminate the target she was referring to. "They're coming up from behind that asteroid there."
"Thanks," he answered. His next question was addressed to the Infiltrator: "How are guys doing over there?"
"We can fly and fight," Michael's voice answered back, "we just can't go faster than light." A chorus of snickers echoed over the comm at his inadvertent rhyme, and even drew a slight snort of amusement from the bounty hunter. "If you have a plan in mind, could you share it with us?"
"Our blue-furred ally thinks she has a way to neutralize that corvette," Shadow said. "We'll need to eliminate the fighters currently coming in after us, and then after we take the big ship out of the equation, we can head for a safe port and make repairs, then continue back to Kew like we originally planned."
"Here they come," Kursed interjected over the channel. The enemy starfighters had gotten close to the back of a particularly large asteroid, and were hugging the surface as they swung around, keeping to cover until the last possible moment to maximize the value of surprise. They apparently didn't know that at least one of their quarries was telepathic, and had been aware of their approach from the beginning.
"Close your eyes," Shadow told her, bare seconds before the enemy fighters began to curve around the asteroid. As soon as he saw them, he shouted, "Surprise!" and tightened his finger on the trigger. Kursed had barely closed her eyes when a blinding spear of bright white light erupted from the nose of the Harpy, aimed not at any of the fighters themselves, but rather at the asteroid they had been using for cover. Even through her eyelids, the polarized lenses on her helmet's visor, and the blast tinting on the canopy, the light was brilliant enough that it almost hurt to look at.
'That energy cannon packs quite a punch,' she thought, for when the beam lanced into the surface of the asteroid, the whole thing exploded into a thousand high-velocity shards of rock; quite possibly the biggest flak shell in all of known history. The results were all they could have hoped for, though, as the flying stone fragments pelted the enemy fighters mercilessly; destroying one Peregrine in a bright, actinic flash, crippling another one and draining the shields on the last one and the lone Sparrowhawk almost to zero. Seeing the opportunity, Kursed goosed the Cloud Runner's throttle up to full and pounced on the momentarily stunned spacecraft. She left the crippled Peregrine alone, since it represented no threat to them, but the other two surviving fighters weren't so lucky. Shadow got off a long-range salvo that took out the last Peregrine, while she raked the Sparrowhawk with laser fire from stem to stern. The broad-winged starfighter succumbed to the attack in a spectacular explosion, and with that, she was clear to make an attack run on the corvette.
"You wait here," she said. "I don't think that flying tub of yours can dodge laser beams, and this ship still has a few tricks I haven't shown you yet." She took off at full speed, arrowing out of the asteroid field and towards the corvette even as she heard him grumble, "Flying tub, indeed". He did realize that the Harpy didn't have nearly enough maneuverability to avoid all the laser blasts, though, and it wasn't tough enough to be able to withstand a lot of hits, either.
As soon as the Cloud Runner left the shelter of the asteroid rings, the corvette locked on and began throwing out wave after wave of pulse laser fire in an attempt to hit the nimbly dodging starfighter. Kursed wove and dodged, avoiding the murderous barrages as much as she was able; but then the gunners tried a new tactic, firing all the guns that had her in view at once, trying to create a wall of laser fire that she couldn't avoid. She stomped on the left rudder pedal and pulled down hard on the control sticks, putting her fighter into a spin. She heard the shrill 'pings' as the beams ricocheted off the fuselage, as well as the shouts of amazement from over the comm channel at the sight of the Cloud Runner shrugging off the laser fire like a mere rain shower. The roll bought her the time she needed to close the distance to where she could get a good lock on the corvette. As soon as she heard the computer give the tone of a solid homing lock, she thumbed the trigger that launched her sole Nova Bomb then did a hard bootlegger's turn and rocketed away from the corvette. She had no desire to be anywhere nearby when the high-explosive projectile went off.
An eye-searing sphere of brilliant light erupted behind her, engulfing the corvette in the fury of a miniature supernova. Kursed waited until the glare from the explosion subsided, and then checked her rear-view screen – to see the corvette still hanging there in space, completely intact. "Oh, come on," she groaned. "Just how tough are those things?"
