Part 15

Tyr's POV


As I carried Dylan out of the Maru and toward medical my rage grew unbounded. Stupid machine. Wasting my time with duties the ship's bots could perform. Dylan's injuries were the least of our problems.

My steps slowed. Then I halted and lowered the captain to the deck. Over the comms, I bellowed for Trance to get down here and help Dylan. I needed to concentrate, to remember . . . what was that infernal smell?

"Andromeda, where is Trance? Why isn't she responding to my comm?" I snapped; but the Andromeda didn't provide the answer I wanted. Instead all I heard was an intruder alert warning emanating from the Hanger Bay I had just left. "This day just gets better and better" I mumbled as I tapped Dylan lightly across the face to wake him.

When he roused, I placed an armed force lance in his hand and informed him of my intent to eliminate the intruder. He was still groggy; but I made him understand that he needed to shoot any intruders that tried to pass him. I became certain that he was lightheaded from loss of blood when he ordered me to capture an intruder for questioning. At my disgusted look he added, "if possible."

I left him propped against the bulkhead and returned to the hanger just in time to see an intruder exit. Remembering Dylan's request, I fired my first shot just over the creature's head.

When it turned and I saw the alien fully my blood ran cold. I took immediate aim for a kill shot and my finger twitched on the trigger as it called out its surrender. I wanted it dead; it would have been dead already, despite its plea, despite its offer for help, had I not hesitated at Dylan's urging.

Holding a bead between its eyes, I demanded, "How many of you have boarded this vessel?" When the beast indicated that it was alone, I ordered it to lie flat on the floor, face down, with its arms and legs fully extended. Rolling its red eyes in what might have been fright, it complied. Through the hanger door, I could see several bots and Rommie scattered across the floor. All of them looked heavily damaged.

"You do a lot of harm for a beast that claims to desire to help," I snarled, kicking the alien in the side and rolling it to its back. "And you stink." I inserted the barrel of my gun into the teethed orifice that evidently passed for a mouth. "One move and you die," I told it.

"Andromeda," I snapped, "I have captured the intruder. Institute repairs to Rommie and yourself at once. Has Trance reached Dylan yet?"

"Trance is no longer aboard," came Andromeda's eventual reply. "She left in a slipfighter shortly before your return with the Maru."

"Have you traced her course?" I queried, all the while thinking that pixie girl had gone off her rocker, leaving in the middle of a crisis.

"She prevented me," the ship stuttered, managing to sound almost embarrassed.

"Just what I need, two missing females to search for," I groaned. Trance's need for discipline would have to wait for her next training session, which would also have to wait until I had found them both.

Good thing that Andromeda's chief of security had implanted tracking devices on all of the slipfighters. Since it was separate from Andromeda's systems and no one on board knew of its existence, Trance couldn't have disabled it. I could find her once I settled the disposition of the alien.

"Tyr," the ship sounded startled, "the planet, Cata Monje, is also gone. It appears to have imploded."

"Then I guess we won't be retrieving the two slipfighters we left on that rock," I replied philosophically. "Send some bots to take Dylan to medical. If Harper is still there, he can help."

Inside I raged. "If Beka died in that implosion, there won't be enough left of you for the Captain to question," I told my captive coldly.

"She no die yet. Can save," came its response, garbled by the gun barrel in its mouth.

I could see the anger in its countenance. It hated me as thoroughly as I hated it. I knew of its kind, knew what they did to the women they captured. I was only a child when I learned; but I remembered the lesson Barbarossa had taught me. The Alpha of the Barracuda pride had come to ask the Kodiak for aid. Unusual for a pride to admit weakness, but the Barracuda had lost their Matriarch. She had been captured by these beasts and the pride needed Kodiak help to retrieve her. The capture of a Nietzschean matriarch by an alien race was one of the few occasions that Nietzscheans banded together to aid one another. I was too young; Barbarossa did not permit me to fight with them. But he did make sure I witnessed the aftermath. When they found the Barracuda matriarch, she still lived, barely. The Barracudas paraded her dying body to the prides so that all Nietzscheans could learn the nature of their enemy. The aliens had dissected her alive. My father had brought back an alien carcass. Not a normal practice among the Kodiak; but Barbarossa had desired me to see and smell this enemy that stole and tortured females in secrecy. The prides slaughtered all of the beasts they could find, provided no mercy and offered no quarter. And I wanted nothing more than to kill this one.

"Why should I believe that there is enough of her left to save? I've seen what your race does to its captives," the beast blanched as I spoke. It saw its death in my eyes.

"Tyr. Tyr." Andromeda demanded my attention. "Dylan wants you to bring the captive to medical for questioning."

I wanted nothing more than to slay this beast, scramble a slipfighter and find Trance and Beka. But with Andromeda confused, Rommie unconscious, Dylan seriously injured and a broken armed Harper the closest thing on board to a doctor, I knew I couldn't abandon them. Even if I did rescue the women, I'd catch more flak for leaving than gratitude for saving. As much as I hated it, I must be patient a little longer.

"You have been granted a brief reprieve. If you cooperate, I promise the death I eventually grant you shall be quick, unlike the misery you inflict on your victims," I told it. "Now get up!" I kept the barrel of my gun in its mouth and forced the alien to walk backwards the entire distance to medical.