"Whoa, did you guys see that!?" Michael's voice interjected over the speaker. "She took its shields down in just one hit!" Kursed blinked in mild surprise at the human's exuberance, but then she took a second, closer look at the corvette using her sensors. It was still in one piece, to be sure, but the power readings from it had dropped precipitously, with both the shields and the weapons systems no longer reading as active. In addition, it was stopped dead in space, and was locked in a slow spin to port, which it seemed unable to counter.
"Now I'm really curious as to what that was," Shadow's voice came over the comm.
"Just a little something I've been saving for emergencies," she replied coolly, still a little taken aback that the corvette as still intact. "It's called a Nova Bomb, but that was my only one."
"We appreciate the sacrifice," he said. "We'll find some way to make it up to you." He took a closer look at the disabled corvette, and something caught his eye. "Hey, Ed," he called to the raven, "inch up here a bit and tell me if you see what I see."
"If you think you see that the hangar bay doors are stuck open," Edgar answered, "then I'm seeing the same thing you are. Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Boarding action," Shadow stated. The Infiltrator was already coming about, moving to line itself up with one of the open hangar bays. There was one bay on each side of the corvette, each large enough to accommodate two large or three smaller starfighters. The Infiltrator would fill up one all by itself, and between the two of them the Harpy and the Cloud Runner would almost fill the other. Since presumably there were no more enemy starfighters left intact and active, the hangars should be wide open and easy landing sites. Whether the enemy would put up a lot of resistance further in, however, was another matter entirely. The shuttle burned space in its efforts to make it to the starboard hangar before it could be denied, so Shadow pointed the Harpy's nose towards the other one. As they raced to get to the openings left to them, he couldn't help but notice that Kursed paralleled him in her starfighter, angling to come in just behind him as they approached their destination.
The Infiltrator slid smoothly through the atmosphere containment field and into the starboard hangar. As soon as the shuttle had come to a complete stop, the members of Omega Squad that were on board opened the hatch and disembarked as rapidly as they could. Sondra's first action was to find a computer terminal and patch in, to make sure that the crew of the ship couldn't switch the atmo-con field off and vent the group into outer space. As it turned out, she needn't have bothered; the ship's whole mainframe had crashed due to the power surge from the shields overloading all at once, and asides from emergency backups pretty much all of the corvette's systems were offline. This included the control interfaces that would normally allow the crew to counter boarders. Digging a little further for confirmation, the raccoon discovered a somewhat more alarming bit of information.
"Hey, it looks like the crew is trying to restart the ship's computer from the bridge," she reported. We need to get up there and secure it fast, or they'll have this thing back up and running in a short while." Edgar and Zeke weighed the risk of taking the rest of the group with them versus the risk of leaving them behind, and decided that it would be best if they kept everyone with them. The shuttle, if it came to that was expendable; the people were not, and Zeke had a feeling that very bad things would happen if anyone let Amber come to harm. They filed out of the hangar bay and into the corridor; Edgar and Zeke being careful to keep the less combat-affluent members of the group between them and out of harm's way as much as possible. Together, the group moved through the corridors, headed towards the bridge in the hope of securing it before the surviving crew could bring the main systems back online.
Shadow and Kursed slide their starfighters into the port side hangar bay, making sure the area was clear of enemy soldiers before opening their canopies and jumping out to continue further on foot. The bounty hunter drew her staff and extended it to its combat length, while the black fox drew a knife from the sheath on his right forearm and moved cautiously to the exit door at the back of the relatively cavernous space. He was about to put an ear to the door to listen for enemy footsteps or chatter, but the blue vixen told him, "The hall is clear, I don't sense any presences on the other side of the doorway."
"Oh really?" he inquired. "That's quite a handy ability you have there."
"It gives me a leg up on the opposition," she said breezily.
"Can you get a sense of the general mindset of the crew?" he asked her. "What they're doing, if they've enacted counter-boarding measures, that sort of thing?"
"Already checked," she answered. "At least half of the crew was killed when the Nova Bomb went off, and most of the rest are busy trying to get the ship back online. They are concentrated in Engineering and the bridge, although there are a few groups patrolling the halls and on the lookout for boarders."
Shadow pulled out his comlink and signaled the rest of his group. "Hey guys, where are you headed?"
There was a brief pause before Edgar's voice crackled over the comm link. "We're headed up to the bridge," the raven replied. "Sondra hacked into one of the computer terminals and found that the crews are trying to do a system restart. We're trying to get there before they can finish."
Sondra's voice same over the comm next. "There's another group down in Engineering that are working on restarting the engines. Getting control of the bridge won't mean anything if that group is there; they can just lock us out and take control. Can you two get down there and stop them?"
"Can do," Shadow said. "Anything else before we go?"
There was a brief rustle as the comm was passed to another person, and then Zeke's voice sounded from the speaker. "Dude, your sister's a little creepy."
"Zeke!" the fox answered with exaggerated affront in his voice. "How can you possible say that about such a sweet and innocent girl?"
"She knows things," the wolf answered. "We've dodged several counter-boarding patrols already because she warned us of their approach. It's just eerie, is what I'm saying."
"She knows what she's doing, don't question it," the black fox replied. "Might I suggest we maintain comm silence unless reporting major resistance or a successful mission?"
"Okay then, buddy," was the reply. "Over and out." Shadow replaced the comm link on its clip by his shoulder and turned to his companion. "Sounds like we need to go to engineering."
"'We?'" the vixen asked with an arch tone in her voice.
"Well, unless you want to stay here and guard the fighters, or take off and go…wherever you stay between hunts," he replied.
"Bor-ing," she yawned. "Let's get to Engineering." She heard him snicker as she picked up her staff and started down the corridor, all senses on alert for any sign of the crew of the ship. He followed close behind her, one knife held ready in his right hand while the other hand was left free. They had gone through only two corridors when Kursed felt the approach of a small group of security forces, a squad of three men. She motioned to him that there were enemies incoming, and the two of them ducked to cover; she behind a bulkhead and he jumping up to brace himself just beneath the ceiling over the door. As she watched, he carefully sheathed the knife to keep his hands free, and then the two of them waited for the patrol to come their way.
They didn't have to wait long. After only a minute or so, the sound of footsteps came echoing down the corridor and a trio of light-armored men trotted around the corner. Shadow waited until the last of them had gone under him then dropped down behind the last one and put him in a choke hold. He held the man there long enough to reach around and get a firm hold on the human's head, and the twisted it sharply to one side. His neck snapped with an audible 'crack', and Shadow slung the body into the rest of the group. The other two went down in a tangle of arms and legs, allowing him and Kursed the opportunity to finish them off before they could report the disturbance. Kursed slammed the end of her staff down on the skull of one while Shadow delivered a lightning-fast strike to the base of the neck of the last one, and that was that.
"Why didn't you just shoot them?" Kursed asked after they had secured the immediate area.
"I'll give you two answers for the price of one," he replied. "First, a gunshot could alert other groups to our whereabouts. Many ships this size come with internal sensors that report any firearm discharge. I don't know if this one has those, or if they're still working, but until we know for sure there's no point in taking chances."
"I see," she mused. "And the other reason?"
"It makes cleanup easier later," was the pragmatic answer. He stacked the bodies in a heap by the wall and continued on towards Engineering. Kursed followed after a moment's hesitation. For a short time, right before he had sprung his ambush, his mental sense had changed completely, becoming icy cold, almost mechanical in its precision and calculation. It had changed back to what she assumed was his normal state shortly after the last soldier had been killed, but while it had been in effect, it had sent an unpleasant shiver down her spine.
They continued through the corridors of the ship with no further incident until they reached the door that led to Engineering. The door itself was shut, as a precaution against the possibility of a hull breach, but it was not sealed. If it were, nothing short of high explosives would be able to open the door, which would have the added side effect of killing anyone in the hall and likely ruining a lot of the equipment inside. Fortunately it was only a matter of Shadow applying proper leverage to the door once Kursed had determined there was no one on the other side waiting to shoot him once the door was open.
The two of them slipped into the area, which was currently lit only in the dim red glow of emergency lighting. Shadow's enhanced vision wasn't bothered by the low light, and Kursed had her telepathy, which was in some regards even better. They could both hear the sounds of voices as the crew worked to get the systems back online, and judging from the frustration in their tone and their mental sense, they were not having a lot of luck in that regard. Of course, they would soon have much more pressing matters on their hands.
Shadow eased his head around the corner and took a peek at the opposition. There were a total of eight humans present in the room, all gathered near the equipment at the far end of Engineering. Three of them wore the coveralls of technicians, and were busy trying to reinitialize locked-up systems and muttering imprecations at the machinery, the guards, and the universe in general. The other five were clad in the same lightweight armor vests as the three that the intruders had already dispatched, and held laser pistols at the ready, alert for any sign of trouble.
Shadow pulled his head back and reported what he had seen. "There are five guards and three technicians. The guards are probably the most immediate threat, but if the techs decide to try anything funny, they may actually be the bigger danger."
"I assume you have something in mind to cover that problem?" Kursed asked.
"Sort of," he replied. He handed her one of the captured pistols and elaborated. "These all have stun settings on them. The lethal beams aren't powerful enough to breach the hull down here, but a stray bolt could damage vital equipment if it misses its target. The plan is to stun the techs as quick as we can, and then take out the guards afterwards. If the techs are willing to help us get the ship back in working order, so much the better, but if they try to sabotage the ship, then they'll have to be confined." He started checking out the two he'd kept for himself, but then looked back up at her and said, "The stun setting also won't trigger that alarm I mentioned earlier."
Kursed check the selection switch on the pistol and flipped it over to 'stun'. She then closed her eyes and focused, seeking out the presences of the eight humans in the room and fixing their locations firmly in her mind. Once she was certain she knew precisely where each of them was located, she opened her eyes and saw Shadow doing the same thing she had done, only visually. He held a pistol in each hand, but something told her he'd be able to control the weapons just fine. She looked at him and he nodded back at her unspoken question, and then the two of them popped up from their hiding place and opened up on the humans on the other side of the room.
The three technicians took multiple hits and went down without even a sound. However, their fall alerted the five who were standing guard, and they took cover and returned fire with their sidearms. Laser fire splashed against the back wall and the machinery that the two foxes had taken cover behind. The humans could fire without fear of damaging anything important, since their sidearms would not breach the walls and there was nothing vital near their targets. The same could not be said of Shadow and Kursed, who had to use stun beams so a stray shot didn't damage important equipment. The end result was that they were at a severe disadvantage in a firefight, since the stun beams lacked the ranged power necessary to pierce the armor the soldiers were wearing.
Kursed saw that their current strategy wasn't working, so she put away the pistol and drew her staff, leveling at the floor near the guards and squeezing off several shots from the Fire Blaster. The energy bolts blasted the flooring apart and forced the men to duck back behind cover, allowing Shadow the opportunity to vault over the machinery and rush them. He slammed the butt of the pistol in his left hand across the temple of the first guard he encountered, laying the human out cold on the floor. The next guard was within easy reach, so he snaked an arm around the man's neck and spun him around. This put him between the fox and the remaining humans, allowing him to use the guard's armored body as a shield while he hosed the survivors with stun beams. After they were down, he stunned the guard he was holding, and then proceeded to restrain all the survivors for when they awoke.
He heard Kursed's footsteps as the bounty hunter approached, and asked her, "Is that everyone here?"
"This section is secure," she answered, "but the bridge still needs to be taken."
Shadow pulled out his comm link again and called the rest of his team. "Hey guys, we think we have Engineering under control, how are you doing?"
There was a brief pause before a female voice answered, "We just made it to the bridge."
"Eilarra?" he inquired.
"Yes," was the reply. "Zeke and Edgar are taking point right now, in case we meet some unexpected enemies. We ran into several patrols and had to fight our way through, which is why we're so late getting here."
There was a brief rustle as the ocelot passed the comlink over to someone else, and then Sondra's voice sounded from the speaker. "Do you guys think you could hold down the fort there until we get the bridge secure?"
"Not a problem," he replied. "Do you think you'll be all right with who you have up there already?"
"Eilarra and I may not be expert soldiers like you boys, but we can handle ourselves in a fight," was the raccoon's dry reply. "And with your sister keeping a watch for any more guard patrols, we should be just fine."
"Okay then," Shadow said. "Good luck, and don't get killed."
"Heh, I make my own luck," Sondra said as she closed down the comm. She turned and looked over at Zeke, who was setting explosive charges over the door in case they had to blast it open. These explosives were focused so that they would cut through the metal, but would not send a large shockwave much past the initial point of detonation. The rest of Omega Squad was gathered around the corner, just in case things got nasty when the door went down. They were actually trying to hack the doors open first, but since most of the higher-level computer systems were down, Sondra wasn't having much success in that endeavor.
"You know, the longer we linger here, the more likely we are to be found by another patrol," Edgar said a little testily.
"I know, I know," Sondra grumbled. "But I can't hack a computer that isn't even on. Looks like we need to go with Plan B."
"What if that doesn't work?" Amber asked worriedly.
"That's the nice thing about the alphabet," Zeke told her. "Plenty of fallback options." She gave him a blank look for a moment, and then let out a short chuckle at his joke. The wolf actually felt a little nervous in her presence; she'd exhibited many of the same abilities as the bounty hunter Kursed. Although the scarlet vixen seemed nice enough, he was still uncomfortable with the thought of someone who could read minds at will. Compounding the difficulty of the matter was the fact that he also felt attracted to her, to some degree - and leaving aside the whole issue of sorting out romantic feelings for someone who could tell what you were thinking, there was the not-so-minor issue of how her brother would react if he knew.
The wolf decided to focus on the more immediate concern at hand to shut out these worrisome thoughts that he really couldn't do anything about at the moment. He double checked the placement of the charges to make sure that they would do their job properly, and then motioned everyone to get back. When they were all clear, he raised the remote detonator, shouted "Fire in the hole!" and hit the trigger button. A bright stroboscopic flash light the room for a split-second, and an eardrum-rattling 'bang' echoed through the corridor. Fortunately, everyone in the hall had been given ample warning and had covered their ears, but most of those on the bridge weren't so lucky. The explosion had an effect similar to that of a flash grenade, simultaneously blinding and deafening most of the occupants of the room and leaving those who weren't completely incapacitated at a serious disadvantage when the raven and the wolf charged in.
Ed and Zeke had exchanged their usual weaponry for stun pistols and laser carbines; weapons that were better suited for the tight corridors and delicate surroundings on board a spaceship than sniper rifles and plasma cannons. Of the fourteen or so people on the bridge, only four were able to fight. Two of them went down to stun blasts; one threw his hands in the air and surrendered; one had the bad judgment of pulling a concealed weapon and received a quick burst of carbine from Edgar to his chest. The energy bolts burned through his ship's jumpsuit and threw him to the floor, fatally wounded. Some of the stunned crew began to stir, and Zeke bellowed into the air, "Surrender and you will not be harmed! Give us trouble and you will!"
Most of the bridge crew put their hands in the air and surrendered without a fight. A couple of them looked like they thought about being heroes, but a warning look from the raven was sufficient to quash any such foolish notions before anyone got hurt. Once they were certain that there would be no more shooting, Ed motioned to the other members of the group to come on in then pulled out his comlink and called Shadow. "Hey, buddy, I think we got everything under control now. All we need to do is get the systems back online, and we'll be all good to go in a matter of hours."
"E-xcelent," was the reply. "How long do you think that will take?"
"Sondra's up here now, checking out the computer systems," the wolf replied. "Michael's heading down to Engineering to fix any problems on that end. We won't really know for sure until we can get the power back on." Zeke hesitated for a moment, and then asked, "Would you mind if Amber stayed up here a little longer? We have some prisoners that may or may not cooperate, and it would be good to have someone who would be able to tell if they're pretending to go along while secretly plotting sabotage."
"Is she okay with that?" her brother asked.
There was a short pause, and then Amber's voice spoke from the comlink's microphone. "Yes, I can do that. I don't think any of them will make trouble, but best to keep an eye out, right?" She paused for a moment then asked, "Arlen, what's happened to you? You're half a stranger to me now, what changed?"
The black fox felt his throat tighten up for a moment at her question. So many things had happened to him since he last saw her, but he was unwilling to tell her everything right now, especially since the explanation touched on his greatest hurt and deepest regret. "So many things…" he said sadly. "I'll tell you everything in time," he said, "but right now isn't the best time."
"Okay, but I'll hold you to that promise," Amber said. "I love you, brother."
"I love you too, little sis," he replied, and with that exchange they closed the channel. Shadow looked to the side to see Kursed staring at him intently, but when she saw him return her gaze, she looked away without saying a word. Any comment he might have made, though, was forestalled by Michael's arrival.
The human stopped a bit short upon seeing the vast network of machinery laid out before him, but then rolled up the sleeves of his jumpsuit and said, "All right then, let's get down to business." He plunged into the work before him with zeal, aided somewhat reluctantly by the three technicians who had been working on this earlier. With Shadow and Kursed there, none of them were willing to try anything underhanded, and the prospect of going back to civilization, even as prisoners held more appeal to them than continuing to float dead in space in a crippled ship.
In the end it took several hours to get the ship's power grid back into some semblance of order. The massive feedback surge caused by the Nova Bomb overloading the shields had damaged several primary relays throughout the ship, necessitating bypasses in five areas. After that was accomplished however, the rest of the work went along smoothly, and there was little further need for the assistance of the prisoners. Shadow escorted them to the brig, and made sure that conditions were not too crowded. Although the black fox could be utterly ruthless in combat, when dealing with prisoners the Conventions of War were in the forefront of his mind. As long as the prisoners didn't make trouble, they would be treated well until they could be turned over to the proper authorities. Only if they presented a direct threat to himself or any of his friends would he use lethal force to subdue them.
Shadow was on his way back after sorting out the prisoners when his comlink beeped to alert him of an incoming call. He plucked it off its clip and said, "Go ahead."
"It's Sondra," the raccoon's voice came from the speaker. "We've almost got the ship's main computer back on, and then we'll be able to get back to Kewana City."
"Very good," he affirmed. "No, wait a second – did you heck to make sure there were no sleeper programs intended to, oh, trigger the self-destruct or something should control of the ship be lost?"
"The computer was down when we took over the ship, so I assumed…" Sondra stopped abruptly and was quiet for a moment before she said, "I'll go double-check the programming one more time, sir." She closed the channel and he chuckled a bit at the exchange.
"What's so funny?" Kursed asked from behind him. He turned to see her walking down the corridor, once again wearing her white flight jacket over the black bandeau top that seemed to be her clothing of choice when she was on the hunt.
"There's an admonition here to never assume; do you know why?" His eyes glinted with a hint of mischief.
She tried to pull the answer from his thoughts, but apparently he was very good at hiding them, because she couldn't get it. "No, why?" she asked in resignation.
"It's very simple," he told her. "When you ASSUME, you make an ASS out of both U and ME." It took her a second to parse through that statement, but when she finally got it she let out a short snort at his pun. He continued walking for a brief second, and then asked her, "Do you know where Amber is?"
"She's down in the crew quarters area, getting a long-overdue shower," the vixen replied. When she didn't leave immediately, he suspected there was another question she wanted to ask.
"Something on your mind?" he inquired. He turned around with a slightly knowing look in his eye, and she knew there was no point in pretending indifference any longer.
"How did she get here?" the azure vixen asked. "I recognize the tattoo on her arm; it's the crest of one of the plains clans from my homeworld. But this area of space is so far away, how did she get all the way over here?"
Shadow began walking towards the crew area, his mind more on the question she had just asked than on where he was going. He subconsciously navigated the hallway as he began to speak; "My parents found her in a sort of shuttle that was drifting through space. The ship had been subjected to an intense burst of radiation beforehand; all that was left of the occupants was charred remains. The most those present could determine was that the crew was all vulpine. The systems were all scrambled beyond belief, and any exterior marking had been seared off before they got there. My father was the captain of the Marine contingent stationed aboard the patrol cruiser, and he was the one who first found a sealed trunk that looked to be shielded against that sort of thing. When they finally opened it up, there she was, lying there asleep with an oxygen mask fitted over her face."
Kursed looked up at him as realization dawned in her mind. "There was a deep-space exploratory vessel that was lost, presumably with all hands aboard, back when I was just a child. This must have been that craft."
"So you two do hail from the same place?" Shadow asked, although it was more confirmation than inquiry. "Is telepathy a common talent where you come from?"
"To one degree or another," she replied. "Don't change the subject, though; what happened after they found her?"
"She was taken to an orphanage," he said. "Mom and dad wanted to adopt her right then and there, but there's a procedure that has to be followed for that, so they tried to hurry that process along as much as possible." He sighed and looked down at the floor in remembrance. "On this world, families are often split apart due to civil unrest. Parents lose children; children lose their parents, so adoption is fairly common here. Mom was seriously injured only a few years after I was born, in such a manner that she was unable to safely bear any more children. They were eager to adopt Amber, and I wanted a sibling so badly… It wasn't until later that we found out she had extrasensory abilities. We thought it best to keep that a secret, since people tend to harbor a great deal of mistrust towards telepaths here." He looked over his shoulder at her and grinned. "Although, I suspect you already know that."
"I'm not in the habit of revealing that aspect of myself anyway," Kursed said. "It makes for a very big advantage when chasing bounties." The vixen hesitated for a moment, and then asked, "Does she remember anything of her life before your parents found her?"
"No, I don't," Amber said from behind them. The two foxes turned to see her standing behind them, wearing a shipboard coverall, her hair still damp from her shower.
Shadow grinned as he saw her and asked, "Feeling better?"
"Very much so, thank you" she answered, giving him a hug in the process. He returned it with equal feeling, the tenderness he exhibited now seeming completely at odds with the cold ruthlessness he had shown when in combat. Amber looked at Kursed, her gaze drawing the attention of the older vixen. "I was only about four or five when I first came here. The family I had here is the only family I've really known." Disappointment was evident in Kursed's expression, and the other vixen asked, "What's wrong?"
"I was hoping you might have some memory of our homeworld," she said quietly. "Memories are all that is left of it, now. I have nothing else, no family, no friends any more, nothing I can call my own." She started to head back to the quarters area, but the sound of Shadow's voice stopped her.
"I disagree," he said softly. "While it would probably be presumptuous of me to say we're friends, we do work well enough together, and can get along reasonably well. More importantly, you helped me find a missing member of my family, and you've probably saved the lives of everyone here at least once. That was a seriously gutsy move you pulled, doing that bombing run on the corvette, and there was no call for you to stick your neck out like that." He took a breath, and then concluded, "I think what I'm trying to say is, as far as I'm concerned, you're practically one of us, now."
That simple phrase made her whip around and stare at him in shock. One of us. His words echoed around in her mind, stirring emotions that she had thought long dead. She had spent four years of her life utterly alone, unwilling to trust anyone for fear of being hurt like she had been before. Her social antipathy had only been strengthened by the people she had dealt with in her new chosen lie of work; most of the people who favored the circles she ran in recently were lowlifes and street thugs, hardly the sorts to inspire trust and warm feelings. She hadn't liked it, but over time she had gotten used to it, and that isolation had caused her heart to grow colder and colder as time went by. Those three words, however, cut through a lot of the ice that had built up around her heart, and made her realize just how much she missed the company of others she could trust.
She opened her mouth to reply to that statement, but just before she said something, Shadow's comlink beeped a page. He gritted his teeth in annoyance at the interruption, but pulled the device off its clip and answered it. "Yeah, go ahead."
"It's Sondra," the raccoon announced herself. "I think we've got everything fixed up, all we need to do is turn the main system back on and we'll be on our way home again. But, we need you up on the bridge, since you're probably the one who best knows how to work this thing."
"All right, I'll be there in just a moment," he replied. He closed the channel and turned to the vixens. "I'm sorry, I have to go."
"We can finish this conversation another time," Kursed told him. He nodded and turned to head to the bridge, when she called out, "Wait a moment." He turned and raised an eyebrow in inquiry, and she said a little hesitantly, "I just wanted to say…thank you, for your words earlier."
He was a little surprised at her sudden show of gratitude, but he offered her a rare smile in return and said, "You're welcome." He turned back and entered the elevator that brought him up to the bridge, and the two vixens were left alone together. Amber was quiet for a long time, staring at the place where her brother had been, lost in thought.
Kursed had fallen out of practice at making small talk, so she was quiet for a long time, as well. Finally, when the silence became too much, she said the first thing that came to mind; "He's pretty tall for a fox."
"Well, actually, he's one-quarter wolf, on Mom's side," Amber said. "That's why he's a bit bigger than the average fox."
"Really?" Kursed was quiet again for a second, but her curiosity, which had little indulgence recently, was piqued. "So, your…adopted parents, what where they like?"
Amber smiled, but it was the smile of a pleasant memory tinged with sorrow. "Their names were Samuel and Cassandra, and they were all anyone could ever hope for parents to be: caring, loving, kind, generous, always supportive but not overindulgent. They always pushed us to do our best, but also let us know that they loved us no matter what."
"I see," Kursed said. There was no mistaking Amber's use of the past tense, nor the bittersweet nature of the memories that she was sharing. "What happened to them?"
"I…I don't really know," the younger vixen confessed. "There was some sort of accident on their ship; the reactor had a containment breach, even though it was supposed to have been serviced just before then. Somehow it overloaded, and everyone on board was killed. I was only ten when it happened, and Arlen was just a few weeks away from graduating from flight school when we got the message. He took an honorable discharge from the military so he could stay home and take care of me in our parents' absence." Amber looked up at the other vixen and smiled halfheartedly. "I'm sorry; this must be a lot to dump in the lap of a relative stranger."
"It's not a big deal," Kursed answered. Truthfully, she was more than a little surprised that Amber was as well-adjusted as she was, considering she had lost two sets of parents in the first ten years of her life. "If you don't mind, I think I'll find a bunk and catch up on some sleep."
"Good idea," Amber said. "I'm feeling a little tired, myself." The two of them made their way into the crew quarters, most of which were small rooms with a bunk at one end and a closet for personal belongings at the other. Judging from the lack of items, Kursed assumed that her chosen room had not been in use before she claimed it. There wasn't anything on board the Cloud Runner that she needed at the moment, so she simply lay back on the bed and, for the first time in a long time, started thinking about her future in a context other than where she would find her next bounty.
Normally, when she had either exhausted her prospects in a given region or had made too many enemies to make staying there safe, she had moved to a different area of space. For the first time in a long time, however, she was contemplating settling own in this area. Never before had she encountered another Cerinian survivor, and even if Amber had no recollection of her life before she was found here, it was a small piece of the home that had been wrested away from her. In addition, there was something about Shadow that held her attention. It was a far cry to say she was "in love" with him – as a matter of fact she had given up on love, due to her previous disappointments in that endeavor – but he had a steadfast devotion to those he considered friends and family that was awfully alluring to her. That, coupled with the mystery of his past, made more curious about him than ever before. 'Is it possible,' she wondered to herself, 'that I could find some peace at last in this place?' The question rolled over and over in her mind, the answer maddeningly out of reach. She wrestled with it for several hours before finally fell asleep, the answer no more evident when she awoke later than it was before.
A/N: Wow, it's been almost two and a half months since I updated this thing. Sorry to keep everyone waiting, I hope this chapter was worth the wait.
The trouble isn't over quite yet though. Omega Squad has yet to face their most insidious opponents: politicians.
